The growing secrecy

September 25, 2008

Browsing back over some previous stories we’ve run, it reinforced to me again just how more secretive Linden Lab have become in the past year or so.

There’s a growing list of communication mechanisms that have gone by the wayside:

1. The monthly population metrics are no longer supplied in anywhere near the detail they used to. We used to report monthly on the number of Australians actively using Second Life - that’s now not an option.

2. The Second Life forums are a shadow of what they were 18 months ago. There’s been more traffic recently (see point 3 below) but the community is still fairly small.

3. The official Linden blog has had a marked decrease in activity as far as communication from Linden Lab, with comments either closed or moved to the forums. Linden Lab have never argued that the blog wasn’t well read. I can vouch for the significant readership as everytime we report on a Linden blog post, we get significant traffic via the trackback - that’d be a tiny percentage of the overall traffic for each blog post published by Linden Lab.

4. The Second Life Jira is the mechanism by which issues with Second Life are reported and tracked. I’m yet to meet a person who believes it is both user-friendly and effective. Have a browse for yourself - I’d love to hear your thoughts.

5. I’ve been involved with Second Life for nearly two years, a new user in some people’s eyes. Even so, I remember when Linden Lab used to run Town Hall sessions.

6. There used to be regular updates in-world and via email from Linden Lab’s PR - I can’t remember the last time this occurred. There’s an excellent post on Linden Lab’s media management here.

The six examples above are the more obvious ones. Some communication channels like in-world Linden office hours still occur but I’d be fairly confident in saying they’re less frequent than in days of yore.

I’d be happy to admit to being a sentimental whinger if anyone can point me to where alternate communication channels have popped up in lieu of the ones above.

Ahhh… the sound of silence.

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Written by Lowell Cremorne · Filed Under Editorial, General News

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Paisley Beebe 3 months ago 1 point
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Lowel, also add to that list that list, they set up a press group in SL called the "Second Life Media consortium" which Im still a member, hoping desperately every day for ONE little notice or even an IM!!! from it?? ........there was one press call on that group, that I remember and that was probably well over 6 months ago and then .......nothing...also now you have to go through the PR dept to request an interview with a Linden, Torley is probably the only exception...so its really hard for the "press" to get any access either.
Paisley Beebe
Host of Tonight Live
www.slcn.tv

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Apollo Case 3 months ago 1 point
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It's a lot different to when you could just IM any Linden that was online.

I think you can add to the list, the SL volunteers who were also available to offer help, they have been disbanded too.

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http://www.armoryisland.com

Patchouli_Woollahra 2 months ago 1 point
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We remain at our posts. The SL Volunteers corps has been reduced in terms of roles as there has been some significant overlap, as well as major inefficiencies in the enrolment process and in terms of filtering out those who are not genuinely knowledgeable in some aspect of SL or not willing to contribute.

To find a SL Volunteer these days, approach someone who's currently tagged up as a Second Life Mentor. They can still be found at most newbie orientation Help Islands as well as the HIP instances, and Welcome areas (yes, even the clusterfark of a zone that is Waterhead.)

I can't vouch for too many people beyond myself, but if you're still willing to learn, I'm still willing to teach.

Unless it's something I can't help you with. Then it makes more sense for me to suggest someone else you could approach instead.

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