Nobody goes to the Community Exhibition in WelcomeHub.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I do NOT repeat NOT want a clerk to come up and ask me if they can help me

An in RL, clerks follow some people to make sure they are not stealing, etc..

[Persephone Emerald]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

An in RL, clerks follow some people to make sure they are not stealing, etc..

Which is even worse, to be profiled as a possible thief, often because of one's race, age, or what they're wearing.

Bringing this back to SL, are there ways in which SL newbies are profiled in the Welcome Hub?

Edited February 19 by Persephone Emerald

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

I would run for the hills if a greeter approached me while I was already disorientated and overwhelmed with new stuff, i couldn't deal with a social interaction at the same time!

However, I do know that this is just what some people want and need.
 

Yeah see in r/l one can tell from body language and cues that someone is not open to interaction whereas inworld that is hard to tell. I noted that when I was greeting in another grid for a while that some like the interaction and had a greater rate of returning then others who either didn't answer at all or simply never returned. 

One would almost want noobies to prequalify by answering the question on avatar registration if they were open to being messaged or not and then be colored or some other visible sign if they were open to interaction or not.

Edited February 19 by Arielle Popstar

[Prokofy Neva]

5 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Which is even worse, to be profiled as a possible thief, often because of one's race, age, or what they're wearing.

Bringing this back to SL, are there ways in which SL newbies are profiled in the Welcome Hub?

I don't see how they could be, when they haven't likely filled in their profiles yet. I always urge newbies I run across to put in a picture ASAP so they aren't viewed as dweebs. I think it's free now but some people use up their free one and get stuck. I even have free images to pass out in one of my infohubs because I think the reaction to an empty profile pic is "Griefer".

I suppose LL could see which country they are coming from or something and possibly profile them but I find it hard to believe they would have the time and staff to bother. They throw "Mentors" at this task, which is one of the reasons why it chronically failed.

They need a paid, benefited, full-time high-quality staff person to stay in a welcome area all day, or at least circuit ride through a group of them, to solve these problems of retention and griefing by watching what happens and attempting to intervene.

Jack Linden, who was an accomplished professional BEFORE joining SL, used to do this very thing himself even when he was VP. It's like when they make the DoorDash engineers go out and do a dash now and then. 

[Arielle Popstar]

12 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Which is even worse, to be profiled as a possible thief, often because of one's race, age, or what they're wearing.

Bringing this back to SL, are there ways in which SL newbies are profiled in the Welcome Hub?

Being profiled does increase the success rate and would help inworld too with appropriate questions. As an example ones familiarity with English would help a great deal in knowing whether that noobie should be given a translator by default rather then depending they will find one to be able to makes themselves be understood or understand another.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Being profiled does increase the success rate and would help inworld too with appropriate questions. As an example ones familiarity with English would help a great deal in knowing whether that noobie should be given a translator by default rather then depending they will find one to be able to makes themselves be understood or understand another.

Now there's a good idea. Would LL be able to provide a free translator at the Welcome Hub?  The one I use is not free, but's come in handy when trying help newbies who don't speak English well. 

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Now there's a good idea. Would LL be able to provide a free translator at the Welcome Hub?  The one I use is not free, but's come in handy when trying help newbies who don't speak English well. 

Yes considering the amount of non English speaking people that come here, I don't understand why SL doesn't make it a default and priority to make translators available for both Local and IM. This should not be hard to do considering the amount of free translators that have been passed around over the years.

The lack of translators on default landing often makes it a tower of babble when interacting with new people not familiar with the language.

[Love Zhaoying]

45 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yet I imagine the Lindens in charge of this caper think, like Yogi Berra once said about a fashionable restaurant in Manhattan:

"It's so crowded nobody goes there any more."

Yeah, I provided a similar reply early in the thread, as there is an old joke about restaurants, etc.: "Nobody goes there anymore because it is so busy."

[animats]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

or at least circuit ride through a group of them, to solve these problems of retention and griefing by watching what happens and attempting to intervene.

Jack Linden, who was an accomplished professional BEFORE joining SL, used to do this very thing himself

That's how it's done.

A few times, I've helped a new user get started. It takes about an hour. Answer their questions. Find out what they're into. Take them two or three places, from scenic mountains to a gun range to a cyberpunk sim, depending on their interests. Talk them through rezzing their first cube in a sandbox and put a texture on it. Rez some good stuff from inventory to show what's possible. Explain that this is a huge shared world, that almost everything was built by the residents, that there is private land ownership and control, and that Linden Lab acts like a municipal government, not a game master.

One new user was a gamer. So I took him to a combat sim, and we got visitor tags in the lobby. Once inside, we got out of the way of the machine gun fire and watched for a while. He'd found something he understood, and went off to arm up and read all the roleplay rules for the sim.

Another was trying to build in the WelcomeHub sandbox. I took them to Builder's Brewery and built some simple things from prims, and we watched some good builders at work. They looked at the class schedule and planned to come back for a beginning building class.

That's what it takes. But it's tough to automate that.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, animats said:

That's how it's done.

A few times, I've helped a new user get started. It takes about an hour. Answer their questions. Find out what they're into. Take them two or three places, from scenic mountains to a gun range to a cyberpunk sim, depending on their interests. Talk them through rezzing their first cube in a sandbox and put a texture on it. Rez some good stuff from inventory to show what's possible. Explain that this is a huge shared world, that almost everything was built by the residents, that there is private land ownership and control, and that Linden Lab acts like a municipal government, not a game master.

One new user was a gamer. So I took him to a combat sim, and we got visitor tags in the lobby. Once inside, we got out of the way of the machine gun fire and watched for a while. He'd found something he understood, and went off to arm up and read all the roleplay rules for the sim.

Another was trying to build in the WelcomeHub sandbox. I took them to Builder's Brewery and built some simple things from prims, and we watched some good builders at work. They looked at the class schedule and planned to come back for a beginning building class.

That's what it takes. But it's tough to automate that.

 

I would "hope" the official Mentors are doing all that, but somehow I doubt it!

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

This is a total side topic tangent but...

 

On 2/17/2024 at 3:36 PM, Arwyn Quandry said:

Random strings of characters and numbers as usernames are the norm on many platforms. For years, SL escaped that by allowing users to have a first and last name, giving you a better shot at a usable and interesting name. Now that last names are paywalled, usernames suck as much as they do everywhere else. SL isn't the outlier in that respect and I don't think being surrounded by people named things like "kaaarein69291841" is what's turning new users away.

Not as much the case in MMOs though.

While the 'old guard' of SL might cringe at being called an MMO, it's the close equivalent and very likely what a lot of new users coming here have already experienced and use as their baseline for 'the bare minimum of what to expect'.

I doubt they expect a game, but they likely expect no less initial avatar customization as they'd get in an MMO. Most likely expect more (especially as the most recent MMOs are often trending away from customization while older ones are adding to it or being revived because they had it).

Part of that is likely expected to be able to easily "name your character". And those MMOs that have had restrictions as severe as SLs (like Amazon's New World does) have taken heat over this.

I think SL should either bring back last names as part of your original account creation... or have 'set your display name' put right into account creation. Make it clear on that initial screen that one of the things being entered here is an 'account name' and the other is a 'character name'.

- and then start hiding account names more. Visible only to identifying scripts (*), not something that can be simply printed out to the chat bar, and not displayed above a user's head AT ALL unless they lack a display name.

I'd also disallow special characters in display names "going forward", allow other language characters IF an auto-translate reader is capable of reading them. <-- which is more permissive than most MMOs.

 

TL:DR:
- On gaming platforms people are used to having a clear character name. Platforms failing this get mocked online.
- We already have that with Display Names. Have newbies set on on account creation. Make Display Name overtake username anywhere that won't break content.

 

(*) You could in theory make it so the script functions that read username no longer work for newly saved scripts - but this would create issues if a new script needed to talk to an old script.

 

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

On Topic:

I was a bit underwhelmed by the community exhibition and agree it should have brought a lot more communities on board before being opened.

I'd think it needs at least a dozen from each "maturity rating" and/or "widely known common SL theme".
- Like: a dozen music clubs, a dozen RP venues, a dozen vehicle places, a dozen furry hangouts, a dozen non-political "themed topical chat" communities (philosophy clubs, book clubs, and so on), a dozen faith communities, a dozen builder / sandbox communities, a dozen themed residential estates, and so on. More active people than me know what would fit in this list better than I do.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

27 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

I think SL should either bring back last names as part of your original account creation... or have 'set your display name' put right into account creation. Make it clear on that initial screen that one of the things being entered here is an 'account name' and the other is a 'character name'.

- and then start hiding account names more. Visible only to identifying scripts (*), not something that can be simply printed out to the chat bar, and not displayed above a user's head AT ALL unless they lack a display name.

I'd also disallow special characters in display names "going forward", allow other language characters IF an auto-translate reader is capable of reading them. <-- which is more permissive than most MMOs.

The problem with hiding account names is the lack of accountability and people being able to fake being someone else, for instance the owner of a sim or store, a Linden or Mole, or someone they want to harass.

[kaahupahau]

15 hours ago, animats said:

• Clothing not rezzing quickly and reliably.

Hey, you can't take away the default solution needed to randomly ban nearly anybody!

How else will the LL Support team stay in the training to just copy & paste pointless and non-helpful replies?

[kaahupahau]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The problem with hiding account names is the lack of accountability and people being able to fake being someone else, for instance the owner of a sim or store, a Linden or Mole, or someone they want to harass.

Stupid question, but:

What the Thuna is a "Mole"?

[Extrude Ragu]

7 minutes ago, kaahupahau said:

Stupid question, but:

What the Thuna is a "Mole"?

They're members of the linden department of public works (LDPW) they do a lot of mainland work

[Quartz Mole]

6 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Now there's a good idea. Would LL be able to provide a free translator at the Welcome Hub?  The one I use is not free, but's come in handy when trying help newbies who don't speak English well. 

I don't think it works in the viewer, but I can certainly recommend DeepL Translate.    I've used it to help people with questions about their Linden Homes in a variety of languages, including Ukrainian and Japanese,  by copy-pasting their side of the conversation from the viewer into the app, and typing my replies in the app and copying them into the viewer's chat.    Certainly it's turned what they said into comprehensible English and they seemed to understand my replies.    

Moles whose first language isn't English who've taken a look at it all tell me its translations to and from their languages are perfectly acceptable, too.  

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, kaahupahau said:

Stupid question, but:

What the Thuna is a "Mole"?

What the Mole is a "Thuna"?

[Persephone Emerald]

9 hours ago, Quartz Mole said:

I don't think it works in the viewer, but I can certainly recommend DeepL Translate.    I've used it to help people with questions about their Linden Homes in a variety of languages, including Ukrainian and Japanese,  by copy-pasting their side of the conversation from the viewer into the app, and typing my replies in the app and copying them into the viewer's chat.    Certainly it's turned what they said into comprehensible English and they seemed to understand my replies.    

Moles whose first language isn't English who've taken a look at it all tell me its translations to and from their languages are perfectly acceptable, too.  

I use the Q-Translator, which is available on the SL Marketplace. It's not free, but I've had it for many years and it keeps getting updated for free. It works for 104 languages. Recently I've been using it to talk with and help a lady who's new in SL and speaks Arabic. When I frist started talking to her with the translator, she thought I spoke Arabic. I assured her I don't, but was using a translator.

Translators are never able to translate everything perfectly, but if you use simple language without too much slang, they work amazingly for communicating with people from all over the world in SL. If I'm just communicating via saved IMs or notecards, I usually use Google Translate, but inworld in real time a Translator can be easier for Local Chat.

Edited February 20 by Persephone Emerald
To add SL Marketplace link

[SlammedSam]

On 2/18/2024 at 9:17 AM, Extrude Ragu said:

Another observation. There's this buy L$ kiosk at the end of the orientation tutorial:-

The kiosk. Note that the orientation exit is behind it.

I've seen two newbies stop in front of the kiosk and become distracted by it (Presumably fiddling about with that web page floater that pops up, getting nagged to set up payment information)

One of the newbies after clicking the kiosk and seeing the web page, logged off.

I wonder if this is really a smart place to put the kiosk. I get LL probably want newbies to set up payment information on their account, but this kiosk appears long before a newbie might become in any way invested in SecondLife, or has even seen examples of what L$ can buy. I can't help but feel it would have been better for the newbie to see some actual content first. Maybe even a shop, so they could become invested in the platform and had some kind of motivation to buy L$

 

Very much agreed. If I saw such a thing as a fresh newbie, I likely would have been horribly put off by SL.

While having some L$ in the virtual purse is nice, maybe a newcomer would like to know what they're paying for. ~puts the germane bit from the quote in bold~ It took me a good while in SL before I even thought about buying L$. That needs to be on one's own terms. not shoved in one's face.

[Paladin Tyran]

how about a crazy idea. give to the new users all benefits of premium ones, except the money.

i did not check lately, but there was tons on old prim houses in premium area, those with 512 land. just give to a new user a free 15 days of free house, with only 1 room furnished and a storage room full of crates with furniture, dances clothes for starter avatar, skins etc. they will learn to open crates, dress / undress, rezz prims.. etc. also, if you put all eggs in one basket, i mean all new residents in one area, they will have a community, neighbours to talk or annoy or be upset.plus, access to premium sandboxes , etc. No money , for obvious reasons

after all, Sl wants to be a new life, and, in my 15 years of sl, the most wanted thing of all people i meet was to have a place to call home. after 15 days, they will know if they want to stay or not, to pay or be free users

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Paladin Tyran said:

how about a crazy idea. give to the new users all benefits of premium ones, except the money.

i did not check lately, but there was tons on old prim houses in premium area, those with 512 land. just give to a new user a free 15 days of free house, with only 1 room furnished and a storage room full of crates with furniture, dances clothes for starter avatar, skins etc. they will learn to open crates, dress / undress, rezz prims.. etc. also, if you put all eggs in one basket, i mean all new residents in one area, they will have a community, neighbours to talk or annoy or be upset.plus, access to premium sandboxes , etc. No money , for obvious reasons

after all, Sl wants to be a new life, and, in my 15 years of sl, the most wanted thing of all people i meet was to have a place to call home. after 15 days, they will know if they want to stay or not, to pay or be free users

There are free dressing rooms and a sandbox at the Welcome Hub. That's all a newbie needs to start out in SL. When I was new, I changed clothes underwater, in some quiet corner of a sim, or rezzed a free house in a sandbox. (I met my first SL boyfriend in a sandbox when I didn't have a house.)

[Sid Nagy]

Withdrawn.

What is the use of discussing things here?

Edited February 20 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

In the end one gets what one pays for....

Of course there will be some excellent mentors in the available group, but it is not for nothing that it takes 4 years of high level full time studying to become a qualified teacher in my country. Just saying.

 

Well gee, thanks for denigrating the contributions of all volunteers, everywhere, since the beginning of time!

..not what you meant?

ETA: I am not sure if you bought this up as part of the "volunteer Mentors should get paid" argument which thankfully disappeared awhile back.

Edited February 20 by Love Zhaoying

[Zalificent Corvinus]

8 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Well gee, thanks for denigrating the contributions of all volunteers

LL are apparently unimpressed enough to include creating AI Mentor Bots in their 2024 Roadmap.

If the people who created the unpaid volunteer Mentor program think Artificial Idiocy would do a better job, that speaks volumes for the over-all quality of the volunteers, doesn't it.