Looking For Answers For Two Inquiries:

[Lindal Kidd]

2 hours ago, IbNuckinFutz said:

according to the people I talk to they stated that they hardly ever use the search engine toolbar to find anything let alone groups or regions, instead they just use the destinations tab in the main menu in their SL viewer.

What we're trying to point out is that this is absolutely the WRONG way to go about finding things, except one specific category of thing. I'll try to explain why.

Search (the magnifying glass button, or CTRL+F) is a general search engine. You can use it to find people, look for land for sale, find groups, find products, and find places. Also, Search has recently had some updates made to it. It's a lot better now at finding the thing you want, without presenting you with a huge pile of unrelated garbage.

The Destinations Guide is a limited list of locations in SL. It's curated by LL; people can submit their club, store, or other venue to be considered for inclusion, but LL decides what to include. It's updated from time to time, with old places being bumped off to include new places. Note two things here: 1) There are tens of thousands of places in SL, but only a hundred or so entries in the Destinations Guide, and 2) the Guide only shows PLACES. It does not help you find people, products, land for sale or rent, or groups.

If people tell you they routinely use Destinations to search for things, it's a perfect teaching moment to show them how much they're missing!

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

If people tell you they routinely use Destinations to search for things, it's a perfect teaching moment to show them how much they're missing!

Yes, a teaching moment and also maybe an indication there's need for improved UI design, if so many folks really are making this mistake. Don't know if the Lab can easily track the viewer equivalent of a browsing tree (maybe challenging through a TPV veil), but if they have anybody doing usability engineering this anecdote could be a hint.

Also this, emphasis mine:

5 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

The Destinations Guide is a limited list of locations in SL. It's curated by LL; people can submit their club, store, or other venue to be considered for inclusion, but LL decides what to include.

I wonder how obvious it is to Residents that the Destinations aren't handed down from on-high, but rather are merely Lab-curated from crowd-sourced submissions. Maybe the Guide would be better if more (newer?) venues knew to submit—at the cost of more entries to curate, I suppose.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

17 hours ago, IbNuckinFutz said:

This is way more complicated than it should be! Nothing I am posting should not be as confusing as you are all making it out to be. Especially if you are all seasoned second lifers. I don't know why I'm getting the third degree and scrutinized by everyone for everything that I've posted. It seems no matter where show me this posted there is always confutation, controversy, and skepticism from the cognoscenti.   

I just want to delete this forum post, because so far what I've gathered from everybody's answers is that people getting along just fine with finding groups and that I am what I'm trying to do is completely unnecessary and not worth the effort. So if the all knowing gurus of Second Life would please tell me how to delete my forum post, I 'll than obliged to do so.

Honestly you have gotten a lot of good information in this thread, there is no reason to delete it because you aren't agreeing with the answers or feedback.  Take it as also research but you can also temper it with the fact the forum is a tiny sub set of users some of whom are highly experienced users with years on the platform.  

If you have polled say 100 users in-world, your research there is equally valid and may totally differ.     Particularly if you are polling new joiners who may certainly struggle to find things.      I do remain unconvinced that you will make any profit doing this.  However,  if it's a hobby and just for fun it may be hugely rewarding to help other new people coming into Second Life find things,  Generally, any service which helps new users remain on the platform is beneficial.  So it really depends on the why you want to do this, so don't rule it out as you can always try and see.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by Charlotte Bartlett

[MoiraKathleen]

11 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I wonder how obvious it is to Residents that the Destinations aren't handed down from on-high, but rather are merely Lab-curated from crowd-sourced submissions. Maybe the Guide would be better if more (newer?) venues knew to submit—at the cost of more entries to curate, I suppose.

Strawberry does do a "Highlights from the Second Life Destinations Guide" Featured News blog periodically (often weekly?).  At the bottom of each of those blog posts, is:

Quote

 

Don't forget to check our Recently Added category to see all the latest additions to the Second Life Destination Guide!

Got a spot that you’d like listed in the Destination Guide? Make sure to drop us a note at editor@lindenlab.com or submit your spot via web form. Learn more about the Destination Guide criteria for Editors’ Picks or the Destinations Floater in the viewer, and increase your chances of being featured in those coveted spots!

 

I subscribe to the Featured News blog posts, so I get these in my emails, but if people don't subscribe, the recent blog post links are displayed on the web dashboard and on the splash screen for the SL viewer (and other TPV's which use the same style splash screen).  

I think this is not a case so much of LL not making information available, but users who choose to not get any emails from LL (or don't read them if they do receive them), don't follow any of the communication channels that LL uses to provide information to the users, don't want to see that type of information on the viewer splash screen, don't ever look at their web dashboard...   

 

[Rowan Amore]

11 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yes, a teaching moment and also maybe an indication there's need for improved UI design, if so many folks really are making this mistake.

Or perhaps include the definitions...

DESTINATION:  the place to which someone or something is going or being sent

SEARCH:  try to find something by looking or otherwise seeking carefully and thoroughly

 

[Stephanie Misfit]

On 8/4/2022 at 7:55 AM, IbNuckinFutz said:

Not according to my research bud. I don't know what information your referencing, but I am referring to actual gathered answers from individuals that I talked to on various different regions/ groups. And according to the people I talk to they stated that they hardly ever use the search engine toolbar to find anything let alone groups or regions, instead they just use the destinations tab in the main menu in their SL viewer.

I have been in SL for 16 years and I have not used Destinations to find something even once. And I meet a lot of new people, and I know that they are finding stuff through the search engine, because I have asked them how they found stuff. I do have friends who use Destinations when they are bored and want to explore, but that's all I personally see it used for.