Typically, when a company launches a new blog/forum format to represent themselves, they try to promote that feature to bring in new market shares. The community managers of the SL blog/forums have done the opposite. The negative press and downward spiral of participation has proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why would these community managers want to drive away the most active participants and the people who follow their posts? Isn't that decreasing participation and potential market shares?
What these managers failed to realize is their heavy handed and biased moderation tactics have not only driven people away from the forums but IMO has also decreased user time from in-world activities as well. I do not have any empirical facts to back this up (yet) but from my own experience and others I talk to, they all have dropped time they used to spend in-world for other mediums due to the mishandling of the new forums.
As hired marketers, I would think their job was to increase user participation not only on the blog/forum but also to entice new users to join the Second Life experience. It appears all the positive hard work done by Rod Humble is being negated by the community managers. It's a sorry state of affairs indeed for a new CEO trying to build and enhance the company while his community managers are tearing down all the positive results he has achieved.
I for one am putting my money on Rod Humble to correct the current problems with the people negating his efforts. He listens to the users/customers and from what I've seen takes the appropriate actions. I haven't given up hope yet for the new blog/forum but time is running out.
Rod help us.
