How to make Second Life look better – hide the problems
So, Linden Lab has decided that:
Because we want to make it even easier to report bugs, today we are making some changes that will streamline the bug reporting process, allowing us to more quickly collect information and respond to issues.
and to do this they are moving away from crowd-sourcing the identification and analysis of problems found by removing visibility of bugs that are reported from now on. Which means if you do find a problem there’s no central place for you to check to see if others are experiencing it or if there’s a workaround. You’re expected to suck it up and continue to pay your money.
There’s no way this is going to streamline the process – except that most people probably won’t report issues from now on and if it’s bad enough to impact on their Second Life will either try one of the various fora around or just give up and leave. After all, this is supposed to be entertainment not a struggle and since problems are rarely fixed and when they are it’s at a glacial pace I’d say the chance of improvement in turnaround times is pretty unlikely but it will make Second Life look better to anyone who doesn’t actually have anything to do with the platform.
So, here’s where I laugh and hand Linden Lab another bag of nails and a new hammer for that coffin of theirs. With an 8% decline in regions this year any sane company certainly wouldn’t be trying to push people even further from the platform.
The only saving grace for Linden Lab will be the reduction in bugs reported as the overhead of managing this new system will, by the very nature of the new process, increase.
Apparently Linden Lab management hate their employees almost as much as they hate their customers. This decision seems to reflect this.