A Positive Brainstorming / Suggestion Box Thread - Ideas for Improving Second Life Sociability, Usability and Retention

[InnerCity Elf]

19 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

So I should “say, sure why not” instead of  “get lost creep”?

You shouldn't do anything you don't feel comfortable with, I don't should people, it's just a suggestion in the spirit of this thread, not a commandment. If people have too much experience with creeps, or are too shy, or for whatever other reason don't want to, that's perfectly fine, of course. Picking a newbie for some kind of friendly welcome oneself,  might also lower the chances of picking a creep.

I had some "get lost" encounters over the years, but that'd be probably far less than 1% of all encounters I've had, so I'm not too terrified trying tomorrow, even though I'm not a super social person, shy, perhaps rather too polite, and all. Also, there's blocking, TP, and logging out, in case I'm too optimistic. I'll log in on Friday to see what my own suggestion will lead to, in any case, I'm curious, and at the least, it will be a "disruption" of my SL routine, might be fun, hoping for at least one non-creep 🙂

[BilliJo Aldrin]

54 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

You shouldn't do anything you don't feel comfortable with, I don't should people, it's just a suggestion in the spirit of this thread, not a commandment. If people have too much experience with creeps, or are too shy, or for whatever other reason don't want to, that's perfectly fine, of course. Picking a newbie for some kind of friendly welcome oneself,  might also lower the chances of picking a creep.

I had some "get lost" encounters over the years, but that'd be probably far less than 1% of all encounters I've had, so I'm not too terrified trying tomorrow, even though I'm not a super social person, shy, perhaps rather too polite, and all. Also, there's blocking, TP, and logging out, in case I'm too optimistic. I'll log in on Friday to see what my own suggestion will lead to, in any case, I'm curious, and at the least, it will be a "disruption" of my SL routine, might be fun, hoping for at least one non-creep 🙂

I would never tell you to get lost 😁

I’d do them if it amused me to, but more likely id tease them then say ooops sorry gotta go, and log out.

IM me tomorrow,  we’ll go find a noob and make his dreams come true 😂

Edited June 13 by BilliJo Aldrin
lol didnt know a 3 letter word for come would hit the censor

[SERAFICHESKIY]

- Way, waaay too many to list, but more creator-friendly features and stuff we've been asking about for years. Fortunately some of this is marked "tracked" on the feedback website, but still. Shiny PBR and mirrors might be more appealing to the "average" user, but it's important that QoL features are implemented for creators, because that's who's making SL's content. I, personally, don't care how shiny PBR looks when it's currently a pain in the ass to work with.

- I've already made a feedback thread about it (and others have as well) but; better content filtering and categories. The fact that enabling "Adult" content will show you everything from vanilla sexual content to scat & ***** is absurd. Long term SL users who have become desensitized to this stuff probably don't think much of it, but this is part of why SL gets a bad rep, & why SL creators like myself sometimes feel a little awkward to tell non-SL players what we do.  There should be an "Extreme" category or something so, if this stuff HAS to stay up then it should be tucked away where only people who go looking for it will find it.

- Related to the above point: place search is also currently atrocious. Keyword spam for places is a big problem and typing in a single keyword relating to a community usually returns misleading, spammy, or offputting results. For example; searching "furry" used to (probably still does, haven't checked) show a ton of AFK sex sims & then ***** poseball sims first, which were higher traffic than genuine furry hangout/shopping sims. Searching for a particular brand of mesh body or head, such as "eBody" or "Lelutka" returns tons of stores who have put those keywords in their description, making it hard to find the ACTUAL mainstores for these brands. "Roleplay" is filled to the brim with non-roleplay sims - and so forth. It's hard to find new places relevant to what you're actually looking for, especially if you're a new player and you don't know how to navigate or spot the "legit" sims from the spammy garbage.

- There's a lot of weird little things about SL that it doesn't teach you, but are incredibly useful to know and use. Things such as mesh attaching to "Right Hand" by default & how to change it, and why it's better to NOT have everything stacked on Right Hand. Even a lot of creators don't seem to know about this (or just can't be bothered to pick a different attachment point). Another example is the build menu; I've sold things such as textures that require knowledge of the build menu, and a lot of users don't really understand the build menu or what individual options mean. 

I think all of these things would make SL a lot "friendlier" to new & old users alike, and thus, more people would stick around. To those of us who have been on SL for a long time, it's easier to forget that it's got a steep learning curve. 

 

[Starberry Passion]

On 2/12/2023 at 6:06 PM, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I'll try to keep this as positive as possible, Love. No guarantees. Don't feed me to the lions if I fail. 🦁

I think SL should figure out what it wants to be. I agree with the posts that say building is definitely more complicated in this here 2023 than it was when some of us started. That's totally fine, but then that eliminates those of us who loved to build but don't know 3D. That (and avatar customization, which managed to survive, sorta) are what brought me to SL in the first place. I don't build here anymore. I have to go elsewhere for that. I can push mesh objects around and decorate homes, but that doesn't quite scratch the same itch.

Building games (I knowwwww SL is not a gaaaaaaaame) are hugely popular right now. Especially the ones with multiplayer - do I even have mention Minecraft and Valheim? Those games have a lot more to do than build, too, but if you crawl through Twitch and YouTube, you'll find no shortage of people designing things, making building tutorials, and showing off their builds on places like Reddit. SL is prettier by far IMO, but still! I'm jelly (not really - I play Minecraft on occasion).

For me personally, SL has shifted from being a massively creative platform to being somewhere I come to take pictures of stuff other people made. Others might not feel the same, especially if they're here for the more social features (another area that needs some love, too, as we all know), but for me, it's why I quit for near a decade (right around when I realized I could no longer keep up with the building crowd and would have to shut down my in-world store). I came back eventually and got hooked on photography and playing with my avie again, but I don't really have much desire to log in much anymore unless I want to style a new avatar. 

Okay so a suggestion - if LL wants in-world building to continue to be part of the platform, we need better tools. I'm not technical in the slightest, so I don't know the tech side of how to make that work and how to make it look good alongside mesh, so don't ask me 😜. I'll let someone else come up with that. But if casual, hobby builders are still want they want, we need stuffs! Premade wall tiles, floor tiles, fences, doors, structures, ramps, etc. organized in a menu we can pull from might help. Or a tool to draw such things (Sims-like). 

Random screenie of what I'm talmbout Willis (from Satisfactory, but plenty of games have this kind of thing):

 

Disclaimer: I know I'm asking for a LOT and it's 1000% unlikely to happen. But Love said he wanted ideas, so...! Yeet it into the trash if you must.

The reason why people feel second life is a platform to take pictures, instead of a creative outlet is because the community itself. It's not Second Life's fault, it's the community that run it.

Like I said in another forum, the more people push people away, the more people try to tell people what to do, the more people will be and feel alienated and want to just go take photos. No one else appreciates them or want them around so photos is the thing.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

On 6/12/2024 at 3:07 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Did they put that area on PBR? I can't visit it with the glare.

yea, why is the ground so white, its brighter than my full bright hair

Was gonna ask why the map doesn't have a "you are here" arrow, but after I took the picture I saw it, since I took the picture, thought I'd post it anyway

Edited June 13 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff

[Persephone Emerald]

Sorry, I'm skipping reading all the previous 17 pages for now.

I've created a request for a surfing and boating region just to the east of the Sandbox region of the Welcome HUB. Surfing and sailing are fun activities that I think newbies would enjoy and which could help with retention. There is already a free sailing boat at the Welcome HUB, but if it were in a giver on the edge of the Sandbox beach, people could rez it & use it in an adjacent water region. I think the Senra avatars should come with bathing suits too.

You can vote on my feature request here: https://feedback.secondlife.com/ldpw/p/welcome-hub-surfing-region

[WereBeast Alpha]

I feel like from my understanding with SL and how to attract new users is based on a few things.

A few people I know could not figure out how to dress their avatar or even do the tutorial properly since there was no way for them to understand how to go through inventory and the more major issues to keep people around on SL. 

Most people who left IMVU and came here to SL have a hard time figuring out SL, if there was more immersive tutorials to help new users out that would be a positive thing along with how to rez items out, renting out land etc. Maybe have some people who can help new users out that are not bots are AI but actual people who are longtime residents of second life. 

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Sorry, I'm skipping reading all the previous 17 pages for now.

Thred was ded until recently. Not sure how it got to 17 pages! Is Necro.

[Ceka Cianci]

26 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Thred was ded until recently. Not sure how it got to 17 pages! Is Necro.

It's the second coming is why! \o/

[PheebyKatz]

1 hour ago, Starberry Passion said:

The reason why people feel second life is a platform to take pictures, instead of a creative outlet is because the community itself. It's not Second Life's fault, it's the community that run it.

Like I said in another forum, the more people push people away, the more people try to tell people what to do, the more people will be and feel alienated and want to just go take photos. No one else appreciates them or want them around so photos is the thing.

For some people taking pictures is their creative outlet, and I think it's a valid one, if that's what they like and are able to do. But yeah, I agree.

Being hostile to unwanted IMs/Residents never stopped me from having to deal with more of them the next, or even the very same day. It only made me want to be alone.

The word "tolerance" has been getting a bad rap lately, and I'm partly at fault because I've always been more of a mind that acceptance is better than tolerance, but maybe tolerance is just what works in SL. If there are things one cannot accept, that's okay, you can simply tell people you don't accept those things, and if they get bent out of shape over it, that's on them.

The U.S. Marines teach recruits to be "always courteous, never friendly" when dealing with the public, and that policy seems to have worked for them. Maybe in SL it should be something like, "always courteous, never hostile."

I've had moments in SL when I could easily have chosen the path of extreme rudeness, and felt perfectly justified, and all my friends would have patted me on the back and told me I was right to react that way.

And, in some of those instances, I chose to remain courteous and just openly say that I wasn't into what the person seemed to be implying, rather than going off and calling them, say, a trashy pervert, but leaving it open to discuss other things, and ended up having a really great chat and not making any enemies, and not ruining my own day.

Some people don't have any respect for boundaries, but others actually do. One need not be a doormat nor a brick wall in SL, and one need not feel pushed into being alone with nothing to do but cam oneself and take selfies. You can be open and welcoming and not-uptight-at-all, and you don't have to be everyone's friend, either. You can disagree with what someone likes without taking it personally.

I think it would go a long way in getting people to stick around if others gave new people at least one extra chance before rejecting them from their entire virtual experience. It's a social platform, we can be social without it being too awkward if we try. I'm proof of that.

Pushing everyone away is not how you have a great SL. Even if you hate everyone IRL, in SL you have a chance to do it differently, and grow and learn to have fun with other people. So yeah.

Edited June 13 by PheebyKatz

[BilliJo Aldrin]

34 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

For some people taking pictures is their creative outlet, and I think it's a valid one, if that's what they like and are able to do. But yeah, I agree.

Being hostile to unwanted IMs/Residents never stopped me from having to deal with more of them the next, or even the very same day. It only made me want to be alone.

The word "tolerance" has been getting a bad rap lately, and I'm partly at fault because I've always been more of a mind that acceptance is better than tolerance, but maybe tolerance is just what works in SL. If there are things one cannot accept, that's okay, you can simply tell people you don't accept those things, and if they get bent out of shape over it, that's on them.

The U.S. Marines teach recruits to be "always courteous, never friendly" when dealing with the public, and that policy seems to have worked for them. Maybe in SL it should be something like, "always courteous, never hostile."

I've had moments in SL when I could easily have chosen the path of extreme rudeness, and felt perfectly justified, and all my friends would have patted me on the back and told me I was right to react that way.

And, in some of those instances, I chose to remain courteous and just openly say that I wasn't into what the person seemed to be implying, rather than going off and calling them, say, a trashy pervert, but leaving it open to discuss other things, and ended up having a really great chat and not making any enemies, and not ruining my own day.

Some people don't have any respect for boundaries, but others actually do. One need not be a doormat nor a brick wall in SL, and one need not feel pushed into being alone with nothing to do but cam oneself and take selfies. You can be open and welcoming and not-uptight-at-all, and you don't have to be everyone's friend, either. You can disagree with what someone likes without taking it personally.

I think it would go a long way in getting people to stick around if others gave new people at least one extra chance before rejecting them from their entire virtual experience. It's a social platform, we can be social without it being too awkward if we try. I'm proof of that.

Pushing everyone away is not how you have a great SL. Even if you hate everyone IRL, in SL you have a chance to do it differently, and grow and learn to have fun with other people. So yeah.

once upon a time tolerence was all that was expected of you, you tolerate their existence, their right to exist…. but now thats not good enough, now you are supposed to accept them.

Sorry, while i might tolerate someones degeneracy, I will never accept it.

If someone starts harassing me about something, i dont argue with them, I simply block them. They get a polite message saying I cannot interact with them any more, but I wish them all the best in their Second Life

Edited June 13 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, WereBeast Alpha said:

Maybe have some people who can help new users out that are not bots are AI but actual people who are longtime residents of second life. 

Try and keep up, they already have those, they are the Official Mentor Program, and as for how effective they are, the fact that LL is apparently looking into using CrapGPT Artificial Idiocy SpamBots to replace the Oldbie Mentors tells you EXACTLY how useful they are.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

2 hours ago, WereBeast Alpha said:

I feel like from my understanding with SL and how to attract new users is based on a few things.

A few people I know could not figure out how to dress their avatar or even do the tutorial properly since there was no way for them to understand how to go through inventory and the more major issues to keep people around on SL. 

Most people who left IMVU and came here to SL have a hard time figuring out SL, if there was more immersive tutorials to help new users out that would be a positive thing along with how to rez items out, renting out land etc. Maybe have some people who can help new users out that are not bots are AI but actual people who are longtime residents of second life. 

They could learn a lot from IMVU but I suspect the Lab is ok with the dismal retention rate as long as it replaces those who leave.

Even if they did something as simple as a forced Noobie group join, there would be a quick and efficient method for contacting a group of helpers run by the Lindens to help through whatever problem a new person was having.

 

[PheebyKatz]

32 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Try and keep up, they already have those, they are the Official Mentor Program, and as for how effective they are, the fact that LL is apparently looking into using CrapGPT Artificial Idiocy SpamBots to replace the Oldbie Mentors tells you EXACTLY how useful they are.

 

There's so much in SL that a person without any idea of a direction to go in would be hard pressed to find anyone who could easily help them these days. The bot approach might actually be the better approach in this case. At least a bot might have access to more information, since not every "real" user knows more than a part of all that there is to learn.

Human mentorship is probably a tough job now, unless both sides are patient and forgiving.

Edited June 13 by PheebyKatz

[Arielle Popstar]

32 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

There's so much in SL that a person without any idea of a direction to go in would be hard pressed to find anyone who could easily help them these days. The bot approach might actually be the better approach in this case. At least a bot might have access to more information, since not every "real" user knows more than a part of all that there is to learn.

Human mentorship is probably a tough job now, unless both sides are patient and forgiving.

I wonder too if bots might be easier to ask for where to find some sort of kinky sex then a human mentor. For some noobs if not  lot, that is the predominant question they are too afraid to ask.

[PheebyKatz]

38 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

For some noobs if not a lot, that is the predominant question they are too afraid to ask.

And for some, it's the only question they deem worthy of asking. They'll be wearing two shirts, two bodies, no alphas, and be twitching with some weird anim stuck on them, and all they want to know is where we're hiding the orgy.

Me: Dude, you look like schyt. Let me help you with your avatar.

Them: To hell with that, where's the sex party?

Me: *uses the facepalm emote*

Edited June 14 by PheebyKatz

[PheebyKatz]

I have a great idea. It'll never happen, but I have it, anyway.

Workshops for teaching people how to interact with others. It can have all the basics, like, how to groom oneself to be presentable in public, how not to behave on a first date, and how to know when someone is giving the mating signal and when it is just one's imagination.

Force every new account to go through this training, and it will serve the threefold purpose of educating those who are willing, cutting down on how many extraneous alts most people could tolerate making, and getting rid of probably about 90% of the crap users right at signup.

Everyone who passed through and unlocked the achievement, so to speak, would be more likely to stick around, because they had to earn it, and everyone would be so polite and respectful to them because they knew they shared that common ground, having passed the initiation.

It'll never happen, but it'd be neato if it did.

Edited June 14 by PheebyKatz

[Jaylinbridges]

9 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I wonder too if bots might be easier to ask for where to find some sort of kinky sex then a human mentor.

You really think SL would train their AI bots with that sort of information?  "I'm sorry I am not provided with kinky sex information but I can recommend this roller coaster ride in a G-rated sim where you will scream like a baby."

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

You really think SL would train their AI bots with that sort of information?  "I'm sorry I am not provided with kinky sex information but I can recommend this roller coaster ride in a G-rated sim where you will scream like a baby."

If they really want to retain noobs, LL should provide AI sex bots

[Ceka Cianci]

38 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

If they really want to retain noobs, LL should provide AI sex bots

That'll just up the hardleg population, which probably would only be logged in for like 3,5,  just maybe in rare form, 20 minutes at a time?

hehehehe

[BilliJo Aldrin]

12 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

That'll just up the hardleg population, which probably would only be logged in for like 3,5,  just maybe in rare form, 20 minutes at a time?

hehehehe

I wish… I hate when guys wanna drag it out.

Come on… you already finished twice… no baby I can come again.

Thats when I have to inform them that RL needs me.

😬

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I wish… I hate when guys wanna drag it out.

Come on… you already finished twice… no baby I can come again.

Thats when I have to inform them that RL needs me.

😬

But that won't help LL with the new user retention. Buying land and buying stuff ,creating things, selling things and upping the logged in numbers and actually having a second life..

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

.. no baby I can come again.

On the positive side, this is a big clue that it's a RL woman!

Idea: Premium Plus should include discount coupons for "Saran Wrap" to keep that keyboard clean!

[discussionbot]

On 6/10/2024 at 2:14 AM, Rufferta said:

b"

 

On 6/12/2024 at 8:09 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

On 6/12/2024 at 2:11 PM, Arwyn Quandry said:

The blue and white sleek minimalism definitely screams "old SL" to me. You know what's infinitely more impressive and interesting? Worn stone, chiseled letting, cracks, plants sprouting, trickles of water. I can envision an area that looks like an old ruin and it's lovely. 

You never said a truer word. This fascination with stark minimalism is supposed to look modern and trendy but instead, it looks quaint and old-fashioned.

I don't know if I'd call that sleek minimalism, I've seen nicer examples of those from talented creators and their modern mesh builds. I don't mean to offend anyone who'd made the place, I'm just another idiot on the internet but when you have so many resources to make it look 100x more beautiful and interesting and natural, why craft a new player area out of white prims from 2003 and ruin the first impression?

[Starberry Passion]

23 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

For some people taking pictures is their creative outlet, and I think it's a valid one, if that's what they like and are able to do. But yeah, I agree.

Being hostile to unwanted IMs/Residents never stopped me from having to deal with more of them the next, or even the very same day. It only made me want to be alone.

The word "tolerance" has been getting a bad rap lately, and I'm partly at fault because I've always been more of a mind that acceptance is better than tolerance, but maybe tolerance is just what works in SL. If there are things one cannot accept, that's okay, you can simply tell people you don't accept those things, and if they get bent out of shape over it, that's on them.

The U.S. Marines teach recruits to be "always courteous, never friendly" when dealing with the public, and that policy seems to have worked for them. Maybe in SL it should be something like, "always courteous, never hostile."

I've had moments in SL when I could easily have chosen the path of extreme rudeness, and felt perfectly justified, and all my friends would have patted me on the back and told me I was right to react that way.

And, in some of those instances, I chose to remain courteous and just openly say that I wasn't into what the person seemed to be implying, rather than going off and calling them, say, a trashy pervert, but leaving it open to discuss other things, and ended up having a really great chat and not making any enemies, and not ruining my own day.

Some people don't have any respect for boundaries, but others actually do. One need not be a doormat nor a brick wall in SL, and one need not feel pushed into being alone with nothing to do but cam oneself and take selfies. You can be open and welcoming and not-uptight-at-all, and you don't have to be everyone's friend, either. You can disagree with what someone likes without taking it personally.

I think it would go a long way in getting people to stick around if others gave new people at least one extra chance before rejecting them from their entire virtual experience. It's a social platform, we can be social without it being too awkward if we try. I'm proof of that.

Pushing everyone away is not how you have a great SL. Even if you hate everyone IRL, in SL you have a chance to do it differently, and grow and learn to have fun with other people. So yeah.

Second life is a tool to escape reality. People come online to be a different them, over the one in real life. People forget that this is a place of creativity, fantasy, the freedom to chose and create what you want to be and who you are. I never said to be mean to people, I simply stated that the community push people away on their own.

Second life didn't do anything wrong, the community is what is doing wrong by its people.

The fastest way to get someone to hate you is to restrict them, tell them what to do all the time, constantly governing their life. Every time I've come to the forums, it's been about "This person is doing this." "This avatar is too short." "This Giant makes me look bad because I look like this beside them." "This outfit is too colorful" "This lady has too long of a hair." "This anime looks like this." and similar things to that.

The quickest way to make people hate you is for you to tell them what to do, outside of reason, and try to be the moral police.

Because you hate this look, everyone else has to hate this look?  Because you don't like this kink, everyone else has to hate this kink? Because you hate this aesthetic, everyone else must hate this aesthetic.

The issue is too many people are trying to morally police people and not try to understand others. The ToS has been changed, child avatars are more protected but it feels like everyone is targetting everyone now. That's over, we should be pass that but the first thing someone doesn't like someone is running to the forums to talk about like it's some sort of moral dilemma.

I'm not going to stop them from doing that, it's within their right, but I'm not going to stop having an opinion and the fact is, is that the more you put rules on things the more it will ruin what you have.

At the end of the day.

-------------------------------------------------------------

People want to escape reality and be free to be themselves in a fantasy and be as unrealistic as they want, or as real as they want, without someone else coming in to ruin their vibe. I am talking about adults doing adult things, as adults on a 3D social multimedia platform that is a playground for adults, as Oberwolf put it, yet too many people make it into "A playground for me, and you must follow my rules" That's the issue. And I'm not talking about their very own personal sim, I mean these same people try to govern everyone all the time, disallowing people to create, be creative, look creative, act creative.

What I am talking about, why some of those people are just in it for the photos, is because they are tired. It doesn't mean everyone taking photos feel this way, but at the end of the day it is the community, driving the direction and the more it pushes people out, the longer we stay in limbo.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I want other people to be able to enjoy themselves, come in and feel welcomed just as much as you seem to do.

I want them to be able to express themselves, be what makes them happy, do the things they want to do, inside of SL that they consider fun. I want to see new things being created, new ideas, want new adult to show new things I never even thought about. I want to see the creative avatars, Furry, Anime, Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves, Faeries, Minotaur, Dryads, I want to see amazing things people bring to the table.

The ToS doesn't stop people from doing this. It doesn't prohibit people from doing this and it doesn't force people away, the Community Does, this is what I'm saying.