Proposed Mentor Principles

From our recent blog post about the future of volunteers, I'd like to open up discussion on these proposed principles here.

Proposed Mentor Principles

We believe this important first connection can make all the difference in the early SL experience. By hanging out on Help Island, the Welcome Areas and other spaces in-world answering questions and handing out information, you provide a crucial step in weaving the Second Life community together.

When you put your Mentor title on, you are representing the Second Life volunteers as a whole and the Mentor group in particular. Mentors embody all of the best things available in the Second Life community; keeping the following Principles in mind will empower you and your fellow Mentors to continue creating an even better Second Life for all.

Community
Be inclusive, active, and encouraging. Demonstrate and communicate tolerance, respect and civility to all Residents. Promote a sense of community and foster the formation and growth of communities in Second Life, and with your fellow volunteers.

Education
Be helpful, answer questions. Communicate with your fellow Residents. Turn data into useful, relevant information. Provide information, not misinformation. Show other Residents how and when to report abuse. Learn from each other!

Communication
Be informed and informative. Keep up with in-world bulletins and forum announcements. Maintain good communication with your fellow volunteers and don’t be afraid to share information. This includes using the mentor group channel for good, not evil.

Attitude
Be positive, courteous, professional and pleasant. Smile. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Be welcoming, fun, and helpful.

Integrity
Be reliable. Do your best to represent the community in a positive way. Maintain PG standards of appearance and manners when wearing the Mentor tag. Live your Second Life by the Community Standards as a shining example to others.

Tolerance
Be accepting of other nationalities, cultures and subcultures. Inspire curiosity, open-mindedness, and let the diversity of Second Life be your guide as you help fellow Residents.

In the phrase "keeping the following Principles in mind", there is no reason for "principles" to be capitalized.

Why does one have have to adhere to PG standards if they are displaying the Mentor tag in an area designated Mature?

Um, because when displaying the Mentor tag, they're effectively representing Linden Lab on some levels.

They are nice principles, but very vague, since everyone has a different idea of how to interpret them (which can be a good and bad thing).

So?

I think these are very nice guidelines. When wearing your Mentor Tag you shouldn't go around cussing and spitting! You all know better...I hope.

Sometimes for a secret thrill I put on my Mentor Tag when I am in my own home and with my SL partner. What we do then is no ones business!

I also think these are great guidelines.

I think the main point here is to have some guidelines at all, so that when someone reports a Mentor behaving poorly we can at least have some argument that they should not be acting that way.

I agree with Suezanne about the "acting PG" part though. I don't think it's fair or logical to put that in the rules.

We are supposed to be tolerant, positive and fair already.

PG in terms of language is already covered in that swearing at or insulting someone would not be allowed, but if one was in a situation of a particular sub-culture where swearing was the fashion then it would be okay anyway.

PG in terms of dress (or undress) is also a cultural-specific thing. If I am in a nudist culture, then naked is the rule of the day.

I think what you really want to cover off is specific bad behaviour, like sexual and commercial predation or violent/aggressive attitudes and acknowledge that the rest of it is really rather fluid and subjective.

Couldn't we use the Mentor chat for evil so long as we are careful not to spam?

So what? Linden Lab have determined that certain Sims are PG and certain Sims are Mature, and have defined what sort of behaviour is acceptable in each type of Sim. Why does the fact that mentors are "representing Linden Labs on some levels" (which, incidentally, I am not - if I am mentoring it is purely to give new residents a helping hand) mean that you have to now behave as if you are in a PG Sim even when you're not?

Ridiculous.

not going around in a BDSM outfit with boobs hanging out and a whip in your hand with a gimp on a lead while having the mentor tag seems common sence to me

As a teacher, I am expected to follow certain standards of conduct and dress that are stricter than what is considered normal in society. It is part of my contract. If I don’t like it, I can always do something else. I have an older brother who did just that. He quit teaching and became a truck driver. He now loves what he is doing.

Linden Labs has the right to expect mentors to follow a stricter code of conduct. As Mentors and Greeters, if we don’t feel that we can follow it, we can mentor without the title.

Seriously, what is mature content; sex, nudity and profanity. If someone can’t abstain from sex, nudity or profanity while mentoring, maybe they should resign from the group. SL is so much more than those three things. I believe that volunteers should act properly and strive to be a good example of a Second Life citizen.

Jen

I'm a teacher too and recognise Jen's comments. On the other hand, what if I'm asked to mentor in a Gorean sim (which has happened) - the "community" standard might require me to dress and act appropriately for the location in some sims, which isn't necessarily PG. Failing to do so could be regarded as implicit judgement of their lifestyle which is also against the guidelines.

OK, you'd hope the locals would understand, but the wording is sufficiently highblown that it is possible to be in a situation where they contradict each other without thinking hard about it. I don't know any kajirae who mentor, but any that do would be in a really tricky situation. Mind you, there are definitely furry mentors who would violate the local rules in most Gorean sims too...

I was about to make the same point(s) that Elouise just did.

I would say that if you have your Mentor tag on, your behaviour should always be appropriate to the location and company you are in. This may not always be PG.

I have in the past TPd to help someone who was having a problem to find that my current furry av was highly inappropriate to the situation. In those case I apologise for any offence caused, and, generally, since I am there to help the people present it is not an issue. However, to say that if I wish to freely offer assistance to others, then I must follow PG guidelines while doing so, will definitely cause problems.

I have even in the past been asked for assistance in aligning pose balls... go figure.

However you look at it, over-worded, oberblown, overstrict rules are going to cause problems for the volunteers.

Choose words like 'appropriate behaviour', that allow for people to carefully consider if and when there are any complaints, based on the individual circumstances.

Eloise, using your example, I would hope the same common sense, mentioned earlier by Richie Waves, would apply. If imparting knowledge is the goal and something is interfering with the goal, common sense tells us we attempt to eliminate the obstacle to imparting the knowledge. Provided, that in doing so we won’t violate our own principles, mores, etc.

Which leads me to ask about the flip side, the venue. Correct me if I am wrong however; my understanding of Gor roleplaying is that for women, it is sort of like living in a strict Islamic society without the clothes. I would never go to a country like Saudi Arabia, which forces women into second class citizens, at least by US standards, to teach. Why should a Gorean sim expect you or me to dress and act like their perception of slaves to teach?

I better add that I am not picking on Gorean sims. The statement above could apply to any roleplaying sim. Does a mentor need to put on a white Goth skin to TP into Vampire lands, ears for Elf lands or an animal avatar to go to one of the furry sims?

Jen

Blizer, how is an animal avatar non PG? Also, on the matter of pose balls. You can easily remove your mentor tag while participating in that activity. While your hosts may understand what you are doing a passer-by may not. Although I doubt it, there may be someone somewhere within SL who would be scandalized by such behavior from a mentor

I agree with Richie Waves. Common sense should rule.

Jen

Well, ummm, trust me when I say that some of the animal av's in SL are anything but PG. BUt my point was more about the appropriateness to the region - I felt that I was in the wrong for being out of character to the location, so apologised for it. A simple extension of that is that I could feel in the wrong for acting PG in some circumstances.



Hear Hear! My worry is that if you set a too-restrictive rule down in black and white, common sense goes out the window, since you have to follow the letter of the rule, regardless of what common sense may dictate to you.

If the rule becomes that I MUST ALWAYS act PG (which I generally do anyway) when wearing my tag, I will simply stop wearing it when I am not on HI / WA - which would be a real shame, since I get several people a week asking me questions that start "Oh, I see you are a mentor, could you tell me..." in all sorts of situations and locations.

I'm proud to be a mentor, and I'm proud to help others, but, it is a volunteer service, and I and possibly many others will do less or no mentoring if it becomes too intrusive on my enjoyment elsewhere of SL.

I hope that doesn't happen, since we need all the good mentors we can get

I tend to agree that common sense should rule. That policy can fail however, if an individual is lacking common sense.

To flip it around, I can't think of a situation where XXX-rated behavior is acceptable while a volunteer has their Mentor tag active. So maybe that's a more reasonable hard line to draw in the sand.

Until such a time as LL starts paying their vast cadre of unpaid workers they can either:

1. monitor the mentors and kick out ones who aren't upholding the LL way (whatever that might be, but I think it includes flaky software and worse support)
   
2. have the mentors do whatever the hell they want (i.e. the status quo)
   
3. post vague "good things are good" missives of no value at all

or some combination thereof as the mood strikes them.

No player represents LL in any meaningful sense of the word. LL sometimes doesn't represent LL in any coherent manner.

I think you need to stop peeing on the carpet while wearing your Mentor tag, Travis. Bad dog! No! No!

P2

This happened, recently. And no, it wasn't Travis. He's a good dog.

I try & try, but those Martinis get me every time...

Thank You !

Although I am no longer active in SL anymore, I pop in from time to time, the guidelines sound great to me.

Jeska would always tell us Greeters that we could do "what ever we felt comfortable with" in terms of how far or R-rated or X-rated we were with new residents. I don't see why that wouldn't apply to Mentors. I am sure we have all been asked the questions in reguards to sex in SL and I personally had no problem discussing such topics with new people. Seems to me that even being held to higher standards, adult content is something that should be a personal decission for each volunteer.

Hi,

I think these are a great starting point to having a working guideline. In the same SL spirit that context and intention are very relevant and few matters are black and white I think that no document will ever serve as a completely definitive guide.

I had just the following comments/additions.

Thanks!

Under Tolerance, or Community - I'm not sure which -

I would like to add that our roles as volunteers is mainly to teach, welcome and guide and not so much to police or enforce rules. All residents - from basic accounts on their first day to veterans that have been here for years, and all volunteers like us, have the same exact ability and authority to police ourselves, file abuse reports, and ask each other to behave in a way that fits the community standards. Our time as volunteers is much better served teaching and demonstrating good behavior to a large number of new residents directly and through example, than it is chasing down a few and AR'ing them for violating them. But often times I see us spend a lot of time and energy 'policing' - looking for reasons to submit AR's while walking right through brand new residents without a word to them. While it is noble to protect the interests of all of us by helping to enforce community standards (as all residents can and should do) if Mentors are perceived by new residents as merely being under powered hall monitors or 'Barney Fifes' (sorry for the localized reference to those not familiar) - it reduces all of our effectiveness in actually teaching good behavior and citizenship at the times when it is needed and appropriate. We should report abuse, certainly, but I'm not sure we should ever set out with the specific intention of finding it.

Under Communication and the section regarding use of the Mentor chat channel -

Mentor IM's have clearly been the issue of much debate among us, and for some, much frustration. Usually in the area of 'spam' - which is a pretty subjective term for a group of 745 people, each with their own seperate knowledge levels and understanding of what's appropriate or not. Personally, I think the mentor chat could and should be used for any matter a mentor wishes to communicate to other mentors, short of commercial advertising or other blatant self interest. I don't actually see what's wrong with using it to say 'hi' or 'how are you?' or 'does anyone know if..." questions during the course of a Mentor chat - but that's just my opinion. I close the window when I can't be bothered. I recognize and respect that some are extremely frustrated. I too, fail to see why everyone answers "no, I cant right now" if a request for help comes in, for example, but it doesn't bother me, its more funny if anything. And again, I close the window if I can't be bothered. I look forward to the time that new Group controls might allow us more flexibility in the matter. But for now perhaps something a little more definitive than 'good' or 'evil' is in order here. I think some of Eric's thoughts on the matter as written in /204/01/106739/1.html might serve as a good guideline for separating 'good' and 'evil' in this context.

As to the question of adhering to PG standards while wearing a volunteer tag I think this is appropriate and acceptable. Whether or not we choose to do so while not wearing the tag is obviously up to us - it is simple enough to make the tag inactive when pursuing our own interests in SL, mature or otherwise. If we find ourselves wearing our volunteer tags at times or in places when we aren't intending to give our full attention to the task of helping residents (and each other), then we might very well be wearing the tag for the wrong reasons to begin with. The point is to be helping, teaching, welcoming, and guiding, when representing ourselves as Mentors by activating the group tag, not 'doing our own things' or expressing our own interests, whatever they might be. Very few bars accept their staff drinking on duty. We are volunteer 'staff' and what is appropriate for those 'off duty' is not always appropriate for those 'on duty', even in the very same venue. There are PG and Mature regions on our grid, even though only adults are allowed here in the first place. This is because a portion of adult residents do not wish to engage in, or _always_ engage in, mature content and behavior. But there are no borders and these same residents still go to or through mature regions all the time. They know that if they see something that offends them or makes them uncomfortable it is a mature area, and they can leave anytime they wish. But if along that path they encounter active volunteers, representing LL , who's behavior makes them uncomfortable or offended it diminishes their ability to trust all the volunteers, right or wrong. There are usually double standards involved in the code of conduct for staff vs. patrons. Nobody who enjoys mature content will be offended by PG standards, but many who enjoy PG content could be offended by mature behavior - even in a mature region. With volunteer tags active we should pick the happy middle ground that hopefully pleases all (or at least offends none).

Lets Hope the current mentors in the group reads this......Mostly we are a good group. But like any large system system there are problem spots......... The problems seems to be dropping more...