New Player Education:who's Role Is It?

Over a year after the Instructor group was dissolved we now have open enrollment and a huge influx of new players.

We can all agree that EDUCATION=RETENTION, so now we have only a ten percent rate of actual contact with new players within a few days of them starting out off of Help Island.

The question is how to increase this contact. The 'system' we have in place now of Mentors loitering about is obviously NOT effective. To farm out education to an outside group that will charge Linden Lab to provide the service is outrageous. When LL had their own group of educators they decided they no longer wanted to pay in money they printed themselves.

So why can't 3,600 volunteers in the Mentor group (many who were in the Instructor and/or volunteer helper group before being rolled into the Mentor Group) handle an organized effort to educate the new players? Why should LL spend our hard earned money paying players real currency to do what 3,600 people can do for free?

Money is better spent hiring a PROFESSIONAL that can mobilize this massive volunteer team. The Mentor group is chock full of builders, linguists and educators. Linden Lab just needs to develop a continent entitled VIRTUAL EDUCATION ISLAND and have all newcomers directly teleport there after help island. The Mentors would staff these islands. This could work if actually measurable GOALS were put in place and monitored.

I saw Blue linden sitting on NCI's Panel discussion at SL5B with a Mentor Trainer. Is this some sort of official alliance? Or a community group and one volunteer meeting with a Community Linden discussing possible plans to educate the new players?

There needs to be a open conversation about educating the new players that includes utlizing the massive volunteer team we now have and not paying community groups to provide such a service.

This is a superb idea .
I have been in Sl for a good while now , and i always seem to be teleporting all over the place to aquire new skills .
A "1 stop shop" where people at all skill levels could go and learn the basics as well as more advanced tricks would be most welcome .
It could be a place where people can hang out and share ideas and experiances for the benefit of all SL residents .
It would be a very handy thing

NCI has been doing this for years in SL

The problem is the huge volume of new users coming into SL. One island would be overwhelmed. Also, not everyone wants to learn all the complicated things about SL - social integration, and world alingment, have a better relationship to retention (as far as I know)

There, of course, would be multiple islands to accommodate the users.
NCI does teach, yes. But they have not been effective in reaching the vast majority of new users. They do not have enough manpower to make that happen. The Mentor Group does have enough willing and able (and screened by LL) volunteers who are more than capable of staffing a networked education system that is delivered as a HUD to everyone under 30 days old.

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This is a very interesting idea, since I'm involved in _developing_ a networked education system with NCI. What do you see it providing, though?

Probably a HUD is a bad idea because of the inevitable glitchiness that new users don't know how to deal with. I've heard that the Lindens are removing the Orientation Island HUD soon for that reason.

I too would be interested in knowing how this might work.

It's true that there are over 3,000 mentors. But they volunteer their time...they don't have set hours. Even with 3,000+ mentors, there are almost always eight to twelve OIs that contain new residents, but that do not have any mentor coverage.

There are a whole LOT of OIs...I don't have an exact count, but between 50-100. Sometimes, almost all of them are empty. Other times, maybe half of them will have 10 to 14 avatars incoming.

I'm in favor of any system that would work to get helpers and new residents together. The problem is one of timing. Residents can choose to join SL at any time...and sometimes they come in a flood, sometimes a trickle. Some mentors have lots of time to volunteer, others have very little. Some can schedule "help" hours, others squeeze it in where they can.

When you say 'Networked Ed System' is that going to be a Linden Lab partnered project or just a NCI marketing plan?

We have a SHOWCASE we should have a EDUCATION Selection Tab also - to stress Education.


That is why I say spend the money on hiring a ORGANIZER that knows how to work with virtual volunteers and not give it to NCI to experiment with solutions. We have the manpower. We just need a leader.

I have a HUD built by HippoTech that alerts me to visitors once they arrive at my places. How hard could it be to give mentors a similar HUD to let them know that there is a new player on one of the 50-100 OIs? Set up networked sensors and give people a HUD that sends an alert when someone new shows up.

NCI have a number of networked systems that they use at their locations across the world. At the moment, the Tutorial function is mostly display walls that give notecards. We don't offer a HUD at the moment, but it could be a possibility - that was why I was wondering how you saw such a "networked education system" working, as I expect you had something in mind that is more sophisticated than a notecard giver!



Nobody can really discuss this when we have no idea how your proposed "networked system" would work, and what exactly would be networked. Is it based on chat? Fixed information? Tutorial references?

I asked are you doing this for NCI or as a joint effort supported by Linden Lab (financially or otherwise).

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The development I have done has been entirely for NCI. Linden Lab _are_ using some parts of the systems on the new Help Islands, but they did not fund its development and only became involved once the parts they are using were already complete. They did not ask me to "experiment", and the inquiry I'm making here about future development was made purely with regard to what NCI could offer.

PS. Also, a problem that hadn't struck me yet. Now, I don't mind bots. In fact I quite like them, when they are used for good effect. But when bot owners are LEAVING THE DAMN BOTS IDLE IN THE PRELUDE, thus messing up any attempt by mentors to find where the human users are, messing up Second Life's load balancing for new accounts, and leaving newbies with their first impression being talking to new "friends" who utterly ignore them, I dislike them, in fact I AM QUITE FRANKLY FLABBERGASTED AT THE IRRESPONSIBILITY INVOLVED.

I find it irresponsible that Linden Lab would dismiss all of its education volunteers and then go into secret negotiations with a private resident group to lead community education.

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Um.. they used some networked notecard and freebie giver scripts that NCI was using. NCI didn't get any other special privileges. In fact, many of the NCI staff can't even access the places where the scripts are being used, because they aren't Mentors and can't enter HI. The volunteer places and rules are still completely intact.

And "dismissing all its education volunteers"? Um, do you mean the Instructor program? That was wound up because it was being gamed.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/11/16/changes-to-the-second-life-instructor-program/#more-520
Not true. The four reasons given are listed in this blog post.

So LindenLab wiped their hands of education and now realizes that Education=Retention and wants to re-invent the wheel.

Since the abandoned instructors were made Mentors - just makethem Mentor Instructors and get the program going again with proper leadership.






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I think it's likely that Integration=Retention is important too. In other words, the ability to meet other people with the same interests, and a similar level of development, at the class is of at least equal value to the teaching aspects.

The ability is right at their fingertips (the SEARCH button). Lack of education on how to navigate the social network leaves many new players feeling isolated and frustrated.

NCI nor any other resident-run education group has yet to address this and it has, over the last two years, negatively impacted retention rates.

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You are quite correct that people are frustrated by being unable to navigate the social network, but I don't think that SEARCH is the answer. Search doesn't tell you where the dead places are, it doesn't tell you where everyone is a bot, it doesn't tell you where the groups for people who are genuinely interested in something are (as opposed to the generic clubs - I'm sure many people enjoy them but not everyone!)



NCI does do classes on finding items in search, but I'm not quite sure how an education group could address it, otherwise. It would be like trying to teach someone to have a good time at a party.

This is why you should also direct newbies to the Shelter, where they try to integrate people socially.

SEARCH does tell you where dead places are. Once you find a place click MAP and see the green dots. I always ask a newplayer what interests them in RL or what they are curious about in SL. I then direct them to SWEARCH->GROUPS. We type in the kep word they are interested in and find groups of people interested in the same thing. If thegroup is open enrollement aI show them how to join, I show them how to check the profile of the owners and officers of the group also. SEARCH used properly is they key for new players to intergrate into teh existing social network.

A key word HUD could be attached to each new avatar. The HUD could whisper spam them instructions on how ot search for content. The HUD could also tell them how to diable and remove it. The Content of teh HUD is scraped from the current updated Search listings.

But they're meaningless, because in many cases they will be bots. In fact, using bots that looks like regular avatars could be dangerous to retention because newbies are seeing them in social situations and forming the opinion that SL is either dead or composed of assholes who never reply.



I agree, but groups are not such a good place to Search. Certainly based on my own experience, when you join a group for something you are interested in, you have a new group but still there is only silence.

The reason why classes are such a good place for people to become integrated is that a) there are active people there; b) they share an interest; and c) the activities tend to be those that are enhanced by SL (most groups for activities that are _not_ enhanced by SL tend to be generally inferior to those that exist elsewhere. I know that's harsh to say but if you want to, say, learn Japanese, obviously far more people will be bothered to visit a web-based BBS for Japanese learners than to log into SL whenever they want to talk about it)

Not according to my experiences with SEARCH. I wanted to learn about Open Sims and how they work. I searched 'Open Sim' in groups - attempted contact of the group members and founders, found the one that responded to me and was helpful and joined. A fellow wanted to DJ for me but was only a country music DJ. He tried to find country clubs without knowing how to navigate the search. When I took him through search he found 16 country clubs and secured a DJ job within minutes. Proper research of groups does reward you with good results. Teaching these new players this procedure is quite effective.

Yes, classes are the best place for people to learn. Running into a Mentor loitering waiting to answer questions is not all that effecti9ve. These resident-run schools are not all that effective because the new players have no idea thatthey exist nor do they know how to locate them. And this takes us back to the OPs original question:

NEW PLAYER EDUCATION:WHO'S ROLE IS IT?

Linden Lab wiped their hands of it in 2006. The resident-run schools have no contact with new players. So the new players wander. Some even get frustrated and quit. When will Linden Lab hire someone to MOBILIZE the 3,600 volunteer force to address the education issue?

I'm sure that it is - but it's not 100% effective. Based on what you say it sounds like after teaching these things, you stuck around to see how well they went. Which is great, but could it be done in a scalable fashion? Maybe, but I'm not sure.



I wonder what you mean by "mobilize". Also, you may or may not have heard of the "UO volunteer lawsuit" and "AOL volunteer lawsuit" but if you haven't, you should look it up, as it's important to this issue. Essentially, an online game company had highly "mobilised" its volunteers - giving them minimum shifts, fixed coverage hours, an incentive program, etc - and wound up getting sued under the Labor Standards Act, with the argument that anything more than "help out when you like" was inappropriate for volunteers and it was instead treating them as employees. I know this sounds bogus but apparantly, they did actually win the lawsuit, and the company had to pay. Likewise, AOL were told that they could not have "volunteers" performing essential business functions, as if they were truly essential then logically they could not be entirely voluntary. So LL and others will be staying far far away from that.

I look at it this way... If you can help, please do so. (^_^)

It's really that simple. The thing is, there are a lot of people that don't have the time to volunteer. SL is a very active environment, and it's often difficult to break away and try to be a guide to the next person that asks "What do I do here?"... At the same time, trying to be as informed as possible and still finding a way to enjoy time with friends and still achieve a descent SL/RL balance. (^_^)

While overwhelming, it's still doable. In fact... I just applied to be an NCI instructor for hopefully a 6pm time slot class. *crosses fingers and holds breath* (>_< I'm probably doing more than I can handle, but, I'm enjoying every minute of it. It's just a matter of finding fun in helping people who genuinely want to be helped. (^_^)y

We always stick around for three minutes to make sure the person got something out of the lesson. Even in my vocational school people can stay in the group for life and constantly get assistance forever. I have nearly 200 active members in this post-education group. They all benefit from helping one another and informally interfacing with the instructors also.

I mean to "organize". Scheduling and advertising the trainings and developing a Education HUD that is attached to new players.
Yes, I heard about it. This is why I have asked about what LL is doing to increase the education of the new players (since education would definitely increase retention). Is LL collaborating with resident education groups, or just NCI. And is this a back door effort by LL to avoid directly hiring educators to fullfil their education needs.