Goodby SecondLife Mentors

Looks like they are going to charge a L$99 a month listing fee for freebies, a L$3 (minimum) commission on all non-freebie transactions, and a L$10 a month listing fee for non-freebies.

Yeah, that screams "don't use XStreetSL anymore".

"Today we'll present the plan that all of our residents have helped us build."

..and people wonder why everyone gets so cynical about LL.

well. unfortunatley LL just shot themselves in the foot. This is a game that has a VERY high learning curve. They want more users and they want business based community right? but if customer service is cut out of thier own business on the front lines to these new potential customers, they will quit out of sheeer frustration with the games functionality. There will not be anyone around to help them out. Mentors were and are free labor in a sense even though we are volunteers. I vital part of helping new players and customers.

I sense loyalties will change and fairly quicly. people will find other 3D environments because the learnign curve in this one is so high.. and no official help out there now.

/me hugs all the mentors.

You guys rock.

LL sucks.

Thank you Desmond. We are also planning to ramp up our classes events schedule over the next several months to where we are offering about three per day, hopefully including some classes in EU time zones. That's the goal at least. Right now, Friends of Caledon Oxbridge is focused on getting the first wave of classes off the ground and working smoothly.

I don't mind them closing the group; I just wish I could keep the company car and jet.

This is a fine 'Thank you' from LL to all the Mentors that supported that 'Volunteer re-certification' nonsense while several hundred dedicated Mentors were kicked.

Why cause drama, upset people that thought they were appreciated and kick out hundreds of volunteers with no apology to just kick all of them out a few months later?

To all of you Mentors that 'went along with it: Divide and conquer. Keep supporting LL when they screw over your neighbors - and they will definitely screw you over also with no one left to support you when it happens. Live and LEARN.

I've never met a mentor. Not in their mentor capacity, at least.

Why not set Help Island up like a maze, and at the end, the newbie chooses some aspect of Second Life that interests them? With Linden Lab choosing a random spot that falls into that category, each time (via a script and rotating/featured destinations.) It may not be perfect but it's better than the newbies running around said island without purpose and with no idea how to proceed.

I know the signs are literally everywhere, but they don't seem to know to find them, or what to do once they do. Rather than an island, perhaps set it up more like a funnel.

Oh, and at the very start, have some way for people to choose their desired language as they navigate. Is it possible for something to be designed that would translate everything they read?

Even with mentors there, it was a tough time trying to tell some new residents how to exit the island.

"you see this big sign over my head?"

Yes - been there too. It must be nerves on their part? Or, sometimes, translation difficulties.

wow, you must have been a great mentor..I only got a skateboard and this big gold star with my name on it ~sigh~

I have a question, but I'm going to ask you first not to shoot the messenger . . .

I never had a mentor -- I'm not sure why, but I don't remember anyone volunteering to help me when I started. On the other hand I have a friend who swears by them, and had a terrific mentor who is, I think, still on his friends list.

The Herald ( ) has just run a story on the disbanding of the Mentors programme, and most interesting to me were the two comments that it has already attracted. Yes, I know blogs, and the Herald in particular, well enough to know not to put too much credence in what appears in comments, but neither of these sounds as though they were written by a 40 year old still living in his mother's basement:

http://foo.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2009/11/ll-to-sl-mentors-your-services-are-no-longer-needed.html#comment-6a00d8341bf70253ef012875b74724970c

Both comments are in agreement that the mentors are no great loss, as they (apparently) often engaged in what was in essence bullying.

Does anyone who was either a mentor, or had experience with one, have any thoughts on this?

/me is in the mentor group. I don't get a lot of time in-world lately but you're welcome to look through my post history here (except for yesterday, when I was more than a little grumpy) and judge for yourself.

When I was in-world, I was more of a loner mentor - just sorta wandering around the grid, chatting with random people and helping out if I could. When I went to places like Help Island, I never saw anything that looked like bullying from other mentors.

I made it through the first six months without anyone offering to mentor me or otherwise give me any useful assistance, except a succession of wannabe gfs who - just like rl - wanted to change me as an incentive to getting commitment from me; like that's gonna happen, right?

One of them was a habitue of the various welcome areas named after colours (no I don't remember which) that I hung around with her until it got toooo boring, but during that time I did note that lots of avatars with official sounding tags (who knows the truth - you can tag yourself with anything once you own a group) were quite happy to engage in gentle teasing of n00bs, perhaps as a means of preparing them for the more hazardous hazing that ensued once they appeared to be looking the other way, or in multiple cases, when they refused to become involved in preventing verbal or physical griefing. I can remember any number of instances of abusive language being ignored by apparent mentors, even when assistance was requested of them.

Pep (And I am not just talking about the Banana Song either. )

Thanks Meade.

I have to say that the only things I've ever actually heard myself about mentors were all positive. (Unless the guy who tried to pick me up on Help Island or wherever it was, was a mentor -- I never checked). I just found it curious that the first two comments on mentors in the Herald article both made mention of this sort of thing.

I've heard the stories about Bad Mentors. People who used that status to act as a "policeman". People who used the tag to puff themselves up. People who used it to funnel people to their own in world store. I am sure that there were some people like this in the group.

But I never met one personally. All the Mentors I worked with were patient, dedicated helpers. Most of them had large inventories of freebie items to give to new residents to help them get started.

Some were brusque...they'd give you a quick answer to your question and move on to the next person in line. Some would talk to you for hours, or "adopt" you for a few days and show you around SL. Some were good at explaining technical issues. Others were good at explaining social issues and SL culture.

They were, individually and collectively, a huge help to bewildered new residents.

But LL is dropping everything that doesn't *directly* improve their bottom line. Pay for this, pay for that. Freebies? Who needs them? Free help? Forget that. SL has always been about profit, sure. It's the first (and still the only) virtual world with a working economy. But a place has to be somewhere that people want to be, if there is to be growth and success and profit, and LL can't see that.

Interesting . . .

I forgot to mention -- I think I've referred to it before here, but it doesn't really constitute "bullying" anyway -- that there were two mentors when I started who were sort of helping noobs in a desultory fashion, but were really far more interested in flirting and exchanging sexual innuendo with each in voice. It was pretty icky, and NOT a good introduction to SL.

If that went on and they continued to be actual official mentors, I suspect it was because other mentors didn't know about it.

My guess is that this is probably the "truth" of the matter. Some bad apples, but mostly people who were trying to help, in ways that may have been more or less effective depending on their personal style.


Agreed. I think this is nuts. LL is well aware of the abysmal retention rates of new people, and this is their response?

I can only hope that places like Oxbridge can take up the slack. The problem is (and Des or Carl can correct me if I am wrong on this), that these sorts of resources don't seem to offer the same KIND of help to noobs that mentors did. What newbies want, I suspect, from their first visit is quick, one-on-one assistance with their immediate questions, rather than courses or lengthy text-heavy tutorials.

(That is emphatically NOT, incidentally, a knock against Oxbridge, just, as I say, a suggestion that the kind of help it seems to me to offer is of a different sort.)

I'm sure that is so. I can't even confirm with absolute certainty that they were both official mentors, but that was certainly my impression at the time.

I wish my memories of my first few days in SL were a little less foggy. It was all so overwhelming.

I've faced a number of times when I've found someone with a Mentor tag and more divatude than actual desire to help. I'm in multiple volunteer groups and I've noticed a couple of them being used for nothing more than AR mobs against what would be nothing more than minor disagreements in public spaces. It wasn't just the Mentor group alone. Other help, volunteer, and of course "police" groups would have their share of divas. (>_<

Still... From the inside, there were plenty of gems. I've worked with Orange a couple times through the Mental Mentors group and traded building/scipting tips with him. Nice guy, that one. (^_^)

Many others too. Most of which do nothing more in SL than help people. That's their place in the scope of things. The group inspired scriptors that made free translators and birthday HUDs. People less technically aware addressed to social nature and protocols with helpful notecards. Linguists who spoke multiple languages and could be beckoned at a moment's notice from group chat in order to help non-English speakers. Really, a good lot and surely outnumbering the divas in my point of view. (^_^)

The Second Life Mentor group was a resource, not a title. It was there for people who desired to be attentive to Linden Lab's customer base and the dynamic world that Second Life is. By closing the group, Linden Lab is both removing a valuable asset to volunteers and the people they help. In addition, they ARE taking away a "status" that the divas so tightly endeared. The tag was merely a display. It was an indicator of service. Though some people chose to treat it in different ways. To me, it was a mark of my willingness to give. (^_^)

That said, in all practical terms, I never actually wore the tag except for a few special occasions. I felt no need to indicate I was helpful beyond actually openly offering help. More often than not, walking up to a new rez and saying "Konnichiwa!" would get them to open up with more questions than floating the tag over my head. (^_^)

But, now, it will be gone. I am choosing to wear it. Making exceptions only for official NCI tags for the events and responsibilities I perform, I will be wearing my Mentor tag until I am eventually ejected from the group. I'll be doing it as a symbol of the community of good, serving, and volunteering people. Come the day it's gone, I'll go back to my regular run of silly comments. (^_^)y

Well, until I hear more about how LL intends to replace this resource, and offer truly effective first experiences for noobs, I am going to continue to believe that it is a dumb move, the occasional diva and bully, or no.

/me looks around hopefully for Des or Carl or someone who may have some more insights into this . . .

Actually... Groups like NCI, Dreams, HPI, and Oxbridge have been doing a FAR better job with new resident introduction than the Mentor program has. (^_^)

Using the new resident, to frequent visitor, to volunteer, to staff member growth that so many people achieve in each organization is a good indicator of their success. (^_^)y

What LL needs, then, is to start funnelling noobs directly to these places, so that there is some sort of helpful human contact for them from the get-go.

I do hope that's what they're doing with the Gateway and coming soon volunteer group programs. (^_^)y

/me read somewhere that it was gonna be a Big Spaceship deal, possibly involving bots.