Solution
We need to get the word out to clothing designers and especially those working with mesh. So, I’ll suggest that you send a note card to your favorite designer with a link to this article. That has a self serving aspect for me. So, understand I don’t mind if you prefer to send them to Inara’s, Tateru’s, Hamlet’s, or whoever’s blog that is covering this problem.
When you contact them, ask them to contact Oz Linden.
I’ll ask that you and those you contact visit Oz’s feed and post something in his feed. Remember. Be civil and respectful. Oz is human and charged with conserving the Lab’s resources, money and labor. He wants to expend those resources wisely for the most beneficial effect to SL. As Nyx recently said, paraphrasing, So many projects so little time and so few people…
Second Step
Post in the SL Forum. Oz Linden took the suggestion given in the JIRA and posted in the SL Forum in the Creation Section – Fashion. See: Mesh Garments needed for testing deformer. The post is dated: 05-08-2012 10:44 AM. As I just looked at it, it has 5 responses and none from top designer names I know.
Drop by and post in that thread. You do not need to be a designer to post and state your desire for the Mesh Deformer, which some call the Parametric Deformer. I would appreciate it if you asked for the Deformer and a better avatar. You decide what to ask for and say. Please keep it civil. The Lindens deal with enough wackadoodles. Don’t be a wackadoodle.
Third Step
With the time available I am not sure we can pull off the next step I’ll suggest.
On Thursday May 10 at 13:00 PDT/SLT is the Open Source User Group meeting that Oz leads. Show up at the meeting for a show of support. Large meetings tend to get hectic. So, were as few scripts as possible, preferably none. Be quite. Sit. I welcome your comments. But, civility and respect of others is important. Consider carefully what you say and THINK about how what you say can make a positive contribution.
In small meetings it is common to joke around. Plus people know each other and have a good idea when people are joking, who is grumpy, who is a jerk, and so on. That is not the case in a large meeting. We don’t know each other. It is hard to know who is or isn’t joking, or to recognize sarcasm. So, don’t go there. The chance of your being misunderstood is high. Be smart and take care. The point is to win support for the Mesh Deformer. We can’t force anyone to do anything.
Fourth Step
Contact your groups in world and let them know there is a problem. Explain that you need their help and what to do to help.
Fifth Step
Visit your favorite forums and look to see if there is a post on the subject. If there is, add to the thread. If not, open a Topic on Mesh Deformer at Risk. In it explain everyone’s help is needed and these steps.
Sixth Step
Post comments in all the fashion blogs you follow. Place a link to my article or to your favorite article or post on the subject. Select one that gets them all the information. Many are going to be asking, What’s a Deformer? So, be clear and realize many will have no idea what you are talking about so the target of the link must explain it to the total noobe on the subject.
Action Review
So, my plan, that I hope you’ll adopt, is to contact friends and designers you know, or favor, to let them know there is a problem and their help is needed.
Post to Oz’s feed.
Post to the SL Forum.
Be at Thursday’s User Group Meeting.
Contact your in-world groups. Yes, all of them. Spam until they cry… well… use some reason.
Post in your favorite forums.
Post in the comments of the fashion blogs you follow.
The Nature of the Problem
The lack of response in the SL Forum, so far, indicates that the fashionestas do not spend their time browsing the forum. If you want to get a fashionestas attention, you have to get their attention by being where they are.
The Lindens seldom have any idea how to reach the people they need to reach. Consider the massive failure of their ability to move Adult Content forward in spite of the community’s fascination with sex.
This failure of a response from the fashion community shows the lack of understanding on the Lindens’ part to understand the various segments of the Second Life community and how to reach out to them.
This request for examples has also revealed a divergence in the users’ and the Lindens’ time scales. Neither side has the perspective of the other. Users are patiently waiting… well not me, I’m never patient, months and Oz is expecting a flood of examples within five days… Word just doesn’t travel that fast across community boundaries. It’s sort of a region crossing thing.
Getting word from the non-fashion section of the community to the fashion community in SL is a slow process.
My hope is we can save the Mesh Deformer and demonstrate to the Lindens how much the community wants the Mesh deformer and better avatars. It will take some effort on our part.
Support Items
These are samples of what you may choose to send to designers and others. It’s OK with me if you copy them and send as is, but please add your name as the signature.
Note Card to My Designers
Hello [name]
I have been purchasing you products for some time. I appreciate your skill and interest in Second Life. Thanks for what you do.
It has come to my attention that the Mesh Deformer Project for Second Life is at risk of being dropped for lack of interest, at least in the Lindens’ eyes. I am contacting you to ask for your help. Please read the article at [your choice of blog – Nalates blog: #SL Mesh Defomer at Risk*] and take the actions recommended there.
Also, please post on the SL Forum in the thread: Mesh Garments needed for testing deformer** to show support for the project.
If you can please attend the Open Source User Group on Thursday the 10th at 13:00 PDT/SLT (1PM) to show support for the Mesh Deformer Project***.
Also, if you would contact your friends and other designers to have them contact their friends and ask for support.
I will appreciate your support in this matter as I am one that bleives the Mesh Deformer will impove fashion in Second Life.
Respectfully, [your name]
* http://blog.nalates.net/2012/05/08/sl-mesh-defomer-at-risk/
***http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hippotropolis/209/90/24/?&title=Oz%27s+Raft
Note Card for Friends and Groups
Hello and Help,
It has recently come up that the Mesh Deformer project that will affect mesh clothing is at risk of being dropped. I need your help in convincing the Lindens that this project matters to the Second Life community.
Please read the blog article: [your choice of article on the subject here – Mesh Deformer at Risk*] and help with the tasks outlined there.
I think this is an important issue in SL. Please help. Thanks.
Sincerely, [your name here]
* http://blog.nalates.net/2012/05/08/sl-mesh-defomer-at-risk/
If you talk to Oz, you may find the deformer isn’t at so much risk at all.
As an attention-grabber, the comment on STORM-1716 seems to have … grabbed people’s attention.
As a diplomatic move, perhaps not the best; as for getting people to sit up and take notice, it has tended to work.
Have you talked with Oz? I agree this could be diplomacy or more accurately a strategy. But, this should be all over SL.
You may be right about it being a strategy. But, the lack of examples submitted is going to slow the project and make it additionally difficult. So, we need more designers providing support.
I also think Oz does not understand how the community divides up or how to communicate with the segments. Nor do I think he understand where the support for this project comes from. I think it may be a natural problem for overly logical and orderly programmer types. I think a show of support is needed to get word around.
Yes, Oz and I talked directly on the 9th, and I’ve posted on the conversation (with his consent) on my blog. Sadly, the resultant discussion there has turned somewhat negative and off-topic.
The post is: http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/further-call-for-deformer-assistance-its-needed-but-dont-panic/
I don’t disagree with the need for more designers getting involved in the project, just that it is doomed if people don’t. Rather, it’ll take longer to mature. As Oz himself comments below, as as I’ve directly quoted him on my blog article.
I appreciate your coverage. While I don’t always see things the same way as you, you seem sane and rational. Our coverage has different tilts. That a good thing. Readers are free to decide matters from multiple viewpoints.
People do take things in directions we don’t expect. I can tolerate that until they become abusive and go full on ad hominem. Then I sometimes send them an email explaining why their post did not appear and trash their post. I feel no need to allow people to spew their hate or vent their frustration on my site. And… serious stupid will get a commenter permanently blocked.
“Seem sane and rational” – thank you, I think! ;-). That’s the second time I’ve seen that expression used in reference to myself.
There are three ways of running a blog: comments closed; comments moderated and comments open. I personally prefer to operate the latter way. This does open the blog to the risk of “misuse”, but it also tends to stimulate discussions which are, for the most part, rational. Rarely have I had to censure someone as the majority of those who read blogs do so because they are passionate about SL and virtual worlds.
Obviously, there are times when things spill over into the personal, but I’ve found that these instances are rare, and in some 5+ years of running a blog, I’ve only had to actively block one person, and put 2 others pro-actively under moderation (although WordPress itself seems obsessed with some e-mail addresses and routes some posts to moderation itself).
It comes down to a matter of individual choice; I personally feel that those who do take things at a tangent and launch into, say, personal attacks on individuals at LL actually do more damage to themselves, particularly if they are themselves in the public eye. Which is not to say I will not hesitate in taking appropriate action should it become warranted.
99% of the problem in an issue like this is the schizotically fractured nature of SL communications.
There are how many accounts signed to SL?
And there are how many who managed to find Oz’s comment buried in some JIRA or forum thread?
I simply love the LL assumption that the user base will provide the means to fix their software for them.
Should we pit them an olive and peel them a grape while we’re at it?
LL has no clue how to communicate with or engage its user base – never has once SL grew larger than when the Lindens *knew* everyone inworld personally.
And they’ve never bothered to make the effort because the users are so mad at the mess LL makes year after year that if they do go in front of the mob, they are lynched… and they blame the MOB for the state of affairs.
LL doesn’t even use its 3D world – preferring to maintain *dozens* of offworld communications channels, none of which are integrated to each other.
LL ha had the ability to poll and engage the entire user base for issues like this … and refuses to use their platform to do so.
Remember group proposals? Remember the in-world drop downs that warned of incoming grid quakes?
Ignored and lost now in favor of burying important issues in an endless morass of flame-baited cliquish web pages like JIRA.
So, basically, I read this article and can only assume Oz has already given up and the rest of the “need help” is proforma handwaving Oz can point at later to pretend an effort was made.
Put this question on twitter, facebook, plurk, the SL front page, the login notice (rather than some club or another I could care about) put it on the marketplace banner (rather than asking if I want to be a vampire) etc.
And Oz knows there is demand – why else would Qarl have gotten funded? Why would TPVs have rushed to release new versions with Qarl’s alpha code the same day he posted it.
Oz is burning out quickly and its showing in the dev list and now this comment/article.
Face it – Qarl’s deformed is DOA.
Mesh is what it is, and its “good enough” for LL as is.
Just like Windlight.
Just like sim crossings.
Just like every other missed/broken opportunity in this code base.
LL made magic for a while.
Now they make excuses.
And people make the move to OpenSim.
I think the Deformer being DOA is inaccurate. I am concerned it is at risk or likely to be delayed.
I agree the Lindens tend to be clueless on how to effectively communicate with the community.
Mesh is still advancing. Other projects will build on it.
Windlight is getting integrated into the region controls, where more region owners can put it to use.
Sim crossing are being refactored from the core level and have improved year after year.
The JIRA’s are being triaged and the backlogs cleaned out.
I don’t hear many excuses from the Lab. The complaints are generally about how little we hear.
People moving to OpenSim… ever so slowly. There are a lot of disgusted people on the OpenSim grids, which tends to make it a miserable place. Those there simply because of cost make some great builds and they tend to make it a joyful place. I find it hard to tell which group is winning.
Mesh: I got all of Oz’s comment and the rather mild backpedaling in my email from following STORM-1716.
I still am not convinced it wasn’t an accidentally frank comment but it does look like things will continue for now.
We’ll see, when its actually done and out there in the official viewer, I guess.
Windlight: The dismal windlight implementation set my expectations here, how long has it been and region controls or tradeable windlight assets are still “coming soon?”… while OpenSim and TPVs have *several* different systems already in place: LightShare from Meta7, ParcelWL from Phoenix/Firestorm viewers, etc?
Sim Crossing: remember when SL had vehicles? and people used them? I do. But sim crossing and a deluge of parcel issues all but killed them, which is why LL is handing out a freebie rail car to remind people that Havok does vehicles to, not just avatars walking and flying.
JIRA: has been a wasteland since it was implemented – I won’t miss it when its gone. My pre-JIRA cases were converted, and I deleted them when they had their second birthday unread. Commenting on other people’s JIRA is worse, some JIRA Clique will come and smash you for any suggestion Not Officially Supported by those JIRA Ghodz. Heaven help the mortals in the 10,000 posts JIRA flamewars. I even tried to suggest directly to Lindens to make Resident comments viewable by Lindens only to cut off the flamebait and cliquish nonsense. Oh well.
OpenSim: yeah, I tend not to run into many of the SLMUSTDIE crowd on OpenSim, but I know who you mean. Of course, those people sort of underline the point of all of the rest of this – they are in a sense virtual world refugees fleeing from the caprice of their old homeland. Naturally they warn others of the perils of their lost lands… many lost large amounts of time and money to some whim or rule change by LL. No one has ever given me grief for being active on both worlds. I’d have to say the creators and affiordable grid folks are winning since all I see are helpers in Lbsa, Chinese folks from EnglishGrid practicing, and content creators talking about speedbuilds and what not, day after day… its been months since I’ve run into anyone screaming SLMUSTDIE. Maybe I am just too virtually reclusive to notice. Come to LaniSpace and talk with the sci-fi cluster community like Lani Global, Doll Orphan, Raz Welles, or talk with the Lbsa gang like Dan Banner, Hippie Balbozar, Key Gruin, etc.
Oz Linden… The Lab’s resident “people person”… strikes again
LL needs mesh samples? Ummm, haven’t they heard of Google’s 3D Warehouse?? http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/
Typical LL.
No… mesh samples is not what they need. The need mesh clothes made with the Deformer Flag and based on the SL Avatar.
Thank you for your help getting the word out to the SL fashion community. Like most engineers, I’ve rarely been accused of being a snappy dresser myself (either inside or outside SL).
Seriously… I am more than convinced that the deformer is something people want, so no one need convince me of that. As I told Inara yesterday, my comments were intended to wake people up – perhaps I was a little hasty, and I certainly had missed the idea of posting on the Fashion blog (since fixed, as you noted – while I read Jira all day long, I don’t really follow the fashion world).
What I do need is for those who care about designing mesh avatar accessories that would benefit from the deformer to participate in getting it done. There’s far more to getting any new feature into Second Life than writing the code: that code has to be tested, we have to look for ways in which existing content might be broken (while we may not always succeed at that, please believe that we always try), and we need to develop ways to maintain that stability in the future. The deformer code has made great progress, so the primary impediments to getting it the last mile is to do that testing, and for that we need appropriate content.
The key word there is “appropriate”: to all those who’ve asked why we don’t just go out and buy things on Marketplace or pick up freebies… if that would help, I’d have done it long ago, but that content won’t help. First, we need garments designed to the base avatar shapes the deformer is coded to use as a reference (yes, those are the shapes in the clothing template folder on the wiki); if they are modeled on any other shape, the deformer will deform them incorrectly. At least as importantly, we need things that are designed to be good tests, which really isn’t the same thing as being good looking fashionable outfits. As for whether or not we could develop that content ourselves, well… I don’t think very many people would argue that we’re as good at that as the non-Linden designers, but more importantly it would take far longer. There is a lot of competition for few resources inside the Lab, and my job is to try to mobilize the community to make things happen even when we inside the Lab can’t do all the work.
So… I thank you for your efforts, but I’d ask you and your readers to focus on helping me motivate the creation of the content we need. Really, the very last thing I want is kill this project, and I’m going to keep trying until we get it done. Maybe this time my way of getting attention was just a little drastic, but it was in a good cause.
Oz, you did get some attention. And, despite the tone of my comments about LL/SL in general above, I do think you sounded more burned out than anything else.
Your open source dev list and the viewer development is the best-run/widest-communicated thing I’ve seen out of the Lab in at least half a decade. I wish more of LL were as visible or reachable as you and your team are.
But yeah, you lob a a conversational hand-grenade and people are bound to worry about the pending boom.
As a high-tech project manager, I’m totally astounded by Oz Linden’s attitude. I can’t speak for all tech developers, but I can tell you this: When I’m working on a project, I set my heart on completing it. Just do it. And, if it can’t be done one way–find another way. And do it. If that doesn’t work, try something else, until it’s done.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve encountered resistance in unexpected areas. The thing to do when that happens is change course, and find another way.
Sometimes my clients can’t or simply don’t want to do as much testing as we expected. Or they provide less than complete specs, reference material, whatever. It is what it is, and we work with what we have, and get the job done.
Oz Linden’s attitude towards this is simply infuriating. It’s not just about his communication skills (lack thereof). It’s about his rigid expectation that his customers do free work for LL.
Oz Linden, my request to you is as follows. Find a way to do this and get the job done, whatever it takes. Please.
You did read all the comments, right?
Every for hire project I’ve seen has its limits. Persistence is great. Solving problems for clients builds a reputation.
Oz doesn’t care if you like him. He cares that Second Life gets better. This is bad? F__k. That. All Lindens would be this way if I could pick.
I can’t believe how many people get upset when Linden offers a doer instead of a diplomat. This is the same thing that happened when idiots drummed that graphics Linden off the mail list. Good job. What did that accomplish?
My half-cent an hour net revenue pays your salary, officer. You better smile when you see me coming!
[Minor edit by Nalates]
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