Do you know what the top 5 bugs are (as voted by residents)? They are:
SVC-1509
SVC-3895
SVC-472
WEB-2001
SVC 4207
Of these 5 bugs 2 are from 2007, 2 are from 2009, and 1 is from 2010.
Of these 5 bugs 1 is a showstopper, 3 are critical, and 1 is major.
Of these 5 bugs 2 are assigned and 3 are unassigned.
Here’s an explanation of each bug:
SVC-1509 (votes: 1883): Error message when starting and posting to a group IM session. This bug is assigned to Sardonyx Linden and created on 11-27-2007. I really don’t need to explain this problem since almost everyone has experienced it sometime in their SLife. Going through the comments I see that on 6/5/2010 it was reported to affect Server 1.38. (Ed. note: Why hasn’t Linden Lab implemented IRC for group chats? That’s been stable for 20 years.) If you would like a laugh go to http://isslgroupchatstillbroken.com/ While reading comments I saw this and laughed out loud.
SVC-3895 (votes: 885): Rezzing Mono scripted object cripples sim FPS. This bug is assigned to Babbage Linden (!) and created on 2/24/2009. This sounds exactly like the title. In the report there’s samples and even discussion of a partial fix. (Look at 2010-02-14 13:24:36-05 comment where there is a reference to Babbage’s office hours and a partial fix.) There’s some “drama” (discussion in comments) and then Kelly Linden comments on 4/12/2010 with an update. It took over a year. Granted, this is a special circumstance here and the time that is being taken is for many various reasons that are out of Linden Lab’s control. However the commentary is very telling and I’d like to say Kelly Linden is extraordinary.
SVC-472 (votes: 576): Region Crossings Fail. This bug is unassigned and was created on 7-27-2007. This bug is exactly as described. Clearly not a trivial fix at all (Torley even states so) but apparently been happening before this report was filed. One user describes it’s been happening since 05 and seems to have gotten worse. While Soft and Torley commented on this it still is marked as unresolve and according to a post on 4/22/2010 this issue still occurs.
WEB-2001 (votes: 424): Listing disappears in “search” when more than one maturity rating is check marked. This is a hotbutton issue for me in particular and many people I know (Mouse *waves*). First brought up to my attention by one of my affiliate vendors I’ve been watching it since then. Many stores are affected by this and it’s hard to pay tier when there’s no one shopping in my store because it’s not listed in search. FIX IT.
SVC 4207 (votes:417): Server 1.26.3.118580: Limit of prims on coallesced objects make dealing with full-sim builds IMPOSSIBLE. This bug looks like it remains open but won’t be getting fixed anytime soon. The limit was 1000 prims but then upped to 4000 and even in the comments it’s mentioned that that will not change. Still it’s a hotbed issue for residents so why isn’t it even being addressed beyond “too bad, so sad”???
This is just the top 5 bugs chosen by the voting system that Linden Lab has put in place to let the Residents determine what issues are important to them. If you would like to see the top 30 bugs chosen by the residents that are still open here’s the list.
Notice I keep mentioning ‘chosen by residents’, ‘determined by residents’, ‘issues important to residents’ because that really needs to be a focus here. We are the customers and most of these bugs that are even in the top 30 can be fixed. The rest of the bugs are not so easy to fix and I understand why that is and this post really isn’t about those bugs.
Looking at the top 30 bugs here how many do you think affect land owners, premium accounts, store owners, hell, anyone that buys Lindens, sells Lindens, buys stuff inworld/on xstreet with Lindens regardless if they are free or premium or landowner or not. I’m going to take a big, fat, wild guess and say all of them. Which, with the rare exception, affects all residents.
Here’s an issue near and dear to my heart, SVC-553. We all know how much I enjoy losing items from my inventory. The stuff I never blogged about are: I don’t have any of my original gestures, have lost original textures, and who knows what else. I’m beyond caring and am afraid to look at what is gone. I just know if I ever explained away database information lost, at my job, as ‘it just happens’ or ‘I am sorry nothing can be done’ I’d get fired.
Ya’ll, as Paula Deen says, there’s some good news here too. Did you know that there’s a site that shows jira responsiveness statistics. Betcha didn’t!!! Actually that site, SL Jira Stats, is a pretty good 3rd party site for interesting jira stats. (Yes I am biased, but I’ve been using it a while to search bugs, it’s easier for me) But if you look you will see that bugs are being fixed. You also should know that besides the Lindens there are resident volunteers who help keep the jira organized and make sure things move along as best they can. I don’t want anyone to think this post is about no one doing jack, because people are working on bugs (the charts show progress) but I am afraid they aren’t the ones that are the most important to the residents.
I really hope Linden Lab finally starts listening to it’s customers. Because basically, that is what residents are. We are customers and we pay for this product. In the almost 4 years I’ve been in Second Life I’ve seen the gradual decline in taking care of the customer. I know now M’s plan is to be resident focused rather than enterprise focused but to me, it’s a day late and a dollar short. The only people who thought viewer 2.0 would succeed were the people working on it and the consultants who designed that mess of a UI. I understand it’s important to think positively about projects that may bring about large change but it was doomed from the beginning. How do I make that statement? One of the top 30 bugs involves the change in the pie menu. I can whip up a conspiracy theory that the pie menu was changed around to aggravate people enough to want viewer 2.0, but I won’t. If just moving a couple menus on the pie menu caused one of the top 30 resident voted bugs wouldn’t that be a hint that a complete overhaul of the viewer may not be welcome? Even without that evidence I am not sure what UI expert decided cascading menus were much more pleasant than a simple pie menu!!! I don’t want a menu to expand all over my screen- that is absolutely ridiculous.
I mourn the loss of the Lindens that were laid off. Many of them took the time to be a liason between the Lab and the residents and make sure we were in the loop as much as we can be. I am unsure now what the future holds for Second Life. I am sure it will always be around, since many online communities that have as much culture and depth as ours does sticks around for a considerable amount of time.