[UPDATE] Project Open Letter
Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 10:54 PM by: Robin Linden[UPDATED: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 at 3:01PM PDT] The Town Hall with Cory will be held at noon PDT on Thursday, May 3. Watch the message of the day and this blog for details about location. If you have questions you would like considered, please post them on the feedback forum.
[Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 10:54 PM PDT] Today we received a letter signed by over 1,500 Residents requesting that Linden Lab focus on performance improvements in several areas in Second Life. We’re drafting a response to provide more details on the specific issues that were raised, and scheduling a Town Hall with Cory for later this week. We’ll also give you an opportunity to ask questions to be answered at the Town Hall.
While we finish pulling together the information on the work we’re doing, I want to highlight some of the options you have for finding out project status and giving us input. Some of these options are relatively new and you might not be aware of them, but they have been expressly designed to provide you with more information, insight into and involvement in the development process.
Public JIRA
This new site will soon completely replace the feature voting tool and the known issues page. You can search for open bugs and view status of resolution, add your comments or create new tasks. You can also vote for those tasks you think are most critical, and propose new ideas. Torley has been migrating the feature voting tool proposals to this new site, and will soon be completing the transition. In the meantime, please feel free to log-in with your Second Life name and password and check it out.
Knowledge Base
If you haven’t seen it lately, take a look at the knowledge base. Two new Lindens, Jon and Jeremy, are working hard to expand it to include substantially more articles, tutorials and answers to frequently asked questions.
Second Life Wiki
When the viewer code was made available to the open source community Rob Linden created a new wiki for commenting and sharing information and ideas. There are portals for open source, scripting, volunteering, market research and web services. Please feel free to read and contribute. If you have suggestions for new portals please let Rob, Liana or me know.
Inworld Office Hours for Lindens
If you have a Google mail account, go ahead and search public calendars for “Inworld Office Hours for Lindens”. You can see the schedule for office hours each week, held in Linden Village (balloon tour available in Ambleside). These meetings are informal discussions open to any Resident who is interested in participating. The topics vary depending on who shows up and what they’re interested in. Often the Linden leading the discussion will be seeking feedback about projects they’re involved with.
This week the calendar shows the following Lindens have office hours scheduled:
Kelly - developer
Rob - open source community
Liana - open source community
Zero - senior developer
Robin - community
Cyn - customer relations
Torley - community
Meta - data warehousing
Chadrick - dispute resolution
For additional information regarding office hours please also check out the wiki at: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours.
Of course we also post updates, announcements, and information about important changes here on the blog.
All of these tools are part of our ongoing efforts to create greater transparency into the evolution and development of Second Life. As with most things, some will be more effective than others, and we’ll continue to look for ways to improve our communication. As always, your ideas and feedback are encouraged.
We’re looking forward to talking with you more about the specifics raised in the open letter later this week.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:01 PM
WOOOOOohoooo Yes thank you for hearing us
April 30th, 2007 at 11:11 PM
The open letter was necessary because you have removed all other avenues of general feedback (forums, blog comments, etc). Linden Labs have not even acknowledged that the web based Friends Online is not working… I have checked in Jira, all times the web based Friends is raised it is closed as a duplicate.
If you keep removing methods of allowing us feedback, these kinds of things will happen.
LL just need to admit that SL is bugged to hell right now, and every update seems to break more and build a bigger wall between LL and SL’s residents.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:13 PM
great to know something may get accomplished.. which i had known about that letter I would have signed it and made sure all of my friends did also.. We really would like to see some of these bugs fixed before doing any more enhancements to a system that is as buggy and laggy as it is now.. I understand development is important but I would not be putting all the energy into that if the system cant work smooth as it should .. If i could just log on and see my friends that are on line i would be happy .. Hope things are resolved soon.. Thanks Lindens for listenning..
April 30th, 2007 at 11:13 PM
“LL just need to admit that SL is bugged to hell right now, and every update seems to break more and build a bigger wall between LL and SL’s residents.”
In a way they have with this posting.But i want Philip Linden there not Cory Linden. But yopu can`t have everything………..Its a start.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:22 PM
translation: it will be ignored and placed in the sfw file. because if and i do mean if, they had of paid attention in the first place, many of these bugs would not be here.
in other words: i will believe it when i see it.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:24 PM
A Huge Thank You! for whoever got that letter together. SL’s problems are giant snowball going downhill just getting worse and worse. Someday LL my actually listen to its customers that only ask for a stable system instead of spewing out “updates” and “new features” like voice that 8 out of 10 users said they didn’t want in the first place.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:24 PM
you right both Cory and Philip should be in attendance.. 1,500 unhappy residents may seem small but look at that in dollars and cents.. 1,500 closed premimun accounts.. that can be a big problem.. and 1,500 is a small number because i am very sure it is way more then that.. residents just was not aware about the letter going out.. Like my self.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:35 PM
Robin Linden writes “requesting that Linden Lab focus on performance improvements”. This sounds like 1984 Newspeak.
The open letter says “concern for ongoing stability problems”.
Performance is nice. Stability is essential.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:35 PM
What surprises me is that I haven’t seen any real official acknowledgement of the ongoing problems with the Friends Online list (not just the “temporarily disabled” web one but the in-world one). Although it has worked on occasion, more often than not since the 1.15 update it hasn’t shown friends when logging in. I think I saw a brief mention of it “being slow to load” but I’ve often been on for an hour or more and it never has “loaded” except for those people who logged on after I did. The Friends list is a crucial part of SL and when its working so poorly I would have thought it would be a priority to fix it.
Seeing as how it does add people when they log on (usually…for a little while it wasn’t even doing that), would it be possible to add a “force Friends Online update” option as a button or even a debug menu option? Or is it a deeper issue?
As for fixing existing bugs, improving stability, and enhancing overall performance (reducing lag, memory leaks, etc.) before adding new features, I can say from my own (limited) game development experience that while everyone (developers included) strive for perfection of existing features, it’s development of new features that keep developers inspired, interested and motivated. As a user of Second Life, I would prefer to simply have the bugs fixed and performance enhanced (and the occasional “really useful scripting option” added
), but if I were working with the company I’m sure I would want to be doing interesting and exciting things as well.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:41 PM
Many kudos to those who created the letter. Thank you. I, and everyone I know, would have signed it in a heartbeat if we had known about it. Since I joined last August, SL has been on a constant downward spiral that seems to get worse every week. I spend more time trying to deal with the problems than I do enjoying SL. That just ain’t right! Every single day I question why I joined and made land investments through my group Lucky Irish.
Drastic times require drastic measures. It’s time for the Lindens to face up to the ever mounting problems and find a fix. I’m glad to hear they are trying, but it’s time for results.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:45 PM
[...] Well, it’s better than nothing. [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 11:46 PM
Lucky for LL that this open letter didnt really get into the hands of many as if it would I think the number of signed residents would easily have quadrupled or even more.
I guess one way of dealing with this is to be humble and admit that things are not fine with this game. I am a paying resident and have businesses running within and my business has been greatly affected by the serious bugs that are affecting many people out there. I am sure that I am not alone in this area and if things dont work out fine I think many people would just leave SL altogether. The issue is instead of working on new features such as voice or anything else efforts should be concentrated on making this game stable such as when it was nearly a year ago. Just face it SL was enjoyable then but today its nothing but a heap of issues that are continually being dealt with. Worse still is that every new update just bring another bug into this myriad of bugdome.
Make SL work again like how it was before LL for if not I believe I would not be the only one saying goodbye.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:49 PM
I believe you can still sign the letter.
coco
April 30th, 2007 at 11:52 PM
“1,500 unhappy residents may seem small…”
I can assure you it is a LOT more than 1500. I never knew about the letter, but would also have signed–along with every single person I know in SL. I’ve only been in SL for 2.5 months, but I forsee quickly losing interest in a medium as buggy as this one if improvements –
not changes — aren’t made soon. My viewer crashes every few hours now and I can only do things on my own land out in the boonies. Real processor-intensive stuff, like, ya know, open the inventory, turn left, walk, etc., etc.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:53 PM
Thank you for responding. While it may be difficult to address the needs of the thousands of individuals who request your attention, it’s important to attend to the fact that most of these thousands of people are making the same complaints repeatedly.
In short, all of the complaints can be boiled down to the following:
Address bugs and performance issues and roll them out in such a way that we can incrementally and noticably experience the improvements.
Sculped prims? Extremely cool, I want it very very much. But I want The basic building tools working correctly first. Voice support. Many like that too. But wouldn’t addressing financial transactions and inventory stability be more important? Don’t lose your current support base while chasing after new customers.
Run a poll: “Would you be willing to wait 12 months for the roll out of any new features if we did nothing but dedicate 100% of our team and time to bug fixing and performance enhancement?”
Just do it. I’ll guess that you’ll get more Ays than Nays.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:53 PM
Some things I’d like to add:
* Friends Online not working, yes, horrible PITA… keeping in mind we don’t have space nor searchability to take on every hot bug on the blog; in the near future, look for regular (weekly I hope) roundups of hot support issues AND participate in the Issue Tracker please. It’s in beta so it’s rough, there are sharp edges, with your help it’ll be better. Again… FRIENDS ONLINE, be sure to see:
» https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-85
^ And yes, redundant dupes are closed so focus can be given, please do searches. Those not comfy with JIRA’s org-scheme may wanna check out:
» http://almworks.com/jiraclient/overview.html
which Yoz Linden just clued me into yesterday.
* Like Second Life itself, the Issue Tracker is really Resident-driven. We have some lovely Resident help from the likes of SignpostMarv Martin, Lex Neva, Gigs Taggart, and more (these are just off the top of my head) who’re helping resolve issues, and Open Source progress is being made by way of Resident-submitted patches. Liana earlier emailed some really encouraging metrics on this I hope we can share more visibly.
So if you want to make a positive difference, don’t just talk about stability — you can actually participate in improving the platform by reporting bugs (and solid reproductions, which helps us fix them faster) and discussing within the Issue Tracker.
* Also be certain to read the SLDev-Traffic 9 notes as compiled by Soft Noel. They include mentions of bug triages, where Rob Linden and Residents run through pain points.
* If you’ve got helpful docs to share, the Wiki can be used for this. For example, I setup a Help:Snapshots page for photo-taking help in response to the many questions I get.
April 30th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
[...] “Project Open Letter” by Robin Linden [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
Re: #14 … and incidentally, less bugs and lag, more reliability and performance means less grief for the LL team
May 1st, 2007 at 12:00 AM
dang, wish I could have known.. I would have signed it. Av is all bugged out, scripts work on one parcel, but not the other, can’t buy lindens to buy more land (but still get charged for an entire sim[class action suit?) or even pay my bill because it keeps saying I need to input more then $25, texture changes fail (and reverse), IM’s fail in multiple ways, older regions are spammed with Linden scripted clouds, and on, and on, and on… I started buying again because I thought we where done with this crap. How come we are not rolling back? I can’t figure it out? I’m usually fairly positive when posting here, but you folks really suck as god.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:00 AM
Only some knows how bad things are in world. Others are just playing along saying all is still well all is good. In rose colored glasses.
But its a start Robin thank you for hearing us.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:02 AM
The letter can still be signed, the more people that join in the better.
http://www.projectopenletter.com
I just wish they would make a post on here admitting to all the problems 1.15 has caused and at least let us know that they’re aware of them and working hard on fixing them. :\
May 1st, 2007 at 12:02 AM
“in the near future, look for regular (weekly I hope) roundups of hot support issues ”
er… sorry… but Friends List not working cant wait a week. It needs to be fixed NOW! Every single time I log in my friends list is broken. It is not intermittent… not kind of not working… it is TRASHED.
“https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-85″
Torley… that bug does not even mention the WEB BASED friends online. In fact it specifically mentions that it DOES work. While it is slightly related, it is not the same as what we are reporting.
Friends List in game - broken but kind of works.
Friends Online via web - Disabled. Totally. And you wont tell us why. Or if it is ever going to return.
*sigh* I suppose I have just realised why… and face the fact that you are going to tell us that web based Friends Online is just going to disappear.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:04 AM
@Lotus: Please go ahead and use the Issue Tracker to add your details, I’ll update with anything new I find out first thing in the morning. Thanks.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:07 AM
The whole concept of having to “vote” on which bugs to fix is something that we’ve been through before, around 18 months / 2 years ago, when bugs were to be included in the feature voting tool. To have to have the users vote on which bugs needs fixing is indicative of a system that is so bug ridden and unstable that it’s got to the stage where it’s actually impossible for Linden Lab to be able to support it properly in my opinion.
The JIRA itself is organised in a complex way that many users would take one look at and walk away. It is a technical tool for technical people presented in a technical way. Confusion for users is a great way to ensure that they don’t use the tool which may, if you’re the cynical type, be part of the reason it’s there.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:10 AM
Great job on the letter wish I had known of it before hand also.
I am sure if word had spread about it sooner through the grape vine the numbers added to the list would have been through the roof.
Now an issue with land purchases not transferring and being told by customer service at LL that their is nothing they can do about it?
thank goodness Ordinal Malaprop is a honest stand up person and came and fixed the problem. According to LL she could have taken my 46k and sold the land to someone else and walked away smiling even though they could see that I had made a land purchase and the transfer didnt go through.
I would like to see a little more protection from that especially when it is a LL bug that caused the problem and they had just given the all clear to make land purchases again in their blog. Goes to show dont believe every thing you read.
This is real money being lost in here not funny money. please fix the problem.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:12 AM
Lets see what happens at that town hall meeting.Its been awhile since the last one.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:13 AM
No reason to stop signing the letter
Linden Lab has acknowledged the existence of an open letter from the SL community requesting bug fixes instead of new features, but that is no reason to refrain from signing the letter in you haven’t already done so.
The open letter is still av…
May 1st, 2007 at 12:13 AM
/signed for all the right reasons
Please really read the opening statement, how it got to this point, then comment.
the Undersigned are here to make a point, not to bash.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:16 AM
How about an Open Letter to thank the creator of the original Open Letter for actually getting LL to hear that we are so FAR from happy?
Like so many others posting here, I knew nothing of this letter, but I too know 100 more people who would have signed it in a flash!!! How I wish we had known about it!
How many nights have I despaired with the frustration of being unable to move, unable to even move my camera around smoothly, unable to see my friends, unable to tp ‘in a timely fashion’, unable to follow a conversatin in a group IM, and even unable to rez items when I decide to give up on being sociable or mobile and just stay home and sort inventory!!! And even then, have to keep rebooting because memory leaks slow my whole computer to such a crawl that everything crashes… arghhhhhhhh!!!
I despair even now that instead of being irresistably drawn to logon each morning, I’m starting to debate if I really want these stresses, and if stressed I must be, then better to be dealing with RL issues than virtual ones
I am sad that I have been reduced from an ‘addict’ to a ‘half-hearted participant’, and rapidly descending even further down the scale!
So THANKYOU to those who created the Open Letter.. and I hope you and LL realise you could have gained ten times that number of signatures!!!
May 1st, 2007 at 12:18 AM
If you value the views in this letter, Sign It! A number of people have mentioned they wish they had know sooner, but it has only been live for about 24 hours. If people think 1,500 signatures is significant, factor in the reality that it has spread that far in a day.
Continue to add your names, and show at the Town Hall meeting just how large a populace feels strongly about the positive future direction of Second Life.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:19 AM
I am not one to complain but what does posting on the issue tracker do really .. Its not like its a new issue .. so what does it do .. I dont get it .. I mean that friends issue is there already .. but its not being addressed as far as i can see in game.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:20 AM
Here’s the link to the open letter, its still ’signable’
http://www.projectopenletter.com/
May 1st, 2007 at 12:21 AM
Also.. How do we know there was really a letter? This could be some sheisters way of a pre-emptive strike in regards to the festering zit that is growing rappidly? “Let’s toss something at them that makes them think someone is on it for them so they don’t go out and start looking for lawyers.” I haven’t seen hide nor hair of this letter before hand, why not?
Think about it.. are we bieng double duped?
May 1st, 2007 at 12:21 AM
I signed the letter!
May be late for the time to acknowledge, didn’t know about it til just now, but hopefully this will come out to make SL better!
Almost to 1600 now!
May 1st, 2007 at 12:22 AM
Just FYI, the letter only came out about day ago but it got a lot of media attention. So those of you who couldn’t sign, you can now and people are putting up signs with links to the online letter inworld starting today.
http://www.projectopenletter.com/
May 1st, 2007 at 12:23 AM
I agree with Envoy, sign the letter. The website is still up and LL can see it growing. The more that sign, the better it is, hopefully we’ll get some results. Like Isa stated, we’re not here to bash nor trash. We’re here to get solutions to the ongoing issues. I’m sure it’s a lot of work, but please stop adding things and fix the problems we have now.
@Rose I posted the link to the open letter on an earlier comment.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:24 AM
Corvaire Wind: this was written by SL residents.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:26 AM
Bug voting concept is very common in the computer industry and especially in the open source community, to the point it is included as a feature in Bugzilla and Jira. It is not necessarily indicative of “bug ridden systems.”
May 1st, 2007 at 12:27 AM
“C\LL just need to admit that SL is bugged to hell right now, and every update seems to break more and build a bigger wall between LL and SL’s residents.”
Well useful.well……..just another resource that LLABS is using to do the human factors job……..
May 1st, 2007 at 12:28 AM
[...] we’ll never know what bits actually triggered it, but The Official Blog contains a preliminary response to the open letter (reported here, and promises a more detailed [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 12:29 AM
@Corvaire Wind:
I am not sure what you are implying, but the entire course of the development of this letter is documented at http://www.secondcitizen.com, in the General Forums, where the idea was born and the letter was collaboratively worked on. Additionally, the text of the letter that was sent to Linden Lab is available at http://www.projectopenletter.com. Trust me, this is not some strange dupe - just concerned customers trying to bring attention to long standing problems in Second Life. I appreciate the initial response from Robin, and look forward to what else comes out of this process. Thank you to everyone, including Linden Lab, for their support.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:41 AM
Hooray! A link to sign the letter at last
Thankyou Aradia 
IMPORTANT QUESTION … I want to add places in SL where others can sign too, but what do I actually place at the location in SL to enable people to sign the letter?
I’m sure I’m not the only one who would appreciate some help with this .
May 1st, 2007 at 12:41 AM
Yeah, add my name to that letter regarding STABILITY, Mauve has had chronic spats of high downloads pending (whose effects include not being able to rez items), which thanks to the removal of live help cannot be reported for a semi-timely restart, and I strongly suspect that automated monitoring of server status is either not catching it, or is being ignored.
JIRA has yet to become palettable to me, though I occasionally sniff at it.
Apparently Linux/Mac SL clients will lock-up/crash after a several minutes due to the download timeouts caused by the large pending download counts that appear from time to time. Maybe this has already been JIRAed, maybe not…
May 1st, 2007 at 12:43 AM
@37. In the open source world yes, I agree. Resources are limited and the software/systems are provided free of charge and hence there can be less expectation from the end user. But SL isn’t like that. With “commercial” systems it’s very rare because customers generally have a higher expectation, and rightfully so, because they are paying. In those situations telling customers that you need to vote on what in the myriad of issues gets fixed is pretty darn close to an admission that it’s out of control and they cannot cope with the volume. The simple fact is that SL isn’t stable, is bug ridden and hasn’t, despite the frequent promises to the contrary, got appreciably better in this regard.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Like so many pointed out, please no more additions till the current system is stable, esepcially on the network level. Certain regions i simply cannot enter anymore. I seems related to traffic/lag. All my network traffic just dies and i get a (partial) disconnect. Its something my friends have to, but the weird this is they dont always experience it in the same areas, though sometimes they do.
I really hope Linden will focus on stabelising stuff, before adding anymore features. If it comes down to it even i prefer a stable game over a fast game, trust me i can wait a few minutes for a rezz.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:48 AM
[...] Project Open Letter Response 30 04 2007 Well, it seems that Project Open Letter is beginning to make a difference. At least, the project prompted a response from Linden Labs, and they posted an initial response. [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 12:48 AM
The letter is an excellent method of communicating some of the residents of Second Life’s concerns.
I would have signed it, but due to some of the content, which allows for it to encapsulate discrimination, I will not.
It unfortunately includes statements/proviso’s that certain types of account would not be welcome to use the community and be excluded, and their abilities be subject to restrictions, when times get tough, I will not be a party to that discrimination in any shape or form.
I am all for improvements in raising standards for the quality of useability and communication and believe this method of communicating with Linden Labs was a great opportunity, sadly mar’d.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:54 AM
RoseLinUK London: A logo for the Project was agreed to and you need a script to make a prim give you a link to a website.
Logos: http://forums.secondcitizen.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=7393&d=1177962765
Thread:
http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=11950
May 1st, 2007 at 12:56 AM
Jira is a complex and frustrating method for the average Second Life resident and not something a new resident is even likely to be aware of. If this is meant to replace the simple method of being able to hit an obvious “report bug” button in world, then it is a poor replacement. The only effect it will have will be to cause fewer bugs to be reported as most people won’t go through the hassle and frustration of opening the site and attempting to navigate through it. But I suspect that was the point.
However it is nice to see at least this tepid response from the Lindens. So now for some actual responses to the issues raised next with any luck.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:00 AM
I would have signed this letter earlier had I heard about it. You can make that 1591 now.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:04 AM
[...] And the Lindens have made at least a first tepid response to the letter on the Official Blog. [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 1:05 AM
To all the people saying they would have signed the open letter, you still can! The website is still open, and there is no reason not to ad your voice and signature just because the letter has already been read. If you think this is important, ad your name to the list so it becomes apparent just how many residents support this.
To the Lindens: thank you for hearing us. Second Life is a wonderful world. Please don’t smother it by allowing important issues to fester on. I’m sure you don’t want to witness the decline of SL any more than we do.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:07 AM
AWM Mars: Really, it would have been very difficult to get everyone to agree to everything in such a letter. There are people who disagree with that one aspect of the letter and signed anyway. The problems on the grid right now are too much. We can’t make LL implement any specific suggestion but giving us some *real* answers and information about what they plan to do to *solve* these problems is the goal.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:12 AM
This is a huge opportunity for all to keep this flow of candid, productive back and forth communication going. From the response so far, it’s obvious this is something we’ve all been waiting for. It’s been a frustrating few months. Hopefully all the issues will be resolved before “Project Open Letter Two-The Quickening” has to be released.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:13 AM
Jira is too many factors that only some issues are adresses. While others are not even looked at. Its just as they say a “stop gap” for people by LLABS to control the people. useless to some helpful to the those that want to do people control..
May 1st, 2007 at 1:13 AM
I believe this is a good link to sign the letter:
http://www.projectopenletter.com/Sign.aspx
I must admit I am not having any sl problems, in fact the last few updates have significantly improved my experience, but I am concerned for those who are in a different situation and I am concerned for the overal impact on sl commerce/well being/user satisfaction and worse the impact on sl enthusiasts when their second life doesn’t work - many are, if not dependant, at least heavily reliant on sl, the impact on them must be horrible.
I would like to go to the Town Hall meeting with at least 10,000 signatures on the letter, let’s go guys, get signing!
May 1st, 2007 at 1:17 AM
well i have signed and sent out link to all my friends and groups in game .. The numbers of signatures that we take to the Town Hall meeting will speak volumes so sign people ..
May 1st, 2007 at 1:18 AM
FYI the friends list still goes off now and then, my poor husband thought I had abandoned him yesterday.
The Notice is still going off on … this is so bad especially if you have a club how are we suppose to reach people ? for me it looks like it goes of a peek times (when the US is awake) at least it has been so for me
Ruth attacks is much more frequent than it used to be (to be fair it was even before the last update) and relogging / clearing cache dont always work
Crashes and freezing is getting worse and when you crashe things that were fine before is screwed when you get back on
This is the worst update I have ever see (wich is why Im bothering to write in here cos normally you guys get things fixed fast) in the 7 months I have been active in SL. Please Please Please fix it as fast as you can and pleaseeeee give us some kind of button to reache you inworld we are so lonely in there
Same goes for the Concierge team could we possibly have some kind of way to get to a linden one on one ?
I normally never complain cos I can see how hard you are working but this time its pure hell and the “bugs” are not getting fixed completely
May 1st, 2007 at 1:20 AM
1,500 users, small and large have stated that there are issues with communication. The word comes down again and again. Use the Blog and JIRA. It is a Mantra. But no one listens.
Like so many of the systems put into place, JIRA is complicated and scary and when one looks around it seems to be another great waste of time. Lindens are not seen to be paying attention to it other than to use it as an excuse to not deal with an issue in a timely manner. File it, forget it.
So many bugs. But one can see very clearly what is important. Pumping out more sims. Congratulations that the wait is down to 4 days. I have written 15+ emails over the past 3 months to conciage and I only got one reply, “Will look into it when we have time”. A week later.
I have called for support equal ammount of times. Never able to get a human I politely leave a message that I am assured by a tape that will be returned. Nothing.
All the avenues to communicate are closed, clogged or rotated out into the trash. “Fend for your self is the word”.
Now we all patiently put our signatures to a letter saying we want this to be fixed. We support SL, we have not screamed foul words, we have not threatened to steal first born children. The authors were polite and supportive.
The responce that the hours are posted on googles calendar for linden staff. Oh joy. Now lets all make thier day hell by lineing up to beg for thier mercy. Just like a serf going to the Laird. Oh please sire…….. Hear my petition.
Please wake up. Hiding the work times and places on google is just LAME. Just like stating the blog is better than the Forums. “Use the blog, use the blog” because it is Wordprss and works well. It has infuriated peoples, it doesn not work well and closes off comments due to yet another unfixed bug if one believes one of the very few comments posted by a Linden.
So when people are lost they do wonderful things. Open Letter shows that, you the lindens, are simpily not listening by choice or intent. The natives tried their best useing the avenues that were laid out and they obviously don’t work.
This response from the lindesn is fluf, a brush off and answers nothing, tells us nothing other than OOOO find a Linden through google and we will have a town hall.
Pfft.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:21 AM
if I could “vote” for specific items listed on that letter instead of signing for all the stuff there I would do so, but there are a couple of things they mention in there that I disagree and wouldn’t like to have implemented, so I won’t be signing it as it is now….
May 1st, 2007 at 1:21 AM
look like the bug is from 1/2 life or by life chat
linden look like u are haveing a terrorism act on u severs its est u report this to the ur govt ..look we all know the no one can do it them self there many bugs made in this world ..it looks realy bad
look like some edit and mon ur severs and computers ..rember some
object are use for bad that how they made the Black market online …
May 1st, 2007 at 1:25 AM
#49 + #50
I have to ask, with such a noble thing, trying to get momentum of the community to get Linden Labs to perhaps pay attention to the people, why this letter had to include some form of discrimination? It is not needed and unwarranted!
May 1st, 2007 at 1:34 AM
@58 who are you to talk for LLABS?
Gesh No man is a island here we all here for the same cause.
1.) then you must like crashing
2.) you love the group IM mess
3.) then you also love griefters as well
4.) unable to log in is what you want instead of being in SL
5.) stop all is well on sl BLA BLA BLA…..
Gesh the ball of some people
May 1st, 2007 at 1:36 AM
The problem with the bug voting system is there are just too many bugs and all the votes get spread so thin to the point it’s meaningless. There should be a bug lottery, and two bugs are picked as the bugs of the Quarter. Then people are asked to vote on which of those two get fixed. that way a meaninful vote could happen. And the real neat part is, LL has to actually fix the bug.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:43 AM
>”I have to ask, with such a noble thing, trying to get momentum of the community to get Linden Labs to perhaps pay attention to the people, why this letter had to include some form of discrimination? It is not needed and unwarranted!”
It’s not meant to be discrimination. It’s simply the commonly understood concept that when resources are not unlimited those who pay for them should naturally have greater access to them than those who do not.
It’s not discrimination when the cable company gives you fewer channels for paying less and more channels for paying more. It’s not discrimination when you sign up for a free account on say a Friend Finder site for instance and only have access to a set number of profiles per day and must pay to be able to have unlimited access.
That’s all that is being suggested, that those who pay nothing have a slightly limited access in order to ensure that there is enough resources (server space) to go around. It’s really a very reasonable concept that in fact I’ve only seen Second Life people ever question.
However that said, it isn’t possible for everyone to agree on every point in order to be willing to sign. Many people who disagree with some of the points are still signing because they understand that the important message…. that we are as you said, trying to get Linden Lab to listen …. is still valid and worth supporting.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:46 AM
Perhaps I should say also, I am a massive fan of SL, I am invested financially, personally, as is my partner, I have not signed the letter to bash LL, or in any way hurt the company, or defame them.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:47 AM
[...] http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/04/30/project-open-letter/ [...]
May 1st, 2007 at 1:51 AM
Hi.
As a regular user og the SL, I’ve already experienced numerous updates and must say, I haven’t experienced any improvements in performance on the contrary :-(! I fully back up the statement regarding the claim for more performance, nothing more irritating than lag, or missing clothing/textures!!!
Have a nice day!
Best regards, Kenn
May 1st, 2007 at 1:53 AM
look what i find when i was on loged on got mail it was from shopathome ..so u looked it up and look what i find….
GirlHacker’s Random LogMy Palm is synched to my home computer. My phone talks to no one. Which way will the market go? Or will lots of systems compete? Will a standard emerge? …
http://www.girlhacker.com/2001_03_01_archive.html - 58k
May 1st, 2007 at 1:55 AM
“Today we received a letter signed by over 1,500 Residents requesting that Linden Lab focus on performance improvements in several areas in Second Life.”
Where can I sign that?
Honestly, I’ve had a hell of a time with SL lately. And being that I studied game design, I almost spaz when I see some of the issues in the game. Because they can be fixed so easy! I know LL is trying to keep up with the number of new people, but honestly, most new people in SL are not active. Most profiles, lay empty if you do a search… I think removing non active characters would help some.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:59 AM
#64 “Where can I sign that?”
Here
http://www.projectopenletter.com/Default.aspx
May 1st, 2007 at 1:59 AM
I followed the [#SVC-85] link and tried to log in so I could vote. After I entered my login info it sent me back to the linked page but still want ed me to login so I could vote. After that every time I clicked Log In it just reloaded the page. So I was unable to vote for this issue because I was unable to log-in.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:00 AM
Sign here:
http://www.projectopenletter.com/Sign.aspx
May 1st, 2007 at 2:09 AM
This was about time.
I miss the opportunity to talk about the problems I have with SL sometimes. Very often, comments are not allowed, and if a forum exist, it is good hidden.
What I wish to have is the possibility to say e.g. teleporting is not working (like it is currently) and get the feeling that someone hears it.
The bug tracker is too technical for me and for my only bug report there, I got flamed. How can you provide information to reproduce problems like “I can’t login” or “I can’t teleport” if all you have to do is try it?
I am very dissapointed about SL and if there would be a stable 3rd life, I’d go there.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:23 AM
“Please go ahead and use the Issue Tracker to add your details, I’ll update with anything new I find out first thing in the morning. Thanks. :)”
I added that the Friends list on the web has not worked at all and it was marked as duplicate of the on line friends list not working all the time. To add insult to injury when I log into SL I get a tip of the day telling me I can jump to my friends by clicking them on the web page. No I can’t! It does not work and has been disabled since the last SL update. Someone must have put the message saying it has been disabled so someone must know if it will be fixed. At least remove that tip of the day if you are not going to fix it!
May 1st, 2007 at 2:25 AM
Well done Cristiano!
I had my doubts it would be heard but it seems they can’t ignore it when we all shout at once !
WTG! but this is only the 1st step. To really fix the problems LL need a sea change in their working practice, the “Tao of Linden” isn’t doing us the end users any real good. LL need a proper QA dept. One with power to force the programmers to fix bugs before working on new pet ideas.
They also need to re-open a proper 2 way avenue of communication with us the residents again. I can never get hold of a consierge when I really need one. Not ever. It’s made me throw my hands up in the air with frustration and anger. And that’s not how I want or need to feel!
May 1st, 2007 at 2:26 AM
Can you put the contents of this blog post under the Support link? Logically, since these are the options people have for seeking information/reporting problems, people should be able to find them by clicking on Support.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:32 AM
While I fully understand and respect the 1500+ people that published this argument, I am 100% against anyone that chooses to align themselves against the less-than-vocal users that choose to remain anonymous in SL. I want you to think back to the original premise of SL.. “Second” Life. Many of us wish to stick to that name even if some of you want everyone to link their first lives to their second lives.
I, for one, disdaine the day when all of us will have to post our driver’s liscenses in SL to “prove” who we are.. If, indeed that is where we are going then I hope SL changes its name to ‘First Life’ since that is what so many of you seem to want. And that will be a sad day indeed…
May 1st, 2007 at 2:38 AM
Good result, Cory may well be the technically minded person for the job, but it would be nice to see Phillip and some Linden Hierachy pressent,(so we can cage him and keep him inworld at problem sims till we are appeased )
May 1st, 2007 at 2:39 AM
Thank you for responding to the open letter, however please dont assume for one second that it position on unverified accounts in any way represents the majority position. EVERY new user to SL makes SL a better and richer place for all of us.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:43 AM
Torley @17
The Issue tracker is a labryrinth, i have been there several times and i can never find the way in… I know you sent me the page where its supposed to explain it… thats the page i mean…
This is the only place i know where i can raise issues… and i support the open letter wholeheartedly. I will be at the meeting.. I hope it will be announced here.
The Mainland is rapidly becoming a wasteland. I have heard residents say “no way you would get me to own Mainland land now, i got out to an island X months ago, and boy am i glad”
The club i help to manage, which my SO owns, is struggling through lack of support … Ads disappearing, Search going down, Friends list out, Tp not working, these all mean our customers dont get to us.. and if they manage to get there by a miracle, the tp between rooms doesnt work, the facilities we provide downt work thanks to script errors and warpos errors, and if they just stay to chat, they are hit by lag spikes so bad they crash, log off or leave.
Not all of these problems still exist, but they are all problems that have hit us hard… We worked so hard to make the club work… and its dying.. And all the time.. the support and help we should receive is slowly eroded as Lindens involvement in world turns from a happy presence to a brick wall, with even Blog comments closed more often than not.
If the mainland has been designated to become a ghetto.. Please at least let us go down fighting. If the Mainland is no longer habitable, then perhaps its residents should be rehoused.
I for one find the open letter most laudible.
Imogen Saltair
May 1st, 2007 at 2:46 AM
“Volksbegehren” in SecondLife
Nachdem das JuraWiki kürzlich die ersten WikiTreffen im SecondLife abgehalten hat, richtet sich unser Augenmerk verstärkt auf die rechtlichen Aspekte des zweiten Lebens. Erstaunlich ist, dass diese virtuelle Welt bisher keinen Rechtsrahmen zu haben sche
May 1st, 2007 at 2:49 AM
The simple fact of the matter:
LINDEN LAB DOES NOT LISTEN TO ITS RESIDENTS
They talk about engaging us, involving us in the development of the world / game / life / platform, but in actual fact they have no real interest in our comments or views. I was a live helper I fought for that to stay, they didn’t even listen to us, and we were booted out of the job with 4 hours notice.
This letter is an open way of telling the lab we are not happy, the Tao of Linden is great when every thing is working well, currently, its not! LL needs a project management team to come in and take this by the reins.
There is no disagreement from me that the new features in the pipeline, Havoc2, Sculpted prims, HTML on Prims, Mono are great and some of them will actually help performance. But these nice, well great things will be of no use if there are no customers left to enjoy them. Further more how are you going to get big corporations to join this adventure if there are no customers? – No offence or anything but if the residents leave, and you don’t get any investment from the big Blue chips, then some of the lindens will lose their jobs!
WE DO HAVE SOME POWER! – If they refuse to listen to us, then maybe its time to vote with our feet and contact as many news, world press agencies as possible. In the UK the BBC (A major national media company) have had a lot of features about SL, perhaps if they had the truth, it would start to halt peoples interest in SL and signups will fall. Imagine if this spread to all the major news agencies, CNN, FOX, and Reuters – they’ve all featured SL at some point just look at you tube for clips.
I love SL, but ive also been reduced from an addict to a is it even worth logging in type person, I even got out a normal run of the mill multiplayer game last night as SL was pointless to even try using.
ANY REAL LEADER or CEO would at this point address the troops in this case us the residents, not Cory (No Offence) Phil should be posting here apologising for the problems, telling them HOW HE is trying to organise the company to get it fixed in a manner more fitting of a company with a system of this scale.
In addition to this, PHIL should be organising the town hall, and he should be present for as many hours as is needed to answer the questions we have. In fact personally I feel that the entire management team should be present and available during the town hall.
Let me know how you feel about these comments.
JP
May 1st, 2007 at 2:55 AM
It’s good someone finally made an open approachment on this. I signed the letter, as I agree with it wholeheartedly. SL keeps getting changed, new features are added, old ones are removed. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad. But ever since I started playing almost a year ago, the quality decreased. More lag, more crashes, less fun.
Seriously, before working on features (and new bugs, that’s the way it is), try to remove the old bugs and make it stable and performant again. That’s what I highly recommend.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:01 AM
Great job all on the letter. Great idea too.
Now what about current issues again? sims that dont allow people to change clothing, build, put on attachments, or do much of anything period?
actually what I think a lot of us really want is slower feature updates and faster fixes for stability. Seems every update just brings some kind of dissapointments
I know me and my circle of friends appreciate hard work and new features can be fun but not at the cost of broken SL.
keep on keeping on
May 1st, 2007 at 3:05 AM
@59
1.) then you must like crashing
* Absolutely no problems. If i crash it’s 90% due to my own system wich has (yet) not enough ram to cope with my needs.
2.) you love the group IM mess
* That is fixx0rd allready. If you close a group IM it will not apprear again like it did a couple of days ago.
3.) then you also love griefters as well
* Heh, this is just a mere annoyance and how much you want to protect your world, griefers will allways be there. Enjoy them, just know that they are and will be lone keyboard jockeys with a pathetic life and a very low self-esteem. They need attention, and as long as you give them what they want, they keep doing their thing.
4.) unable to log in is what you want instead of being in SL
* This happens once or twice a month… oh teh drama. If it fails, go outside, do your groceries or clean up your house. Sit in the sun or take your binoculars and spy on your neighbours. Do something else then sitting behind that screen. (says one who is a true SL addict ^^’
5.) stop all is well on sl BLA BLA BLA…..
* All -is- well on SL. Bugs keep this thing interesting, the fact that slowly but steadily those bugs are fixx0rd even more. Also please keep in mind that if your computer is old and feeble, SL just wont run properly. There are so many MMORPG alternatives. Go google them and see if those others are more to your likings.
Gesh the ball of some people
* Oh my, do you really mean that? You’re actually bothered by comments on that OpenLetter thing or others’ opinion? Breathe in, breathe out.
——
All and all, relax! SL has exploded in an unimaginable rate and that brings problems with it. LL will eventually fix the most important part of the bugs.
So, are you bothered by lag, bugs, griefers, your neigbours cat or that smelly fart from your bf/gf under the blanket? Deal with it and move on. Leave the drama to the theater. They’re pro’s.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:07 AM
Sorry Linden Lab - your reply is the same tired old thing, warmed over and represented. It doesn’t alter the situation one iota.
You simply don’t want to HEAR anything other than synchophantic praise for your work.
You’ve had the message - ignore that at you peril.
IN DETAIL:
Jira is a joke - possibly the most user un-friendly impenetrable whatever the hell it is anyone’s ever seen. Only the extreme tech-heads can begin to understand it. Thus the majority of us don’t. And can’t use it.
Knowledge base is LITERALLY a waste of time. I’ve yet to hear a single resident saying ‘I had this terrible issue, and I checked the knowledge base - and there was the answer’. it’s shallow and doesn’t address anything more than superficial problems - ok for Newbs maybe.
Wiki? COME ON! That doesn’t cover anything of relevance to the vast majority of us.
What’s happened is, you didn’t like hearing complaints about SL performance or the way you were managing SL (Philip actually admitted this publicly at a town hall). So you effectively killed the major source of complaints by crippling the forums and tried to silence us that way.
Then you started disabling Comments your shiny new blog, because you didn’t like the complaints surfacing there.
Then you killed Live Help - and please, let’s not pretend it was any rationalisation of ‘help’ - we all know better.
You effectively went away and hid - unable to face the fact that many, if not the bulk of your customers are not satisfied with your running of SL.
Meantime you continued to shovel on the ’shiny’ - while ignoring existing serious bugs and adding even more - as you always have.
Finally, your (previously) most uncritical supporters have been driven to organise this letter.
I think it’s pretty much your last chance.
And what do you do? Try and spin your way out of it!
You people really DO NOT LEARN, do you?
Anyway, you have your chance - please take it rather than carrying on as before. There won’t be another.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:08 AM
Sign the letter people…….
May 1st, 2007 at 3:09 AM
hi,
JIRA is a nice tool to report and explain issues.
it is not to technical and everyone can use it.
the thing with issue / bug trackers is, that it should
show progress. but still, over 90% of the opened
bugs are not assigned. this means, people who report
bugs on JIRA will not know if this problem will be
fixed sooner or later. this leads to frustrated users.
in general, introduce JIRA to your liaisons and
volunteers as well, they may be a easy to understand
human interface and filter to the bug tracker.
to close communication channels, like the in-world
help, is always a bad problem. switching between
in-world and web browser is also contra productive.
another thing i like to mention on here, is, to improve
quality of SL and LLresidents relationship:
- always use the UTZ (or GMT) time zones when you
have to deal with times in the forum or wherever.
- neverever close the comments on forum posts when
you think it could get bad responses.
- keep a time schedule up, with LL liaisons online times.
- try to make any and all help notecards also multilingual
- get more multilingual liaisons
- open up a international toll-free support hotline
most of this points are due to the fact that the majority