Cutting a loss

I've finally decided to quit visiting the SL Forums. It's not as though there was a last straw; I'm not angry or offended or anything like that. It's just not worth it. I'm not getting anything out of it any more.

There's no reason to say goodbye there. I'm not interested in listing my reasons for others to dissect, but I do want to spell them out here because this is *my* blog.

First of all, one of the things I hoped for in the new forum was Linden participation. Usually a post from a Linden is a sort of revelation; it cuts through the pure speculation. Sure, we may not like what they say. We might argue with it, but a post from a Linden is always appreciated.

However, the Lindens don't post much in the forum, and the ones who used to post have been laid off. (I'm going to have more to say on the subject of Linden forum-posts in the future.)

Second, there is precious little discussion. It's not really a forum, because different points of view aren't tolerated. It's impossible to have *any* discussion of Viewer 2, for example, but not because the topic is inherently divisive. It's because there are attack dogs who won't tolerate anything but unconditional love and admiration. There was a thread recently in which a questioner was attacked for asking how to improve Viewer 2's image. Apparently thinking that its image needed improvement was tantamount to "hate".

Third, adult topics are taboo, because there are children present. I don't particularly care about adult topics, but Linden Lab slipped the kids in there without telling anyone. Their official position is still that there are separate forums for children and adults, but it isn't true.

Fourth, I don't find the sense of community that I felt in the old forums. I'm willing to find it; I wanted to find it. It's not that I'm looking for the same thing. It's not necessarily that my old friends are missing. It's that the people who dominate the forum are kind of mean and intolerant. They're constantly jumping down the throat of people who don't agree with them.

Then, there is the software itself. Jive's SBS is the worst web-forum software available. I can say that without any fear of contradiction. I've even considered offering a substantial cash prize to anyone who could find a worse alternative. I've no fear of ever having to pay, but I haven't been able to figure out the terms of the contest. I don't want someone writing a worse piece of software just for the sake of the contest — and that of course would be the only way of winning.

In the first place, the navigation is awful. This is true of the blog side as well, but it isn't as noticeable because LL doesn't blog that much. It's hard to find things on purpose; the search always delivers incomplete results. You can't get a list of all your own posts, for example. Any other web forum delivers that with a single click.

Second, you can't subscribe to threads except by email. In fact, Jive's SBS spams you by default. The more you participate, the more spam you receive. This makes threads hard to follow. In fact, it requires a lot of clicking and scrolling that no other web-forum software would ever subject you to.

Third, there is no dependable place to find updates. With all the feeds Jive makes available, there is none that simply delivers the most recent posts. The "main threads" page often misses threads, for no particular reason. It's not due to moderation: threads missing from the main page can be found on the overview for an individual channel. But why should anyone have to work that hard?

I'm done there. I doubt anyone will miss me; I've posted so little since the change. And honestly, I don't have hard feelings. I can see that many people are happy there, and that's good. It's serving a purpose. It's just not for me. I'm the wrong demographic or something.

Not quite goodbye

There was a blog, a well-known blog, that I used to follow. It has something to do with my job, and it was very active. It was updated more than twice a day. I didn't really like it, but I felt like I was supposed to read it.

After a while I began to realize that I wasn't getting anything out of it. It didn't have any news I hadn't already seen. Nothing there was was memorable or helpful.

So one day, I quit following it.

No big deal, of course... but as I said, in my line of work it's a well-known blog, so I really had to ask myself Am I making a mistake? Will I miss anything if I don't read it?

But in the end, I just said the hell with it.

I'm nearly at that point with the Second Life Forums.

I know that I ought to read it. After all, Lindens do pop up there. I've even had an exchange of posts with M Linden himself. There are a lot of residents who are very smart and helpful, and some who are quite funny.

On the other hand, there's a lot that's wrong there.

On the technical side, the forum software is missing a lot of basic functionality. It's hard to use. It's hard to get around. It's hard to follow threads without setting a bunch of bookmarks. And even when you do that, you have to open ALL the bookmarks to see if those threads are updated.

I've written a bunch of scripts to make it easier to use. It was fun; it helped make the forums interesting. But it's not enough any more.

I began working out a sort of proxy or wrapper for the forums: it would be a read-only website that let you see what was updated since you'd last viewed the site, and allow you to subscribe to threads. If you wanted to post something, or edit your posts, it would pass you through to the real forum.

None of that would be difficult to do, but I'm not sure that it would be worth the trouble.

In addition to the technical problems, there are problems on the human side. There is a group of people who weren't at the old forums, or maybe they weren't very active. They made their home at the new place before the old forums were merged in. They are very hostile to people from the old forums (like me). If you say you don't like anything, anything at all, they heap you with scorn and abuse and tell you to either shut up or leave.

Usually I wouldn't care. I'd just take my place and let them complain. The thing is, the place isn't really worth it. It's not as though it's a place I'd want to call home.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to the new forums, but every day I'm getting closer to it.

An Experimental Life

It's well known that the last child born in a family is often... well... not spoiled necessarily, but definitely Treated Quite Differently.

And so, while my sisters and brother and I were all obliged to suffer the complete horrors of a fully Catholic education, including Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, at least four of the Seven Sacraments, and the ugly, utterly unsexy Catholic school uniform...

... Six, being the last born, was allowed to grow as an uncatechised heathen. She was baptized, yes, but was raised without any idea who Jesus was, what the inside of a church looks like, and what the Pope does when he's at home.

It seemed to work out well for her, aside from the occasional unexpected grace before meals with cousins. (Six developed her own two-handed version of the Sign of the Cross.)

Lately, though, she's become quite the scoffer at anything religious. While I have nothing good to say about Roman Catholicism or the current big-eyed, red-shoed Pope in particular, it is a little distressing to see Six so cynical, so young.

But oh well! She's also happy, sharp, and funny, so who knows where it will all end up?

Last night she was reading one of the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Whatsit, and came upon a chapter about Sundays. The little girls were obliged to sit quietly most of the day, while one parent read aloud from the Bible. The father in the book tells a story about how much more difficult things were in his father's day, when they didn't dare to laugh or smile the entire day.

Six demanded an explanation.

"That's religion," I told her. "Religion is all about rules. The Sabbath is supposed to be God's day..."

"And what does God care about it? What if their parents didn't *see* them laugh and play? No one would know."

"The idea is that God would know."

"Hmm, yes," she said. "But who would He tell?"