The New Welcome Area

Central public parks and municipal areas are essential to community.

LL has not decided that they are eliminating the WA and it continues to serve a very vital SL function. The public WA is one of the few places where we can meet all types of SL people - this has nothing to do with meeting on someone land.

Do not privatize the WA!

Keep this in mind: A privately owned Welcome Area is just one RL financial crisis away from destruction. Cabinhead could disappear instantly if Schwanson had a RL emergency and needed to divert funds to deal with it.

It's a gorgeous area, and I don't think it needs to be privatized.

But I visited for a few minutes last night, and I don't mind going on record as saying that if the behavior I saw there last night had been my first group encounter when I joined SL, I probably would've left SL and never come back. This is it? In an environment that promises so much creativity and self-expression, this is what people find to talk about? Not a first good impression at all.

I'm not a prude...I've won a few Best You-Know-What contests myself but I won them by visiting regions where they were appropriate.

The area is clearly marked PG, and if citizens were strictly held to that standard 24/7, I think a lot of this problem would clear up.

Furthermore, the regulars there know it. A Linden quietly materialized behind me, and within about ten seconds, half the folks in the area had suddenly remembered urgent business elsewhere, and a lot of the others had completely changed their behavior. Like an elementary school principal making a surprise visit to a classroom when the teacher's been called away

This is true. I shouldn't have mentioned Cabinhead. I should have just praised the Linden's wisdom in organizing a new orientation method after realizing that the WA model was obsolete and left it at that.

Thank you for the correction.

I still think it'll be foolish of them to keep the WA open, knowing that's it's only used as a gathering point for griefers and whiners, after the greeter program is finalied and in full swing.

i agree with this, but it takes money to staff someone like that.

I'm at the WA now - have been here for over an hour...Even got Neg rated by a VM person - who prides herself on giving them out.

There are many non-griefing people here who are helping newbies, having fun and hanging out.

Your characterization of the WA Khamon isn't what I experience here.

Oh, the Lindens already organized a new welcome system which funnels everyone to Cabinhead? How does that work, exactly? Remember when I raised this as an abstract issue and everyone clobbered me? But...how is it that one select group of older players get to take on the function of newby orientation?

Is the idea this system essentially serves as a filter to pick and chose among "worthy" newbies for the ulterior project of throttling the game, keeping only those "contributing" and "useful to game devs" and "getting with the program in the community [self-defined]"?

Is the idea that newbies get inducted to the right apprenticeship program, i.e. go serve as the understudy to this one making jewelry, accept $20,000 from that one who will set you up in a modeling career but only with their friends' designs, take building lessons from the other one but only if you stay in their loyal orbit, etc. We already get this.

I noticed one interesting feature of the newly-redacted requirements for the meeters-greeters department:



It used to be that there was simply a requirement that you had to be free from disciplinary action for 60 days. (It may have been changed from or to 30 days for a time).

But now, with this new wording, what that means if that if your "rapsheet" is not clean, there's no longer an automatic reset after 60 days, and not a clear-cut bar. It means it has become a discretionary matter left up to the managers of this program.

On the one hand, that might improve the quality of these helpers -- there've been lots of past threads discussing some of uneven quality. On the other hand, it's funnelling.

What it means is that even after 60 days, even after a year, someone with a grudge against you could keep you out of the greeter program citing the "relatively clean" issue with no timeouts on it.

Nice work. I imagine this was rewritten to enable someone who had a bad record still within 60 days to come into the program, but it also has the benefit of keeping out even someone who goes 60 days with a clean record if the idea is merely to just keep them out.

Khamon didn't characterize it. Khamon read dozens of posts over the past few weeks that characterized it for him. I've not declared it obsolete either. The Lindens have obviously concluded that it's not fullfilling it's original objectives or they wouldn't be implementing a better orientation routine. And for final clarification, I'm not talking about privitizing the WAs; I'm talking about the Lindens tearing them down and auctioning the land.

But if LL want to hang onto to support sims of land for people to hang out on, that's fine too. It's no skin off my nose.

No Prokf they have not done that.

Ok, how does it work then? Could you elaborate? How will the referrals system work?

As a recent immigrant to SL, I have to say that I had a positive WA experience. I happend to run into someone else who had only been here for a month, but knew her way aroudn fairly well. She did a wonderful job of making me feel welcome and helping me get accustomed to the world here.

That being said however, I have seen the dark side of the WA as well. Since that is my home, I'm in and out of there quite often, and there is definitly a clique that makes noobs feel less than welcome and sets them off with a very negative experience. This is very different than the rest of SL that I have explored in that most people have been wonderful and very gracious.

I've just heard about the Cabinhead project, and while new myself, would love to help any way that I can. In the meantime, I can't wait to move out of the WA as my home.

Denrael
A Rogue at Heart

1. I absolutely hate it when people in games decide to hang out at the welcome areas and run people off. I can't stand it when people take it upon themselves to run off new players from a game I want to see grow and be fun for lots of people. In TSO it was houses in the Welcome category. They got taken over by griefers, THIEVES, horrible acting people, and you guys know who you are, since a lot of you are now playing this game (though you have reformed, to my knowledge). TSO didn't do a dang thing about it. They even let them advertise with impunity on the message boards, and no one could even say anything against them.

2. But how much I hate that pales in comparison to how much I absolutely hate, abhore and despise any system where only certain players get instant access to all the newbies.

That is the worst idea I have ever heard.

For one thing, there is a lot of confusion for new players (or at least was for me) at first, deciding what is an "official" part of the game (i.e., provided by the game makers) and what is provided by other players.

For example, I thought the money trees were invented by the game makers, to make us travel around more. Then I discovered they were a private enterprise. On the other hand, I never thought Ivory Tower of Primitives was a private enterprise; it was clearly someone's own project.

Both these things were good things, understand - (though I wish I had realized the money trees were private). But the other ideas I have read here - about regular players taking over and privatizing the welcome areas, and so forth - would not be.

3. I am ALWAYS wary when I enter a new game, cause I know there are people wanting me to join this or that thing, and I like to make up my own mind, and not get "grabbed" by anybody, lol.

When I first went to There, there was this guy who was amazingly helpful to me, to the point where I was afraid he was hitting on me. I ended up wasting a bunch of time just trying to be polite and pleasant to him and touring with him in his car, etc. And GOD he was dull. Then come to find out later that he was some sort of greeter getting PAID to be nice to me! I hated that! I wasted so much time feeling I had to be nice and polite to this "nice" guy.

Now I know you're not talking about greeters, etc., being paid. But the same confusion potential is there with volunteers.

If I come into a game and get grabbed by some official greeter, I'm gonna feel like I have to go along with whatever all they seem to be nicely trying to offer for me to do - even more than I felt that way with the guy in the There example, if I think they are "official" and their special island is "official" and all that. I'm going to think it's some sort of thing I sort of HAVE to go through, like Orientation Island.

When I was sent to the Welcome Area three months ago, I didn't run into anybody trying to get me to do their stuff. Any greeters, etc., should be clearly available FOR help, but not PUSH help, like just a whole lot of thinking in this thread seems to favor.

If only certain greeters are allowed into the welcome areas, they will not only have carte blanche to all the newbies, the newbies are gonna think they are a whole lot more important and official and influential than they actually are.

4. I'm quite capable of getting around in a new game on my own, and also capable of asking questions if I need and want help. That's what the live help thing is for, right? I have used that. I don't need people in my face the minute I get on a game, holding my hand, and me having to be nice to them about it. After all, the things I do in a game, and the way I approach it - my "fun" in other words - is gonna be quite a bit different from that of whatever individual happens to grab me. Having helpers around is fine, if they are clearly labeled as such. Any underhanded design to get them to your own special area, or any design which gives only a few people the opportunity to meet and greet the newbies, sucks.

5. I don't know what this Cabinhead thing is, but whatever it is, nobody should be sent there by LL. Like it or not, this isn't OUR game, and it isn't YOUR game; it is THEIR game, and I am only gonna want to do what they make me do, not what any other regular player thinks I should do or need to do. New players don't want to get grabbed and told what they should do.

I look only to the Lindens as any sort of authority in any way. If anybody has the philosophy that "we" can actually BECOME the Lindens in all ways, well, it just ain't gonna fly, because most players look at the game makers as the only authority and reject any idea of governance by other players.

To confuse new players by having old players disguised as the authority (and I don't care how well-meaning these old players may be) would be awful. Whatever this Cabinhead thing is, it's vital that you make it entirely clear that it is totally voluntary and JUST OTHER PLAYERS and not anything official and nobody has to partake in it if they don't want to. I do mean totally clear. Anything else would be sneaky.

6. I like the idea of turning off only negative ratings in the Welcome Area. But I like better what others have said that just a little more Linden presence is no doubt the only "solution" that is required.

7. This business I just now read that Prok mentioned of "bad rap sheet" - that is really, really crappy. The six month idea was better. But from what I read last night in another thread, apparently some people are accepted into these programs right away, and others just languish for months with no answer. That is not good.

8. In sum, nobody should get first grabs at the newbies. Nobody, nobody, nobody. Greeters who are clearly designated as greeters or whatever - AND WHO MAKE IT CLEAR THEY ARE JUST OTHER PLAYERS - is ok, but nothing else of what I have read here is. A pox on the idea of only having a special group interact with newbies.

Because along with their genuine desire to help people, these greeters, etc., are also going to (more or less naturally) get the newbies into their own projects, get their dwell, get their purchases, get them to work for them, all that stuff that not only makes this game really a game, but also provides rl cash to the winners. And you know it. Everyone should have equal access to that, since that is what will naturally happen.

coco

I've been away from SL for several months. Anybody got a link for this Cabinhead project, and any LL involvement/sanction? I did catch up on the last couple Town Meetings but don't remember seeing anything about this.

Thanks!

Omgwtfbbq!!!!1! Cabinhead!!!!!

Sorry, found Schwanson's thread right there in the General forum, staring at me...

Cabinhead... The new user experience.

D'oh!

There's a new group formed...

"Non-Helpers"

We don't help anyone, not even ourselves.

Can wait to see "live helpers" next to "non-helpers" would make a neat screen shot.

Theres a group at the welcome area that has WA in the title and some of those people are very nasty to newbies and others too.

Seems to die down when lindens and other volunteer stand up to them.

If anyone is causing a ruckus and bullying people around, please feel free to give me a ring. If I'm not doing anything, I'll fly over there and shoo them off.

I hate bullies. Most tend to shy away when you direct their venom squarely back at them.

LF

I

Um, I haven't found that.

Well i was there yesterday night, and there was a linden there, who really got pissed at me because of my gestures.

LL created Gestures for us to entertain each other, and she was saying for me to stop playing them.

I was not the only one doing it, she was a meanie and meanies dont get no wuv!! LOL
It was not like i was playing a song, just "Hello" and "laughs" and funny comment.

We cant even do anything in welcome area anymore, i once got banned 3 days for saying
to a noob, "Dont get too excited, until you buy your first prim penis"

LOL PENIS!!!!! god made it, should be PG!!!!! LOL

Silly stuff like that they get all stressed out... When they should be handling theifs and scammers.

Don`t start!
play nice or leave!

I agree that the WA is not the best place to get a first impression of SL. I think the area should be restricted to Lindens, Instructors, mentors, live help, greeters, those on a 7 day trial and perhaps new members during their first week only.

If that's your view point then why not say god made Ted Bundy so he is ok too? dont think it works that way when you take the rosy color glasses off

It seems to me that many of the WA regulars aren't there for the prupose of greeting newbies, as I see newbies continuously walk in, walk by, and the only thing you might hear from some of these regulars is "Stop walking into people!!" So if they're not there specifically to greet new players, then ask yourselves what does draw them to the WA..

What do we see when we go to the WA? We see people dancing, hanging out, goofing off, and some sitting quietly bored out of their minds. Alot of what goes on there is what you'd expect to see in some kind of club or other hang out. So why do people choose the WA for this? I think it's familiarity mostly. Somehow a select few found themselves in the WA and remained long enough to get comfortable with the regular crowd. Maybe these people would like a club that isn't all about escorts and "hooking up," but more of a clean hangout. These places might exist in SL already, but for these regulars to leave the WA and start visiting these other places takes away the familiarity that pulls them to the WA to begin with.

So maybe LL should build such an area.... and have it branch off from the WA. Then when newbies arrive and see the dividing paths, they can choose for themselves whether they want to head to the building area, or head down the path to "Club Linden?"

Not only that, but perhaps different types of mentors would be good. Mentors who specialize in building and hang out around the Morris building area?

I think this is a crucial subject, because the WA can have a large impact on the direction our SL environment takes. I can imagine many creative and intelligent minds logging out of SL and never looking back just because of the first impression the WA creates. Meanwhile, those who enjoy the kind of behavior at the WA will feel right at home and stay, no doubt. Is it any wonder the events list is full of "XXX Best Thong Contest" and "Hawiian Bikini Contest... Come Get Laid!" SL is slowly becoming more about these things and less about arts and creativity. Playing up the creative side of SL, and downplaying the "other" side needs to take place right at the start. Yes, the WA needs an overhaul, no doubt.

I agree, I think LL needs to make more hangouts and community builds, perhaps near the Welcome Area or maybe not.