Episode 39 of The Drax Files Radio Hour is another packed affair with the star attraction being Argyle Alligator. However as usual there’s much more than that and they touch upon Facebook’s real name policy with Jo Yardley and Drax both seeming far from impressed about Facebook’s policy. However I really can’t see room for Second Life’s profile feed to fill much of a gap here. Jo does however make good points about the features of social networking sites to promote events which brings me back to an old point of mine, web pages for groups.
This is something that could be added to the Second Life profile feed and the advantage of a web based group page advertising events is that it means you don’t have to send landmarks, notecards, textures, etc. All you would need to do is send a link to the event on the group web page.
Moving on, they give a shoutout to the 250th edition of Designing Worlds which was broadcast on October 6th and has already been covered in her usual magnificent manner by Inara Pey.
However the main feature is an interview with in game reporter Argyle Alligator who talks about his interviews, which are at times amusing. Argyle Alligator isn’t only an in game reporter for Second Life, he also interviews people in Garry’s Mod and Rust but this interview is largely about his Second Life experiences.
Argyle also shares the new user experience of Second Life and highlights some issues he found, how he had to work out the teleport system for himself, how he had difficulties finding locations that supported voice. This is important for Argyle’s work as he conducts his interviews with voice.
Argyle also offers up some good suggestions about starter zones including having verified residents of Second Life easily identifiable to help new participants. Drax also asks him about the UI. Drax has commented often that the Second Life UI isn’t complicated. I disagree, not because I find it difficult myself but because when so many people keep raising this point then it does suggest there’s an issue. I’m ok with the Blender UI too but I’ve seem many complaints about that as well. There is an issue, but it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what it is but Argyle Alligator offers some insight on this.
Argyle talks of how when right clicking there’s so much information there and it’s not clear what it all does. Argyle suggests that maybe it would be better if a radial menu was a default setting rather than the current menu. We had this discussion many moons ago when Second Life moved away from radial menus so it’s interesting that someone who is new to Second Life suggests that a radial menu may be a better option. However Argyle’s main point is that people simply need to be directed around the menus and that’s a very fair point. This suggests it’s not the nature of the UI that’s the issue, it’s the lack of information about what you need to do with the information in front of you that’s the problem.
Many more points are discussed in the interview, such as griefing, trolling and stereotypes. This is a very interesting and fun interview and is well worth a listen.
I’ll leave you with the work of Argyle Alligator and his Second Life interviews, as I said he has many more videos but this is great. This actually gives a good insight into how Second Life residents can be suspicious, sarcastic, worried and also very friendly. We see people who suspect Argyle is an alt or a griefer. We see people who are happy to discuss Second Life’s plus points and we see people who take Argyle under their wing and take him to see more alligators! However a warning, this video contains profanity!