Notes on the WelcomeHub

[Silent Mistwalker]

On 7/15/2023 at 9:03 AM, Persephone Emerald said:

Zombies and horror in the fall.

I think they should stick with things that aren't horror related. Many people are not into zombies. It would more likely drive them away rather than retain them.

[Rolig Loon]

14 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

A conflict between differing views also doesn't make one person a victim and the other the aggressor. Framing this type of conflict as such is probably a bad idea on this forum.

But a common one, sadly. One person's observation or experience triggers another person's hypothetical situation and we're off to the races.  

17 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Maybe the Lab will see the Mentor system is not working as intended and put it out to pasture.

Or at least tell the Mentors if a non-Mentor is trying to help --- let it be. We all need to work  together to keep people interested in SL and not drop off after the onboarding process.

Or maybe we aren't privy to all sides in the conversation and are leaping to conclusions.  Or maybe it was a one-time incident in a very new program with mentors who are just getting used to their roles.  Or maybe the Mole in charge is already dealing with it. Or .. just maybe .. the world isn't perfect and things aren't said (or heard) the way they are intended.

[Silent Mistwalker]

23 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Someone told me she went to check the new welcome area and was helping a new person.  She got a PM from a couple Mentors to lay off. She  PMed back only trying to help.  One Mentor got pissed off and told her to leave.  My friend did lodge a ticket explaining what happened and explain she didn't want to be in the Mentor program due to the commitments but just pop in now and then. Now she is thinking heck with them and maybe bail from SL.

Didn't take long did it. Same kind of treatment back in the day. The mentors do not have the authority to tell people to leave the welcome area if they aren't being disruptive. Helping/answering questions is not being disruptive. 

Mentors who believe they are the only ones who have "the right" to help newcomers are wrong. This kind of thing is one of the reasons back in the day, mentors were actually running new people off. It was crazy.

This kind of thing is why I won't ever apply. Residents should be encouraged to help. Mentors should be glad to get the extra help because there will come a time when they may be swamped and there won't be any residents to take up the slack.

[Marigold Devin]

In an "Enid Blyton" (ie my ideal) world, the oldbies turning up at the Welcome Hub and assisting the official mentors on a casual basis as and when they have free time and the inclination seems great BUT what happened all too often during the previous Helper scheme was that oldbies came along just to proposition newbies or try to scam them in some way or they took them to places that might have been the cause of them logging out and never returning.

I think LL just really wants official mentors to be mentoring at these Welcome Hubs, but they can't deny access to everyone - can they? I mean, we have the ability to deny access to avatars under a certain age. Would it be possible to deny access to any regular residents over, say, three months. 

And/or the official mentors should be given a separate account to use with the surname of Mentor, like they did with the Helpers and to have clear signage around the Welcome Hub depicting said mentors to make it clear to the newbies who to go to for advice. When I visited and saw the avatar names of those claiming to be mentors, I didn't quite believe they were actually mentors, not until I checked out their groups and the mentoring group's information, so imagine what it's like for a new resident. All they want is help and guidance, they couldn't really give a fig who is official and who is not.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

11 hours ago, Robberinthemuseum said:

The first person to help me in any way was @Cristiano Midnight.

That explains a lot! 🤭

💗Cris 

[xDancingStarx]

26 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

so imagine what it's like for a new resident

tbh newbies don't care about names, or titles. they will also not, only because you're wearing a mentor tag, go to specifically you to ask for advice. you think that they would think.. oh a mentor tag, let's ask them! no. that's not how it works. the only ones caring about mentor titles (I'm not a mentor) are forums posters that are either afraid of somebody showing off with an official title or afraid of someone wearing a "business title" to advertise. also btw there's little more discouraging for a newbie than sticking into their faces that you're not a "regular player" but a "kind of employee by the game company".

Edited July 16, 2023 by xDancingStarx

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

in a different discussion this would be taken as victim blaming.

No, it's a simple request for context. 

All we have is a second-hand account of an incident which the person retelling the anecdote repeats without any detail whatsoever, and because it's so absolutely detail-free, I can't understand why so many people are giving it so much weight.

Haven't people heard that SL dramas are frequently multi-sided thingies?

[Orwar]

   Perhaps mentors that misbehave should be de-mentored. 

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

If the Mentor is saying in open chat (not IM), things like "Stop talking over me", "Stop trying to help", etc. then they are breaking what should be the FIRST Rule: set a good example.

Instead, they are making themselves look bad, making the Mentor program look bad, embarrassing themselves, and both the New User and the person trying to help should be embarrassed for them.

Disagree? #FightMe

We are told, 

Quote

She got a PM from a couple Mentors to lay off. She  PMed back only trying to help.  One Mentor got pissed off and told her to leave

So at least one Mentor was using IMs, and we're not told how the other one was communicating.   Nowhere is it said that any of this happened in open chat, though.   It may have done, but we're not told that.

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

No, it's a simple request for context. 

All we have is a second-hand account of an incident which the person retelling the anecdote repeats without any detail whatsoever, and because it's so absolutely detail-free, I can't understand why so many people are giving it so much weight.

Haven't people heard that SL dramas are frequently multi-sided thingies?

It is history repeating itself. This sort of thing went on with the original program and the revamped ones. 

[Innula Zenovka]

7 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It is history repeating itself. This sort of thing went on with the original program and the revamped ones. 

In other words, it confirms people's prejudices, based on what has happened in the past, with different programmes.

[Rolig Loon]

8 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

It is could be history repeating itself.

Or not.  As Innula says, we don't even really know much about this particular interaction and we certainly can't generalize from it to suggest that the new system is going to hell in a handbasket. 

[Luna Bliss]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

6 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Can you describe the various paths?

How would you find out what's in the outfit you're currently wearing? There are so, so many ways. An experienced player will immediately say "Ctrl-O", of course, but that's just a shortcut for Avatar -> "Now wearing…". A more "mouse-intuitive" approach is to right-click on the avatar (or the avatar's nametag) and choose "Now wearing…" from the mouse menu. Or go through the "My Outfits…" choice first (where Firestorm idiosyncratically maps the Ctrl-O shortcut) and pick the "Wearing" tab in the dialog.

And that's just the Linden viewer; Catznip has a handy "Quick Preferences" feature that includes a view of the current outfit (among other useful things) which is what I use most often myself. I'm sure Firestorm has yet other paths to the current outfit information, but you're on your own navigating that menu tree.

I just click on the little shirt at the bottom of my screen. I think it's a button. I'm not sure how it got there.

[Marigold Devin]

24 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

tbh newbies don't care about names, or titles. 

Aye, I know, which is why I concluded with ...

51 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

All they want is help and guidance, they couldn't really give a fig who is official and who is not.

 

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

In other words, it confirms people's prejudices, based on what has happened in the past, with different programmes.

No. Same mentor program, LL just tried to "fix" things in their usual ways and it didn't ever work. 

I know what I saw happen in the past and I'm seeing it happen again already. 

Somewhere in all that mess the White Tigers was created by residents. That ended up being a mess, too. Although I think the group still exists and is active. I won't swear to that though.

History is repeating itself as it always does with humans. I'm not seeing any reason to expect anything different this time around.

[Silent Mistwalker]

12 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Or not.  As Innula says, we don't even really know much about this particular interaction and we certainly can't generalize from it to suggest that the new system is going to hell in a handbasket. 

I'm not basing my observations off one incident nor am I suggesting the system is "going to hell in a handbasket". 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Silent Mistwalker

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

We are told, 

So at least one Mentor was using IMs, and we're not told how the other one was communicating.   Nowhere is it said that any of this happened in open chat, though.   It may have done, but we're not told that.

Thanks, I had noticed two apparently separate stories in the thread, wasn't sure if they really were 2 tellings of the same story.

[Innula Zenovka]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Thanks, I had noticed two apparently separate stories in the thread, wasn't sure if they really were 2 tellings of the same story.

Possibly there were.  I had in mind the one to which I'd just responded, for obvious reasons, but it may well be that there are several different stories floating around -- without any details it's difficult to keep them all straight!

[Qie Niangao]

32 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I just click on the little shirt at the bottom of my screen. I think it's a button. I'm not sure how it got there.

Aha!  Yeah, so this is yet another reason I could never be a mentor: when using a viewer for the first time I immediately clear all the toolbar buttons off the screen. If I ever want some back, they live in Me -> "Toolbar Buttons…" (except in Firestorm, where "Toolbar Buttons" is in the Avatar menu for some reason).

[Love Zhaoying]

41 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

43 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Thanks, I had noticed two apparently separate stories in the thread, wasn't sure if they really were 2 tellings of the same story.

Possibly there were.  I had in mind the one to which I'd just responded, for obvious reasons, but it may well be that there are several different stories floating around -- without any details it's difficult to keep them all straight!

Assuming that the Mentor messages in both stories / all stories / most stories are being sent in IM's...

I can see why the Mentor would have trouble focusing if someone else is trying to help, and may send something like, "Please stop talking over me."  But emphasis on Please, and hopefully they are not rude otherwise. I assume this depends on the individual Mentor and how their day is going, in addition to the "helper".  If the "helper" keeps saying things like, "No, don't tell them that, this way is better" then..LOL

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

If the Mentor is saying in open chat (not IM), things like "Stop talking over me", "Stop trying to help", etc. then they are breaking what should be the FIRST Rule: set a good example.

Instead, they are making themselves look bad, making the Mentor program look bad, embarrassing themselves, and both the New User and the person trying to help should be embarrassed for them.

Disagree? #FightMe

47 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

[snip]

So at least one Mentor was using IMs, and we're not told how the other one was communicating.   Nowhere is it said that any of this happened in open chat, though.   It may have done, but we're not told that.

In my situation the mentor had IMed me. The newbie was asking for help in voice. The mentor and I were responding in local chat. Because I was responding to the newbie who was in voice, I wasn't even looking at local chat, so I didn't know what the mentor was saying or even if he was saying anything.

The newbie then sent me a friend request, and I responded with "If you see me inworld and have any questions, hit me up," or something like that, but I accidentally posted that in the mentor's chat box, in which he was telling me not to talk over him. I responded with "Sorry, wrong window, " found the newbie's chat box, and copied my response to her there.

In the meantime, the mentor repeated in his chat box to me. "Don't talk over me. If you want to be a mentor, you can apply to be one," to which I responded with a smiley emoticon.

I thought he was rude and controlling, but I was also at fault for not seeing what he had been saying to the newbie in local chat.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

In the meantime, the mentor repeated in his chat box to me. "Don't talk over me. If you want to be a mentor, you can apply to be one," to which I responded with a smiley emoticon.

I thought he was rude and controlling, but I was also at fault for not seeing what he had been saying to the newbie in local chat.

Thanks. It looks like it was a learning experience.

At the same time, the Mentor could be more diplomatic. Less of an A-hole.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Qie Niangao]

We'll never know the actual circumstances behind the Mentor vs helper incident here. Presumably a Linden can know the contents of all communications and may have already intervened with some guidance for the Mentor, were any appropriate. In fact, I hope Lindens are pretty aggressively reviewing and managing this program so it gets off to a good start. Mentors should hope so, too.

One thing that gives me pause in interpreting the event is this:

On 7/15/2023 at 4:01 PM, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

She's helped in welcome areas before the Mentor program was restored.  But there's some other underlying things she's concerned about  SL and think is looking for an excuse to exit.

If those "other underlying things" could have unconsciously colored her delivery when trying to help, one can imagine the Mentor needing to react quickly to salvage the newbie's enthusiasm for the platform. Or maybe none of that ever happened, but we'll simply never know.

More generally, there's a technical aspect of the story that makes me wonder: Besides Lindens, who can see whose IMs, and who even can IM whom? For this particular story to make any sense, all interactions with the newbie were presumably conducted in open chat, but in another hypothetical instance is there anything preventing would-be helpers from IMing the newbies? I'm not aware there's a way to do that, to force the newbie's viewer into some specialized "Do Not Disturb" mode available to IM only with Mentors, Moles, and Lindens, but… I'm thinking there should be.

[Kathlen Onyx]

2 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Maybe the Lab will see the Mentor system is not working as intended and put it out to pasture.

 

You used this one example as a conclusion that the mentor system is not working?

It seems to me that some regulars on the forum have purposefully gone to the welcome hub to find fault with the mentors and the program.  They didn't want to be a mentor or volunteer to commit to any time, yet they are over there acting like mentors.  These mentors took the time to volunteer and commit their time to helping newbies get started in Second Life. I assume that they were excited to be accepted as a mentor.  

If you wanted to be a mentor then you should have volunteered to be a mentor instead of appointing yourself a pseudo position.

Imagine being a newbie and having a complete stranger IMing you that the information an official mentor gave you was wrong.  First, how are they to determine if the information you are giving is correct vs, what a mentor is telling them.  What should have been done is a friendly IM to the mentor rather than to the resident directly.  

Why all of a sudden are people rushing to the welcome hub to help when they vehemently opposed the mentor program is beyond me. 

Personally I think that only mentors and residents 1 month or less should be allowed in the welcome hub. It would solve a lot of issues. TP them after a month to an area where anyone can enter and then have at it.  Help them all you want.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Sam1 Bellisserian

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

2 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

We all need to work  together to keep people interested in SL

It's not though really. We're customers. As Prokofy pointed out, this is maybe the 6th iteration of the welcome area. I feel like LL should hire outside consultants and game devs at this point for the next one. It's not terrible, but it's not very compelling either.