Are The Mentors Being Brought Back?

[Prokofy Neva]

In his interview with Saffia Widdershins, Patch Linden spoke about Mentors "camping out" in new housing areas -- and...it wasn't clear what was to come next.

I hope they are NOT coming back, but if he mentions them in a Linden-sponsored activity, it looks like they are.

The Mentors were disbanded some years ago -- and that was a good thing. Yes, they re-formed but as a strictly resident-based group.

Could we have a statement on their exact status from a Linden, please?

There has long been some confusion about this. I recently saw a resident bragging on her profile that she was a Mentor, and that this group was ENDORSED by Linden Lab -- which of course then enabled her to imply that everything she does -- from her stores to the promotion of her ideology -- is ENDORSED by Linden Lab. THAT is what is wrong with the Mentor system -- in a nutshell. Honestly, if you are the type of person who needs to write on your profile that you are in a group ENDORSED by Linden Lab, we can already tell a lot about you! And it's not good.

So now it seems that they are being brought back -- which I think is a TERRIBLE idea.

Here's why.

When I studied the Mentors back in the day in the first decade of the 2000s, when tenants complained to me about them, here's what I found:

o Staked out at the high-traffic welcome areas and infohubs, they would sling folders of landmarks and notecards particularly at newbies. These landmarks would steer people to their friends' stores, if not their own stores, and their own clubs, etc. and socializing networks which ultimately helped their own businesses. So technically, they might be described as not engaging in commercial activity, but in fact they were.

o Taking advantage of their title, Mentors would lord it over other residents, even claiming they could tell them what to do and discipline them, and back this up with the force of various informal "posses". They would swoop down on a resident's land and boss them around. 

o Mentors were ultimately outright given stores at the help islands, again, under the guise of "helping" -- but regardless of whether these were low-cost or even free items that newbies "needed," the bottom line was that again, they were a means of commercial advertising.

o Inevitably, the Lindens would listen to the Mentors' views on their own products and services, and like the Tsar listening only to the boyars, or worse, the Oprichina, they would get out of touch and even quite at odds with the regular user base.

o Mentors formed cliques or even gangs, and harassed people who questioned their bad actions. They were also notorious for taking over the forums and abuse-reporting people they didn't like.

While no doubt there were some selfless Mentors who helped people, my own experience when I made new accounts and walked through the process, or when I asked new tenants to describe to me what happened to them, confirmed my complaints above. Remember, the Lindens disbanded the Mentors. There are reasons for this!

It's inevitable that when you form a group of people who stand apart, who are the first contact new people have, that some will exploit this perch for their own gain, whether reputational or commercial (and the two are interlinked). So why do it? For one, there is a felt need that newbies need individualized help. To be sure, there is a tendency to infantalize people who as a rule are savvy Internet users and often techs themselves or they wouldn't be bothering. But more than that, there is a fundamental philosophical flaw with on-boarding that Mentors and similar FIC programs only perpetuate: the belief that people need immediately to learn hard skills like how to rez a prim or drive a vehicle or slay a rat as if in a war game -- instead of to learn to dance or buy Lindens or shop. I have always found with very new people, quite a few who come my way, that the way to teach -- and learn -- skills is first finding what you like and what to do, THEN learning the skill to go with it. Most people are consumed with anxiety about how they look, so that's important, but somehow with all this "help," so many people aren't told to put a picture into their profile so they don't look like random goofs. They aren't told that that first photo is free if it goes in their profile. And so on.

The help people need is not to learn to build or drive; what they need are ways to find a friend; ways to stick; they need people. 

There's another thing about newbie help -- it is endless. It will absorb and overwhelm every resource you throw at it, and much of the time, provide no pay-back in terms of retention, much less thanks. So don't through those kind of resources. Move people along to self-help. And spread out the burden to the entire user population by enabling people to find interests and friends. There is no better way to do this than teleport boards from the landing areas.

I've always advocated having residents with businesses being able to BUY ADS in welcome areas, which would have to be PG and follow rules and be useful in terms of routing people to their interests, whether shopping, live music, houses, lectures, art works, whatever . This would simply take a natural human tendency to use this space for sales and REGULATE IT. But inevitably, forums regulars of a certain type scream that this would involve ugly ads and selling hustles -- as if the second-rate stores and sleazy clubs in the landmarks slung by mentors were somehow first-rate. 

If Lindens cannot overcome this long-time allergy to commerce that would actually help their business, in part because of the screaming of their most vocal user base on the forums, then let them make their own teleport boards. Over the years, Lindens have tried all different things. Random landmarks to infohubs (the "randomness" in this small set of users and landmarks never in fact worked to its mathematical potential). Rotating teleport boards. Featured destinations from their own list. Etc.

Yes, newbies need help -- but trained and responsible and integrated STAFF should help them -- and help them through creating systems that people can simply access and use themselves. If that is too expensive, this belief needs to be re-visited. Retention is SL's greatest challenge, after server performance. It's a governance issue, at the end of the day. To make people stick, you need good experiences, not just smooth experiences. Staff once were the ones who handled incomers -- Jack Linden himself stood for hours at the welcome areas, remember? Welcome areas of course have a host of problems (griefing, wall-sitters, general idiocy) but it's not clear Mentors would fix that -- they might worsen it. Turn off voice chat in the welcome areas unless they are in Zindra. That will speedily end a lot of the worst experiences.

Honestly, with all the problems involved in this system -- the tendency for not only corruption but ineffectiveness inherent in such systems -- having a system like jury duty -- where randomly every resident might get an invitation to serve two weeks as a greeter and helper -- might do a lot more good. How about having just the existing staff of Lindens and Moles and SalesForce desktop helpers rotate through on Welcome Area duty? That might help them understand SL way better.

Since Lindens seem determined to bring back this dubious program, from all accounts, then I'd like to hear how they are going to exert quality control. Will they have standards and requirements and a grid of check-offs that people must meet before being Mentors? Will there be any "secret shoppers" who observe them at work? Will LL take abuse reports on them in good faith and investigate them? Will they measure their effectiveness? And so on.

How about making it a firm requirement that no Mentor may place on their profile, picks, or any other public media in SL the fact of their Mentor membership. That would cut down abuses in a jiffy.

"There is no limit to the good you can do if you are willing not to accept the credit."

 

[ThorinII]

I rather think it would be a very GOOD thing to bring the Mentors back. Simply because the "Learning Island" where newbies rez at first doesn't cover all the abilities necessary to interact with the world, and because most newbies are simply too willfully ignorant to stop and read the info available at newbie places.

In my opinion, Newbie Helpers (like the ones at Caledon Oxbridge or NCI) do important work for improving user retention -- and in my opinion, there should be official (Linden-supported) Mentors overseeing and helping them in this task.

[Selene Gregoire]

Aw shoot. Thorin posted before I could. 

Edited June 25, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I've always advocated having residents with businesses being able to BUY ADS in welcome areas, which would have to be PG and follow rules and be useful in terms of routing people to their interests, whether shopping, live music, houses, lectures, art works, whatever . This would simply take a natural human tendency to use this space for sales and REGULATE IT. But inevitably, forums regulars of a certain type scream that this would involve ugly ads and selling hustles -- as if the second-rate stores and sleazy clubs in the landmarks slung by mentors were somehow first-rate.

Well, I guess this would include me.

So,  you think that the best way to avoid the venality and corruption that you say was rampant in the old system is to . . . well, institutionalize it, with sold advertising space that routes newbies straight to where they can start buying, buying buying? Really?

First, who exactly do you think is mostly likely to be able to afford such space? Small, independent merchants? Or the really big merchants and creators? We already have near-monopolies on things like mesh bodies and heads -- this will be a fine way to ensure that the bigger stores in SL just get . . . bigger.

And really, seriously, this is the impression of SL you want people to start with? "Your imagination, your shopping dollar"? Welcome to the world's largest and most successful virtual shopping mall?

Do you imagine that the artists, the musicians, the educators, the people who just build beautiful sims because they want to share their creativity with others . . . are they going to be able to afford advertising space? If not, who will visit them? The newbies will all be too busy trying to figure out what a "demo" is, and how to open and wear it . . . all the while wondering why the hell anyone would want to go "virtual" just so that they can go shopping, because they'll be damned if they can see anything else to do here.

Brilliant Prok. You've figured out how to monetize and commercialize the Newbie Experience! Your Nobel Prize in Economics awaits.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

In his interview with Saffia Widdershins, Patch Linden spoke about Mentors "camping out" in new housing areas -- and...it wasn't clear what was to come next.

I hope they are NOT coming back, but if he mentions them in a Linden-sponsored activity, it looks like they are.

The Mentors were disbanded some years ago -- and that was a good thing. Yes, they re-formed but as a strictly resident-based group.

Could we have a statement on their exact status from a Linden, please?

As an ex Mentor and Live helper, I for one would welcome both programs coming back (especially live help) and would immediately volunteer for both.

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There has long been some confusion about this. I recently saw a resident bragging on her profile that she was a Mentor, and that this group was ENDORSED by Linden Lab -- which of course then enabled her to imply that everything she does -- from her stores to the promotion of her ideology -- is ENDORSED by Linden Lab. THAT is what is wrong with the Mentor system -- in a nutshell. Honestly, if you are the type of person who needs to write on your profile that you are in a group ENDORSED by Linden Lab, we can already tell a lot about you! And it's not good.

We all know post scarcity gay space communism wins in the end, stop resisting!

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

o Staked out at the high-traffic welcome areas and infohubs, they would sling folders of landmarks and notecards particularly at newbies. These landmarks would steer people to their friends' stores, if not their own stores, and their own clubs, etc. and socializing networks which ultimately helped their own businesses. So technically, they might be described as not engaging in commercial activity, but in fact they were.

You will always get the odd bad apple, I would welcome accountability to future mentor and live help programs in the form of a satisfaction questionnaire that explicitly asked about improper behavior.

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

o Taking advantage of their title, Mentors would lord it over other residents, even claiming they could tell them what to do and discipline them, and back this up with the force of various informal "posses". They would swoop down on a resident's land and boss them around.

I think you're missing that both mentors and live help were entirely reactionary in nature, if help wasn't requested, then there would be no involvement. 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

While no doubt there were some selfless Mentors who helped people, my own experience when I made new accounts and walked through the process, or when I asked new tenants to describe to me what happened to them, confirmed my complaints above. Remember, the Lindens disbanded the Mentors. There are reasons for this!

If you had a habit of making new accounts to spot test the mentors, then I can't imagine why you, specifically, would have had a repeatably bad experience.

 

[ananoelle]

But but @CoffeeDujour if live help becomes avaliable. The forums would "die" 😂😂😂 

I guess they could always send em on back to us here.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Well, I guess this would include me.

So,  you think that the best way to avoid the venality and corruption that you say was rampant in the old system is to . . . well, institutionalize it, with sold advertising space that routes newbies straight to where they can start buying, buying buying? Really?

First, who exactly do you think is mostly likely to be able to afford such space? Small, independent merchants? Or the really big merchants and creators? We already have near-monopolies on things like mesh bodies and heads -- this will be a fine way to ensure that the bigger stores in SL just get . . . bigger.

And really, seriously, this is the impression of SL you want people to start with? "Your imagination, your shopping dollar"? Welcome to the world's largest and most successful virtual shopping mall?

Do you imagine that the artists, the musicians, the educators, the people who just build beautiful sims because they want to share their creativity with others . . . are they going to be able to afford advertising space? If not, who will visit them? The newbies will all be too busy trying to figure out what a "demo" is, and how to open and wear it . . . all the while wondering why the hell anyone would want to go "virtual" just so that they can go shopping, because they'll be damned if they can see anything else to do here.

Brilliant Prok. You've figured out how to monetize and commercialize the Newbie Experience! Your Nobel Prize in Economics awaits.

People who are commenting that they should be brought back aren't reading about the problems of such a system.

Yes, indeed I do believe that the best way to avoid venality and corruption is to have a paid, transparent, ad system run by the Lindens. Who do I think will get such a space? Why, the same people who got them when the Lindens used to run such a system at the old telehubs -- anybody who pays the terminal. Yes, it could be run by first come, first served. In fact, your idea that there will be some huge number of people that there won't be enough room isn't proven by experience at all. If for some reason there was a huge rush, it would be easy to limit buyers to one week or two weeks and then a mandatory break for X days.

As for "only the big spenders" -- that's also not proven. Not every big spender will want to advertise to newbies, who either don't have money, or who do have money, but don't want to spend it on THIS, just YET. But some will, and there could be a range of ad prices and time periods accordingly.

Truly, this is the experience of the past and the objections you are raising are merely ideological and hypothetical, not practical and not based on experience. The Lindens can have expensive ads or cheap ads, but it isn't really the problem you imagine to make the system accessible and also tasteful, i.e. with rules such as "no adult images" etc.

Yes, indeed, the artists and all the other beautiful people will afford it. Just like Riverwalk and many other art venues afforded the telehub ad space back in the day. It is not the horror you imagine whatsoever. 

Clicking on a teleport board -- an ad -- is not as hard as opening a box or building or doing anything. You just click. 

Yes, my Nobel Prize in virtual economics waits because this really is the solution and how do I know it? Because the Lindens used to have it and it worked. They were browbeaten into deleting the telehubs -- which were a good thing -- plus they had their own internal agitators against them -- again for ideological reasons -- and never returned to an ad system. Philip Linden admitted that most of the revenue came from telehub sims, and in fact the overwhelming majority were not the ugly lag monsters claimed -- it was just jealousy by oldbies who had boutiques far from them and who resented the democratic accessibility of telehub malls to anyone who could pay the rent, rather than to those who sucked up to oldbie designers to get a corner in their store.

Real life works this way, and there is no reason SL can't work this way. When you arrive at Grand Central, you look at electronic billboards; you look at bus station ads; you look at flyers and pamphlets. You are not greeted by somebody who knows the mayor who takes you by the hand and steps you along to their own store or restaurant.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Prokofy Neva

[Kyrah Abattoir]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Remember, the Lindens disbanded the Mentors. There are reasons for this!

Reasons that usually don't correlate with your conclusions.

I might even consider applying as mentor, education is a good way to "be" the change.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said:

As an ex Mentor and Live helper, I for one would welcome both programs coming back (especially live help) and would immediately volunteer for both.

We all know post scarcity gay space communism wins in the end, stop resisting!

You will always get the odd bad apple, I would welcome accountability to future mentor and live help programs in the form of a satisfaction questionnaire that explicitly asked about improper behavior.

I think you're missing that both mentors and live help were entirely reactionary in nature, if help wasn't requested, then there would be no involvement. 

If you had a habit of making new accounts to spot test the mentors, then I can't imagine why you, specifically, would have had a repeatably bad experience.

 

You don't need to have a "habit" of making new accounts to make 2 or 3 of them and track the experience and see how it works -- and also interview others who have. Don't be silly.

There aren't just odd bad apples, the entire system encourages nepotism, cronyism and corruption.

Help is needed but it doesn't have to be delivered in THIS WAY. There is nothing to prove this works. Indeed, it was disbanded before, with good reason! It's just historical memory fades and now new Lindens are trying it again because no one is around to explain how bad it was, and some Lindens who have been around for awhile are the very ones that benefited from the Mentor-LM-slinging racket.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Easy to avoid failure if don't try anything.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Reasons that usually don't correlate with your conclusions.

Reasons might just be ... We didn't want to pay another Linden full time to help manage a program that only reached x% of the online userbase.

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

You don't need to have a "habit" of making new accounts to make 2 or 3 of them and track the experience and see how it works -- and also interview others who have. Don't be silly.

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There aren't just odd bad apples, the entire system encourages nepotism, cronyism and corruption.

So does every interaction between those with authority and those who desire it.

[Garnet Psaltery]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

WALL OF TEXT ...

I was a Mentor and Live Helper and I didn't do any of those nasty things you mentioned, nor did I ever see it or know of it among the others.  If you can tell me you also were a Mentor and Live Helper I'll pay attention to what you say otherwise not.

[Mollymews]

i wasn't able to go to the interview, nor have I seen a transcript yet

but assuming the idea is about resident-volunteer  ?LDPW Mentors? hanging around the new Premium Linden Home estates offering help to people setting up their homes then ok-ish if it remains that and only that

the danger (as it was with the Second Life Mentors) is when volunteers start acting as if they are the police and is their somehow self-appointed duty (because badge over their head) to correct social behavior as they interpret the ToS. Or as the US Supreme Court recently termed it - viewpoint discrimination, which is not allowed by anyone who does act, or presumes to act, in an official capacity or with official blessing

is quite a fraught area this and if there were to be volunteer LDPW Mentors then Patch Linden would need to rule the group with a fairly iron hand, which may end up taking far more time he ever imagines

personally if it was me in charge of this and went down this path. I would insist on a Last Name account (similar to Mole), and contract people to this role as a RL paid job

[ThorinII]

1 hour ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I might even consider applying as mentor, education is a good way to "be" the change.

Ditto.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

I was a Mentor and Live Helper and I didn't do any of those nasty things you mentioned, nor did I ever see it or know of it among the others.  If you can tell me you also were a Mentor and Live Helper I'll pay attention to what you say otherwise not.

in a previous life I was a Second Life Mentor from 2007 to the end in 2009. Thousands of people, over the period, put their hands up for the badge.  And only a few hundred did the work. From names on this forum then off the top of my head: You were one of them, Lindal Kidd was another, and one or two others on here who did actually turn up and do the work at the onboarding regions, orientation islands, help islands and welcome areas

for the rest the badge was a vanity pretty much. And yes also there were a few who did abuse the chit out of their status. I can give a long list of all the ways Second Life Mentor status was abused by the few, much longer than even Prokofy could wonder at. Not that it would serve any purpose to do so now

if Patch Linden is serious about this - wanting to take pressure off Support Linden as the rollout of the new estates progresses, by providing inworld housing support to residents - then a thing about volunteers

volunteers are not reliable. They work where, when and for as long as they do for all sorts of different reasons SL and RL. You can't effectively schedule volunteers to work. Not as and when you (the owner) needs them, like you can with paid employees. Without a schedule then the service is lumpy in a 24/7 environment. At times there are too many volunteers and at others there is a dearth. Its the dearth times which hurts the owner the most

[ThorinII]

I don't know. When I was a Newbie Helper under my first account (back then, it was on FFH Land, at the Deutscher Info-Dienst - both were closed down in July '09), there usually were volunteer helpers available all the time between 5am and 3am Central European Time, sometimes even 24/7. Yes I agree, most volunteers there were around during the usual day times (between 6am and 10pm our time) but a few regularly did the night shift too. And there was a schedule which all did (or, at least tried their best to) comply to.

Yes I did see some Helpers and even Mentors abuse their position - but those were the "odd apple" among those who really wanted to help.

[Fox Wijaya]

25 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

wanting to take pressure off Support Linden as the rollout of the new estates progresses, by providing inworld housing support to residents - then a thing about volunteers

volunteers are not reliable. They work where, when and for as long as they do for all sorts of different reasons SL and RL. You can't effectively schedule volunteers to work. Not as and when you (the owner) needs them, like you can with paid employees. Without a schedule then the service is lumpy in a 24/7 environment. At times there are too many volunteers and at others there is a dearth. Its the dearth times which hurts the owner the most

and another thing .. ban the wannabee groups like the HOA and here on the forums the wannabee representatives accounts like belliseriacommunity resident, or the merchantsrepresentative resident that showed up recently .. they pretend to be something but are nothing and very confusing for people who have no clue yet about SL, those groups can have a reason to be in SL, but don't need a account .

[Kyrah Abattoir]

It is a bannable offence to impersonate an official position within SecondLife I believe.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, ThorinII said:

I don't know. When I was a Newbie Helper under my first account (back then, it was on FFH Land, at the Deutscher Info-Dienst - both were closed down in July '09), there usually were volunteer helpers available all the time between 5am and 3am Central European Time, sometimes even 24/7. Yes I agree, most volunteers there were around during the usual day times (between 6am and 10pm our time) but a few regularly did the night shift too. And there was a schedule which all did (or, at least tried their best to) comply to.

i do agree with what you and Garnet have said. When inworld support programs are organised (scheduled) and the people organised are motivated (as many volunteers are) then they work well. When tho, a team of volunteers are largely left by the owner to organise themselves then it all kinda turns to custard, when the number of regions to cover is quite large

back in the day (2007/8 being the peak) there were 20 regions dedicated solely to onboarding new accounts. When these regions got maxxed out then the overflow was directed to the Welcome Areas

they got maxxed out a lot, particularly on weekends. 1000s of new accounts every hour. You be standing there and 20+ brand new people in your face throwing questions. So, shout out in the Mentor group for assistance. Sometimes others would come to help, sometimes not and when not we did the best we could

what made the volume of questions high back then was that Viewer 1.x didn't have any context help in the viewer, unlike later on with version 2/3. Viewer context help was what changed the role of inworld help/support that the Mentors filled. It become more of a Greeter (Welcome to SL) role than a Mentor (this is how stuff works) role

when we have only a single-entry region (similar to the Community Gateways) to cover then a small dedicated group of people bound together in a common cause, then it can be managed quite well

scale it up to 100s of entry points then problematic from an organisational pov

a question for Patch Linden. What exactly are these people going to do ?  But before that another question. What comes after Moles ?  Probably Hamsters Patchlette Hamster, Imma Hamster, Squirrelly Hamster, etc

why Hamster ? Because hamsters run the wheel. Doing the same things over and over, time after time

what would a Hamster do inworld on Belliserria?

get given a group of regions to look after on their scheduled shift. Some things they can do at work. Watch for region performance and initiate restarts. Turn up inworld when the mailbox rezzer borks. Return security orbs that are non-compliant. Return encroaching objects, etc etc. Like a janitor. Keep the place tidy. And be a nice person, chatty, engaging and friendly

in my view the Hamsters should not ever be the police. The Linden Governance team are the police. Hamsters like any other person can file Abuse Reports, but they have no estate/parcel ban powers. Anything requiring a ban needs to be escalated to Linden Governance like always

 

[ItHadToComeToThis]

Okay. Time for a thought...

Bringing the mentors back might be a good idea..BUT..how about some new mentors to go along with it. I remember the mentors from years ago and I agree in part with the OP. Some of the ones I encountered were on a power trip and acted as if THEY were second only to Linden Lab when in reality they were just another resident given a role to HELP people.

One thing I have noticed also whilst attending the Linden talks, or SLB or any other event involving Linden Lab or Second Life is...that it's the usual suspects time and time again and you rarely if ever see anyone new. It is always the same person hosting, the same person helping, the same people coordinating, the same people building and so and so forth and whilst I understand that these residents are trusted and have earned that trust I feel that we have a grid full of creative, intelligent, funny and witty people who we could utilise also. I have nothing against those who are currently considered the "inner circle" but I think it is time to open that circle up to new and interesting people and start giving the wider grid a chance to be part of it.

Just my thoughts

[Polenth Yue]

19 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

a question for Patch Linden. What exactly are these people going to do ?  But before that another question. What comes after Moles ?  Probably Hamsters Patchlette Hamster, Imma Hamster, Squirrelly Hamster, etc

Probably not hamsters because Governor Linden is a hamster, so it could cause confusion. Gerbils are still free I believe.

[AyelaNewLife]

Posting on the ground floor of another Prok megathread

[Orwar]

   I never experienced the mentor program, but I did use to hang out at Oxbridge and eventually became a mentor there - a lot of the mentors were good, kind and skilled individuals who simply enjoyed to help others, and I'd like to think that even if I wasn't quite as skilled as many others, I did manage to help some people find their feet (sometimes literally). But there also were a lot of people who quite clearly only cared about power and abused their position to influence people. There were tons of behind-the-curtains drama that I never cared to get involved with, but then someone pointed at me and screamed 'vampire' and I got permanently banned without question (by another vampire, even).

   Can and will people abuse their positions? Probably, and signs of it should be taken very seriously. Should a few rotten eggs spoil the party? Nah, it's a pretty weak argument against the concept as a whole. Should we shut down the police forces around the world because there are individuals who abuse their positions? Or the hospitals? Or schools? How about no.

[Mollymews]

12 minutes ago, Polenth Yue said:

Probably not hamsters because Governor Linden is a hamster, so it could cause confusion. Gerbils are still free I believe.

any last named account works for me. Gerbil is a good name also

Garbo Gerbil would be quite cool

 

 

 

[Mollymews]

1 minute ago, Orwar said:

Should we shut down the police forces around the world because there are individuals who abuse their positions? Or the hospitals? Or schools? How about no.

these are paid positions

yes there are volunteer parent helpers in some classrooms, and volunteer hospital visitors also. Who perform their roles under the direct supervision of paid employees who are present