04-13-2005 14:29
In an an announcement posting the establishment of a new volunteer "greeter program" has been made along with an application for people to volunteer.

I only hope that this new program is better administered than the current Mentor and Live Help groups are. I had been a mentor back in October of 2003 and resigned after six months of abject failure of LL to prevent mentor events from being attacked by griefers. Put another way, helping to pass on understanding of SL was more or less equivalent to putting a "please shoot me off the stage" sign on your chest. Indeed, just this morning while assisting new players in the Welcome Area, I saw one long-standing devoted Mentor sign off with "well, that's enough neg-rates in the WA for me this morning". A recent attempt by me and another player to revive the "mentor show-and-tell" events privately was indeed met by a naked, new, armed player shooting the host off the stage. Had I not been there as security "monitor" to ban the shooter from the property and summon a Liaison, the event would likely have ended as the shooter remained at the edge of the property and continued to shoot the attendees at the event. Fortunately, in this case the Liaison responded promptly and the 20+ attendees were able to continue to enjoy the event.

Approximately five months ago I applied to be an uncompensated Live Helper. I have yet to hear anything regarding my application other than the initial automated response. I have heard from current members of Live Help that not only has their "duty-rotation" continued longer than expected but that they are occasionally rewarded with group-wide upbraidings to "be more polite". These veiled reprimands are almost certainly caused by a few incidents by a few live helpers and serve to demoralize the preponderance of the volunteer corps who are giving freely of their time and effort.

Aside from the specific mechanics of the "greeter" program, what does it offer or require that Mentor or Live Help does not? To my eye, nothing. Will I be signing up yet again to provide free labor to LL given the foregoing? No.

I still do quite a lot of new player assistance through presence at the Welcome Area and referrals by Live Helpers I know. Brace Coral has formed a "Second Life New Citizen's Inc." group and has built a headquarters and often passes out information to the 27 members of the group. Through SL NCI, I'm doing what I've always been doing and have the group resources to draw upon if needed. Of course, NCI doesn't afford one much more than the ability to put a title on which seem to be as broadly ignored as "Mentor" or "Live Helper" without the negativity associated with the Linden run groups. In this case, Brace's efforts do that which LL ought be doing but doesn't. If ever there was an argument for player run groups to surpass the abilities of the ill-supervised "official" groups, I've not seen it. I heartily recommend that interested parties do apply to Brace Coral's noble endeavor. I guarantee that you'll at least get a response.

If the Peace Corps treated its volunteers as poorly as Mentor and Live Help do, I doubt anyone would ever sign up.