Where have all the classes gone?

Recently, I've been thinking about ways to improve the SL newbie experience. I see people starting SL, and for the most part, being at a complete loss about what to do here. So what IS there to do? Go to a club? Play a game? Buy things? Sure, that's okay, but isn't MAKING things supposed to be a pretty big cornerstone of SL? Once upon a time, EVERYONE in SL built. It was just something you did. That was considered the entire point. Compare that with today's SL, where I would go so far as to say that the MAJORITY of users don't build.

This is not necessarily a bad thing in of itself, but it bears asking, why? Why don't as many people make things anymore? There are a few possibilities, but one stands out in my mind: There aren't enough classes in SL anymore. For example, yesterday, there were four classes. As of this morning, there's two scheduled for today. One of them is a "how-to" class for running Tringo.

Once upon a time, classes WERE the only events. There were sometimes even more than one class at the same time... and at peak hours, they were full, consistently. This was when there were perhaps 50 sims in the entire world. Yet, today, with over 500, we see virtually none. So what happened? Why aren't people teaching more? Are classes even necessary?

Asking a Linden revealed that yes, there are still officially Linden-funded classes, and in fact that the procedure for hosting one has been relaxed somewhat, but that it's still quite the hassle to get started. From the official site, it seems that you can get L$500 per class, with no evident limit on the number of classes. However, looking at the events list, I still see no classes.

I believe that it's in LL's best interests to both promote existing classes, and to encourage more residents to sign up and become regular instructors. If this means increasing the compensation to more accurately reflect the realities of the economy, or the method by which instructors are rewarded, then that's what the Lindens need to do. $2 US an hour honestly isn't a lot of money.

So why is it necessary that people know how to build in the first place? From Linden Lab's perspective, it should be simple: If I'm a newbie, and I don't know how to build things, why would I be at all motivated to own land? More people in SL making more things means the quality of content will inevitably go up. It means that more people will be making things for sale, and that the economy will become stronger.

Why are classes necessary? Can't people just figure it out on their own, or read the help files? Yes, but that's intimidating for a lot of people. It's a lot easier to deal with making mistakes when you're in the same situation as a group of other people. I suspect much of the reason you don't see the as many people learning from self-experimentation as you did when there were more classes is largely because it's hard not to look at some of the things people have made in SL and then see the cube you just rezzed and not feel a little out of your league.

There should be regular 'Introduction to Building' classes, every hour, on the hour. Intermediate and Advanced building, texturing, scripting... people used to host them daily. There's certainly demand for them, and it's in everyone's best interests for people to do so again, so what's the holdup? Why aren't the Lindens out actively recruiting instructors?

It's because the nature of the culture has changed from the tekkie wiki to mass consumerism. That's not necessarily a bad thing. It stands to reason that when you make something that is basically an entertainment, a game, a hobby, it is not going to be an educational exercise.

When SL was first new and being built, the kind of person attracted to it was someone who could work PSP and who tended to be knowledgeable about computer programming.

Now, the great exodus has come out of TSO and There and just the plain Internet, and these are not people who are ever going to be building in their lives, just like in RL, you don't have to know how to build a house in order to buy a house, and hire a construction company to build your house for you.

SL will become more diversified and have more niches in it -- that is, if its economy can free up and if the allergy toward commerce can be cured.

You can't have a world made up only of people who create, and who endlessly learn at universities. It sounds nice, it sounds utopian, it's fun, sure, while it lasts, but at a certain point, it petrifies and becomes a conservative break on progress.

Why go on endlessly celebrating prim university? I wish I had a dollar for everyone who tells me to go to prim university. Why? If I have the time, and something urgent, I learn on the spot, or I don't, and I hire someone who has made the time and has learned, and more importantly, has the skills I will never have. That's how it is in a normal free diverse society with the free flow of cash, goods, services, information, and ideas.

What you find out when you take away the easy stipends is that no, there aren't altruistic people willing to hold basic building classes 10 times a day and drive themselves insane with incessant newbie questioning. This game has a steep learning curve and some people never climb it.

I actually had a tenant the other night who said to me, after weeks of game play, "What is a telehub?"

I had another one -- after months -- ask me "How can you tell how many prims you have left in your house?"

I had a third ask me "How can I tell which land is for sale?" -- with a December found date.

People are playing an entirely different game than you. ENTIRELY different.

I hope you realize that what you just said is the very reason why we have a Feted Inner Core in the first place. The people who made the time, made it in the "tekkie wiki" era, and if you think this passive "mass consumerism" attitude should be further encouraged, then heck, soon there will be no one left to build
I've actually been teaching someone about LSL scripting, but on a private basis.
I would love to take up teaching again, but jeeze, there's just SO MUCH to do in SL!

Agreed, Catherine.

Education in SL is ...well, it sucks. Perhaps LL should run the simcity simulator with education underfunded and see what happens. Education is a critical function of a healthy community. The steep learning curve of the SL tools (and coming from a non-artist, non-programmer, non-modeller background, i can admit the learning curve has darn near brought tears to my eyes on many occasions) only makes classes that much more necessary.

SL can be an enormously intimidating environment. Rather than continue to let the gap widen between the know-it-all oldbies and the struggling newbies, lets spread the knowledge to everyone that wants it. Will everyone want it? No. And thats perfectly fine. But by increasing the number of classes, expanding the topics, and encouraging more people to teach, we can make knowledge more accessible for the new residents that are interested.

While a "university" is not an education that everyone may want to avail themselves of, certain "elementary" level knowledge should be within easy reach of every single resident of SL.

I think we should empower new residents. Encourage them to participate in creating their dreams, not just buying them.

I'm waiting until 1.6 before I persue anymore classes.

Text on a prim is pretty important and this will come with 1.6

But I just got my FIC blazer and membership badge.

I ran a nice game tour event today.. just going around and playing various games in SL that most folks haven't heard of. It was fun and popular.. but I just don't have the time to run it regularly.

I also did a warbot building one based on the Brainiac's code.. but.. I'd love to run more classes, just time is the problem

I got burnt out a bit of doing classes. I was doing them 2 or 3 times a week in addition to other events. I am taking a bit of a break just to build and enjoy the company of my partner Waves. Doing a class involves a lot of serious typing and discussion, whereas on my SL vacation - I can be down right goofy and have typos and not care.

As Arnold would say --- Ill be back.

My problem with classes wasn't so much the classes themselves, it was that people kept IMing afterwards and dropping in from the sky, so I was always so busy attending to the noobs (and not even getting paid) that I had no time to do anything else!

Yep thats it Eggy. . . So in an eggshell . . . . . . . . . .Mentors on vacation. Went to Cherry Tooks spa the other night and took a mud bath!!! You should try it. Took the stress right of my little avatar! Shopped for some textures. . . tortured some prims. . . played some poker. . . through caution into the wind. . . .

Eggy Teach me Please.....K thnx buddy..

Shadow

Right on. :=)

Yes, it's the very reason you have a FIC, and the very reason I expose and fight the FIC.

I'm afraid it isn't up to me to encourage "mass consumerism," since "mass consumerism" is what you get when you are a large California game company and you host an entertainment machine on your servers, and say you want investment and a million customers. Sorry, it wasn't my idea to interrupt your bionic wiki experiment under the Glassosphere.

What the FIC should do is at least CHARGE MONEY and provide CUSTOMER SERVICE instead of ranting all the time about how uncool and uneducated and annoying the masses are. Just charge. When they pay you, it lessons the pain. Or don't. Play in your sandbox, and leave it to others who wish to get paid for their work.

I never attended a class. I relied on the Ivory Tower of Primitives about 90% for learning how to build and 10% Marcos Fonzarelli, who was my neighbour at the time.

The Ivory Tower is really one of the most important places in SL, I think. I've often wondered if whoever set it up is an educator because it's so intuitive. I'd like to think word of mouth is enough to get new players there. But personally, I think it's location should be advertised in Ahern.

Has anybody polled noobs about this? Do they WANT classes? Anybody know what the typical turnout is for classes these days?

Where have all the classes gone?
Long time passing...
Where have all the classes gone?
Long time ago...
Where have all the classes gone?
Gone to Tringo, everyone!
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

aw, prok, for a moment there I was actually agreeing with you and then you went all FIC again.

You are absolutely correct that as SL grows in population the percentage of "creators" will shrink. A lot of people don't have the bent or interest to build themselves, or have the confidence to make it through the learning curve without saying "i suck" and throwing up their hands. Same thing as in the RL... we all make up the various components of society.

I've been meaning to give some classes on building with prims and creating clothes. I rather enjoy teaching so compensation isn't the primary concern for me. Right now I have so many projects going on though I just haven't had the time (not when you add in my periodic breaks as I bop around the grid looking in on new and old friends). (Hahaha I've been on SL only since November -- "old" friends... what a phrase... classic SL timewarp)

Catherine, if you want help creating some classes, let me know. This might be the imperative to bump it up my priority list.

P.S. Prok: I gather that in The Forest sim sandbox there is a free starter kit for creating a furry head. I haven't seen it, but it's an example of something free for people to play with and decipher how the shapes fit, are sized/cut, etc. This encourages experimentation and creativity and that's great. As an av maker and seller, I certainly don't find this upsetting or overly threatening -- sure it may take some sales away from the av makers but if nothing else it keeps us on our toes. The market waits for nobody. If a business model is built around impeding the spread of common knowledge, hoping that competition never arrives, and/or working within a static environment, then that business is doomed.

Excellent post and topic, Catherine.

I believe there are a few things in play here. First off, many of the people who used to teach classes don't come in world as much more, and there hasn't been a new set of people to replace them. Many are also now busy with Live Help, which has taken some of the luster away from classes. Why bother attending a class when you can ask a question to a team of seasoned veterans at any time? Still, I'd love to see more classes, and better attended classes. I would often pop in on Malana teaching to SL Basics 101 course to help out with more technical questions, for example. Last time I went, I think there were 3 people attending, aside from myself. If we could get more people to attend classes, the burden that causes "Live Help burnout" would be lessened significantly.

Another big problem is the current welcome area social dynamic. There used to be an unwritten rule about the welcome area... all grudges were checked at the gates to the welcome area, people knew to tone themselves down a bit, and there was a real team mentality about helping newcomers ease into the community. That is now completely gone. The welcome area is now, for the most part, more hideous than most clubs. The particle spam there is practically unbearable. You often have a bunch of recently-turned-18 years old there, particles running on full, typing in all caps, whose main goal it is in life seem to be ensuring you don't "disrespect them". This is a problem. The welcome area is not a club, a recruitment area or a whore house.

Its supposed to be a friendly, social, educational area. Yes, fun, but not in the bootylicious sense of the word "fun". Just yesterday I was there, and I really hate what has happened to one of my favorite spots where I could relive the wide-eyed wonder I experienced my first time joining. Now, I fear, the Welcome Area brings out the worst in me some times as I try to explain to certain people what I believe the area is meant for... easing newcomers into the community and helping them. People seem to think its their own private island for some reason.

This extends to the Stage 4 area, just meters away. It is no longer a fun, pleasant place to be with genuinely helpful people. These are just a few of the problems.

I think Ahern / Morris should be closed as the spawn area. Keep it as a historical landmark; let people hang out there and do what they wish. That's what it is now.

In the meantime, set the spawn area to be Waterhead. Encourage educational events at a new arena there.

Eventually, I'd like to see multiple spawn areas based upon a choice at orientation island. Instead of having one teleport choice, have 20 posters. Let the new comers click one. If they click the poster of the Star Ship Enterprise, they get ported to the Sci-Fi Museum. If they click the guitar, they go to a musician's destination. If they click the "bling bling", they go somewhere appropriate. Any so on. They'll wind up in a destination they will enjoy, and most likely, get along well with the people there. Rotate the destinations based upon the number of people on that parcel at a given time, so there will be SOMEONE there. Perhaps have someone from the Greeting Team sign in to say, "This parcel is ready to receive"?

Just some ideas. I find myself depressed that I no longer enjoy the welcome area, because it was one of my favorite places in SL. Any other ideas on how to improve educational events and the newcomer experience in general? I'm all ears.

Regards,

-Flip

I endorse this feature and/or product.

I have never spent more than 30 seconds in the welcome area. Ever. On a main account or an alt. Never. Even when I was 24 hours old. Never. Ever. No right-thinking person spends any time in a game's welcome area LOL.

The Lindens should have the same function that they have at the telehubs where people can put in their ads and notecards. And these should rotate over time, and newbies should be able to click on them and go to those places. It would be very easy to install without having to decide the 20 feted who get to have newbies come and throw them business. Just make the notecard thingies as free and open as they are at some (but not all) telehubs.




OK, but what if someone makes a great head with this, uploads 20 textures and pays $200, then decides to sell it for $20? They should be able to do that. But they can't if it is "free" and yet "not in the public domain". It's not about creators being "threatened". It's about freedom of buyers and of innovators. What happens in SL is there is a culture to mob-attack anyone who sells anything that is "free" -- even if they ask the creator if they can -- it is considered uncool to ask someone who is a cool content queen giving away all free stuff whether they deign to sell their product and besmirch themselves with dreaded icky commerce.

I agree with most that has been said here. I have only been in SL for about 2 months and in that time I have seen the numbers of classes being offered to be diminishing. I find this sad as classes are one of my most favourite parts of SL. The emphasis in this post however, on building and scripting classes is a little disappointing though - there are other things to learn about, SL related and not - Linden paid or not.

Perhaps this injection of less 'technical' instruction is what you are refering to when you say that the dynamics of the 'players' in SL is/has changed. Perhaps the Linden support for such classes may have to expand to keep people interested in running them?

That said, I am planning on holding regular classes very shortly in subjects that are not related to SL 'playing', building or scripting. And I bet the moment I post them there will be an influx of classes once again - when instead I should have taken advantage of the lull that seems to be happening currently!

But that would also only be a good thing and I hope to go to as many as possible!

I think the main things that stop me holding classes are the restrictions.. Having to get aproval for the class in the first place is supposedly, easy enough to do, but its extra bother that gets in the way which wasn't there before...

The other thing is L$500 isn't really that much anymore, especially not for an hours work. I have the choice between holding a class for L$500 or spending an hour building things I can sell from then onwards, I know which one I'm choosing at the moment

The thing that used to persuade me to hold events was to hold a mentor event and then a resident event one after another, so its closer to L$1000 pay for an hour an a half rather than $500 for an hour. But theres now a limit to 1 class a day, 7 a week.

Other contributors are, not getting paid if you get under 5 in attendance despite the fact you've done the work, having to send in a report manually through email again, having to check there aren't any similar classes within 2 hours of your own and it can take up to a week to get paid. Plus you have to update your classes to keep up with the updates. Building and texturing classes with have to be seriously updated for 1.6.

All this together is enough to put me off holding them at the moment. If it becomes more automated, easier to do, or the pay is increased then I'd consider starting again, but for the moment its too much hassle.

Zap

I'm a noob. I'm only a week old, the shrinkwrap's barely off. Yes, I want classes!

I was surprised to find so few classes available in the Events listing. Part of what's so great about SL is that you can create just about anything you want, given time and ability. The hard part is the ability -- learning how to create. I'm the kind of person who will dive right in to stuff like this but quickly get caught on the all the fiddly little details. Having an experienced teacher help you through those first bumps in the road is a big help.

Without a constant flow of new talent, places like SL will stagnate. I wouldn't think anybody wants that.

Good question.

First, I have to say that i just don't see the mob-attack culture you are referring to, just as I don't see the FIC arrogance you claim to fight against. I see different opinions (and a few people yelling sometimes), but not a general attitude where I can tar a class of members with such a broad brush.

I see the problem you are raising but I believe the onus is on BOTH the provider of free stuff and the user to use common sense.

If a provider puts something out for free with full perm-rights but they want to retain influence over how it is used, then they should include a note that explains this. "Users" should try to respect this. If a user doesn't like the rules the creator puts forth, then they should delete the object from inventory and move on.

Users, on the other hand, should be very careful about building someone else's creations into their own products unless they have read or received permission. So in this case, use the free head to make one for personal use, but build your own from scratch if you want to sell something... or, again, ask for permission. If you don't and a problem ensues, you have only yourself to blame for being careless.

If a creator puts something out as free and full mod/copy/transfer and does not indicate that they want to restrict usage rights (shall we call it OEM rights?), and then someone else builds this into something they create and charge for, I have limited sympathy for the creator as well. They got themselves into the mess by not being clear about their intentions. (To be clear, i am talking about free things with full permissions, which implies that this is being given to the community, even if it does not guarantee it)

That said, I still say the primary burden lies on the user of a free good. Be very careful with what you build into your products.

This is all common sense. This is all people treating each other in a civil fashion. None of this is debilitating to an efficient economy.

In the RL software business, you are VERY careful with what external code you use. If there is any uncertainty about IP rights, you don't touch it if you are wise. The risk isn't worth it.


P.S. In the art world, things get a lot more blurry and people get upset and make accusations at each other all the time.... "you stole my idea" etc... sometimes true sometimes not. Usually it's such a grey area it just comes down to opinion. A lot of Buster's comments about the creative community hold true here .

PPS. cat, sorry if i am hijacking the thread. not my intention.

PPPS. what eltee said:
/130/2a/38241/4.html#post415493

Shut up noob. I wasn't talking to you.

Oh...Wait... I was, wasn't I?

I would consider teaching a class from time to time if anybody wanted me to.