Oh no, Infohubs

So recently LL added several new infohubs, including some on the newer continents finally. Unlike some of the older ones (and a blessed thing for at least a couple forum regulars), it looks like the plan now is to have them on their own regions, rather than sharing resources with Resident plots. Some of these are even set away from Resident lands by a few sims, as noticed with DeGrand or Castle Valeria, while others border Resident land (Moose Beach, Helfell, and the under construction Hau Koda for example).

Of course, a lot of the infohubs as they are now are, um, not prone to the best of reputations. Some are the source of great difficulty, and most are not the best places for new Residents to be (ironic, given they are the first place they end up!). Some - most - are home to griefing, nastiness in text chat and voice, scammers, and sorts of "scum and villainy."

My question is this.

What should these hubs have for new and existing residents? What should LL be providing at them that they aren't? Are they a lost cause, or is there some way to make an infohub actually work?

Perhaps they could be used as venues for live music and other events from time to time - or does this happen already? Obviously not too often as it would be treading on the toes of residents who go to a lot of trouble to organise such events.

But with the infohobs, the same event could be staged at more than one location - so lots of people could hear it without all having to crowd into the same sim (or the adjacent corners of 4 sims).

When I joined, I was pretty adept at computer games. first person shooters, the sims.. I knew what I was getting into when I joined SL. Orientation Island (the old ones) gave me a basic tutorial in the tools of the game. how to edit my avatar, how to find the chat bar, how to walk and how to fly. On Help Island (step 2, of the process back then) there was a sandbox, which was full of people rezzing freebies. There was a freebie shop, but I somehow missed that as well. Some random person took pity on me, and handed me a ton of freebies, which was nice.. and then I was deposited in Plum.

Plum's infohub was a natural extension of the O.I, H.A. experience, so the info pillars made sense to me. Click them, get a notecard. But almost immediately, I was confronted with a speeder bike I had to buy, and a bench that said "right click to sit" which, guess what, wouldn't let me sit on it.

From there, the ramp led down into a public sandbox. Which yes, included griefer armies, noobs (noobier than me) rezzing everything and leaving it wherever. Autoreturn in those days seemed to be unpredictable at best. Plum's sandbox was my home, I built my spaceship box there, I built my first jetpack there..

But coming off Help Island.. what would have helped me most, would have been some freebies. Not just the random freebies on Help Island, where you don't really kn0ow what's valuable.

On that first day, you're clueless. You don't know what the state of vehicles are, or whether followers are practical. But you can't so easily return to help island. But that info hub is your home, until you figure out how to change it.

Having some freebies would be nice. Some user's guides, perhaps some clickable signs that lead people to the wiki, to the scripting wiki, to the knowledge base, the forums.. etc. How to report abuse.. how to file a bug report, how to file a support ticket.

This is the user's "home".. it should be inviting, it should be a place that welcomes conversation (really infohubs NEED a place to sit down.. you're going to make friends here and chat a lot.. conversation areas would be nice). But it should also provide "actually useful" information.. not just for day 1, but for day 51.

It should NOT however, be a walled garden from the rest of SL (see the unfortunate isolationist state of the Bear infohub as an example).

Info hubs are where SL residents start. the "base" from which they will explore and develop their view of SL. It's where they learn that the people in the next sim, own their houses.. their airport, their mall. it's the starting point where newbies become residents. And it's the place they'll return to whenever they get in trouble and need to "go home".

New people go through OI and HI before being routed out to their assigned Welcome Area/InfoHub.
They have the option of going to a public HI if they want to revise the tutorial content.

What is the purpose of an InfoHub other than as a default Home location?
I don't see a whole lot of unique info at InfoHubs.

People eventually buy/rent land as Home / join a group that allows them to set Home / find a parcel that allow them to set Home.
Until they do that, or set their login to "Last Location" they get logged in to something like Waterhead. With things as they are, this is not conducive to retention.
Is the "Last Location" option very obvious in the standard viewer?

Matters might be improved from the griefy-issue point of view by allowing and encouraging people to set Home on any Linden land/water.

I suppose the theory of Welcome Centres / InfoHubs is that they would be populated by new avatars at the same experience level and could be guided/encouraged to move on permanently into the wider SL.
Their plus point is "company", but it appears the the company can be dominated by people who delight in posing and hassling others.


Avatars over a certain age could be auto-TPed to some random Linden location if they arrive into an InfoHub. There would have to be an exception for people wearing the Mentor group tag.
That sort of thing might help.
That would be provided that LL could stamp on people serially creating new accounts just to be able to hang out at InfoHubs.

I so agree. I had exactly the same experiences as Winter.

Bear is way less isolated than Castle Valeria.

This is a good idea

I disagree. Any system of automated "you're too old to be welcome here anymore" is just a bad idea. I meet people every week who have been in SL for 2 years, and still can't figure out how to adjust an attachment, or find their transaction history.

Orientation Island is a one-time-only place.. and help island is too. Once you leave, you can't ever go back. Info hubs are like.. how can I put this.. high school reunions. Sure, there's always a few griefers.. but the way to handle that is through effective policing, and enforcement of the terms of service. Not putting every single user on a one-way conveyer belt.

Forcing people out of infohubs after a certain age, only guarantees that the places WILL be run by griefers and their throwaway accounts.

No, I think access to infohubs remains as important as RL access to parks, playgrounds, train stations and bus terminals. Just because someone is older than a certain age, doesn't make their participation unwelcome.... if anything it encourages ad hoc voluteerism, without requiring someone to get access to some special political clique.

I stayed on orientation island until I learned the basics.I put in long hours and read and learned all I could,I think the forums should be pushed more,I for one found them early and it helps.
First land for me was the deciding factor that made me stay,I think everyone needs a plot to call their own at a cheap price.

Lindens. Not L$ but people with the last name of Linden. That or mentors with more power than 'zero' to smack heads around when needed.


If LL really thinks that they're successfully addressing the flood of ARable offenses that occur in these places by making them Mature instead of PG land then yes, they are a lost cause.

Back when I started, joining SL was kind of like a survival of the fittest challenge. You went through a very basic orientation where you learned to move objects, move your camera, fly and edit your appearance. Then you teleported right to the "Welcome Area" which was in Ahern at the time. There was a long boardwalk with little kiosks where you could learn more skills or get information. Information was....sparse.

There were usually people hanging around the Welcome Area, sometimes helpful, but mostly just the same kinds of "performance artists" and attention seekers that hang there now.

There wasn't much the way of help and you had to figure things out yourself or depend on the kindness of strangers to guide you. I had zero gaming background when I started, so it was a totally new experience.

What I think should happen is that infohubs should just go away and have NCI run the whole thing. Let them have the lands and the sims to operate -- let them choose which ones should be closed. NCI created the new resident experience that LL should have had in place from day 1.


I would also start people out with $200L that cannot be transferred to another AV, it can only be spent in-world. Then let NCI set up some lo-dough shops around the infohub of items that are a better quality than freebies, but still $10 - $20L.

I don't think that would work, so long as people can set a prim for sale.

But they could provide coupons.

QFT.

I've suggested before that either Mentors or Lindens should be assigned to a particular Infohub and given Eject/Ban/etc powers for that Hub only. Mentors need to have some oomph to deal with the losers that can't bring themselves to leave the nest.

All I want out of an info hub is a place to go when I click 'home' that I can rez a box on and wear it.

- Which also ends up meaning I need a spot somewhere around where I can change outfits without getting griefed for brief nudity (or getting cybered for it while trying to edit my appearance - a problem in my current outfit switching spot).

Apart from that, it should have:

1. an Xstreet terminal so I can transfer funds
2. a portal to NCI for newbies
3. a portal to free dove for newbies
4. portals to other starter infohubs
5. simpler graphics and some open space, for easing the load in burden on higher traffic.

I hear good things about Caledon's Orientation Island, Oxbridge is it called?

I'm a little puzzled about where new accounts rez in now, can anybody clarify? I have an avatar who was hanging out at an Orientation Island, helping noobs whenever I logged him in. Quite a while ago, the OI became empty and I haven't seen anyone other than me there since - so I gather that all newbies are being routed to "community" provided OI's? I've been to the Brazilian one, Ansche Chung's one, and a Korean one - there was no help, no mentors and few tutorials at these. I noticed an area in Dublin with a lot of tutorials - perhaps that's actually an OI.

If new accounts are all going to community gateways, then has LL given up control over the "first hour" experience? I can't believe that - M keeps saying its so important - has anyone created an account lately?

In any case, if OI's are no longer any sort of coherent experience, then Infohubs become more important, do they not?

I know that Hanson InfoHub does have changing rooms up in the sky; maybe other InfoHubs do as well.

In most text based virtual worlds there's a room set up with a name like the "back room" or "barracks", which is set so that:

* Nobody can drop an object (autosweep).
* Nobody can talk (silent flag)
* Nobody can look at anything but the room description (hide inventory or hide users)
* The only movement command allowed is "out", which takes you to the regular entrance area.

It's kind of like the big white basic environment room in the Matrix. THAT'S where you should go when you "go home", and all you can see there would be a portal to your actual home location.

Can't get too deep into this topic due to agreements not to discuss resident signup and gateway performance statistics. Not all accounts are going to the community gateways, though.

Most people can tell the difference between a well run community gateway and an abandoned welcome area. But does it have to be this way? There are a number of good ideas out there regarding revitalising the infohubs. As I understand it, that was actually the plan back in 2005 or so: to find certain resident groups do exactly that.

There are two Help Islands that anyone can return to.
Help Island and Help Island 2
Maybe they are not well-known enough.


My suggestion of shooing people out of the InfoHubs only makes sense if
- Griefing and bad behaviour is a real problem there - in the worst place for it to happen
- LL can detect the serial alt-creating griefer


It appears that LL don't want to allocate resources to policing the InfoHubs.
Perhaps if they were profiling the serial alt behaviour and IPs, they could be automatically alerted that conditions have arisen in a particular InfoHub that make incidents likely. Then they could have a quick look.

Who was it, here in the Forums, that came up with the idea of asking LL for our own OI or InfoHub or Welcome Area or whatever they're called now? It was ages ago, when the original "pathway" OI left, to be replaced by the "city-scape" OI. I still think that we could all put together a kick-ass Welcome Area, and staff it with volunteers.

/me would volunteer.

What I'd like to see is this

For the new user: Information. Can't stress that enough. Put info at the infohub. Make it easy to digest & fun to learn.

Include links to inworld locations (Linden place & showcase) & tutorials (ivory tower/text. tut./particle lab). Some basic targeted information, specifically if it targets the "Big New User questions" (How do I get L$, where is teh sex0r, what do I do here?). Maybe also some basic, useful freebies and some other diversions. Would be nice to even see links off to information about things like getting land, etc. Give new folks an idea of "goals to aim for."

And yes, a sense that there is a whole world out there. That the hub is only the starting point, not the goal.

I don't know *how,* but having some way to "separate" the "established infohub resident" form the new folks would be useful. Even if it's simply a social construct. Say, have the landing point in one spot, make another in the hub that is more "attractive" for hanging out in.

There have been a few suggestions that there should be people with more than zero abilities to render correction to anyone that is "misbehaving"
This is exactly what is needed and in Nova Albion it is what I do. We don't have freeze/eject rights although I would do for just freeze and return. But what we do have is a quicker than normal responce time for our AR's. I have learned to give good AR

What I would like to see different is a better presence of these groups. Someone should be in viewing shot at all times and there should also be backup. It's not fun when you are the only one there and everyone is bad mouthing you for ARing thier freind.

As for the actual behavior of the residents in an Info hub...Live and let live. Be patient with them. They know not what they do. For the most part

I have to wonder if Linden Lab management has done some math to figure out how many more new residents would be converted to regular residents if they paid some staff to monitor the entry points.

LL spent those funds on Taco Thursdays.