Removed from Mentor Group?

I can imagine contacting people for government, legal, and tax related issues are a high priority and worthy of direct contact en-mass. (^_^)

I can also see why they used the intended means of communication in order to verify if people are utilizing the intended means of communication as a resource. Now, since I'm already seeing replies that implicate "It's all about the tag"; I can see where this argument is coming from and going. I'm going to kindly wave my hand and scurry off. (^_^)

Thank you. (^_^)y

Yep. Mentoring is all about reading blogs. That's for sure. Helping out new players is clearly secondary.



You and I must be reading a different thread.

You and Toy do not see your worth. Human Resources that work for free are very valuable. Linden Lab contacted everyone in a VAT area about the policy change. That was THOUSANDS of individual e-mails (although they went out after these people were billed). When you are doing something that effects nearly 4,000 customers - you contact each customer with the contact information they supplied to you. Especially since those customers have been working for free for you for some time.

'To Verify'. Not to trick. There is a difference in intentions. Linden Lab knows how many people read the Volunteer Blog. I have counters on my website. It was quite evident to the VTeam leaders that a very small percentage of Mentors were using the vblog as a source of communication. And they can see by the Mentor Meeting attendance records how many and who was attending. If the goal was to increase mentor attendance then there are much more effective ways of achieving that. This underhanded 'herd thinning' is beneath a company that recruited 3,700 volunteers in 4 years.

You scurry off yet you keep coming back salting the wounds and stirring the pot.

Second Life Martyr Group

what Ingrid said.

I have to say I fail to follow Imnotgoing's line of thinking. To my mind the mentoring group is not about gaining access to extra knowledge - indeed the vteamblog and wiki are open to the general public. It is certainly handy to be made aware of upcoming changes but these are not communicated 'in secret' and are posted in public places.

The main reason I joined the Mentors group was to help newbies on HI and the then OI, as non-mentors were not allowed in those areas...mentors won't be allowed there any more, but as being a long-standing mentor is a prerequisite of becoming a (new) Greeter, going back to the beginning of the line is understandably frustrating.

*points up* They used at least 6 (7 if you count office hours) ways for you to find out about it. No amount of twisting and turning will change that fact.

Part of the reason we have a VTeam blog in the first place is because they acknowledged that notices aren't the best way to communicate and since you're usually so in touch with things I'm sure you didn't miss the barrage of notices pointing out the VTeam blog's existance and that all future communication would happen through the blog and no longer in notices (again they never ended up giving up on notices, but if even they had you had ample warning it wasn't the way you should keep in touch).

And neither capping, nor non-deliveyr prevents notices from appearing in the notice history which you can check at any time.

They did in half a dozen different ways, you just couldn't be bothered to listen.

That's what transcripts are for.

They didn't, the VTeam blog is there as main point and you had half a dozen additional different ways to find out.

If they'd emailed your spam filter would have eaten it. You're just full of excuses to blame anyone but yourself for your lack in keeping up to date.

I also noticed you seem to have swallowed your claim that you looked at the wiki during September.

They did communicate, you weren't paying attention which is your fault, not theirs.

Other than people complaining because they can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes to skim over a blog every now there is no drama.

They did contact people. If you were expecting a VTeam Linden to show up, fall to his/her knees and beg you to please fill out the survey that's just not realistic .

It would have been better if they'd simply removed everyone with the option to get reinstated to serve as a wake-up call that you're "sleeping on the job" as far as keeping up is concerned.

Or just do their sneaky group-removal-without-notice-thingy and most wouldn't have even noticed for months to come until they actually tried to tp to a HI.

it boils down to the weeding out worked very well. no matter what grasping at straws are given, it worked.

It doesn't make you a worse mentor by any means .

I disagree with the majority of changes they put the group through since they formed the "VTeam" (mentors spending all their time helping other mentors on a private sim is just ridiculous in my view, disqualify those that don't know a thing and let mentors help the people they're supposed to be helping to name just one), least of all the Live Help bashing they tend to do whenever I bring it up and the irony of killing off Live Help while instituting a hierachy of mentors who only exist to "help" other mentors rather than bother with the general population.

But beyond agreeing or disagreeing things are the way they are and they think the blog and all the communication "noise" is important so it is part of being a mentor these days.

I don't disagree with that, I just disagree with the claim that there was no way of knowing and it's just some big conspiracy.

Toy, stop alting.

get over your self, I have one alt and name is Toy Halfpint, I need no more, do you?

Yeah I can kick out half the members of one of my groups as well. GO ME!

self inflicted wounds

what?

<rolls eyes>

There is an RSS feed for the VTeam blog, for those that use a feed reader, and a service like feedblitz can forward that feed to your email.

Why are you being so passive aggressive to a group of people who just think they deserve more than to be turffed out of a group they were commited to for years (despite not reading blogs and going to meetings) without so much as a thank you? You seem really angry. Why?

There's not much love lost between me and the VTeam anymore, but I have to come down on their side for this issue. They grew the group out of their control and it was a mess, and they've done something to reduce it again to a size that they can manage, given their abilities.

They gave the existing Mentors lots and lots of notice, and for those who Mentor and didn't hear about it, it would be nice if you would help come up with a foolproof way for them to have notified you. Because they actually did quite a bit, as far as Lindens go, and as far as the inworld methods and extra methods offer.

I don't think this was the right approach, I think there could have been an alternative method, that would have accomplished the same goal, while retaining the goodwill they created by having people join the Mentor group. (and I told the VTeam a few months back my idea for this)

But despite that, you can't be a member of a group and completely ignore it and its needs and expect that you have some real claim on being a member. The VTeam may have done some arbitrary things in the past, but this definitely isn't one of them.

If you have a complaint about this method, look at ways it could have been done better, and maybe politely send it on to Blue Linden. We always seem to create this adversarial relationship with many Lindens, because they aren't all-seeing gods who know how to communicate perfectly. They're human, and despite their willingness to say they are visionaries (and many are), they still make dumb decisions and stupid mistakes like the rest of us.

I'm not excusing mistakes, but in this case, I give the VTeam full credit for the attempt to do this in a professional way. If you're not a Mentor because of this, its probably your oversight that caused it, and not anything nefarious or exclusionary.

My 2 cents..... an ex-Mentor and ex-Live Helper

I'll be honest, I did find everything about the mentor group noisy lately. The inworld messages and all the rest of it was pretty overwhelming. Which is why I ended up ignoring most of it while continuing to spend time with new people and helping out.

That being said, I think something as big as cutting the group in half warranted a much bigger effort communication-wise by the volunteer team if they in fact did want to get the word out, which means maybe going above and beyond what you would do normally. LL has our email addresses on file and there is absolutely no reason for them to have not used them. Most people check their email daily out of habit whether or not they log into sl.

I'm going to have to agree with voodoo and say this was an effort to just cull people and in doing so, give 1500 volunteers the middle finger.

That was a thoughtful post but I have to disagree with this part. The email I received from them the day after I was removed from the group was pretty bad. Something along the lines of:

"We gave you plenty of notice and you didn't respond. You have been removed from the mentor group. "


WOW YOU ARE SO WELCOME VTEAM. LOL

Why you think weeding out the owner of Free Dove was a positive thing is beyond me.

Your misguided immersion into corporate red tape is blinding you to what a volunteer's role is and what the coordinator of those volunteers is responsible for. One does not use a procedure to trick people into retiring from a volunteer group.

Oh I agree Ingrid... I wasn't referring to the parting email.... that was a simple form email, which clearly could use a LOT of work.

perhaps I dislike whining. perhaps when others feel they are anointed and deserve special treatment. Ive seen a fee posts here that the Mentor program will be better off that they are gone. and lastly I am allowed oppinions here and dont have to agree

you assume to much

I do completely agree with that .

SLVI land lottery, mentor organized events, coaching/shadowing/linguists, gestures project, blah, blah, blah. Nothing I personally care about and I tend to just tune it out as well.

A shakedown probably would have gotten about the same effect: basically what they did now except include the possibility of just getting reinstated by dropping a notecard on one of them. Basically just a "pay attention" slap on the wrist and those that really cared would have just gotten back in while the effort in having to send a notecard would still ensure most dropped likely wouldn't bother.

I know I wouldn't sign up again the normal way only to become a mentor apprentice and have to sit through "classes" while some newbie mentor "teaches" you about being a mentor . That is just a bit insulting.

After what they've been doing to the group for the past year, they really had to cull though.

It would have been better if they'd done it based on something more substantial than a "Yes/No" survey, or made everyone who'd joined in the past year and was part of the problem jump through hoops to stay in the group but it had to be done one way or another.

A few months back they were for a brief moment considering dropping people who hadn't made it to at least one meeting/office hour/something in the past X months, they went as far as recording attendance. Then they had the idea that everyone had to apply to a "specialty" role (coach, linguist, greeter, etc) in order to be considered "active". This was better than those ideas at least.

And that's our fault?

It is an amazing invention that came out earlier this century. it is called TIME STAMPED E-MAIL.

Some of you feel that because the VTeam misstepped and threw Greeters and instructors into one group and then recruited yet more people into a huge group - that the members of the group are to blame and should suffer while the VTeam members that caused this mess are rewarded with a more maneageable group. This is not a promising trend.

Claiming that volunteers that "completely ignored the group's needs" were the only ones cut is absolutely wrong. People that have served tirelessly for several years and were not made aware of this major change were also effected.


I sent a method idea to Amber Linden - I offered to send messages to every mentor account that did not renew - She dismissed my suggestion. Robin Linden has yet to respond to my e-mail and notecard concerning this.

Did WE create this? Really?

You cannot take any staff member and deem them Volunteer Coordinators - or call the guy in the next cubicle The Department of Public Works Leader. These are skilled positions that professionals fill. And when people just take on titles without any real insight or experience in that area - things like this happen. And will continue to happen in Linden Lab. One cannot grow into a full service company and just hire people with tech and money making skills.

And they should not stand behind the corporate logo and not admit to such mistakes and make every effort to correct them immediately.

The goal of this procedure was to cut as many Mentors as possible in a very short period of time. And that is the wrong thing to do to volunteers.

The adfarmers had to October first to pack it in. Those that did not were not suspended, kicked out of SL or had their land seized. They recived a PERSONAL E-MAIL from the Linden Community Team giving them one more chance to fix the problem. This double standard, this trickery and unprofessionalism on the part of the VTeam members is outrageous. Adfarmers treated with more respect than volunteers. Outrageous.