Notes on the WelcomeHub

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour 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.

The mentor I heard in open chat was not answering the new resident's question correctly.  I waited until the mentor was engaged with someone else, I messaged the new resident and explained where and how to accomplish what she had asked.  I didn't feel it was appropriate to say anything in local since I didn't want to make the mentor look less than informed.  If I had said something in local, I can see someone getting upset, though.  

[Persephone Emerald]

4 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

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 their 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.

Anyone can go to the Welcome Hubs. While I was there, Viola Mole said residents are welcome, but asked that we stay in the Social Area (not where newbies were rezzing in). There was no signage saying that regular residents were restricted to certain areas though.

Most of the time there was at least one Mentor in the region to help newbies. When I was there and there wasn't a mentor, I pushed the green button to call one. It took a couple minutes for one to show up, but she did help when she showed up.

I've been going to the Welcome Hub because it's interesting to see how the program is going. For the most part I think it's helping the newbies. Most of the mentors seem professional and helpful. One guy seemed rude to me, but I'm not dismissing the whole program based on one interaction that may have been a misunderstanding between us.

Now, is someone going to say I'm a shill for LL because I'm not bashing the mentor program? Or are they going to say I'm saying it's not working, because I said the mentors should be paid Moles instead of volunteer residents?

Everything is not just black or white. I can like the new Welcome Hub overall, but still be critical of aspects of it. I can like the Mentor program overall, but still point out weak points in it's actual implementation.

[Love Zhaoying]

30 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Most of the time there was at least one Mentor in the region to help newbies. When I was there and there wasn't a mentor, I pushed the green button to call one. It took a couple minutes for one to show up, but she did help when she showed up.

That's cool, I didn't notice anyone else mention the "call button" yet!

[Perrie Juran]

9 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Thanks to already heavy handed over-reactions, this isn't a viable option anymore. They've turned it into having to review each situation case by case.

I am not aware of how LL is currently handling things. Is there somewhere they have posted their current take on the issue?

I am not particularly tickled with the way the whole situation went.

There are bots that serve very useful functions. My landlord uses two for Estate mgt.

There are also people who provide useful information like Tyche Sheperd with their Grid Survey report.

There are a couple of other  people who use bots that provide nice snapshots of what is going on in Second Life.

Then there are dozens of others that hop from region to region and no one knows what they are about. And Bonnie Bots. They posted information about me (or I should say about my account) on the open Web that normally would only be visible to some one logging into SL. That action I objected to. Nor do I want these unknown bots passing through my home.

It is those who abused bots that brought the trouble down upon themselves,

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Perrie Juran

[Abnor Mole]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

There was no signage saying that regular residents were restricted to certain areas though.

Resident are not restricted to certain areas, but we don't want a new residents to feel crowded as soon as they land. Let them orient themselves a bit and decide if they want to take the social path or the self guided orientation first. If it becomes a problem we can make signs to that effect, but it should be common sense for most long time residents to know not to crowd a landing area.

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

The mentor I heard in open chat was not answering the new resident's question correctly.  I waited until the mentor was engaged with someone else, I messaged the new resident and explained where and how to accomplish what she had asked.  I didn't feel it was appropriate to say anything in local since I didn't want to make the mentor look less than informed.  If I had said something in local, I can see someone getting upset, though.  

Maybe you should have privately messaged the mentor instead. If they have the wrong information I'm sure they would like to know. You didn't make the mentor look bad in public, but you did to that resident. 

We do want old residents to feel they can engage with new residents and help them if they wish... but please defer to the Mentors in that regard. It is why they are there.  

[Robberinthemuseum]

4 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

That explains a lot! 🤭

💗Cris 

/me throws a sock at you

[Rowan Amore]

19 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

 

Maybe you should have privately messaged the mentor instead. If they have the wrong information I'm sure they would like to know. You didn't make the mentor look bad in public, but you did to that resident. 

We do want old residents to feel they can engage with new residents and help them if they wish... but please defer to the Mentors in that regard. It is why they are there.  

With all due respect, the new resident already had the impression that the mentor wasn't well informed on subject the before I said anything.  Assuming the mentor wants to be told anything is where one runs into the type of behavior noted previously.  I certainly didn't want to be reprimanded by one to 'mind my own business'.  It was a question anyone, IMO, should have known the answer to.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

Maybe you should have privately messaged the mentor instead. If they have the wrong information I'm sure they would like to know. You didn't make the mentor look bad in public, but you did to that resident. 

You seriously think, such a situation would go past as 'oh, thank you I was wrong let me now message that new user back with the correct information that you passed to me"?

No, it would be met with what happened to the other person, "stop talking over me" or more than likely, "I am a mentor I know how to use the Viewer, so stop telling me what to say to people. What I said was correct".

Also take note that @Persephone Emerald already stated that the new user had IM'd her already clearly showing they knew that something was wrong with the advise given by the Mentor. @Rowan Amore seemed to have the same situation happen. Not a good start if Mentors are already driving away new users - oddly reminiscent of the old Mentors for the same reason.

Perhaps people have forgotten what happened with the mentor program in the past, or were not around then and WHY Linden Lab closed off the welcome areas to existing residents and eventually shuttered the program.

Lets do a checklist of things that caused the old mentor group to be ineffective and shutter and see if we are on track of the same by the comments mentioned in this thread:

• Using local chat to communicate to new users and not IM's which caused new users to not understand who was talking to whom. CHECK
• No Mentor being around the area to mentor. CHECK. Yes there is a green button, but no new user will ever press it - Persephone even stated that the new user walked away due to no one being there to help. It took an existing regular user to be there to press that button for a mentor to come. So, why wasn't that mentor there from the start?
• New users being handed out invites to random groups giving them unwanted tags above their head CHECK. Lets hope it wasn't a mentor that gave the group invite as that was an issue in the past as well that caused them to be disbanded.
• Mentors not knowing how to do things and giving wrong advise leaving it for older residents to give the correct advice. CHECK
• Mentors, getting territorial. As mentioned by someone else in the thread 'Rogue Mentor' attacks. CHECK.
• Naked new users not being told how to re-add clothes by mentors. CHECK.

Same old, Same old. There needs to be at least some form of understanding of the viewer for any issue that arises so that mis-information isn't provided.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[Abnor Mole]

Mentors are instructed they need to be professional at all times. If you have witnessed any who are not, a better course of action would be to inform Viola. (rather than talking about it on the forums where people like to argue about anything and everything)

That said, we have also heard complaints from Mentors as well who feel some residents enter the Welcome Hub more intent on undermining their efforts by "proving they know more" than actually helping new residents. 

[Drayke Newall]

15 minutes ago, Abnor Mole said:

That said, we have also heard complaints from Mentors as well who feel some residents enter the Welcome Hub more intent on undermining their efforts by "proving they know more" than actually helping new residents. 

That is what happened the last time as well and why a lot of access to welcome areas (i.e help island) for existing residents was removed. The two dont mesh well and never will. The old VTeam even made videos trying to showcase how volunteers need to act when faced with these issues. They have always been there and was part of the main issues the mentors had in the past.

Trip down memory lane - below is one such video released by the VTeam released 2008 at the crux of the issues of the mentor group which still saw it close pretty well much at the end of that year and finally in 2009 for good. Ironically it is to showcase exactly what you said in your first paragraph - act professionally. It didn't help. Older mentors and users warned you of this in previous threads about mentors not having their own dedicated avatars or allowing existing residents there...

History is already repeating itself and the program has just started a few weeks ago. A lot more needs to be done than what is or else history will continue to repeat till the end.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

15 minutes ago, Abnor Mole said:

Mentors are instructed they need to be professional at all times. If you have witnessed any who are not, a better course of action would be to inform Viola. (rather than talking about it on the forums where people like to argue about anything and everything)

That said, we have also heard complaints from Mentors as well who feel some residents enter the Welcome Hub more intent on undermining their efforts by "proving they know more" than actually helping new residents. 

I think the Mentor thing probably never been bought back.  It failed before and it's bound to happen again.

As for some residents coming to the Welcome Hub, some were doing that before the Mentor was bought back.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

2 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Trip down memory lane - below is one such video released by the VTeam released 2008 at the crux of the issues of the mentor group which still saw it close pretty well much at the end of that year and finally in 2009 for good. Ironically it is to showcase exactly what you said in your first paragraph - act professionally. It didn't help. Older mentors and users warned you of this in previous threads about mentors not having their own dedicated avatars or allowing existing residents there...

History is already repeating itself and the program has just started a few weeks ago. A lot more needs to be done than what is or else history will continue to repeat till the end.

There could be a new last name for the Mentor toons --- like Alfred Mentor or something.....

[Kathlen Onyx]

5 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

I think the Mentor thing probably never been bought back.  It failed before and it's bound to happen again.

As for some residents coming to the Welcome Hub, some were doing that before the Mentor was bought back.

It's a good thing that you aren't in charge of the Mentor program then. 

Maybe some residents should take a step back from helping to let the Mentor program get off to a good start. It sounds like it would alleviate a lot of the issues that are being complained about.  After all, it really is a LL run program not a resident program. Let them at least have a chance to work out any kinks and make it successful. After all this isn't the past. It's the present.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

5 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

It's a good thing that you aren't in charge of the Mentor program then. 

Maybe some residents should take a step back from helping to let the Mentor program get off to a good start. It sounds like it would alleviate a lot of the issues that are being complained about.  After all, it really is a LL run program not a resident program. Let them at least have a chance to work out any kinks and make it successful. After all this isn't the past. It's the present.

🤣 Probably a good thing.  I rarely log in nowadays --- more of the mboard junkie!

It probably needs to run for awhile and the Lab can analyze on how it's working and stuff.  And maybe what happened in the past won't seriously repeat itself.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

5 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Now, is someone going to say I'm a shill for LL because I'm not bashing the mentor program? Or are they going to say I'm saying it's not working, because I said the mentors should be paid Moles instead of volunteer 

I hope not. And to your point, I also hope nobody's going to call you a bad friend, make a passive aggressive thread about you instead of resolving things in a private message like an adult, and then post that  your opinion is based in the fact that  you're angry beause you spend  too much time in sl. People can be incredibly sanctimonious but also totally un-self aware, so I feel you on that one for sure. 

But I disagree about the moles doing the work of a mentor because I've known people who got a lot out of it and were okay with doing it for free.

[Persephone Emerald]

51 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

[snip]

Also take note that @Persephone Emerald already stated that the new user had IM'd her already clearly showing they knew that something was wrong with the advise given by the Mentor. @Rowan Amore seemed to have the same situation happen. Not a good start if Mentors are already driving away new users - oddly reminiscent of the old Mentors for the same reason.

[snip]

• No Mentor being around the area to mentor. CHECK. Yes there is a green button, but no new user will ever press it - Persephone even stated that the new user walked away due to no one being there to help. It took an existing regular user to be there to press that button for a mentor to come. So, why wasn't that mentor there from the beginning?

I don't think the mentor was giving the newbie bad information or wrong information. I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, so I have no way to evaluate it. I don't believe the newbie thought there was something wrong with the information the mentor was giving. I think they thought my information was useful and they thought I was a friendly resident they could look to for help later. Maybe they sent a friend request to the mentor too? I don't know.

I don't think we can expect mentors to be manning the Welcome Hub 24/7/365. The mentor who showed up when I pushed the help button had already been there earlier, so she may have already put in her 2 hours? The newbies might not always realize there are help buttons, so I pushed it, because I knew I wasn't trained to deal with a half dozen or more newbies. At this time I only spoke with the guy on a horse who had said hello to me, with a guy whose profile said he was married to a resident and was sitting in the "Wait Here to Meet a Friend" area, and later with a women who I said had picked a good looking avatar. (She told me she was actually a returning resident.)

[Drayke Newall]

40 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

There could be a new last name for the Mentor toons --- like Alfred Mentor or something.....

That is why older mentors and residents were suggesting specific accounts like the moles have.

Someone already mentioned in this thread that new users should only talk to 'official' mentors, however like the past those new users need to know who is 'official'. A group tag isn't enough as say if a new user goes to their preferences and decides to turn off group tags, not knowing what it is. In doing so they turn off any hint of seeing who is 'official'. Not to mention the amount of times there were impersonator groups made in the past with 'mentor' tag as well.

The best solution to all of this is have a dedicated 'new user chat' system that is only visible to new users and mentors where they can ask for help, accessible for 2 months after they rez and is a separate tab green coloured alongside local chat (i.e not group IM but similar). The bonus to this is the new user knows it is official, only those allowed can see it, gives new users instant knowledge of where to get help and is also cross region meaning if other mentors are on but not at the region, those new users can still get help both at the WelcomeHub and for 2 months after leaving the WelcomeHub.

[Drayke Newall]

15 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I don't think the mentor was giving the newbie bad information or wrong information. I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, so I have no way to evaluate it. I don't believe the newbie thought there was something wrong with the information the mentor was giving. I think they thought my information was useful and they thought I was a friendly resident they could look to for help later. Maybe they sent a friend request to the mentor too? I don't know.

Fair enough. Still seems to be a lot of stepping on each others toes going around though, especially if the Moles are getting reports of it. That is the main issue and was in the past.

15 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I don't think we can expect mentors to be manning the Welcome Hub 24/7/365.

No, we should expect that. The same problem existed in the old mentor system as well where there were no mentors at the region to help. That despite the old mentor group having well over 3000 registered mentors in the group. The problem came about in the past because you only needed to 'volunteer' your 2 hours and that could be any time. So you would have a situation where 1000 of those volunteers were on at the same time and logged off at the same time therefore meaning not everyone of those mentors could put in their '2 hours' and the remaining ones couldn't either due to timezones.

This resulted in almost all of the remaining 2000 or more volunteers not putting in their hours and just giving up. Consequently LL started to kick inactive members out and rehire new ones but not fixing the fundamental issue. It is all volunteer driven, with no scheduling done for those volunteer's.

If a mentor cannot be there at all times, the system will fail as it did in the past and this is why a new user chat system I and others have mentioned in the past and in my post above is the best way to go about it as then they have access to 'official' help at all times from all online members of the mentor system, even if no one is there at the WelcomeHub.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[animats]

7 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

The problem came about in the past because you only needed to 'volunteer' your 2 hours and that could be any time. So you would have a situation where 1000 of those volunteers were on at the same time and logged off at the same time therefore meaning not everyone of those mentors could put in their '2 hours' and the remaining ones couldn't either due to timezones.

Once the employer starts controlling hours of work, volunteers become employees and have to be paid. AOL ran into this years ago. They settled with their "Community Leaders" for US$15 million.

[Kathlen Onyx]

18 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

If a mentor cannot be there at all times, the system will fail as it did in the past and this is why a new user chat system I and others have mentioned in the past and in my post above is the best way to go about it as then they have access to 'official' help at all times from all online members of the mentor system, even if no one is there at the WelcomeHub.

Did you volunteer for the mentor program. Perhaps that might be the best way to get your idea implemented since you also know what the best way to go about it is. 

There seems to be a lot of complaining from people that haven't even volunteered to be a mentor.

[Drayke Newall]

Just now, animats said:

Once the employer starts controlling hours of work, volunteers become employees and have to be paid. AOL ran into this years ago. They settled with their "Community Leaders" for US$15 million.

Which is why some old mentors said it shouldn't be voluntary. Give the old Mentors some credit in understanding and pointing out the issues that happened in the past. If they are suggesting to do something a certain way, there is a reason for it.

[Kathlen Onyx]

12 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Which is why some old mentors said it shouldn't be voluntary. Give the old Mentors some credit in understanding and pointing out the issues that happened in the past. If they are suggesting to do something a certain way, there is a reason for it.

Wouldn't you get a better response if you sent a message to Viola Mole since she is heading the mentor program rather than trashing the program on the forum? 

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Did you volunteer for the mentor program. Perhaps that might be the best way to get your idea implemented since you also know what the best way to go about it is. 

There seems to be a lot of complaining from people that haven't even volunteered to be a mentor.

No, I didn't volunteer for the current mentor group as I could already see the exact issues mentioned in this thread happening especially when the area was stated to be open to everyone. Just like other old mentors have basically said the same as to why they likewise were not registering.

46 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Wouldn't you get a better response if you sent a message to Viola Mole since she is heading the mentor program rather than trashing the program on the forum? 

I have simply stated that it is following a eerily similar trajectory as the old one. Additionally, I am not the only one to have said so. Like usual though here comes the usual comments, so sure... I am trashing the program. 🙄

All of the issues already raised like dedicated accounts, no existing users allowed, not being volunteers, dedicated chat, etc even down to the problems that are coming to the surface were raised in other threads by other old mentors long ago as well when the new system was announced. This stuff isn't new. It was even all discussed during the old mentor system to fix the issues such as old mentors griefing with their mentor tags on, chat confusion, etc.

If they cant be bothered to look up that information themselves, take an interest in what old mentors said as feedback in other threads or Abnor cant be bothered linking Viola into this thread where it is not just me but many others revealing issues with the mentor program then no. IM's are not suited for such long conversations across multiple people, it is why forums exist.

I am not against the mentor system, it was good in the past and could be again, but those things of the past that caused the issues need to be hit on the head now and controlled. So if pointing those things out in these forums (which clearly is visited by Moles as Abnor is here) and then suggesting possible better alternatives is 'trashing' the program then that is an odd definition of the term.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Drayke Newall

[xDancingStarx]

2 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

History is already repeating itself

only because you want "history to repeat itself", saying that doesn't make it true. in this thread you have some people pushing an agenda to prove how it was wrong in the first place to start this program again. trying to jump at everything that may possibly look like a fail and using that to support their argument that this program is probably best be stopped right now or completely revamped in the way that is the "real best way" to do it.

[Drayke Newall]

1 hour ago, xDancingStarx said:

only because you want "history to repeat itself", saying that doesn't make it true. in this thread you have some people pushing an agenda to prove how it was wrong in the first place to start this program again. trying to jump at everything that may possibly look like a fail and using that to support their argument that this program is probably best be stopped right now or completely revamped in the way that is the "real best way" to do it.

I am not saying it should be stopped at all. Mentorship was one of the best things in SL even down to the buddy system, when it worked. There is a reason why 2007-2010 was the peak concurrency for Second Life. The mentor program was one of the reasons for that. I like many other old mentors and users have been wanting it back for years, however the old system was flawed.

Ask any old mentor even those forum users that regularly disagree with me on many topics. They will say the same. The old system was flawed in many ways but none of them will say due to that not to have the mentor program back again. They will however say that the flaws need to be fixed. Those same flaws that people have already stated in this thread as happening again.

ETA:

Just because someone wants something to succeed and offers suggestions and feedback as to how that could be achieved or shows how flaws are similar to old flaws that saw a program stopped doesn't mean a person wants it to be removed.

It goes the same for how to improve the WelcomeHub tutorial. Many people hounded those of us in the other threads, even down to making a forum regular and TPV creator to leave the forums entirely, because we suggested that the tutorial needed to be more objective orientated or 'gamified' to help retention.

Once again, is it a coincidence that the most gamified orientation island (old tutorial regions) known to have existed within Second Life also corresponded with once again the peak of Second Life's concurrency 2007-2010 and its year on year growth from 2007-2010 and how its removal saw the consecutive year on year decline of user retention? Here is how that 2007-2010 tutorial version went all the way down to rewarding stars to people when they completed the objectives. It offered direction, entertainment, engagement, purpose, free items, interactive tutorials. The only thing missing was portals to popular themed areas, but dont worry about that as once you left orientation island and went to welcome island there were all the portals for you.

Now imagine that tutorial with modern EEP, Experience tools, Animesh NPC's, animations, mesh, materials, etc with the now expanded WelcomeHub of 8 regions instead of 1. But forget about all that as existing users are to scared that such a 'gamified' tutorial system will adversely affect their experience, despite as shown being effective in retention along with other systems of that time that were likewise removed.

Imagine it being themed with something to do with Magellan Linden and his adventures around second life. An actual Linden that was purposely made for Role Play and the history of Second Life.

Second Life has a lot of history to go back to and use not to mention learn from. Perhaps Linden Lab should start actually doing such things.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Drayke Newall