Goodby SecondLife Mentors

Well, LL has announced that as of December 11th, there will be no more Mentors. But they still want our volunteer help to help them grow.

I'll rush right in for that...for the love of all things Linden of course. Any reasons being given for the cuts?

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest I said this would happen a while ago now, its a shame in some ways as I have been a mentor for 3 and a half years and enjoyed it, but maybe LL feel its time for change, shame I missed the meeting

OK, ok, ok...let's call a spade a spade. You "missed" it or you were somehow "overlooked" when the guest list was created? I, sadly, never made the party either, for I was stopped at the door by a big goon dressed in all black, sporting a name tag that simply said, "Anonymous Linden." I think he was an alt.

There have been mentors in SL?

Pep (Must have missed something too.)

This marks the end of a era. I've been mentoring for many years now. This is very shocking news.

Stop it....I saw that little slave girl attached to your ankles. Surely she was mentoring you in SOMETHING.

Where was this announcement?

Seems like for once I was ahead of the crowd. I left back in March.

At the mentor meeting a few minutes back. Citing the programs lack of scalability.

"The Mentor group itself will disband on December 11th, this includes the Mentor Q&A and Instructor group."

Does anyone have logs?

Fuck you too, LL.

Well... Here comes two free group slits for me. (=_=)

Any word on what will be done for the new residents on Help Islands? Hired greeters? Help Island go bai-bai? (o.O)

Same thing that's happened to most of them for years? They learn how to pick up a torch, wander around blindly for a while, then go to a welcome area for their hazing?

That's a shame. I heard the Mentor chat group was the only place in-world where you could get more drama than the RA forum provides...

No no, you're thinking of Concierge chat.

Interesting question. LL seems to be gradually abandoning the "New User Experience". First, the Orientation Islands went away. No more structured tutorials, poor as they were. Just the Help Islands with (if you were lucky) a Mentor to answer your questions.

Now maybe the Help Islands will go away, and new residents will get dumped directly into Waterhead and Ahern. Wow. That'll improve retention.

More likely, the option to "join a community" will become mandatory, and all new residents will process in through one of the (voluntarily user-supported) community gateways like Virtual Ability or Caledon Oxbridge. Can anybody say, "swamped"? Of course, LL won't put any more information about the Communities out there than they already do, so picking the "right" community for you will be as big a crapshoot as picking your avatar name.

Or maybe Help Island will remain, there just won't be any Mentors there. That'll be a nightmare, too, because the most often asked question there is, "How Do I Get Off This Island?" Even though there are several EXIT signs, one with a huge green glowing beacon. So the islands will fill up with confused residents, not knowing that there is anything else, or if they do have some inkling, not knowing how to get there.

I thought most of the Mentors program was "disbanded" back in 2006/2007..

..or was that where they just took away all the perks?

As far as I would be concerned, that's almost the same thing.

I think LL is looking to shift that "Mentoring" burden to resident communities anyway. Why spend money/employee time on something that the residents will pay them to do?

What is this "Concierge chat" thing I keep hearing about? I am a Concierge customer. <.<

/me is also concierge and was wondering the same thing.

Live help with Concierge chat? VERY entertaining.

In the mail I received when buying my 1st private region I also found the invitation to join the "Concierge Information Group" (or rather was told which Linden to contact to get an inviatation). It *was* meant as a way for LL to give informations to concierge customers (and sometimes also today is used for that, like group notices about current problems), but mostly it's a chat room for concierge customers talking about everything and anything. A few times LL already deactivated the group chat for all the off topic stuff going on there, lol.

Sometimes it is a good source of information - but usually not from Lindens but from other victims aka customers.

This is my worst fear. (>_<

My own reflection on my experience in the Hanja welcome area was the same. Since my draw distance at the time didn't extend beyond the quad, I assumed the grassy area was infinite and there was nothing beyond that place. (>_<

Yes, map and search buttons were there, but my eyes were on the center of the screen. Without help from people around, I was essentially stuck there. (>_<

Well, good news is that just about all gateways have a sign where you can click/teleport to each other. Really handy if you are in a place where they don't speak your language. Maybe all of us have this sign now, I'd have to check.

Also, save for the free new resident dormitories we aren't anywhere near swamped. Busy, oh yes, but we've got tons of capacity and so do most other gateways.

Carl's also started up classes at Oxbridge with a teaching faculty of about 8 or so. Classes are running daily now and it started with a bang with rather large numbers in attendance.

Someone was even foolish enough to try to grief midway through Vanessa's class (heh). Bam! Classes plus entertainment! If I ever do a class there myself and that comes up, I'll do a bit on the avatar "freeze" function, plus "griefer decoration" plus "how to upload to flikr with avatar names as keywords"...

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/volunteers/blog/2009/11/18/volunteering-in-second-life-now-and-in-the-future

Replaced by Second Life Answers, if I was a mentor I'd be deeply insulted!