Maybe it's time to rename the Welcome Area

It has been a long time since it has truly been a welcome area. I rarely go there nowadays but my last visit showed me that nothing has changed. It's still a hangout for misfits who are addicted to their silly noises and animations not to even mention the verbal griefers who love to attack on sight.

I think that LL has to re-think the whole idea of a Welcome Area especially since we now have a Help Island. I see no resaon why new citizens should be thrust into that cesspool. After all that may be their first impression of how others act in SL. It's a breeding ground for wannabe grifers by golly.

I say it be renamed so new people don't get the idea that they are actually being welcomed there. For those of you with short memories it was about one year ago when I first suggested it be named the Cornfield and I still think it's an appropriate name.

This has been discussed in one zillion threads and nothing has happened to change what goes on there so why even bother anymore?

You mean even after Zoey Jade's account was sold, the Welcome Area is still a warzone?

Zoey's account was sold? No wonder she acted so weird with me.

In any account there are many willing to step up to the bat and proudly show off their lack of any intelligence.

From: someone

It's still a hangout for misfits who are addicted to their silly noises and animations

I happen to like my sounds noises and animations thank you very much Susie if you don't like it? don't go there anymore simple solution no need to gripe about it in the forums.

From: someone

This has been discussed in one zillion threads and nothing has happened to change what goes on there so why even bother anymore?

so why bother with this thread?

Yours Truely,
the Misfit of the welcome area

Aces of all of the people in SL I was hoping you wouln't see this post and think it's about you because it is not! It's about those other people. I don't go there anymore. When I need info I send an alt and get a written report from her.

You missed the point of my post by the way. I am suggesting that LL rename it and stop directing newbies there.

Alternately, you could put your avatar on some land you pay for to play your sound files.

The Welcome Area doesn't belong to you, you have zero say in what the policies that govern behavior in that area are.
The Welcome Area Guidelines notecard produced by Linden Labs states


Complaints about objectionable sounds were received following adoption of the current Welcome Area builds to a point that pictographic signs were added to help make it clear.

[left]How about
[/left]
[left]Lag Central[/left]
[left]or[/left]
[left]Crash City[/left]
[left]or[/left]
[left]Spam Square?[/left]
[left] [/left]
[left]Any of those might work. [/left]

There is someone at the Welcome Area inviting people to have anal intercourse with them.

Aces is at the Welcome Area also.

Well, maybe the anal inviter's rectum should be given the name of Welcome Area.

rofl
/slapsknee
/snorts

I agree. I live in Bonifacio one of the sims the Welcome Area is composed of, and we constantly get people flying over (when they learn to fly) and asking us newbie questions. We used to tell them just to go back to the welcome area and get your questions answered there, until they started replying to us how hard they tried but their questions would get drowned out by gesture spam and even when it didn't no one answered.

Obviously the system is broken, and it IS affecting people. New players are having to go elsewhere to get their questions answered and even then they might not find anyone. That's the resiliant ones too, it's likely after 10-20 minutes of frustration and being ignored in the WA that the people would just log off and cancel their accounts.

I agree, they should route new players away from there. They can leave the WA as a sort of Linden Sponsered club if they want and rename it, but it's not the best enviornment for confused and impressionable newbies.

LL could have people enter the world at different "InfoHubs", and let people without land set the InfoHub of their choice as their home spot.

the welcome area is where i hang out sometimes, i have friends there. I like to play the gestures and sounds i make.. yes i agree there are some weird people that come thought there.... and i didn't say the welcome area belonged to me read my thread and i am very aware of TOS and the welcome are guidelines.. thank you

**Posts deleted** not gonna waste my energy arguing and playing the drama game have a nice night

That is an excellent suggestion.

you know, the new welcome area looks great, but...

It was really a much nicer place before the upgrade, for some reason I can't figure out. There were still morons and griefers and such, but the population was a lot lower it seemed.

on occasion i'll meander over to the WA from my spot in Miramare, "just over the hill". however, almost every time i do, i just end up turning back around due to the amount of lag i experience there.

perhaps, not only should it be renamed, but additional locations could be added? refer to them as a sort of social gathering spot, but only have a few in total? (of course, each being designed by residents through a public call for submissions)

either way, redirecting new-rezzers to a different location makes perfect sense. or let them direct themselves..

from Orientation/Help island, when being 'ported to the mainland, let them choose where to go. give the option of a "Welcome Area", an InfoHub or "manual selection" which would point out how P2P works and suggest that they pull up their world map and choose a location to "drop" at. along with said suggestion, make a few things clear to them besides what PG and M land is about, explain things simply:

areas with no green dots and no builds will likely be a smooth and lag-free experience.
areas with a couple green dots and few builds may, or may not, include a small amount of lag.
areas with many green dots and many builds will likely induce heavy lag.

remember: the more people there are in area, the more varied your experience will be, either for better or worse, and could possibly include actions you would prefer not to witness.



now, i haven't been to Help Island in awhile, so maybe someone could clarify this, are there landmarks there for suggested places to visit? such as artistic galleries, educational facilities, shopping areas, etc.?

While Help Island is a good place to learn, it's too easy to skip and end up in the WA with questions.

If you do find a noob with questions, tell them to call "live help" (show them how) or direct them to any newbie friendly places. There is a tutorial mimicking OI in Dore.

When I hear of new players in the welcome area asking for help, many have bitten off more than they can chew, that is, they skipped Orientation Island (please remove that feature an alt can fly right over to the exit just fine) and Help Island and now are lost.

While the WA is supposed to be a place friendly for new players and questions, it simply isn't. It needs to be policed, renamed, or ignored. Right now it is treated like a friendly place in that it is where people enter, and where people are refered to.

Dont' most mud/muck/mush 's have a general entry area where the only purpose is to get out of it?

The issue with posting landmarks in Help Island is that people cry favoritism, so none are given unless a player has specific requests. Landmarks to the ivory tower and such are usually handed to someone asking about building. If new player asks for a greeter, the greeter can take them anywhere, skipping the WA altogether.

A player can teleport to anywhere on the grid but I'm not sure if they need a landmark to do so. By default however, if you click "enter Second Life" you go the WA.

There is pleany of help for new players, but those who skip Oritentaiton Island and Help Island are usually so lost they don't know who to ask.

There are official landmark dispensers at the Welcome Area, provided by Pathfinder Linden.

The dispenser is still there, although it appears that the notecard has not been updated for months. The notecard in the dispenser is dated 8-10-05.

Why it would be alright for the Lindens to give out links to user sites to new users at the Welcome Area but not at Help Island is not apparent to me.


There is a Linden produced Explorer Guidebook which has links to non-Linden sites. This has been given out at Orientation Island before Help Island was created, and still is, and is also available at Help Island.

I don't believe there is an official Linden policy against the volunteers giving out landmarks of their own choice to new users.

Second Life Volunteers at the Welcome Area have given out landmarks since there were Second Life Volunteers. Remember Yadni's Junkyard, to name just one popular one?

There is an anti-free-market bias held by some of the current Mentors, including some of the more active and vocal ones, which prods them to think it is ok to give out landmarks to non-profit sites but not to for-profit sites.

These vocal and active SL volunteer organizers make statements that sound as they are official policy, and put them in the form of imperative statements, possibly misleading some of the people who read what they say, but they are in fact just stating their own opinions.

Ever since about 5 or so people who always caused grief for people have left/been banned/accts sold to land baronesses/or their mom said they couldn't play online anymore, it has gotten better. There will always be the random asshat anywhere you go. I'm not saying the WA is perfect but it is better than it was.

I personally miss the old Ahern before it got redone. There is so much lag there anymore it is pathetic. Sure the new area is pretty and all but the lag is ridiculous. I think the fountain is evil too. I go to the WA quite a bit when I am bored and it's not to 'show off my fancy anims and sounds'. I go there to try to meet people, help new people, and visit with friends. I really never have my sound on so i don't know what sounds are going on.

The WA is a hodgepodge of all sorts of different people and I haven't seen the mass chaos that was there months ago. I always find it funny how people like Susie that complain about things really aren't there enough to see what happens and base their views on a few visits.

Aces told me about this thread last night and how we were called misfits, so I made a group called "Welcome Area MiSfiTs" that way we can clearly be labeled lol

Well said Zsu baby you explained a lot i couldn't say

Thank you Sweetiefase. You are a prime example of why I enjoy the WA. I may never have met you if there wasn't one. *HugZ*

I totally agree that the 'welcome' area has become a new '42nd Street'!!

Recently being, and quitting, an SL Mentor I have found the WA to be a sexual battlefield of newbies, and some not so newbies (prolly searching for 'new meat', for lack of a better way to describe it).

I would be called to that area due to lots of newbies entering and upon arriving I would be overwhelmed with IM's asking 'where is the sex?'. It's hard to even remember that this is a game, well the most part of it, for people 'over' the age of 18, if they are even that old.

The idea of redirecting them to other places upon arrival to the game is a great idea in my eyes also...let them see other wonderful aspects of the game and not just the 'porn' qualities that they might not want to be subject to.

Or, here's another idea....give them a choice right at the beginning: #1 - Adullt/Sexual Content; #2 - Adult/Non-Sexual Content....this way they have the chance to gradually work into the sexual aspect if they choose to at all.

Just my 2 cents...
SeXXXy

I stopped by the WA the other day and just kind of observed for awhile. I saw a few new people walking around and the regulars hanging out together. There was a Linden over to the side and other than that not much was going on. Before the change of look I used to frequent there and I'm not sure why but it just seemed everyone was more approachable. I suppose we did outgrow the old, smaller area and have to accept changes but I'm just not sure the changes helped.

Are there any regular classes for new folk anymore? I know I used to be able to tell someone with more questions than I had time to help with, to look for the classes on events. They used to be held every day and there were basics for scripting, building, texturing, changing your avatar, etc. I went to a few of those classes when I was new and had it not been for the building one I'd probably still be clueless on how to line up prims . I've seen educational events by the TeaZers group and Bob Bunderfeld but I'm not sure if those are daily. I've been considering holding classes myself, basically a question and answer type event for newbies.

The only reason I haven't is because I'm not sure I'm capable of it. I can answer a lot of questions on basics of course but if I get anything beyond that as far as scripting or building I'm going to have a big UM for the answer lol. I'd love it if I had a few people to actually run the event with me, that way the ground is well covered.

I generally go to the WA on update days, or after theres been a major grid crash. Being possibly the laggiest spot in SL, i use it as a yardstick for how bad my performance will be at its worse till the next major event.
On each on my visits, ive found the same faces tend to gather, and you know what?
They all seem a friendly, pleasant and social bunch.
OK, my first day in SL, the lag there scared the crap out of me, but the generosity, and friendliness of the people there pushed me to start jumping about the grid, so despite the technical aspects of the WA (ie the lag) my first impression of SL was one of an open generous and friendly community.