Why is help often so half-hearted?

How do you know? Just because you can't think of one?



Oh, sure, it's just the bizarre reactions I've gotten from other people. I mean, possibly the strangest of the lot was when I talked about building in the Forum Cartel, and mentioned that some people had told me that, since I wasn't such a good builder now, I never would be. The (single) other person there said that was nonsense and that person was an idiot, and if I wanted to, I should go try it - but after another half-hour, they then said, "If you can't do it, perhaps it just isn't your medium and you should do something else?"... but of course, they didn't take it well when I pointed out that by their own standard they were an idiot now



Theoretically. But way back when I first came to SL I found this was, in practice, a lethal deadlock. You _can_ play in text only, but the majority of people (everyone I met, certainly) will go straight to a graphical area as soon as it's available. You can build the graphical area yourself, but then you have to be a builder, not an RPer - and there's the danger that the people who were interested will lose interest.

Ignoring everything other than the title of the thread: "Why is help often so half-hearted?"

I'm answering with some analogies: One of my responsibilities at work is tech support. I've only a few dozen clients, most long-term so there aren't a lot of noobish questions. People who have been customers for years, using the same software for years, and yet they ask the same questions over and over. Eventually I go from "yes-sir, yes-ma'am, here's allthe info you need" to "yeah, it's on pp.47 of the manual" and eventually it takes me a day or two just to send them that. Help gets half-hearted because people don't show much interest in learning, when they know it's easier to get someone else to do it for them.

In SL, where it's always new (they keep changing things darnit) and there's always noobs, I can imagine you must have an amazing emotional/constitutional level to put up with all the noob questions, over and over. I don't do it because honestly I couldn't take it for long. I am in awe of people who do though, by choice and as volunteers. Nonetheless, I can imagine that they would eventually lose heart and the level of help they provide could wane with time.

And finally, there's a special case, the Help Vampire. No, nothing to do with teeth and blood. Read about them here: http://www.slash7.com/pages/vampires
In a nutshell they thrive by sucking the life out of helpful people. They ask the same questions over and over, and as the level of help they get diminishes, they get more angry and demanding, before finally declaring the place to be useless and unhelpful, then they storm off to get help elsewhere. They tend to elicit a lot of half-hearted help.

I didn't really address all the other stuff as I didn't understand it (even after 3 pages of replies).

-Atashi

No matter what the actual theme of this thread may have been intended, it gave us Desmond's heartfelt and so touching post. For that alone, it was worth it.

Yes it was so heartfelt and touching

All I'm trying to do is work out how I can get my interest in SL back.. and to see if there's something I'm doing wrong that I have this blocked-out feeling from so many things.

And, I know about the "support vampires" and some are genuinely so, but some just need to be helped along a different dimension. By which I mean, by means other than talk, if you have talked to them so far. For students in that state, setting a do-or-fail coursework can actually do a great job of snapping them out of it. (When you're a tutor in RL, if your student-customer doesn't learn, it's your paycheck and thus your problem, period; so, you can learn a lot about helping )

Setting a "do or fail" coursework for volunteers who are trying to help you isn't likely to be productive.

I suggest you get one of Badinage and Weaselpaw's crow avatars and bop around in it for a while to see if people really behave the same no matter what you look like.

Over the years I have battled the SL blahs many times and it is a very difficult and uncomfortable place to be when they set in.

Things that I have found to work for me include:
-Taking a total break from SL. (I might or might not play a different game but it will be as unlike SL as I can manage).
-Reinventing myself within SL
-Learn to do something new (animation, scripting, etc)
-Build something you have never done before but is challenging
-Make an Alt and start over again facing the SL world as it is NOW and not as it was when you began(yep that means no passing money or items or anything else from your main)
-Sell your land and buy a totally different kind then develop it to fit the type it is

These are just things I found to work for me and I make no promises that they will for you.

If Your heart is set on RP develop your own RP area and rule set. Creating the setting, objects, clothings and other gear should keep you busy well into 2010

awesomeness... I know who to contact if I ever want a co-conspirator

Sorry I have no idea what you want then

good luck with whatever you seek, and if people do not give you the answers you want, seek elsewhere

obviously I do not have the answers

I have noticed that no matter what anyone suggests, you disregard it, push it away because it is not the answer you want

To me it sounds like Yuni is suffering from a bad case of burnout and or Creative block.

So why the sad face? It was beautiful. It's like that for me- magic is everywhere. I rode a whale last night and saw dragonflies

I think that a lot of people are faced with the problem of what can be done in SL when they first arrive. People from a gaming background are looking for targets, tasks, some gameplay pattern, and when they don't find it and there are no guidelines about what one "should" do in SL, it disorientates many of them.

There was an impression (when I joined in early 2004) that there were tasks and targets, because there were leader boards, and ratings, and a league table for the avatar who had introduced the most people. But it was an illusion which didn't last long, and I found that orientation process that naturally happened, as I chose the things I was interested in and found my place in Second Life, taught me things about myself and about my likes and dislikes, in a concentrated form.

It makes a huge difference imnsho *why* you come into SL and what your motivation is for arriving in world. People who want to make things and make money from the beginning often miss out on the social aspects of SL. Or maybe it is simply that once they have found that they enjoy making clothes or furniture or sounds or animations, and that they are good at it, indeed that they could earn a living at it, the incentive to go and socialise instead of making things goes away.

Most people who want to build do so obsessively, spending hours learning the ins and outs of the building tools, buying things and pulling them to pieces, watching other people build. It is a lasting benefit to my life that Second Life building has made me much more observant about real life building, and interested in architecture generally.

Sometimes I meet people who haven't been able to find a creative outlet in SL - they haven't found themselves drawn to building or texturing or anything else... many of them find their creativity is fulfilled by helping others, or simply exploring in a serendipitous way. I have my own version of this game, which is an SL version of Stumbleupon... I go somewhere with people and read profiles until I find something I like the look of, and then I go visit it. While there, I will either take a link from another person's profile, or return to the original and try another link.

I have found wonderful things in this way - and sometimes have found friends too.

Making contact with people - sending people messages if there is a problem, or if I like what I see very much, appreciating their work, all helps to expand your vision of the world.

As for role playing - there is role playing going on all over the grid, to many different degrees. Not everyone enjoys Gor or furry roleplay, or Roman or Star Trekkian, or Star Warsian... reach of us has our own set of preferences depending upon our age and background and experience. Learning your own preferences, and then gently exploring is probably the best way of finding those. Search for them.

I have to agree with what another poster said - helping other people is a really great way of helping yourself. If you want to build, find someone who has no experience at building and teach them to rezz their first cube, or find someone who can't work out how to get their pose balls out of the rug in their house and patiently explain what they have done and how to fix it.

Looking outward opens you to new experiences and new people, and sends the right sort of message to the universe. Criticising and finding fault with other people does tend to cut you off from them.

Instead of running show and tells, perhaps recruiting people to train to run show and tells would give you a way of using your expertise and build your network and your confidence?
bws
Cali

This topic has certainly gained a lot of traction with people. Which is remarkable since nobody really knows what it's about.

It's a microcosim of SL itself.

Quite true. But it is the helper, not the helped, who sets it.

All I can say is that I've failed the test. I have no idea what you're asking for. Honest.

Well, there is an Aahz avatar that gets a lot of positive feedback and all he is is a green scaley friendly looking Prevect wearing a bathrobe, flip flops and smoking a cigar - maybe L$ 1000 at Grendel, bits and pieces, here and there.

But from the other side, I and a few others have a lot of low impact potentially RP parcels if you want to, but many of us aren't large enough groups to staff the place like Disneyland. So if you want to use the places, fine, but bring friends. Sorry if we aren't willing to spend even more money and hire people, but odds are, if you aren't happy with roll it yourself, you'll probably not be too happy with working with other people's finished products (like The Crack Den).

I guess the whole "I'm not going to do it, but why haven't you?" crowd gets neither my sympathy or support.

In this case, I think the best advice is that which Desmond offered in one of his posts - take some time off of SL.

Personally, I went at SL almost nonstop for 4 or 5 months... from Dec 06 to about April 07, I was in every day, 6 to 10 hours a day. Building, exploring, learning... after I was here for 3 months I bought an island and became a mini-landlord and ran a shop. Then pow, I burned out and nothing was fun. I was all but gone for a month or two...I logged in every day but sometimes it was just a 5 minute excercise, to maintain my 'perfect attendance' record. After being away for a bit like that, something caught my interest (I don't even remember what anymore), and pow, I was back at it again with lots to keep me busy and interested.

The bottom line, IMHO, is if there's no fun on the grid any more, then find your fun elsewhere. SL will still be there when you come back.

-Atashi

Heh, I copied the message in my reply - his message.

*Toggles to regular girl avatar in attractive freebie clothes* Okies, but, what about my little request? (^_^)

Think of some things you like and try to describe them... Without focusing on what you think SL is, was, or can be... What puts a smile on your face? (^_^)

Oops- blindness... I get used to siggy lines- thought that's what it was and I didn't even glance- sorry

The Beta Grid is wide open and clears every 5 hours. Who says there is nowhere to build?

In my experience, roleplay is a two way street. If you give the person or people that you're attempting to roleplay with some quality material to work with, you're far more likely to get quality RP back from them.

And I find that the memorable RP moments often take me by surprise. The other day I was wandering around, exploring in cat form (as I often do). This time I was checking out a steampunk sim (not Caledon or Babbage, but I forget which one off the top of my head). I was trotting down the pier, and I spotted a young woman dressed in period maid's gear walking toward me. So I did the cat thing and made a greeting "chirrrrp!" noise. She stopped in her tracks and just looked at me for a moment, sizing me up.

Now, it just so happened that I was wearing my Steampunk Kitty getup at the time - quad cat, with a winged mechanical backpack, brass goggles and so forth. "What an odd looking thing!" says she, after a moment's consideration. "What, never seen a flying cat before?" replies I. And the next few minutes were filled with some of the most delightful RP that it's been my pleasure to experience in quite a while. She went on to tell me about her caddish employer, I offered to eat the posy of daisies she was carrying then asked rather optimistically for salmon pie, and she gave me a salmon she just happened to have in her inventory (actually a 7-Seas fishing prize) that I wound up happily chasing around the pier for the next couple of minutes. A little more RP foolishness went on and then we both continued on our separate ways.

The thing was, I didn't go there looking for RP. I was just exploring. But when a situation that had possibilities presented itself, I played the kitty role to see what might happen. I don't know what you're doing when you go looking for RP, Yumi. But if you find a situation with potential and make a point of starting the RP ball rolling with some sort of action that gives the other folk there something to work with, chances are that sooner or later you'll run into someone who catches that RP ball and tosses it back to you.

Love that story Nimbus Thank you for sharing it!

Second Life is a world controlled by magic,and the scripters are the wizards.


...no more parlor games for me,i'm into magic!...