
Linden Lab staff gagged? Unable to post to official blog
Filed under: News items, Second Life
If you've noticed a distinct dearth of postings on the Second Life blog lately, it's with good cause. There has been hardly anything on this most visible of Linden Lab communication channels. Even a recent announcement by Katt Linden, Linden Lab's communications manager had to go sideways. A post on the Second Life wiki, and a note in the message-of-the-day to go search for it in there -- by yesterday, it was also posted to the Second Life education blog.
Torley Linden in turn apparently was not able to get his Video Tip of the Week onto the official blog either, instead posting it to his personal blog, with an apology for both it and the Knowledge Base Article of the Week. 'Linden Lab,' he says, 'is undergoing changes in communication policy', but is unable to say what, when, why or how long. Time-critical announcements, innocuous routine customer-oriented tutorials and information, and changed policies regarding gambling -- all not being posted as they normally would.
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We're not sure exactly what changes in policy are going on -- obviously, there's not actually anyone we can ask.
At this stage in the transformation from startup to corporation, there's usually a move to avoid publishing any public communications that haven't had all the meaning and usefulness boiled out of them by the PR department. Many companies grow out of that after a time.
Since the beginning of this new century, many startups are actively choosing to avoid this phase, preferring to keep more open and unfettered communications via blogs, twitter and other such so-called Web2.0 means.
We're guessing that whatever changes Linden Lab must be undergoing in communications policy must either be particularly severe (especially if the communications manager herself doesn't seem to be able to get an important and time-critical announcement posted for one of the Lab's PR pushes) or there's something else going on that's brought an almost complete halt to visible routine official communications.
We're getting that sense of another shoe about to drop. The floor is open, if you have any ideas what it might be.
Update (11hrs 53 minutes later): Linden Lab has responded. See below.
















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
8-27-2008 @ 10:22AM
Otenth Paderborn said...
My first thought on seeing Torley's personal blog post was "about time for changes in communication policy." But it does seem extreme to totally cut off communications in the process of improving them. My optimistic self hopes someone with some sense proposed a good, solid communications policy (with, oh, I dunno, scheduling, accountability, standards, editing) and the Linden Taoists are up in arms about it, holding it back, but shortly we'll see a much improved set of communications feeds.
But sadly, my guess is that it's just more of the same: bad planning, bad execution, and extremely bad communication, both internally and externally.
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8-27-2008 @ 10:38AM
Crap Mariner said...
http://twitter.com/slgridstatus is still rolling smoothly, so I wouldn't say all time-critical posts are bottlenecked by the mystery communications issue, if it exists.
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8-27-2008 @ 10:39AM
Tateru Nino said...
Still updates there, yes - it's a bit off-the-radar for most users, though.
8-27-2008 @ 10:56AM
Jacek Antonelli said...
Now Residents get even less info than before, and anything stupid they _do_ say can only be interpreted as official corporate policy, instead of a mistake or mere personal opinion. What's not to love?
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8-27-2008 @ 11:47AM
Opensource Obscure said...
I never liked the way LL updated their blog. Often, they released 4-5 articles in a couple of days, then nothing else for a few days, then, again lots of articles in a short time. Many people complained that this was meant to "bury" uncomfortable news - but if you honestly watch at ALL the news that were "buried", this idea doesn't hold.
I think that this may simply be a transition phase - and I also agree with Otenth's comment about 'bad execution'.
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8-27-2008 @ 12:23PM
Pavig Lok said...
One of the biggest criticisms of LL over the last two years has been their communication policy. I'd imagine this is a brief period of behind-kicking while processes are established to vet announcements. It doesn't surprise me that during such a period they'd hold communications in order to ensure these processes are in place.
My guess is this heralds a new age of Linden communications - one where the open dialog (which often seemed insanely fluffy) is at an end, but more reasonable and directed communication is to come. Unfortunately this will have as many positives as negatives in the long run..... LL's "publics" have previously been poorly served by the internal rumor mill, and will now be poorly served by the official censor. Conversely at least when they say something from this point on they probably mean it.
We'll have to see how this plays out. I don't think it's the end of the world, and we may grow to love it... but it does show signs of a new strong policy direction in terms of communication. Personally I don't like it.... but I may learn to trust it in a way I can refer to LL announcements as in some way definitive when dealing with clients. That's gotta be better than what we have now.
Just my two cents as usual :P (Hi mom!)
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8-27-2008 @ 12:37PM
Tateru Nino said...
You think, perhaps, they decided everything had to be vetted by PR and then sent the key person off to Florida or on vacation or somesuch? It wouldn't be unprecedented. I've seen that happen personally more than once.
8-27-2008 @ 12:30PM
Dedric Mauriac said...
My guess is that heads went rolling with a recent post that wasn't supposed to get out, or should have been reviewed and authorized first. Perhaps staff are using the freedom of information too much (posting what ever, when ever they want) that it is getting out of control (internally), but the public feels like not enough information is ever getting out. The mono deploy message was sudden, but now there is no news on it's status, or of a new client capable of compiling the code. I wonder if SLCC 2008 will reveal anything with a new way of communicating information with the new policies.
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8-27-2008 @ 12:33PM
Dedric Mauriac said...
My guess is that heads went rolling with a recent post that wasn't supposed to get out, or should have been reviewed and authorized first. Perhaps staff are using the freedom of information too much (posting what ever, when ever they want) that it is getting out of control (internally), but the public feels like not enough information is ever getting out. The mono deploy message was sudden, but now there is no news on it's status, or of a new client capable of compiling the code. I wonder if SLCC 2008 will reveal anything with a new way of communicating information with the new policies.
Reply
8-27-2008 @ 12:36PM
Tateru Nino said...
Oh, yes. On that Mono status:
* Problems with 1.24.0 leading to
* Deployment of 1.24.1 which crashed too much which brings us to
* 1.24.2 which might be rolling out today, maybe - if they've managed to get it fixed.
8-27-2008 @ 12:34PM
Marianne McCann said...
The biggest irony to me is that some many Lindens are posting "discussions" to the old SL Forums, given that the move out of the forums and to the blog was such a big thing.
Notable, too, is the fact that the Communications Manager, Katt, seems to wield no real power. In a discussion about the forum posting guidelines, she's had to mention going to someone (Robin?) to ask about getting even minor changes to the supposedly proposed policy. Likewise, a lot of the dust-ups over SL5B seemed to be about a higher up demanding a policy, and their underlings having to do their bidding to a hostile public.
Someone is making decisions on their own, and expecting their staff to make it palatable, no?
At any rate, I noted Torley talking about office hours lately on Twitter - I kinda suspect those will soon be a thing of the past, buried with Linden Radio, the SLRR, and Voting boxes
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8-27-2008 @ 12:57PM
Pavig Lok said...
There's deffinite changes afoot.... but it's hard to tell from the outside exactly what they are.
I'd be interested in knowing some things about who and what put what we see into action. An example is this.
Torley has obviously been battling with higher ups and internal communications issues for a while. Much as we love Torley as the uber positive pink piano playing fellow he is, when he's not doing tech, his role is platform evangelist. Torley, despite being a Linden, is hired to be one of us. (Gooble gobble lol).
Torley recently got an island - which as platform evangelist is long overdue... an island allows him and his charming beau to showcase creative pursuits in SL, tinker with fancy stuff, act as a community hub, and get out his tutorials and videos in a more sensible and accessable fashion using the platform they're designed for.
So....
Is that Torley and co getting fed up and self funding or agitating to get their own island in order to do their job, or did Torley get that handed down from higher up? If equipping Torley with an island was a linden policy decision we should applaud them for finally leveraging the people and resources they have available. If not then meh.
As it stands right now it's hard to know. We can see there are internal difficulties in LL as they make this transition - Katt Lindens tightrope walk is an obvious example. They may be finding new and different ways of getting it wrong, or they may be struggling to get it right. Time will tell.
Oh for a peek inside the lab...
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8-27-2008 @ 5:57PM
Prokofy Neva said...
Some theories
1. Summer vacations
2. The Torley thing is separate -- Torley needs to be eased out, he's gone over the edge. He got his own island to keep him from spreading his neon glowing junk over Gov Linden protected land, which he was doing, even sequestering entire sims that were in no-sale protected status as landscaping for this purpose -- for which he was properly abuse reported, and which led to him relinquishing it.
3. The Lindens will no longer be allowing chatter on the blog and want to drive it back to the forums. That's a good thing, because there were too many anonymous posters using Wordpress without SL names, and people must be required to use SL names in these discussions or they become even more abusive than an anonymous SL name allows them to be
4. A lawsuit -- they are circling the wagons again. I've got a hunch it could be on ad-farms.
5. Not an IPO, not ready.
6. Getting ready to inflict something big and awful on the residents again.
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8-27-2008 @ 9:33PM
TigroSpottystripes Katsu said...
wow! first time I can remember reading somthing Prok said that not only didn't seemed trollish but neither had much reason for me to disagree to :D
ps:about the Torley thing, I don't have any info regarding that being true or not, it doesn't seem like somthing I personally would expect from Torley, but I don't dismiss the possibility somthing like that did happen
pps:I don't claim to have read enough of stuff written by Prok to be able to know the nature of an average Prok message, I'm just talking from my own limited personal experience
8-28-2008 @ 7:27AM
Tegg Bode said...
Oh yeah here we go again, Prok being SL's biggest drama queen having yet another bite at Torley because he's the brightest target.
Grow up kid and get a real SL.
8-27-2008 @ 7:01PM
Dusan Writer said...
Ahhh....thanks Pavig, that clears up Torley's comment on my blog that his recent video had "subtle hints" and that he pointed in the direction of showcase as the source of future information on why he's currently gagged.
So, as far as Torley: he's opening a tutorial/help island, it will be featured in Showcase, and it will be bright bright bright bright neon. (Sorry Torley, love the neon, TRUUUULY um uh huh)
As far as the rest of it, I'm still betting on the launch of a new communication platform accompanying the launch of SLim which we were told was "weeks away" - so my hunch is an unveiling at SLCC to include SLim, a "Facebook" for SL type application, alternates to Help Island including Torley's wonderland, and within all of that new vehicles for us to keep in touch with the oh-so-accessible Lindens through some sort of communication channel with the same number of meaningless menu choices as the new A/R system.
All of which means I agree with Pavig and I agree with #6 from Prok.
Oh - and to parse Torley's comments, he blurbed on my blog.. http://dusanwriter.com/?p=849
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8-27-2008 @ 9:32PM
Katt Linden said...
Thanks, everyone, I'm glad to see your interest! Please visit the Second Life blog to read Robin Linden's post:
Linden Lab Blog Changes to Give Residents More Choices
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/08/27/linden-lab-blog-changes-to-give-residents-more-choices/
Reply
8-29-2008 @ 1:05AM
Jay said...
Katt: "I'm glad to see your interest!"
Has anyone else noticed how cliche this is becoming? It is her standard "You are right and I don't know what to say" post. It's become her hallmark in fact.
For a communications manager she isn't very good at altering her wordings.
I am sad to see the death of the blog, it was a place where you could quickly guage opinion without the circular arguments and personal attacks of the forums.
8-28-2008 @ 1:35AM
[WITHHELD] said...
Torley's blog post seems to have been removed, all hits to the "Collission Sounds Video Tip Of The Week" expanded view (where the comments presumably existed) now redirect to Torley's latest art video on youtube.
Wonder if there's any connection to Katt's having seen this article.
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8-28-2008 @ 1:53AM
Tateru Nino said...
The post was out there more than long enough to be publically indexed and cached by search engines. Here's the relevant text of the the removed post:
If you're wondering why this is on my personal blog instead of the official Second Life Blog and why you haven't seen the KB Article of the Week lately either, it's because Linden Lab is undergoing changes in communication policy and preparing for future improvements.
As much as that doesn't seem to make sense, I can't go into details now, and I would've let you know earlier were it not for events beyond my control. Please pardon me, I promise to share more if/when I can do so. In the meantime, if you have ideas for how I can better help you by making video tutorials broadly visible in places I've missed, let me know!
-Torley Linden
Resident Enlightenment Manager