Month: February 2011

Forums switch to read-only, stray thoughts on Lithium

Posted on by Inara Pey

Today sees the current SL fora and blogs (the “blogrum”) switch to read-only mode until the 2nd March, in order to pave the way for the new Community Platform, which looks like it is to be powered by Lithium.

I commented on the new platform the other day, noting some concern over the plan to develop “contribution based roles” for users. I’ve been nosing around the Lithium website trying to find out a little more and came across something called the “Lithium Reputation Engine“, and I have to say that it has left me cold as to what it might mean. Essentially, this system provides rewards and gives kudos for their participation in the platform.

On the surface, these may seem like good ideas – particularly where things like providing help, answers and support for other users are concerned. God knows, there are a lot of exceptionally helpful people who take a lot of time to share knowledge, provide help and generally give advices to those of us having problems, through the arch of Second Life Answers (SLA). It would be nice to see these people receive recognition for their work, and to have them able to structure Q&A threads responsibly to correct any inaccurate information appearing, etc.

The issue here is whether this Reputation Engine is going to be restricted to things like the new Knowledge Base, whatever “replaces” SLA. The Lithium website suggests that the Reputation Engine is a system-wide “wrapper”, that can be applied across-the-board. Let’s look at the idea of Kudos. Here’s what the Lithium website states:

Kudos

Positive feedback is an important part of turning social customers into brand advocates. Kudos let community members tell each other what they like and highlight the most popular content on a forum’s front page. You can moderate, defining which users can give kudos and whose opinions matter most. [my emphasis]

Again, used on something like Second Life Answers, this could actually be hugely beneficial – the “issues of the moment” affecting users can be put up in lights on the front page of the “Help forum”, enabling people to get the required advice / solutions quickly and easily.

But…Linden Lab has – whether they are prepared to admit it or not – a reputation for cherry-picking in their communications “with” users. We’ve seen it time and time again when a blog post is made, opened for comments, and then perhaps one or two Lindens (the OP, for example) hopping back in a few times and focus almost entire on positive comments, or the “easier” questions posed by users. Anything of a critical nature – however valid – is generally ignored. Given this penchant for cherry-picking, if Kudos is simply applied across the board on all the new forums, I tend to wonder if some at Linden Lab will be able to resist the temptation to engineer precisely which topics appear up-front on the forum as well as tweak the system so that only the more positive of comments / threads are visible?

Then we have the idea of Rewards:

Rewards and Permissions

The Lithium Reputation Engine makes it easy to reward engaged members in a given rank with privileges they value. You can assign over 100 privileges to higher ranking members that allow them to edit messages, edit, and author Tribal Knowledge Base articles, post tags, edit tags, moderate blog comments, personalize their signatures or icons, and manage Kudos. You can also give them special access to community and company VIP areas.

Again, recognition and permissions for those generating usable Knowledge Base articles, providing support, taking the time to impart experience in a structured and readable manner – fine.

But…moderate comments? Again, in the wider context of the current forums – particularly general discussion fora – I sincerely hope that wise heads will prevail at LL and  “rewards” and “permissions” don’t extend that far.

As it stands, the (now “closed”) SL GD forum can be one of the most unpleasant places in which to spend time, laden as it is with protracted bouts on in-fighting, cat-calling and assorted other viciousness, which all-to-frequently includes misguided beliefs in their own individual moral / intellectual superiority over others, vindictive an unnecessary carrying-forward of grudges from one thread to another; so much so that frankly, the last thing we need is for someone at LL to view the handing out of “rewards” on a broad basis as a “really good idea”.

Granted, the Lithium blurb refers specifically to “blog comments”, but even then, even the nature of the “leading” participants in the “old “blogrum” environment (and leaving aside those who did prove genuine help and support), should LL opt to adopt the rewards system wholesale, then I fear that when it comes to Second Life, Lithium may well live up to its definition:

Lithium (play /ˈlɪθiəm/, LI-thee-əm) is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements… lithium is highly reactive and flammable.

!!!!

Phoenix media & audio security filter

Posted on by Inara Pey

The concerns about RedZone et al continue. Qie Niangao echoing my concerns over the potential impact on the in-world economy thus:

“There are, however, two other self-victimizing effects of Redzone use, besides losing one’s own customers.

“First, it’s driving everybody’s customers from LL’s grid.  As this plague spreads, the in-world consumer economy shrinks, leaving less and less room for shopkeepers to recoup the cost of doing business in Second Life.  This, ultimately, is what will doom Redzone.  Either LL acts, or there’s nothing left worth “protecting” — just a bunch of increasingly desperate Redzone users and the disposable griefer accounts that don’t have any reason to care if they’re scanned… and there’s no money in that for anybody, including Linden Lab….”

Quite. The levels of paranoia and fear – coupled with outrage and concern – potentially mean that in-world shopping will be the overall loser in this sorry mess, as I’ve previously mentioned.

However, while people are absorbing Prokofy Neva’s well-placed thoughts on the matter  – and even echoing them within the thread linked to here – Innula Zenovka relays welcome news that at least one team of Viewer makers are reacting to the the fact that a vulnerability in the Viewer code itself makes tools such as RedZone possible.

Now developers have created a a media and audio security filter which intercepts the incoming media streams and flags up unknown domains encountered with a series of options the user can take as actions. The filter is being adopted by the Phoenix team, and is available to other TPV developers.

The filter is still being worked on at present, but for those whole compile their own versions of the Phoenix Viewer, an initial patch is available. The completed version of the filter will hopefully be available in the next maintenance release of Phoenix – and again, hopefully, will be included in Firestorm.

One hopes that the code also finds its way back into Snowstorm, and that Linden Lab are encouraged to adopt it as well.

Note: updated to reflect feedback from Innula – with thanks.

Nailing the data harvesters

Posted on by Inara Pey

There has been more sturm und drang over data scraping on the official fora and elsewhere, and I admit I’ve contributed.

Most of the focus has been on RedZone – the most visible and, given the somewhat rabid nature of its proponents, potentially most odious of them (but by no means the first). Some of these threads are simply seeking clarity on how things work. Others are more mischievous in nature, resulting in heated debate (and a wholly misplaced sense of superiority on the part of some “sunny” posters, up to and including the arrogance to inform others as to when they should post feedback).

The concerns over these tools are warranted; RedZone in particular appears to be far more about the ability to grief and stalk than it is about offering any form of (highly flawed and utterly questionable) “security”. Why else would the creator boast that the tool can attack users outside of the parcel it is protecting, that the tool can crash Viewers, etc? Why else would he made a HUD-based system that allows users to roam at will across the Grid, gather user data?

However, the risk is that in focusing on a single tool, the wider concerns are overlooked. Sling Trebuchet has attempted to broaden the issue by focusing on the technical deficiencies within the Viewer that enable these tool to work, and her JIRAs are something to support, voting coming to an end or not.

Prokofy Neva does much to raise the bar on the situation in the broadest terms, and in doing so sets out a very concise argument as to how these matters should be tackled. In doing so, Prok points out that on the broadest front, Section 4.3 is the ground on which to fight the issue, rather than Section 8.3 – which has been, it has to be said, the focus of many (including myself) when replying to posts in the official fora.

Having had time to digest Prok’s post, I have to say I’m pretty much in agreement with it. Perhaps the only divergence I have with the thinking is that I would say that both 4.3 and 8.3 have relevance, rather than dismissing one or the other as “irrelevant”.

Prok makes a very strong case for using 4.3, to be sure – but there remains the issue of those of us using Second Life having a reasonable expectation of privacy while going about our business in-world – and this is most certainly where Section 8.3 does have relevancy, even thought it might well have been originally intended to relate primarily to First Life information.

I say this because RedZone (and potentially other tools of its ilk) break down certain walls of privacy within Second Life. Leaving aside the entire hot topic of “alt linking”, they enable avatar profiling to take place and stalking to be undertaken. These are, however you look at it, invasions of our virtual privacy and should be dealt with as such, both immediately through the use of the AR system but on a broader front by bringing it to the attention of LL that as well as the wider issues relating to such tools enabling such violations of privacy to occur in-world. Thus, Section 8.3 (and potentially Section 8.2), has relevance.

The risk in focusing solely on the likes of Section 4.3 is that LL cannot be held responsible for policing third-party websites (which is in part the underlying sentiment of Section 4.3); thus too much focus in this direction can have the opposite effect as to what is desired, in much the same way that too much emphasis on Section 8.3 can allow those in favour of these tools to “trump” it using Section 4.3 or cause LL to back away with a “well, we’re really referring to RL information here,” stance.

But, this view aside, Prok’s argument for a wider basis of protest is both valid and one that we should all consider – just as we should provide support for Sling’s attempts to deal with the technical issues that make these tools possible in the first place. In this, a two-pronged response is required: the technical to deal with the exploits themselves, and a broader argument based initially on dealing with such tools on the basis of the ToS (both Sections 4.3 and 8.3) as a whole, but which is ultimately aimed, as Prok rightly states, on matters of policy.

The fact is that problems such as this – and indeed the problems that ostensibly lead to the development of such “tools” as these (content ripping, etc.), need to be approached and dealt with as a matter of policy, rather than simply on the grounds of either technological determinism or Linden Lab whim. In this, the ToS  – indeed the Community Standards themselves – cannot provide the solution alone. We really need to see LL invoke a policy in support of the ToS that will both help prevent situations such as this from occurring again in the future and provide a means of dealing with them should they in fact do so.

It’s not going to be easy, but I would support such moves wholeheartedly; kudos to Prok from framing things so well.

Attachment issues in SL

Posted on by Inara Pey

The recent server updates on the 8-10th February introduced an intermittent attachment issue that was uresolved with the roll-outs of the following week.

The issue has been widely reported on all Viewers, and in some cases wrongly labelled as a Phoenix Viewer issue (I’ve recently assisted people using Phoenix, 1.23.5 and Viewer 2.4).

A JIRA has been raised on the issue, and the Phoenix team have posted some useful guidelines on dealing with matters (with thanks to CS for bringing this to my attention).

Lithium to drive the Community Platform

Posted on by Inara Pey

A little birdie chirped in my ear today that Lithium is to drive the new Comminity Platform recently blogged about.

No, not the copper coloured top variety made famous (in the UK at least) by a horde of clever little pink bunnies, but rather this kind. While it has not been confirmed, I’m guessing that the actual software will be this, which clearly ticks all the technology boxes Vogt Linden alluded to in his blog post; although I suspect the Lithium Awareness product may have a roll to play, given LL’s one-sided love affair with Facebook…

Certainly, the suite look more up to the task than the current tools in use. I still have reservations about the “power to the users” aspect of the new system, for reasons stated – and will be watching out for more news on this aspect of things. In the meantime, here’s to Lithium…

New community platform announced

Posted on by Inara Pey

Following Amanda Linden’s somewhat faux pas-ridden announcement about communications, Vogt Linden chips in with an overview of what to expect from the “new integrated community platform” currently on (apparently) a closed beta at the moment and due to roll out on March 2nd.

Given the Jive platform was supposed to be the saviour of all our woes some 18 months ago, and was specifically chosen by LL for its, umm… “ease and flexibility of use”, one can hardly be blamed for sidling up to this announcement (which, given the overall negative response to Amanda’s post, unsurprisingly has comments turned off) with a degree of scepticism.

The key points are:

A robust self-help facility: well, good – providing it works. Getting assistance is hard enough as it is at present, and anything the enables people to sort out for themselves what can be sorted out for themselves is a good thing – providing it stays relevant (and the comment about answers being editorially reviewed by LL for inclusion in the knowledge base is welcome. However (and you know that was coming, didn’t you?). Many things cannot be resolved through self-help or through the assistance of other knowledgeable users; they simply require expert and understanding help at the Lab’s end of things – and by and large, this is where it all falls down.

  • Non-premium members have a limited range of tickets that they can submit; often times the categories don’t match the problem they are encountering, and a ticket raised under the “nearest” (or most descriptive) category to their issue tends yo unhelpfully closed with a warning that it was incorrectly filed.Given that, by-and-large, non-premium members contribute to Second Life (and Linden Lab) in terms of content generation, revenue, turn-over, etc., this needs to be sorted out.
  • Even premium members are faced with tickets remaining open for weeks or even months at a time without resolution. Again, this is unacceptable.

These issues being the case, Help needs to be a level playing field for all users. It doesn’t matter if you’re a premium member or not, suffering an inventory loss or seeing items becoming visible but unobtainable in your inventory is upsetting on many levels, and LL need to beef-up their entire support environment, rather than rely on self-help and other residents.

A unified search function: “Search” and “Linden Lab” are not, to many residents, term that set well together (unless the words “borked”, “screwed up”, “messed up” or “doesn’t work” enter into the same sentence); ergo, it’s possible that this function in particular is going to come under a lot of scrutiny. Even so, if it works, then LL will equally be due the praise as well.

Single Sign-on: Many thought we had this, after all it was at one point touted as one of the “strengths” of the JIVE platform. Good on Linden Lab if it now turns out to be a reality, rather than a hoped-for.

Contribution-based roles: Here is where my hair starts standing on end, and I really would like to see more information around this idea. What I will say for now is, for God’s sake, Vogt / Amanda / whoever don not give any resident the powers of moderation! Period. The General Discussion forum is already awash with egos aplenty, cliques, and self-appointed “guardians” of what should or should not remain seen (though an over-zealous use of the Abuse button). More than one “high-scoring” forum participant has a reputation for re-editing her own past posts in order to “score points” against her adversaries. The very last thing we need is for these people to suddenly be granted additional “powers” that enables them to further interfere with discussions and debate.

Easier ways for Residents Customers to share their knowledge: again, good in theory, but I’ll reserve judgement on how this works out in practice, assuming there isn’t some overall Linden-grown editorial control.

Social Media hooks: Personally for me, a “meh” point – but if they provide a service other people like and wish to use, then excellent. Just don’t go making them an imperative (say on web profiles, etc.), for those that don’t want them. In short, and where appropriate, make them fully opt-in, not partially opt-out (as is indeed currently the case with web profiles).

It’s going to be interesting to see how some individuals handle the week-long block on forum postings. Given that some forum contributors  post at the rate of 5 or 6 posts a day (and one is currently running at an average of twenty post  a day (number of posts / number of days a member of the forums) – where on earth does she get the time to actually log in to SL?), I think LL are going to need to provide counselling and care for those suffering from withdrawal!