Why can't they get it right?!

Weeeeeeeeeee, another big 'Wednesday-night-update', and another tuesday of issues, bugs, or complete failure to do anything but talk (and even that is a bit of a no-no)...

Does it surprise me? Yes and no. What doesn't surprise me is the fact that things are messed up once again. What does surprise me is HOW this happened again... Yesterday, after 5 times prosponing their own deadline, I could log back on, only to find all these bugs and issues, making me log out again immediately. I knew what time it was...

Now I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the technical difficulties and implications of these upgrades. I don't have a coding background, I look at it from a marketing/PR perspective. The implications of the 'Thursday issues' is a wave of negative publicity from outside SL (blogs like this for starters) and inside SL people start to feel very negative about the service.

For those of you that didn't try to log on yesterday, here is what happened:

[Updated 10:40] The bulk of the work is done. We are performing internal testing now. One issue has been identified and is being investigated.

[Updated 11:00] First set of issues is resolved, but a new one has been discovered and is being worked on now. Once this is resolved, we need to complete additional testing prior to opening up the grid. We expect this to be completed by 11:30.

[Updated 11:25] The new issue has been resolved, but deploying the fix and subsequent testing will take some additional time. We now expect the grid to open by 12:00

[Updated 12:15] We have completed deployment for the fix and are continuing testing.

[Updated 12:45] We have identified another problem, resolved it and deployed the fix. We are again testing prior to opening up.

[Updated 13:05] We have identified yet another issue which would affect inworld email delivery. We are currently fixing it and resuming testing.

[Updated 13:30] Email delivery to and from Secondlife is not currently working. This affects any scripted objects that use email and the transmission to and from Secondlife IM via email. Our developers have identified the issue and are currently working on a fix. We need to get this resolved before we re-open the grid.

[Updated 14:25] We’re open!

This hurts my eyes as a marketer... Issue to issue they push their deadline, reporting every technical detail and what has gone wrong. Why would I care? I do not need to know this. I just want to know when the grid will be opened again and I want things to work. Coincidentally, these are the 2 things LL can't provide apparently...

So here is my ground breaking suggestion. Close the grid. Think of a time you should be done. Add 6 hours. Just tell me when you are opened again, I do not want to waste time looking at deadlines being pushed or on a grid that isn't working. I want to waste time on a grid that is working. Any time you finish SOONER within the large margin will be in your FAVOUR. People will feel good about you efficiency, trust your coding. We don't know what you do, and we, the large majority, don't want to know.

If a job takes 2 hours to do, say it takes 5, do it in 3 and you will be the hero.

If a job takes 2 hours to do, say it takes 2 and do it in 3, you are inefficient.

Its not a technical issue, its a community management issue.