A Solution to Noob Land Problems?

Thinking on the issue of noobies and land, I realized something: no one (read: LL) is telling them about land when they hit the grid. Sure, they can find a bit of info about mainland on the site here, but not inside SL itself.

Why not give them a notecard?

I know, that probably seems a bit simplistic, but think about it. What if, upon first rezzing in SL, every newbie received a notecard that explained all about land? What if they were immediately told the difference between mainland and private estates, rental and owning, how to use Land Search, etc.?

When one first arrives in SL, one is inclined to accept something like a notecard without question. It pops up, one hopefully reads it, and some problems are possibly averted. It would serve the dual purpose of heading off a lot of the issues that crop up with land, and allow LL to say "Okay - bum covered."

Feedback on this idea?

The fact that Linden Lab does not do much to educate residents about the peculiarities and pitfalls of the Second Life "economy" is something about which I frequently complain in these forums.

Doing something extra to educate the new is a good idea. However, I'm not sure a notecard is the best solution. Second Life land is something of a complex issue. Notecards aren't a great format for conveying complex information. The web site is the best education mechanism.

Maybe an idea might be that an in-world mechanism might offer a link to the website regarding land issues, just as a way of alerting a new resident that the information exists. (The notecard might merely say: "Buying virtual land is a complex issue, and before buying virtual land, you should read more about it first here: <link>." And then after that initial alert, the notecard is there in inventory as a reminder.

Beyond that, I'm not sure that a notecard is the best education mechanism.

Information overload. Some people won't stick around long enough to learn how to fly, what makes you think they are going to take time to read about land? The knowledgebase has become more accessible but it still needs work.... that said, maybe they could put something useful in the library about land, but you can't expect people to actually read it.

I like Amity's idea. Probably *would* work out better.

Maybe but I wouldn't have thought land to be the main focus of a raw newbie. Most just want to "play" or find free you know what...for the first few days anyway.

Anything they see on land at such an early stage might be just way too soon. I only got land by accident, I had always figured I didn't need to pay for pixels when living in a cardboard box under the bridge by the stream on Orientation Island was good enough.

It was that chatty parrot that did it in the end. I wasn't allowed to shoot the damn thing so had to move on.

Cristalle, oh, I know. There will always be people who decide not to read up and inform themselves. Just like there will always be people who try to skip Orientation and get straight to the mainland without too much of a clue as to what they're doing. I'm just kicking around ideas upstairs for those who do try to inform themselves, but may not be connecting with where to look for the info.

Sassy no like the parrot?

Also a good point about "raw" newbies. 'Course, those often seem to be the sorts who show up in the forum, telling about how they got ripped off (or just think they did).

Why not indeed. I had to do the homework myself on land in SL, and it involved mostly talking to people to owned land because the website was so much less than helpful, and there was almost othing inworld that educated me.

Worded the right way, a newbie notecard on land would be a darn good idea. An info kiosk might be even better. In fact, maybe I'll find a little piece of mainland and do exactly that.

edit: correction. Do both.

Most people in this thread went through the old-school orientation/help islands when they joined - the ones that look like today's Orientation Island Public and Help Island Public. (edit: too slow! a couple 2008'ers posted as I typed)

I was poking around on a (slightly-older) copy of OI last night and it's really not AT ALL what you remember. The new ones do talk more about topics like land & search. Not sure how much - didn't have a lot of time there - but it's more than the old OI..

There's a fair amount of stuff-to-know about owning land. Islands v mainland, rent v own, tier, group land, governance stuff, land bots, auctions, ect, etc and a lot of it is complicated enough that there's frequently lengthy discussions this stuff here in the forums. Asking "should i live on the mainland or an island?" is pretty much guarenteed to get you 10 pages overnight.

I wonder if a Land Buying Sandbox could be made.. Something sets land for sale and walks people thru the act of buying a parcel and some other basic tasks then reclaims the land and sets it back for sale again when they're done...

Meade, if that's possible, I think that'd be a really cool way to do it.

A trigger for such a message/notecard could be the first time an account pulls up a window that contains the Buy Land button.
That might be to early if all they were doing was checking out a parcel, but it would at least be a point at which they were aware of land properties.
That might be to late if what they were going to do was to buy (the wrong) land.

Perhaps the system could pop up that reminder every time a user has view of the Buy Land button, until such time as they click on a "Don't remind me again' button. That is a standard type of process in many software packages.

raymond and sarah did this. they have a group (cant remember what its called), but you could pick up their notecard dispenser and the works already done.

It'd be tricky and might require the help of Lindens. At the very least, it'd need to be on a non-mainland estate so people running through it wouldn't have to go premium or tier-up when they "bought" the land. It'd probably also require a bot to do the land actions (reclaim, set for sale) as I don't think you can do that sorta stuff with scripts.

I don't know raymond or sarah. So if you or anyone else could get me some info (their SL names, the group name, a LM, something), thatd be sweet. Thanks

Sarah Nerd and Raymond "the hampster" Figtree.

Linden Lab has already done what it's going to do in terms of helping newbies get their feet wet: They opened the forum up to no-payment-info-on-file accounts. It is now OUR duty to ensure new users can find their way around. Too bad this forum's so out of shape. Some of vBulletin's new search features (and, hell, even BBCode) would make it easier for folks to find what they were looking for.

(Now that I think about it, LL IS working on revamping the forums soon... so that is indeed their plan: Let the residents help the residents.)

TY Meade

Ray and Sarah's group is SL Land Answers Unlimited and there is info in it in Raymond Figtree's profile picks.

There is also info about buying and renting land (and TONS of other good info) in Lucrezia Lamont's New resident kit. You can get a vendor that distributes the kits and rez it on your land. You can also drop it on residents yourself as a folder. There is a link to where to get the kits in her profile. They are free and really worth a look.

More good stuff. I'm going to get hold of all this tonight when I get home, thanks

I thought the only place that blasted bird still existed was OI Public...until I ventured out to the farthest spit of land on the Communcation Jungle part of OI in search of a lone, lost newbie...and there it was, big as life and twice as noisy.

I had it in my skybox for a while. The annoyance factor was exquisite.

I once witnessed a near-epic Human-vs-Furry confrontation over that bird once, when some guy rezzed the bird in a public roleplaying area.

The potential...