*** CURRENTLY UNDER RECONSTRUCTION ***

"There is no amount of pretty in the world that can cover a venomous heart."

Ah, the irony! Rhonda Huntress said that, and she also said:

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/85/252954/3653.html (The quote in Rio's post, sixth post down.)

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/85/252954/3828.html (Top post.)


Wednesday 23 February 2011

Ask and ye shall be answered

Well, in the absence of forum action I followed a link that Torley had put up requesting suggestions he might act upon, and sent him some questions which initiated a dialogue - I'm italicised, he's bold!

Hi Torley - we had a look at an example Lithium forum (their own Lithosphere, but they got upset at us using it as a playground and deleted the thread; shades of no-nonsense moderation, eh!) which looks pretty good *potentially*.

(i) A countdown to the opening of the new forum - honesty regarding any delays would be better than just keeping us all in the dark. If you claim two more people working on it get broken legs in the hiatus don't expect us to believe you though!

I can't comment on launch date beyond http://bit.ly/hp9EMF , but have already encouraged the community platform team to keep Resis up-to-date if there's gonna be delays.

If you can persuade someone to put a Current Target Date for opening the new forums in the headers for the frozen forums that would be the place most people would look, I reckon. Oh, and is there some problem with the security certificates during the transfer from Jive's control? I got Firefox message saying that they were insecure and that someone might be exploiting them and me!

I'll definitely mention that, setting expectations is important. I've seen security messages like that before but don't know what's causing them this time (aside from Linden Lab's use of Jive eventually ending), so I'll forward this too.

(ii) The structure of the forums/subforums - and particularly whether there will be a GD type subforum

The forum structure is more specific than the current one. There'll also be a Feedback forum to suggest how to make the site work better, or ideas for new forums.

More structure would be good. I can't wait for subforums entitled "Relationship Dilemmas" and "Gorean Identity Crises". More seriously, I don't see the need for a GD replacement as long as there are places that forumites can discuss the philosophical questions that arise out of a new-morality platform - there needs to be somewhere n00bs can go to find out the answer to "Is it cheating?"

Yes!

(iii) Information on what facilities will be available (or turned off because you want to limit spam, or avoid lag) from the standard set, and which might only be (progressively?) available to those who organise kudos-circles to aggrandise themselves :-)

It looks like Kudos will be limited to the Answers section for being helpful, and not available for general freeform discussion.

I am delighted that kudos will be restricted to the areas where it will be beneficial. I shall say no more.

(iv) What the default settings will be; these seemed to be less than protective of the anonymity that is LL's primary USP in Lithium's own forum, particularly since the software seemed to be trying to link to Facebook regardless of Settings.

My experiences with the prototype have not had any "OMG YOU NEED TO GET ALL SOCIAL MEDIA" foisted upon me. The privacy preferences so far look equivalent to the old Jive-based forums, with certain SL-specific customization — like not showing your email address.

I am sure that LL knows that it won't be able to sneak anything for long through the potential cracks in the Lithium privacy walls; SL is potentially a better social network model than Facebook and LL need to monetise it themselves - preferably using Google ads.

Pep (Thanks Torley for not just responding but allowing him to publish the correspondence.)

4 comments:

  1. Good questions and I really hope you will get a response!

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  2. Nice work! Thanks for publishing!

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  3. Glad to read that the kudos game will be restricted to the new SLA subforum, but... delays? Come on now, LL... I never understood why they need an entire week to begin with?!?
    I'm getting the shakes over here.

    I tried to get used to SLU, but that place is HUGE. The amount of subforums and unread threads and, above all, unknown posters, is agoraphobia-inducing. Besides, they already have Ann, so they don't need yet another cranky person to snarl at them.

    SC MK II is completely out of the question. That place gives me the creeps, probably because I'm at least ten years too old for the antisocial crowd of 4chan rejects that seems to populate this troll cavern.

    GotVirtual looks really nice, but I can't seem to get my confirmation email, and I don't want to try and suck up to the locals in a vain attempt to collect the obligatory ten "likes". So that small and manageable forum community is not an option either, and I'm left with posting incoherent rants on people's blogs. LL need to hurry up, goddamnit.

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  4. My feelings about SLU and SCII are similar to Ishtara's so I can't find any enjoyment, not even lurking.

    My fear is the return of the forums is going to be too much The Empire Strikes Back and many of the regulars are going to flee faster than a rebel transport outta Hoth, as the deep breathing (down forum contributors necks) from DarthInvader Linden is going to be as glaring as his shinier new helmet - which looks like it could do more damage than the duller, rubbery one he had before.

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