Well, last year I promised that I would do another – expanded – report-card poll for Linden Lab for Q4 2010, and here it is.
Rather than using the polling system that I did last time, I hand-rolled this one so that it would do things rather more the way I was hoping – and make the data processing much easier. There were a lot of responses last time, and I’m hoping for even more this time around. It’s not exactly pretty, but frankly I was a little rushed.
Last time, the poll let you grade Linden Lab on their own core values (fast, easy fun), and one other (stability), based on Philip Rosedale’s entreaty that we judge the Lab by its actions, and not by its promises. Acta non verba.
This time around, we still have Linden Lab’s core values (fast, easy, fun), and we still have stability/reliability, but I have also added categories for ‘trust’ and ‘communications’.
So, step on up and tell all your friends. How did Linden Lab do in October/November/December?
It seems to me there has been very little change. Here are my reasons for any changes I’ve seen:
It has been a little more fun for me, even if indirectly, largely because we got meshes to play with, inspiring me to playing with new toys.
Communications have, as you’ve mentioned, been pretty much non-existent, which, however, feels like only a small step down from Q3. Notably, there has been almost total radio silence on many of the big projects promised, leaving people to repeatedly ask, “are there any news about …?” (Group limits, mesh going live, teens, 64-meter prims etc).
Reliability is a bit down, primarily because of group chat going to hell in a handbasket. -Which, as per above, begs the question, “Any news about the XMPP project?”
Quick question: When the poll indicates “Only your most recent responses will be counted,” how does it keep track of that? The same way that the CDS systems in Second Life incorrectly classify alts… e.g. by originating IP address? Does this mean that when my wife answers the poll using our shared Internet access that she will overwrite my response?
Just curious
Not by IP address. There are often a thousand or more people behind a single IP address.
If I may step in, there’s a problem I perceive in the poll itself. I speak up because I spent quite a bit of my career constructing such polls, and there is (imo) a glaring error: what the poll is actually measuring.
What the entire poll discusses and is set up to gauge, according to wording, is how Linden Lab compares from Q3 to Q4. Is that the real issue here? If that is the precise information you want to know, then the poll as worded is fine. But the real question I have in this, is how SL customers consider performance OVERALL.
In other words, rather than “How much do you trust Linden Lab in Q4 compared to Q3?”… how about asking, “Do you trust Linden Lab?” Honestly speaking I trust Linden Lab about the same in Q4 as I did in Q3. Realistically speaking, I don’t trust Linden Lab any farther than I can throw a freight train. See the difference?
Same goes for every other question. How do I consider stability from Q3 to Q4? About the same (maybe a little worse). How do I consider stability overall? In the tank. Seriously, group chat failure, SL Marketplace delivery failure, permanently lost inventory, asset server failure, stop-dead lag… A company that can’t get CHAT right can’t make any claims as far as stability goes.
So that is the issue that struck me in the formation of that survey. It doesn’t really portray at all what people really think of the company and platform… especially when Q3 and Q4 are pretty much equal pains. ; )
If I may follow up quickly… if your question is how Q4 compares to Q3, logistically the best way to observe that is ask people for their overall viewpoints on SL… and compare that statistically to the last time you took such a poll. By that concept, you could ask them the same questions each quarter, (basically “How do you feel about this at this time?”) and doing comparative analysis to the last times you’ve asked that question. Over a year’s period of time you’ll be able to put together a fairly reliable graph.
You’ve got a good point there. I constructed the poll off of the old one (which compared Q3 to Q2), so I obviously used the same format.
I think when the next poll comes up in April, I’ll start looking at getting more absolute subjective impressions.
I think the “compared to Q3″ makes it rather hard to get good data from the poll, as you don’t know the individual respondee’s Q3. In my case, things didn’t really get worse – but only because Q3 was already aweful
Considering that the original poll was taking Philip up on his words on the rather vague concepts of “Fast, Easy, Fun”, and asking, “Well, did he make your SL more fun over the last months, as he promised?”, I’d say the poll is in fact “correct”.
Though I agree that over time, it may be useful to have a more objective baseline.
Alexander: “In my case, things didn’t really get worse – but only because Q3 was already aweful
”
LOL, exactly.
In truth, for the current poll to reflect my true opinions, I’d have to answer almost every question with the last option, indicating things are worse. While that’s not an accurate answer to Q3 to Q4 differences, it would accurately state my opinion of whether SL is “Fast, Easy, Fun”… which it obviously is not.
Tateru, I have a spark of an idea: Why not run a totally different poll asking people how they feel about SL now compared to prior to Viewer 2 (or alternately, and probably better, Jan 1, 2011 compared to Jan 1, 2010). Considering the general comments I hear from people about 2010 being an SL nightmare year, I think the response would be rather startling… and telling in regard to Philip’s “fast easy fun” concept– not that LL will care. ;D
Q4 was when LL kicked educators in the teeth.
I’m going to encourage participation on the e-lists.
although the poll is a good idea, the answers are almost totally different depending on whether I’m using V1 or V2.
I don’t want to sound cranky… but without that differentiation, the findings don’t mean much to me (and it’s difficult for me to fill out the survey).
We’d have to assume you were using viewer 2. The aim of the poll is to evaluate Linden Lab’s choices for Second Life (primarily) against the criteria that it insisted that it be judged by.
But the poll doesn’t state that assumption anywhere. As for me, I’ve tried V2 a couple of times and instantly gone back to using a third-party viewer. In most of the venues I frequent, I would estimate that 75% or more of the users are using an alternate viewer. The only times I find that not the case are when I’m in newbie welcome areas; the newbies are naturally using V2, and many of the mentors do so as well to be able to help them better.
Then it seems that what you’re saying is that V2 is unsuccessful in one or more of the polled categories, I should think.