Nasty Mentor Incident

Z

I'm still four-square behind Zack on this one. After all, Zack is no annoying, loquatious Prokofy Neva, he's been described as a polite, quiet fellow.

1. He was predisposed to see an event as "not real" because of the massive sharking of this system where people would just gather friends to go AFK and automatically receive prize payments, gather grants and dwell, and call it an organized event. Even if he is jaded, it's not his fault, there was a bad climate when he got here.

2. The girl didn't answer his IM probably sitting with a string of IMs, so he grew more persistent.

3. She took a fit and escalated the incident.

4. It's not certain he could even get on the sim at that point because he originally started the story and the complaint without being able to go on the sim.

5. I wouldn't have brought a Linden in to a thing like this but since he embarked on that course, he is rightly concerned about the Linden's attitude.

6. The firl so OBVIOUSLY had a club and a dance, on to which she tacked on her "educational" event almost as an afterthought, that I can't imagine why you have to second-guess that, except for that wagons-circling phenomenon I spoke of above.

I really want to stay out of this but I can't. First Prof, we are all over 18 here, therefore there are no "girls" in SL. Second, she did answer his IM, he even said so. Third, she said she applied for the event and cleared it with Lindens and that took a week, so it wasn't a "tacked on" event. In addition, she responded to all requests for TP. We were all there standing and waiting to go.

I was sorry the mentor got upset and left. But it was her first event and maybe she reacted badly. I rather imagine she had visions of a happy sharing of information and got a very flustered by the opening negative energy.

Barmovic,
TY for your input. I could not sit down and watch because at the time I asked was this a real event I could not even get into the sim where the event was being held. The reason I could not get into the sim was because the mentor's club event was ongoing and the sim was full.

Think of it this way which was the way i was thinking: If I invited you to my house for dinner and when you got there you could not get in because the house was full of people I had invited there for lunch, wouldnt you wonder if my dinner invitation was legit?

If you ever looked at the events list for events in Gama you will see that there is always an event going on at that club. The mentors event may have been over but all the people were still in the club and the next one was starting. Look at the events list for Gama. All the events are listed by different people at the club but its the same club , same location and same group of escorts that hold the events. There is a nonstop event at that cluib which is all the same thing, same people dancing. They did it before to get around the event number limitation per day when they were paid back and to get the dwell.There was nothing like that. The only person carrying on was the mentor, This whole incident took less than 10 minutes before it was concluded. There was no reason she could not have held the class. She overreacted and got hysterical because I asked that question of her in private IM BEFORE THE CLASS WHEN I COULD NOT EVEN GET INTO THE SIM!!! She cancelled the class because she was upset that she was neg rated even thought she neg rated me.

She didnt mute or eject me because I was not being abusive. I am not that type of person. The reason I even am talkin about it was because the situation was so bizarre and it was clear gaming the new event payment rules as they were before Haney changed them.

I cant agree that it would ok for me to invite you to my house and then you cant get in because the house is full from other company, and its wrong for you to ask me if the invitation was real. The only carrying on was the mentor who overreacted.

I notice that you are ignoring that she is having her security guard from the club send me intimidating and threatening messages. I am ignoring them. Why would she be doing that if she was not an instigator? Why would i be ignoring the baiting if I am lookign for a fight? Why didnt she mute me or eject me if i was really griefing as accused? It never happened that way. thats why.

ah that explains it. That explains a great many things. They very probably should have increased the requirements for mentorship.

Just want to add that I was in the Club when she announced that she will be teaching a class on Dancing to newbies outside of the club and encouraged us to come and help out if we like. There was NO event (that I was aware of) taking place inside the club at that time - it was over and we were all just hanging on.

More Reasons to go back and redo mentoring requirments!? Yet another Black Eye for Good mentors that do help.............

/me raises his hands to chest level, palms up, and looks from one to the other as if weighing some imaginary conundrum.

"Mountain? Molehill?"

/me shrugs, dusts off his hands and walks away from this thread.

Definitely sounds like a molehill to me. All that these rants against mentors and live helpers are going to accomplish is to ensure that no one wants to be a mentor or live helper. So lets see... if I want to attend an event but I can't get in because the sim is full then the proper course of action is to accuse the host of fraud and call a Linden? Going by that logic, if I'm trying to get into an event and the sim is full because other people not involved with the event are in the sim they should be made to leave? Sense of entitlement much? The mentor in question should be being apologized to profusely for having to deal with this kind of prima donna bullshit, not being hung out to dry.

OK, April, I'm happy to say "women" instead of "girls," that's a good point. So often the behaviour in SL seems like a bunch of cliquish girls in 8th grade junior high school gossipping and passing around a slam book, that I naturally gravitate to the term "girls".

Maybe she answered his IM, but he couldn't get into the sim, after an event was advertised, due to her ongoing club activity.

It doesn't matter if she applied for the event and cleared it with the Lindens. So? They're busy and don't always realize that a person also has a club with dances as a business or dwell-magnet they are promoting, and don't realize the context, because they can't be everywhere at once. They rely on the very status the person already has -- mentor -- to give clearance to an event without looking much farther. And as someone pointed out, now that mentors can have events on their own land, and not at Linden territory, that gives added incentive to promote your business while you're at it, having a "mentor" event.

Zack is rightly cutting through all this bullshit and calling it for what it is -- a cosy set-up by privileged players being feted by the Lindens. He even caught a Linden right in the act of feting -- giving the benefit of doubt to this privileged older player with the fake event. He didn't use those robust and hyperbolic words -- I use them -- but it's obvious once you clear away your bias.

What's hilarious is how everyone is crying about this poor *woman* and her supposedly wondrous event that she was so eager to put being "ruined" and it was her "first time" and she was "so eager to teach" blah blah. Well, if nothing else, it's poor planning to have a dance right on top of it, but I'm sorry, we've see absolutely nothing at all here to prove it wasn't the fake event Zack suspected it was in the first place.

Haney said they now changed the rules, so that anyone with 30 days and no bans can hold the event. So instead of doing the harder thing and screening mentors harder, which may be too much work, they opened it up and made it more democratic, meaning there might be lots more dances pretending to be quilting circles, but at least everybody will get to game it out, as they did before, and everyone will be happy OR at least in theory competition with the privileged class might prevent abuse and drive up quality. I hope for the latter.

On the other hand, the criteria for getting a pass on an educational event seems quite steep, and I imagine that the queue will back up now while staff manually check each application, especially in an atmosphere where people are crying "foul".

It's one more reason to change around this system: give everyone a dwell purse that has much more value; let them vote with their feet where they want to go, let the points increase the more time they spend, let them control and see how it is allocated instead of being in some mysterious formula, let people with events ask for pay, or provide something so compelling that lots of people come and vote with their dwell feet, with real points that really add something to their coffers. That's if you decide to go on using a subsidy-type system.

Fake event?? Zack asked if it was... You're Declaiming it!
You'd better have some proof of this. This is an accusation and a personal attack against the Mentor in question, whether she was in the right or wrong.

Oh, stop threatening, Siobhan, it's not becoming.

Zack asked if it was fake...he told the story...he submitted more and more and MORE detail in response to a flurry of hostile questioning...and yes, he convinced me that it was a fake event. I'm sure if a Linden were to pull up all the transcripts and so on and if they conduct an impartial inquiry, they will find that this event, if not an outright deliberate fake, was so flimsy as really not to entitle a grant. And even if somehow it is so borderline that it has to be blessed as a "real event," the matter here is really about the *behaviour* of a vaunted "mentor" and the Linden bias in this case.

I'm calling it a fake event because under Zack's persistent and unflappable replying to hostile questoning, I'm more convinced then ever.

That's not a "personal attack" on a sainted "mentor," it's calling a situation what it was as it has been amply demonstrated. The Linden bias in this case is also alarming.

Or do you think that all mentors, Live Helpers, and oldbies get a free ride, can never be questioned, can never be criticized, because they are always and everywhere right? And that people who come forward to discuss abuses are then liable to be slammed as "personal attackers" -- right or wrong? Your "right or wrong" is like Pendari's "right or wrong" where she decided in advance that if you disagree with an oldbie and characterize something they have done as abusive or wrong or even just impolite, it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong because that person will have a slew of defenders and you're just an asshat.

See what's wrong with this system?

You don't?

Well, could it be because you're a part of it?

Unless people like us continue to brave the slings and arrows of outraged feted oldbies, the game will never improve.

Nobody with the Mentor, Live Help,. or Linden hat should be behaving in this appalling high-handed and biased manner with impunity!

I didn't threaten anything, and as to what's becoming or not, how dare you?
This is the first time I've ever had to report a post.

While there is/was some productive conversation in this thread, I wanted to remind everyone that personal attacks are not appropriate for the forums and if they continue, this thread will be closed.

It didn't matter that he was a "better human" because Prokofy was in the foyer waiting for another excuse to rage against the machine.

I suggest a class in reading comprehesion for you, bud. You always seem to get stuff out of a post that isn't there, or miss some stuff that is.

FYI, the rules for being a mentor haven't really changed at all. They've just been restated and clarified. You could never be a mentor if you were abusive, had legit complaints on you and warnings, or violated the TOS. Char in fact did a mentor house cleaning just a coupla months ago and cut some folks loose, primarily I think for inactivity.

You really need to be around SL more than a few months to put this all in perspective. Try talking to somebody who has been here a while.

I used to be a mentor >_> <_<
And an instructor >_> <_<

I see the person involved doesnt have mentor in her group list on her profile so was she kicked out? If I am so wrong why would that have happened? Also the mentor called the linden not me. I am not sure why you cant see both sides of this.

I agree that at this point it seems to me a mountain from a molehill that I wanted to talk about so I wont be posting about it anymore.

TY to everyone who added their opinions about this incident even though I disagree with some, its always nice to get the other side's view on it.

She didn't get a chance to be kicked out. The incident upset her enough that she quit the group of her own accord.

well it sure sounds like you know her. Did she talk about why she had her club security guy standing next to her holding a gun and why he didnt shoot me if i was really so disruptive? And why another of her male escorts is sending me threats now?

Really try to be a bit objective to. All I wanted was to go to the class event and what i said to her in private IM was one question which i told all of you here and that should not be enough to set off anyone like that. I think there were other emotional issues goign on with her.

sorry i posted again when i said i was done. i will try to walk away from this posting now. bye to all who helped me think this through with the thoughtful posts, especially April who I discovered is a very nice lady. So some good did come out of this

No, I don't... I just happen to have read the thread... and April posted that she'd decided to leave the group.

I also wanted to say that I wont be around much once again since I am returnign to school. I attend a seminary and it is not possible for me to enter second life while I am at school. I enjoy second life when I am home and love seeing all the very creative builds and creations the members make.

I think you are all creative wonderful people and I thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

See you on my next visit home!

Zack, I just feel that you could have handled the issue a lot more diplomatically and had your concerns addressed without disrupting the event for the people who were already there. It seems to me that assumptions were jumped to that may have been legitimate, but just as easily might not have. When it comes to things like this where you feel perhaps the system is being gamed you should address it with the Lindens, but you should also think about the impact your accusations might have if it turns out that you're wrong. I don't think that confronting her was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

You're aware of Redwall Muck? ;p

Prokofy,

<<OK, April, I'm happy to say "women" instead of "girls," that's a good point. So often the behaviour in SL seems like a bunch of cliquish girls in 8th grade junior high school gossipping and passing around a slam book, that I naturally gravitate to the term "girls".>>

You really are a naughty boy, aren't you?