Blogswarming Jira: Second Life Bloggers Boost Group Fix To Record Number of Votes

Jira is the Lindens' software development tracking system of choice, and when Residents clamor for a bug fix or a feature addition to Second Life, the Lindens' immediate response is usually, "Put it in Jira".  Trouble is, Jira remains intimidating and user-unfriendly (despite some recent surface tweaks), so historically, only a very small percentage of Residents have used it.  The blogswarm phenomenon may change that dynamic.  Thanks to a campaign launched by SL blogger Veryon Supercharge, promoted by Vint Falken, then joined by countless others (including myself), a Jira project to expand the maximum number of groups Residents can join (beyond the current 25) has now earned far more votes than any other issue.  The campaign continues, with fashionista Caroline Apollo joining the advocacy.  At this rate, it'll reach 1000 votes in a week or two.  When the Lindens acknowledge the vote, however, still remains to be seen.  (I'm checking with them now.) If you want to consider voting, too, get your SL account info ready to enter and click here.

Comments

[Aleister Kronos]

Now let's see if LL respond. :-)

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Well, you see, this is the problem with this sort of activity. It's all very well people flashblogging the Jira, as if all it needs is to change a slider somewhere but the mean old Lindens just don't want to.

There are technical issues which have been gone into in various different arenas, and people merely saying "I don't understand what they are therefore I will ignore them" does not eliminate them, and a million people could vote and they still would not go away and we still would not have more group slots.

I think what annoys me is the concentration on the tool rather than the desired outcome. The desired outcome doesn't actually necessitate "more group slots". The group system needs to be reorganised to better meet the uses to which it is being put. But that gets left behind in these circumstances, and the consequence is that it actually gets harder to talk about said changes.

[CyFishy Traveler]

Anything that gets more people using the JIRA is fine and dandy with me.

And, yes, we shall see if Linden Lab actually responds. I actually see this as a crucial test--will they allow things to be significantly shaped by the needs of its Residents, or will they continue to try and shape it they way they feel like shaping it and leaving us to deal with it?

If they choose the former, I think they will flourish. If they choose the latter, they're putting themselves on the long, slow slope to oblivion.

[CyFishy Traveler]

Ordinal--

Actually, if you look at the discussion on the vote, you will find that people are offering possible solutions that allow this to be a little more scalable. Some have suggested raising the Group limit for Premium members only, as an additional incentive to upgrade. Others have suggested creating a sort of 'sub-group' structure for things like announcement lists and discussion groups that don't really need to worry about things like land permissions. And somebody else has pointed out that the system that detects things like Group membership and land permissions could use an overhaul so it's not constantly straining itself with useless info requests.

What they are asking for is pretty significant in terms of restructuring the way SL works. And, again, that's what makes this a crucial test of what SL can become--whether they're willing to put the energy and resources into making it possible, or whether they tell us to live with what they give us.

[Ordinal Malaprop]

Oh, people are talking about all sorts of things in the comments, which is terrific - discussion is taking place as to the best methods - but that is not what the entry itself is about. The entry is very specific. And that is one of the problems with Jira, in that it is aimed towards dealing with specific and easily-isolated bugs, rather than this sort of issue which might have multiple solutions, which are not immediately obvious and need to be discussed.

Voting for "increasing the group limit" is pointless if the best solution is not to increase the group limit but change the way groups work, yet that is the only "official" thing that the software allows. Everything else is just "commentary". Jira is perfectly good when it comes to issues such as "comment box does not scroll properly when menu option X is selected", and that is certainly worthwhile, but all we have here is something as useful (or not) as a thread on the SL forums.

[Daman Tenk]

I don't care HOW they fix it. Separate kinds of groups, different handling of groups.

I just need more groups. Period.

[Cyn Vandeverre]

There was a smaller blogswarm this week over LM beacons not working properly. (SVC-1125) Granted, it's only up to 93 votes, but from 0, that's pretty good.

I think getting the word out via blogs, on issues that residents care about, is a great idea. Sure, it's not a magic wand, and LL still will have to decide to fix or implement it, but I expect it's the only way for them to gauge real interest of the population.

[Pavig Lok]

This isn't "blogswarming" or "flashmobbing" as some folk have said. The popular support for voting on issues is simply the community finding a way around some of the jira's failings.

One needs to be a career bug hunter to wade through the jira keeping track on specific issues (with duplicates, heavy technical focus and the difficulty of finding anything standing in the way of casual use). This is too hard for SL residents, and can't be improved for them without watering down it's effectiveness for the development teams and tech experts.

The interest on blogs is simply the public getting involved in an issue with a long history. In the case of the groups issue in particular LL knew that their architecture was limited back when they went from 5 to 10 groups then to 25 - they have known the system doesn't elegantly scale for a loooooong time.

Groups are used for many things, so of course no matter how many you have there are folks who will need more (as they get leveraged for so many functions). As SL continues to grow in complexity groups can not retain legacy limitations, and the residents which are already effected by it are making their voices heard.

[vint falken]

Ordinal, let them first recognize that there is a problem with the groups and start for there? Actually assigning a Linden to this Jira issue would be a great start...

I think indeed, this is not flashmobbing.. even if the SL bloggers point this out, it is still to the avatars to decide if they think the jira issue is worth their vote. If we get more avatars familiar with the JIRA system by doing so, it's a great plus. The problem is indeed, will LL listen... .

As I've said before, I've seen Jira issues disappearing from the 'map'. Suddenly only viewable to Lindens, or marked as solved if they were not.

[Pavig Lok]

... by the way, for the many for folk following MISC-208. I talked to Prospero Linden the other day about networking issues, and mentioned this one as an example of broken implementation that leads to later grief.

He mentioned how deep into SL infrastructure the "25 slot problem" goes - this is an issue that has laid fallow as it requires a huge rethink of many aspects of how the groups service is implemented (and of course many chances to break service in the process of changing it.)

He did also mention that "some lindens" had been discussing breaking groups into several classes as one solution to the problem. As this is something that is currently being discussed also on the jira by the community. This is also being discussed on the jira by the community, and the various benefits and problems of those approaches for residents are being argued.

In this instance I believe that the popularity of this jira issue would be providing valuable insight to the engineers. The community has discussed approaches would work for them, and possible gochas to avoid when implementing a new system. Surely this must be helpful information for the Linden team.

[Troy McLuhan]

If you want to create a group that's for announcements only, then one option is to use Subscribe-O-Matic. I use it for the NanoLands project and it works as advertised. In fact, it's a bit easier to join a Subscribe-O-Matic group than a regular SL group because all you have to do is click a sign or kiosk. The group list is stored in an external database.

This is a classic case of a smart entrepreneur filling a need.

Disclosure: I have no association with Subscribe-O-Matic other than being a happy customer. I guess that's a sort of non-disclosure (agree?).