New User - Many Issues - Would like some answers

Greetings=
I am new to the Second Life environment, and I have several issues that I would like to see responses to. To summarize briefly the history, I have a 15 year history in online gaming and MMRPGs spanning Commodore64 text RPGs to 8 years of Everquest. I may be new to the Second Life environment, which admittedly is a evolutionary step, but I am not a novice to virtual worlds. In the 5 days of attempting and finally suceeding at signing up my son for a teen account, and 3 days of having my own account in the Main Grid, I have attempted to find resolution to several of these issues through the Blogs, Knowledge Base, Phone Support (voice mail), Live Help and Email Support, to no avail. No one answers any of the venues I have tried. The title of this forum is "Linden Answers"...well...ok, not to sound adversarial, but prove it.

First and foremost - Our initial foray into Second Life was at the pleading of my 13 year old son. I researched the environment, scoured the web, read all the assurances of safety regarding the "Teen Grid" and the offerings of education and learning tools stated on the Teen Second Life web page. Unfortunately, since adults are not permitted in any way to access this grid, I was unable to verify the marketing and had to take Linden Labs word on it's content. My son has made several comments and complaints that the teen grid has no area such as help island, no tutorials, no classes, no employment opportunities and that the other teen residents are, in his words, for the most part socially unacceptable. I had listened and believed his complaints to be primarily transitioning from goal-oriented games to a self-guided environment along with the steep learning curve that Second Life has for average individual. I was wrong.

This afternoon while he was logged into the teen grid, my son called me to his computer asking for assistance in submitting an abuse report. As I was watching the screen to walk him through contacting live help (there aren't any instructions there) I witnessed the most foul, abusive and reprehensible behavior from a group of teens that was totally unrestrained and unchecked. At the same time, I taught him how to mute other residents (there aren't any instructions there, either). The abuse reporting feature does not come with any explanation on how to get the chat into the reporting box (again), so I opened an IM to Live Help asking how to do this (using his logged in avatar).
After about a 5 minute wait, a Linden responded and I immediately identified myself as the parent of the resident and that help was needed both in how to submit the report and what I had witnessed. I was then chastised and warned about being an adult on my son's avatar. I explained that he had asked for my assistance with the immediate problem and that as the information was received I would leave, along with my son. I was simply told to copy the chat into the window and that abuse reports were investigated. Helpful. Later, we both listened to Philip Linden's Town Hall meeting, what we could of it anyway. The actions and language of the resident that I had noted earlier was again very prevailant, only this time, Blue Linden was in the room. My son was stunned and outraged that he didn't DO anything even when the "Big 10" were being violated multiple times. Second Life may not allow mature rated graphics in the teen grid, but I assure you...the actions and chat are.

My son has been sitting in with me on classes I have taken in the main grid and after more discussion, I searched out the teen grid for the tutorials to help him learn the skills for building. There were none. I searched for educational events that he might attend. There were none. I searched for a help area that could assist him with the basics of the second life environment, there were none of those either. I went back to the Teen Second Life web page and looked again..this is what I found;

Live and Solo Tutorials Available In-world Daily

Basic to Expert instruction on building offered for free by veteran Residents and Linden Lab staff. 3D, step-by-step tutorials are always available in-world.

No...no, there isn't, or if they are, they cannot be found with intensive searching.

I understand that Linden Labs is severely understaffed given the explosive popularity of Second Life, and I believe the intentions of the teen grid are well-placed. But without restraints and controls in place, the Teen Grid is in no way appropriate for children. A profanity filter would go a long way in "cleaning" up the public chat. Mentors, Helpers, Instructors..all these are available to adults, but not to the children. Adults are not allowed there, ok..then set up a "train the trainer" program, train a staff of children to help and teach their peers. Give them a way to be responsible. Give them a stipend to boost their enthusiasm and feel productive and create jobs. I've supplied my son with the notecards from the classes we've taken, but the supplies provided I can't give, transfer or create for him. I'm at a loss there. Put up some billboards and tutorials like the welcome centers in the main grid. Classes on socal interactions are available for adults, but not for children? Their may be technical priorities for Linden Labs with the influx of new people, copybot and pricing, but this is a severe area of neglect and needs to be addressed quickly, these are possibly your future employees.

Secondly - I've touched on the abysmal customer service. Perhaps a catagoy just for that on your employment opportunities? Both in-world and out?

Third and final for this post -
The account creation page states a L$250.00 credit with a verified payment method. My provided this for my son's account for the credit, I provided it for my own account for the credit, I urged my family to join and verified their account for the credit. None of us have received it. But I can't contact anyone to find out about it. (See point 2)

Pleading for patience works for those residents who have invested time, energy and actual dollars into Second Life, for a new user..I'm not seeing evidence of honesty in your dealings. I see words on a web page, but nothing substantiating them. Is this standard practice?

I look forward to a response,

Kestrel Liveoak

Hi Kestral, I'm that sorry you and your son have had difficulties with SL.

I agree that it's a shame there are not more tutorials for Teen SL at the moment and I'm sorry that your son had trouble locating the various tutorials that do exist. Coincidentally, I've been working on creating a single hard-to-miss "Tutorial Island" where many inworld sources of help, like the Ivory Tower of Prims, the Orientation Stations and the Textures Tutorial can be found. There will also be space here for resident run classes. We are currently transitioning to a new system and a new head of instructors (that will be me), so there are not classes being taught daily at the moment. When the new space is ready and the Instructors 2.0 project is underway, I expect that there will be more inworld, resident-run, instruction. In the meantime, please suggest to your son that he make full use of the F1 key to access the excellent help database, which contains extensive instruction for a range of SL tools.

As to your son's experience with those who are not adhering to the PG requirements, please do encourage your son to report abuse. As to the lack of a chat filter...it's our belief that chat filters simply D0|\|'T W0R|< and anyone who intends to be profane or abusive will find a way. Encouraging residents to mute and report offenders is the best solution to truly abusive behavior.

What you did not see at the teen town hall was my IMing several residents warnings regarding abuse and non-PG behavior, and their subsequent removal from SL when they did not comply. (Due to the Privacy Policy, these suspensions/bans are not publically detailed.) Although it's not always possible for to a Linden to immediately respond to every violation, chat logs help to make sure that problems are addressed and persistant violators do not return. This is made MUCH easier and more effective when residents report the abusive and non-PG behavior via the LIVE HELP channel which always puts a teen resident in touch with a Linden on duty. Please teach your teen the value of reporting TOS and Community Standards violations.

As to the lack of L$ signup bonus, I'm not sure what the issue is...have you filed a Bug Report? If so, please send the RT# you received in email to [email]Blue@lindenlab.com[/email] and I'll bring it to the attention of QA who can diagnose the problem. I can also verify your information and send you the L$ if you send me the names of the accounts your family created. I'm sorry that you've had issues contacting customer support, they have been under an unusually heavy load and we are working to resolve that problem.

Also, please do feel free to email me anytime with your questions and concerns re: the Teen Grid. I'm always more than happy to talk to parents and thank them for taking an active role in their teen's interests. It's uncommon and should be applauded.