Clean up the WA...

I couldn't agree with you more, Lordfly. The WA now makes the sleaziest club look like a Sunday school picnic in comparasion. Recently a new group of people seem to have taken up residence there with their goal being to show off their immaturity and lack of brainpower. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

I still try to go there a few hours every day to help newbs but it is getting almost impossible to get their attention with all the moronic behavior going on all around them. I am afraid that new people may think this is the norm for all of SL. One time I even politely asked some of the griefers (I don't know what else to call them) to at least calm down a little and was rewarded with name calling and negative rates.

My solution is not to ban people from the WA but for the nicer people of SL to congregate there to help the newbs. I know it is a stomach churning experience right now but maybe if enough decent people set up camp and ignore the griefers they will get the message.

I decided to visit the WA today and was flooded by a barrage of sound clips of some "hootchie coochie" song over and over again. SO i decided to neg rate the person with a message as to why. I even invited him to neg rate me back if he felt so inclined. Instead, he calls me 'cunt' and somehow gets my RL pic from my 1L profile and rezzes cubes of my RL Pic in the Morris sandbox with a thought bubble that said "Duhhh". And then he carried on for at least 15 minutes on how childish it is to neg rate.

The WA is a horrible first SL experience and definetly needs to be redressed.

Briana Dawson

His last name wasnt Linden was it? jk

Y'know, someone in the other thread (Sorry, I don't remember your name! Take credit for it here, please!) suggested we do away with the the Welcome Area in favor of a set of 50 or so Places of Interest around SL. Newcomers could click on picutres that appeal to them, and they'd be whisked away to whatever interested them.

I think this is a great idea. Not just because of the matching players to interests...but because it decentralizes the influx of new people. The Welcome Area should *not* be the first place everyone comes to...it should be more like an information center people can *go* to. If the griefers found out that the Welcome Area wasn't a guaranteed place to find new people to intimidate, they'd leave to find other ways to abuse the system.

I don't know, maybe the Lindens want it this way? They certainly know about it just by the presence of Iris and numerious threads about it. I think they are waiting for the residents to come up with a solution perhaps which is in line with their current "hands off" approach that they seem to be adopting more and more.

When I started back in May. I was greeted by no one, there were people there but they were too busy talking among themselves or strangly silent. I didn't hang around long, I zoomed off to explore the land. As a newbie I always came on at the WA and again it was either empty or a bunch of people standing around silently. Kinda surreal actually. Since I knew there was much more to SL than the WA, it never really bothered me.

I really like the multiple destination idea. Advetising for a type of content with a list of vendors in a notecard. Click on a picture of the "Enterprise" and you get a notecard of places venders and events involving Sci-fi, click on a pic of a furry and you get a notecard with Luskwood, The Forest and a list of places to see and get furry items. That is the biggest problem with SL, no really good phonebook and as a newbie it can be frustrating to not be able to find anything easily. Hell, its frustrating for us who have been here a while.

Good idea, similar to the A Tale in the Desert idea of setting an are 'newby friendly' and newbies being able to travel ther for one on one help.

Also agree, something needs to be done about WA

I've been around a year and I still find myself with a question for Live Help every once in awhile. My experience with them is that have been uniformly friendly and helpful. My questions were beyond the usual noobie questions, but they did their best to help me or point me in the right directoin.

Nice, they're reconstructing it: /3/6f/38700/1.html

I wonder if this'll include better behavior enforcement.

Maybe it will include a stocks and gallows area to virtually punish offenders.

^ yes. Exciting isn't it?

Hrmmmmmm...

I do believe centralization in a type of "Welcome Area" (well, that's the best kind of definition I could think of) is a good thing. Sort of like how the Orientation Island is the "splash-in" and this is the "kick-off". (Remember the familiarity of the bar from Cheers?) I also think that in addition to that, easily-accessible gateways to other places would be good too, so that one can find things targeted to their specific interests. I would like to see this forthcoming, as right now, we have limits. For example, one cannot just easily teleport to a distant location by clicking on a sign (you have to activate a Landmark or use the Map screen, and even then, you have to fly from a TeleHub).

However, it also raises a number of issues because it's sensible that everyone -- not everyone everyone, obviously, but a LOT of people involved with user-created content in this growing world -- will want their place put up in the "multiple destination directory", perhaps making too many kinds of overwhelming choices... so who gets picked? Will it be a lotto (a la Busy Ben's?)? The usual systems would herald cries of "favoritism!" back to the Top Picks (who remembers that?). 'Course, can't solidly say until we get there. SO...

In the present, something that can be done: I too encourage more positivity in the Waterhead WA and for peeps to tough it out (despite past trauma) and go there to see who needs help, guidance, etc. We have to reclaim the goodness that is still present in SL but has crept off and hidden behind a bench (figuratively speaking). And continue to build on this, remembering that things come and go in what seems like cyclical phases, taking notes and remembering the good times along the way. I see a lot of avatar whimsy still which is delightful, but persistent harassment is not welcome. In recent memory, I've seen a whole group of the nubreed Linden Liaisons onsite in Ahern, on a rotational basis. So it's nice there is a Linden presence there again. And they are listening to this -- I've asked. In fact, there are many more Residents who read the Forums but do not post regularly, so the ideas are getting out there.

Keep on sharin'!

YES absolutely I second that. Have you put this in the suggestion box?

The WA should be for welcoming, not trying to make a big impression on them or lure them to dwell-holes.

Buster

I had two experiences with live help and both were GREAT. Maybe those people are just really swamped and you are mistaking their brevity and sluggish response times as "rudeness". They're problaby carrying on 10 conversations at once, cut 'em some slack.

Buster

Ditto on that. They're tech support for all the users online in the game.

Annnnnd...

That's why they would make a lousy welcome wagon, if they were trying to do that AND welcome new people into the game.

They're two differing functions, and should be treated as such.

Maybe it's time for the people who care about the WA to take it back? Much in the same way residents clean up their neighborhood parks and such... not by staying away, but by refusing to be driven out.

I put this in practice today by hanging out at the WA for about a half hour, chatting with people less than 15 days old and passing out a few gifts I keep handy for new people anyway.

Yes, there were the usual assholes there, but we can easily outnumber the assholes. Also, this is a PG area, so lets abuse report the people who break those rules until they either get a clue or go away.

Sigh.

It is a difficult way to help someone when they most need it.

I'm not sure whether or not invite only will work, because people will feel like LL is enforcing that. Mentoring and Instruction is still in a voluntary basis. Whenever someone has the time. But I do agree, that issue needs to be addressed. For a newbie who firsts enters and gets bombarded with lag, confusing items, and mature content when its supposidly PG.

Perhaps like it was suggested earlier in this thread that a separate social area perhaps needs to be provided for people who cannot afford to spend money on land or don't wish to go do the club scene to bare the lag and Mature content.

I think having an invite only policy will make it dull - there needs to be the "wow" factor.

I definitely agree that the WA has been a disaster for awhile now. I go there when I get the chance to try and welcome people, give some gifts out, and answer questions to help. The last time I was there a "heated discussion" was going on about furries and realistic genitalia, among other things. Needles to say the words that flew back and forth after would not be something I'd like to walk into for my first impression of SL.

The "wow" factor should be coming from excited residents that WANT to help the newbies -- indeed, 80% of the reason I stayed was the sheer exuberance displayed by my early-day mentors (james miller, darwin appleby, and even my curmudgeony neighbor, ezhair fairlight). I mean, Darwin took me on an hour-long tour of his lab just to show me what was possible with SL. Popup map?? Perpetual motion machine??? Perfect number generator??? KEYPAD SECURITY SYSTEM?!?! That's a Good Newbie Experience (tm). Nevertheless, this exuberance, sadly, must come from "approved" residents who have a track record of not being an asshole when people are about (insert Prok's "OMFG FIC FIC FIC OMFG OMFG" post here).

Talking about furry sex and who's doing who and fishing for club dwellers isn't a good way to introduce people to the Metaverse.

LF

I suspect that iideologues with ideas that produce anti-social behavior have staked out the welcome area and bombard new members with notions about how any restrictions of any sort on behavior are totalitarian and that filing abuse reports constitutes "avatar murder".

It's hard to know for sure with so much of the conversaton going on in IM's and private Group messages, and the ideologue in charge doesn't seem to want to make his ideas known in public through the near infinite ways that he could. I suspect fear that putting them out for public examination would reveal them for the flawed thinking that they are.

Hehe. you are probably right about talking about furry sex not being the best topic but considering the fact that The Forest has been in the first or second most popular places in SL for the last couple of months, can't deny it is of interest to a lot of people in SL. Looking over my sales of penii and girly bits, its of interest to lots and lots of folks. Yes, that's right, I am a penis baron... thank you, thank you. You are too kind. (you would be surprised at who owns anatomially correct furry apendages.. or maybe not I did change my vendors recently so the customer's identity isn't linked directly to the item puchased to protect their privacy)

Sorry, just injecting some humor, ignore.

Heh... remember that the "Wow Factor" is on a WAY different level for a newbie than it is for us. Upon first entering, the WOW factor could just be seeing someone wearing heels or curly hair or a cat tail or a tiny sparkle thing on their hand or sword or... basically anything that we did not see a way to do when we went through the customization process of our own avatar in the orientation.

The key is to keep it at a Wow Factor without getting remotely close to the WTF Factor.

I've been reading, some very good points here. To touch on what Lordfly said, I understand what he means:



and of course, there is there is also the additional layers of people who are interested in those sorts of things, and don't know (and don't care -- at least not initially) about what a "Metaverse" is. They -- generalizing -- will see SL as a "computer game" and not a revolutionary social experiment or a way to explore the existential psyche of the transcended digital soul, etc.

So, taking that slice of pie into account, I believe that as long as there is a diversity of the community represented at the Welcome Area, that it will be fantastic insofar as a quick intro to someone and showing them what sorts of choices and what sorts of lifestyles are welcome. A community of tolerance and respect. No one "subcult" (see: Toffler) can be allowed to dominate and make others feel unwelcome. My own interests lean towards things like cyberpunk but I sure do seem to hang out in a lot of places, so I'm always looking out for what my fellow avatars enjoy. Etc. etc. etc.

What Anjelle said is something that certain luminaries have also brought up to me, about the sense of "fresh newness" and about desensitization as you go along. The dozenth time you see someone wear a box on their head, it won't be so amazing (or annoying, or whatever).

These are personal experiences... everyone has their own reactions to interpreting stimuli. I am still WOWED by the simplest things . . .

Yeah, and especially SL should be represented by people who spam the grid with self replicating and annoying objects.

This insular attitude is just another step down the slippery slope.

SL is not about what you (or any other of the pathetically self important people) think it is, it's about what it can be.

i'm glad they're remaking it. when i started out i thought the orientation island was whatever welcome area there was. after i figured out sl wasn't just the island hehe. there were other people there and a Linden showed up for Q&A so when i ported out i figured that was it. that plus all the fields and lakes around the WA made me think i got dropped in the middle of nowhere so i wandered off pdq and haven't really gone back. keep meaning to tho.