The SL website.

[Caerolle Llewellyn]

Wrt clothing being a draw:

Fashion is far cheaper in SL than IRL. And I can only speak for myself, but a big draw of SL (and I realize this is shallow and can be seen as massive insecurity) is that I can look the way I want, and find clothes I love that look great on me. I have to say, though, while the mesh bodies look far, far better than the standard ones, I find it far, far harder to find clothes I like that work with my shape. I am not into the large breasts and butt, and also not into most of the clothes that others seem to be (I am more Goth than anything else), and I find my choices frustratingly limited.

[KanryDrago]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Now take a look at the opening post of this thread, which shows the web site is basically doing exactly that. Yes, the pictures are old; yes, some choices could probably be better. But they do show the variety you say they should show.

Under show your style it doesnt, apart from that in the first post all you see is a bit of two performers and a secretary type. The bit devoted to dress style is 100% as we have been saying. What I was saying is change two of those pictures out for the styles I suggested to at least not give people the impression we all dress like star trek aliens

[KanryDrago]

5 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Now take a look at the opening post of this thread, which shows the web site is basically doing exactly that. Yes, the pictures are old; yes, some choices could probably be better. But they do show the variety you say they should show.

removed as double posted

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by KanryDrago

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

Under show your style it doesnt, apart from that in the first post all you see is a bit of two performers and a secretary type. The bit devoted to dress style is 100% as we have been saying. What I was saying is change two of those pictures out for the styles I suggested to at least not give people the impression we all dress like star trek aliens

I didn't realize how much Coffee was cherry-pit-picking. This is what the actual fashion page looks like; the top picture is what she posted and the picture immediately below it is as white-bread as you could possibly want.

http://go.secondlife.com/landing/fashion/?lang=en

[Selene Gregoire]

1 minute ago, Caerolle Llewellyn said:

Wrt clothing being a draw:

Fashion is far cheaper in SL than IRL. And I can only speak for myself, but a big draw of SL (and I realize this is shallow and can be seen as massive insecurity) is that I can look the way I want, and find clothes I love that look great on me. I have to say, though, while the mesh bodies look far, far better than the standard ones, I find it far, far harder to find clothes I like that work with my shape. I am not into the large breasts and butt, and also not into most of the clothes that others seem to be (I am more Goth than anything else), and I find my choices frustratingly limited.

With the exception of the Goth part (I'm just not) that's how it is for me. I so rarely get to buy anything any more so I have to make do with group gifts. Which brings us to the quality of said group gifts. Although I am very happy to see many creators moving away from putting up their low quality items as gifts and offering better quality, too many of them still put out things that just are not worth bothering with when you can't modify them to fit properly. So my choices are severely limited. It's just as bad for the guys, if not worse.

[Selene Gregoire]

10 minutes ago, KanryDrago said:

not give people the impression we all dress like star trek aliens

[Selene Gregoire]

12 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I didn't realize how much Coffee was cherry-pit-picking. This is what the actual fashion page looks like; the top picture is what she posted and the picture immediately below it is as white-bread as you could possibly want.

http://go.secondlife.com/landing/fashion/?lang=en

Huh. Didn't know that existed. I wonder how new people are supposed to know to look for it. How does one go from here https://secondlife.com/ to there? I don't see any obvious links.

I think one of the issues with the site is the navigation. It's not very intuitive.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Theresa Tennyson]

37 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Huh. Didn't know that existed. I wonder how new people are supposed to know to look for it. How does one go from here https://secondlife.com/ to there? I don't see any obvious links.

I think one of the issues with the site is the navigation. It's not very intuitive.

Mouse over the "Entertainment" tile and you'll get choices of boxes to click. Most of us just skip past the whole screen.

[Selene Gregoire]

3 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Most of us just skip past the whole screen.

That is my point. Most people aren't going to go looking for something they don't even know exists.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Coffee Pancake]

9 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Yes, but I doubt that many of the people who are wearing them joined Second Life because they wanted to wear high street fashion.

What if people don't join SL because of a fashion scene they know literally nothing about.

They join, at some point they figure setting up their avatar in something nice would be an idea ... the market follows demand .. this is the same reason we're all excited to live in regular houses, with regular roads, and regular vehicles to drive on them.

At the end of the day, while you can be and do literally anything .. how many of us actually do (and how much hate to those who actually choose a non adult human form get)

 

8 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I didn't realize how much Coffee was cherry-pit-picking. This is what the actual fashion page looks like; the top picture is what she posted and the picture immediately below it is as white-bread as you could possibly want.

Those webpages are for people who know nothing about SL. They have one job, sell an expectation of an experience.

That second picture, while bland, is also barely representative of how the fashion scene in SL works. If you get a newbie to buy some L$ and then visit stores in SL blind to buy nice things, they will end up tipping money down the drain. Nowhere does it explain that the current state of dress up is based on specific mesh bodies & heads and that everything is built around trying items before purchase.

Again .. false / broadly unrealistic expectations, or just straight up omissions. 

Discovery and exploration of the fashion scene is an exciting positive, a first major purchase of L$ being spent on a flexi skirt or prim-shoes for the classic avatar leaves a very sour taste.

 

[Raevyn Addams]

9 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

That is my point. Most people aren't going to go looking for something they don't even know exists.

Same can be said about these forums, too. I've had to manually link people over here. @Selene Gregoire is right. Look at the initial release of Linden Homes in Bellisseria as case-in-point. So many people were screaming unfair as they didn't know the forums existed so didn't get the heads-up, and this is coming from accounts that are years old, not just new members. 

1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Those webpages are for people who know nothing about SL. They have one job, sell an expectation of an experience.

Again .. false / broadly unrealistic expectations, or just straight up omissions. 

Discovery and exploration of the fashion scene is an exciting positive, a first major purchase of L$ being spent on a flexi skirt or prim-shoes for the classic avatar leaves a very sour taste.

Agreed - and currently it's failing.

Agreed - though since the definition of SL is so broad, the expectations of what it is and what new players can expect is also broad, which takes us all the way back to your initial post about those subcategories on the main page and how some don't seem relevant anymore. What's relevant to one isn't relevant to another. Beyond that, you don't go to a magic show and start with a tour behind the curtain so to speak, so telling new potential members to be prepared to sink a lot of RL money into getting an up-to-date polished avatar (that isn't the default) is just as likely to turn people away, not lure them in. By displaying avatars and items that all cost money, yes to a degree this could be perceived as false advertising by leading people to believe they have ready access to all they see by simply joining. But to display only the default/classic avatars will make the site look dated anyway. Where does one draw the line?

Agree to a point - I think for the most part LL has relied upon its users to not just create the world and populate it but to explore, and through that gain the experience needed to navigate the community (for want of a better word). Not saying it's right, but I think this may go some way to explaining why the website is so patch-work. They've left it for players to be drawn in by their own merit, explore by their own merit, and learn as they go using the website as a catch-all for everything else deemed relevant at the time, or people have demanded clarification over. SL has grown faster than the website has and its constantly playing catch-up. So no, the website doesn't reflect well or have much hope to drawing people in when it's not as relevant or streamlined as it could be. 

Edited June 24, 2019 by RaeLeeH

[Paul Hexem]

The people that designed the game (yes, I said it) have long since left and left it up to users.

The people in charge want almost nothing to do with the users because it's not PC and they can't market it openly, so they make up crap that barely applies.

And that's how we get pictures like that.

[BelindaN]

I don't think that the marketing pictures will actually make much difference. If somebody gets as far as those pages, and seeing its free to join, then I suspect that most will select an avi and jump in.

Its what happens next which will determine whether they stay, and having recently fired up another alt, I wasn't engaged by the entry portal.

However, everyone is so different that how do you even try to engage them all?

A primary link would be how to improve your avi, leading into MP, and in world stores. When I started I had no idea you could shop in world and didn't discover that for weeks.

Beyond that, its a case of using your imagination, and the bigger that is, the more you find to do here.

The forums have been so important to me and I found the site a couple of days after joining, but clearly only a tiny number of people post here.

Most of the front page pics are wooden with poor lighting. Way better images exist in the forums, and even more imaginative images appear across flickr. 

So even if Flickr sourced images are not used on the front page, there should be a signpost to the SL Flickr pages.

Edited June 24, 2019 by BelindaN

[Beth Macbain]

I just created my first alt in years over the weekend and when through that entry portal thingie. 

It was soooooooooooooooo useless and gave me nothing that I actually needed to figure out what the hell is going on in SL. I had no idea that it was as bad as it was. 

The little jump/walk/cam tutorials were okay, but after that? JIMINY CHRISTMAS I had no idea what to do. It dumped me out into this HUGE garden/pavilion thingie, told me there were other things around to do and then abandoned me without any clue what came next. 

It was difficult to even find the next tutorial thingies, and once I did, it didn't really tell me what I was supposed to do. For instance, I found a magazine cover that I was supposed to change the texture on. Easy. I did it several times. I never got anything that popped up and said "GREAT! You've completed this thing!" And then what? Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do?

This process could be improved so, so, so, so much and so easily. Get some actual feedback from actual residents and implement it. A series of videos to sit and watch in world...

"Hi, I'm Ebbe. Let me tell you a little bit about where you are."

"Hi, I'm Strawberry Linden and I'm going to teach you about your avatar starting with defining some words you're going to hear a lot. Mesh, Bento, rigged, unrigged, AO, HUD, gesture, script, notecard, SLURL etc., etc. and then show you what each of those things are. At the end, I'm going to send you a notecard with a bunch of SLURLS to a bunch of shops organized by category to help you get started putting together your look. Oh, and by the way, here is how you buy Linden Dollars, often referred to simply as 'lindens'." 

"Hello and welcome to SL! I'm Patch Linden and I'm going to tell you all about living in Second Life and Linden Homes, as well as renting, buying, building, terraforming, parcel settings, blah, blah, etc and so forth."

So much of this stuff comes second nature to us but to new people? Not so much. 

Oh, and the website? ALL of this things should be right there so easily accessible to anyone considering creating an account.

 

[Blush Bravin]

9 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

This process could be improved so, so, so, so much and so easily. Get some actual feedback from actual residents and implement it. A series of videos to sit and watch in world...

"Hi, I'm Ebbe. Let me tell you a little bit about where you are."

"Hi, I'm Strawberry Linden and I'm going to teach you about your avatar starting with defining some words you're going to hear a lot. Mesh, Bento, rigged, unrigged, AO, HUD, gesture, script, notecard, SLURL etc., etc. and then show you what each of those things are. At the end, I'm going to send you a notecard with a bunch of SLURLS to a bunch of shops organized by category to help you get started putting together your look. Oh, and by the way, here is how you buy Linden Dollars, often referred to simply as 'lindens'." 

"Hello and welcome to SL! I'm Patch Linden and I'm going to tell you all about living in Second Life and Linden Homes, as well as renting, buying, building, terraforming, parcel settings, blah, blah, etc and so forth."

I love this idea; however, I think a bunch of video tutorials at the beginning might be a turn off. I think having a brief video explaining that many video tutorials are available at a learning island and perhaps a quest given as they leave the area would be to teleport to the learning island. They would then have the landmark to the area and could return at will.  If this was initiated I think it would be vitally important to have said island monitored by someone who can eject and ban those who would use this as an opportunity to prey on new residents as we see so much of this at infohubs.

[Beth Macbain]

6 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I love this idea; however, I think a bunch of video tutorials at the beginning might be a turn off. I think having a brief video explaining that many video tutorials are available at a learning island and perhaps a quest given as they leave the area would be to teleport to the learning island. They would then have the landmark to the area and could return at will.  If this was initiated I think it would be vitally important to have said island monitored by someone who can eject and ban those who would use this as an opportunity to prey on new residents as we see so much of this at infohubs.

I'd get rid of the learning island idea altogether, I think. It was just so vast and odd and overwhelming. 

What about the SLLC? Second Life Learning Center. Divide it into different learning wings... avatar, land, attachments, movement, I dunno... other stuff? A lot of it could be video... also easily accessible via the SL website... and maybe even some instructor lead classes. Some could be Linden or Mole taught and some could be residents who are experts in stuff and things. 

Perhaps the land could be group accessible only? Part of the process of entering SL for the first time could be a group invite for the SLLC. I don't hang around infohubs so I don't know about the predators, but would have it group accessible only cut down on that? Heck, recruit some residents to be official monitors. I'd gladly spend a few hours a week sitting and watching the behavior of people and booting trolls. 

I wonder... are any Lindens reading this thread?

[Linda Reddevil]

On 6/22/2019 at 10:47 AM, Kyrah Abattoir said:

The issue I have with this picture, and well, most pictures LL use for their front page is that they convey an idea of secondlife that is not real.

The flickr/facebook culture of SL conveys images that do not correspond to what SL is either.

Unless I'm wrong and you where actually having an actual road trip and not just posing for a pretty picture (I do have road trips, GTFO for the win, but it's rarely smooth).

I think it might also be one of our issues with user retension... newcomers might feel they are being lied to.

I guess you're being very literal.  True, Absi, Karn and I were not really driving down the road, having an actual road trip, when the pic was taken but we could have been.  There are working cars in SL as I'm sure you know but it's just harder to capture a photo while the car is moving. 🙄  I think the picture says more about SL and what it's about than what you're seeing in the picture.  Three friends came together to spend time to take this picture to celebrate friendship and fun.  That's what I see when I look at this picture and that's what SL is all about.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Linda Reddevil

[Raevyn Addams]

12 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

I'd get rid of the learning island idea altogether, I think. It was just so vast and odd and overwhelming. 

What about the SLLC? Second Life Learning Center. Divide it into different learning wings... avatar, land, attachments, movement, I dunno... other stuff? A lot of it could be video... also easily accessible via the SL website... and maybe even some instructor lead classes. Some could be Linden or Mole taught and some could be residents who are experts in stuff and things. 

Perhaps the land could be group accessible only? Part of the process of entering SL for the first time could be a group invite for the SLLC. I don't hang around infohubs so I don't know about the predators, but would have it group accessible only cut down on that? Heck, recruit some residents to be official monitors. I'd gladly spend a few hours a week sitting and watching the behavior of people and booting trolls. 

I wonder... are any Lindens reading this thread?

I agree with this. 

When I first joined I spent a majority of my time at NCI Kuula (New Citizens Incorporated) which was basically a place where a lot of noobs hung out and asked questions to the few established Residents that sat with us. There were signs EVERYWHERE, many adverts for free and very dated stuff, a few maps, a  photo booth, a slow balloon ride over part of a region, and a sandbox across the road. I sat there every day playing hangman watching people come and go and learning the basics that way. I didn't even really know the website existed beyond the initial registration/log in process and didn't know about the forums either. Everything I learned was done on the fly and usually by accident. That's no way to keep people in world.

I think it's lazy to assume 'if you build it, they will come'. As stated, not everyone has a great imagination or attention span. The more you give people to read, the more they will ignore. The more videos they have to watch, the more they will skip. If there's too much information before they even get in world they just won't bother; they'll be overwhelmed. It's the same experience with a lot of RP regions I've visited over the years; if there's too much lore to have to get through just to get my foot in the door, guess what, I'm not sticking around. So there needs to be some kind of balance between what information is given on the website and how much is given (and HOW it's given) in world.

Ease of access is also another issue. Sometimes it can be hard to find information right now as a resident who has been here many years. But I agree that the learning island is just... too much, and doesn't cover a lot of aspects that are relevant today. There's so much to learn and while no one is expected to grasp it all in one sitting, getting access to the right information in general still feels like it's lagging behind. 😟

[Beth Macbain]

3 minutes ago, RaeLeeH said:

Ease of access is also another issue. Sometimes it can be hard to find information right now as a resident who has been here many years. But I agree that the learning island is just... too much, and doesn't cover a lot of aspects that are relevant today. There's so much to learn and while no one is expected to grasp it all in one sitting, getting access to the right information in general still feels like it's lagging behind. 😟

This is the thing. It doesn't give new residents any actual info they really need to know to get started in SL, including where the heck to go after you get off the island.

[Lindal Kidd]

12 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

I'd get rid of the learning island idea altogether, I think. It was just so vast and odd and overwhelming. 

What about the SLLC? Second Life Learning Center. Divide it into different learning wings... avatar, land, attachments, movement, I dunno... other stuff? A lot of it could be video... also easily accessible via the SL website... and maybe even some instructor lead classes. Some could be Linden or Mole taught and some could be residents who are experts in stuff and things. 

Perhaps the land could be group accessible only? Part of the process of entering SL for the first time could be a group invite for the SLLC. I don't hang around infohubs so I don't know about the predators, but would have it group accessible only cut down on that? Heck, recruit some residents to be official monitors. I'd gladly spend a few hours a week sitting and watching the behavior of people and booting trolls. 

I wonder... are any Lindens reading this thread?

Caledon Oxbridge University is exactly what you are describing.  Well, no videos, but everything else. 

As for monitoring Infohubs, LL used to have a Mentor program to do just that (although the resident Mentors didn't have ban/eject powers).  And the old equivalent of Social Island was not accessible by all residents, only the Mentors.  Even now, the initial Learning Islands cannot be visited by residents, although the Social Islands can. And you do occasionally find Lindens hanging out at the Social Islands.

I see a lot of complaints and suggestions in this thread, but I think we should all keep in mind:

• The sign-up advertising has to be kept simple.  SL is so varied and complex that nothing you can put on a quickly-browsed web page can possibly cover it all.
• "Unreasonable expectations" is exactly what any such teaser advertising is designed to accomplish.  For example, I recently bought an expensive new camera from Sony.  Go take a look at their cameras website.  It's all gorgeous pictures, beautiful models, hot looking young photographers in exotic locations.  Do you think that just by buying their gear you will look like that, or shoot images like those?  Nuh-uh.  But it sells cameras.
• The resources to learn about SL exist.  Torley Linden has made a ton of upbeat, informative videos.  The Knowledgebase is there, and the Wiki, and these forums, and several very well designed resident-run learning and help areas.
• SL is so varied and complex that NONE of that is going to help unless the newcomer is willing to dig in and spend time learning.  The people who just bop in expecting SL to be easy to understand and conquer like, say, a...game...cannot be reached by any amount of advertising, education, or help networks.  They slide right past all of it and never notice or care.  If you force them to pay attention (like, you have to watch this video to get to the next thing), they get bored and quit.  I mean literally...we see it all the time, people running through the buildings at Caledon Oxbridge, never stopping to even read any of the information.

[roseelvira]

I  have a  little suggestion.  In real  life  i am dyslexic  and  the video and words   become more of a anxiety  ,,,, what   helped  me  was  the note cards  going  step by step  not in the techi language  but  prim   and then exact instruction on how to rez one ,,,,,, i know  it is  time consuming,,,, and then i went  to you tube  turned off  the volume and watched.  it became very clear what to.... i have the problem of reversing letters/ numbers ...  but the plus  is i can read backwards and forwards

[Coffee Pancake]

There is a public Help Island. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Help Island Public/128/128/26 

15 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

LL used to have a Mentor program to do just that (although the resident Mentors didn't have ban/eject powers). 

I used to really enjoy doing this .. although as with ALL resident / Linden co-ops where a resident is placed in a position of (or has the appearance of) authority abuse was a problem. Seems some mentors decided their job was to police the door and weed out undesirables. 

Edited June 24, 2019 by CoffeeDujour

[Raevyn Addams]

9 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

• SL is so varied and complex that NONE of that is going to help unless the newcomer is willing to dig in and spend time learning.  The people who just bop in expecting SL to be easy to understand and conquer like, say, a...game...cannot be reached by any amount of advertising, education, or help networks.  They slide right past all of it and never notice or care.  If you force them to pay attention (like, you have to watch this video to get to the next thing), they get bored and quit.  I mean literally...we see it all the time, people running through the buildings at Caledon Oxbridge, never stopping to even read any of the information.

And this. We see it all the time; in world, in RP, in the forums...

Since it's hard to define what SL is to someone who has no idea, it's hard to explain and hard to sell; especially when dealing with potential gamers (who expect a quick tutorial then jump right into the thick of the action), and the non-gamers alike. People LOVE to ignore; it's what the majority are good at. Unless it's really relevant to us we just don't care. So even if things were theoretically perfect both on the website and in world, it's still not going to be enough for everyone. But the way it is now needs work, call it updating, unification, simplification, mode of delivery, whatever.

I personally didn't even know that university existed and if asked now couldn't even tell you where it is. That's not ease of access. That's a problem.

[KanryDrago]

I think those that say people will get turned off by up front video tutorials are right. Personally what I would do is have a tablet like object that each new resident gets. Something they can consult anytime. Break the options down so for example a what can I do section? People  can suggest things to the lab to include as topics such as for example photography and the Lab then asks for submissions and chooses the best. Might be gives them a note card, a youtube link whatever. Put a small prize for a winning submission a 1000 or 2000 l$. It gets residents telling newbies what they could do here and it will be told with more expertise and passion than the lab could ever muster.

Make it so when they add the tablet it comes up like a hud and each section has icons just like they are used to in the real world. Then they can learn at their own pace and dont feel they have to wade through a load of videos before they can start. More a hitchhikers guide to second life idea

[ThorinII]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

  I mean literally...we see it all the time, people running through the buildings at Caledon Oxbridge, never stopping to even read any of the information.

I saw it too when I was Newbie Helper back then in '08 - but you know what? I've always been saying Good riddance whenever such willfully ignorant persons quit! If they were actually interested in SL, they would stop, listen and read the info given to them.