I have been repeatedly told, literally, and quoting here, to "shut the fuck up". I have been repeatedly asked what I have against the company. Well, it's time to publicly state my reasons.

Meeroos are supposed to foster community. In that goal, they are a dismal failure. The company and it's customers are insular and elitist. In any community there will be dissent and disagreement. But dissent and disagreement are most definitely not allowed among those who have Meeroos, or care about their continued viability as a product. Whether that dissent is rational and calm or not does not matter. If anyone has the temerity to suggest, in any manner, that the Emperor has no clothes, they can expect to be insulted and ridiculed both publicly and privately. It has become obvious that no true community exists nor is one even desired.

From the beginning, prior to Open Beta, I have had my doubts about the ability of a group of people who could could make no better claim to their professional credentials than adding up a couple years here and a few years there and come up with a total of 30 years experience. Does this really matter? No. But that they would fall back to such a weak and sophomoric claim strongly indicates that have little experience in actual business and marketing.

Against all my objections, my wife bought heavily into Meeroos and quickly fell in love with them. After not too many hours, at the beginning of the Open Beta phase, it became apparent those involved with the product had never performed even the most rudimentary analysis. To me, this strengthened my opinion that they were relative neophytes to the real world of computer systems development and deployment. Not only did they not consider whether their systems and servers could handle the load, not only did they have so few management controls that they could accidentally abort the entire test, but the so-call beta test phase was so short it was impossible for they, or their users, to have actually performed any real testing.

Along comes Pre-release delivery and the beginning of public use of a largely under designed and untested product. Since there was no final testing of the breeding and genetic operations prior to release, and the company was understandably close-mouthed about specifics, my wife quickly became over-whelmed and frustrated and turned to me for help. When I looked and saw the entire system at the time was nothing more than a lottery, I was shouted down and told several times, again quoting, to "Shut the fuck up". Not two or three weeks later, even the company's officials were publicly admitting it was a lottery and they were making changes. Could this have been avoided? Sure. That's what Beta Testing is for. But since no real Beta Test had occurred, rather than being caught and corrected before any harm could be done, it was left until after thousands had lost millions of Lindens.

Over the following months I continued to try to better understand how Meeroos work so that my wife could fully enjoy them. Being a scientist and used to public discourse, I naturally turned to the Forums to post my observations and findings in the hopes that others of like mind would see, form their own opinions, and participate in the development of theories and processes far better than any of us could derive individually. To me, such discourse is, by it's very nature, part and parcel of the core goal for the Meeroo product line of fostering community. That some would disagree was to be expected. That some would state their disagreement in less than polite terms was expected. Through it all, I've always held out the belief that, while I might be wrong, even wrong ideas lead to advancement.

But time after time, I've seen those involved with the development of the product make mistakes. The Gods know, I'm not perfect, I've made some whopping big mistakes, too. But it has become clear that any comments or suggestions, no matter how presented are most definitely NOT appreciated. I, like all others, have repeatedly been publicly ridiculed, both by company officials and their customers; we have had information leaked about our online activities that only company officials could find; and things have gone so far that both the company and their customers have acted illegally.

Repeatedly, others have called the company officials liars. I have avoided that term, or at least I hope I have. I choose to believe they are not intentionally misleading; but, instead, are stating their belief and understanding at the time and, as things develop, those understandings naturally change.

But I have come to believe the company is morally and ethically bankrupt. To be in business, one must have the trust of their customers. The company and its officials have repeatedly acted to betray that trust. Yes, some customers have also betrayed that trust; and it is my firm belief that they, or at least the worst of those, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, whether criminal or civil. But the company's actions have not been above reproach either.

We, all customers and users of their products are bound by a legal agreement. But the company will quite happily breach that agreement when the mood suits them. Rather than cure the breach and honor that agreement as it now stands, we've been told to expect a new agreement. But where is it? That no corrective action, either to cure the breach or amend the agreement, is just another example of the failure on the part of the company and its officials to follow through and deliver upon their promises.

Not only can we not trust the company to behave in such a basic manner as honoring their part in our legal agreements with them, but it's become clear they have not even the most basic business skills.

Not over a week ago, one company official requested and was granted an appointment with a major player in the after-market for the Meeroo product line. Did that official honor that appointment? No. Was even a note sent at the time canceling or asking to reschedule? No. Did this cause a (largely unneeded) uproar? Yes. Why? Because we've been asked to trust the company and they have shown themselves untrustworthy even in something so simple as keeping an appointment _they_ asked for.

A few days ago, I was publicly asked to present my issues directly. But, at the time, I was unable to determine HOW to deliver that requested feedback to the person. So I did the next best thing and sent it where I believed it would eventually wind its way to those interested. What was in that feedback, you ask? In general, while nowhere nearly so carefully thought out as this posting (in fact, I was quite angry at the time and I'm sure my ire was plain), you're reading it now.

But does anyone at the company have even a modicum of business etiquette? Was the message received? Who knows? I certainly don't. Yes, I know they're busy and overworked trying to prevent Chapter 2 from slipping even further. But they requested the feedback; would it be too much to take a few seconds to at least acknowledge receipt of an item _they_ requested?

So, finally, today I wake to a weepy-eyed wife. She's come to realize that the only way to end my ranting and raving about the company's bad acts, the only way to avoid my anger at being attacked and ridiculed over something so basic as to suggest they get a private region to avoid the drama caused by holding public meetings in forums which promote one groups interests over others, her only solution is to give away all of her Meeroos.

So, with my wife's leaving, I have no reason to continue to participate either. I'm sure many, if not most of you will be happy with that and will waste little time in telling use "Good Riddance" because, as I said, you have no interest in true community.

Catherine, of course, will post a followup somewhere that this is our decision and she will "honor it". Please don't, Catherine. You have said it often in the past and it's become clear you have neither much personal honor, nor much intention of honoring others. If you truly wish to honor our decision to cease supporting your company, you will do some deep soul searching and find ways you and your company can do better. If you truly want "honor" our decision .. do so by seeing what you've done which has promoted things to the point we must walk away. Stop claiming "honor" when your actions belie your intentions, and dishonor everyone involved.

I will end this on that note. You may all commence to celebrate our departure and seek another victim who's opinions or phrasing you dislike.