Second Life Grid Status Reports
Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 1:38 PM by: Katt LindenAre you following the Second Life Grid Status Reports? If your business, your event, or your time with friends may be impacted by the Grid Status, we want you to have all the information we can get you, as quickly and easily as possible.
We’ve been posting Status Updates mixed in with a variety of posts on other topics. We realize that many of you don’t want to have to hunt through the blog for needed Status information, so in an effort make it easier for you, we’re following the tech industry standard and moving that information to a Status page.
Starting today, we’ll be collecting all the Second Life Grid Status Reports onto that one page. Now, you can check for an update without having to scan through all the other blog posts.
You can also subscribe to updates on your mobile phone using Twitter, or with an RSS reader.
Yep, get your Second Life Grid Status Reports, wherever you go.
Subscribe!
Now you can subscribe to the reports, and make sure they’re sent directly to you.
* Get updates sent to your RSS reader.
* Subscribe with your mobile phone and you can get Twitter updates while you’re out and about. Go ahead, take that meeting, go back to class, do your shopping, take a walk, get some other work done, and when the next Second Life Grid Status Report comes out, you’ll hear about it.
https://twitter.com/SLGridStatus
RSS: What is it? Status Reports sent Directly to You
- RSS? The BBC offers a good, simple article that goes right to “How do I start…?”
- If you’d like to get more technical, try Wikipedia
What is Twitter? Get Status Reports on your Mobile Phone or Computer
- With your Twitter, you can subscribe to updates directly on your mobile phone (or at your computer.)
- Twitter FAQ
- Twitter Japan, for better service in Japan
- 3 Tips to Get Twitter on Your Cellphone for Free
Quick Links: Second Life Grid Status Reports
- Second Life Grid Status Reports
- Direct link to the new page which collects all Status Reports, so you can easily read the updates.
- http://status.secondlifegrid.net/
Subscribe to the Second Life Grid Status Reports via Twitter
- Want to subscribe to updates with your mobile phone? You can do so with the Twitter feed.
- https://twitter.com/SLGridStatus
Subscribe to the Second Life Grid Status Reports via RSS
April 28th, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Yay! Good move, Katt.
Will grid status entries still be here too or just at the new place?
April 28th, 2008 at 1:46 PM
Good move, as long as the status report link is very prominent on the website. Nice use of Twitter too.
In terms of custom and practice some people are going to find this a challenge mind you, are you going to still blog emergency reports to the main blog page and then move them to the status page or will the main blog only contain non status related material?
How will this effect the top 4 blog messages on login?
April 28th, 2008 at 1:49 PM
Why does http://secondlifegrid.net/resources/service_metrics
have no data from 2008?
April 28th, 2008 at 1:50 PM
That’s a good move, now is there any chance that ANYONE with some authority will listen to the pleas to announce problems IN-WORLD, directly to those who will be MOST effected, immediately, by the issues? WHY can we not get IN-WORLD announcements of important grid status issues?????
April 28th, 2008 at 1:55 PM
How about a page that has the most prevalent bugs that residents are having issue with and the current workaround if any?
Many residents are very intimidated by the PJIRA and a page that details in clear and concise language that we understand your frustration with the issue and it is being looked at goes a long way towards communicating with residents. You could still link to the PJIRA issue after the simplified response and allow residents to get more detailed information and/or vote for the issue. It may in fact serve to increase the number of residents that are active on the PJIRA so that we get more feedback across various configurations.
Doing this would also remove some of the burden of these commonly asked questions from volunteers so they can focus on other areas not related to bugs.
Win Win situation all around. One person updating a simple web page can save thousands of residents a lot of time and frustration.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:55 PM
Katt thanks for the info. And looks like you are making a difference already, if you were the one to persuade posters to leave the comments open
April 28th, 2008 at 1:56 PM
Very useful to plan activities if …. SL is stable (asset server problems)!!
April 28th, 2008 at 2:01 PM
@4 I think they have trouble noticing the load based slow-downs, it seems they only blog when a server somewhere actually breaks from the strain and triggers their alarms. I’m as tired of not being able to build as anyone else, believe me. I did see an in-world notice Saturday night, but, again, that was a server actually going offline, not just the usual weekend overload.
Katt: I would love to know just how the asset server “cluster” is layed out and what LLabs means by ‘cluster’ in the first place. Is it a ‘cluster’ as in Beowulf cluster (Many computers behaving as one big one) or is it a load balancing system that spreads asset storage out across dozens/hundreds of computers that each maintain their own data (Say, 5k avatars inventory on one computer, 500 sims objects on another, texture storage, sounds, etc?)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:03 PM
Thanks Meade, Ciaran, Dallas!
Glad you like the use of Twitter.
Change is always a challenge, of course. You should see (later today) very easy to notice links on this blog page linking to the Status Reports. At this point you’ll still see them in the Viewer (that’s the top 4 blog messages, on login.)
The main blog will generally not have status related posts, except in cases like the Rolling Restart announced today (for later this week.) The team wanted to post it here as well to make sure to be able to get your comments!
Dallas, about in-world announcements, I’ve been hearing the call, and will see what’s possible.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:06 PM
@Jaxx — take a look at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Service_Disruptions and see if that anwers your question about the ‘cluster’.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
How about just messaging people in world more often.. That would to me seem the easiest thing to do!!!!!!! I read while back LL wants people in world not looking at websites all day long!!!!!
April 28th, 2008 at 2:09 PM
Great Idea Kat!
Since your the Linden of communication, I wonder if it would be possible to give some more information about the DMCAs? A lot of creators feel ignored and left in the cold because Linden Labs ignored their DMCAs for removal of stolen textures on UUIDS or blocking stolen items and we get no answer at all why these are ignored.
Why is this?
April 28th, 2008 at 2:22 PM
Robin: Looking at that wiki page, it says “Since transient data during region crossings (attachment states, etc) are written as assets, region crossings will also often fail.”
I was under the impression that transient data was being passed directly region-to-region since SL 1.8 (or thereabouts) to avoid having to save it to the asset server and restore it again… and that was given as the reason for the amazing improvement in teleport performance around that time. What am I missing?
April 28th, 2008 at 2:25 PM
Twitter comes through almost immediately when someone enters the message. The blog RSS on the other hand (and I don’t know how this will play out for the status reports RSS), does not propagate quickly *at all*. (For reference, I use Google Reader and there is sometimes quite a delay between something being posted at blog.secondlife.com and when it shows up in Reader.)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:34 PM
i just wana say OMFG seriously
you cannot even send a bloody inworld status report when things go down but you can send a freaking RSS FED THIS IS A SERIOUS FLAW can you PLEASE GET SOME priorities straight here we want in world NOTAFICATION of when this are going crazy on this asset server not everyone get these blogs or feeds every 10 second we are in world and not always wanting to refresh a web browser that makes SL crash
April 28th, 2008 at 2:35 PM
Thanks, Katt & team … I love the idea. Now to get Blogger to recognize the feed (feed://status.secondlifegrid.net/feed/). I keep getting “Invalid feed URL.” when trying to add it to my page. Well, first time for trying. I’ll get it.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:36 PM
@15 I reread the post and didn’t see where it said that in-world nofications would not be given. Could you cite your source?
April 28th, 2008 at 2:39 PM
Using Twitter? Linden’s using the tubes, who’d have thought it.
Go on Katt, admit it, you’re a lifehacker reader aren’t you?
@14 Google reader can be patchy at picking up feeds, the price we pay for convenience I suppose. At least we’ve got some twitter love.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Dirk,
That is a wonderful idea. Many SLers *are* intimidated by the PJIRA. Having a simple, efficient system for common problem solutions would be not only expedient but would allow more user interaction. More community sharing makes happier SLers.
Best Regards, Bevan
April 28th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
@17 we cannot get them to understand how important it is now to get an inworld notifacation how will this be any different? that is my point
April 28th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Why not just make the game WORK and then you dont have to go to such extreems as to make a TWITTER blog to tell us when stuff is BROKEN!!!
do it the easy way, only twitter once a month when crap WORKS
April 28th, 2008 at 2:46 PM
I’m glad to see lots of new Twitter subscribers, welcome! I hope it is useful, and I’ll be interested in your feedback.
With a nod to Ordinal Malaprop, you can get Twitter inside Second Life, of course! Disgusted, perhaps this will be the fastest way for you to get in world updates, for now? http://ordinalmalaprop.com/twitter/
Uccello, I hear the request for in-world notifications, and I’ll investigate what’s possible (practically speaking.)
April 28th, 2008 at 2:46 PM
in other words they rarely give us inworld notes when things are breaking very very rare warnings
April 28th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
thanks Kat but i do not want to run another program along with SL as unstable as it is hell my screen saver kicks in and SL crashes the viewer has the ability for lindens to send us inwold messages it is beyond me why its not used or very rarely used when issues arise please enlighten me
April 28th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
so now its twitter or die eh? (upgrade or die motto is from microsoft)
so basically we are being forced to use some other technology now. why? is all the outages, and anytime transactions are borked it is an outage whether sl is online or not, and should be refected in the sl uptime metrics as an outage, not wanted on the public face of the blog?
if its not broken then break the system people are used to right?
thats great. put it on the blog too. why hide it? i guess we will have to find other sl related blogs to get our info from. oh and btw, the grid status seldom reflects the actual state of the grid. it either says online or database offline when the grid is actually up. something seems odd about all this. i really don’t recall seeing some big mass of residents complaining about actual status being present on the blog so whats the real story Katt? Sorry if i come across a tad jaded. me and a lot of other people would not be so jaded if there was a shred of stability in sl.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Katt, good show. I like to see small things like this, it means the SL team is examining issues and at least TRYING to get the word out about it.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:52 PM
FYI, I tested the RSS feed just now by unsubscribing (from my RSS reader) and then re-subscribing, and I do see the latest blog updates…
Dirk, your suggestion is a good one. This page was designed to be the type of resource you’re seeking, I believe: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Service_Disruptions
April 28th, 2008 at 2:58 PM
I’m pretty pleased with the in-world notifications that we do get. And Ordinal Malaprop’s twitter HUD is awesome. Still banging on Blogger to add it but I keep getting the “invalid URL” message. Maybe it’s too new. I’ll try again tomorrow.
Keep up the great work, Katt. You may have noticed there is someone that will complain about anything … ‘24 hours in a day! Ya gotta be kidding! Why can we have __________?” fill in the blank. Many folks forget that what is good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:03 PM
No Katt,
That page is nowhere even remotely close to anything that I suggested. You may want to read my comments rather than respond based upon another person’s agreement with them.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:04 PM
Hi Disgusted. You certainly do not have to run another application if you don’t care to, it’s simply one option. You can keep reading the Status Updates in a web browser.
Ann, the information won’t be hidden, the opposite really, as it won’t be surrounded by posts about other topics. I do understand your feeling jaded, and I hope that you’ll soon start to think more highly of us. As I said in my introductory post, I’m working on a number of improvements to the technology of the blog (and forums) — an attempt to communicate better, to offer you more options, and make things a bit easier. I think having Twitter and RSS feeds specifically for the Status Updates is a benefit — I hope the rest of you feel the same.
Hewitt, thank you! We are indeed listening, examining issues, and trying to get the word out about what is happening.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:08 PM
The thing that confuses me is this: will status updates solely be on twitter? Will I now need to check yet another website (there, the blog, the forums, status page) to see what is going on with SL?
April 28th, 2008 at 3:10 PM
i swear linden customer get kicked in the pants daily here
status page this is what i get kat second life is DOWN for MAINT i get this when i click on the events page sweet huh.. then when i click the transaction history i get SL status page SL is OPEN sweeet this tells me NOTHING it tells me sl is open or sl is closed when its not absolutely freaking useless
April 28th, 2008 at 3:12 PM
I would never even consider subscribing to something with a name as silly as “twitter.” Why not just put “statsus” on the “status” page, and then have that page generate an in-world notification to everyone? Generally, the status page always says the grid is up, whether the grid is up or not.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:14 PM
Marianne, no, the status updates will not just be on Twitter, they’ll also be available on the Status Reports page and or via RSS (if you like to read the web using an RSS Reader.) The Status updates are *also* still showing up in the Second Life Viewer, so you’ll see that every time you log in.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:18 PM
Andromeda, maybe you should ask the Twitter folks where they came up with the name? http://blog.twitter.com/
We do have Status on the Status Page, http://status.secondlifegrid.net/
Also, when you log in, the Viewer has a big notification if Second Life is down.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:33 PM
@12
“Since your the Linden of communication, I wonder if it would be possible to give some more information about the DMCAs? A lot of creators feel ignored and left in the cold because Linden Labs ignored their DMCAs for removal of stolen textures on UUIDS or blocking stolen items and we get no answer at all why these are ignored. Why is this?”
Katt Linden ignores the question too. They don’t care about their DMCA promise.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:38 PM
Katt, The “status page” I was referring to is http://secondlife.com/status/ which is listed at the bottom of all SL web pages, which is supposed to just give a quick grid is up or grid is down status.
I had a situation Friday night, and it would have been nice to have had an in-world notification that log-ins were disabled.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:49 PM
again i will say USELESS inworld transactions are failing since before noon game time there is NO post anywhere and your RSS feed is from 4 hours ago! nothing about inworld issues at present anywhere on lin den web pages you wil never get this right ever
April 28th, 2008 at 3:58 PM
Well, Missy, Razor stepped in before I’d had a chance to look up an answer for you, but basically, I’m going to have to ask someone who understands DMCA much better than I do to try to respond.
Andromeda, thanks for the clarification. I believe that page will redirect to the new Status page, http://status.secondlifegrid.net/
And again, I hear that you’d like in world notices.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
Disgusted you forgot the ® in your name
it should be “disgusted in linden lab ®TM”
Linden labs kicks you if you forget the ®
You can steal all you want inworld and sell it and violate all the copyrights for months without beeing punished (like some well known brazilian ripper with some soulless shop) but watch out for malusing their trademark. THEN they get mad.
But who cares of creators like Storm from X2, Lost from Naughty Designs or Mallory Cowen from RAC get ripped off? Linden Labs has been of no help after the promises two years ago.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Katt, a suggestion - I believe the reason why so many are clamoring so loudly for in-world notifications is that it seems SO trivial to do, that IF that’s correct, then its silly it isn’t being done. Here’s the deal - we all see notices from Lindens showing up occasionally in blue boxes in the upper right corner of our screen. These generally appear when its getting REALLY bad, to where we’re going to be logged out soon or something to that effect. I’m thinking that if those actually work fine to tell of imminent mass logout and shutdown of the grid, then they should work fine to notify people that the asset servers are having issues (again!) and to not rez anything they don’t want to lose. If that’s the case, then ALL you need is to have a rule - any Linden who posts a new issue on the blog or your new status reports page must take 30 seconds and report it inworld first. Now really, is there some reason that SIMPLE rule couldn’t be adopted, or are we all missing something - in which case just explain what we’re missing!
April 28th, 2008 at 4:07 PM
I know i tend to keep an eye on the blog, and send in-world estate notices to all of my tenants when I see there is an issue brewing. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about that, I’m sure the happiness of residents would be manifold if such in-world notices were being sent grid-wide.
At the very least, i’ll see if these new tools can help me stay abreast of issues on behalf of my tenants.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:12 PM
Thanks Katt.
While I like the idea of Twitter, and will/do use it, I think there really needs to be several places where links to this new status page are given. The front page of the SL website, as a link at the top of the Forums page, and also as a link in SL itself (under Help menu), as well as it coming up on the viewer when logging in. There will be many, many people that won’t know to look at this new page, or know about Twitter, and then get understandably angry when things fail.
Also there really does need to be Inworld notices.
And also a quick way of letting LL know that things are failing when it starts.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:15 PM
posting it on the viewer login page would be more helpfull. i have no idea what twitter is and i dont use a cellphone. EVERYONE sees the frontpage. most people don’t read this blog often (like me), so they miss it otherwise.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:15 PM
i wish that they gave mainland sim owners the same option so i can warm my customers as well but they don’t let us touch there mainland god tools so we have to rely on them to give inworld messages which they either do way to late or never at all …everytime i report an issue on live help i ask them to please post in world some will and most wont…………… to me its just an act of being lazy or could care less about customers in one more way
April 28th, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Nice idea. Now make the 1.20 viewer functionable and fix the database and grid issues.
So that we can enjoy the places you will be pointing at.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:31 PM
Katt - since you’re communications, and this is the only viable way of communicating with you - could you please look at another issue? Currently I’m monitoring two CRITICAL (LL Definition: Generally, most crashes (particularly if they’re easy to reproduce and affect many), content loss, significant memory leaks, greatly reduced performance, etc.) issues/bugs within the JIRA, which is where we have been asked to report them, of course. One (SVC-2129) has been open for almost three weeks now, and the other (SVC-2219) has been open for more than a week. NEITHER of them has yet to even be acknowledged in any way, shape or form by a Linden, let alone actually be looked into at all. One begins to wonder just what it takes to get Linden Lab’s attention to CRITICAL issues at all?
April 28th, 2008 at 4:41 PM
don’t believe Katts words untill you see the answer about the DMCA lies
shes the so maniest linden that replies “I don’t know about the DMCA and will ask another linden”, but so far NONE of them has been able to find that linden or have gotten him to reply, from all the linden NOONE knows who the responsible linden is or can get him to answer.
yeah right.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:43 PM
As a suggestion, why not simply create a Grid Status Reports group to provide in-world notices and even look at providing these notices via groups in various languages. Of course due to group limits multiples of the same group would need to be created but this seems to be the simplest and most convenient form of in/out-world communication.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Twitter
Holds head in hands disbelievingly……
Ok, Its great, Your able to send a message to a cell phone somewhere. What have we been saying about Bells and Whistles when there are important issues that URGENTLY need attention…
Please
Tonight 4:43 pm, Unable to modify script cos the asset servers are experiencing a minor crisis….. Again…
Search blogs to find out why no in-world warning… Find blooming Twitter….
Please, Leave the toys alone till you have tidied your rooms and get it basically functional so that it can survive 24 hours without a catastrophic failure.
It does nothing for your reputation, when you keep playing with needless add-ons when real work needs doing. And to be honest, if I am away from second life, and I get a message saying I cant login right now as I drive down the highway, am I really that concerned???
If I am in bed, gaining a few hours sleep, and the Phone starts rattling around to tell me that TP’s are down, am I to be impressed????
How about, the old fashioned simple immediate in-word message… then those of us who are having our night recked by frustration can at least push back, grab a coffee, mountain dew or a slice of apfel cheese layer and take five while you un-bork it all again….
PLEASE, Lay Off the Bells and Whistles till you get the core functions stable…
I know you wont listen to this simple plea as it wont fit in with your agenda, listening to customers, but please, consider that which drove me to ask in the first place. You all are quite capable of doing a stunning job with cutting edge technology and fantastic equipment and concepts. But pile em up on smoke and mirrors and it doesn’t look that good or that clever any more.
Sigh’s with Frustration…..
April 28th, 2008 at 4:56 PM
@39 Thanks Katt, i’m looking forward to it.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:57 PM
OK, far as I can tell, this will eliminate blog commentary on grid status entirely.
That is the point, right? Even if it is harder for us to find now.
coco
April 28th, 2008 at 5:06 PM
it’s all smoke and mirrors.
thats just another redundent page with no more detailed information and the lack of bi-directional communication.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:09 PM
I actually think it’s funny that people go into a business deal that costs the same as a BMW vehicle lease (approximately the same down payment, approximately the same monthly cost) without demanding the same legal consideration they would demand for the car lease.
I think it’s funny because they then complain about LL’s performance, but they don’t actually have any valid reason to expect performance.
Every day I wish the people who are in the futile quest to “make money” in SL, would go on to the next thing and leave the world to those of us who are in SL simply because we enjoy it.
The stress that’s on people is obvious to others, and that in itself is not conducive to business.
I want to meet ten people in-world who have consistently earned the equivalent of a minimum wage job for the hours they have invested. Then I might move from “laughing” to “just feeling sorry for them.”
Seriously. Play this game because you enjoy it. Make stuff because you enjoy the stuff being made. Life is too short (and margins too thin) to lose your hair or have a stroke because it’s an uphill struggle to make a living in SL. And another thing: if your problem with SL is that it makes it too difficult to punish people for infringing your copyrights (and don’t *even* come to me with the words “stealing” or “theft”), perhaps SL is not the appropriate creative outlet for you.
I truly wish that “participation” was the ideal in Second Life, and not “profit”. Get over the idea that people are commonly earning enough to offset sim tier without putting in more work than would earn the equivalent amount in RL. Some people may be doing it, but it’s rare, and I’ve found that I have neither the resources nor the inclination to do what they do.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:10 PM
So, in other words we loose ability to comment on service faults?
April 28th, 2008 at 5:13 PM
With no blog, there is no comment line.. Simple….
April 28th, 2008 at 5:22 PM
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-381
April 28th, 2008 at 5:29 PM
@54 which said
“Every day I wish the people who are in the futile quest to “make money” in SL, would go on to the next thing and leave the world to those of us who are in SL simply because we enjoy it.”
yeah lets have em leave and enjoy the world without paying people
then you aint having no sim to hang in but the linden infohubs and no skin shape hair clothing to wear cuz without people paying for those they aint make nothing for you
get a grip man, without paying people, there won’t be much to do. linden labs better clear this ship up before they leave to another grid
April 28th, 2008 at 5:31 PM
look, lindens. your natural interface to the community SHOULD BE in-world. if you don’t take your product serious as a communication platform, why should a investor do? why do you run to titters.com or what ever? why don’t use your very own product for that? i will never understand why you took in-world help out of the ‘game’.. this just shows how serious you really take your very own product.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:35 PM
We’re not shutting down comments, folks.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:44 PM
Hey Katt, what about making a colour co-ordinated one on the corner of the blog? since i look here more often then i do @ /status Red- Yellow- blue - Green or (Offline- Limited - update in progress- all good)
April 28th, 2008 at 5:45 PM
@47 Dallas Seaton who wrote: Currently I’m monitoring two CRITICAL (LL Definition: Generally, most crashes (particularly if they’re easy to reproduce and affect many), content loss, significant memory leaks, greatly reduced performance, etc.) issues/bugs within the JIRA, which is where we have been asked to report them, of course. One (SVC-2129) has been open for almost three weeks now, and the other (SVC-2219) has been open for more than a week. NEITHER of them has yet to even be acknowledged in any way, shape or form by a Linden, let alone actually be looked into at all. One begins to wonder just what it takes to get Linden Lab’s attention to CRITICAL issues at all?
—————————————-
Dallas, attending to CRITICAL issues takes valuable time away from moving buttons around on the UI and fiddling with the colors of the text so that IMs and the Friends List become unreadable thereby making that fact that they no longer work less obvious. Then there are HIGHLY critical tasks to attend to like setting up RSS feeds and Twiter so that people have something to do while waiting for SL logins to be possible once again. Dallas, you’d be surprised theres so much to be done. Count all the bees in the hive. Chase all the clouds from the sky…
April 28th, 2008 at 5:45 PM
@ 54
“I truly wish that “participation” was the ideal in Second Life, and not “profit”. ”
Go tell this to Mr. Rosedale. ROFL.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:47 PM
@60 - OK Katt, tell us how to comment on the status page. Your removing service status from the blog and moving it to the status page. There appears to be no commentary opportunity there. So are you saying you will cross post to this blog so people can comment?
Hint: fix the grid, license a real database and a real transaction manager, hire Nicholaz to take over the viewer by himself, bring in a real team to clean room SLv2 and stop adding to SLv1. I.e.; fix this thing and you won’t have such a need for commentary. venting problem solved.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:04 PM
@ 62
“Dallas, attending to CRITICAL issues takes valuable time away from moving buttons around on the UI and fiddling with the colors of the text so that IMs and the Friends List become unreadable thereby making that fact that they no longer work less obvious.”
Oh yes. and to design a new UI is a really breathtaking task. I wonder if they imported the Netscape UI designers as latest bugs, he he…
Anyway, the JIRA seems to be nothing than some kind of alibi, more than 500 bug reports by users there - unresolved, only for the viewer versions 1.19.1 and the RC 1.20. Fivehundred. WOW!
LL, if you do not even READ what is submitted to you, not to mention RESPOND, just take it down. No one needs another waste of time.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:08 PM
The other PITA Katt is that rather than one prim on my region displaying the last 5 blog.secondlife.com headings I now need 2 prims with associated script loads, one for here for announcements and one for service faults.
No way will I use twitter and other such crud. I don’t have the HUD space and I don’t require to see all the associated rubbish it seems to carry.
How about communicating how we will reposnd when you move all status reports over there, which is what you say you will be doing, and how you will stop people using this forum as a way to try and communicate back.
Linden Lab(tm) loves one way communication and this proves it.
Keep service faults in the blog where we already look, where it is listed on the front page of the client and where we can comment.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:17 PM
@39s post: it would be great if we would finally get an answer to this. It would be greatly appreciated by us. Please katt, help us. we need your help.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:26 PM
@ 59
“why do you run to titters.com or what ever? why don’t use your very own product for that?”
Oh, because it might be possible that a frustrated organised mob would orbit, toss, destruct, disrupt them - and finally demand comminications and true exchange…i stress the word “demand” here. And they would be forced to respond to this. Website is cool, let them whine and complain, who cares? And you can easily redirect treffic to the latest propaganda. In the end they do whatever they want do do, including releasing 500 bugs in two versions of their so called “client” within two months.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:26 PM
[quote] Katt Linden Says:
April 28th, 2008 at 3:58 PM
Well, Missy, Razor stepped in before I’d had a chance to look up an answer for you, but basically, I’m going to have to ask someone who understands DMCA much better than I do to try to respond.[end quote]
yes ask him to give a honest answer. your the communication linden, so you seem the right person to do it. cheers up if you can get us an answer!
Its not okay to keep hosting stolen stuff and making money on our stolen stuff, after promising us copyright protection. we know you can block items because you did this with some griefer objects and trademark violating objects all at once. you let us down after the DMCA promise I am very disappoined in the lack of effort the lindens have put in helping us so far.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:29 PM
Way cool idea
This is definitely a good way to start spreading out your communication tools — one for announcements and another for status reports.
Now, from the comments I’ve read, what people really wish is a place to complain. Well, guys, start a “Disgruntled Residents” blog — that would definitely help you get rid of your frustration by venting your complaints publicly
In the mean time, I’ll be thankful getting meaningful information from LL, in no matter what way — Twitter certainly is my favourite channel of information, since it’s filtered by humans unlike an RSS feed: I just get what I want out of Twitter, and not what others think I want
Then again, LL provides both ways of getting in touch. Well, nice move!
April 28th, 2008 at 6:31 PM
[from the previous post]
-you- refers to linden lab in the last half of the post, not to katt. she’s here to help us i hope she is.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:35 PM
Ah but Gwyneth…
Twitter to mobile phones is a US-Centric thing.
Twitter to HUDS requires the associated loss of screen space plus the associated script loading, which in laggy clubs could be the difference between moving or being stuck at 0.21 dilation.
People will complain, therefore the “good news” posts will be overrun with complaints, something that pretty much disappeared in the last few days when all posts have been open.
Communications from the Lindens(tm) is seen to be one way, twitter and the loss of this forum reinforces that. They don’t care.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:43 PM
I really hope Katt will find the DMCA-avoiding linden and makes him give us an answer.
*hands katt a whip*
20 whippings for ignoring the creators questions
and 20 whipppings for everyday he keeps ignoring them longer.
*sends Katt a flexi whip inworld and a real one by post order*
April 28th, 2008 at 6:44 PM
“Twitter certainly is my favourite channel of information, since it’s filtered by humans unlike an RSS feed: I just get what I want out of Twitter, and not what others think I want ”
Oh, and who feeds twitter?
“Now, from the comments I’ve read, what people really wish is a place to complain.”
And what do you wish? “Meaningful information” or “one for announcements and another for status reports.” Very meaningful, in fact.
“that would definitely help you get rid of your frustration by venting your complaints publicly ”
If LL would stop to vent their bugs no one would be forced to complain and submit bug reports which are ignored. I am not interested in “grid status” and “announcements” as long as they are not even able to make their client software work properly, not to mention the servers. THIS would be “meaningful”.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:30 PM
I’m still hoping someone in the know will answer Argent’s question (#13) about how transient data is handled during a sim crossing. We seem to have conflicting information about this.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:05 PM
Katt you are rapidly approaching Sidewinder as our favourite Linden. Keep up the good work - talking is such a heady brew
April 28th, 2008 at 9:13 PM
@54 (Wyvern): I think you better check those SL economic statistics. Lots of people are making well more than minimum wage and do so while still enjoying themselves and adding great new ideas, products, and art to Second Life. I imagine I speak for the rest of the business folks in the community when I say: take your ‘“just feeling sorry for them”’ somewhere else.
@Katt. Small changes, big effects. Amazing idea. I particularly like that little box in the sidebar with the Planned Outages. That’s great to have the information in one place like that.
@all re: RSS feeds/twitter use. Guys, remember that there are many ways to view RSS feeds and SL isn’t requiring that you use twitter. They’re just recommending it as an easy way to get into using RSS feeds. If you use a Google homepage, you can set up RSS feeds on there; you can also plug in that feed to a feed reader if you have one. I personally like “Omea Reader” for all my news-reading needs.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:30 PM
All I see, is Linden Lab, carefully removing the hundreds of “Our systems are having trouble” posts from their blog, making it harder for a potential investor (who isn’t a player) to see the REAL “service quality” being provided by this “service”.
Executive: “Our Blog is a real mess.. if you look at the last few months, we’ve had over a hundred “bad days”.. really we look like incompetent fools. How are we ever going to get this IPO off the ground? Jenkins! What can we do about our track record?”
Jenkins: “Well Operations is strapped for resources, we’ve put a lot of focus into areas of feature development, as you know participation in development programs is voluntrary. I see that within six to twelve…”
Executive: “Dammit Jenkins! I know all that, but the IPO can’t wait for the new whatchamawhosits. We’ve already gotten our new CEO ahed of schedule, so we need to press on. What can we do to stop this horrible track record we’re publishing?”
Jenkins: “We could stop publishing it.”
Executive: “No, they’d totally see through that.. we nee dto make this look good.”
Jenkins: “Well we could publish the data to an offsite RSS feed, that way the data couldn’t be easily archived. So while the “up to the minute” problems could be viewed, no one would be able to go back months and months to notice a pattern.. They could still do it with a lot of planning, but the average user, and more importantly, the average non-player-investor, wouldn’t have ready access to 3 months of archives.”
Executive: “Perfect… how about some lunch then? Give Operations the afternoon off.”
April 28th, 2008 at 9:41 PM
@54 nice to meet you i make 4 times min wage in SL when it actually works right
April 28th, 2008 at 9:52 PM
To amend my post (#78).. I’m not sure I entirely blame LL, for “cleaning up the blog”.. *IF* we’re going to get the forums, and maybe someone who will actually HEAR us from time to time, when things are broken and it’s us peons who don’t GET “live help” who see the problem first…
Maybe I can forgive LL the desire to not intentionally broadcast it’s dirty laundry to investors.
Personally, I just really want some way, as a basic account holder, to report emerging issues (asset failures/grid attacks/etc) in a way where I feel like I’m part of the solution. Live help was what that used to be.. and now only the Elite get access to that. Now all that’s left to me, is to file a Jira, and it may be WEEKS before a single pair of Linden Eyes graces my report, and then only if it has enough votes.
It’s funny.. the difference “being heard” can make.
tap tap tap.. is this thing on?
April 29th, 2008 at 12:13 AM
It makes sence and shutsup the Blog know-alls that are just as bad junkingup the blogs……When some of these blog kids writes novel system relies its worse then anything else.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:45 AM
43 Amaterasu Cinquetti, 44 Dominique Venares, and 52 Cocoanut Koala have just said everything I might have said. I just would add though, I don’t use Twitter or RSS and certainly don’t want this stuff going to my cell phone. I just want a link from the secondlife.com mainpage or user pages that I can follow for the info, and there should also be a place where people can give feedback. I can’t help but echo the impression people have that the change is to bury the information. I certainly can’t see it being easy for new users to find it. Nobody seems to care anymore about what new users have to go through anyway.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:14 AM
people will keep whining here anyhow. as long as nobody listens, people will keep trying to get heard.. thats just human nature
April 29th, 2008 at 1:44 AM
A step in the right direction. Yes, inworld notification would also be good… and more up to date acknowledgement that things aren’t working would also be helpful.
But it feels like you’re trying, and this is a positive step as it is an obvious attempt to find ways to keep people informed. And as it’s just exactly the kind of concern I was expressing a few days ago I feel listened to
Thanks, Katt. I appreciate the effort you’re making to improve LL’s communication with it’s residents.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:04 AM
@77
@54 (Wyvern): I think you better check those SL economic statistics. Lots of people are making well more than minimum wage and do so while still enjoying themselves and adding great new ideas, products, and art to Second Life. I imagine I speak for the rest of the business folks in the community when I say: take your ‘“just feeling sorry for them”’ somewhere else.
Some make more than minimum wage…. but enjoying? many big creation businesses are having a hell of a hard time because rippers have stolen their items and spread them all over secondlife for lower prices, and linden labs cound’t care less.
having a shop and having to deal with theft and the lack of help from linden labs certainly takes the fun out of the game.
Quoting Naughty Designs Anubis (well known popular creator):
Unfortunately, many of Naughty’s skins are on SL exchange as well as onrez. It would be nice if I could say they were limited to these 2 places but the fact is our skins are all over SL .They are in almost every full perms shop, they are available in “free stuff” shops , they are being sold in hundreds of Sl shops, they are available as free downloads on the net via links that are posted in diff forums.There is no possible way Lost or I can sue this many people(and they know it),especially since most of them are not even US residents.Dmcas are ineffective at this point.Believe me many have been filed.
The best way to be safe in SL is to not sell your creations. If you choose to start a business here and you become popular I guess you have to except that this is going to happen , you really have no other choice.If you decide to fight for what is yours as Lost and I have,you may not like the consequences.We have been stalked and harrassed mercilessly wich has not been limited to just our Second Life but has followed us to our pesonal email . It is quite impossible to run a business under these conditions.We have not given up, but all of this has certainly taken away any joy we once felt and has definately hampered our creative energies.We pay thousands of dollars each month for accounts we can barely log in on .”
from http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-676
And still linden labs refuses to answer our questions about the DMCA and leaves this creators in the cold. Web providers remove all access to infringing content when DMCAed, linden labs does not, they just tell the thief “your not allowed to sell it with this alt anymore” and happily keep hosting the stolen content still availabe to the thief in their inventory and to every person he decides to send it to.
the dmcas need a redo
April 29th, 2008 at 2:09 AM
While I’d certainly not want to diminish the very valid comments regarding getting status messages in world and allowing people to comment on the status blog (both concerns which should be addressed as priorities) I do think the addition of twitter as an ADDITIONAL means of communication is a good thing.
At the risk of sounding fanboy-ish (perish the thought) I find twitter to be one of the better communication ideas to have popped up on the web and use it regularly.
If you’ve not heard of twitter and wonder what the fuss is about, hopefully you might find something useful in these links -
17 ways you can use twitter - http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-you-can-use-twitter/
Track commuting delays via twitter -
http://lifehacker.com/355453/track-commuting-delays-via-twitter-with-commuter-feed
Twitter for academia -
http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/
Twitter isn’t a Linden lab “thing” or just for grid status updates.
@72 Twitter to cellphone is international I believe. I’m outside the US and I use it on my cell all the time.
I’d better stop writing before I really do start sounding like a fanboy! Perhaps I’m coming down with something……
April 29th, 2008 at 2:12 AM
You know… this is just an idea… but wouldn’t it be great to have the SL time also “running” on the website. That way you can compair easy when a report was made and what the current time is.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:07 AM
There is one problem with this change of reporting problems.
I cannot speak for others but this is how it worked before for me:
When I experience inworld problems, I immidiattely go to the Blog.
If no most from Linden (usually the case as they are always very late), I go read the latest residents posts in any open recent Blog. That actually has been the most accurate and fast way to finf out if the problem is SL related or local at my pc/connection.
This now totally gets borked. It looks to me as a shift from Blog to the grid-status-page with one goal only: Get rit of the responses by residents.
Linden is always late with reporting the problems and also says “resolved”when it is not. The Linden reports on problems is just not reliable and therefor it makes no difference how it gets communicated to us if the SL users cannot respond and tell the actual status.
So for me again this is a downward in the SL experience.
A pitty.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:11 AM
So now what? I have to dig forever to find out what the status of the grid is? Is this really adding value or just an attempt to hide from the public eye the woes of the grid?
April 29th, 2008 at 3:56 AM
In my previous post (about 2 posts up) it should have red: “…If no POST from Linden (usually the case as they are…. “. Sorry for that.
Even after disappointment after disappointment and frustrations only piling up more and more, about almost everything that Linden is doing, Second Life still is the greatest invention in late computer history, to my opinion. I never disliked a company so much while loving their product so much. So also on an emotional level I learn to deal with a new thing here
By the way, compared to others I have relative few problems. I am convinced it is becuase I use the free and reliable Nicholaz Viewer. Thousands have found their way to it. Also if you, like me, do not have the latest new computer, do try the Nicholaz viewer as it was the rescue for me to be able to stay in SL .
April 29th, 2008 at 4:11 AM
Here’s a comment from one of the ones that love to whine, especially as she is from another planet, called Europe
Breaking it down in pros and cons:
+ RSS-feed. Perfect to be polling every minute with some lightweight reader. Big thanks!
+ Easy to see what is going on with the grid status separated from the other articles on the blog.
- Seems like the new page lacks any feedback possibility
- Yet another webpage to bookmark (Not that big deal, but still a new place, new URL and on a new domain)
But what is the most important things are that the communication hopefully will be more direct now? Can we, the users, look forward to a more rapid and thoroughly done reporting on the grid? It would be really good with quicker updates on grid status and preferably with more details than the usual (and rather irritating) “we are looking into the issue, thanks for your patience” that indeed says nothing useful at all.
And finally, in-world meswsages is a NEED!
(Btw… is there any RSS-reader as a HUD perhaps?)
Thumbs up in general Kat, but there are still some minor tweaks that should be done to enhance the value of this change.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:21 AM
Another free Twitter gadget you can use inside SL itself is the SLTweets hud.
Not trying to step on the talentet Ms. Malaprop’s feet
Just trying to offer other free alternatives for every taste.
Check it out here:
http://www.sltweets.com/
http://www.sltweets.com/get_sltweets.php
April 29th, 2008 at 4:35 AM
Please
add the *actual* date and time in PDT on the page with the status reports.
Most of us live in a different time zone and need to compute how old the entries are.
(This already has a jira entry, very old, but I am, just as you might be, too lazy to search it now.)
April 29th, 2008 at 4:40 AM
Just checked it out.
Clever move to have no longer comments in the blog of residents who are annoyed.
Btw at the moment it seems that nothing works again.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:51 AM
Well ok,
thats it. I will cancel my pay account, maybe stay a while in SL to see the development. But no way I will pay in future a yearly fee for such services.
I mean its obvious where the “new feature” is heading. I am really sorry, cause SL is really fascinating. I will look for alternatives now.
Thank you for all LL. One paying customer lost. My land I gave away since sometime. So I dont need to bother anymore.
Have fun all, who still are optimistic.
L.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:51 AM
What is Twitter?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:18 AM
Hmn. I guess comments in the blog are going the way of button shoes. I guess I’m not too surprised. Ah, well.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:21 AM
I see this as a way to hide all the issues SL is plagued with by making updates harder to get. Now the blog will look all squeaky clean as opposed to representing all the issues we have daily in-world.
The blog was a very easy way for everyone to see when not to try to purchase something, when not to transfer, when not to rez…now you have to check your reader, or check twitter to see the issues.
Like now for instance…no rez, stale transactions, etc.
Nice move.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:31 AM
There is a problem with the RSS feed. If an article is updated, the update will show up. So there are a few options - do updates as new articles, deleting the old one, do them as comments to the original,
or fix the RSS code to make an updated article look new.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:32 AM
Sorry - bug in my comment 99- the update will NOT show up in the RSS feed.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:44 AM
@89
if we cannot respond at the new place where trouble are mentioned i suggest we simply keep doing it here. it helps to know better what other residents say like “i cant login” than linden labs [resolved] which usually is far from accurate.
since the lindens so far just make one blog a year for the IP theft where they answer no questions, and the linden inword ignorethe isue too, I post about IP theft in other blogs. its a bad thing, but im tired of linden labs hiding this problem and pretending it doesnt exists by ignoring it.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:47 AM
Another place I have to check? That’s not as helpful as I’m sure you intended.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:51 AM
Katt,
A couple of Usability suggestions for the Blog Entries/Status Reports…
As @87 & @93 have suggested, it is difficult if you are not in the US to ‘translate’ the time into something that is meaningful in your timezone (especially if late at night or early morning
An SLT clock in the window would be helpful.
Blog Entries seem to be more consistent these days in adding updates to the *top* of the entry. But, for me at least, it makes it hard to find what the *actual* issue is if you’re coming to it late. Where does it start?
This recent Blog entry:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/04/22/beta-preview-temporarily-offline/ from Joshua reads from top to bottom, and makes it easier IMO to see a) the problem and b) the chronology of the resolution.
Regardless of whether entries are bottom-up or top-down, if they are consistent we will get used to it. Thanks.
Can I also suggest you add a link to the Grid Status Report to the “Second Life Grid” section in the website Footer?
Actually, while I’m at it - could you get a link to the JIRA added somewhere useful (perhaps in the SL ‘Support’ part of the footer, or on the LH navigation menu?). It seems obscurely difficult to find…
April 29th, 2008 at 5:54 AM
Katt, this is a good move. Users need the ability to refer to stats. Thanks
However as many have rightly pointed out, the priority should be in keeping people in-game, not checking web-pages. However still keep the feed - as a reference.
As for in-world messages … they are necessary.
However, I propose you do away with the strong blue dialog, and do what I do on all my client / server applications … add a scrolling overlaid text message along the bottom of the window when there are service messages to be displayed.
It should be simple and non-disruptive. One click on it should make it disappear till a new message is sent. You can send different types / classes of message in different colors. Also, users should have the option to specify which type of messages (if any) they want to see so they don’t get annoyed by all.
On the back-end I usually have custom service tasks monitoring the system health and pushing most of those messages automatically - as opposed to having engineers manually do it (as they forget).
______________________________________________________
As Wyvern @ 54 correctly says … this is turning into more of a game than a platform.
But Wyvern … if you are laughing about making money in SL then the jokes on you … there are people that make serious money in SL. But hey - keep your eyes closed and ‘play’ the game and buy your toys … after all, its from users like you that they make their money
BTW: If you haven’t met 10 such people, you are seriously limiting your social network … or maybe its because those type of people don’t have their eyes closed and therefore don’t have anything in common with you.
The mere fact that you are suggest these content creators should move on illustrates your depth-of-though. Should that happen, you’d be stuck in a grid with no originality or decent content, where all half-decent content will be copied all over and on every sim, each sim looks the same as the next. Wakeup. You might as well ask LL to create new accounts with a full inventory of all builds over the grid.
______________________________________________________
And KATT — YES PLEASE - get the content theft / DMCA conversation moving … its killing the content creators, really.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:02 AM
I would like easy access to the new Grid Status Reports, so where do I access it on the front page? If this isn’t yet an option yet can I make a suggestion that a link to http://status.secondlifegrid.net/ is placed next to the support tab at the top or at least make it available on the support page, thank you.
Already people are asking why they can’t login to SL because the information isn’t being blogged here.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:55 AM
Thre needs to be a way for us to speak directly to Linden Labs and keep them informed about issuse that do not fit within the normal parameters of bug and abuse reporting, and that has not existed for over a year now and player relations and the grid have suffered seriously.
One example of this need occurred this morning, when I awoke to find over 50 copies of an url leading to a website offering the newest edition of the copybot addressed to me. I was groggy and deleted the items without getting the name of the sender and could not file an abuse report on this incident, which claimed to be the work of the group Dissention. This in not news I would like to broadcast in an open blog such as this but it is the only way I know to communicate this information to the Lindens.
I would hope LL is taking the Dissention group more seriously than they seem to be taking thim and will start to ban them and the ip accounts of their root characters, for any threat to again relaease the copybot onto the grid is a serious matter and should be acted upon, but given past linden responses and complicity in creating the copybot crisis I doubt much will be done, and again player trust in LL will be eroded and they will have played directly into the hands of those who would for whatever ill founded reasons would attempt to destroy sl. Hopefully, this post will reach the attention of LL and they will act on it effectively before we see a new wave of copybot harassment released on the grid.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:06 AM
Its good they moved it off the front page of SL website so potential new members don’t get put off from signing up.
Then they can keep a clean frontpage and it look tidier too.