Sometimes if you blink, you miss it. Now you could be forgiven for missing the precise date that Linden Lab decided to remove their gag and start talking but they are most certainly engaging with their community in a far more encouraging fashion these days. The return of the Jira to a meaningful communication platform was an early right step for the new regime. However things have progressed since then and seem to be accelerating.
Back in June CEO Ebbe Altberg (AKA Ebbe Linden) popped into the third party developers meeting inworld and mentioned that Linden Lab were building a new virtual world. The conversation went from there, to Twitter, to SLUniverse, to the official Second Life forums, Second Life bloggers and outside publications such as Gamasutra. The conversations continued, morphed, more inworld discussions were held, emails were sent. Ebbe, Oz Linden, Gray Of The Lab from San Francisco were all out and about talking.
There was anger, excitement, despair, hope and plenty of words. The thing was that this simple step of communicating had opened a much wider discussion. However this was all well and good on matters that Linden Lab wanted to talk about, but how do Linden Lab shape up when the conversation is a tad more uncomfortable? Well we have a recent example, the recent Marketplace word filter faux pas, which I blogged about. Stepping up to the plate this time was Community Linden, who commented on my post :
Hello,
I thought this would be some helpful information regarding the Marketplace listing issue you mention. This is a known issue that is being looking into.
There is a jira filed that can be seen here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-6608
A grid status blog here: http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2014/07/07/post2308/
And updates can be followed on the main grid status blog here: http://status.secondlifegrid.netThe grid status blog will update once the unscheduled maintenance is completed.
Thank you and best regards.
However this brings up that old chestnut of Linden Lab communicating in the wrong channels, twitter, blogs, emails. However in this case Linden Lab – Community Manager was also busy on the official Second Life forums, he/she popped into more than one post to share the information. This of course led to a vibrant Jira discussion as more people were made aware of that channel. Ultimately people like to just hear things are fixed. However Community Linden and his cohort/ alter ego Linden Lab – Community Manager were willing to inform people on where to look for progress, where to follow the Jira report. People may not have been happy, but they could hardly accuse Linden Lab of pretending the issue didn’t exist.
So then we come to today with Linden Lab armed with information on the new skill gaming policy. Not only have Linden Lab blogged about this, but they’ve also provided Linden Lab – Community Manager with a Flak jacket as he/she enters the official Second Life forums to answer questions on the new policy.
The nature of such a discussion is going to highlight confusion over the policy, anger over the policy and people agreeing and disagreeing with the policy. Linden Lab – Community Manager won’t be able to answer all the questions to satisfaction of the people asking questions and some people will feel frustrated that their point is being ignored. However others will get answers that clarify matters and this all helps to build a better relationship between Linden Lab and the community.
The Lab themselves will at times look at some of the comments and wonder if it’s all worth it, but they really should persevere on this path of greater transparency and communication because it generates further discussion outside of Linden Lab’s HQ. This just helps to extend the reach of Second Life.
We’re not back to the days when the blog would attract comments galore, office hours would be busy and Second Life policies would be dissected and torn to pieces in blog posts. However we are in a position now where Linden Lab are responding to their customers, if people largely play nicely Linden Lab may even extend their discussions, heck they may even get brave enough to have a frank and open discussion about those terms of services changes, but let’s not push our luck, the recent improved communications are very welcome.