Dialog
Numerous people have discussed the point of needing to be able to carry on a discussion as part of the reporting process. I am one of those. I believe it is important.
A primary aspect of my thinking is the initial bug report is written by a non-Linden that does not see the system as the Lindens do. That means we cannot provide the information the Lindens consider pertinent nor can we phrase it in the terms that have the same meaning to us and them nor will most people really understand the problem in the terms the Lindens need.
The new Bug Reporting Forum does a better job of getting the information the Lindens need. But, the user is still coming from another world than the Lindens. So, the descriptions will always be incomplete and unlikely to communicate the problem well. That is certainly the case with my BUG-9 report. The response from the Lab’s side immediately allowed me to realize what I had omitted from the report and why the problem was misunderstood. Now I have to figure out how to correct that. It is enough of a problem that I will write an email asking how they expect us to use the JIRA to correct the miscommunication problem.
Marine Kelley also makes this point in the SLUinverse thread. See post.
Feature Requests
It is still possible to submit feature requests. One cannot enter a feature request in a Bug Report, which makes a sort of sense. One can enter a feature request in various projects, like: Scripting and Viewer.
Since the Bug Report form comes up with BUG selected, it is going to be hard for new users to submit feature requests. It is debatable whether new users feature requests are all that important. But, their suggestions can reveal good information on how new users are seeing Second Life.
Hiding Things
Marine Kelley made the point and I agree. This is another idea. I think the proof is in the leaving of all previous JIRA items on the JIRA site.
Marine makes some other points that I pretty much agree with. One I very strongly disagree with and believe is a part of root problem we are seeing is:
I’m seeing more and more open-source devs getting pissed at LL and slowly disengaging themselves. I know LL doesn’t like drama, and does not expect drama from technically minded people because they think we’re above that. So when a dev rants and quits, LL turns a deaf ear. They’re wrong. Everyone makes drama when they feel unimportant, and that’s how LL makes us feel all the time.
That anyone makes another feel something is basic victim mentality and simply untrue. I object.
There are emotional issues that come up that people feel are beyond their ability to control. They are used as examples to fight for victim status and avoid responsibility. The lost of loved one being probably the most prominent. That misunderstands victimization, love, and how humans form attachments. Such loss cannot be related to a feeling of unimportance with any intellectual honesty.
Humans have a choice in how they feel in response to various stimuli. We are not Pavlovian animals. We have the ability to maintain our power and take responsibility for our reactions and comments. It’s a matter of whether we choose to think or react.
Well, when crucial jira’s get to be 5-6 years old, it becomes difficult to take the side of the Lindens. I find it quite crazy that the Lab can’t tell what is an important jira and what is not. I see fixes all the time, but most are pretty minor to me. The bugs that irritate me the most are those that pertain directly to content creators. Beyond critical bugs that bring down the system, bugs related to content should be of the highest priority. From what I’ve seen, only bugs related to clothing ever get much attention. This is probably because they produce the most backlash. All the rest of the content related bugs get pushed aside and I have no problem at all telling customers why something doesn’t work the way it should. That answer rest directly on LL’s shoulders.
I, as well as many others, have done everything we can to point out crucial content related bugs, but LL ignores all of our pleas. At some point during the 6 years waiting for a bug fix, you can’t help but try every single approach possible to get a bug fixed. Many times now, I’ve seen residents dig into the code and fix the bug for LL, with little response from LL, if any at all. Personally, I’ve given up. So, they can do things however they want. After 6 years of waiting, my patience for LL is gone, as is probably the feeling of many.
You could be right. How you feel is how you feel and that should be respected.
When one thinks they have done everything possible and have dome it for years, then it is often good to look at HOW those things were done.
“I do believe this is the reason that the JIRA change came about. The Lindens were having to read so much garbage and were spending so much time reading through the JIRA, they felt the cost, money-wise, time-wise, and emotionally, was too much and made a change.”
I have no problem identifying the wackadoodles by the end of the first line and skip to the next comment. I suspect the Lindens can handle that.
Whatever the reasoning is at LL, dealing with garbage is not a significant factor. If it is the Lindens are far more childish than any of us believed (which would point to the wackadoodles being right all along!)
Remember. Each change in a JIRA flags a call to Alexa and the Lindens working the JIRA.
One simple crucial factor is how you make the other person feel ….. like if I’d like you to change/do something, I’m more like to get it by treating you as an asshole?
I work hard at trying to keep the banlines down around my airport Poppyport, and I often get banlines removed just by explaining and asking nicely and offering a security orb as an alternative. Am I likely to get a better result by playing hardball and acting aggressively? – I don’t think so!
The Lindens often do things for me too when I raise a suppot case and explain and ask nicely – like the new rezz zone in Hookton at the marina I’m building.
Yes, there are things I wish they’d do or not do – like the fix to Restore To Last Position which has been glitched for ages and won’t work near land borders and which seems way overdue to me – but I have no idea of the wider issues which might be involved for all I know.
So I don’t think behaving aggressively or emotionally towards the Lindens helps at all.
Sylvie Etoile
(“I’ll never forget the way you made me feel”)
Well written and I believe accurate. Honey works better than vinegar.
I disagree on the single idea of ‘made me feel’ or ‘make them feel’. People do respond emotionally. We can figure out how to play people that only react. We hear the term ‘push their buttons’. But, that is a choice for both people. Humans can disconnect their buttons. That doesn’t mean we stop feeling. But, when called an asshole I can react emotionally and be insulting right back. Or I can choose to go into chess player mode and start to consider what they are up to. We always have the choice, a count to ten thing.
The idea that someone makes us feel something is way counterproductive. It is when we look at why we choose to feel that way, why whatever response popped up first, that we start to learn about our self and can see out inner self. When we understand our self, we have a choice as how to respond. Sports competitors attempt to make opponents angry because it blocks out the higher reasoning processes and puts them into a reactive mode, their buttons can be pushed. That means the controlled reactions will play first and the person can be played, their responses predicted, and be defeated. Great competitive athletes have learned to control their reaction and keep thinking rather than reacting. They often have consciously trained their self to turn stimuli that could produce anger into determination or other productive channels.
There are all sorts of scenarios that are proof anyone can choose how they feel and thus how they react.
Personally, how i would change the procedure, would be to keep the system essentially as it is but with one major change. I would prevent any comments on the jira from flagging up until they had been “Moderated”, possible putting the person in charge of the Jira entry in charge of this (Or a responsible resident team). This would prevent the many many repeat posts on popular Jiras from flodding them with information, enabling a Resident / the reporter / a moderator to manually flag posts to the Jira that may potentially of use.
The single reason i don’t file Jira reports (Or comment / bother spending time tracing them in any depth) is because so many of the issues i come accross, particuarly in lsl, are so old, there really seems no point. Lets take the Listeners in child prims as an example (Just make it behave consistantly!), or Permissions that have been granted not transfering over during region crossings as another (Or transfering allot slower than the script anyway). As a content creator i can’t count the hours i’ve wasted trying to fix bugs in my code that have turned out to be LSL bugs. I hate to think how much worse this will be in 2 / 3 / 4 years time (Or many more with some bugs) as residents won’t be able to find out what’s causing their problem and many of the usefull work arounds will be much more dificult to find.
There is a solid pool of residents that would assist in the management of the JIRA if only they would try and engage us. I Personally would donate some of my time to it provided it actually helped and issues got fixed, however, given i’ve been in SL with various Avatars for 7+ years now, i’ve almost given up with the situation before the JIRA change was announced. There was a time when i’d try and get to meetings, despite the Time diference from GMT but it’s just not possible. Resources like the JIRA / Forum and Blogs like this are a critical line of communication for many people not close to an Amercian time zone and the slow erosion of these (the Linden Blog being a prime example from what it used to be like a few years ago) only serves to Frustrate us further.
p.s. Excelent blog.
Thanks for the PS.
Your ideas are good. I don’t know if they will address the issues as the Lab sees them… but maybe.
I do know something has changed in the JIRA. I have to do some testing. But, Lance C was able to see and comment on my BUG-9 item…
I just wish, and this i believe is where most of the miss directed frustration comes from which they are trying to avoid, they would try and engage the community. i’m not demanding (lost a large percentage of forum posts seem to) they engage in the forums, the Jira, Write personal responses to every flame, just simply that the people who can and want to help are allowed to.
You’ll never stop the flaming, there are many reasons that situation has been created over several yers, but the solutions they come up with seem to be mostly using a sledge hammer to crack a nut. This all feels a strangley familiar to when they stopped allowing comments on the blog posts about these sort of issues, or even when they stopped posting about grid problems / bugs…
Users see things from their side. As users we only see a part of the Lindens position or any problem, an incomplete picture. It is on that incomplete picture most people base their thinking and opinions and what they think the Lab should do. I think that is silly behavior and most likely to be counterproductive.
Nalates, I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. The sky is always falling on Second Life. But this is the first time I’ve felt like they just don’t want me or my content in SL any more. I’m not saying I’m leaving – I haven’t decided yet – but there’s a strong temptation to say, “Yeah? Well, screw YOU too, and I’ll be damned if I give you any more money.”
JIRA has issues. Liberal application of the banhammer would make it a much more useful tool for the Lindens. I’m not sure why they’ve resisted doing just that. Posting to JIRA should be a revokable privilege. Content creators, though, need read access, and I can see no good reason to deny it.
Bans don’t work well. A recent JIRA rant was from a new ALT, which could have been made using a pseudo-IP-address. People learn and circumvent obstacles.