New Island Project

I think this is a great idea. There are a LOT of newbies coming into SL. Not all of them are alts

The more activities, areas, private sims etc. that cater to newbies and midbies, the higher the percentageo of newbies will hang around and the longer they will stay in the game.

I will bet that a fair number of newbies join, and then feel so pestered by residents competing for their attention (or dwell), or that feel so intimidated by clutter and complexity, that they just go away.

I would be glad to help, I could give a couple classes a month

Will there be sheep on this island?

~Ulrika~

I can't wait to see this place take form. Best of luck to you, Schwan! Please keep us apprised of your status.

Well, you have a Money Tree ready to move over if this does take shape. Let me know. Also willing to help setup podium etc. for ya as well, I already have working versions that just need tweaking for the new envrionment.

As for myself, well, I've been dabbling as a generalist, so I may be able to run a Q&A now and then as well.

Sounds like a cool idea schwan - Sounds very much in line with what the old store in Davenport was doing.. In fact it may even be a good idea to incorporate them...

If you think moving the Gnu Wave Store there after you're set up is a good idea, maybe we can have a round table with the old crew and see if that is beneficial for all.

Siggy.

I want to thank everyone for their support thus far. Based just on this forum response, I will place an order for a sim this week. I will be contacting everyone interested so as we can discuss this further.

Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated.

Count me in! I can teach or whatever, let me know!

Schwan,

I think this is a great idea and would love to help. One of the big problems with classes for newbies that I have seen is having a lag free and grief free area. It is very frustrating to try and teach someone how to do something while having the teaching area fire bombed or to be 3 neg rated because you have asked a disruptive person to leave.

I would be happy to dedicate some time to instruct in beginning building, creation of plants and animals and some other helpful newbie orientation classes that I've had in mind and have given to people on a more individual basis.

Also, if I can contribute any plants, furniture, or textures to your build let me know.

Rose

.

Ugh, all the usual suspects creating the usual closed society, and blaze even wants them to force those they refer to automatically get put in their groups and automatically teleport to their lots!

Gah, can't people have a little breathing room!



This is what concerns me, Buster. I view this project as just a very large pestering that is going to have a very large following of adulatory oldbies and newbies because Schwanson is Schwanson. And while I'm all for Schwanson being Schwanson, I'm absolutely right to blow the freakout post on this one, Azazeal, because what's very likely to happen is that the clamour of people in this thread and in the group for a newbie referral fasttrack in fact will be met routinely by LL with a big "yes".

LL had already laid the groundwork for this by suggesting that they might have a system where people could send in their landmarks and coordinates if they were willing to serve as greeters and helpers to newbs, and they could then get those referrals.

Obviously, newbie referrals and harnessing newbie traffic, especially now that it is doubling! Quadrupling! is the cash cow that any savvy oldbie wants to grab on to, especially if they can get Linden endorsement.

And if someone even without Linden endorsement grabs on to this lucrative trade and sucks the newbies to themselves, well, it won't be surprising, it will just be "the SL way" and will simply yet another opportunity to provide alternatives

I don't at all have "sour grapes" about their ability to do that, and the liklihood that once again, a large and already-feted presence in the game will perform some public service to further burnish a rep to increase overall sales. That's to be expected. I don't need to have Lindens pipelining newbies to me or have other players providing free help to me because newbies contact me all on their own, imagine that! They just come -- from word of mouth, ads, fly-bys. I get more newbies than I can even handle. There are plenty of newbies to go around, people, believe me.

I am just for the Lindens *not* favouring businesses in this fashion by steerage as part of their overall efforts to keep a level playing field. I think the only reasonable thing for the Lindens to do is to have a sign board that rotates ads for services to newbies. They could start simply by fixing the ability to post player ad signs within the telehub wall in Waterhead -- these and other telehubs remain broken.

Aweee Schwanson! This is such a sweet idea! I'm normally pretty busy but I will gladly make time to help out if you need me. I would love to make this idea work!


"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." -Henry David Thoreau

Count me in...If I can help in anyway, let me know

Huggerz,
MJ

Profoky,

Instead of complaining about something that doesn't even exist yet, why not come and help with this? If you don't want to help on the island, I would be more than happy to refer people over to where you are teaching. I would think you would want to give a land class, explaining renting/buying/zoned sims.

This is not some oldbie conspiracy, anyone who wants to help can. Ideally some of the residents that take advantage of this program will eventually become instrumental in it's success.

The retention of new players in SL is crucial for SL's success. To empower people with the tools they need to succeed in SL is the ultimate goal here, not some marketing ploy. Anyone doing business in SL wants it to grow, let's all help it along.

I like that last part especially.

I see "very likely" and "might". Not "is", "currently" or "actually".

When you can say "LL is favoring such-and-such noob support group by doing A,B or C", then a freakout would be semi-understandable. However, they aren't. Therefore you appear to be grasping at potential reasons to freak out without waiting for these reasons to actually materialize. A pre-emptive freakout, if you will, for the sake of freaking out.



Excellent suggestion. I'm not sure why you want to bury it in the thick of a post insinuating Schwanson's altruism is the result of anything other than generosity:



If you want to say he's performing charitable acts in order to make himself look good to boost sales, just say it. I could say that about any number of corporations that have philanthropical branches, but I have yet to hear "Friggin' GM, who do they think they are, starting a scholarship fund for the arts?"

If there is a litmus test for complete motivational purity in any benevolent action taken by anyone, I doubt there is a single person that would pass, yourself included.

.
__________________

Schwanson,

1. Are you planning on asking the Lindens for steerage to your island, and referrals to you as a "greeter"? Are you going to ask the Lindens to install blaze's idea that all people you refer should be logged in already as a member of your sales group and pushed a landmark to your Welcome Island? Yes or no. We can continue to have a more productive conversation on this issue when you answer yes or no to my very pertinent question of whether you will ask for Linden funnelling or not -- because that colours how I will go on perceiving this not-existing project.

2. I already give a class called "What is Tier" which is on the events schedule now and then and I plan to make more time for it, but I can do that without any special referrals from Lindens or from you, and I can do it on my land, giving myself and my tenants dwell and opportunities, rather than getting sucked into a scheme to promote your land,your business, your dwell -- because I'm not interested in being in your favor bank scheme with all the "sheep" and stuff, Schwanson, I want the economy to be more diverse than that.

3. Why should I be helping to drive traffic and business and dwell to your island, Schwanson lol? I have my own islands on the grid where I need traffic and dwell and business where I need to invest my efforts to help my own customers who are also investing their efforts LOL. Or is there supposed to be only one business in SL? I'm happing to go on doing what I do by the normal rules of the road and the normal rules of competition, which involve openly providing a service and advertising it without any special perks or giveaways or favour-banking or help from Lindens.

4. What exactly are you implying by this idea of "some of the residents who take advantage"? Honestly, it's not suspicious paranoia to point out the obvious: you're creating a steerage institution, a funnel. You'll collect up newbies, apportion them around to all your special friends, and make sure they throw the business and commissions to all your special friends -- buy the clothes, houses, vehicles, animations of your special friends. You'll help newbies learn, precisely so they can buy your friends' clothes, houses, vehicles, and animations. Well, sure, Schwanson, go ahead and do it, but I will point out that it is yet another wiki with clamouring for LL help in which you are providing a loss-leader, with FREE LABOUR from your friends (getting them to do FREE scripting, teaching, building to help YOUR business) in the medieval guild fashion.

You'll be able to justify the loss temporarily because the traffic/dwell and sales that come for land, goods, services, etc. to your closed referred circle will more than make up for your losses.

But I'm here to point out that closed merchandising like the Middle Ages or Amway is not something that really opens up the economy and creates the liberal free flow of goods, services, and information required in prosperous, modern economy.

Instead of sapping initiative of newbies by smothering them with free products and help disguised as infomercials for products, you should find ways to help newbies gain income other than sex slavery and Tringo and foster their own efforts to enter the economy. That's what I do with tier donation, first land buys, and low-rent for vending space. But this is just my idea. It's my idea that's going to compete with your idea. You're obviously giong to do your idea all you want, with oldbie and Linden help. I'm definitely doing my idea without oldbie and Linden help -- all I want the Lindens to do is make their servers work better and fix the flaws in the land tools.

Meanwhile, people who want more choice than just you and your self-selected friends' merchandise will hopefully acquire the savvy and preserve the freedom to fly around the world a little more and visit a whole variety of other things.

5. Retention of newbies is something I daily work on with all my programs and businesses. So let me say that any attempts will simply fail if they try to pilllory me or shame me by claiming that I don't do this, or to portray my criticism of your steerage program as reluctance to acknowledge the importance of newbie help, or my unwillingness to come join your subbotnik, like the pernicious efforts to portay me even falsely as a scammer of newbies.

I'll go on helping newbies, just as I"ve been doing for six months -- many of them are my customers. I'll go on doing my businesses that aren't going to reach the wealth or profile of your businesses -- just as I have been doing for months. What I will also do is complain about attempts by players to grab Linden endorsement or portray what they do as anything other than a loss-leader infomercial.

I'm still pretty much a noob (just over a week old ) and I think something like this would be awesome! If I had any skills I'd offer to help but alas, I do not. I hope that this works out cause I am sure SL would benefit from it.

Profoky,

You have a lot of good ideas and some good points in your posts but sometimes you are like a Florida Love Bug when you jump on an issue.

SL is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I can't imagine why you would call Schwan's motives to question. Also, he is not asking for any special treatment from the Lindens though he is asking for help and input from others in the SL community.

Personally, I'd like to help with this because I have encountered a lot of newbies who do not even know how to change their appearence mode. When I ask them if they have attended any of the classes, they say yeah but it ended because someone rezed a house on the instructor or it got fire bombed or of recent, they have not even seen any listed in events.

Some of the people that I know who have been kind enough to donate their time to teaching newbies have been 3 neg rated because they tried to eject someone who was disruptive. Things like this don't exactly encourage people to continue teaching newbies.

A private sim dedicated to teaching and helping newbies is a really good solution and I am happy to contribute in any way that time allows me to and if you look at the time when I joined SL, you will see that I am neither an oldbie or FIC. I'm not much of a content creator either. I build something that pleases me and if people like it and want to buy it, well cool. If not, well cool, because it just hangs out on my virtual property where I can play with it.

I do like teaching because it opens a door where I can see what others create, which I enjoy and also one where I can meet new people. I also learn things myself when I teach.

Schwan has offered the opportunity to anyone that wishes to help - no more, no less.

.

NETWORKING... it happens in SL, it happens in rl businesses... every day, all the time. Try it. It works.

Azazel,

You're able to take a much kinder, and milder, and more dispassionate stance on these issues -- seeing the Linden program for greeting as not implemented, seeing Schwanson's plan as merely yet another selfless noble oldbie "giving to the community" because you don't witness the ways in which steerage already takes place.

Example: the Lindens pulling the events grants, but then leaving all grants for educational classes only to their pals the Mentors. I screamed loud on this unfairness, as did others, and it was revised.

Example: putting Linden collectible cards on the lands of certain well-known oldbie players giving them loads of traffic during a Linden card collecting frenzy. I screamed loud about this favoritism, and demanded to have the right to have card dispensors on my property, or have anybody ask for them and get them, and the answer was, instead of giving them to anyone who asked, the system of putting them on player land was simply removed completely.

Example: having special projects awards where players get a sim without paying the up-front purchase price and only having to pay tier, and gettng special free Linden help and advertising. I screamed loudly about this, as did others, and the Lindens don't have this kind of favourtism project any more.

I could cite others, but I'll quit for now. All of this screaming has only gotten me further personal attacks and intense hatred and dislike from a tiny but influential proportion of players who post here, but I could care less. I think it's very, very important to end favourtism in this game.

You might not wanna go there

_/_/

Yeah, works fine, gives me customers all the time. Without Linden and oldbie help

Translation: If you can't have (insert X), you will scream and cry to make sure nobody does.

Gotcha.

Rose,

I'm trying to understand how Schwanson's thing on his private island is going to end the problem of firebombing griefers.

Can't griefers firebomb on Schwanson's private island?

Or...are you suggesting that the way it will work is that loads of people are going to be swept into Schwan's Newbie Help Club and the island setting will be put on "ban" for all those "not in group"?

Or?? How??

If the point is that a private island will be less visible and accessible to random flybys, then I could only say, yeesh, more closing off of the world!

More funnelling!

Moving GNU, which is accessible now to everyone on the grid, through searches and easy flybys, is now going to get spirited off to a private island? THIS is progress? Huh?

Don't you see what you are doing to the world when you just make it a series of closed, gated communities with internal loops that only feed certain people?

In the name of efficiency and escape from griefing?

So then the logical thing for you to do, is not whine about it when Schwan networks. Cause that would be hypocritical. And we all know you're not a hypocrite.