Mentors - List Your Area of Expertise

A suggestion that came up during the Monday Mentor meeting was a creating a thread in which Mentors could post their own personal areas of expertise in Second Life. What they would be willing to answer questions about or skills they have they are willing to share with new residents.

If when helping a new resident they ask us a question we don't know or a skill we have not mastered, we have a central location to lookup another volunteer we could ask or refer them too.

Please list your Second Life "Areas of Expertise."

Why not pass the request to the SL Mentors groupchat like everyone else does if they can't deal with it?

During the Mentor meetings (you can find transcripts here and here) it was discussed on what would be appropreiate uses for the GroupIM. Jeska says the following, "So I hear you all asking that the Mentor IM channel should only be used by Lindens for announcments, ie: there's a meeting, there are tons of new residents in the welcome area, come help, etc? Also, we should encourage the Mentors use the Forums for sharing more long-term ideas."

Consequently, Renee Riva made the suggestion that it would be helpful if everyone could put down what they "can/could do." People thought it would be helpful to use the this forum in such a way and I volunteered to be the one to post the thread.

Like I said to Rick in Yahoo just now, it would have been nice to have been invited to these official Mentor meetings. I mean, it's not like I'm new to the group or anything. I just didn't know they were happening.

Well, let me be the first to give this a try ...

Building
Anything involving Photoshop
Light Scripting
Light Poser

oh ...

And, random moments of effervescing silliness punctuated by spontaneous bouts of uncontrollable laughter.

I guess that sums it up

They were posted in this forum weren't they?

And..

Mainly Building and UI.. So nothing most people wouldn't be able to do themselves

Yeah.

I am not sure this is a well focussed idea here.

I could list (as could almost everyone in the group), most of those things that correspond to the tick boxes on our profiles like building, scripting, etc. as my skillset.

I dont have a lot of specialized knowledge or anything, but then what would a newbie do with anythign beyond basic assistance? If someone needs superior scripting help, then they are not really a newbie and should not be using up the Mentors time. Newbies just dont need that level of technical help IMO.

In my experience, what is sometimes crucial is the "fit" of the Mentor to the newbie in terms of being able to easily communicate with them. This would make listing of personal things like what languages you speak, what part of the world you are from and what your sexuality is far more important than your skill set.

Unfortunately, a lot of that kind of "social" information is really to personal to use or even talk about. It would seem inappropriate to me for instance, to start a list that had our personal "specialties" on it in that way.

I would also like to echo the fact that not all Mentors heard about the meeting and even though I did, I only heard about it a day before and it just wasn't at a time that I could come.

I agree that languages a Mentor can speak would certainly be something people should include in this list. I could see it also beneficial listing if you are outside the US just in case say someone from Scotland for example would be more comfortable and have an easier time understand someone else from that region. I would disagree that ones "sexuality" is an important factor in determining who they can help.

There was talk of subfolders like one for Scripters, Foriegn Languages etc, but I dont think we can do that.

Also be sure to check out the thread Days and Times for Mentor Meetings so we can come to some set date and time for all future monthly meetings.

Maybe it would be helpful to provide people with some structure for their contributions to the thread? I was thinking about the tick box thingy in the profile...something like this...with people filling in only those things they feel comfortable with, of course.

Mentor Name: Caliandris Pendragon
Location: London, England
Normally online at: all times of the day and night, not online 6-11pm SL time usually
Languages spoken: French
Experience of other games: UruLive
Experience of other programs: some paintshoppro/paint
General experience in SL: building, mentor events, show and tell and building events, groups, texturing
No good at: scripting
Special experience in SL: have run several shops, made a couple of games in SL with teams of creators (mysterious journey and Pot Healers Quest in Numbakulla), which involved co-ordinating big projects.

The trouble is...we would really need someone to maintain a data base for this to be anything other than a good way of getting to know a bit about each other.
Bws Cali

Mentor Name: Travis Lambert
Location: Detroit, MI, USA (EST / GMT -5)
Normally online at: 4pm - 9pm PST
Languages spoken: English, ein bischen Deutsch, whatever I can lookup on Babelfish
Experience of other games: Everquest, DAOC
Experience of other programs: Photoshop
General experience in SL: scripting, texturing, building
No good at: animations, gestures, clothing
Special experience in SL: I run the Shelter & my love for SL is tied directly to helping new residents

Mentor Name: Weedy Herbst
Location: BC, Canada (PST / GMT -
Normally online at: 4pm - 4am PST
Languages spoken: English, French
Experience of other games: Duke Nukem, Everquest, BF1942, Trainz 2004
Experience of other programs: Paintshop Pro
General experience in SL: streaming audio, technical issues, scripting, textures, building.

Mentor Name: ReallyRick Metropolitan
Location: Dallas, Texas
Normally online at: 1pm-4am SLT
Languages spoken: English and Typo
Experience of other games: TSO and THERE briefly.
Experience of other programs: SAM DJ...and that's it.
General experience in SL: Some building, Newbie Learning Stuff
No good at: Scripting, SL Economy
Special experience in SL: Ehh, well I am good and getting the word out for things I think. PR-ish stuff. Can DJ and run a club. Know the map sorta well. Play a mad game of Tringo, OAR, and GreedyGreedy.

Mentor Name: Tateru Nino
Location: Melbourne, Oz
Normally online at: 1pm-4pm SLT, 11pm-6am SLT
Languages spoken: English, smatterings of other things.
Experience of other games: MUSH, MUCK, MUSE, MOO, Genesis. And virtually everything non-MP
Experience of other programs: GIMP.
General experience in SL: Building, clothing creation, scripting, texturing, education
No good at: Animations, vehicles
Special experience in SL: NCI, networking, sheep.

I suppose the information could be dumped in a wiki, but finding things like "a spanish-speaking mentor online at 2am" wouldn't be so easy.

Mentor Name: Midnite Rambler
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Normally online at: 1pm-4am SLT roughly (varies considerably)
Languages spoken: English
Experience of other games: Diablo, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Civilisation, Baldur's Gate, various little games like Zuma, Cubis
Experience of other programs: Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Illustrator
General experience in SL: Building, Clothing, Textures (custom as well), Alphas, Signage
No good at: Scripting, Animations
Special experience in SL: Modelling, Shopping, Avatar Tweaking

Mentor Name: The Sojourner (Soj)
Location: Ohio which means EST
Normally online at: sporadically but often from 4:30am-7am, 10am-12noon, 5pm-7pm
Languages spoken: English
Experience of other games: none
Experience of other programs: none
General experience in SL: Basic building, event creation, helping newbies
No good at: Scripting, SL Economy (lol.. sounds like RL)
Special experience in SL: I am a member of ShockProof, Brigadoon, and Dreams. ShockProof is a group of stroke (brain attack) survivors. Brigadoon and the Brigadoon Explorers are sister groups of people who are associated with Asperger Syndrome and Autism. Dreams is the engine.

We have a set of tutorials based on the building edit menus as well as in Inventory Management so that people who are visual learners can learn at their own pace. There is a sandbox, small store with freebies and some Dream-member created items, and there is an Events area and a stage.

Anyone who would like to hold classes or an event that doesnt have a place to hold them, please feel free to let me know.

We are VERY newbie friendly and are slowly building a base of regulars who are experienced in a number of different areas so we can call in their services as needed. The general membership (Dream Travelers) are also very good at assisting newcomers as needed. You dont have to be a member to use the sandbox but if you come on a regular basis, I request membership so I can follow the prim useage.

If any of the other Mentors want to use our space or send people over, please feel free and/or let me know.

Mentor Name: Gwyneth Llewelyn
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Normally online at: 2pm-5pm SLT (earlier on weekends)
Languages spoken: English, Portuguese, German, French, Spanish (understands well, writes awfully)
Experience of other games: Who cares? SL is not a game
Experience of other programs: a bit of both Photoshop and Poser, enough to give a few hints
General experience in SL: Scripting (except Vehicles and Weapons), XML-RPC to external servers, Animation, a bit of Clothing
No good at: Building, Texturing
Special experience in SL: I'm a loudmouth — isn't that enough? Ok then — hosting and participating in discussion events, planning and participating in conferences and workshops, large-scale group coordination, teaching/training (RL and SL classes), politics , and, of course, some shopping

Mentor Name: Alisa Honey
Location: upstate ny
Normally online at :when im not sleeping which i rarely sleep it seems
Languages spoken: English,sign luanguage course doesnt help in sl lol
Experience of other games: none
Experience of other programs: none
General experience in SL: Basic building, event creation, helping newbies,hosting events makeing badic clotheing (not that great but anythings better then what u start with)
No good at: Scripting, SL Economy biulding much other then crokked things
Special experience in SL: I am good at helping get others avs fixed and looking decent and teaching basic survival skills have many my newbies come to me still

Mentor Name: Lo Jacobs
Location: Southern California
Normally online at: Depends, really. Usually in the evenings PST.
Languages spoken: English
Experience of other games: Some World of Warcraft
Experience of other programs: Eh?
General experience in SL: Very knowledgeable in clothes-making and can hep with building.
No good at: Absolutely no experience scripting.
Special experience in SL: When two of my friends and me made a three person column and then we pushed Cory off a cliff. Yeah, that was great.

Mentor Name: Felix Uritsky
Location: Harrisonburg, VA USA (EST / GMT -5)
Normally online at: Pretty much any time, it varies widely
Languages spoken: English at the moment, but I'm slowly learning Russian
Experience of other games: None
Experience of other programs: Photoshop
General experience in SL: Some scripting, some building, furry av customization. My main area of expertise is texturing and graphics design. It's sad how many SL businesses have crappy logos, or none at all
No good at: Animations, clothing, av design, gestures
Special experience in SL: I'm an avid pilot and have developed a knack for navigating the map without teleporting, which will probably become a lost art with the new P2P teleportation.

quote <Why not pass the request to the SL Mentors groupchat like everyone else does if they can't deal with it?>

Well the PAID EMPLOYEES of Linden Labs could always TRY to list THEIR area of expertise on THEIR profiles as well as the complete NONESSENTIALS they DO list and ..

INSTEAD OF SHIFTING THE CUSTOMER SERVICE/HELP RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COMPANY TO THEIR CUSTOMERS ) I've NEVER seen ANY company do this. Just Linden Labs. Can you imagine calling the power company about an outage and being told to call your neighbor for help? (and more often than not 'handling' your questions with an email address, a 'pls report bug' suggestion, or flat out denying help. or in MOST ways 'brushing you off'.)

I commend the generosity of the 'live help' crew, and I love helping ppl too. But PLEASE. Advise the PAID HELP to get some callouses on their fingertips too. Your efforts are well-meant, but DON'T sweat over this. Make Linden Labs do that.

AND, in keeping with the need to help others that I KNOW is a strong and strange help 'ethic' at Linden Labs....

kk, Philp....pls have my laundry done, my car washed and my dogs walked BEFORE I get home today....

Hello, 911? Someone just hijacked the thread!

In doing classes recently where many new folks were present, their unsolicited concerns were consistently in this area of the LACK of help by Linden Lab folks. and the well-meant, but sometimes wrong advice given by 'live help' on more technical issues. In large part they said they were 'afraid' to call upon a 'Linden', that the actual employees of the company usually 'brushed them off' and made them feel as if they were 'bothering' them.I told them, well, yes, that happened to me many times, and that maybe I'd suggest that the staff be more amenable to customer requests. In asking a Linden AND Linden support about a matter, and not having a satisfactory answer, I finally had to suggest they extend themselves a bit more in helping us regular folk. I suggested also, like you guys, that they might put their areas of expertise on the online profiles of Lindens so that perhaps, the wrong ones would not be bothered for this and that. That did not go well.

The nail in the coffin of MY silence about this issue was when ONE of the extremely nice, and reticent newbies at my LAST class said that a 'Linden' gave her not the answer to her question, but this wonderful advice...'Use live help, they're free so you usually get dummies but free dummies'.

Now. No one here is a dummy. Everyone here is a generous, intelligent sort. Just trying to help a bunch of lovely Linden Lab folk who are in a 'bind'. They are 'too busy with other things'. Well. judging by the salaries they offer for their REAL jobs on Monster.com, the company's finances look pretty good, and they should be way able to HIRE the customer service help they so often need.

Now..purehearts..help those in need. I can tell you I, for one..and many...TRULY appreciate you.

Mentor Name: Garnet Psaltery
Location: Shropshire, England
Normally online at: Most of the time though I prefer to sleep between 5pm and 12am game time
Languages spoken: English (UK), brushing up German slowly, quite handy with constructing sentences that can be translated via Babelfish without insulting someone's grandmother and/or soliciting the hand in marriage of their pet monkey
Experience of other games: Adventure games! Nothing else online though.
Experience of other programs: Well, I have an unused copy of Photoshop that I plan to use next month
General experience in SL: A keen builder, can bodge some simple scripts, event planning and hosting, friendly-ear offering, land purchase and sales, shop management, generally being old and wise
No good at: Weapons, transport, clothing, animations
Special experience in SL: Involved with cancer and depression charities and about to set up something for people with CFS/ME. Also intend getting involved in some way with assisting older (RL) residents

Mentor Name: Rose Karuna

Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL

Normally online at: After 8:00 PM during the week, After 4:00 PM on Sundays and sometimes on Saturdays

Languages spoken: English & Spanish, but a little slow responding on the Spanish and spelling a little poor.

Experience of other games: SIM City, SIM Life, Civilazation, Myst

Experience of other programs: Photoshop

General experience in SL: My strong area is in creating plants and trees and animals, but I can also build houses and furniture and I can teach and I have made clothing as well.

No good at: Absolutely no experience scripting.

Special experience in SL: I'm an old geezer but I like to laugh and have a lot of patience and listen to people who want to talk.

Mentor Name: Susie Boffin
Location: West coast USA which means I use SL time
Normally online at: 9:00am - 10:00am and sometimes after 9:00pm
Languages spoken: English, Blonde
Experience of other games: Nexus The Kingdom of the Winds
Experience of other programs: Windows
General experience in SL: I know a little bit about everything
No good at: Tech stuff
Special experience in SL: I may have the biggest foot in all of SL to put in my mouth. My special skills are turning places into nice natural forested areas, leading teams on special projects and talking in general.