I know it is the hip new thing to post a Blog about the Emerald Drama that has been happening, and I am usually one of the people who sits back, grabs some popcorn and watches as the internet drama kings and queens have their little bitch slap contest for or against the viewer…making up my own damn mind and going on happily with my life.
In fact I am so used to being in observer mode that I still feel a little odd even addressing what has happened….part of me thinks I should just go back to my happy lurker status and log in with whatever viewer I am comfortable with.
But even after sifting through the drama to get the facts, the countless number of warnings sent out, and the official second life blog notice about it, I still logged in to a sea of green tags today…..and found it hard not to say something like “do you even know?”
I get that many people don’t read forums or blogs, and perhaps I can accept that some people just think it is a bunch of hogwash or some linden conspiracy to get people to move to the official viewers (which is crap really considering he made a point of saying or another TPV from the approved list) but what I have a real issue in accepting is that every single person choosing to ignore the problem, or arguing against it, or saying “screw you it’s not my problem” are pretty much sending the message “Hey emerald team, go ahead and do whatever you want, no matter how wrong it is, as long as my viewer works!”
That isn’t going to fix the problem.
Let me make this absolutely clear. I want to use emerald. It is my viewer of choice. It functioned in a way that made me very comfortable in Second Life. It had features that made my Second life more enjoyable and as a builder/Merchant more productive. I am not against the viewer in any way shape or form.
But I have stopped using it. I have tried other viewers, and found one that will suit my needs for now and until I feel I can trust the emerald team to put out a viewer that is clean.
If you continue to use emerald that is your choice and I will not call you an idiot and I will not ban you from my parcel, or kick you from my group or any other dumb thing I have seen people do. What I will say is, I worry that I will not be able to ever trust the emerald team and client without a clear message being sent to them now of how important that trust is. And the only way to do that is to log off the viewer, uninstall it and use another third party viewer.
Doing that sends a clear message in my opinion. It says “smarten up and don’t take your user base for granted. Shut your egos out the door, just fix the problems, and we MIGHT come back”
In all that I have read about The Emerald Team and all the drama surrounding what they have done, it is that the developers take some pride in the popularity of the viewer. In fact they tend to boast some about it. And why not? It was the most popular TPV available, and people were singing their praises. It was a hell of a lot better than Viewer 2 (which I just can not use. I have tried a few times. It kills my enjoyability).
If the viewer is still just as popular after an incident like this, how can we ever trust that something like this will not happen again? Because they have removed certain people? Because they say so? No it needs to be made clear that we expect more from them to earn our trust back. They can’t spin this into something that will be forgotten in a couple of days. Forgiveness takes time and takes effort…from both parties.
In this case the parties are the Emerald users, and the Emerald team. I am willing to put effort into forgiveness if they put effort into earning it. I will be happy to once again use a emerald client, after it has been verified and is back on the TPV list..maybe…if the Emerald team is more public, open and less arrogant about what has gone wrong.
There ARE options for emerald users. I currently am on Lordgreggreeg’s Emergence viewer, which is essentially Emerald Beta 2270, but clean of any controversial files. Imprudence is another I have been watching and wait eagerly for the next few releases to see what they do with all the suggestions of late.
You don’t have to use Viewer 2, and you don’t have to cry over not using emerald…if you don’t want to. I just think that if these people running to defend and argue emerald care that much about it, they should be yelling at the Emerald team for letting something like this happen, because they are the ones pissing on your parade. Everyone else is just trying to warn you…ok yes some are the previous haters who are having a little party over all of this…but many just want to make sure you are informed. Like me.
And I know how it is, to feel that they are all just “emerald haters”. I mean I see the same 5 people on the commerce forums having a cow over every little detail of the new marketplace and I eventually just tune out and stop looking at what they say. Emerald users have had to listen to this kind of thing from people for a long time.
But this time it is different. There is proof. Even the CEO of LL has acknowledged it, which is something that I havn’t seen with any other bits of drama. This isn’t something that should be taken lightly.
And that’s my silly emerald blog. Take it as you will :)
Nynaboo
xx
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