Since my early days of Second Life I have tried present solutions to common issues. Most older posters probably know of my shape guides and related posts, but I have hardly said a word on that topic for years. More recently most of my posts have been related to the importance of efficient content, but whatever the topic, presentation is something I have long realized was key to appeal. Sometimes I haven't done my best, but I do try to be aware of how what I say will be taken.
You can't just tell people to do something, you can give all the good reasons you want, but if it feels pushed onto them they will reject it. People don't like being told what to do, especially in a hostile tone. The key is presenting your argument and evidence in a friendly manner so people believe they are the ones deciding to make the change themselves. They need clear incentive for that light to go off in their head for them to realize, "oh hey, that's a really good point, I want to do that too!". This is something that as CronoCloud points out, many, usually male, techy types just don't understand, and there is no getting through to them. As for myself, I am female in both lives, I love fashion and playing dress up, but I also have some very techy hobbies. I understand where the tech folks are coming from, but also understand why somebody would be perfectly willing pay 5k for a mesh head.
Triangle counts, mod rights, all of that doesn't matter to most folks, nor should it realistically. In an ideal world, the average consumer wouldn't ever have to think about any of that, and it is a perfectly reasonable expectation to just want to log in, shop, and hang out taking pretty pictures, where your biggest worry is where to get shoes that will go with your new dress you just grabbed from Collabor88.
However, due to its very nature Second Life has a high learning curve, so users, especially fashionistas, will have to get comfortable with quite a few things if they want to get the most out of their experience. From what I have seen, the previously mentioned techy male types are just as clueless, and have just as hard of a time (or harder) learning applier HUDs, relays, and various layers, as the fashionistas have with triangle counts, texture bloat and all that sort of thing. One group isn't any better than the other, it just comes down to practical interests.
As it has been mentioned, the true blame lies with both Linden Lab and content creators. Consumers should ideally try to make wise purchases, yes, but they aren't the ones who should be scolded. This is all stuff that has been said before though, and one the reasons I have not been very active on any forum, or even bothered to get a forum avatar until now (lol presentation), is because talking about the same stuff over and over again doesn't make any difference. Which brings me to my main reason for posting...
When I hear Penny talk about camera positions, I'm nodding my head.
When Vaelissa talks about avatar proportions, I'm taking notes.
When Niran complains about resource usage, I'm all "hell yeah!"
Could you please just pull a Voltron and become one giant SL Improvement Advocate?
I think creators and consumers lack a quick, easily digestible guide for shopping or creating especially if they're not forum readers. Some quick videos wouldn't hurt too, eg to show how you identify good or bad meshes while you shop. One of the things I learned from SLU was that "people won't read things" which is why I'm thinking cheat sheets/video with a longer guide could help overcome that. Something snazzy enough to persuade fashion bloggers to post them up with linkage.
I realise complexity is erm complex, but is it humanely possible to make a guide to good/bad practice for creators to refer to, and also a seperate quick guide for shopping? Even if it required say a set of cheat sheets on the creator side, covering the main steps involved in making mesh and what you should or shouldn't do. I'm sure something like that would be understandable by consumers too, and giving them the info might be handy so they have the terminology etc handy to talk about complexity without feeling shut out by the techy language.
Quoted all these since they're all relevant to the same thing. There are several projects in the works from mostly familiar names, which include comprehensive guides for creators and shoppers alike that Oz himself said he will distribute to the proper people in the lab for official guidelines and such. A stand alone resource site is being laid out too for things like an updated shape guide (finally!), and various optimization guides and tools.
There's also quite a nice viewer with useful tools for consumers to easily identify good and bad content, and stuff for creators to more easily optimize their work. It's popped up here and on SLU from a few different users, the main thing most have probably seen is the extended information for objects and avatars, and the ability to independently derender performance impacting avatars based on complexity, triangle count, and textures:
The challenge is making all of the above projects work and flow together in an easily accessable, presentable manner that gives people incentive to care, otherwise it's all a waste of time; presentation and polish is absolutely everything. I wasn't even going to reply here, and I hate to come across as some kind of a tease, but wanted to put it out there that there are people working working on the stuff several of you have brought up, but it is all rather overwhelming, and at the end of the day, all we want to really do is just log in and relax like anyone else.
