Mentors and ethics

I own a sim/shop... today i watched 2 Mentors fly around for a while with one taking snapshots of selected higher end products. I queried the snapshot taker "why do u take snapshots?" she didn't reply. I queried the other, "why does ur friend take snapshots?". "why not" was the reply, and then "...is there any rule not to take some?". After saying it was a perfectly reasonable question, She admitted she had told her friend not to take ideas. I stated " i think u are not here to purchase... please leave" (it is a private sim). I was told "false thinking please proof your attitude". I stated "please leave or i will eject and lay complaint" to which the reply was "i will report that" (huh a threat of abuse? report for ejecting from a private sim??). Then "this is very rude behaviour". Forgetting she had already admitted that her friend was stealing ideas... I was told "she made that pics as idea how to put furniture in her home" (an obvious lie as it is garden furniture laid out in rows outside on grass). I was told i was behaving rudely, that i had a big problem, that i should accept her excuse or let it be, and that i should think about my attitude with customers. I asked again for them to leave (one had crashed by this time) and i was told "you are unbelieveably rude".

So my questions are... Do you think mentors taking snapshots of products they obviously mean to copy is acceptable behaviour? Do you think its acceptable for Mentors to stay and argue, abuse and threaten when asked politely to leave a private sim?

BTW my first ever meeting with mentors, and please note i have provided no names.

No, you have the right to ban people or eject them from your sim.

Punters may well get a bit upset or argue, but if you have reason to think they may be stealing, you're entitled to ban them. Heck, you're entitled to ban them even if they're NOT doing that - it's your sim!

If they were wearing mentor tags, I would report them to LL. While wearing mentor tags, they *are* supposed to behave politely.

I'm a Mentor. I'm proud of that, but I'm realistic too. The Mentor group is large enough that it includes a full cross section of SL...including some small number of idiots and/or unethical people. Most of us are Good Folks, but like any other large group, not 100% of us.

We're residents, just like everybody else.

If you see a Mentor doing something against the TOS, report them.

If a Mentor offends you or does something on your property that you find objectionable, ban them.

Just as you would any other resident.

Having said that, I'll add: It's not entirely clear that the situation you describe was against the TOS or unethical. Perhaps the individual was taking photos to use as inspiration. I did just that one time...I like Damanios Thetan's home designs. I went to his sim one day and took pics. I later used those when I was constructing my own home. The result was far from a copy (Dami's are much better than mine). But it did have the same clean, modernistic flavor, which was what I wanted. I did not copy his homes prim for prim, or steal his textures.

But regardless, you have the right to ban someone who's doing something you don't like on your land.

*bump*

An active tag is the only thing that matters. If someone is in the mentor group but not tagged up (or not tagged but obviously acting in the role) then they're just a regular resident and being a mentor or not has absolutely no relevance.

I wouldn't necessarily say that the people in question were trying to steal ideas. Maybe they were taking pics of your garden stuff so that they could go back, look at their garden, look at the pics, and decide if they wanted to buy your products, if they matched the feel of the garden.

Agreed.

I know when I see something I think someone I know will like, I will take a picture and send it to them, since it will have the item that caught my attention, and the location.

Like hell it has no relevance. No relevance to you maybe, the rest of us are watching your little group with much interest.

Don't think for a second that mentors tagged or not, are above the abuse report system.

It should be the case that mentors consistently adhere to higher standards than the average resident.

Laughs............this wasnt always the case........can you say double standards Bullshit?

Don't judge an avatar by their title. Only their behaviour. If you don't like their behaviour, you are quite within your rights to eject them from your own land or sim, whatever Linden sanctioned groups they're in.

Mentors are just regular SL users, with a similar asshat to niceguy ratio.

My, my, there are so many strange things in this report..

First of all.. as far as I know, simply looking at existing products and trying to make your own versions of them is not considered content theft. Copyrighting "ideas" is not legally supported and in fact various parts of Second Life are explicitly designed to oppose it.

Also, though.. likewise, it cannot be abuse to eject whoever you want from a private sim, so claiming that was nonsense.

I don't think it's quite as simple as "if a Mentor isn't wearing a Mentor tag it's not a Mentor issue" because that person is unlikely to become a completely different person when they activate the tag.

I understand his position. There is a certain Mentor who comes to Orientation Island from time to time merely to act as a police officer. Incredibly rude woman who doesn't seem to be interested in helping newbies but merely reporting ANYTHING that might be slightly AR'able. When one of the residents explained that they were only around to help newbies and socialise, the Mentor responded 'You're borderline, now' (borderline to being reported). When another Mentor finally began to question her about why on earth she had to report everyone, she replied: 'Mentors are supposed to be above everyone else and report ANY violation.'
Now, clearly this is wrong, she's not even a new mentor since she's also a Mentor Coach.

In some cases, power corrupts.

Do you mean Orientation Island or Orientation Island Public?

Technically speaking, somebody who created an alt purely to return to the non-public Orientation Island to help people (thus bypassing the Mentor application process) might be AR'able although I'm not sure I think this is a good thing and I can see it being a rather controversial point..

Yeah, i mean Orientation island Public.

Yes, it should be. In most cases, it is. Sometimes, it's not. That's life.

I don't agree. I believe Linden Volunteers are held to a higher standard than the rest of the masses. As we expect Linden employees should behave in a certain manner while on the grid.

Sigh. Another mentor-bashing thread.

Once again: Mentors are people, too. They are all volunteers. Most of them are dedicated to helping newcomers, and most of those are very good at it. But no one...and certainly no large group of people...is perfect.

The behaviors you all have described...rudeness, possible TOS violations, authoritarianism...are not typical of the mentors. I am not saying they didn't happen, only that they are not widespread.

I've worked with, and talked to, maybe two or three hundred mentors personally. Out of those, maybe three to five of them were asshats of some sort. IMO, of course.

And Yumi's right. A person doesn't stop being a good person...or an asshat...by wearing or taking off a tag. There's one difference though: when I'm wearing my tag, I am representing Linden Lab. So I am just a little more careful in what I say and how I behave.

Can we please stop talking about "Mentors" as a class, as if everyone who is a Mentor is automatically equated with used dog chow? If somebody violated the TOS, AR them. If somebody you don't like, for whatever reason, is on your land, eject and ban them. That applies to anyone, no matter what groups they belong to or what tag they're wearing.

(Yumi: I did just what you mentioned in an earlier post...created an alt and left her on an OI to help folks, back before I became a Mentor. There's nothing in the TOS against doing this.)

There are many excellent, knowledgable, and dedicated mentors. I've always assumed that they know this, but perhaps ... well I'll just mention it. Among a certain subset of the freebie-seeking community it is thought that you:

> apply to become a mentor
> wait for a while
> get approved
> grab all the excellent freebies available in the group
> put on your mentor tag and go bother people, woot

I truly do think that Mentors should completely abandon the practice of gathering and giving out freebies. It attracts a younger crowd that is completely uninterested in actually helping people.
.

I have not seen any bashing taking place in this thread. You and most who posted here agree that Mentors should be very aware of the TOS and basic right and wrong because they represent the service provider.

AFAIK, no freebies are given out through the Second Life Mentor group. Some of the resident-owned related groups, such as Mental Mentors, do give out freebies; and some products are offered for free to members of Mentors. There are also some freebies on Volunteer Island. But they're not an official part of the LL volunteer program.

I do have to add though that the idea that "Mentors are just people and thus some of them will be asshats" is, I think, a horrible line of thinking. Mentors should not be acting like asshats with or without their Mentor tag. The reality is that it _is_ a position of trust, and shouldn't be abused. I know that there are some behaviours that LL say are acceptable only while not wearing the tag (eg, complaining or protesting about SL) but generally "being an asshat" doesn't fit well into that category

I also have to re-iterate that it is fallacious to believe that an AR by a Mentor carries any more weight than an AR filed by any other resident - it doesn't. The only exception is ARs filed on the non-public OIs and HIs and those are more to do with a need to quickly protect the "helpless" newbies who may still be evaluating SL.

Interesting. I've overheard two conversations about it, one at a "Doll" store, one at a kind of goth lolita place. The participants were obviously fairly young in both cases.

In one of the convos, it was pretty clear they were thinking of the Mentors, because they were talking about how it wasn't like any other group in that it took weeks to join. One person said she had done it and the freebies were great, but wasn't wearing a Mentor tag.

It's possible, now you mention it, that in the other case they were talking about some other group called Mentor something-or-other. Again, mentioned only as a great source of freebies, no mention of helping people
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How strange. The vast majority of freebies given to Mentors are provided so that the Mentor can give them to new residents, so they should be available to anyone. The number of "commercial products offered for free to Mentors" is very low, I'm really surprised anyone would sign up to be a Mentor just for those!

you should have frozen those tards the second they got snooty. then set them on fire or sic dogs on them till they leave. Tards can't come within radar dist. of ME with crap like that.

I don't agree. I don't think any experienced Second Life user holds mentors to a higher standard than any other regular user. Why? Because SL Mentors *are* regular users. *Not* employees.

The only prerequisite to becoming a mentor is the ability to press an application button. That is all.

I have nothing but admiration for people who help and assist others. I do it myself. But I don't need a mentor tag to do so.

Indeed, I've applied to become a mentor in the past but became so jaded with the asshats who wear the tag so they can patrol Infohubs in the manner of Basil Fawlty shouting at people for minor transgressions that I questioned why I wanted that tag in the first place.

So I could access a few islands off-limits to non-mentors?
So I could wear the title and assume a sense of authority?

No thanks.