We’ve all become depressingly familiar with LL’s continued push to drive all open discussion / debate that does not meet with their liking out of their flogs. Despite proclaiming that they are “listening”, and that time and agin, they are “consulting” with us, and that our views are “important”, their actions demonstrate precisely the opposite.
Take the recent outcry over the proposals to shut down the vBulletin forums in favour of the all-but-unavigable and utterly depressing Clearspace flog. We got lots of head nodding from LL, and lots of soft words, but at the end of the day, nothing changed.
When people challenge controversial posts from Lindens on matters that are of deep concern to residents, we get a telling commentary, thus: we’re a corporation that’s driven by decisions made in the executive suite and the board room. Those decisions are made with an ear to the ground of what current Residents want, and what we think we need to do in order to grow the population. We very certainly do listen to what’s said here and in the forums, and inworld, and in user surveys, and elsewhere. But the prevailing voices on this blog or in a particular forum thread don’t always determine what choices we make. (Wallace Linden, in a reply in “Will the Real You Please Stand Up“).
In other words, “Well, we’ll listen, but what we choose to hear and from whom is entirely up to us, and we reseve the right to cheery pick what we hear. And even then, if what we’re hearing doesn’t match what is being said in the board room and executive suite, tough.”
Now – once again – when Residents try to reasonably and openly express concerns to Linden Lab through the only medium they have left to them that Linden Management allegedly read, along comes Lexi Linden to stomp all over efforts with hobnail boots.
And even when an attempt is made to precis the concerns and post them to the “discussion blog”, where “lengthy discussions” are supposedly allowed….in comes Lexi to shut things down.
Whether or not the latter of these two threads came over as shirt-tempered; whether or not SL answers was the right place to post the original (and well-worded) letter is entirely beside the point. Why? Because both posts show the breadth and depth of frustration MANY long-term users of Second life are feeling as a result of actions and attitudes taken and demonstrated by Linden Lab.
As such, these questions, asked by people who are willing to part with (in LL’s own words) thousands of dollars of hard-earned, real world income each year deserve considered replies.
What they don’t need is someone stomping all over what is perceived as unwanted voices of dissent that spoil the look of the nice, glossy flogs.
If residents raising concerns are going to continue to be treated in this way, then let’s at least see Lexi Linden given a more appropriate name.
My vote is for Hobnail Linden, in honour of her oversized boots….
Addendum
It’s actually ironic in a way. Lexi linden trounces on three SL Answers threads that are critcal of LL as being “inappropriate” for that area of the “forums” (despite two of them being posted under SL Answers > General > Discussions (my emphasis). and she does so within 10 minutes of said thread being initiated.
Yet this thread, which demonstrates misunderstandings, potential intolerance among residents, etc., is allowed to roll on unabated…
Double standards?
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 