Taking land answers where they are needed: Inworld.

noooo, i meant i´m maxed out on groups

Good lord.

In that case, experts keep joining. And if you hunt down good land info or write notecards, send them to me. Thanks.

Quite right, Bodhi. GQ Start, for one, offers a "Basics of Land" class. Ray, you should IM kelley Griffith and ask her who teaches that class, then get together with that person and 1) get them to join your group and 2) give them a copy of your notes and stuff.

Thanks for the lead. My goal is to have the notecards done with Sarah's help on a notegiver kiosk in a week or two. In the meantime, please get the word out that there are people online ready to answer resident questions if you contact the Land Answers group.

Now it's easy to get live help with any question regarding land when you are online: Search "Land Answers" in Group. The SL Land Answers Unlimited group will be the first listing. The member list appears right there in the window with their online status. Doubleclick on any online member to bring up their profile. Send an IM to get your questions answered live!

Sarah or I will add the preceding paragraph to the notegiver sign and resend it in a group notice. PLease pass on that paragraph any way you can, like group messages and notices, a mass IM to your friends list, putting it in your profile, a notecard giver, etc.

Let's get the word out!

The online status is only visible to group members. I don't think there is any way to make it visible to non-members.

Fucking hell.

How about this:

Now it's easy to get live help with any question regarding land when you are online: Search "Land Answers" in Group. The SL Land Answers Unlimited group will be the first listing. Join the group...it's open and costs nothing to join. Start a group chat session to get your questions answered live!

1) Excludes answer-seekers whose groups are already maxxed out.

2) Makes group very vulnerable to spammers and griefers.

Sorry to be a downer.

I thought the Lindens stopped offering First Land last year.

new option: Have a help kiosk with Land Answer Volunteers listed with those "online now" posters.

hmmm... I think I can get my neighbor to cross breed the "online now poster" with a vendor script. I'll ask him tonight.

I will eject spammers and griefers. Doubt most people who need help will be maxed out in groups.

Help me figure out a better solution please.

It's a little elaborate, but you could give out a small HUD that would list the members of the group who are currently online, I believe. It would be nice if such a HUD could auto-update to group members who have the title that indicates they give advice; and further nice if they could not be listed if they are Busy, lol ... the limitations of LSL make themselves felt ...

(HUDs for groups are not unheard of. The lucky chair folks have given out HUDs for quite some time now).

Members could even list their primary areas of expertise for the HUD to display (e.g. 'mainland rentals'). The HUD could be sent out in group notices at least monthly (and thus always accessible in the notice archive), and of course given out in a kiosk.

The HUD could also I suppose also contain the latest notecards, and give them on request.

Anyway, before researching what it could/could not do, maybe some opinions as to whether this is too elaborate an idea ....

p.s. the type of spammer i worry most about for this group is people who are selling land, who occasionally plague the store groups I belong to.

If anyone likes the idea I started and has more expertise than I am exhibiting (knows what NCI is, knows how to best make it so people can easily get their questions answered, has the time to compile and edit the info notecards, etc.) please let me know and I can make you owner of the group.

This is not meant as an abdication of what I started by creating the group or a condemnation of any of the replies here. My goal is to help people get live answers online and I'm just looking for the best way to make that happen. If that means someone else can step in and do a better job, I'm all for it.

this is going to be a huge problem.
people are going to join the group for the sole purpose of spamming "512 for $3500 @ blah blah", with no regard for whether they get kicked from the group or not.

whats with this post?
why would you think this is a solution?

Read the post. It's pretty clear. The person with the most expertise who has interest should be in charge. When I offer ideas, I get replies like this: I'm trying to minimize ideas that won't work and looking for someone who can offer ideas that do.

Hiya I didn't read the rest of this thread, but Ray, is there any way you could get together with Lucrezia, who created the New Residents info boxes? My customers take copies of the New Resident Info boxes at least once a day; maybe we could stick your notecards into her boxes?

Yay, the first argument, now it really is official.

youre trying to minimise ideas that wont work, yet youre annoyed that i have underscored a possible problem with an open group. great logic raymond. perhaps any further input i offer will be done via proxy; an alt. maybe then you wont take it so personally and negatively.

are you trying to turn this into an arguement?
i was suggesting to ray that stepping down from the project was not a good way to advance the cause.
so happy you turned that into something black.

Ray, I don't think any one person has all expertise needed to make this happen, so would appreciate if you continue to spearhead and coordinate

It was meant more as a joke, referring to an earlier post Ray made, where he mentioned the first parody making it official. Thus the Smiley. Sorry if you don't get the humor. However, I think it's up to Ray to decide what Ray should do. Not anyone else.

Just to clarify, while having folks who want answers join and possibly spam is a problem, I don't see it as a dealbreaker for this idea. It'll be a pain for the group managers to police, but there's all kinds of groups that do just that.

I was just offering the HUD idea as a possible alternative, a way to let people with questions know who's online ... kinda brainstorming. Prolly swatting a fly with a 2x4, tho.

The problem of spamming didn't need underscoring. I highly doubt this particular group will be subject to much of it because we are going to police ourselves. Why don't we see if it's going to be a problem with this group before we underscore it...

All I know is, it would be great if people could know who's online. The easiest way for them to do this is for them to join the group.

I'll take any solutions, whether they come from your main avatar or one of your alts. Got any solutions?

It was a good suggestion. But it requires people to leave their land to see who is online, right? I want them to be able to ask questions when they come up, which will be when they are on their own parcel, or one they are considering purchasing.

i haven't added myself to the group yet, but i'm up for it. i'm not sure why anyone thinks someone will spam the group. at worst, such a person can be ejected from said group if that occurs.

while i think it's important to troubleshoot in advance for certain things, preempting a spam-a-thon seems a little paranoid. saying that, i've never been 'griefed' in any way that muting hasn't handled, so maybe i just don't get it.

this is a great plan Raymond. i have the freebie box from Lucrecia that i can put a notecard about this in, if that helps spread the word.