All Volunteers Banned From Help Islands

I was about to respond before reading your post, but now that you mention Poland....this kind of reminds me of when the Great Purge happened in The Soviet Union in the 1930's. Stalin removed from the Army many experienced and highly competent officers, for reasons mainly political and ethnic. Many were sent to prison, but many were just executed. He would wind up needing the ones left alive in prison soon enough, as we all know World War II started in 1939 , when the Nazis invaded Poland.

Well, it is forum drama week..

/me whips off her pants and waves them in salute!

Anybody out there able to lock this one?
.

.... "week"? (O.o)

=^-^=

I thought they got started when you got that twinkle in your eye and say "I wonder how much they will freak if I do....."

*grins*

So far I have been able to visit all the help islands - not quite sure what else I should test.

Sigh. I've been suggesting this for ages.

Are there any actual working mentors left after the last purge where a number of good mentors who were actually mentoring got tossed on their ears for not being big enough Linden suck-ups? I'm still shocked at the attitudes of some of the mentors and the disinformation they latched onto regarding notice, not to mention the delight some of them expressed in being amongst the chosen few who found the one notice that was posted or happened to be online when it was mentioned in group chat. I'm sickened by the vTeam right now, and there is no way I'll ever volunteer to help with anything Linden lab ever does again. They have lost every bit of good faith they ever had with me.

On topic: Blue specifically said in one of the office hours that they were planning on instituting a greeter program and that the greeters would have access to the HI's and mentors would not. The greeter program had some sort of testing process to get in. That leaves the mentors free to study blogs, shadow Lindens and cheer a lot. I know Blue stepped down, but I doubt that program is going away

After the way a recent resident (no names here - just guess...owns a lot of land, has a weird Trent Reznor fetish, runs a freebie paradise) was treated, I suspect this will get me banned. Isn't that the new policy? Dissent=ban?



Funny, I spent several hours each week on Help Islands helping newbies. I wasn't active enough because I didn't spend additional time studying the vteam blog and kissing ass. I guess actually mentoring doesn't count as "being active". Maybe if George wanted people on the HI's he wouldn't have thrown out dozens of mentors who spent their time on HI's

Hey, Doc! You were one of the people who hung out and gave me advice when I was a newbie at HIP. I think I still have your calling card... Thanks.

/hijack

Funny thing is your kissing of some ass had not a damn thing to do with renewing. The notices and group IMs and volunteer email and Vteamblog and Wiki entries and dozens of reminders including a Monthly Mentor Meeting which some were too cool and sexy to attend had everything to do with it. 1700 Mentors read and responded. Kissing anyone's posterior was not required in the renewal procedure. To say so just is untrue.

Today I read more untrue rumors, patent lies and other divisive crap on here than ever before. I guess that is why I have only posted 4 times in 4 years. Save your DRAMA for your MAMA!!! Stop making crap up. It is insulting to those who know the truth.

Your degree of committment to one of your groups may vary from someone else's, however that does not diminish the fine work of the rest of the people in that group. Mentors do a great job every day and I fully support the work of those people. Like it or not!

I dont kiss anyones rear end, quite the opposite, I go to office hours and ask questions, and politely suggest that some things may not be good.

I dont go in guns blazing, not a good way to get listened to.

Mentoring is a voluntary position, that said, volunteering does not imply that I dont have to keep abreast of happenings, read notices, read the VTeam blog, all the places where renewals were talked about and posted.

Only a foolish person does not look at the lights at a pedestrian crossing, they are there for a reason. And dont throw the what if's at me.

If good mentors got tossed then obviously they didnt read the blogs and notices. so one has to ask, what else didnt they do.

On an average day, I mentor from the time I log in to the time I log out, it may not be on a HI, WA or info hub, but my IM;s run hot and I do long distance mentoring, will and have even drop anything I am doing to respond to a cry for help.

I aint special, I dont pretend to be, I dont go around saying "Im a mentor listen to me", I offer help and guidance, nothing more.

And you dont need a tag to help people, I was doing that long before I became a mentor.

Plenty of them do, but that wasn't a deciding factor either, because there was a huge outcry from tons of dedicated mentors who, like me didn't get these mysterious notices that everyone claims went out. There wasn't a single group notice that I received, and I am on the mailing list - what the hell do you have a mailing list for if not to give out notices of this sort of thing? To assert there was proper and adequate notice for this stupid decision is complete and utter bullshit. It's a flat out lie. There was a note on the vTeam blog, and apparently there were mentions in some of the meetings, which are held at times when I am either at work, or which I have dedicated to my family. This was a trap. Plain and simple, and the claim by one of the Lindens that it was not a punishment is also a flat out lie. It was a pure punishment for those who don't follow every move of the Lindens.

If you are actually one of the people who mentor others, then good for you, and my comments aren't directed at you. They are directed at the sycophants and apologists who were crowing about the mentors being gone as if it were some sort of celebration - hooray, we're still in the cool kids' club! To be thrown out was bad enough. To be thrown out and lied to, then mocked by other mentors was the last straw for me. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever do anything to help Linden Lab again or say anything even remotely complementary about it. The vTeam's blithering incompetence was unbelieveable on this issue, and their reaction was patronizing and insulting.

Thanks for that rant... it just proved a very valid point. There were 1700 of us who did get the 3 notices a week and did see the postings in the main chat and in the sub-groups and even comments in the email list.
Some people got their Mentor tag and never again set foot in SLVEC or attended a meeting or an office hour. They turned off group notices, closed the chat as soon as it opened and never looked at the Vteam blog.
As Mentors we function as a team. Part of being a team is communication, and without that there is no need for the team. If you failed to renew it was because you left the team, or were never really on it.

I have just myself read through all this listing this day, I do not agree with some words said on both sides, the bitter ones who had not receive the email, to which I did and reply, they would need read up and take more notice and if they did not receive any notice then should send mail away to the Lindens and explain, they may be placed on a wait list to be called again for re-apply.
Though on another hand I have seen other Mentors do things that did not corespond to the TAO or TOS, to which include indifference to other Mentors and ignorance.
I am not here to make any accusations or bring these ones to a point, they are mostly good and do well for most, they just have ideals that do not sit with the things they portray.
I am myself not perfect in any way, I would not place myself high above others, I have many many faults, I myself have made mistakes, and all I have corrected by corrospondence with the ones relavant to the need.
I myself try and involve with most Mentor things if possible when I am able.
But to say that ALL Mentors are "retarded" is to say the least a childish and benevloant act.
It is also up to all to try and help the "team" with as much information and resources, I am not well versed with many matters of obtaining and relaying information, I find many others are and leave this to them.
Thank you all for the time to read my posting ---
Kieohae Jewell

Spent a buncha time on HI's last night, helping teh newbehs. Haven't had much time to do any mentor stuff lately and forgot how fun it could be, except the one guy who kept demanding I tell him what exactly he should do to earn tons of US$ via SL..

/me totally calls shenanigans on the OP.

There is absolutely nothing weird about that.

When you make a blanket statement you are aiming at everyone.

Hence the responses you got.

Been away for about 6 months taking care of an aging parent, logged back on and I'm no longer a mentor (still a mentor buddy apparently) and about 1/3 of my inventory is gone. I gather there was a purge (probably needed) of the mentor group and the inventory glitch is probably just that it was my turn to be touched by the asset server. If I want to mentor on OIs and HIs and visit the V islands again, what is the process for doing a re-up? Perhaps I should just go back to being a help island hooligan??

Thanks old friends,

Z

The exact same blanket statement was made about the people who were thrown out of the Mentor grioup, only they didn't bother with the exception I put into mine. I was a member of the mailing list - the one that the vTeam didn't bother to use to make any announcements, and I received the same mails everyone else did - where the mentors and even a few of the Lindens took a mocking and patronizing tone with the people who didn't receive notification. People who, for the most part were active mentors and were thrown out because of the terrible way notice was handled were openly laughed at in chat. It took a while for them to get around to tossing me, so I was still in group chat and heard what was said after the hammer started coming down. Pretty hilarious, wasn't it? People who were trying to help and do the right thing got the finger from the vTeam and the other mentors thought that was hysterical.

There was no adequate notice. Three notices per week? Totally untrue. I didn't receive a single notice, and I'm online quite a bit. I also didn't close Mentor Chat when it was active. Mentioning it in group chat when there is a group notice function is inadequate because people who are not logged in do not get those messages. The only place it was permanently posted was once in the vTeam blog.

With the amount of time I spent mentoring, questioning my commitment to the program is ridiculous. I've done nothing but support Linden Lab since I started SL, to the point where I've been given grief over it and called a fanboy in these forums and other places. I wanted to give something back, and LL was asking for volunteers to help when I joined, so I offered to help. In response to my trying my best to be an asset to the program, LL spat in my face, and my fellow mentors a) lied about the notices and b) laughed at myself and those who were ejected from the group.

So, yeah. You can imagine what I think of the mentor group as a collective. I don't know you, so as far as I know, you're ok, but the group as a whole, and LL? Screw them. Inviting us to reapply and come back when they get around to looking for mentors again, then patting us on the head and telling us that next time maybe we'll be good little mentors? Fat chance.

Edit: This is my last post on this. You guys can make up whatever you want to try to justify it. Go ahead and make it all my fault if it makes you feel like the group is a good one, but you know this was a flithy move by the vTeam and all the lies in the world about it not being a punishment or a trap won't change the fact that that was exactly what it was. I'm done with this issue.

Nothing quite so much fun as getting to Mentor, only to find out you're actually being less helpful to newbies cos so many of the other Mentors make you wish you'd kept it private. I don't regret leaving the group for one second.

No offence to the people out there quietly doing a great job, met some nice ones but have to say I met far more jerks than there were perks (to meeting some of them).

Ultimately, decided if I was going to slave myself I might as well have fun doing it *note:Cherry is not a slave, this is a joke*

***edit: this definitely isn't aimed at Rails!

***edit2: They chucked people out? Wow ... I am out of the loop (too much slaving instead). This doesn't surprise me.

An interesting take on events Mr Recreant! I am going to make a wild guess and suggest that when reviewing who LL want to represent them as Mentors, that they are looking for people that have:

- a reasonable understanding of how SL works
- a level-headed approach to dealing with random questions
- an altruistic approach to helping for (frankly) no obvious gain other than the joy of helping
- some minimal level of paternal/maternal and/or pastoral instinct
- quite a bit of patience and a mild and even temper

and that they are not looking for people that have:

- a tendency to openly and repeatedly mock people that ask questions like "what do you use SL for?"
- a long history of abusive posts/comments, including posts that reveal RL information and/or are basically ToS violations
- an egotistical approach to 'mentoring' which is less about helping and more about demonstrating how wonderful they (think they) are
- an inclination towards aimless ranting about LL, rather than supporting them
- an inclination towards aimless ranting about everything
- a view of the world that could possibly generate the idea that key announcements are made at times to specifically exclude certain residents, in order to "trap" them(!)
- a tendency to use the phrase "batshit insane", but more importantly, anyone that always uses that term to describe anyone that ever disagrees with what the mentor says, even on the finest point of detail in an open discussion

Just my two Euros worth..., make of it what you will.

I'm not getting into it with you and Trout. I'll say this - when I first became a Mentor, after a long time when no applications were being taken and before the world and his or her shadow was let in willy-nilly, the first Mentor IM I got was someone with a Linden surname asking people to stop being vigilantes, asking them not to go off seeking out gambling equipment.

I once had someone go off at me for using the word "bitch" as in bitching (I was talking about myself and it had a LOL in the sentence, this was in the Mentals group not the Mentor IM channel). I still stand by that this is not swearing in the UK, it's a verb. I wasn't even speaking to her ... when I tried to send her an IM to talk reasonably she was "talk to the hand" and "I'll abuse report you if you IM me again with your cussing mouth" (let's leave aside that it wasn't in voice". When I said "well that's ok, I was simply using the etiquette of not airing dirty washing in public but here that's a verb not abuse" off she went again. People telling her to stop made no difference, she had to lecture me. When I suggested maybe she mute me, and changed the subject she was still rattling off.

That was fairly indicative of many people I observed, sadly. For every Rails, Meade and Kitty I met one of these types all too depressingly often. It's not why I Mentored, and tbh I do as much just because I like to be helpful now as I ever have done.

I was approached by Linden because (and this is a quote) I was so friendly and supportive. Those days are long gone, because they have a phase when they'd accept about anyone who didn't have an AR history - that included my ex who when we split made a point of threatening me with getting my newly appointed Mentor title taken off me and whose first act when finding out I was one was to demand to pretty much go out griefing (I understand he's still a Mentor having gotten in not too long before I got out for totally separate reasons).

Well, the last few times I saw mentors 'interfacing' with newbies, they were hard-selling them towards specific venues (clubs, rentals, etc). Perhaps LL got fed up with the subset of mentors that are basically there to promote select businesses?

And I agree, they need a good first impression, but LL does need to clean up the mentor group.... Some good folks, lots of not so good ones.

Bad!!!

It can be hard to avoid sometimes, though. As somebody who's always been an all-prim critter with, I like to think, some nice avatars, I do get newbies asking me about where I get them. Usually I try to turn this into a tutorial on how they can use Search and/or Inspect but sometimes they just want that exact avatar. I guess anybody wearing any product opens you up to these kinds of questions...

A "hard sell" is very inappropriate, though.

Your way is a perfectly acceptable way of doing it! Prim and furry avatars are kind specialized, so you can't help but name names due to the limited number of vendors (and if they ask about the one you have on, you kinda have to tell them). Name 3 or 4 makers, show them how search works, great lesson! Once they master search, their second lives become far easier. NO complaints on your methodology.

The folks that I have seen were pushing specific (and not to be named) island rentals and clubs. Not so good, IMO, when the same Baron's name, same clubs name, is in nearly every sentence it can logically be put in.

Agreed. I see that fairly often at places that are newbie rich. It's definitely funnelling, not suggesting.