SL not so welcoming to new residents

[Silent Mistwalker]

I will say that if I had not had a few years experience with a 3d virtual world prior to joining SL, I would never had stayed in SL. The difference in learning curves is huge with SL's curve being the largest/longest/whatever. Much of the SL experience is overly complicated for most people.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

1 hour ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

 I joined because of Dwight Schrute.

I really hope you have that in your profile.

[Kathlen Onyx]

7 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I will say that if I had not had a few years experience with a 3d virtual world prior to joining SL, I would never had stayed in SL. The difference in learning curves is huge with SL's curve being the largest/longest/whatever. Much of the SL experience is overly complicated for most people.

It's the people that make it complicated. I agree that there is a certain learning curve but people come here expecting to know everything and do everything immediately. They want to do it ALL RIGHT NOW. In that sense then they will find it complicated but if they learn as they go and enjoy it then it really is no more complicated to get started than any other game - social platform. 

[Pixie Kobichenko]

53 minutes ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

I really hope you have that in your profile.

Nah, but for awhile the Dwight Shelford account was on my friends list 😃

[Ceka Cianci]

 

 

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You preachin to the choir baby.

Who said anything about stripping rights from land owners? I certainly didn't.

I never said the 30 day thing would be at the top of the list of reasons people leave. Just that it's an added deterrent to staying.

Reducing 30 days to 14 or even 7 isn't chopping away at the foundation because the roof leaks. It's giving the repairmen a chance to fix the leaky roof before the next storm hits. The land owner sets this in the About Land panel and can change it at will. Increase it, decrease it, by any number of days they want. So I'm not seeing a problem there.

Impatient people aren't going to stick around no matter what you do. I haven't been talking about impatient people.

I think if they made it an option in the land options, more would probably use it.. because it just becomes a box to check in everyone's land options now, rather than some just getting the idea from some place else and making a notecard or billboard for it..

Edited July 10, 2021 by Ceka Cianci

[Silent Mistwalker]

17 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

 

 

I think if they made it an option in the land options, more would probably use it.. because it just becomes a box to check in everyone's land options now, rather than some just getting the idea from some place else and making a notecard or billboard for it..

 

I owe you an apology. Somehow I had it in my head that this was already in About Land when it's still being done by security orbs. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Again. lol

Now why didn't LL ever think of that in the first place? Instead of POIF. The 18+ option should remain. Not that it's any real assurance against someone underage but it gives a small amount of security where honest people are concerned. 

[Ceka Cianci]

12 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

I owe you an apology. Somehow I had it in my head that this was already in About Land when it's still being done by security orbs. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Again. lol

Now why didn't LL ever think of that in the first place? Instead of POIF. The 18+ option should remain. Not that it's any real assurance against someone underage but it gives a small amount of security where honest people are concerned. 

I kind of hope they don't put that in there.. I'd much rather there be less of places doing it and needing to discover it as an option on their own, rather than it being right there and just a check box away..

Even if they cut it in half in a land option, there would still be people saying, why do I have to wait 15 days!!\o/

hehehe

[Mollymews]

10 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

laughing at my posts again.

if I don't get a laugh out of them what can't be named then I am doing it wrong. The more lulz reputation click thingy points I collect the better ! 😺

please to click all my posts to pieces unnameable persons. Thankyou ! 

[Yukiko Yeshto]

Those places that have the 30-day-restriction are usually owned by individuals, and it is their right to decide who may visit, and who not. Be it "no newbies" or "no group members" or "no payment info on file", or any other reason. Obviously there was a misconception in understanding how things work in SL, at least in this regard. This scenario could have been easily avoided by taking a deep breath first, and reaching out to more experienced users secondly to ask for help. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by Yukiko Yeshto

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I kind of hope they don't put that in there.. I'd much rather there be less of places doing it and needing to discover it as an option on their own, rather than it being right there and just a check box away..

Even if they cut it in half in a land option, there would still be people saying, why do I have to wait 15 days!!\o/

hehehe

It has it's pros and cons. I wouldn't want to give land owners as much as 30 days really. 3 days is sufficient for most needs and 14 days is pushing it, imo so, give them the option of 1 - 7 days or 1 - 14 days. Otherwise they'll just keep using security orbs and it has always been my opinion that that sort of thing should fall on LL to provide the tools for. I mean, look at every security tool we have now that we literally had to beg for to get.

Can't we all just compromise and satisfy most rather than only a few? 🤔

Oh. Right. Humans. 🤭

[Surssin]

9 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

It's the people that make it complicated. I agree that there is a certain learning curve but people come here expecting to know everything and do everything immediately. They want to do it ALL RIGHT NOW. In that sense then they will find it complicated but if they learn as they go and enjoy it then it really is no more complicated to get started than any other game - social platform. 

As still a bit of a newbie myself, I think this is key. I admit I didn't sift through the entire thread, but I noticed more than a few talked about Second Life not being friendly to newbies. That HAS NOT been my experience. Without guidance, yeah it can be hard to master, but the thing is, I have run into SO many nice, friendly, helpful people that in just 130 days, I've managed to learn how to edit objects and even do some VERY tiny tweaks to scripts.

As much as I tried to prepare, there was a lot that I'm not sure you can prepare for. You just have to do it, experience it, and/or be told how to do it by those who have done it. I've learned a lot, but there's a lot I've yet to learn. But I also know there will always be those willing to help me learn it. You'll never escape the trolls and the bad ones, but when you find the good ones, MAN can things get fun. But you gotta be patient. You gotta learn how to really make it all work. Really it took me a month, maybe just over, to really start getting the full expierence out of it.

I fear too many newbies don't understand this, and thus give up before it can get good.

[Hunny Bunny]

23 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It doesn't matter how many times LL rearrange the deck chairs in the welcome area.

Nothing prepares new residents for all the oldbies yelling "GET OFF MY LAWN" because some jerk ran around naked on their sim shooting particles out of his butt, once, a decade ago and then opted to live in fear ever since.

This is a systemic problem that needs a systemic fix.

@Linden Lab should remove account age and PIOF from profiles and script access and break the cycle.

Sure there will be screaming, but the solution is simple. In the absence of being able to delegate "security" to a script, get some actual humans to do it and only boot people who actually cause trouble, rather than everyone under 30 days.

Can we get them to stop booting everyone under nine feet tall while we're at it?

[Noelle Delaunay]

9 hours ago, Yukiko Yeshto said:

are usually owned by individuals, and it is their right to decide who may visit, and who not. Be it "no newbies" or "no group members" or "no payment info on file", or any other reason.

To be fair, nobody is in fact "owning" a piece of land. When I buy land I buy the right to use resources on a server, and LL has every right to limit me in what I'm actually allowed to do with these resources.

[Ceka Cianci]

3 minutes ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

To be fair, nobody is in fact "owning" a piece of land. When I buy land I buy the right to use resources on a server, and LL has every right to limit me in what I'm actually allowed to do with these resources.

Same goes for land in the real world in most places in america where LL is located.. You don't really own the land, just have owners rights to it..

[Maitimo]

I don't even get this. When I made my alt (about a year ago) I went to loads of places, including some adult areas, and in only one place I ran up against a ban on avatars under 30 days. It was either Ohana or The River rock club, I forget which.  No big deal, I went to the other one and their DJs got my tips instead. The vast majority of the grid has no such restriction.

By far the biggest limitations on resident retention are the steep learning curve, the hardware requirements and the misconception that Second Life is somehow a game.

[Noelle Delaunay]

9 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

I don't even get this.

The issue was just exaggerated. Nobody quits SL because they run into one sim that restricts access to avatars older than 30 days. And nobody quits SL because they could only limit access to their land by requiring avatars to be older than 7 days instead of 30. There is also not a horde of scammers on sims that don't have any age restrictions at all.

Edited July 11, 2021 by Noelle Delaunay

[RitaCallisto]

Any alts i've ever made only ever ran in to 1 region that had an age restriction(it was a skin creator), and it was nbd. I also didn't try to go to clubs and "hot spots".. While I don't see a ton of griefing going on, I have seen some, and after a while region owners just get sick of it.

I remember when I started SL, it was incredibly daunting, but i've never had the issues the OP had(even on newer alts) so I really have to wonder just what kind of places they were trying to go to.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, Hunny Bunny said:

Can we get them to stop booting everyone under nine feet tall while we're at it?

Automated selective security orbs are a blight.

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, Surssin said:

As still a bit of a newbie myself, I think this is key. I admit I didn't sift through the entire thread, but I noticed more than a few talked about Second Life not being friendly to newbies. That HAS NOT been my experience. Without guidance, yeah it can be hard to master, but the thing is, I have run into SO many nice, friendly, helpful people that in just 130 days, I've managed to learn how to edit objects and even do some VERY tiny tweaks to scripts.

As much as I tried to prepare, there was a lot that I'm not sure you can prepare for. You just have to do it, experience it, and/or be told how to do it by those who have done it. I've learned a lot, but there's a lot I've yet to learn. But I also know there will always be those willing to help me learn it. You'll never escape the trolls and the bad ones, but when you find the good ones, MAN can things get fun. But you gotta be patient. You gotta learn how to really make it all work. Really it took me a month, maybe just over, to really start getting the full expierence out of it.

I fear too many newbies don't understand this, and thus give up before it can get good.

SL was, is and always will be an ongoing learning process/experience if for no other reason than it is constantly evolving in unexpected ways.

[Malin Sabra]

On 7/10/2021 at 5:00 PM, Silent Mistwalker said:

I will say that if I had not had a few years experience with a 3d virtual world prior to joining SL, I would never had stayed in SL. The difference in learning curves is huge with SL's curve being the largest/longest/whatever. Much of the SL experience is overly complicated for most people.

I have to say this mostly is true for me also. I logged in to SL and I couldn't figure things out and ended up logging out for 5 years. I went and played another similar virtual world (that doesn't exist anymore) and other games. Eventually I came back and I probably wouldn't have stayed again if it wasn't for someone teaching me how to fix myself up. I would say it took a good 6 months of playing to really have a decent understanding of the complexities of SL.

For anyone new that joins and doesn't have a friend to help them out right away, I would say chances are slim they will stick around. It is great there is noob starting areas now though at least with a bit of a walk through. I think it might need a bit more though.

I still see people wearing every pair of pants in the folder they got (Stacked up wearing Maitreya, Legacy, eBody, Tonic, Slink, etc all at the same time) lol. New people have no idea that all the pants they got in the folder are made for specific bodies. It can be confusing especially if you don't have a friend helping

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Malin Sabra said:

I probably wouldn't have stayed again if it wasn't for someone teaching me how to fix myself up

That is the point. People don't stay when they can't find someone willing to help pretty quickly. The longer it takes to find the help you need, the less likely you are to stick around. Life is too short and today's world is far too fast paced for most to spend much time trying to find help or figure things out for themselves. Why would they when there are other things out there that aren't as complicated and don't require the amount of time. 

If only there were some way for a new person, once they have reached a certain point in the "onboarding process", to be able to request a "live" mentor. A personal helper. People who won't mind taking a few minutes to answer questions, demo how to do something like rez a box. The simple everyday stuff we no longer even think about because it has become a part of our "routine". A habit in a sense. We do without thinking because repetition.

SL used to have a mentor program. Shame they let things get so out of hand they shut it down.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker
knew it was there and forgot it anyway

[Lewis Luminos]

On 7/10/2021 at 2:38 AM, Chris Nova said:

As far as I know, it happens way less because LL banned not just them but the programs they used. And we all know griefing and crashing sims doesnt happen as often anymore because of that. So explain to me why too many still don't allow new people at their public sims? Its an outdated policy.

The crashing-region doesn't happen as often but there's still an issue with throwaway accounts used to harass other users, for stalking, for spamming, for spreading links to dodgy Altavista web pages that steal your login info, and for being a general nuisance.

I don't ban new avatars from my club but I do pay very close attention to them when they arrive, and any sign that they might be there for any of the above purposes and I'll eject-ban.

[MoiraKathleen]

Perhaps it's more difficult now with all the mesh bodies, but when I started back in 2014, I managed pretty well in figuring stuff out.  By the time I was 6 weeks old or so when I got connected with a RP community where I made a couple of friends, I had already found the Free Dove, the 30-day Fab Free list, visited several new resident destinations and did the various tutorials at those locations, took some basic classes, did some building, got a LH, rented land, bought some mainland, bought and furnished a house.  I did a lot of reading in the Q&A section of the forums.   

I didn't have prior virtual world or gaming experience, so everything was new to me, but I was curious and wanted to learn things, find out how things worked, explore and figure out what I could do here (and how to do it).  I knew I had a lot of things to learn, and I accepted that as part of the challenge, because that was also what had drawn me here to begin with. I was entranced by every thing.

I hadn't viewed joining here as something to do just (or primarily) for the social aspect.  So I didn't have any issues about exploring and learning on my own, and didn't really go out of my way to try and make friends for the sake of making friends.

[Extrude Ragu]

My sim has been public entry and open-rez for the best part of 5 years or so.

I've had maybe 3 or 4 jokers turn up in malformed avatars come make edgy jokes, and only one greifer who did one of their particle emitters whilst I was asleep.

In SecondLife's early days this was more of a problem, but these days SecondLife doesn't have such a young audience any more. We all grew up.

I support land owners right to choose who can be in their sim. It's their land. I do think the whole grief fear is an over-reaction though (at least in my experience)

[Coffee Pancake]

24 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

My sim has been public entry and open-rez for the best part of 5 years or so.

Mine was too when I had it (with a very generous auto return), although we did get caught out a few times when reparceling disabled auto return entirely for months on end and no one noticed.

The most egregious offenses over the course of 5 years, hundred+ visitors a day on a quiet day ...

• Someone rezzed a dozen copies of an AO HUD, presumably because they couldn't see them in world.
• HUNDREDS of real restraint 'no touch' huds littered all over the place .. because reasons.
• Countless vehicles glitched into parcel boundaries.
• Two people would TP to our region and unpack their shopping on the landing point in the middle of the night.
• One enterprising individual thought he could rez and hide a fully decorated naughty skybox that went invisible when he wasn't nearby, we waited a solid few days for him to finish, invite a friend over to show off ..  and returned the lot in one go.
• Couple of guys came back with alts and weapons to shoot the region up after I banned their mains. It was cute.
• About once a month we would have a guy harassing visitors, banned them, banned their alts. Being seen doing that upset no one, quite the opposite.

The ban list was routinely flushed, no point having a ban list if you can't remember why someone was banned X years ago.

The very worst stuff was from renters who seemed to be under the impression that once they had paid for a parcel the ToS didn't apply to them anymore and they could just do whatever. YEET !

Nothing worth paranoia and auto ejecting security scripts. Newbies were often good company and more inclined to just chat.