Monthly Mentor Meeting Transcript January 30, 2009 - 10AM PST

sLexie Linden: ok on to some Volunteer Program news!
Lexie Linden: I think we have come a long way!!
Lexie Linden: Volunteers have always given great “one on one” help at new resident locations, as well as across the world where ever needed.
Lexie Linden: These efforts have been successful, helpful, valued and appreciated.
Lexie Linden: The volunteer program has evolved throughout time to meet the needs of our changing world.
Lexie Linden: We’ve had a smaller number of volunteers helping a smaller community
Lexie Linden: … then Greeters who were matched up with residents to show them around in their first hour in world
Lexie Linden: then a population explosion that kept Live Help busy busy busy!
Lexie Linden: We evolved again and saw how current Mentors could help teach new Mentors by becoming coaches, buddies, linguists and scribes. There was even shadowing on the HI’s for live training!
Lexie Linden: These are just a few of the milestones in the evolution of the Volunteer Program .
Tid Kidd:
Lexie Linden: But, going forward it will become more difficult to reach the many residents who need assistance.
Lexie Linden: The world continues to grow and there is not time enough in a day for volunteers to be there for everyone who could really benefit f r o m their skills and knowledge.
Lexie Linden: (Although we know you would all really try because you are just that dedicated and awesome!)
Lexie Linden: Over the past months we began planning a change that would include a Greeter group specializing in help at the new resident locations.
Lexie Linden: At this time we are not going to move forward with that plan.
Lexie Linden: While it is still a good idea with current concurrency rates, later on it is likely that it would limit the amount of help we give to new residents, as well as limit the number of volunteers who can participate. [10:22] Lexie Linden: It doesn’t seem like it would be sustainable for very long.
Lexie Linden: As volunteers your goal has been and continues to be helping Residents discover, learn and enjoy their Second Life. Our goal is to help you do that the best way possible, while reaching as many Residents as possible.
Lexie Linden: We have listened to your feedback and ideas throughout the course of the Volunteer Program. There were many times a certain idea came up but we were not in the position to try to make it happen.
Lexie Linden: So, what can we do that 1) can reach many and 2) have long term value.
Lexie Linden: How can we improve volunteering and the overall impact of your knowledge on Second Life.
Lexie Linden: You may have read awhile back about the new blog/forum software that is coming.
Lexie Linden: This new software presents an opportunity for us to explore how we can extend the Volunteer Program and respond to something volunteers have asked for in the past.
Lexie Linden: The new forum/blog could allow us to design a system inspired by “Yahoo Answers” (Here’s the link in case you are not familiar with it - http://answers.yahoo.com )
Lexie Linden: By creating a written, searchable, live resource that can be accessed by the masses, instead of limiting help to the smaller number of residents volunteers can reach in world, we can become scalable and reach more Residents than ever before.
Lexie Linden: Some of you might be thinking we could use wiki for this. .
Lexie Linden: But, I think if you have ever spent time trying to search wiki..you may have found that it can be difficult to locate exactly what you are looking for. It is still a good resource for many things, but we can do better for our particular needs
Lexie Linden: There are some important benefits to this new idea that I want to point out for your consideration.
Lexie Linden: One is that multiple languages are supported. I think we can all agree that’s pretty important!
Tid Kidd: WOOT !!! yes
Lexie Linden: : ))
Lexie Linden: Also, by compiling helpful and searchable correct answers, it would be possible over time for some of this information to be picked up by the Knowledge Base in English and other languages.
Lexie Linden: The positive impact on basic account holders, not just brand new residents could also be pretty significant.
Lexie Linden: This program could preserve the knowledge, share it easily, connect the community in a new way and enable volunteer assistance to be truly accessible and global for Second Life Residents.
Lexie Linden: Our current status on this “project” is: The program extension is not something designed yet. We are looking at the options and the best way to take advantage of the new software.
Lexie Linden: So, when could this happen.
Lexie Linden: We do not have the timing set yet since we are still in the initial explore and design phase. It would not be when the new blog/forum first launches. (That could be within the next month or so) We will keep you u p d a t e d as things progress : )
Lexie Linden: Here are a few general items we would hope to include and also some ways volunteers may be able to help in the launch
Lexie Linden: Please keep in mind this is in design phase and can change
Lexie Linden: As always we will want and value your thoughts and feedback. (Yes, there are surveymonkeys in your future : ) )
Lexie Linden: We would want…
Lexie Linden: A Question/Answer area possibly seeded with Q&A f r o m current volunteers.
Lexie Linden: Some initial question categories pre-determined with volunteer input and feedback (surveymonkey!)
Lexie Linden: An initial “group/community” of volunteers within this website that have a title that reflects their participation.
Lexie Linden: and…
Lexie Linden: A “leader board” for top contributors that could show who gives the most answers, correct answers or helpful answers
Lexie Linden: A little note on that feature: Correct answers or helpful answers are determined by the person who asked the question. When they mark the answers as helpful or correct, it would u p d a t e the total for each person that answered.
Lexie Linden: That’s some basics about the idea.
Lexie Linden: I hope you all are as excited as we are about this new possible opportunity to extend and enhance volunteer help!
Lexie Linden: : ))
Tid Kidd: YAY
Lexie Linden: woot!!
George Linden: .
Lexie Linden: Next up there are a couple of questions I wanted to answer real quick
Lexie Linden: About current volunteer groups…
Lexie Linden: We are not changing anything with the volunteer group set ups. Volunteering continues as usual! As always, as we evolve the program we will continue to evaluate and support the mechanisms that support the program’s goals.
Lexie Linden: Current group guidelines: We had talked about having the Mentor group channel more like Q&A and then closing Q&A. Since we will not have the new Greeter group, we will not make any changes to the guidelines for other groups at this time.
Lexie Linden: Applications: We do not know when the application area will reopen. It is possible that the new software can be used related to that.
Lexie Linden: Next up, we have Blue! Over to you Blue .
Blue Linden: thank you!
Blue Linden: I think many of you know I’ve been working on the new blogs/forums
Jeska Linden shouts: Don’t forget to send questions to Mia Linden everyone
Blue Linden: I’ve been oh so excited about the possibility of doing this Yahoo Answers type system with new blog software
Lexie Linden: : ))
Blue Linden: you might remember way back when I started working with you guys and one of the first things we did was remove Live Help
Blue Linden: I consider myself luck to have survived
Lexie Linden: lol
Tid Kidd: LOL
George Linden: hah
Blue Linden: we had talked a lot at the time about why Live Help wasn’t scaling….
Blue Linden: and what that format’s major drawback was….the temporary nature of the information sharing.
Blue Linden: which of course is similar to what you experience on the Help Islands.
Blue Linden: you end up answering the same questions over and over….
Tid Kidd: “where do I get money.”
Blue Linden: the persistent nature of the information you share in a Yahoo Answers type system is a huge improvement
Blue Linden: you guys are SL’s power users and the idea that you’d be able to build on your own efforts helping people is very exciting
Blue Linden: with Live Help you were often asked REALLY insanely difficult questions that even I didn’t know ;p
Blue Linden: *didn’t know the answers to
Blue Linden: that clearly doesn’t happen as often on HIs and some mentors miss the challenge
Blue Linden: we see this new system as something that the ol’ live helpers will really enjoy
Blue Linden: we’ll be sure to share more info on the details of the system as we get them ironed out.
Blue Linden: it’s very exciting hehe I can’t wait to launch it, personally ;p
Blue Linden: in the meantime, thanks as always for your patience as we sort things out. .
Blue Linden: And I think we’re going to do some Q&A in the last 20 min….
Lexie Linden: right!
Lexie Linden: Send your questions to Mia in IM please!
Mia Linden: ok
Mia Linden: here come the Questions
Mia Linden: sonoma Beatty: are think think about make a mentor build in to the view to help just get to the poaple that need help so we can get to them faster like and call a mentor type of thing
George Linden: I think we can see the new Answers system have a way to be worked into the viewer,
George Linden: At the very least it will be accessible by web browser .
George Linden: Not yet planned though X)
Mia Linden: Rails Bailey: given that LL appears, at least on the surface to becoming a company that cares more about monetary gain, why is LL considering this move to a yahoo approach, when in fact the KB is a reliable resource, the issue as I see it is getting mentors to use it more, so this boils down to teaching mentors to use the current reliable resources, and the money spent on this new system could then be spent where it is most needed on reliable servers
George Linden: The new forums software we’re getting actually has the Answers system fitted to it already;
George Linden: This has been something on our wish list for a while though .
George Linden: The good thing about the KB is that you can get a lot of answers f r o m it by searching by topic-
George Linden: What the Answers system will do is become a resource not just for answers but the questions themselves
George Linden: And say for example a question pops up over and over.. and it gets answered over and over..
Blue Linden: Yeah, it’s a plug-in….not a big devolopment expense for LL <3
Mia Linden: Tid Kidd: Q : will the SL Web Browser support the quick answering of questions on the new blog/forums .
George Linden: It will sort of raise a red flag to the Doc team about the need for an additional Knowledge Base article .
Doctor Gascoigne: DOC TEAM=documentation team NOT ME
Mia Linden: sorry i put out the next question let me repeat it:
Mia Linden: Tid Kidd: Q : will the SL Web Browser support the quick answering of questions on the new blog/forums .
George Linden: we haven’t been able to test it out yet Tid,
George Linden: I imagine it will be fast because it will be through a web browser.. but I can’t be sure, Lexie may have more news on that in weeks to come .
Lexie Linden: We will keep you u p d a t e d as we find out more info on that possibility!
Lexie Linden: Keep in mind we are still in design phase so we may not have alot of answers for you yet .
Mia Linden: eva Nowicka: How will you solve the problem of the HI haven’t mentors most of the time. with that “off-line help”. how will you inform to the newcomers about it.
George Linden: The Answers system aims to address part of the scaling problem with Mentors ‘needing’ to be at Help Islands-
George Linden: There are just so many Help Islands out there, and a lot of similar questions being asked repeatedly,
George Linden: When we make an announcement of the Answers program we’ll push it steadily to make it well known
George Linden: One focus of the Answers program is to take the inworld help and move it to a place where the questions/answers can be catalogued
George Linden: So the focus on Greeting process at the HIs will be looked at again down the road, but we’ll be focusing on the Answers program for now
Lexie Linden: Mia will be right back

I wonder if the upcoming "Yahoo Answers style" forum is going to replace this vBulletin forum.