ON NOTICE!

For the most part, my feeling for Second Life is roughly similar to my personal sense of America:  I dearly love what it is and can be, when it lives up to its ideals-- while at the same time, being just as teeth-grindingly frustrated by the failings that keep causing it to fall short.  Especially when they take so long to reform, or worse, seem to backslide after subsequent updates (or if you prefer, elections.)

Which is a roundabout way of saying how glad I am to see the latest update come with substantial improvements to the Group management tools.  (Three years later than I'd have liked them, to be sure, but welcome all the same.)

Because the potential for creating communities within user-created SL groups, many of them comprised of several hundred or even thousands of players, has largely gone unrealized.  For the longest time, there's been no ability to send asynchronous announcements to group members, in a way that everyone in the group was sure to get the message, whether they were currently in-world or not.  (To get around that, residents often hacked the group voting tools, which send out group-wide messages in the form of proposal or elections-- at best an unreliable and confusing solution.)

With the new SL, you can write up a Group Notice, and send it out as an internal message for members in-world and out.  (Even cooler, you can attach an image or object to the Notice.)  As an initial trial run, I sent out a message to my New World Notes group, and judging on that, the interface is (miraculously) intuitive, and rapid: the Notice was sent and received by NWN members within seconds.

The potential here is pretty vast and powerful, especially with the imminent closing of the official SL forums.  Now, at last, here's an avenue for moving the community experience off the web and into the world, where it belongs.

Comments

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Yep, and since they stick out, you're not likely to miss them.

The attachment thing is cool too, though it can take some time to save one.

However 25 groups is probably still not going to be enough for some people.

[Cocoanut Cluster]

Are you kidding? This tool is unfair and implemented poorly. Additionally it's increasing lag and encouraging griefers.

[Talon Lardner]

Cocoanut: Huh? How can group tools, of all things, be increasing lag, encourage griefers, and most suprising, be unfair?

[Ayla Calhoun]

Cocoanut, Just like Talon said..How could it do that...First off, You need to be an officer to make a notice. I know because I done it many times! Its a great tool that helps alot on my job! WTG Linden Lab with The Group Tools!