Are The Mentors Being Brought Back?

[Prokofy Neva]

22 hours ago, Mollymews said:

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

I'm glad you've stepped up to say all this, it's true, and I don't doubt that I don't know the half of the abuses that went on.

It seems if this is the case, and these are Mentors with a very narrow scope of setting up homes (that are already set up? I'm not getting this), then the Lindens should make sure they aren't the same ones selling kits to adapt the homes or other home-related products, or their friends.

But honestly, I don't see this as either necessary or a good idea, and once again, it merely creates a class of residents lording it over others, often not really helping, but only gaining social or commercial advantage.

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

15 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

All of Prok's recent posts have been a round about way of demanding in world advertising targeted specifically at new users. presumably because that's the demographic a certain mainland rental business depends on.

Um, no. Newbies either don't have money or don't want to spend it yet on things on rentals. Occasionally I'll get a newbie but it's almost by accident, or they've just read the search/places ads like anyone else.

Of course, I'm familiar with the narrowed eyes and scorn from certain forums regs who imagine that any proposal made by me will only involve somehow drumming up business for my rentals, which is ridiculous. I only lose money on subsidized areas for newbies and often they don't "convert" to higher-payer rentals but move to islands so I am merely prepping them for other merchants that are probably the regs' friends.

It's funny how this kind of instant hatred and suspicion of anything involving commerce, or any proposal at all, isn't then applied *to the Mentors program revival idea*. It should be.

Once again, if you have teleport boards that you institute as paid ads, people in business with stores, clubs, live music, and yes, rentals, will have an incentive to help newbies. The newbies in turn will be able to pick from a variety of options of "things to do". it seems very hard for people to get started and some don't even seem to be able to search in the search interface as they presumably do in Google (but I've learned not to assume even that!).

A board is easy to click on inworld; it is easier than figuring out "destinations" on the log-on or at the top of the screen; the Lindens have even tested such a system briefly but didn't give it enough time -- and also put their FIC friends in it, so it only replicated the same lack of retention, as new people were not interested in the things of the founding geeks.

Again, in RL, you are not greeted by a Mentor who is the Mayor's friend or relative when you land at JFK or Grand Central Station, you use search, you look at ads, you look at brochures in a hotel you may have selected in advance.

In the same way, the splash page of Second Life should have that equivalent of a Bookings.com or an Expedia.com, where you see a square that says "Live Music" or "Shopping" or "Poetry Reading" or "Sex Club" and you CLICK ON IT AND GO THERE. This shouldn't be so hard, people. And the Lindens should sell the splash page ad space, too. They want to earn revenue from methods besides rolling out more servers -- ad sales are one way they can do that. Every form of media since time immemorial has sold ad space as well as subscriptions. There is no reason why the publishers of a virtual world shouldn't do this. That means teleport board ad space; splash page ad space; highway billboard ad space; special events ad space; whatever. It can all be regulated and done tastefully.

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Prokofy Neva

[ThorinII]

Prok, for you to understand:  I for one am not in SL to see any ads whatsoever, no matter what they're advertizing. So far, I've muted and derendered all ad posters I came across. In my not-so-humble opinion, you and others can stick all current and proposed ads where the sun don't shine. I am against them, at all. Nothing against costumer information - but ads, they're as needful as a hole in the head.

Also in RL, 99.9% of all ads I get in my mailbox land in the waste bin without me even skimming through them. Same with the ads I get in my Thunderbird inbox: all of them land in the spam folder - and after 3 days at latest, they're getting deleted. It's enough that I get bombarded by ads in the media (TV, radio, newpapers, magazines) and everywhere where you can place a poster on. Even here, on the regular internet, I use an adblocker wherever possible. I know some media have that pay-wall or an anti-adblocker wall preventing you from reading their articles, but I don't mind. I rather have no access to certain media than being forced to see their ads.

Edited June 26, 2019 by ThorinII

[Mollymews]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It seems if this is the case, and these are Mentors with a very narrow scope of setting up homes (that are already set up? I'm not getting this)

i am not really getting what Patch Linden is saying either really, I have listened to the SL16B podcast 2 times now. A concrete thing that I could see where some non-Lindens might be involved is with the intended Bellisseria Fairgrounds. Blog post here: 

it might be that some LDPW-sponsored Bellisseria Mentor group is set up, with object/stream parcel powers to help with this, and what ever else Patch Linden might want this group to do in other Bellisseria areas, like helping with the intended Bellisseria shopping precinct in some way, maybe dunno exactly

if so then while I think this kind of work should be paid, I am pretty sure that a call for volunteers to donate their time for free in return for a badge will get answered

 

 

[Zeta Vandyke]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Once again, if you have teleport boards that you institute as paid ads, people in business with stores, clubs, live music, and yes, rentals, will have an incentive to help newbies. The newbies in turn will be able to pick from a variety of options of "things to do". it seems very hard for people to get started and some don't even seem to be able to search in the search interface as they presumably do in Google (but I've learned not to assume even that!).

A board is easy to click on inworld; it is easier than figuring out "destinations" on the log-on or at the top of the screen; the Lindens have even tested such a system briefly but didn't give it enough time -- and also put their FIC friends in it, so it only replicated the same lack of retention, as new people were not interested in the things of the founding geeks.

Again, in RL, you are not greeted by a Mentor who is the Mayor's friend or relative when you land at JFK or Grand Central Station, you use search, you look at ads, you look at brochures in a hotel you may have selected in advance.

You focus way to much on destinations. Ads just tell people where to go or what to buy. A mentor would be someone to help you around, explain game techniques, how to do stuff. Answer your questions and so on. Ad boards can never fill this function. 

To use your (imo faulty) analogy; If you go to your hotel and use the brochures to base your day trips on, you will be limited to few preferred companies that have brochures there. If you really want to know whats available and fun, you will let yourself be informed by the hotel clerk or a local.

Personally, I'm not a fan of players with elevated positions without strict supervising so i think we agree on our opinion if mentors are a good idea or not. If they want to introduce mentors, just hire people and let them sign a contract. On volunteer base you will get power abuse (even if on paper they have no power at all)

But they could also put some attention to their online help resources. Like have just one single Wiki, with up to date information.

[Rob Huntsman]

Sounds like it'd be a waste of money for now, I'd first try fixing the clothing and inventory system. Making it more user-friendly towards mesh. For example, the current clothing system doesn't even support signature or maitreya avatars. You'd have to use "appliers."

[Beth Macbain]

In the real world, I work for a nonprofit that has a volunteer force of around 300 and these people are doing things like bathing and feeding and caring for small children and we rely on them. Couldn't operate without them. They are essential unpaid personnel and we treat them as such. 

The thing about volunteers is just that. They're volunteers. A lot are retirees or stay-at-home moms, or single young professionals beefing up their resumes with volunteer work. If they don't feel like coming in, they don't. I can't blame them. However, if they're treated well, and believe in what it is we're doing, the vast majority of them DO show up and put their hearts into it. The key to running a happy, satisfied, and eager volunteer department is respect and training. 

Mentoring may not have worked, or worked as well as it could have, in the past, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't in the future. 

It will need someone with the last name of Linden, or possibly Mole, with this probably being their sole job, to run well.

@Patch Lindenwill have to find some room in his budget to make that happen, unless he's already planned for it. 

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Again, in RL, you are not greeted by a Mentor who is the Mayor's friend or relative when you land at JFK or Grand Central Station, you use search, you look at ads, you look at brochures in a hotel you may have selected in advance.

Ooooooooooooor... if you aren't comfortable with traveling by yourself, you book a group tour, or arrange for a personal tour guide, or spend hours researching on the internet before your trip. 

People look at those ads or brochures out of boredom because they're standing their waiting on their Uber or whatever. 

Advertising within Second Life is tacky. There is no way to do it that isn't tacky, and it's even more tacky to hit new residents with it the minute they join SL. Tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky.  Except maybe some of the resident-created magazines, so I'll give you that. Have a couple kiosks with the magazines available. 

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

Hanja

wow! there's a name

was quite a whole different crowd of people used to go there. More relaxed and chill people overall than at some of the other WAs in those days. Is where I first saw a Greedy Greedy game, in the Games area there. I can't remember exactly his name now but was like Gerbil Gearbox or Gurbux maybe, something like that can't remember now exactly. A little green alien guy who was there most days sitting on top of the lamp post that used to be in the middle of the courtyard. He set a massive score on the Greedy game and nobody ever beat it. I last looked at it about 2011 maybe 2012 and his name was still on it then
 
and just because, I went for a walk down there just before. The WA has been refurbished and the game area is gone. Not sure when that happened

went for a walk on Wellington Road over by Hamnida and up thru Rieul and Mieum. Is still a lovely walk and the homes still have the eastern flavor to them. That was always true on those regions, the whole eastern flavor, even when it was all 512m First Lands back in the day. The parcels there now are quite consolidated by the looks of it, but is good to see that is still pretty much in the same style as it always was

i also went over the other side and had a look at Chilbo. Still there! I remember watching that community grow, by how far the paths got. They got  all the way up to Nabi. Was about only 3/4ths of Nabi to go and the paths would have made it to Hanja. They never did make it (as I remember) but was quite exciting to watch that. Lots has changed since in SL, but I am happy that places like Chilbo are still going 

[Mollymews]

32 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

Mentoring may not have worked, or worked as well as it could have, in the past, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't in the future. 

It will need someone with the last name of Linden, or possibly Mole, with this probably being their sole job, to run well.

@Patch Lindenwill have to find some room in his budget to make that happen, unless he's already planned for it.

there were Lindens dedicated to the Mentors

another thing tho was that it got too big. Was about 3,600-3,700 residents in the Mentor group at is peak. Way too many. End of 2008 about, there was a cull. A email got sent out from Linden to all the people in the group, and you had to respond to the email or you got chopped. Was quite a few didn't respond and got the chop. But after the chop was still about 1800+ as I remember. Not that more than few hundred of those left turned up for work thereafter, same as before. People just answered the email to keep the badge I think

you right tho that if Patch Linden does anything like this again then need to be on top of it, and keep the numbers way down. if is just for LDPW/Bellisseria then probably only need a dozen or two, volunteers at any one time

[Beth Macbain]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

there were Lindens dedicated to the Mentors

another thing tho was that it got too big. Was about 3,600-3,700 residents in the Mentor group at is peak. Way too many. End of 2008 about, there was a cull. A email got sent out from Linden to all the people in the group, and you had to respond to the email or you got chopped. Was quite a few didn't respond and got the chop. But after the chop was still about 1800+ as I remember. Not that more than few hundred of those left turned up for work thereafter, same as before. People just answered the email to keep the badge I think

you right tho that if Patch Linden does anything like this again then need to be on top of it, and keep the numbers way down. if is just for LDPW/Bellisseria then probably only need a dozen or two, volunteers at any one time

Why on earth did they allow that many people to be mentors in the first place? Did they accept everyone who asked? That's the killer right there... If there wasn't proper due diligence in who was accepted into the program, it was doomed from day one.

Before something like this launches again, there will need to be a feasibility study and a needs assessment to determine how many mentors are actually needed. I can't see it ever needing to be over 3,500 unless we get an influx of about 500,000 new residents.

[Lindal Kidd]

On 6/25/2019 at 3:43 AM, 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.

Yeah, Prok.  Add me to Garnet's side of this one.

I was proud to put "SL Mentor" in my Profile, but I have been the same helper person before I was an official Mentor, during my tenure as one, and after the Mentors were discontinued.  So don't tell me that putting a label in my profile somehow makes me a user, a gamer of the system, or holier-than-thou.

[Coffee Pancake]

On 6/25/2019 at 5:01 AM, Mollymews said:

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

I see this a lot from a subset of past mentors, the vast majority did not camp on-boarding locations 24/7, if we all did that then the regions would be nothing but mentors .. typically I'd spend a couple of hours a day at onboarding or start up location, but simply wearing the tag anywhere in SL could easily lead to a full stack of IM's, often with significantly more involved problems than the basic "how do i move" and "what is this place".

Getting the tag, so you could fly it AND show your availability to help out was the point, anyone who got it just to appear more important quickly found the job would happily come to them.

In my experience, some people felt a problem needed to be of a certain weight before asking Live Help (which I also did) and wouldn't want to bother them (or didn't want incidental Linden involvement), yet someone with a mentor tag while out and about presented an opportunity to ask in a less burdensome way.

Hanging out with other mentors on help island hand holding a couple of people in IM, could easily be the quietest part of my day.

I wasn't a mentor so I could get cosy with mentors.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/25/2019 at 1:03 AM, ThorinII said:

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.

Let me point out that you said something very important here: you invoked Caledon.

Caledon is not part of Linden Lab or an "endorsed" by Linden, although the participate voluntarily in a Gateway system whereby LL steers newbies to them (if I'm not mistaken).

That's a GOOD thing. Commercial interests are GOOD. Therefore this BUSINESS has an incentive to try to recruit more customers. So they are willing to have a "loss leader" -- they provide free help and free costumes and furniture in the hopes that some of that newbie stream will stick and pay them rent or buy their content.

And that's a GOOD THING.

The reason you can cite the quality of Caledon is that it is a BUSINESS that is INCENTIVIZED to provide this service ultimately to make a profit. And making a profit is a GOOD THING as it provides incentive and literal means for a lovely themed and regulated community like Caledon to go on existing.

So ponder the factors that went into the goodness of Caledon: commerce, merchants, incentivization, quality, reputation.

When you introduce socialism by force or by vote, you usually don't get those results of the sort you get in Caledon. And that's why I'm opposed to a "government-sponsored" (i.e. Linden-run) help system that has no entry for advertising and participation by BUSINESSES.

Many of the forums regs have an inherent allergy to capitalism, commerce, even non-profit activity that gets its own costs paid through sales. it's the modern craze. But do contemplate how you get the goodness of Caledon. 

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Yeah, Prok.  Add me to Garnet's side of this one.

I was proud to put "SL Mentor" in my Profile, but I have been the same helper person before I was an official Mentor, during my tenure as one, and after the Mentors were discontinued.  So don't tell me that putting a label in my profile somehow makes me a user, a gamer of the system, or holier-than-thou.

Well, ask your friend Carl, Lindal. And he will reiterate what I've said. I think you're on mission on the forums to always disagree with me, and that's fine, I'm used to it, but there are too many inherent negatives in the Mentor system, and too many cases of Mentors acting badly for you to go on protesting that because you're good, therefore we must all bow and accept this system. No.

If the selfless actions of which you are capable and which you have demonstrated over the years are the selfless things you say, you do not need a label on your profile. The quickest way of ending abuse is not allowing the use of "Mentor" as a description on a profile. Because indeed it does attract precisely the kind of person that needs to role-play cop or lord it over others. The hall monitor is a universally-understood persona around the world and universally loathed. It's not required to make SL succeed.

[Mollymews]

9 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

Why on earth did they allow that many people to be mentors in the first place? Did they accept everyone who asked? That's the killer right there... If there wasn't proper due diligence in who was accepted into the program, it was doomed from day one.

Before something like this launches again, there will need to be a feasibility study and a needs assessment to determine how many mentors are actually needed. I can't see it ever needing to be over 3,500 unless we get an influx of about 500,000 new residents.

i will try to be fair to Linden about why the numbers of mentors

When the No-PIOF accounts were introduced in 2006 the number of signups exploded. From a few thousand daily to 10s of 1000s daily.  A Linden did say back in about 2007 that daily signups had hit 60,000+. Linden had also got the region printing process working well at the time and started cranking out regions, which were being snapped up. The future of SL was bright

the only cloud at that time was no context help for users in the then viewer 1.x. So a then Linden question was: What to do? Their answer was to bump up the Mentor helpy group. A lot of new people who had gone thru the on-boarding process thought, I can help with this and they volunteered. And were accepted. The probable Linden thought process - numbers are needed right now because signup volumes, and any inworld hands-on help for new users is better than little or none. As LL alone doesn't have the staff in anywhere near the numbers needed for this

as the numbers of sign ups exploded so did the number of Mentors. And they were actually needed because there was no other inworld help method of any major substance for the kinds of question new users ask when they can't work out how the viewer works. To learn the world then need to learn the viewer also. Yes there were inworld info boards, notecards, etc. The wiki as well. Which kinda helped but not as well as viewer context help does

so if we are looking for a base reason why the number of SL Mentors got up to what it did, then that is pretty much it

the inworld is a lot different now, the viewer too is way better in terms of new user usability than it was in those days

about your experience of organising real world volunteers

everything that you have mentioned about this is correct. People who do volunteer on an ongoing regular basis, to perform activities that take real world time, do like the volunteer program to be ordered and structured. We can see this at some of the resident-owned gateways in the form of volunteer schedule boards where the owner group does have real world experience of managing volunteers

and as you say, this all starts with: What exactly are our volunteers required to actually do? When we know this, then we can work out schedules and numbers

i think that if it was me thinking about this today in the now circumstances, then if it was proceeded on, I would recruit volunteers using a real world engagement process. I would want to know who an applicant is in the real world, and I would want them as a known real world person to agree to the volunteer T&C. I would not be interested in engaging pseudo-anonymous accounts to the role

and I would give the volunteers a Last Name, so is quite clear that they work for me. And if I couldn't convince the CEO to pay my people in USD in the real world (because my team would be spread across different countries/time zones - so payment difficulties in some countries) then I would want a L$ budget please, and I pay my team in L$ to do with as they like. Don't turn up when scheduled then no L$ pay. Don't turn up again then sack

[Prokofy Neva]

22 hours ago, Zeta Vandyke said:

You focus way to much on destinations. Ads just tell people where to go or what to buy. A mentor would be someone to help you around, explain game techniques, how to do stuff. Answer your questions and so on. Ad boards can never fill this function. 

To use your (imo faulty) analogy; If you go to your hotel and use the brochures to base your day trips on, you will be limited to few preferred companies that have brochures there. If you really want to know whats available and fun, you will let yourself be informed by the hotel clerk or a local.

Personally, I'm not a fan of players with elevated positions without strict supervising so i think we agree on our opinion if mentors are a good idea or not. If they want to introduce mentors, just hire people and let them sign a contract. On volunteer base you will get power abuse (even if on paper they have no power at all)

But they could also put some attention to their online help resources. Like have just one single Wiki, with up to date information.

Once again, ad boards aren't just destinations, they are places *where there are people who are motivated to help because they are in business*. Hello! 

Unpaid mentors are never going to be as reliable, and as I've explained, it's a system that is easily corrupted. And just as it is annoying to have a store clerk hovering around you when you go to a store and you want to be able to browse in piece, so newbies shouldn't have Mentors hanging on their necks. When people have OPTIONS, they CHOOSE. At this point they do not have those options.

[Zeta Vandyke]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Once again, ad boards aren't just destinations, they are places *where there are people who are motivated to help because they are in business*. Hello!

I doubt if people driven by their own profit would be a better option than corrupted mentors. Hi!

 

[ThorinII]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Unpaid mentors are never going to be as reliable, and as I've explained, it's a system that is easily corrupted. And just as it is annoying to have a store clerk hovering around you when you go to a store and you want to be able to browse in piece, so newbies shouldn't have Mentors hanging on their necks. When people have OPTIONS, they CHOOSE. At this point they do not have those options.

I'd rather say that  unpaid mentors are more reliable, because they do it for fun, for the joy to be of help. Paid mentors on the other hand do it because it's a *job*, a duty. And duties never are fun. And I don't know what you have against store clerks. They are just there to help the customers - but a customer is under no obligation to ask them for help. This live help is an option to choose, not a must.

But regarding store clerks in Real Life: Whenever I buy a new pair of jeans for example, I'm happy when a store clerk is helping me, because they know better than I which size of which brand would fit me (simply because the sizes aren't really standardized, all the different brands have slightly different sizes. To exaggerate a bit: a size L of one brand would fit as a size XL of another brand or a size M of yet another one), they are able to suggest a style based on what I'm wearing, and so on.

Edited June 27, 2019 by ThorinII

[Lindal Kidd]

21 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Let me point out that you said something very important here: you invoked Caledon.

Caledon is not part of Linden Lab or an "endorsed" by Linden, although the participate voluntarily in a Gateway system whereby LL steers newbies to them (if I'm not mistaken).

That's a GOOD thing. Commercial interests are GOOD. Therefore this BUSINESS has an incentive to try to recruit more customers. So they are willing to have a "loss leader" ...

Now, here we agree.  (See?  We are not ALWAYS at odds!)  Resident-run help operations are, have always been, and probably always will be, better than anything LL can come up with.  But, much as I am in favor of capitalism, profit isn't the reason.  These help operations NEVER make a profit.  They are run at a loss, and they exist because the people behind them enjoy teaching and enjoy helping people.  It's true that COU has generated some residents for Caledon, but I seriously doubt that it has done so enough to justify its continued existence to Desmond Shang.  In fact, we manage to pay our tier (or at least a good portion of it) through donations and fund-raising events.  Certainly the newcomers we help don't contribute to the income stream!

Anyway, my point isn't about business or profit.  My point goes back to the real reason that help organizations exist...because some people enjoy them!  These same people would enjoy helping others whether they do so through a resident-run organization, or through an LL-sponsored program.  I happen to agree with you that the resident-run operations provide better help and education than the learning islands that LL has created through the years, or the official Mentor program.  But an "official" program/tag does have an advantage or two.  One, it's a lot more visible.  New residents HAVE to at least pass through, they don't have to look up the place in Search or some guide.  And, as Coffee pointed out, an "official" tag identifies a person immediately as someone who can be approached for help.

[Implacabilis]

When I was happily noob I saw a guy showing several "Mentors" groups on his profil. I asked around and someone explained to me that once there were those "helpers", then I supposed he was a good guy, but I noticed he was only showing to be cool, due to his long experience [and a "builder" activity]. especially among females newcomers. So, I always ignored him.

However one day, while I was discussing with some griefer, he suddenly blamed me as a "troll". I was surprised and asked what should be my purpose in that and he replied I was trying to be cute and attract girls(!). Shocked, I thanked him, in a Zen way, also to cut the conversation and moved away. For the record, I was used to play a game where I scored more than him. After his "lesson" I googled his weird legacy name and the only precise result was a terrible racist porn, later deleted. Finally I blocked and derendered him.

Another time I met a woman who claimed she was a mentor and she pressured me so much that I had to escape. Since then, when I hear the word "Mentor" I run away like if there was some of my stalkers. By the way, disappointed for the uselessness of reporting harassers, after turning one yo in SL I downgraded to a basic account and rented a home from Prokofy Neva. That first day a Linden appeared over my home, flying - I felt so done neither wondering why he was there and I teleported away. Prok impressed me for being professional (you know landlords...) and detached. In the specific moment, that mood helped me a lot, more than a Linden or a volunteer could do, so much that later I upgraded to Premium again...

That's my experience, this thread is old but I think that a Mentor can't be trusted, while I learned more from few true friends and particularly special ones.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Implacabilis

[Solar Legion]

There were, are and always will be those who will abuse the sort of 'status' that being a Mentor (of any kind) can confer. This does not make mentors as a whole untrustworthy.

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 hours ago, Implacabilis said:

When I was happily noob I saw a guy showing several "Mentors" groups on his profil. I asked around and someone explained to me that once there were those "helpers", then I supposed he was a good guy, but I noticed he was only showing to be cool, due to his long experience [and a "builder" activity]. especially among females newcomers. So, I always ignored him.

However one day, while I was discussing with some griefer, he suddenly blamed me as a "troll". I was surprised and asked what should be my purpose in that and he replied I was trying to be cute and attract girls(!). Shocked, I thanked him, in a Zen way, also to cut the conversation and moved away. For the record, I was used to play a game where I scored more than him. After his "lesson" I googled his weird legacy name and the only precise result was a terrible racist porn, later deleted. Finally I blocked and derendered him.

Another time I met a woman who claimed she was a mentor and she pressured me so much that I had to escape. Since then, when I hear the word "Mentor" I run away like if there was some of my stalkers. By the way, disappointed for the uselessness of reporting harassers, after turning one yo in SL I downgraded to a basic account and rented a home from Prokofy Neva. That first day a Linden appeared over my home, flying - I felt so done neither wondering why he was there and I teleported away. Prok impressed me for being professional (you know landlords...) and detached. In the specific moment, that mood helped me a lot, more than a Linden or a volunteer could do, so much that later I upgraded to Premium again...

That's my experience, this thread is old but I think that a Mentor can't be trusted, while I learned more from few true friends and particularly special ones.

 

 

In my experience, a person whose only post on the forums consists of saying unverifiable negative things about people can't be trusted.

[animats]

On 6/25/2019 at 9:07 AM, CoffeeDujour said:

recent posts have been a round about way of demanding in world advertising targeted specifically at new users.

We already have in world advertising targeted at new users. Check out the LL Ungren Safe Hub.

Welcome to Second Life  (Slightly blurred in some areas per LL policy.)

This is not a good introduction to Second Life. Even if you're looking for adult areas.

This hub has many bots clogging the landing point. I suspect that badly scripted bots pile up here after region restarts. They don't do anything. They don't move. They don't answer. That's a violation of LL's bot policy. The Zindra hubs could use some cleanup.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Wow...this thread's been resurrected from the dead.

@Implacabilis, I am sorry that you've had bad experiences with mentors.  I assure you, we're not all like that!  I'll also agree that, although Prok is often the source of controversy, she runs a tight ship with her rental business.  If I were looking for a good, low cost rental with a reliable landlord, I'd definitely look at Ravenglass.

I don't know the Mind Of Linden Lab.  But they HAVE, in one sense, resurrected the Mentor program.  It's not being officially run or organized by LL, but members of certain resident-run helper groups are being given exclusive access to some (not all) of the Learning Islands and Social Islands.  It's my impression that this is an experiment, and LL is waiting to see whether the people who enter SL through these places with live helpers have a better new user experience, and stay in SL more often, than people who go through the standard, no-live-helper orientation process.

I will say from personal experience that it is very manpower-intensive.  A live helper on Social Island may offer a cheerful greeting to ten or twelve people before she gets anything like a response that leads to an actual conversation and the dispensing of some knowledge.  It's frustrating as heck!

A few other points that I noticed as I re-read the thread...

• Even the most extensive Mentor program would not affect these Forums.  I mean...they've been going strong, when we had official Mentors, and when we didn't.  You can never have too many sources of information and channels to distribute it.
• Orwar, I am VERY sorry you had a bad experience at Oxbridge.  I think I could even put a name to the person you had it with.  Sigh.
• Ads at welcome areas:  I'm agin' 'em.  I remember the ads at the Infohubs I visited, and I can't recall ever wanting to buy a single thing or go to any place they advertised.
• I am not saying that the gamers-of-the-Mentor-System did not exist, although I was never explicitly aware of any, first hand.  But the vast majority of helpers I've met, both in the LL Mentors and in the various resident-run helper organizations, are wonderful, dedicated people who only want to share the joy they've found in SL with others.

[Garnet Psaltery]

No-one should be at the Learning Islands except the newly-arrived or a necessary Linden.  It's hard enough adjusting to a new world without people bothering you with things they deem helpful, or just generally being in your face, trying to direct you.  Give them space, for heavens' sake.