Is this new round of mentors a good idea?

[Coffee Pancake]

40 minutes ago, AzureWaves said:

Mentor wearing default avatars is a great idea, it lets people focus on what they can have vs what they can't have.

A mentors job is partially to inspire and show off the platforms potential, not prime them for mediocrity and misery.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How do I move? is a legit newbie question.

I'll raise you one: "Where is the Page Up key?" More and more people don't seem to know anymore.

[Sid Nagy]

4 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

I'll raise you one: "Where is the Page Up key?" More and more people don't seem to know anymore.

Those people should be given a landmark to the cornfield straight away and done.
 

[Theresa Tennyson]

8 hours ago, belindacarson said:

Given that the majority of users on the forum post consistently incorrect information, letting them loose as helpers inworld would be like letting a monkey loose in a nuclear reactor ie a total disaster.

 

9 hours ago, belindacarson said:

I'll disagree with you on that one coffee.  Firestorm in its phoenix mode is so easy to use as based on the old v1

You may have a point there...

[Katherine Heartsong]

15 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How do I move? is a legit newbie question.

Isn't it WASD like every other .. oh, right ... nevermind.

[Lindal Kidd]

17 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Please. Hire these people. Make them contractors. Minimum wage. Make them work under dedicated accounts with the last name Mentor. Limit where they can go and what they can do. Monitor them. Hold them to the same standard you expect from other staff. Enforce compartmentalization like you do with Moles. 

I am SO in agreement with this, except the "contractors" term. My initial reaction when I caught a rumor of the new program was positive...I was sad when LL discontinued the old Mentor program, and did not witness the abuses that other people have ascribed to it, so I'd be happy to sign on again. But I was much less positive when I found out the requirement to use the stock viewer, and a requirement to commit to one or more specific 2 hour blocks of time.

That sounds like conditions of employment to me. If we are to be volunteer mentors (as I have been, for years), then we are independent contractors and set our own hours and choose our own tools. If you set conditions of employment, we are employees and are entitled to wages.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

I'll raise you one: "Where is the Page Up key?" More and more people don't seem to know anymore.

I'm on a 60% mechanical keyboard* .. there is no key labelled page up (Fn+Enter)

* a scratch built hand wired keyboard with a mix of cherry-mx brown and kailh blues, custom QMK firmware - https://i.imgur.com/OmJHyFj.png

[Katherine Heartsong]

10 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A mentors job is partially to inspire and show off the platforms potential, not prime them for mediocrity and misery.

Agree. In principal.

However, in SL the answer to the platform's potential is to then have to reply ... "Well, if you have a credit card and can spend $40 or $50, and have about 3 hours to learn about BoM and visit 10-12 stores, learn how to unpack things etc, you can look exactly like me!"

Let's get attract, retain, and engage first ... then up-sell.

(Maybe I'm hoping too much that NUX won't be a mediocre thing? )

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

and have about 3 hours to learn about BoM and visit 10-12 stores, learn how to unpack things etc, you can look exactly like me!"

I recently did that with someone from scratch, no prior SL experience at all.

Reborn, LeLutka, Doux and a dress. Took close to 8 hours in text.

There are a lot of gotchas .. like wear! .. Ok, now wear the thing you unpacked .. oh I meant add, add , shi .. now everything has gone and .. ok, starting over.

[Katherine Heartsong]

You have the patience of a saint, @Coffee Pancake. Eight hours? Bless you!

(And yeah, do not get me started on "Add" and "Wear" ... grrrrr)

[AmeliaJ08]

I was going to volunteer myself, as a relatively new user (since 2017) I feel like I could maybe offer some perspective on that basis, a lot of people in SL have been around a lot longer than me.

 

The requirement to use the official viewer is unworkable though, I used it exactly once before realising Firestorm was superior. I don't think that's a particularly wise decision from LL, it's not as if Firestorm is different enough from the official viewer that it would affect mentoring either.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

At the risk of incurring some wrath ....

I think it's being introduced because LL know that have a massive on-boarding user experience problem. They may not have any decent UX folks on staff (I'm a VP in that field, 30+ years) but at least they recognize that the on-boarding experience for a new user is horrible.

By asking for volunteers and trying to address the issue, it's got my professional curiosity way up ... I wonder how bad the drop off/retention rate after one login/day/week/month really is. I'd love to see the quantitative metrics on that.

Ya I agree it's why they are bringing it back, But I also think they pay attention to threads made about retention for ideas.. I shouldn't say just threads, but  listen to users also..

They've always had a bad retention of new users, even when things were booming..I know back in 2007, They were still losing like around 80% of those that were new sign ups. It seems like after M became CEO, things got less transparent on information we could get about the numbers.. But we also got a lot of waves of sign ups back then also.. It seemed like as soon as Second life ever got mentioned in the news or anywhere even sort of mainstream, log ins would boom dramatically..

Edited June 9, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[SabrinaCooke]

15 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

(Maybe I'm hoping too much that NUX won't be a mediocre thing? )

Mediocre would still be a step up from Creepy Disco Boombox Guy and Creepy Suit Guy. Just saying.

[Lindal Kidd]

re. the debate between @Coffee Pancake and @Katherine Heartsong about how Mentors should look, and the underlying problem of teaching avatar appearance...

This is a HUGE problem. Where I hang out on Welcome Island, I always look as good as possible (while keeping my complexity numbers low so everyone can SEE how fabulous I look.)

I do this because 1) vanity (let's be honest!), and 2) I do want to show newcomers what's possible and inspire them.

But then they ask, "How can I look like you?" and I come up against that brick wall that Katherine mentioned. What I've been doing is 1) show them how to switch between starter avatars, which at least gives them a variety of looks, and 2) hand them a notecard that has landmarks to freebie stores and tutorials about editing their appearance (among other things).  This is a very poor solution, but it's the best I've been able to come up with for the majority of encounters.

With a very few, who are willing to stick with me, ask questions, and follow directions, I can spend a couple of hours and walk them through some of the basics. But it is a huge investment in time; I can only do this once or twice a week.

Linden Lab has bent over backwards to ensure that new functions don't break old content. But they may have bent so far backwards that they've broken SL's back. This enormous, complex thing we lump under the name "avatar appearance", with its mesh bodies, heads, HUDs, appliers, BoM, EvoX, skins, tattoos, eyes, hairbases, AOs, rigged/unrigged, Wear/Add, and appalachicola whibbertyglibs, has become a black hole that's sucking people, especially newbies, right out of SL.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Simply put, no one can really afford to work for free. Not even housewives who are forced to work for free their whole lives until they get so old they just can't.

So that's a big no for me.

[Alwin Alcott]

15 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

This is a HUGE problem. Where I hang out on Welcome Island, I always look as good as possible (while keeping my complexity numbers low so everyone can SEE how fabulous I look.)

I do this because 1) vanity (let's be honest!), and 2) I do want to show newcomers what's possible and inspire them.

and that is the total wrong approach, you have to teach them how to change and show it on the way, not put their eyes on spikes and see the impossible job for for them when they enter.
Mentor's teaching appearance should appear in starter avatars.  You don't insprire newbies you make them desperate to ever reach that.

What you show is the old mentor attitude. skip it.

[Lindal Kidd]

And a happy happy Friday to you too, @Alwin Alcott

[Innula Zenovka]

33 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I was going to volunteer myself, as a relatively new user (since 2017) I feel like I could maybe offer some perspective on that basis, a lot of people in SL have been around a lot longer than me.

 

The requirement to use the official viewer is unworkable though, I used it exactly once before realising Firestorm was superior. I don't think that's a particularly wise decision from LL, it's not as if Firestorm is different enough from the official viewer that it would affect mentoring either.

It would.   

I'm familiar with Firestorm, though for preference I use Catznip or the Official Viewer, depending on what I'm doing.   

Firestorm's UI and menu layouts are sufficiently different from the other two that, if anyone asks me how to do something in Firestorm I always have to log in an alt with that viewer just to check that I'm telling them to look in the right place, and for the correct name, for whatever menu and option they need.

I have to say I'm a bit puzzled that you're so allergic to the Official Viewer that the requirement to use if while mentoring is a deal-breaker, particularly since, as you put it,  "it's not as if Firestorm is different enough from the official viewer that it would affect mentoring."

They're not asking Mentors to use the Official Viewer all the time, after all, just while they're mentoring.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Innula Zenovka

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, Lindal Kidd said:

And a happy happy Friday to you too, @Alwin Alcott

for you too @Lindal Kidd, but you know, i hope, why i say it. Here ont the forums and in the answers you  try to override others,  as your post shows here too, i don't expect otherwise inworld.

[Katherine Heartsong]

25 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

.. appalachicola whibbertyglibs ...

I'm sooo using this.

<

Edited June 9, 2023 by Katherine Heartsong

[Theresa Tennyson]

41 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

 and have about 3 hours to learn about BoM

BoM works exactly the same as the default body clothing/skin system that's used by newbies. The only ones who "need three hours to learn about it" are the old users who went down the applier rabbit hole.

[Marigold Devin]

1 hour ago, SabrinaCooke said:

Also, please, for the sake of all that's holy, lose that cringey acrostic slogan. It was already cringe 30+ years ago when it was popular. It certainly didn't get any better with age. 
 

Ah yes, the 1990s. That was my first (and only) experience of the acrostic slogan. I was working on a Go Kart track at a holiday camp in 1993, and we were all tasked with making up something snappy for our name, which was Formula Fun. A group effort, it began well ... and ended up

F ork you

Up Yours

Nads !!!

(but I'm still laughing about how we attempted to remove the cringe factor)

And yes, we were all held back after our hours.

 

 

[Lindal Kidd]

5 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

for you too @Lindal Kidd, but you know, i hope, why i say it. Here ont the forums and in the answers you  try to override others,  as your post shows here too, i don't expect otherwise inworld.

WHAAAT!?

I do no such thing.

I often write posts to add to or clarify what someone has said. On rare occasions, I'll correct someone's error. And when I make an error I expect someone to correct me, too!

I'm not going to reply any further to this digression, because I think this thread is important.

[SabrinaCooke]

3 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

Ah yes, the 1990s. That was my first (and only) experience of the acrostic slogan. I was working on a Go Kart track at a holiday camp in 1993, and we were all tasked with making up something snappy for our name, which was Formula Fun. A group effort, it began well ... and ended up

F ork you

Up Yours

Nads !!!

(but I'm still laughing about how we attempted to remove the cringe factor)

And yes, we were all held back after our hours.

 

 

That's probably the best use of the acrostic slogan I've seen so far. Haha. It was very popular in the global non-profit sphere back in the day. It was as cringe then as it is now. 

No, wait. It's even more cringe now.

And to keep things on topic, no, this new mentor program is not a good idea.

Edited June 9, 2023 by SabrinaCooke

[Henri Beauchamp]

8 hours ago, animats said:

You can run the LL viewer under Wine on Linux. The Python-based script that nags you about updating to the latest version will crash every time, but the actual viewer works well. Even voice works.

It does not work, it crawls !

Come on !... For Linux you got native Linux TPVs to run, and they run faster than their Windows and macOS builds, and faster than LL's viewer.