Those Poor Linden Bastards…
Massive, horrible griefing over this past weekend in Second Life. A few had fun at the expense of the many. Some people decided to move, and others left Second Life entirely so that they could just get through a day without being harassed.
This isn’t, however, a story about griefers.
Earlier today I caught a group notice that some Lindens were holding office hours about the whole affair. I had an hour before my meeting so I figured, what the hell. Prokofy Neva has been good enough to provide a full transcript of the affair.
At first I was just idly curious about these two Lindens I didn’t know; Socrates and Zara. After watching the group make various demands and ask for Philip, it occurred to me that the Lindens present weren’t saying much. I started asking them questions to find out more. I really only had one question: what’s going on at Linden Lab to deal with the griefer problem?
After awhile it started to dawn on me what was happening here: these two Lindens were front-line customer service agents.
I have no idea why I was so surprised. For a “Governance Team Office Hour” at 10 am SLT, yeah, I’d send some low-paid CSRs to do some irate handling. I sure as hell wouldn’t expect a Vice President there. And of *course* there are CSRs with Linden accounts… I have no idea what last name I expected frontline agents’ accounts to have…
So here we are at this meeting and everybody is asking for new tools and for the company CEO. Try this: grab your phone bill, dial the customer service number, and demand that they change the way the company operates and that they personally pass a message to the CEO. Good luck folks.
Meanwhile these poor CSRs are sitting here in a torrent of negativity where everybody gets to vent. It’s a popular customer service myth, by the way, that letting your customers vent makes them think of you better. Managers and Quality “experts”, who don’t actually deal with customers, love this theory. “Let your customer vent and get everything off of their chest. They’ll get it all out, feel better about having said everything, and really appreciate you for it!”
Idiocy.
Allowing a customer to vent confirms in their minds not only that everything they’re ranting about is a cause for concern, but also that all of their negative false assumptions that they’re making about your company are correct as well. When they’re done they DO feel good… about THEMSELVES… but you’re still a useless moron in their minds who had to be yelled at before you would do anything. (There are far better strategies but I’ll save that for another day.) You can only imagine how much better all of this works in a group chat where everybody’s complaints feed off of each other and are forever recorded with absolutely no counter-arguments.
So that was the situation. Everybody venting, and these two CSRs sitting there like good little agents inviting people to vent more. It was oh-so productive.
Meanwhile they’re unable to do a damn thing about any of it.
- They were hired to stay on-message: use the Jira, and fill out an Abuse Report.
- They invite people to vent.
- People vent.
- They say JiraAbuseReport
- The customers point out that those aren’t good solutions.
- Well, uh… umm… that’s something that… you know… gets handled by certain other people. Hint. Hint. (Read: “I can’t do that. I’m just a CSR. WTF do you want from me?”)
- The customers want an explanation for why the hugeness of this weekends issues weren’t handled better.
- Umm… Abuse Report? (Read: “I don’t know, that wasn’t me, I don’t work weekends… those people who dealt with that aren’t in.”)
- Well? What about an apology? Some empathy? Something?
- … thanks so much for coming out! (Read: “If I say anything that isn’t on the company blog I’m fired.”)
Poor bastards. All they can do is sit there and soak up the abuse so that other Lindens, people who could fix this stuff but are busy working right now, don’t have to hear it.
What we need here isn’t Philip Rosedale kickin’ it with his company’s customers, and we don’t need some techie trying to grapple with what the hell everyone is talking about, and we really don’t need some CSRs to make people “feel heard” without actually doing anything.
What DO we need?
I have a few possible solutions in mind… but before I get to that, what do you think?
November 13th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Onder, I’ll say it again: you are coming very, very late to this “party,” and you are not even waking up and smelling the coffee. You’re just tuning in, and swaggering about and telling everyone “I have management experience in tekkie situations like this in RL, let me set you all straight”.
But it’s bullshit. You have no clue.
You’re simply missing loads of information here to clue yourself up. You don’t seem to realize — because you never bothered to go to these Linden office hours in your life, despite being a journalist — that there is a whole dynamic going on here in these ridiculous sessions apparently not visible to you and understood by you.
Lindens come out, often not “the principles,” but the B team or even the C team. Sychophantic fanboyz flatter them, josh around with faux self-deprecating humour, waste time, and talk about non-essentials. People with urgent concerns, sometimes merely their own individual unsolved case, sometimes on behalf of hundreds of customers, try to press their cases. The Lindens offer lame, ridiculous, non-answers. The fanboyz chastise the residents asking the real questions and berate them for not loving the Lindens or for talking too much.
They are merely marking time til they open source, and pass the buck to someone else.
Ideas that were trotted out 3 years ago in community round tables and already turned down ages ago by Philip or Robin or Pathfinder are rehashed by new residents and new Lindens who act as if these ideas are new and feasible. They aren’t, because politically, concepts have long since been quashed by higher-ups. Example: any discussion of “brainstorming” about the free accounts is a collossal waste of time. The Lindens have done only one thing with these accounts: enabled YOU to ban them if you want on your property (an action that does absolutely no good to deter the griefing objects such as those deployed last weekend).
They will not be instituting concepts like “no scripting for 30 days” or “can’t build for 30 days” — ever. So it’s retarded to sit around lamely and drafting positive proposals with these lame new Lindens when far more serious and really radical political action has to be taken.
This particular office hour usually has the principle, Michael Linden, head of the G-team, or Governance Team, but he was out, so newer and more junior Lindens filled in (usually they barely talk).
This particular G-team meeting is a new phenom — the Lindens, in part to deflect all this criticism of their poor communications, and in part to try to do SOMETHING to make it LOOK LIKE they are coping with griefing, decided to hold these office hours *every single week day at 10 am*. That’s a phenomenal hair-shirt, and one arrived at probably only after hearing enormous amounts of screaming.
What’s been happening for months — a year? — is that when massive grid attacks occur, there is no procedure for large landowners to get the Lindens attention. You can’t find them online anymore — their online status is now hidden. Even if you do using that hacker HUD, they ignore you and deflect notecards. They ignore emails. The ONLY way to reach them is with a support portal ticket.
But creating a better fire brigade with a real 911 like Live Help used to be is in fact what’s needed. Their hobbling belief that this “can’t scale” (um, it scales in real-life cities of 7 or 10 million people with far worse problems in RL) is one of the major underlying problems.
So we don’t need venting sessions, which don’t even ameloriate that fundamental failure to create a “fire brigade” and enable people to access it 24/7 with online chat or trouble tickets.
It would be eminently sensible for the Lindens to create a Crime Control Unit like the Concierge, to which those with X customers or sims, as in clubs or rentals or non-profit newbie helping venues, could apply and sign up for — even for pay! — and get instant fire-brigade response to massive griefing they can’t control — things like 16 mega prims put out over mainland sims that resist return efforts.
In Concierge, if landowners have a sim problem, i.e. needing a sim restart or an island transfer, they have 24/7 access to the Concierge Service. Instantly. With a smile.
But Concierge has been stubbornly — psychotically — deflecting any and all reports to them of massive griefing incidents that only THEY can fix, i.e. Land Guru Lindens who can come and remove scripted, physics-enabled, screaming, particle-spewing, self-replicating objects.
Worse, cynically, Michael Linden has told us that if desperate landowners with massive griefing problems try to use trouble tickets filed to Concierge to get attention, they will go to the bottom of the pile.
That leaves people with ONLY the lame abuse-report system, with often no visible perpetrator they can report on — something that the system requires! (I workaround this by using the name “Philip Linden”).
I mean, hell, Onder, you are the first to bitch about these griefer objects when they appear on the sim where you are renting from me — oblivious to the fact that this is a chronic, GRID-WIDE PROBLEM. I do my part — I take these things off my land. But…there’s still either Linden Land, where autoreturn is set not at all (!!!) or to 5 very long minutes, or no-show neighbours, i.e. that lovely parcel devoted to Starax’s “demise” which piles up with griefer crap. To get rid of these, only Lindens can help.
You would think that once a perpetrator is identified, the Lindens, being the Estate Owner of the entire Mainland Continent, could do what you do on an island, namely press “return all scripted objects from this avatar” instantly. I’m utterly baffled why they don’t do that, but apparently they *do* do it somehow, only slowly, and in batches.
So all this history has gone down, and many, many other matters — like the raising of the grey goo fence — and these griefers have all been amply documented, as to style, dress, groups, names, proximity to known griefing groups, and the Lindens *do nothing* about these groups.
There are NO FALSE ASSUMPTIONS here, Onder — they’re only on YOUR part with your condescending smug insolent attitude, so typical of tekkies refusing to listen to field data.
Mastro Quatro first unveiled the public thesis that many believe but never utter: the Lindens collude with griefers when they fail to condemn their racism.
That’s not a false premise; that’s the truth. Indeed they do. They never condemn the racism and anti-Semitism and gross obscene talk amply documented. They do this for two reasons: a) they believe — falsely — that reporting/condemning this “only fuels the griefers” and b) they don’t really think it’s racism (a frequent griefer comment on forums) because they think it’s just for shock value.
My God, imagine if you went around in real life with that attitude. And God damn, this IS real life — it’s REAL racism and REAL loss of business! It’s racism! And just as in real-life, you don’t just let racism fester and never condemn it in the belief it will “go away”, you have to report and condemn it.
The idea of making those who refuse to act on a crime or a human rights abuse culpable is known as “surrogate advocacy,” and it’s a movement tactic. It’s a good one. It’s used all the time when people want to try to make Bush responsible for deaths in Iraq, even if they are caused by terrorists and not G.I.s And it’s a proper demand for “ownership” of the problem. You may not agree with this tactic; you may not bother to feel what it’s like to see racist crap unleashed on thousands of sims because you are “above it all” in your Metanomics-Land — but it’s wrong nonetheless, and the Lindens *do* need to take ownership of this problem.
Another thing you think is “false” is that the demand to freeze groups is “guilt by association”. It’s not. These groups are amply documented as griefing both on mains and alts. The new alts gravitate to these groups and constantly sport the same “insignia” (like the nun costume or the puppets. Landowners slogging it out night after night in SL and reporting the griefing over and over again can see all this. People like yourself sitting on prestigious little panels on your islands don’t see it. That doesn’t mean that what we say is “false”.
The JIRA is not a place to go with these issues. Not only is it cumbersome and counterintutive and terribly painful to use, with the lifer geek fanboyz constantly closing your issue or moving it out of site or trying to disparage it (you have to be really determined to get something solved — believe me, I can demonstrate this to you in spades) — it’s just plain slow and stupid. Ordinal Malaprop eloquently explains on my blog today that what caused the griefing attack to work was essentially a bug that is already fixed (!) and could be pushed (!) in the next patch, but for some inexplicable reason, isn’t moving — this is the problem of the blue menu stealing the focus and freezing other actions (like abuse reports!).
What I HATE HATE HATE HATE about you tekkies is the way you CONSTANTLY with this most supreme stubborn arrogance and condescension try to convert every *political* issue you don’t agree with (and have some hacker leftoid take on) as a “technical issue we didn’t understand*. Bullshit. This isn’t rocket science. It’s racist griefing. Just like in real life, some countries ban such groups when they reach a critical mass of criminality, because their crimes are documented, so in Second Life the Lindens need to call the FBI because a race crime and a denial-of-service attack has take place on a massive level, affecting thousands of people, and it needs to be investigated by professionals, not sullen and insolent 20-something hacker kiddies at Linden Lab who are in the same groups as the griefers.
People do pointless things like demand Philip’s number because they’ve already spent TWO LONG YEARS in some cases, as I have done, dealing with these same griefers and these same Lindens. Many people have the very mistaken idea that these griefing attacks are caused by new kiddies coming to SL.
They aren’t. They are planned and executed by very much adult thugs, who have international movements and only use new recruits as foot soldiers.
I frankly do. not. want. to hear your solutions because of your incredible arrogance in walking up to a meeting with people who have struggled with this problem FOR YEARS with voluminous amounts of field data who frankly run circles around you. And I mean circles.
Everything that Master Quatro and I outline is correct. The Lindens need to do the following:
o report and condemn the attacks, to let people know that they are setting a bar high, they have no tolerance for racism, and to show right from wrong
o report and condemn the attacks so that people see this isn’t an isolated problem here or there; it isn’t just some lame new account randomly flying around; it is a conspiracy to grief the people of Second Life with destructive, racist attacks and has to be seen globally as a very real problem.
o report to the FBI and revive their case there begun in 2005 against Plastic Duck. These are Plastic Ducks alts, descendents, offspring, illegitimate children — they are all in the same movements and their branches. It’s a finite quantity that can easily be tracked with just a little bit of basic detective work.
o Get the insolent, hackster-minded, grief-loving Linden coders and young Linden griefer buddies off this account. Let customer service professionals, not insolent kids, handle this issue in a sophisticated manner. The Linden coders and young liaisons are the problem — they are in the same griefer groups, think it’s funny, laugh at people’s concerns, and say totally retarded insolent stuff like, “Well, how do we know, the Prokofy Fan Club might be admirers” — although the fan club contains people in it constantly documented as hands-on griefers, who have spent weeks on furlough for scripted object litter, harassment, sim crashing, and much more.
o Instead of being secretive about such a case, they need to stand on the court-house steps or the government building every single day with the news media and be as in your face as they possibly can. They need to set the tone. Instead of celebraing Plastic Duck/Gene Replacement as a builder of mega prims, they have to repudiate his legacy and his offspring — and his own actions, frankly, as he continues on alts.
o These daily meetings have to be held not just to hear people vent, but to deal with real cases. Their refusal to discuss cases and to take case data is outrageous, given the severity of the problem. They need to end this impunity for griefers by their silence.
o Many suggestions have been made to overhaul the Police Blotter and make it much more of a deterrent by naming names, naming perpetrators, abuse-reporters (yes, they need to take responsibility!) and prosecuting Lindens.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
That quazi-democracy in feudal state of second life is pure stupidity. If something bad happens, raged residents come under the tower with torches and yell. Two Lindens whose name nobody ever heard of come and play chat-bots. BTW, those two are not poor at all. They are getting payed to show their official avatars in their office time and to copy_paste set of prepared sentences. While doing that they are probably drinking their coffees and chatting what happened last night at the party. Or they are working from their homes, which open even more possibilities to have fun during the public rage. I want a job like that.
People want to see Philip. Why? Is there anything that Philip would say that would make some sense in the situation? No. Is there anything Philip can do? No. If there is, he would do it without waiting for residents to scream under the window.
What can be done. For the start, confess that we have a problem. Then, face the fact that nobody in the company has no solution. Come up publicly with that. Not when something happens, but when you are ready to be constructive. Ask for help. Yes, there will be a lot of wise asses who will come with their two cents, but after the first wave, the nice little community will form. Same happened with the new architecture project. Whatever the group do, stay public and transparent.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Prokofy - What does any of that have to do with the fact that everyone was complaining to a couple of bottom-of-the-ladder customer service reps who couldn’t do a damn thing? Nothing. You are wasting your effort with people who can’t do anything about it and are unable to pass on your message.
These were the WRONG LINDENS. They’re just two people put there to accept your abuse and pass none of it on. They couldn’t help you if they wanted to.
That’s not technical. That’s not “swaggering” or “arrogant” or any of the other unnecessarily mean and insulting ways you feel are necessary to make your rebuttals. That’s just a fact. Period.
The rest of what you said about how bad the problem is doesn’t change that fact. Being around for a long time doesn’t change that fact. Having really great ideas doesn’t change that fact either. These were the wrong people.
However, once we’ve slogged past your initial assaults on my character, condescension and statements on what I think even though I never even HINTED at thinking those things, you made some interesting suggestions and gave some interesting history. For that reason, and the fact that I can take a few hits, I’ll leave your comment up for now.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:15 am
dandellion - I don’t know if it’s all THAT easy to shrug off an angry crowd. Even one angry customer at a time is pretty hard to handle. Customer Service Representatives in call centers often end up suffering from depression, anxiety, fits of rage, you name it… nobody is completely immune to abuse no matter what the context. There are methods of coping, but they’re not widely taught unfortunately.
I agree that Philip needs to become available and address these concerns, but at the same time we’ve seen the transcripts of his office hours sessions in the past. They’re a big mess of nonsense, generally. Lots of old ideas are re-hashed, and a few people attempt to monopolize the conversation without ever getting down to the heart of the matter. That’s NOBODY’s fault really, just the format. The next time Philip makes himself available there has to be some planning involved… some form of moderation that maximizes the potency of the points being made by the audience while still getting everything addressed.
We’ll have to give this a think.
November 14th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Oh, it can be easy. Just find two people who honestly say “it’s your avatar, it’s not you” and “this is only a game” when some girl is complaining about the griefing with attachment exposed. Some people are connected to their avatars, some are not.
And, if there is to be an event where problems like this should be seriously discussed, then better keep Philip and all the Lindens away. They are just attracting the blood-thirsty crowd and those whose only goal is to monopolize the zero channel. That is not an opportunity to do anything constructive. If you want to do something right, make your list of people who might contribute, get a nice place for all of them to sit together and talk. After something is done, write it down, find a way to contact Philip (there are ways if you have the good idea) and talk to him in private. No publicity needed.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I’ve been in those trenches. Working at the huge hosting company, I’ve been on the phones, on email, on chats, and on tickets where folks want to just rant instead of help the technician actually solve their problem.
Especially when upper-level techs are all out to lunch, this person’s system is down, and you haven’t a clue how to resolve it. GENIUS!
Meanwhile, a class is going on in the training room for… no, not techs… SALES people.
Because we need more sales. Not support of customers we sell too. GENIUS!
“I KNOW THE CEO! I’M GOING TO TELL HIM TO FIRE YOU!”
(/me thinks If you know him, well, ring up his private cell phone instead of calling us to scream.)
GENIUS! *sigh* Not fun.
So as someone who in RL is often one of the poor dumb stooges thrown to the wolves while management pretends all is well and the developers are at their Nth conference of the week, yeah, it doesn’t accomplish a darn thing then you send UNEMPOWERED drones out to deal with the public.
The drones themselves end up acting like broken records, repeating from the script handed to them while the customer tries to bait them into telling the truth about the situation.
If they don’t know the truth, they’re just there to get beaten up until management comes up with enough of a story to calm things down, or until developers work up a solution.
If they know the truth, they still can’t say it. Especially if it’s an admission of fault, because that means nasty icky refunds or even actionable admission of responsibility.
Do they pass along concerns to management? Very likely… although it *is* an environment where a manager could spawn an alt and watch if the transcript isn’t enough.
In the end, the heart of any server-based operation is usually the ticket system. Everything else feeds that ticket system or reports on the status of that ticket system.
Chat… feeds tickets.
Phones… feed tickets.
If it ain’t in a ticket, it ain’t an issue.
Maybe there needs to be public traffic patterns on tickets, status based on the agents doing triage and assignment of issues, types of issues active… or have I not visited jira recently enough? (another item to add to the TO DO list… sheesh)
-ls/cm
November 14th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Prokofy left three more comments. I’ve moderated them. As I’ve explained in previous postings, I maintain a completely random and unfair moderation policy on my blog.
See http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/2007/06/20/my-censorship-double-standard/
November 14th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I’m glad that you’ve come to this conclusion…until real, legitimate concerns can’t be brushed off any longer with “she’s a loon”, or “he’s a nutbar anyway”, then unacceptable conditions will prevail.
This stuff is easily fixable. No idea why it isn’t.