LL Answer Shortage Closes Official Answers Forum
by Pixeleen Mistral on 20/01/07 at 3:29 am
Second Life customers should just STFU, OK?
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Metaverse game gods might be completely out of answers and – with dim hopes of clues or answers arriving anytime soon – decided to close the Linden Answers forum friday evening. Previously, the Linden Answers forum was a venue for residents to ask questions of the Linden Lab staff and – in some cases – get an answer. The forum acted as both a stress release valve where residents could vent about perceived injustices and problems and – more importantly – bend the ear of the game designers to improve the state of the world. However, some feel that our virtual world no longer needs improvement.
Apparently having achieved metaverse nirvana at 6:34 pm PDT today – Sunshine Watermelon Torley Linden realized that it was no longer necessary to listen to customers, and decided to close the online Q&A forums as an eco-friendly energy saving measure.
A Linden blob post suggests that residents who are confused enough to think they still need talk to their metaverse service provider might want to hang around Linden Village in-world on the chance that someone will show up for office hours.
Unfortunately, here at the Herald we are on a slightly tighter schedule, and were forced to try to locate an online Linden. We managed to get one Linden to responsed after half an hour, but immediately after the dialog below, ALL the Lindens appears to go offline. Should we look at this as the level of service we can all look forward to in the brave new world?
Happy customers encircle the metaverse
Pixeleen Mistral: Hey Vector? why did your people close the Linden Answers forum? I have to say that this seems like a BAD PR move
Vektor Linden: I’m not the person to talk with about that, sorry!
PM: well ok – but I HAVE to publish a story on this tonight and there are no other Lindens besides you online. what am I supposed to do? who should I talk to?
VL: I’m not the person to ask.
PM: wow
PM: I guess we are supposed to wait till monday or tuesday? like this is not news? amazing
Vektor Linden: I am not the person to speak to.
PM: ok. I got that. do the best you can
Vektor Linden: Cool. Have a good weekend!
Inigo Chamerberlin
Jan 20th, 2007
Funny that – I checked the front page and there’s some rubbish about an ‘open source’ viewer – seems odd, shouldn’t it say ‘Fuck off and take your money with you’?
Clarrice Cinquetti
Jan 20th, 2007
You were probably fortunate enough to find a Linden Bot with AI.
marilyn murphy
Jan 20th, 2007
i am very limited in my knowledge of computer technology. i think i understand a few basics, like, second life is a software application. sigh.
anyway what i have been learning recently is that all the glitches and crashes and rendering and bug problems are because sl was rushed into release…i think, and there are problems with the basic support of the thing. like the foundation of it was never properly set up, and everything that gets laid over it is just patching and aimed at fixing certain things that then affect other things.
is that correct?? trying to nutshell the problem, this is just my perception.
anyway, i have not talked to a linden in over two years. i had a couple of instances where the help, even back then was just not forthcoming. so i resolved to just solve the problems myself if social, and live in sl with the bugs, glitches and so forth. i have never reported a griefer, for instance, and have ways of handling them on my own.
so if the problem with sl performance is that basic and that large, wouldnt it take like a few months of hard work to re write and install and produce a properly functioning new foundation for the world? i assume the grid would be off line for that period of time, while the fix was being fixed.
also, if the problem is that large, as a linden, wouldnt u find it just exasperating as hell to have to give non answers to meaningful questions over and over? frankly, if the honest fix is that big, and apparently its not going to be implemented, whats left to say?
Espresso Saarinen
Jan 20th, 2007
i finally figured it out the sl customer support philosophy. it came from the telephants. “we’re the telco. you have no other choice.” we’re not customers at all; we’re locked in vic^h^h^husers.
they have to stay slim so the sale to ea looks good on paper and the vcs can exit patting themselves on the back (and wallet). actually supporting customers, especially on a hastily developed and tweaky ‘platform’ such as sl, can be expensive. and, to give them a bit of sympathy, think what it must take to educate a new hire to actually usefully support sl residents.
the vc exit sale model is based on ‘residents’ (the vast majority of whom once rezzed on help island, were molested by a griefer, could not figure this complex mess out, and never came back), not real customers who *use* the platform. so who needs customer support? just ramp it up and get piggie to market before the wheels fall off the cart.
Spankubux
Jan 20th, 2007
hey Pixaleen, you ever gonna write something into which you don’t ejaculate your opinions?
You really are a shitty journalist.
FlipperPA Peregrine
Jan 20th, 2007
For the record, Vektor Linden is in Q.A. and shoulder probably be doing what he’s doing – fixing bugs! AFAIK, most technology Lindens (with Kelly and Andrew being the exceptions) never even looked at the forums and he probably has no clue what you were talking about!
Urizenus
Jan 20th, 2007
Are we sure it is a *shortage* of answers? Or did they just plum run out.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 20th, 2007
Lindens who come on to fix bugs or do other sort of behind-the-scenes work should not be shown online. They can hide their online status, thanks to Flipper’s lobbying for this necessary feature *cough*.
It’s especially true when there are NO OTHER LIAISONS online. When they come online like that, they can’t whine — nor can their fanboyz — when people begin to ask them questions.
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 20th, 2007
OK, he may be QA or whatever, but does he not speak English?
“PM: ok. I got that. do the best you can”
“Vektor Linden: Cool. Have a good weekend!”
Or: Does he just hope you will think he misunderstood you? (bad)
Or: Did he really actually misunderstand you? (worse)
coco
Linden Lab kicked my dog!
Jan 21st, 2007
Coconut: Your guesses are ALL wrong. He simply blew her off, and I think it was VERY apropos. You don’t ask the house framer why his bosses decided to change a policy dealing with how they interface with customer concerns. One certainly CAN, but if one expects anything other than a blow off, they’re setting themselves up for disappointment.
Prokofy: He wasn’t “whining”. Not even CLOSE. He simply stated he is not the person to talk to, and kept his cool despite Pixeleen’s having to breathe into a paper sack as she typed.
Are there many contributors or regular commenters here who actually enjoy Second Life?
:scratches head:
Is this real love/hate, or is it just a competition to see who amongst you can come off as jaded and cynical as possible, for as long as possible? Tres chic?
My money is on the latter, because it just fits better, after having read the caterwauling of several of the regulars here for a while, I get the distinct feeling that some you people actually salivate when you get a whiff of what you view as wrong doing by Linden Lab. Just reference Pixeleen’s convo with Vektor above…
Anyway, the abject bitching and moaning started to overtake the legit questions in that forum, so I am not at ALL surprised to see it go. It was never intended to be a relief valve Pixeleen; but it makes for good drama to portray it that way, yes? It was a Q&A forum not a rant forum. Just like every other forum closure before this one, it got cut off because a certain smallish, LOUD, group of professional whiners decided it was “home” (“home” as in, “I will not behave as a guest, but rather as if this was my own living room”). There is no reason LL needs to sit and take prolonged and repeated abuse. LL being a company doesn’t mean that they have to suffer repeat assholes. I’m sure most of you wouldn’t like to be name-called and bitched at nonstop at YOUR jobs (unless you’re an SL escort).
Some of you really, really need to step back and give yourselves a reality check. Or, go ahead and keep on bitching until you burn yourselves out, and mark yourselves as obsessed neurotics who have invested more into this “plame” (platform/game) than sanity should dictate.
SL is a service, not a “world”, you are not citizens, you are customers. You have no freedom of speech, and you do not dictate how LL decides to run their business. Get over that fact and maybe you can begin to get over yourselves. Or not, and subject yourself to tons of manufactured stress. How STUPID.
OMG! It’s NEWS! Get the paper sacks, stat!
marilyn murphy
Jan 21st, 2007
to “linden lab kicked my dog”
i am a real user with a real identity established for over 3 years in sl. i really love sl, i regularly contribute to this blog.
your entire thesis that says there is no free speech, its fine for linden lab to continue to give us broken product, simply because they can shut people up everyone needs to shut up, and love it or leave it seems strangely… is this rush limbaugh??
so, just because they care about something and want to see it improve makes them proffessional whiners. your mentality dictates that if you respond to my post, you will no doubt point out my spelling errors as some telling point.
as i have stated before in this blog, i quit asking the lindens for assistance ages ago. i resolved to tolerate the bad service and deal with sl as it is. not to releive the lindens of stress, but for my own good.
oh, i was recently interviewed by another on line magazine, and when they asked what direction i saw linden labs going in with some new change, my response was: “who cares? they need to fix what is broken instead of giving us new shiny something or other.”
the interviewer was a bit surprised and said she wasnt sure she would print that, i said, whatever. then she tried to port away, and couldnt. 3 times. she had to re set her home and re log to get where she needed to go. she contacted me and said, ok, ok, im printing that. ha ha.
Clarrice Cinquetti
Jan 21st, 2007
Linden Lab kicked my dog…
Sorry about your dog..surprised they were able to teleport to you and follow through with the kick because of lag. You are one of the lucky ones.
Michael Seraph
Jan 21st, 2007
In any grocery store, if you ask the stock boy a question and he can’t answer it, he’ll direct you to some one who can. If you walk into a clothing store and have questions the clerk can’t answer, he or she will direct you to somebody who can answer them. That’s how you’re supposed to treat customers. It’s called customer service. If Vector Linden, aka stock boy, doesn’t know the answer, then he should direct the customer to some one who does. “I am not the person to speak to.” is crappy customer service.
Cocoanut Koala
Jan 21st, 2007
Heh . . . I can’t help but rewrite a few parts of kicked dog’s little rant:
“Your guesses are ALL wrong. He simply blew her off, and I think it was VERY apropos for a company to blow off their customers!”
“it got cut off because a certain smallish, LOUD, group of professional whiners decided it was “home” (‘home’ as in, “I will not behave as a guest, but rather as if I were a customer!’).
“There is no reason LL needs to sit and take prolonged and repeated questions from their customers!”
“LL being a company doesn’t mean that they have to suffer repeat feedback from customers!”
“You have no freedom of speech, and you do not dictate how LL decides to run their business. Get over that fact that you are just customers, and maybe you can begin to get over yourselves!”
“Or not, and subject yourself to tons of manufactured stress. How STUPID. A smart person would stop trying to be a customer!”
(And here’s one I didn’t even have to rewrite:)
“SL is a service, not a “world”, you are not citizens, you are customers!”
(Okay, so I added the exclamation point, lol.)
coco
Melissa Yeuxdoux
Jan 22nd, 2007
Hmmm. Where’s the boundary between asking for customer service and conducting an ambush interview?
Inigo Chamerberlin
Jan 24th, 2007
Shrewed question that Melissa. Does this mean that anyone who writes for SLH is automatically revoking their right to any form of what LL passes off as ‘customer service’ though?
Tricky that, isn’t it? A sim owner who happens to write the occasional article for SLH can be blown off on the grounds that they ‘might’ be springing an ‘ambush interview’? How very convenient for the Linden in question.
Urizenus
Jan 24th, 2007
Sooner or later, everyone writes for the Herald.
And what’s wrong with ambush interviews?