its really sad :(

Hehe.
Well unfortunately i realised how stupid that sounded *after* i posted it.

But it did happen. Almost impossible to describe though.

The person used the same kind of techniques one would use in RL, basically NLP stuff, staring, expectation, gesture. You would have to hypnotise someone to realise how powerful such manipulations can be, and I realise it probly sounds nuts...

Ah.. I dont really know where I am going with that

Point was though, *extremely* persuasive, dominant type of woman, and even though i have experience with that type and the kind of tehniques she was using, and even though i was bemused at the thought of trying that in SL it *did* kinda work a bit.

I found it humourous, but i could see others falling "under her spell " sort of speak.

no no shes not involved.

I don't like the WA anymore, it's just sad to go there and see what is going on, something really needs to be done soon . Ban the ones that break the rules is a good one but maybe make it so they can't go back to the WA or sl depending on how many times they have been reported. I hope to see something done soon, I really miss the way the WA use to be.

Well, he meant the recent lack of positivity (I think).

Being one of the few constant symbols of positive energy can take a toll on a person.

I try to go to the WA to gain some of my forum trolling karma back.

I want to help, I really do.

Unfortunately, the place is absolutely bumfuck insane.

There's sexual games/manipulation, swearing, random arguments, begging, and other outright flimflammery. It's ridiculous.

I always had the notion of the WA being like a 21st century version of Ellis Island... a person comes in, confused, dazed, and probably experiencing culture shock. They shoudln't have to run a gauntlet of laggy, mad-hatter avatars running in every which way. Especially since 99.9% of the rest of The Grid isn't like that whatsoever.

Moving away from a WA-type area is an intriguing possibility, but it may add to the confusion, and might lead to more exploitation... what's to stop a shady character from "helping" newbs at his 24/7 Tringo Sex Hut?

Bah.

And one more thing... quite a few posts have been all "hey, well, I practically live in the WA and I *never* see this kind of stuff!"... well, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Clean up the WA, please. Somebody.

LF

I've spent a lot of time in the WA and it's always been fine when I've been there.

This is the one at ahern, we're talking about, right?

I've sat for several hours at a time in the past couple of months, with an alt, at the WA. I have seen exactly what LF is describing. The reason I have used an alt is two-fold. One, because I have been harrassed by some folks (alts of older, disgruntled players I think), when hanging out there with my main. I have no clue what the motivation is for this, but it keeps me out of the area. Two, because the anonimity offers me more of a birds-eye view, and the jerks are more likely to be themselves. I have been neg rated just sitting there, had people try to recruit me into their groups, have heard people cussing up a storm, seen people pushed and shot at, seen people playing lewd anims, spamming garbage, and playing sound loops endlessly. It sucks.

I don't have the answers, but something needs to be done to make it a more positive experience.

Yay


We've been doing that, Robin. We're the ones doing most of the complaining about griefers at the WA. The bottom line is that volutneer residents have no teeth, nor are we allowed to even bark.


Cool. I hadn't realized that this was public knowledge yet, but good to know this is moving forward

I have great respect for you, Hiro, and hesitate to criticise. But I think this sort of statement, implying as it does prior access to privileged information, is best omitted. It only adds fuel to the fires of those who burn with envy and love conspiracy theories.

To me it is obvious and natural that people who volunteer into certain activities may need information not on general release. But others may not feel the same, and I have seen this sort of remark cause trouble before. If you have known something you shouldn't reveal, its maybe best not to reveal that fact publicly either, even afterwards.

Just my opinion, seeing it from both sides.

You can't really see people getting neg rated can you? I think it's pretty invisible to onlookers. And while some new people may indeed end up in sex clubs, I meet a great many that are just out exploring the world.



Well, Violet does her best to be a bad influence and get attention at the WA, thus people's focus. As far as pimps and slave traders, they are 18+ right? They can come and go, accept or not accept, logoff and log on as they please. There is no possible way for slavery to actually exsist in SL without both people's consent. And in-world pimps are about as scary as in-world jedi, robots, aliens, gansters, pirates, etc.

While I don't like folks hanging out in the Welcome Area to invite folks to club groups, we are all adults and have free will.



LOL. Come on now! Look deeply into my eyes...you will be my submissive...you will obey my every command...

Opps..wait..I should save that for when I meet Philip.



Again, how do you abduct someone in SL, and make them be a prostitute?

How would folks sending invites to groups, and talking to people in IMs, or inviting them place be more disruptive then someone that's admitted to neg-rsting newbies (and others) for fun, being abrasive and acting like an idiot just to get attention?

Well everyone in earshot usually knows due to the ensuing fracas.

Anyway good job of making everything i said look silly, and i realise that some of it probably is (especialy the hypnotist).

The whole point is though not everyone is as brave, self-possesed, etc. as you are.
If they were the whole DS thing would not work or exist at all.
Perhaps you have a natrual talent for domination of others.

Lots of people( in the situation of being taken away to an scort club and showered with gifts) would feel obligated to stay,obliged to perform as it were. Yes they are adults and yes they can make up their own minds.

People were going on about how newbies shoud be "protectyed" from the antics in welcome. My point was protect them from the pimps and Doms first. I agree that niether is necessary in an adult environment, but if you are going to argue the first then the second seems more relevant to me.

It is simply worse behaviour with worse consequences to my mind.

She's singling me out



I haven't read this entire thread, but I think once a "welcome area" becomes a worse impression point than the rest of the SL grid, its pointless..

I always thought it was a little weird to have new players pointed immediatly at a point in the world thats very unlike anywhere else. I'd have rather have been thrown in at the deep end, a random telehub or "spawn point" and given a notecard with some landmarks (Ivory Tower, Busy Bens etc) and info on how to use them. As well as maybe a randomized greeter name?

The other problem I have with the place is the lag. Its a beautiful build, but I can't be there for long before having to relog, and while I'm there I'm crashing into people . Let alone when you're new and still working out how to fly/walk properly.

Maybe have some kind of welcome area in world, but give newbies the chance to CHOOSE to go there rather than being thrust there when they first come in world.

Anyway I've probably either just repeated what alot of other more knowledgable people said in a better way, easier to understand using less words. Or just posted something no one will ever agree with... Let find out!

Well Dianne, I personally think the Welcome Area should be a place to learn and get questions answered and a chance to make friends with folks that can help you through your Second Life.

I dislike the fact that clubs recruit there. I dislike the fact that anyone is there with an agenda other than to chat and welcome and be helpful. However, unless rules are being broken, then it IS a more realistic welcome to Second Life than some sterile bubble.

And folks really can make their own choices. If a newb gets invited to a club, gets offered a job, and takes it, that is their choice, and chances are, if it's not for them, they will figure that out very quickly.

Really, who would take a job as an SL prostitute that is morally against it in the first place?

Other than some very negative, and attention seeking behavior at the Welcome Area, newbs have been coming through there for a long time (even with sex clubs and pimps and religious fanatics and political activists) with very little trouble.

This attention it has been getting lately, and what has driven so many away from it, is very easy to pinpoint. The time frame and examples almost all have to do with a very small group of children...err..residents, who have taken it upon themselves to be as mean and disruptive as they can get away with, purely to get attention and to feel as though they have some pathetic sort of power over others.

I've got to add that I feel a deserted empty welcome area is also a bad for someones first view of SL. I know I would have hated that.

If older members were banned from the area as some think should happen, and no mentors were on duty it could give new people a really bad first experience.

I know just because I don't see it, it isn't happening, but I really have not seen much of the bad behaviour, that's why I thought this topic was a bit 'drama-ed up'. However seeing the amount of posts describing the behaviour I'm glad Robin is involved and taking the issue seriously.

Hi Dianne
I enjoyed our talk last night but I have to disagree with you on the hypnosis thing. I'm trained in a lot of those techniques. I see no way whatsoever that a person could hypnotize anyone in the WA. Whether NLP is even hypnosis is up for debate and no one I know worth their salt believes you can practice NLP online. If someone convinced you that they hypnotized you or anyone else in world...well....how they did that is a separate issue, I call malarkey on it actually occurring. However, I do agree that a lot of people in world are susceptible, maybe vulnerable people. It's unfortunate if they are taken advantage of on any level because of that. I am with David, I don't see it being possible to enslave people without their consent. I suppose this is likely to be another forum thread entirely. Vulnerable or not, people can still make choices about invitations they get at the WA, if they don't like what they see they can always leave and go elsewhere. The issue I have with the WA is whether newbies are being griefed, not whether newbies are being invited to things that they may end up not enjoying. I've had plenty of that happen, and a lot of it has been good for laughs

Well, I kinda disagree with most of this, but there is little point going over old ground.

All I can say is I have been at WA a lot (I went to "find out for myself" because of the posts about it here), and I just dont see those folks as being the big deal that everyone thinks they are.

At least three of these folks are a single person, and their website reveals them as a reasonably adult, intelligent artistic person with a whole other side that probly no one knows about cause they never bothered to ask. (I am pretty sure that is not privleged or secret info and I havent used names). More than a few of them seem to be artists or art students, and the motivation behind the "attacks" looks quite different when you keep that in mind.

I am for *no* rules really.

My point is just that if people are so hot about "protecting" the new players, that these folks are the least of it to my mind. They are just the loudest and piss off the older players the most I think.

My biggest problem wtih the WA is the incredibly stupid obstacle course that it is (relative to the old WA). The old layout was so much better.

In this one you show up in one of those four glass shacks and then have to negotiate a series of obstacles, a stairway and a doorway to get to the main area. The main area is then up on another level, with a lot more obstacles, and a turny little path in the middle. Am I the only one that thinks this is nuts?

WA is so laggy you are bound to crash, and then you end up starting the obstacle course again. ????

I had to do that three or four times last night in the same half hour, all at a (laggy) snails pace.

Now *that* is irritation for new players.

Perhaps the Linden in charge of designing the next one, should be given a 512 MB 800Mhz machine to test it on

.

I'll have to find the Linden thread or notecard, but unless something has changed, a policy *was* implemented that you are not supposed to be recruiting in the WA (that it *is* against the rules). I'll look for that link when I get home from work.

This makes me want to own land again.

Whatever their motivation, or other sides, it's how one acts that counts. I could be a saint in real life and an asshole in Second Life, and guess what? That would make me an asshole in Second Life.



Well..I agree to some extent there. I'm not really a big rules person either. I think there is usally enough positive influence at the WA to outweigh the damage done by negative folks. That doesn't change my opinion on people that act in such a way though.

I think I would have clicked on a poster at the Orientation Island teleporter with a picture of a huge, 10 meter high phoenix towering over a 2 meter high avatar, and thus met Psyra.

This probably has happened already in a parallel universe.



-Flip

*chants* One, two, skip a few.. Ah, now I post.

When I first came to SL, the welcome area.. was... annoying. Mind you this was the old one and I haven't been to the new and improved version. The old one was full of idiots, some I could still name, but I think most visitors to the WA will know them anyways.

I was disgusted, yes. The behavior was.. all I can say can be summed up in a couple of words, "Totally Stupid". Why did I chose to stay? Because of the people that /were/ kind to me, who left a last impression by answering my questions in a timely and polite manner. I chose to ignore the idiots.. and when they got on my nerves, I went exploring the game.

Admittedly, this did prepare me for the game that is SL. I learned how to neg rate, how to mute and how to in general ignore things, thanks to the idiots that gathered.

Frankly, I think we need to give Mentors/Greeters the same kind of teeth as a normal land owner. Someone becomes overly annoying, boot them from the land! But for wholesale or even perm banning? Won't work.

Ellie,

I understand your perspective. I don't make it much of a secret that I know some secrets. Most of my stuff is simply from (a) Preview 1.7 (b) Live Help (c) Stuff I'm working on myself or helping out / advising. If you look at my profile, it even has (top secret) labeled next to one of my projects. *shrugs* I'm fairly transparent with my actions.

I actually believe it's more suspicious when someone conspicuously doesn't mention things. Suspicious are people who act all friendly and bubbly, then make backroom deals. Fortunately, SL doesn't have too many of them

If I remember, from what, 5 days ago, I started SL in some ‘orientation area’. I was able to proceed through this rather quickly due to some experience in Active Worlds from back in 1998. After a 3 year, forced hiatus (military priority –still in BTW), I arrive in SL, which is by far ‘better’ than AW IMHO.

What I found when I left the ‘orientation area’ was, again IMO, a bunch of immature conversation and crap (although one’s immature is also one’s fun). The reason I did not have an issue with this was I could figure out my way around without help, although I received an OUTSTANDING welcome from one of the greeters – Doranda.

Wouldn’t it be easier, once the program is off, is too allow the Greeter’s to meet the new user inside the orientation area and bring them to a ‘safe’ place? Sure some greeters wouldn’t get there in time – so have some ‘disclaimer’ on leaving the orientation on ‘lotsa stuff can happen out there, if ‘confused’ wait for your greeter who will be named XXX.

As far as AW went, as a greeter there – they had one area all new arrivals went to (no orientation) – we had the option to ‘mute’ a user from speaking at the ‘gate’ as it was called. This was used often to let to obnoxious user settle down.

We did have the option to boot from the gate for XXX minutes (can’t remember) but that was very bad and required a detailed report and blab la – not a good option.

Marc

OK. Listening carefully, and taking this thread seriously, I put on an alt, so I wouldn't care about neg-ratings, and went to see.

Liason was present part of the time only. I saw puerile behaviour, egotistical preening. A big penis on the head briefly while liason-free. A very few shouted swearwords.

But I didn't see newbies being accosted maliciously in a way I could detect. Though IM's are invisible of course.
I myself personally accosted two and offered help, and they seemed to have been more or less left to get on with it. No eager pouncing in their case.
One tiny sample, can't draw big conclusions

Except one conclusion, which I think may be significant.

When I arrived here originally all those months ago, I nearly abandoned it after five minutes. Why? Lag.

The WA was busy, and just walking was crude, jerky and uncontrollable. I thought "this is completely unplayable" and came within a whisker of logging off forever.

Last night I spoke to one arrival right there in his first five minutes. He actually told me he had just decided to log, and go forever, for this reason. He paused when he saw my IM.

I explained to him that this was a local problem, due to the big crowd, and that elsewhere things were much, much more smooth and controllable. I forgot to mention that one could tweak settings for improvement too. I wonder what the new-born defaults are ?

Anyway. My point is that I think we need to think hard about ensuring lo-lag in those first ten minutes. This I think is the main reason why so many people hanging about is a bad idea. My guess is the first-minute-lag they engender loses us more recruits than their silly behaviour.

We dont want no-one there at all though, do we ? A different bad impression.

Perhaps the WA needs extra-powerful dual-processsor servers ? Needs something. Not the current appalling non-representative off-putting lag.

Well, I've read all nine pages of this post because I am new and I must say, have a much better attitude towards SL after reading through every single post in this thread. The reason being that I was honestly fearful of coming to SL; I made the mistake months ago of reading some of the offline articles on the SL site; and must admit I was a little intimidated by it all. However, the posts in this thread has given me a much nicer picture of the general attitude of the residents of SL, and the intent of this online world.

I do hail from TSO and no, I'm not a Barbie, and no, I did not come in to look for sex. However, the reason I decided to take a look finally was because a few of my close friends from TSO have permanently moved here, and I'm finally curious enough to see what SL is all about.

You can find similiar threads as this in the TSO message boards; the attitudes of the population is directly related to the increase in membership..........I am sure it's a common problem with every online game.

I did finally sign up just two days ago. First of all, I wish I had spent more time in Orientation, but that is normal, right? Get to the action (I should have spent more time) For me, the WA was just a bunch of people standing around........talking; a little like walking out of the elevator right into the casino in Vegas. I think I did get one IM that said 'you really suck'..........lol. I wandered, wondering what to do........then I flew off.......which was wonderful! I know I have not even scraped the surface of SL; I am fortunate in that I have a few friends here who (when I can spend some quality time here) are watching for me, to help me out.

In my experience, the worse thing in coming into a new game, is feeling totally out of the loop. Of course, some of the responsibility is on the player who enters the new world. I read a lot about SL before I ever entered; nothing I read really prepared me for what is here. Looking forward to learning; looking forward to meeting all of the kind posters here.