Sunday, April 27, 2008

Disheartening

Sometimes I wonder why people like me even bother to try and help others.

Following the problems at Support for Healing, I raised a JIRA ticket about the issue of a backup plan in the event that, for some reason, an individual sim owner doesn't manage to get a tier payment through on time.

Along come Mercia McMahon and Lex Neva (Lex isn't even a member of the Support for Healing group) and neither bothers to actually find out about the situation before they open their mouths.

Mercia first:

This is not going to be changed in the short-term and I understand that the Description is over-stated. The owner's account is still active and the island is not in immediate danger.
Management teams are fine until there is a dispute, I can understand LL restricting an island to single avatar ownership, and as private regions are not part of the mainland tier system there is no way for groups to own one. A solution would be to create a parallel system of private region tier, so that groups can own private regions and so tier payments can be shared.


Okay, let's go through the actual facts

  • First of all, Zafu's account isn't active. What Mercia did was use the beta "Search All" to look up his account, and for some reason it showed. She never bothered to look up the nonbeta "search people" system, where his account doesn't show. Incidentally, in a later posting I'll get to in a moment, she doesn't take responsiblity for or apologise for her incorrect posting; it's clearly "a problem" with the Beta system.
  • Secondly, we have no way of telling whether the island is in immediate danger, so to say it simply isn't is wrong. As we don't know (for some reason best known to himself Zafu won't tell anyone) what day tier is paid, we don't know what day we need to aim for, and thus we don't know if we need to put our hands in our own pockets as a management team to keep the island, should the tier day draw near and the donations meter still be at 25%
  • Thirdly, her "solution" simply doesn't apply to the situation here. It's not relevant to this issue at all, because this issue is about a problem that already exists not about possibly presenting it in the future.
It should also be noted, I feel, that when I was talking to another SfH member about a recent depression support group, who was there making a LOT of use of the service? Mercia McMahon. Shame she can't show a little support for the service she seems to find so valuable.

Now Lex Neva:
> ...as the sim owner won't tell us on what day of the month tier is due.

Simply put, if you don't have full cooperation of the sim owner, I don't think it's a good idea for LL to let you step in and take over the island or island payments. Wouldn't it be messy if a quietly predatory group of "helper" managers managed to wrest control of an island away from its owner simply because they had something come up in RL and weren't able to keep current in SL? I know you assured us that's not what you're doing here... but how is LL to make that judgement in all cases? How can they do that without spending many hours of LL worker time per island?

It IS possible for non-profit corporations to hold islands and accounts in SL. I believe they can even get a discount. It seems like that kind of organization is necessary for such an important island as this one.
Let's have a look at this one.

  • In Lex's mind, or at least in his posting, if the sim owner isn't always standing right behind the management team, it's better for the sim to vanish due to nonpayment than LL to talk to the management team. Sorry, everyone who needs the help and support of Supportforhealing, but if Zafu doesn't want to continue or to even talk to the management team, then in Lex's mind LL should simply kill off the sim. Who needs it anyway?
  • Secondly, and MOST outrageous (and this really had me pissed off) - far from doing good works in trying to make sure the island didn't vanish, Indy, I and all the others in the management team are trying to take over the island. This from someone who isn't even a member of the group. Linden Labs should remove the island rather than let us take it over even if that's not what we're trying to do.
  • Thirdly, the "non-profit corporation" he's talking about requires American non-profit corporation status. Support for Healing is an English charity. It doesn't have either the means nor the legal knowhow to register for NPC status in America, nor, to be honest, does it really want to. I was told at some point that we do still get the discount - I don't know if this is true or not - but if there's no mechanism for LL to recognise non American charities, that's their failing and something they need to look at.
Following rather a strongly worded correction of Mercia's points, she did respond with

@Wildcat. "If you search for the sim owner under Search -> People there are no results returned, because that account is NOT active. " Yes, but if you search for their first name in All, they are top of the list. I should have remembered that All is Beta, so a problem has been spotted there.

No "oops, I was wrong". No "Aha, I've checked and yes, that is actually the state." No apology. Seems a lot of people who cruise the JIRA looking for issues to comment on don't actually feel the need to do any research about what they're commenting on, which is really annoying.

In the meantime I'm working on the possibility after my move this week of resigning from Support for Healing. There's only so much I'm prepared to fight. The only thing keeping me there is guilt about dropping poor Industria Dowler into the unenviable situation of being the ONLY one apparently pro-actively interested in keeping it going; I don't really want to do that to her.

But really, from the point of view of the rest of the way things are working out, I simply don't want to fight any more... I'm still coming across people who don't even KNOW of the JIRA ticket despite the group announcement I made (did these people simply cancel the announcement without actually reading it?) and so they aren't voting, aren't making their voices heard... and if the island DOES disappear, they'll wonder how come it got this bad and they didn't hear about it?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well it is now 2009 and Support for Healing island still exists I am standing on it now. In fact you are still a member of the group. It happens that I am very open about past mental health issues, but it was a serious breach of the rules for the Depression Support Group that you have posted on the web that I was a member, and continue to have that information there seven months later. BTW, my comment about the original owner of SupportforHealing island still having an account was based on a group message sent out by Twickle Rosebid, and Zafu Diamond and Twickle Rosebud still exist.

Wildcat said...

Where to start on this one?

Firstly, yes, the island had its ownership transferred. That doesn't diminish the seriousness of the crisis. Somebody who could raise the funding of Linden Labs' recently increased prices happened to come forward. Lucky for the island.

Secondly - You can't have it both ways. Either you're open about previous mental health issues, in which case you wouldn't hide that you were in the depression support group, or you're not in which case you'd hide it but would claim otherwise. Whichever it is, I don't really give a damn. I retain SfH membership purely to assist the new owner if asked in administration/building/general maintenance matters. If either group wants to remove me, fine. That's their prerogative.

Thirdly, I couldn't give a toss if some or other account still exists, or for the infighting or politics, or for your opinion, or about you in general. Hope I'm being clear on this. You were disruptive on the JIRA, you're disruptive here and I've no time for people who are attention seekers just for the sake of being disruptive in order to get attention. In fact you're obviously SO desperate for attention you're willing to open old wounds here just to get it, which speaks volumes about how you REALLY behave towards mental health issues.

And finally, as if bleating about how badly you've been wronged wasn't enough, you can't help but try and say "I told you so!" twice. Grow up, Mercia... just... grow up.

Mercia said...

The Listening Ear speaks again in its usual volume - you are the one who needs to grow up and for the sake of those with mental troubles do not offer to help them - you are not fit for practice, especially as you clearly do not understand the word confidentiality. I am not opening up old wounds, while the top hit for my name on google leads to a blog post stating that I was a member of a group that assured confidentiality, you are the one maintaining an open sore.

Wildcat said...

When you go to a public group, and you monopolize that group, and you cause a session to ONLY talk about your problems, and that seems to be the ONLY reason you're there - why should anyone give you confidentiality?

I've met attention seekers before. their primary method of seeking attention puts great emphasis on ALWAYS being the victim. This means keeping people in the dark about how disruptive they are elsewhere, and making sure one group doesn't find out about the attention seeking at another group. That's the ONLY reason you're complaining about "confidentiality". Not because you want anything you've said to be confidential - nobody is talking about any topic you may or may not have raised anyway - but because you don't want people to realise that you're just an attention whore who wants to be the center of attention anywhere she can get any kind of attention, negative or positive, so she can drink up the positive and turn the negative into further "Look at me, I'm a victim" activity elsewhere.

I take the confidentiality of people who come to me extremely seriously. If someone asked me something in IM, or came to listening ear, then that was completely confidential. But when someone attends public groups and is quite obviously there to shove everyone else out of the way and claim their "matters" - real or imagined - are the only ones that have to be talked about, those people aren't really in need. That's you, Mercia. NO amount of help or support is going to assist you if you won't be helped, and the fact is you don't want peoples help, you just want their attention.

I could simply moderate your comments. I could simply not "feed the troll" as the internet jargon goes. But someone obviously needs to tell you these things, and bluntly.

How DARE you suggest I'm not fit to practice with all the problems you've caused, all the hassle you continue to cause. I really hope Manchester wakes up to you during the training you speak of on your blog, because if it doesn't I can see you turning councilling sessions with others into "let's talk about Mercia" sessions.

Face it: You don't give a DAMN about anyone elses problems. You never have done in all the time I've known you. It's Mercia or nothing. Don't you dare criticise ANYONE else whilever you're such a disruptive attention whore! Grow up, learn to put your problems into perspective and actually LISTEN to other people!