Whilst there has been a lot of talk of the departure of Kim Linden this week, and some of it seems grossly unfair from where I sit, there has been little talk of a new arrival on the scene Xiola Linden, pronounced “Zigh-oh-la” who was introduced and then greeted with “Aloha” at the recent Adult Content User Group Meeting.
Xiola has the tough remit of being involved with communities, which makes me wonder if she’s Blondin’s replacement, if she is, good luck, that’s a tough act to follow, although Blondin seemed to be absurdly overstretched in his role when he was here.
Xiola is a bit of an oldbie and during her introduction informed people: “I am looking forward to the many community opportunities there are here in SL and have been off and on SL since its early days of 2003.”
At the meeting Xiola was also keen to talk up the value of the official forums: “sounds like there is a lot of great imput you all have to share about how to make the forums more about conversations. I can’t wait to look into ways to incorporate your feedback. Thanks for the candid input. ”
That is going to be a challenge, the forums have always been a problem for Linden Lab and they pretty much strangled the latest incarnation at birth with the over zealous moderating policy, which saw the forums firmly placed in the be careful what you wish for category.
However I have noticed some rays of light in the forums, the content creation and technology forums are extremely useful, although a tad underused, they have some great discussions and advice in those forums, the main general areas I’m simply out of the habit of reading, so they may have improved, I found them extremely sterile after a short while, partially due to the moderating policy but also because of the lack of activity, moderation is required in forums but the extremely silly word filter was part of the downfall. The word filter has been something that has plagued other areas of Second Life, in the marketplace you still can’t market PG items to Goreans because the word Gorean itself is apparently moderate rated, which is extremely silly, people who build rustic buildings shouldn’t be punished like this.
However bringing the forums back to some form of engagement is most certainly a challenge, Lindens are sighted over at SLUniverse and sometimes comment, they do read the official forums, Viale certainly does anyway as he stated in the adult user group meeting: “I did not receive any agenda items, but I follow the forums, so I am up to date on topics.” There is certainly more engagement with the adult community in the forums than there ever has been before, so there are signs they can be made useful as well as engaging, but there is a long way to go and in that regard, Xiola faces a challenge.
However Xiola will be involved in other communities beyond the adult community, it will be interesting to see what she can achieve and how she engages. Good luck to her.
Viale comes in for a lot of stick at times – but I know for a fact that he does take time out to keep an eye on as much as he can. I believe Brett and the Editorial Team (does that still include Torley, I wonder?) do was well.
As to the forums – LL have very much made a rod for their own back there. It’s going to be hard to revitalise things, especially after the Lithium roll-out was more-or-less a re-run of the mistakes made with JIVE in 09. As such, a lot of people are in the mindset of “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice…”
I know the editorial team even sometimes read here, when we had an week long event running on my roleplay sim my chief Elf submitted it to the destination guide, I thanked her for including the link to my blog regarding the agenda and she said “Ummm I didn’t send them a link to your blog”.
Anyone who is community facing gets stick, that’s the nature of the beast, Viale has certainly helped the adult community get visibility via the destination guide and now the forum, for that people should be grateful.
I don’t think Xiola is an “oldbie” as you suggest; so far, her performance has been more like an intern.
Pep (a Monica to Viale’s Clinton?)