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 
My guess is, she probably has some kind of admin tool that alerts her if any opening post is above a certain word count, and those threads get stomped on immediately (might even be automated, seeing how her thread locking posts seem to be identical). So it’s probably not intentional squashing of criticism on her part, but just mindless, bean-counting bureaucracy. Wouldn’t be able to say which of the two is worse, though.
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A fair point – although given the length of some threads that have gone unchallenged, it would seem that there is more direction behind threads being locked than a mere algorithm alerting staff. One would assume that such an algorithm would alert Lexi (and others) to ALL long threads – but it is fair to say those that are critical of LL seem to be in the majority of those she has actually selected to be locked off.
Again, prior to Lexi’s arrival, I’ve personally had e-mails from LL staff warning me about being overly critical of policies. And while, in fairness, some of the language I used was a little hard – the fact remains the underlining point (on double standards being exercised by Lab personnel) was valid. Indeed, I was not so much warned about giving what might be interpreted as unfair commentary (which would have been a fair point to raise) as I was about being critical towards LL in general. This to me tends to point towards a certain sensitivity within LL towards “negative” resident feedback, when such feedback is viewed – I assume – as a challenge to their authority.
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Agreed about the thread length; which is why I’m assuming they just go by the length of the opening post.
And while I certainly don’t think squashing criticism is okay, I think it’s still a step up form mindless word-counting – at least it implies that someone is actually *reading* the criticism, and concerned enough about it that they react to it in some way, as totally inappropriate as that way is. And I know I’m being overly optimistic here, but who knows – maybe someday, someone at Linden Lab will even come to the realisation that the best way to avoid criticism is to listen to it and make things better.
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Optimism is essential what keeps most of us logging-in to SL – it probably ranks somewhere up alongside our enthusiasm for the platform. But one has to wonder just how deep the wellspring of overall goodwill towards the platform can go before things like optimism and enthusiasm evaporate. If anything, this seems to be the message LL are missing – or more likely refusing to hear. As I’ve noted in other blogs, A lot of what we see happening today: the drive to “silo” users (through Adult Content policies, the Linden Homes thing, etc.); the drive into the so-called “corporate market” with SLE, the occasio open demonstrations of hostility towards the current resident base shown by the likes of Amanda Linden; the push for stronger links with tools like Facebook – all fits with Mitch Kapor’s SL5B address, in which – to paraphrase – he indicated that we, the “pioneers” of SL, have had our day and it is time for us to step aside for more “pragmatic” users of the platform.
When viewed against this “keynote address”, designed to indicate the future direction of SL as a platform, the unwillingness to engage with the current user base, and to cherry-pick what they are prepared to listen to – as indicated in the above quote from Wallace Linden – tends to fall into perspective.
It is a sad state of affairs, to be sure. One does wonder, however, what will happen if – as many observing LL suspect – the drive into the “enterprise” arena ends in another fail. Will the company once again become more amenable to its users?
And as I didn’t say so before, thanks for the feedback, it’s always appreciated!
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Yeah – while on one hand I can understand Linden Lab’s frustration with the often unjustified whining of many residents who want to have things exactly their and none other, on the other it is extremely frustrating to watch how they increasingly push aside the suggestions and thoughtful criticism of precisely those people that care about SL most passionately.
And you’re welcome. 🙂 – I’ve been following both of your blogs for quite while now, without commenting much, I’m afraid, but always finding the reading instructive, or thought-provoking, or quite often both.
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It is true people can yell for the sake of yelling. That said, I think the major cause for frustration here – besides the artibrary nature of Lexi’s actions, and her increasingly curt responses – is the fact that the ClearSpace environment has been around for over six months. During this time, LL has repeatedly tried to push traffic in that direction, put out messages to suggest they are disengaging from the old forums, etc.
Yet, through it all, not once have than made any attempt to address repeated requests made by residents for a basic facility within ClearSpace where people can engage in debate AND can ask reasonable questions of the Lab’s representatives, other than to point to the “old” forums, where concerns also go unanswered.
That Lexi keeps saying there will be such a “space” “in the future” doesn’t cut it; not when curtailing threads that raise (as with Lindal Kidd’s letter), Lexi’s comments come across with a subtext of “go away, we don’t want to talk to you”.
Guess we’ll have to see what happns after the middle of next week….
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Moderators at times have a thankless task but really, Lexie could help herself here and you’re right to point out the inconsistencies in moderation policy, it seems as if the VBulletin users are considered red headed step children and need to be stomped on. This really hasn’t been helpful in encouraging users to embrace the new format.
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Precisely!
As you an I have discussed before – there is an air of growing hostility within some quarters of LL towards the established user base (vis-a-vis our respective comments around Amanda). To me, Lexie’s actions, whether under orders or not, seem to be a continuation of this growing attitude.
If one were to be completely uncharitable, one might say Linden Lab are approaching a point of desperation in order to sell their new SLE product: on the one hand it seems all suggestions that SL is anything but a rosy garden full of contented visitors is being stomped out, and on the other we have the most ludicrous figures of Q4 2009 / 2009 coming out of T Linden trying to demonstrate the SL economy “grew” by 65%+ and that it captured 25% of the virtual worlds monetised market, when this figure is based on resident-to-resident transactions. Yet: (a) the vast majority of such transactions DON’T contribute to growth; (b) and many don’t even relate to creator-to-customer transactions (i.e. they are tier payment, movements bewteen avatar accounts owned by the same person, they are group payouts, etc.), (c) (as has been pointed out elsewhere ad nauseum) many DO get counted multiple times in T Linden’s calculations as a result of elements of (b).
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