Op/Ed: Playing Ball With The Lindens
by Pixeleen Mistral on 02/05/07 at 7:42 am
Large scale voting in JIRA as customer feedback
by Onder Skall
Recently an open letter http://www.projectopenletter.com went out to the Lindens naming five issues that the authors thought were important. While many who signed the letter disagreed with the priorities, the root causes, and many of the specifics of the letter, the general message was clear enough: no new features until you fix Second Life.
Actually – if the letter had just said “No new features until you fix Second Life” it probably would have garnered more signatures – but I digress.
In a response on the official blog http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/04/30/project-open-letter/ Robin Linden was quick to point out the half-built Knowledge Base, the skeletal Second Life Wiki, and the inworld office hours for Lindens – none of which address the issue at hand. In fact, the only thing they did mention that applied was the Public JIRA.
The JIRA may be something we can use. It’s ugly and cryptic, but the concept is simple enough: list the issues that need attending to, one by one, and vote for the ones you think need work the most. Vote for as many as you like. You get to put “wish list” stuff up there too, like if you think Linden Lab should drop everything and work on giving everybody heat vision.
After typing in your username and pass, click on “All issues by # of votes” on the right-hand side. Here you will see the issues that people are voting on. You can also use the “quick search” function at the top if you don’t see what you’re looking for, and click on the “Status” column header to sort. Taking a look at this might give us all a better idea of how in the world the Lindens have managed to consider grid stability a low priority.
At the time of this writing, of the issues listed in the open letter:
Inventory Loss – 15 votes.
Friends List – 1 vote.
Grid Stability – 154 votes BUT narrowly defined around a Sprintnet issue.
Grid Stability (any other cause) – NOT LISTED
Built Tool Problems – 32 votes.
Transaction Problems (as opposed to Inventory Loss?) – 0 votes.
If anything that little exercise pointed out how vague the letter could be – but it also pointed out how little this tool, the tool that the Lindens use, is putting them to work on what really matters. Apart from the Sprintnet issue, both “group notice popups” and “jerky movement” are listed as higher priority than “friends online does not reflect who is actually online”. Grid stability – the ability to handle more than 40,000 residents without barfing all over itself – isn’t listed at all.
They’ve eliminated other avenues of filing grievances and left this one. I say we make it popular. I say we make it the most popular SL website on the net. Do you have a particular issue that you think needs attention? Build a website around that issue, “Vote On VWR-999″ or whatever the key# is, and start getting people active.
So far we’ve tried writing nasty articles in the Herald, complaining in the forums, complaining directly to individual Lindens, and this open letter grab-bag. Now we have a tool. Let’s use it.
TJ Ay
May 2nd, 2007
Woooh Onder, that is the first very good idea I have read here in a long long long time(that is 3 long).
“Large scale voting in JIRA as customer feedback … and this open letter grab-bag. Now we have a tool. Let’s use it.”
Cool. Thanks
TJ Ay
Sterling Whitcroft
May 2nd, 2007
Okay, lets all resolve to give it a try.
But can someone give us a simple tutorial? A ” JIRA for Dummies” to get us started? Others have started a FORUM thread asking for the same thing.
I’ve looked at JIRA several times since the Lindens released it, and every time, I wander away shaking my head from side to side.
You call JIRA ‘ugly and cryptic’. I find JIRA frustrating, incomprehensible, and illogical. Instead of an elegant, simple web 2.0 interface, it seems very ‘Steam Punk’.
If I were a professional programmer I might find JIRA to be a wonderful, feature-rich tool for managing a project as huge as Second LIfe code. But I’m not. I’m a simple SL avitar.
1. Can someone point us to a simple ‘how to’ for JIRA? I don’t manage any of the coding, so there’s no need to explain that part. I just want to find and see and comment on the things that I, as a simple avitar care about. I want to review the known BUG list, add a bug or feature request, comment on existing things, and vote on features?
2. Put another way, Is there a series of screen shots of JIRA that BLOT out all the fields and boxes and things that I don’t really need, can’t use, have no impact on, and that are just clutter and confusion?
Point the way, and my first JIRA entry will be ‘Viewer Crash Reporter continually hangs. No Crash Reports are sent to Linden Labs”. (although that may already be in there..I can’t tell!
Otenth Paderborn
May 2nd, 2007
Great op-ed Onder. Can you add a direct link to the JIRA? http://jira.secondlife.com
Eddy Stryker
May 2nd, 2007
Keep in mind that JIRA is only setup for two things right now, feature requests and bug reports. A feature request is something like “VWR-873: Clients should have a heat vision rendering mode”, and a bug report means you’ve identified a specific issue that a developer can actually look it. This may include pasting your system specs if it’s a client related bug, describing what simulator you were in at what time and exactly what happened so Lindens can cross references through the log files, and possibly an explanation of why you think the bug occurred and/or a patch for it if you are a developer and it’s a client bug. Something like “I can’t login right now” is a support ticket, not a bug report and will be closed as soon as a developer sees it. A bug report like “the grid is unstable.” is too broad to be of any meaning. You know the grid is unstable, I know the grid is unstable, and the Lindens know it, making an entry on JIRA called “the grid is unstable” and voting on it 7,000 times won’t make anyone go “OH! Well let me just flip this switch here… there you go, all better”. If you provide a bug report like “From the hours of X to Y on this date in the region Ahern I was unable to teleport anywhere, I’ve attached the debug log file from my client” then that provides multiple points that devs can work from to try and investigate the issue. If something is filed that is vague enough to not give developers anywhere to start from or provide any new insight in to the problem it will be filed as “Closed: Needs repro” which means the original poster needs to say whether there are clear steps to reproduce the bug (ie it can be triggered at any time by following a certain sequence of steps), or if that’s not possible provide as detailed information as possible of times, locations, and what was going on when the bug occurred.
Onder Skall
May 2nd, 2007
Two mistakes:
1. Typo – that should have been “Build Tool”, not “Built Tool”. I really should proofread everything.
2. The Link – thanks Otenth. http://jira.secondlife.com
Sterling: agreed, it’s awkward as all hell… makes us all remember what it was like to be newbies in SL, doesn’t it?
Eddy: I understand your point. If nothing else, this is a more effective method of communication with the Lindens than the ticket system. We don’t get to vote on tickets. If we could, that would be cool. Maybe we should make a feature request.
Spankubux
May 2nd, 2007
“If nothing else, this is a more effective method of communication with the Lindens than the ticket system.”
No, what it is monkeywrenching a bug tracking system that works reasonably well, and is certainly an improvement over the previous “system.”
But why should I expect the writers for this shit ass “newspaper” to suggest something responsible?
Asshole.
Khamon
May 2nd, 2007
Browse to jira.secondlife.com and log in using your SL ID and password. For the sake of cooperation, please use one account to interact with the board. This tool is meant to offer them constructive criticism and suggestions on our part; it’s not a childish game to be won. LL have their weaknesses but they do know our alts and surely will ignore issues that are packed with such votes.
The first thing I do after logging into JIRA is click the link that sorts issues by number of votes because I figure that’s what the Lindens do when they look at it. That also seems the easiest way to puruse the list until some key issues are identified and their numbers memorized.
Please stress to everyone the importance of filing new bugs and features in the proper categories. There are four: SVC for service related issues; VWR for viewer bugs and suggestions; WEB for problems with, or feature suggestions for, their websites; and MISC for everything that doesn’t fall into one of the three specific categories.
Also please please please search before posting to avoid duplication. It’s much more effective to add your vote and comment on an existing proposal than to propose a new one that sits at the bottom of the voted list. If your situation is similar to an existing post but really needs a new filing, create yours and relate it to the existing one. A Linden looking at the earlier issue will see the relation and read your a well.
Barney Boomslang
May 2nd, 2007
Well, look at the usage data you can pull out for _Linden_ involvement. Look at how many of the issues are set to “in work” or look how many of them have an assigned worker. Or look how many Linden comments are in there (not from Torley, as nice as Torley is, in a bug tracking system I want to see comments of programming Lindens!). I think the first who should learn to use Jira are the Lindens. Jira’s intention is to make work on bugs, problems and feature requests more transparent. But that can only work out when the lab itself participates and allows that transparency.
The only Linden beside Torley I met using this tool is Rob Linden who seems to go through jira tickets on his office hours with residents.
Inigo Chamerberlin
May 2nd, 2007
Barney, your point about Linden usage is taken – but you assume that the Lindens aren’t using it, or aren’t using it correctly is the reason that it shows very little Linden activity on issues raised in it.
Have you considered that the other interpretation might be that what you are seeing is a reflection of the true situation? That only a handful of Lindens are interested in working on problems? Maybe the rest are busy working on IMPORTANT stuff? Like, for instance, an unrealistically bloated and insanely glowing sun to replace the previous perfectly adequate one?
Those Jira issues represent difficult boring work. Hey! Why not grab something out of thin air – providing AV’s with armpit hair maybe – and choose to work on that instead?
That’s how the Lab works you know – the Tao of Linden.
shockwave yareach
May 2nd, 2007
The furries have long had hair under their armpits. And their knees. Heck, they have hair just about everywhere. So that particular problem has already been solved by the customer base.
Lewis Nerd
May 2nd, 2007
So is the ‘feature voting tool’ on the website now defunct and ignored, so we’re to use this instead?
Lewis
Inigo Chamerberlin
May 2nd, 2007
Er, Lewis? The ‘Feature Voting Tool’ has ALWAYS been defunct and ignored – didn’t you know?
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
Bingo. But it didn't, because of the Nervous Nellies -- fearing to bite the hand that feeds them, and also fearing to repudiate their already-hard-won features like 'hide my status online' that they clamoured for vigorously without any heed to the data base draw or the consequences.
There's always a question whether taking a thing like this JIRA bug/feature voter -- which I believe to be an actively malicious undermining of resident democracy -- and flooding it with participation to show how fucked up it is, or whether flooding it (or rather, the inability to really generate a flood because of its wonkiness, and thereby getting only a trickle) then in fact legitimizes it.
I think the thing to hammer on here is one point: vote no for no. Rob quickly turned my proposal for a "no" vote into a "can't do" and referred me to JIRA itself. Lame. More than lame. Ominous.
So I think people have to engage in civil disobedience and keep proposing to have a "no" vote put in. Having "no" votes makes something that is stupid and broken and ignored, like the old feature voting system, acquire life and meaning. And that's precisely why they won't enable it.
By channelling everyone into their software project and forcing them to play "bugs or features" like "chutes or ladders," the Lindens are winning in this round of the eternal struggle between game god and player.
I put in some bug problems with groups, but that only led to Gigs Taggart, who is one of the foreman of the system that helps validate it when it shouldn't be validated, cooking up 8 bugs out of the simply feature which I said needed to be implemented which I still stand by (changing the delete button page on groups). Yes, that's a workaround to a buggy and laggy system but...since bugs and lag aren't going to be fixed, it's an important workaround.
I'd be for doing something much different that will really start to put the lie to this big software project approach: real, meaningful feature votes and political issues of power put on meaningful voters in world and tabulated on an external website.
This could have a dramatic impact by running a constant counterpoint to this idiotic technophile approach the Lindens have cooked up that only serves one class interests.
If there were a constant voter on an external site showing that there were significant constituencies against various things, that would really help. It would also enable people to put in new proposals that aren't coming out of the technical elite, not hobbled by their constant, crabby clawing at proposals they think "can't be done" or "are not technically feasible" (imagination really becomes a problem with that attitude).
It would also help elevate the status of bugs that people like Signpost or Suezanne, who pwn these things always merely for having time on their hands and the ability to work it, didn't find important enough to their personal games so didn't elevate.
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
Re: the sun.
My God, it’s awful, isn’t it?
Please join me in world to protest the sun, which is emblematic of everything they’re doing wrong, as soon as the game goes up, like 12 pm would be great, high noon.
I imagine they’re making this awful stuff to go with “weather” which is also something nobody wanted or needed.
Mary
May 2nd, 2007
Wow . . . Check the JIRA statistics.
In Service: 98% (that’s 106 reports) are unassigned and not being addressed.
In Viewer: 95% (342 reports) are unassigned and not being addressed.
In Components: 94% (72 reports) are unassigned and not being addressed.
In Web: 83% (52 reports) are unassigned and not being addressed. The good news: there are 9 “small” reports (which are listed below “normal” and I assume can also be called “relatively unimportant”) in this section that ARE being addressed. Keep in mind this section encompasses things such as the wiki, forums (that Lindens no longer use), etc. and not actual issues in SL itself.
Also keep in mind, as the Lindens say on the JIRA page:
“Please do not submit security issues or support issues here. For security issues, please refer to the security issues page. If you’re looking for help, please refer to Linden Lab’s Support Offerings.” In other words, the overwhelming number of items NOT being addressed don’t even include security and support questions (items which, unfortunately, are also NOT being addressed).
I think someone has their priorities a bit messed up.
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
I think the JIRA is meant to keep people endlessly entangled up in the exigencies of the JIRA itself, which is meant to satisfy finicky tekkies. And the goal of a lot of technology is never to be ultimately “fixed,” because then there’d be no reason to keep all those engineers around to fix stuff, eh? So, it’s not a real way to run a society but a technocrats’ dream which in fact will ultimately be even their nightmare.
It’s a way to make people go away.
Let me also take this opportunity to ask, while we’re all talking about bugs and features did the uh…open sourced viewer that was so celebrated that “a thousand people downloaded” the code when it first came out and there were a few little bugs fixed, but did it actualy yield any major bug fixes or dramatic new features…yet?
Reality
May 2nd, 2007
I just love how people presume to speak for the masses when in reality they can only speak for themselves or their own little group.
Khamon
May 2nd, 2007
Liana is the contact Linden for features and fixes that have been applied from the open source project. And the answer is yes, there are a number of people who’ve delved into the code and are occassionally asked to isolate a problem and submit a patch. Of course everything they do is subject to Linden dev review, moderation and rejection.
Inigo Chamerberlin
May 2nd, 2007
So Mary, it’s not as if there’s nothing to DO in the Jira, is there?
Just a shortage of people willing to undertake the tasks. It’s not a Jira problem, not residents failing to put anything on Jira. It’s a lack of a management system that makes doing work that needs doing, as opposed to playing with their own blue sky projects, an obligation.
You’d almost suspect that someone who suggested otherwise had their own, or Linden Lab’s, agenda in mind, wouldn’t you?
Khamon
May 2nd, 2007
So which is it Prokofy, are SL users adults with disposable income and DSL lines and enough technical prowess to figure out all this SL stuff without dozens of mentadvertisors descending upon them, or are they useless n3wbs incapable of logging into jira.secondlife.com and clicking on the “instruction for using JIRA” link? Or do you get to have your cake and eat it too?
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
>I just love how people presume to speak for the masses when in reality they can only speak for themselves or their own little group.
Yes, totally. Tekkie troll types like Reality always imagine they have a million-strong clan at their backs when they make judgements about other people.
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
>So which is it Prokofy, are SL users adults with disposable income and DSL lines and enough technical prowess to figure out all this SL stuff without dozens of mentadvertisors descending upon them, or are they useless n3wbs incapable of logging into jira.secondlife.com and clicking on the “instruction for using JIRA” link? Or do you get to have your cake and eat it too?
They’re neither. They’re errand boys sent by grocery clerks who have come to collect the bill.
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
>Of course everything they do is subject to Linden dev review, moderation and rejection.
And that’s going uh…swimmingly, is it?
Reality
May 2nd, 2007
“Yes, totally. Tekkie troll types like Reality always imagine they have a million-strong clan at their backs when they make judgements about other people.”
How many times must we go over this Prokofy? How many times must you be told not to use your tired little labels with those that do not fit them?
How many times must you be reminded of the pot calling the kettle black?
How many times must you be reminded that no one person can speak for anyone else?
How many times must you be reminded that a group can only speak for itself?
How many times must you be reminded that it is impossible for any one person to speak for all of Second Life’s users?
How many times must you be reminded that – above all else – you do not speak for everyone, let alone your imagined majority?
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
>How many times must we go over this Prokofy? How many times must you be told not to use your tired little labels with those that do not fit them?
>How many times must you be reminded of the pot calling the kettle black?
>How many times must you be reminded that no one person can speak for anyone else?
>How many times must you be reminded that a group can only speak for itself?
>How many times must you be reminded that it is impossible for any one person to speak for all of Second Life’s users?
>How many times must you be reminded that – above all else – you do not speak for everyone, let alone your imagined majority?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.
Reality
May 2nd, 2007
“The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.”
The questions were rhetorical Prokofy, the questions were rhetorical.
Anna
May 2nd, 2007
Inigo wins the prize — you’ve hit the nail exactly on the head, my friend. It certainly is starting to look like the LL people are much more interested in the fun, blue-sky projects than in the day-to-day grind of keeping things working.
And to Prokofy — second prize for pointing out that SL really IS a technocrat’s dream. Imagine if any of those LL employees had to work in an actual IT department, with a 99% uptime requirement and users who couldn’t be pushed aside or ignored by just closing comments or shutting down the helpdesk . . . .
And finally to Khamon — I’d venture to guess the typical SL user isn’t either of the extremes you present. I’d picture him/her as a person with:
(1) a set idea of how much disposable income he/she is willing to spend in/on SL activities (no one wants to throw their money away on clubs & shops that are inaccessible due to crashes & lag, or on inventory that disappears)
(2) a decent internet connection and a decent computer (because odds are a user wouldn’t be voicing concerns if he/she had a lousy connection and a lousy computer — the source of his/her problems would be pretty obvious if that were the case)
(3) enough intelligence and technical know-how to navigate the web and sim activities and resolve BASIC issues using limited tech support and knowledgebase articles.
Remember — the marjority of us are in this to have FUN, not to beta-test the system for the next generation. We don’t want to spend our time wading through a slow helpdesk system (because that’s what JIRA is) only to discover that over 90% of the issues haven’t even been reviewed yet. Are we capable of understanding JIRA? Are we capable of understanding WHY we keep experiencing problems? Yep, I think we are. The many posts I’ve seen from users in the LL blog indicate they have a good understanding of why things are failing. But it isn’t our job to fix things or keep things running — that’s what the LL people are supposed to do. And as consumers/customers, we have the right to expect that the people who put this “world” out there care enough about their customers to keep the lines of communication open, and to keep things running smoothly from day-to-day.
Khamon
May 2nd, 2007
1) That’s a smart policy. Many of us decided years ago to not invest any personal money into the Second Life project until it came out of the beta stage. We’re still waiting. Do we win?
2) I’ll assume you’re kidding here or haven’t read the official forums or worked in Live Help. A good number of problems are caused by people placing unreasonable loads on their clients, their connections or their local hardware.
3) Play somewhere else. This software isn’t ready to support fun and games for the masses. I understand that LL advertise it as such but they’re lying. Nothing the massive user base can do will change that fact. Investing your time and money in SL for any purpose other than helping to test solutions or puttting feathers in a real life virtual world career hat is wasteful at best.
Anna
May 2nd, 2007
Your comment that “most of us decided years ago” about investing in SL makes no sense. You make a snide comment about the users; I responded with a comment that illustrated that most users are willing to spend a certain amount of cash to interact within SL. There are “many” SL users who have made the decision to invest in property, buildings, clothing and other items.
I’ve experienced lag, inability to teleport, and most of the other problems that people have complained about. I’m using a dual-processor machine with 1.5 GB of memory and a high-end ATI video card, and when I’m playing SL I don’t have other applications open. So I think that shoots down the “unreasonable load” theory.
And your answer when something doesn’t work is . . . play somewhere else? Not “let’s get this fixed so everyone can enjoy it?” How sad.
Khamon
May 2nd, 2007
My comment does make sense. We’re experiencing no worse problems today than we have since version 1.3 in 2004. What’s sad is that people are being dupped into spending their money on a service that doesn’t exist, on assets that might well as not be lost tomorrow, on anonymous aquaintances that are likely not anything like thier real selves.
Why am I arguing with you. I was just jabbing at Prokofy using her own terminology.
Prokofy Neva
May 2nd, 2007
I used to worry about Second Life. I used to worry when my inventory went missing or even my money, when I couldn’t log on, and when I’d crash for no reason. I’d panic, when I’d get on line, and not see any of my friends were on line.
That was before I found the Linden Method (TM).
I think this method could help you, too.
http://www.anxietyonline.org/books/linden.php?gclid=CJHBzbvb8IsCFQsIFQodKAYWpA
Mabb Dilweg
May 3rd, 2007
Apologies if I repeat something said earlier, I scrolled through the bickering, useless & irrelevant comments from the usual suspects, and may have missed some relevant comments in between. I wouldn’t bother to add my 2c at all except that I can see some assumptions here that are a little off the mark. Plus as you’ll see I’m a big fan of Jira as a product and have some tips that may help make it work for you.
Disclosure: I use Jira for issue tracking and small project management at work and it ROCKS in my opinion. I was very pleased to see LL implement it. Set up well, and coordinated properly this little software app is extremely good for making development work visible, for reporting issues and for prioritising work.
I am in no way a Linden apologist, however I have used the LL Jira system to comment on a reported issue, communicate with Lindens and it did help to get an issue prioritised as critical, and into the development queue. I still use it to keep up to date with its progress. (See MISC-37 “Continued breakdowns in group notice popup functionality” if you’re interested). This tool proved highly effective in highlighting the exact issue, the scenarios to reproduce and its appropriate priority by the severity and number of people voting for the issue/s. The software also has a fab feature that allows you to link issues as duplicates, a defect of another issue, or the root cause of another issue which can only help LL organised their efforts more efficiently.
First, as to unassigned issues people have commented upon: remember this tool is still in beta and hasn’t been set up with optimal information and configuration. Torley notes in comments on one of the issues I was involved in, that they haven’t got to the stage of assigning issues to specific people yet, as they’re still working out how to do it best. Most of the time it’s multiple people working on something and they’re still designing how they will set up the system to best work for their way of working. So don’t assume something isn’t being worked on just because it’s unassigned in Jira. Remember this tool is still in beta. It would be unreasonable to expect it to be perfect, however it blows the feature voting tool out of the water as far as I’m concerned, even with less-than optimal configuration.
Here are my tips:
Don’t use the List of issues by votes – get used to browsing the Projects from the left-hand side of the dashboard and then drill down again by component. This allows you to drill down and check out related issues that have been raised in certain categories. This will make far more sense than a huge list of unrelated things about which you might understand very little from the subject line (I tend to skip the http request component category for example, as the issues in there may as well be written in greek as far as I can understand them
If you browse the projects and components you will also be more likely to see sets of issues that are related and therefore find things that are of importance to you, that you can comment upon and vote for.
So, once you open a Project (let’s take MISC for example, as the least arcane) you can view issues according to various preset filters – outstanding, reported by me, resolved recently, updated recently (very handy!) etc. You also have a handy project summary and list of open issues. Or you can check the link to Popular Issues in that project to see who’s voting for what.
You can still see popular issues by project, and when LL get a little more sophisticated (remember this is still in beta) I’m sure they’ll assign versions to fixes and so on, and you’ll be able to use the cool Project Road Map feature.
And finally, (yes I am repeating myself deliberately) remember this tool is still in beta and LL are still working out how to configure it and use it to achieve the best outcomes. It seems to me that Torley is doing a lot of analysis of what works and what doesn’t and putting ideas into practice. I think it’s a great idea to highlight the availability of this tool and if it’s important to you, take some time to familiarise yourself with it. It’s of necessity a technical tool, and sometimes it’s worth spending some time to get to know how to use a tool in order to get the benefits you want out of it.
Onder Skall
May 3rd, 2007
Prokofy -
The answers are: Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now”, and “Blowin’ In The Wind” by Bob Dylan. What do I win? What do I win?
Loved the infomercial moment there too. You’re funny today!
Khamon
May 3rd, 2007
Having just realized that I referred to Prokofy using a feminine pronoun, I offer my sincere public apology for so doing.