Op/Ed: Why The Lindens Won’t Listen
by Pixeleen Mistral on 21/05/07 at 9:54 pm
And why nobody else will, either
by Tenshi Vielle, Thoughtful Fashionista
Many residents have been asking, “Why won’t they listen to us?” …With all the in-world problems, programming bugs, and general nuisance issues, the Open Letter Project was introduced and thousands ran to sign it. I decided to take another look and figure out exactly why it was that we were having such a hard time communicating with the Lindens.
I spent some time the past few weeks attempting to contribute to the Second Citizen forums, a place created when the Lindens chose to shut down their Official discussion forums. I’ve heard it quoted as the best Second Life forum out there; I’ve seen it featured in Wired magazine. Those few weeks were, for the most part, a good schooling in the worst human beings I have ever had the misfortune of coming into contact with. I’d had friends tell me that it was a form of suicide to visit there; I can’t say they’re wrong. The most active forum users in there are well schooled in Drama (with a capital D) and carry a big spoon to dish it out. Dozens lurk, avoiding participation or any conversation, and with good reason. It’s even gone to the point where people are threatening the reputation of my good friends in Second Life. (You sick jerks.) These, my friends, are the people we associate with simply by signing up for a game.
Speaking of lurking, do you like children in that not-so-wonderful way? We’ve also seen this week that there’s a significant issue with ageplay in-world. The German media nabbed on that like a starving lion, and I’m not sure they’ll be letting up any time soon. Some people think that the ageplay is okay – but would you want a sexual ageplayer babysitting your own real-life children? There is a far difference between having a child avatar, and then having a child avatar to draw in a few lindens by some digital pedophile. Who, by the way, you lack the name of. Total anonymity – isn’t that what we came to Second Life for?
Add that to the fact that Linden Lab has been closing their comments section nearly every blog (and with good reason) and you’re starting to get a pretty good picture why Linden Lab refuses to speak to most of their residents. Blog comments such as, “Ummm, you know, you just KILLED shopping in SL until Monday with this, right?” in regards to ||GiveInventoryList bugs just *scream* “I’d love to help you develop your game further! Let me see if I can help you!” Not to mention it’s a waste of space for those of us that might wish to make a constructive comment now that support is waning. Also, please learn spelling and punctuation. The internet is not a giant text message. Thanks so much!
Is this really what we want to give off as Second Life residents? A backbiting, horribly nasty community that takes anything that’s thrown at it without a please or a thank you? Some of you do know your manners; thank you for that. Unfortunately, the loudest and most rude ones seem to be the ones that get heard first.
If all the world is introduced into Second Life by way of ageplay – what’s that say for our morals?
If Wired magazine readers are encouraged to join the Second Citizen forum, what does that say about the people here?
If all the world hears about Second Life is adult avatars having sex with child avatars, what does that say about the people here?
If all the potential big-name customers see on the Linden blog is nearly incoherent complaints, what does that say about the people here?
Are we sensing a trend?
Take a good look. Oh, and then try to program a multi-user platform which anyone can log into and build on. Then deal with bug issues and bitchy customers.
See if you’ll want to reply after all that’s said and done.
Hazim Gazov
May 21st, 2007
The Second Citizen forums are terrible, they support GRIEFERS!
Rebel Television
May 21st, 2007
You can’t say thank you to a corporation, it’s not a person and lacks the capacity to care.
Jessica Holyoke
May 21st, 2007
I’m not volunteering for this, but maybe there should be forum moderators a la Television without Pity for a new SL blog. Maybe then, a moderate, non-dramatic voice can be heard.
*hears people near by, ready to pounce*
I’m thinking more like an editorial page, where submissions are edited for clarity, as opposed to having someone post and having all their fan boys post in agreement.
The Analog Nightmare
May 21st, 2007
It’s ok.. the nightmare will be over soon kids.
Oh did someone say Griefer?
Gaius Goodliffe
May 21st, 2007
I’ve long commented that those who would like to offer reasonable, constructive criticism for the Lindens are drown out by all the shrill people piling insults and abuse and ridiculous accusations into any thread. Trying to find a few good comments in that sea of bile is damn near impossible, and certainly not worth the time.
It has been said that the best way to hurt a cause is to advocate it poorly. When every critical post is so full of exaggeration and hyperbole that it’s just a plain false pack of lies (e.g. “You’ve just killed shopping ’til Monday” when in fact, most of the stores I visit were completely unaffected by that bug), why would anyone give any credence to what you’re saying? People seem to think that by engaging in that kind of exaggeration, they strengthen their point, but in fact they undermine it. It’s easy to ignore you if you’re obviously not being honest and reasonable. And the more people arguing the same point in that manner, the easier it is to dismiss the whole issue entirely.
As said above, the loudest and most rude are those who are heard first. After which, any reasonable Linden has doubtless hit the [X] on their browser window and gone on to do something productive, rather than waste time reading shit like that.
The Lindens listen to their community of trusted residents, their “FIC” if you like, because it’s the only way they have of getting any reasonable feedback on anything. The community at large is simply too shrill, too immature, and too hostile to work with. They deliberate exclude the majority from the process, not because they want to, but because they have to.
anon
May 22nd, 2007
Focus, Tenshi – if the subject is why the Lindens aren’t listening, resist the urge to once again hint at the personal drama that seems to follow you everywhere. You entered Second Citizen to gripe about getting kicked off chat and surprise! Instead of rallying behind you, they elected to to tell you that your reputation preceded you and they weren’t impressed. If only they’d turned those sharp tongues on your chosen target, you’d have been all over them like warm butter on toast.
And please – if you must resort to lameness like noting someone else’s spelling and punctuation, triple grammar check your post. It prevents garbled nonsense like this: “There is a far difference between having a child avatar, and then having a child avatar to draw in a few lindens by some digital pedophile. Who, by the way, you lack the name of.”
Try one single piece that stays on subject and doesn’t include a side swipe at whoever is making you pissy this week. Come on, you can do it! It might feel liberating.
Nate Randall
May 22nd, 2007
It seems to me every gaming fansite that grows large enough has a tendancy to become a place where the thick skinned rule and survive. It is most definitly not exclusive to Second Life, although it may be some people’s first experience with it.
As for the subject. Linden communicates quite well with it’s user base via the blog and other methods compared to other games of this size. What happens is the community falls into the trap of assuming that the Lindens are not listening just because they are not responding directly and immediatly to every concern.
Nate Randall
RCE Universe
Nacon
May 22nd, 2007
They are not listening right now because….THEY ARE WORKING ON IT LONG BEFORE YOU BITCHED (open letter project) ABOUT IT, idiot.
Leave Linden Labs alone already, let them finish. If you can’t deal with it (like wtf?), I suggest you should leave SL and go There.com.
Ian Betteridge
May 22nd, 2007
“I’d had friends tell me that it was a form of suicide to visit there; I can’t say they’re wrong. The most active forum users in there are well schooled in Drama (with a capital D) and carry a big spoon to dish it out.”
I, on the other hand, find the people there friendly, funny, sarcastic and warm. Perhaps the difference in opinion has something to do with the fact that I didn’t come with your attitude and your reputation for having a penchant for personal attacks?
Prokofy Neva
May 22nd, 2007
The Lindens listen to their community of trusted residents, their “FIC” if you like, because it’s the only way they have of getting any reasonable feedback on anything. The community at large is simply too shrill, too immature, and too hostile to work with. They deliberate exclude the majority from the process, not because they want to, but because they have to.
Gaius, the problem with this silly hypothesis is that the very FIC you reference are *on FIC*. Some of the Lindens bestest oh-so-special-friends who continue to be steered to major media by their PR department, whether Aimee Weber or FlipperPA Peregrine, for example, are right among those lustily cheering on the griefers and drama-mongerers on SL. They give it its legitimacy by participating in it and covering for it, even if they aren’t the most scatalogical and grotesquely oversexed on it.
Tenshi tried to fit in with the tribe there, and they nailed her to the wall, and now she’s turned on them. Had they accepted her, this column wouldn’t exist. It’s only because they trounced her that she slunk off to sulk with this blog.
Yes, there is a thuggish, unionized mentality where everybody gets whipped up to an outrage and goes out and criticizes with huge exaggeration. And the Lindens, being elitists and sophisticates, tune this out and don’t answer and run for the hills and circle their wagons. They cook up things like beta-testing governance tools with only 10 people, or creating the octocracy with only 8 people coming to SL views, etc. It’s a terrible racket and will cause their doom, this lack of democracy, but perhaps before that, it will cause the doom of the metaverse.
They have only themselves to blame, however. The solution to the problem of a shrill and sullen populace isn’t to deny them free speech and the free expression of their beefs, but to moderate the forums. Because they didn’t moderate the forums before, they created the monsters of SC, who felt an absolute impunity.
The Lindens are creating these monsters indeed — if they tell everybody for 2 years that you can’t violate the CS on the forums, and if you are permanently banned from the forums, then you will be permanently banned from the world, and then when it comes to Joshua Nightshade, who has harried them to a fury as he does anybody who crosses him, they chicken out, and give him only a 14-day suspension, and don’t suspend him from the entire world, as they said they were going to many times. I’m *not* for suspending people from the world for speech offenses on the forums, that’s dead wrong (the speech offenses are also often dead wrong, too). But *if* they’ve said they were going to do that, wimping out shows the climate of impunity they are always willing to make when they don’t have the spine to stand up to bad people on the forums deliberately trying to sabotage them as Joshua has done repeatedly, numerous times.
The Lindens say moderation doesn’t scale. Then they should outsource it. I disagree that it doesn’t scale. I see them simply lacking spine and judgement and fueling hatred and lack of compliance by unfairness. They simply don’t grasp that the principles have to apply to all; they think it is a set of tools to use only by those about whom they have discretionary judgements that “they don’t like”. And yes, it’s that discretionary judgement that doesn’t scale. But application of basic principles with blindness to who is breaking them *does* scale — a lot better. THat is the knot that the Lindens never unravelled about the forums.
The Lindens have cooked up yet another funnel for sifting communications, the “office hour”. By calling these curious meetings “office hours,” they ensure that they style themselves as professors or psychiatrists — and then ensure that only those who are educators, earnest college students, or persons in need of therapy arrive.
It’s that last group they are poor at serving in their “psychiatry mode”. I watched how one disgruntled patient who couldn’t grasp that he couldn’t hog the 50 minute therapeutic hour with his problem in group therapy completely derail it, forcing Robin Linden even to go visit an island where he said he couldn’t get on. He had no sense of himself, just the usual selfish or uneducated desire to endlessly extend out his sense of entitlement. Some of us kept explaining that his problem had to be one of three things: a) being on Ban-List and not knowing it, perhaps he wasn’t showing on a ban list; b) not being in a group that may have even been inadvertently checked off to group-only c) the island being full or d) a difficulty with his ISP that meant he couldn’t traverse into certain servers, i.e. usually this happens with trying to “go to Texas”. No. 4 is a rarer and trickier one, and sometimes requires the Lindens being able to take over your account and walk it around to see if the packets or whatever are your issue or their issue. I’ve had that problem happen about 5 times in 2 years — it does happen, and at first seems inexplicable. We outlined these possibilities and urged the guy to *have his island owner call Concierge* (once she claimed it wasn’t about her bannning the guy) and write and call Support. Don’t waste the time of a *vice president of the company here to talk about the larger issues, either*. WE prevailed on this guy in vein (he was Gorean). Robin wasted a lot of the time on the meeting — possibly because she believed that if she could make this one starfish on the beach happy, at least it would matter to the starfish, though the water leaves many of the starfish high and dry all the time.
Now…what is *wrong* with these Lindens??? They can’t make rules and follow them! The ground rule for office hours should be “no computer and customer service questions like “my game won’t work” “I can’t teleport here”.
And the person chairing them has to use either Roberts Rules of Orders or be prepared to read a fast scroll. I think a solution is to put the chat history up in front of you as a text to see as a whole, rather than seeing one narrow box with a few scrolling lines, and also to ask people to IM questions. That puts questions in a box above you blinking, and as you see and answer them, you close the ticket and move on. That also forces people to stop spouting off in a scroll and being wags and dicks and saying deliberately humorous misunderstandings of things, and forces them to *phrase their questions*.
Office hours can’t scale either. As more and more people show up at them with more and more lack of preparation, lack of rules, overweening sense of entitlement and more and more anger, the Lindens will shut them down except by invitation to their select friends again.
Yes, at a certain point the Lindens will conclude that they’ve had enough input from the “general public” in terms of payment for sims and load testing and find a way either to outsource or remove the problem.
Prokofy Neva
May 22nd, 2007
Sorry, the first paragraph above is Gaius’ statement (I hate that there aren’t automatic quoting of previous posts on typepad). and my point is that the FIC that the Lindens love to deal with ARE on SC, so his theory that they don’t deal with SC is false — key SC members aRE the FIC and DO have the Lindens constant ear.
Hazim Gazov
May 22nd, 2007
Profoky Neva, a drama mongler’s best friend. I’m not a drama mongler, my best friend is a cockmongler, though.
Mark
May 22nd, 2007
As usual, Prokfly doesn’t miss an opportunity to bash people he hates as though they were the very emissaries of Satan. Yeah, we see how they SO listen to SCers! Several are banned from the forums and the blog. SO FIC! And LL gave real, concrete answers to the Open Letter instead of the standard formulaic responses! Not!
Tenshi didn’t frame her little mini-prokfly rant about SC above as SCers having the ear of the Lindens you know, she just took this opportunity to splice that into the “piece”, because she, despite her announcements that she wants to move on form the past, cannot resist dragging it to yet another venue. See, Tenshi is an unhappy hypocrite with princess syndrome, and she is taking it out people around her. All because someone had the audacity to not lavish her SL business with thanks and praise! How dare they employ sef-determination when Tenshi is in da hizzy! Wherez mah respek!!!??
Tenshi dear, how many people who are in the normal age for babysitting do you suppose are into age playing? What, my 16 year old neighbor girl is playing a 14 year old? ROFL! Logic logic logic!
Also, SC was open well before the official forums were shitcanned, but then you’re a noob relatively, (and quite the “confident” know-it-all considering the length of your tenure in SL), so we’ll cut you a small break there.
As far as this, “See if you want to reply…?” hypothetical goes, Linden Lab is a company. They don’t lose sleep (isn’t that glaringly obvious?) because of the raving of the loons on both ends of the spectrum in SL. From the paranoids like you and Prokky who rail against some perceived status quo, to the brown-nosing, apologists-for-everything, all of whom bite, scratch, kick, and claw their way over the backs of others to attain their 15 minutes.
What I see here, is someone who is realizing that it’s no easy proposition to break into an established sector as a late comer to the game (WOW! Just like RL!). Nothing more than unbridled envy. Perhaps so much envy that it leads her to do irrational things like attack people’s real life looks? Perhaps she doesn’t even realize the reasons why herself, that she chooses this self-destructive path? Or maybe she is so desperate for attention that she has decided that shit stirring drama is the only way she’s going to get noticed? I mean, when you look at the crap she was spamming irc with, it’s quite apparent we are dealing with an immature person who very, very much is in need of attention.
Really, grow up Tenshi. The first step is being accountable for the impact your words and actions have on others. Excuses like, “You didn’t understand how I meant it!”, or, “The Herald wanted a trashy, gossip piece!”, doesn’t cut it, though I am sure none this will get through that inexpicably and overly prideful skull of yours.
Suggestion – go deal with whatever is fueling your angst in RL, first. Then come back to SL and maybe you’ll get along with people better. Times are tough all over, not just in Michigan, please bear that in mind when you feel like lashing out next time.
Last, please (both of you social misfits) continue to rant everywhere you can about SC, I’m sure they LOVE the traffic that ensues.
darkfoxx
May 22nd, 2007
Wow. Someone piss in your coffee, Pixeleen?
This piece should be called ” op/ed: I don’t like the SC peeps cause they were mean to me and I didn’t nitice all the sarcasm that goes into a lot of their posts”.
Seriously, my experiences on SC have been a lot less horrible. But I do take everything with
a pinch of salt, maybe that’s the difference.
And to answer your question; Yes, I’d let an ageplayer babysit my kid no problem. I know
they’re not the pedophiles everyone makes them seem.
PS. Tsk. Attacking on people’s typos, grammar and spelling. Childish. You know very well not
all the people on the internet are English and have a PHD in the English language.
Darkfoxx
May 22nd, 2007
Correction: Not pixeleen, but Tenshi in my above post. My apologies.
Ian Betteridge
May 22nd, 2007
Prokofy says: “Sorry, the first paragraph above is Gaius’ statement (I hate that there aren’t automatic quoting of previous posts on typepad).”
See Prok, there are these things called “quotation marks” which seem to serve quite well in these circumstances.
Bartholomew Gallacher
May 22nd, 2007
I counter that; the Lindens do listen, they listen indeed. Of course if they act like you want them to act is another kind of matter. You cannot always expect that since they have for sure other priorities and a business to run. That’s that simple.
And what the hell – when a Linden has office hours no one seems to be willing to talk with him/her, even if this Linden is the big Linden himself, Philip Linden.
Philip Linden hat yesterday at 9:00 AM SLT his office hours at Waterhead. I was there alread one hour before, I was alone, he showed up then, we spoke several minutes, we were still alone so he put up his office hours announcement in the motto of the day of SL for some minutes to gather traffic. At the end there were perhaps 10 avatars discussing with him. And believe me, he listened to us.
When I compare this picture to the last technical town hall, where even 4 sims were not enough to cope up with the traffic to the opportunity with speaking to the CEO of Lindenlabs directly and not much people attended it at all, then this is a real strange thing to observe when you take into account how many people are out there, always and only complaining about the state of SL as a whole.
bubbles
May 22nd, 2007
It probably was ‘suicidal’ for Tenshi to go to SC after the nasty article she’d written about some of the people there. She should have formed an alt and she would have been okay. I imagine her ego wouldn’t let her.
Vivianne Draper
May 22nd, 2007
When Tenshi came to SC, her first post was about how she was so horribly mistreated in IRC. When asked if she was the same Tenshi that wrote for the Herald, she lied and said no. Not a great way to start off. After her lie was uncovered, she was called to account for some of the hateful things she’d written. She passed that off as satire, the Herald made her do it, her meaning was mistaken, and I forget the other excuses she used. It came to be known that her viscious attack on Sabrina here in the Herald was motivated by the lack of a review of her clothing and business on Linden Lifestyles. Regardless of that bit of hypocrisy, many people posted that if she’d just apologize, they’d be willing to forgive and forget — but no. Instead of apologizing, Tenshi continued to be rude, insulting, lying, hypocritical, and mean. I think it is not surprising then that she didn’t find many friends on the SC forums.
However, SC is an unmoderated forum. So Tenshi continued to post and most folks just kind of ignored her. This, as you know, is death to an attention queen. To be honest, she was pretty rude. Most of her posts seemed, to me at least, to be attacks on this, that and the other thing and I just wasn’t interested in the drama she was trying so hard to start. So, failing to strike attention gold with other subjects, she started, once more, to drag the past in to damn near every post she made. Of course she got attacked for this.
Finally she made a huge dramatic post about how some people on SC were nice but the majority could kiss her butt and stormed off. Most folks were not upset to see her leave.
SC is a great set of forums with a larger readership than the Herald enjoys. All you have to do to be accepted is not be an ass, but this was, apparently, beyond Tenshi. Her posts are still there and anyone can go see for themselves.
Nyx Divine
May 22nd, 2007
I read the SC forums almost daily but post only occasionally. So am pretty much a lurker. There are a few asshats there but that is to be expected.
It was evident that Tenshi arrived there looking for a fight of some sort. But that in itself isn’t such a bad thing, because if you want drama SC is the place to go. And almost anything can be forgotton over time.
It is apparent to me that she deliberately went to SC to antagonise some very outspoken folks so she could come away w/ some type of ‘report’ on SC. For the most part the drama was minimal, which was probably a huge disappointment to Tenshi, I mean how can you bitch about the evil folks if they aren’t being evil?
She would have left in a huff and tried to piss on SC regardless of how well she was received.
But it’s all good, I love the dramaz
shockwave yareach
May 22nd, 2007
Bartholomew:
Office hours that nobody knows about aren’t very useful. Nor is having a Linden inworld when they hide their online status. And after all the retreating of the Lindens from their customers — and anyway you slice it, those are the peanuts that we see — how many people bother to actively look for a Linden when there is a problem?
Last Christmas, I was wandering sims near my home and admiring the builds. Then I came upon one of the grey-goo ornaments that had landed in a noScript area and sat dormant. Back then, I was able to get hold of a Linden and have the time bomb defused. Today however, it would probabably just lay there until the sim owner turned scripting back on again, and the damage would be done.
I love SL. I wouldn’t put up with this amount of stress, frustration and loss of RL money if I didn’t get something seriously worthwhile from it. But the stress level is rising rapidly with all the problems that aren’t being fixed while the system is made yet more buggy with every new shiney they add on. There is no reason to be civil anymore. People were civil when they asked individually for stability. People were still civil when they collectively wrote a formal letter. Do you see what it got them? Did LL blow smoke in our faces with voice and the new sky system or didn’t they? So the civil and professional approach has failed. Now people will become uglier and more demanding, if they don’t just drop SL entirely (which I note several percent of my circle have done).
I wouldn’t drive a car which was shiney but broke down every week. I don’t see why I should play a game that crashes so often either. And before you start on me for calling it a game; until they decentralize and make their system reliable and redundant like the rest of the Internet, they are not the next Internet Interface. I write SF stories and I’ve given thought to creating a “SL bookstore”. But with the reliability of SL thus far, I’m not going to waste my money OR my time trying to create a business within it. So it remains a pleasant pasttime with friends and there it shall stay for the foreseeable future. Whenever it works, that is.
Tenshi Vielle
May 22nd, 2007
Sigh..
Either way, you have to admit there’s a history of the way you lovely, generous posters at SC oust the people with an ounce of thought. A few people come to mind and there are post logs to prove it, until Mother deletes them.
However, that still doesn’t change the fact that some of the more vocal residents are discouraging enough to have Linden Lab turn a silent ear. (re: the “OMG SHOPPING IS BROKEN!” people)
@ Mark: What, you don’t have a sister to babysit your kids? Someone 20+, old enough to try ageplay? Or maybe it’s a neighbor. Or your kid’s teacher. Hm… or maybe it’s your church pastor, if you attend church. God knows those people have more than enough vices to account for it. Think before you scoff.
Tenshi Vielle
May 22nd, 2007
@ shockwave:
People need to make up their minds: Either this is a game, or it’s a platform. I wish they’d stop riding the fence.
Vivianne Draper
May 22nd, 2007
Tenshi, you are a lying sack of shit. Mother doesn’t delete comments. Not even when you ask him to.
Tenshi Vielle
May 22nd, 2007
@ Viv:
I never lied and said I didn’t write for the Herald. You asked if I wrote for SECOND THOUGHTS. I don’t write for SECOND THOUGHTS. …Put your glasses on. I never tried to start a fight immediately; everyone else bit and it fueled from there. Totally unnecessary.
shockwave yareach
May 22nd, 2007
Tenshi: I never thought of it as a platform. My PC is a platform. A Mac, Beawulf cluster or an Ubuntu-based computer are platforms. IE7 or Firefox are browsers for the web; programs that run on the platforms. They provide access to a decentralized, distributed and failure resistant information system. The browser provides human accessibility to a wealth of stored data, informational resources and real business services which I pay real money to use.
SL provides no access to the WWW or information, no services which impact RL, no realtime information about RL matters, and no genuine usefulness to day to day life as a browser does. It is not stable, not massively redundant and not important to daily life. It is, at this time, a toy. A fancy toy and a fun toy, certainly. But if it were to cease to be tomorrow, I’d just find another toy to play with.
Jorus Xi
May 22nd, 2007
*coughs* coming from a person who just reviewed your post history Tenshi, your full of shit
Hazim Gazov
May 22nd, 2007
EVERYONE is full of shit, everyone. Profoky Neva is gonna crash the grid with his/her boring rants.
One the note of Second Citizen, it’s my favorite place to talk about Second Life, I like the atmosphere. I mean, _I_ wasn’t a complete asshole in my first few posts, most of the people were quite nice and helpful.
However, they support gridcrashers, and they must be stopped.
DOWN WITH THE GRIDCRASHER SUPPORTING SECOND CITIZEN!
Morgana Fillion
May 22nd, 2007
“Either way, you have to admit there’s a history of the way you lovely, generous posters at SC oust the people with an ounce of thought.”
Regardless – you wouldn’t be one of the people in that category.
Joshua Nightshade
May 22nd, 2007
Oh Tenshi,
I stood up for you when you joined SC because I knew your presence was going to generate a shit-storm. I asked everyone to give you a shot and wait until you’d actually done something before launching into a crucifixion of what you’d done in the past.
Well, go you. You certainly gave a reason.
I commented previously that you made no attempt to leave things be. People generally ignored you completely– AT MY REQUEST– because of the fight I got into with everyone asking that you be given a chance. Do you know how that makes me feel, to get into screaming matches with my friends, and then see you not only write a Prokofian-esque thread insulting everyone but then coming here and making things up? It makes me exceptionally angry to have defended you in the first place.
FIC has never deleted a single comment, EVER. Let’s stop repeating this bullshit right now. FIC is far too fucking busy maintaining the space that he created of his own money, supports with his own money, and builds with his own money. Not to mention his time and life and own energy. He doesn’t have time to get into petty flame wars with shit-starters, much less delete their shit. It never happened, and you’d do well to stop making an accusation otherwise.
I am overall very happy with the people on SC. They’re my friends and mean more to me than most of what goes on in SL anymore. SC is proof positive that all of the Lindens’ bullshit excuses about “unscalable forums” was them copping-out. It’s self-moderated and those who can get along well with others do, fine, and maintain wonderful relationships with the userbase.
Those who can’t, or only come for attention, like you and Prokofy, find yourselves on the outside of that community. It’s a group of nice people and it’s existed for over a year now. It’s more open-armed and welcoming than any other community forum I’ve been a part of, official or otherwise. The people who parrot its evils usually do so with reason.
I wouldn’t have even participated in your sad attempt to drum up drama were it not for the numerous lies and accusations you made.
So thanks Tenshi for reaffirming to me that I shouldn’t stick up for people like you, because it’ll just bite me in the ass later.
And stop sending me fucking yard sale spam.
Ian Betteridge
May 22nd, 2007
Tenshi says: “Either way, you have to admit there’s a history of the way you lovely, generous posters at SC oust the people with an ounce of thought.”
See, Tenshi, this is exactly the kind of comment which you use to wind people up, and then act all shocked when they tell you to fuck off. What you’re saying here is “no one at SC has an ounce of thought”, and I take exception to that.
“A few people come to mind and there are post logs to prove it, until Mother deletes them.”
Mother doesn’t delete anything, even if you beg and plead.
“However, that still doesn’t change the fact that some of the more vocal residents are discouraging enough to have Linden Lab turn a silent ear. (re: the “OMG SHOPPING IS BROKEN!” people)”
I really don’t understand what your point is here, although to be honest I don’t understand what the point of your entire post is other than to continue the bitch-fight you starts on SC.
If you’re saying that people complaining about service has no effect on Linden Lab, if you’re saying Open Letter had no effect, then you’re demonstrably wrong. LL has upped the rate of patching, added more resources to bug fixing, ang been more public about the issues it’s in the process of fixing.
Or are you saying that people shouldn’t complain, shouldn’t report bugs? Because, frankly, that’s a silly argument. A customer service person who listens to a complaint and gets discouraged doesn’t belong in customer service, and won’t be in it for long.
Talk to some Lindens, and you’ll find out a whole lot more about how important it is to them to get customer service right. They know it – don’t doubt that for one second. But they’re also a small company in a process of insane growth, and they can’t deal with communications in the same small-focus way they have in the past. They know that too, and they’re trying to deal with that.
Ian Betteridge
May 22nd, 2007
Shckwave says: “SL provides no access to the WWW or information, no services which impact RL…”
It provides many people with a not-inconsiderable source of income. Of course it impacts real life, it’s silly to say it doesn’t.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2007
Ian – all she’s saying is that the Lindens don’t listen because everyone is mean, mean, mean to Tenshi for not letting her be mean to other people. And if she were in charge here, she wouldn’t listen to them either! Nyah!
Tenshi’s tenure on SLH is a litany of poorly executed attempts to use an actual subject as a wrapper for her drama of the moment and it pretty much all boils down to ‘look at MEEEE!’
shockwave yareach
May 22nd, 2007
“It provides many people with a not-inconsiderable source of income. Of course it impacts real life, it’s silly to say it doesn’t.” – Ian
You have a partial point here, I’ll admit. The income someone can make can make SL self supporting, and perhaps even generate a profit. For the business owner, this is RL cash, that is true. But for the customer, the only place any of the services or items purchased can exist is in SL itself. So no, nothing I buy on SL has any RL application or usefulness, any more than magic swords in WoW has. So I concede half a point to you on this.
Now when Amazon starts selling Eros silks as they are found on SL and delivers them to my door, THEN we’ll be talking nextgen browser. (And what I wouldn’t pay to see my wife in some!
)
Joshua Nightshade
May 22nd, 2007
shockwave, a number of companies have begun using SL to deliver RL products. Off the top of my head I remember a company that sold Valentines Day chocolates and flowers through SL that were delivered at someone’s real address, and recently I remember hearing a pizza company started using SL to process home delivery orders.
shockwave yareach
May 22nd, 2007
Joshua: Never heard of either case. Would be interesting to see though. Any links?
Gotta wonder about a pizza ordered through SL though – it’ll arrive at my door with half it’s toppings missing or something like that.
Joshua Nightshade
May 22nd, 2007
I don’t remember where I read about the pizza, but the advertisement for the chocolate is on– ZOMG– SC:
http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=5983
Tenshi Vielle
May 22nd, 2007
See? There you all go again, reading what you want.
I never said Mother DELETED anything. I said he had the potential to, which all moderators do, whether they take that initiative or not. He owns the forum, right? Calm down.
It’s a sunny day outside.
Lorelei Patel
May 22nd, 2007
Tenshi: “Totally unnecessary.”
What was totally unnecessary, Tenshi, was to write a piece here on SLH ridiculing someone for – horrors – not looking like what you thought a fashion diva should look like. Well, let’s be honest. The real reason for that pathetic piece of trash was that she didn’t fall at your feet and announce you as the next great thing in SL fashion design. The *stated* reason was she wore a sweatshirt and hugged a dog. That was nasty, mean-spirited, childish, immature, narcissistic, pathetic and a whole host of other adjectives I could come up with.
When called on your sad behavior, both here and at SC, you refused to apologize. Flat-out refusing. And you know what? That makes you the ugly person. And I’m not even talking about your looks.
I’ll admit. I wasn’t thrilled to see you show up at SC. Your Sabrina post made my skin crawl. But I gave you a chance. We joked back and forth a few times. Then you left in a shitstorm. Why? Because you still haven’t found the courage to apologize for a wrong you committed.
It’s all on you, Tenshi. You did it to yourself.
nyx divine
May 22nd, 2007
“See? There you all go again, reading what you want.
I never said Mother DELETED anything. I said he had the potential to, which all moderators do, whether they take that initiative or not. He owns the forum, right? Calm down.”
See now I read exactly what you wrote and no you didn’t state that Mother HAD deleted any posts. But you certainly made a strong accusation that it was a looming possibility because everyone at SC was so awful that Mother would certainly need to hide the evidence of your shunning.
Damn is this how you opperate? With lame innuendos and veiled accusations? You aren’t very good at it.
Vivianne Draper
May 22nd, 2007
———
Tenshi tried to cover her ass once again by saying
———
“See? There you all go again, reading what you want.
I never said Mother DELETED anything. I said he had the potential to, which all moderators do, whether they take that initiative or not. He owns the forum, right? Calm down.”
———
———
Tenshi actually said:
———
“A few people come to mind and there are post logs to prove it, until Mother deletes them.”
———
So no, you lying sack of shit, you didn’t say that Mother had the ‘potential’ to delete them. What you did was infer that deletion was going to happen at some point in the future and that this was common practice at SC.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2007
Since it’s something every moderator has the potential to do, there’s no reason at all to mention it other than to imply that such an action is probable.
You not only spew baseless accusations, you’re weasely in your approach.
But hilarious how you make comments like ‘I didn’t say he did, I said he could’ or ‘the Herald toooold me to be mean’ and atually believe these comments make you come off looking better.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2007
And FYI….for those who are not familiar w/ SC.
SC’s owner has made it a very huge deal that SC is NOT in anyway to be moderated or edited to suit anyone’s needs.
So that particular accusation is certainly meant to strike a nerve.
Cocoanut Koala
May 22nd, 2007
“All you have to do to be accepted is not be an ass”
I love that. So . . . who decides who is an ass?
Well, it works just like any other dumbass high clique running the highschool, or trying to.
coco
Cocoanut Koala
May 22nd, 2007
*high school
bubbles
May 22nd, 2007
The clock is ticking…. waiting for another ‘told you so’ post from the Prokster about ‘SC mob mentality’
Vivianne Draper
May 22nd, 2007
We have surrogate prok here to do that for her.
Morgana Fillion
May 22nd, 2007
In this particular case, Coco, I’d say it’s the overwhelming weight up public opinion in multiple arenas based on observations of her actions and response to objections to them.
High school, or the inevitable result of observing her interactions? *shrug*
Peasan Kuu
May 22nd, 2007
Tenshi said
“… until Mother deletes them.”
and then
“I never said Mother DELETED anything. I said he had the potential to, which all moderators do, whether they take that initiative or not. He owns the forum, right? Calm down.”
Seriousy, this bears repeating because it’s symptomatic of the way you arrived in Second Citizen. MoFIC doesn’t delete posts; it’s one of the main reasons I post there. Mother’s tolerance for what gets posted to SC knows no bounds.
But here you go again. You post something without thought, and then try and cover yourself by saying “Oh, that’s not what I meant.
I you think the posts are there UNTIL they are deleted, it is not unreasonable for any reader to think you mean that MoFIC, in fact, deletes posts. Why else mention it ? It also demonstrates how little you understand SC to even raise the suggestion that MoFIC MIGHT delete posts.
You must have studied Aimee Weber’s poo-flinging article. Its just a pity that you’re not very good at it.
However, I am a reasonable person and you may assume that I have the greatest respect for you until I call you a lying sack of shit.
bubbles
May 22nd, 2007
Anyway SC doesnt appear to working. ‘Account Suspended’