Resident Answers the new General Chat, SL Live Helpers the new Resident Answers

It seems that several new users have posted requests for help in the SL Live Helpers forum. Is that intentional? Why do we even still have that forum when Live Help was wound up a long while back (and that still makes me sad )

I had forgotten about live help. It was really great when I was new.

Because there is no forum administration any more to trim all the unneeded fora, and create new more vital ones. Hopefully Katt Linden will fix that. In the forum restructuring proposal that was developed in a thread here a few months ago, the Live Help forum was dropped.
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I was a former Live Helper, and I miss it terribly. Not only from a satisfaction of helping standpoint, but the fun banter that went on inside the group itself

I miss Live Help as well . Even the rush of 200 IMs when the grid was acting up .

It filled the large void between first-day newbie questions (which mentors are for) and things that actually do need a Linden that's still there today despite the "no it's not" head-in-the-sand "official" standpoint.

Whenever I bring it up with a Linden they seem to have very selective and distorted memory about Live Help as well that just happens to suit them better.

The way they handled the closure and the silent way they kicked everyone out of the group months later without so much as a word was low as well, even for LL.

Given the limits of the forum for new users, I'm thinking it'd be great if they'd use only volunteers and create a new in world "Resident Help" channel that they could get to. Heck, a lot of new users could learn the IM system by using this.. without the fear of mockery that comes from the regular system.

I'd be willing to give it a go, if such a thing were to happen.

We talked about that and they said they'd love it if residents would keep a "Resident Help" channel open. Of course it had to be an in-world group and/or scripted gadget (which makes it rather pointless which I'm sure they knew) rather than keep the underlying "Live Help" chat system built-in and functional because then a Linden would need to supervise and that just doesn't scale (aka "we don't want to".

That excuse went right out the window a few days later when the update that was going to remove "Help Request" was postponed by a week and helpers were on their own without any Lindens since they were all off taking lessons on how to use the new support portal.

That week was conveniently forgotten afterwards though, so they still use the same "it doesn't scale" excuse now and refuse to even acknowledge any evidence to the contrary (I went through every IM afterwards and counted answered/unanswered/inappropriate and ended with only a small percentage of 'calls' that went unanswered).

Well, we can always give them help as live as we can on the forum anyway

Maybe there should be a "help" button on the screen that would direct them here.

I miss it very much Travis... not only did it I learn by helping but it was a fantastic group.

is there any chance they will bring back the help island?

Huh? There is a Help Island. Several of them, in fact.

Most of them are accessible only to newcomers, mentors, and Lindens, but Help Island Public and Help Island Public 2 are accessible to anyone. There are almost always mentors and members of other helper organizations there to assist you.