Outsourcing Orientation

That's not the worst I've seen. One rl company I applied for a job at, which will remain nameless, sent me the rejection letter about 12 months after I applied.

hhaha you fell for that game too Its who you know that gets you those jobs . No matter what your skills are you never get those positions. Thats the reason nothing works because they only hire people that @@@ @@@.

This is encouraging news. I do hope there will be a standards document which lays out a basic foundation that the 3rd party OIs must follow. Something very basic, so we don't have conflicting information being disseminated.

Hopefully, next on the chopping block will be the Welcome Areas. I visit various WAs on a semi regular basis, and the griefing and otherwise juvenile class clown activities that go on are disgusting.

Maybe somebody from their HR department is reading the forums. IMO, somebody who comes to the LL forums and calls LL pathetic might not be the best canditate for a liason job...

LOL

As long as they don't fight with the Grid Monkeys

The article specificially says "alternate starting points" which I interpret as meaning the normal SL orientation islands will still be open, users registering will now have a choice of where they go through orientation.

It also sounds to me like anyone who wants to build an orientation system (on their own dime, of course) will be allowed to list it (assuming Linden approval.)

I will note here that for the past two months I've had a private, non-Linden sanctified InfoHub at The Botanical Gardens. I allow people to join a group for free and set their home to the sim. So far, 150 people are calling the sim home. Many of them have become friends based on a common love of hanging out at the Garden. Some are over a year old, the average is three to four weeks, some join and home to The Botanical Gardens on their first day in SL. In my opinion, privatizing some of the new resident infrastructure does work. SL is a big, confusing and lonely place for most new users who aren't coming in with friends already here. Providing new residents with an environment where they feel comfortable and have some kind of affinity for makes them feel like they have a place to go - a HOME - which is something that IMHO is lacking in places like the WA and the official InfoHubs.

The unfortunate truth is, volunteers often are ineffective. Their reasons for volunteering don't necessarily line up with what's needed, and their determination is limited by kudos, not cash. This is why charities work with salaried staff, as well as volunteers - you don't have to look just at SL to see this effect at work.

This is a good question. I'd be interested in helping to setup an orientation place, maybe one with a wooded outdoors theme.

it would be neat if a bunch of people could set up areas with various themes so I to am curious what the criteria are for being able to set up an orientation area

I wonder if this is connected with the certification program?

In other words, anyone with a spare island to donate. Yeah, that sounds about right; I wonder if the National Parks Service would be interesting in funding an orientation island lol

Bingo!!!!!!!!!!!!! hehehehe But really its who you know these days. Not whatyou know

I see hippie-pay orientation island in our future. Join SL and teleport into spam hell.

That's an option in the registration API. When you register a user, you can set their start point or restrict them to mainland only or to a specific island..

This message s being paid for by " Do you need more money then bla bla bla has the answer for you" Gesh spamming you with message as you "TRY" to Teleport in to a laggy island and they after 2 mins worth of spamming messahe you get loogged out of the island as you crashed...............

When I joinned SL, there was no one to greet you when you arrived, people just floated in and sat around asking eachother what to do next.

I became a SLGreeter as the programme developed to assist newcomers into the platform. In the begining it was fun and very rewarding. Then came the tidal waves of newcomers, mainly due to the media advertising. This would quite often see orientation islands becoming swamped. At times, not enough Mentors or Greeters could tp to the islands due to the sheer volume of people pouring into the game.

Did LL inform anyone this may happen, or make some provision to cope with it? No. So often you could find yourself alone with a constant barrage of newcomers asking 1,001 questions at the same time, some IMing, some constantly using shout, and the vast majority asking the same questions you just spent the last 5 minutes telling everyone, without paying attention. Some were very demanding and rude, some obnoxious and very insulting, whilst others simply stood there asking the same questions over and over again, not listening to what you were saying.

Depending on what type of media the newcomer had gleanned their initial excitement for the 'game' from, coloured their judgement and expectations of the game. Many times you would hear shouts of 'where are all the girls/boys where can I get sex?', 'I need a job and earn the millions of USD I have heard about', 'where can I get a weapon from and start killing people?', 'What do I do here, what is this place for?'.

Combine that with many different languages and cultures, the whole thing became over whelming. Many times I asked for 'official' translators to be installed at the hubs, ones that would work, when the freebie ones we all searched SL for had broken due to scripts being switched off, along with the Hubs being no build to prevent those with an overly active imagination and enthusiasm to show everyone their latest creation and dumping a 'starter' home on top of the hubs, so you couldn't drop your own translator device.

But of course we had live help and the lindens on call to assist back then. Now the Lindens have removed themselves and live help has gone. If this platform does rely very heavily on the goodwill of people giving up their 'spare time' to carryout a function for free, the very least LL can do, is support them and provide them with even the barest essentials.

AWM has a point...........I was in that first batch of greeters that were born in June of 2005. We worked as asses off for months. We maded a impact, but LLABS had to screw with things and failed to hear about the issues we the greeters were having. The programmed failed for numberous reasons, because the leaders failed put in factors to protect us. But instead fixing issues the blamed the greeters for bitching and issues and sai its your problem and not ours. SO SO nice, after Googles or hours I and many of the first 10 greeters gave of out play time. As the program grew so did the internal problems and outright lower quility greeters they brought in. I had alot of fun being a greeter, but after awhile it was only the largest group of ego ( TRIPPING .....as they say ) group. and that when for the mentors as well. So I can only say is after 2 years later I say RIP to the Greeters and others on the HI. But as some has said thegame was different then, Now well 90% skips HI(s). So whats the sence of even having a outsourse program. Assuming that 90% of the ( well if they are really newbies ) are here for money.

Usagi

Go talk with Blue Linden at his office hours on Wednesday, it's being looked at and worked on .

Excellent proposal Oryx! Out of the many newbies I meet, many have done the barest customisation of their avatar and really want to get to grips with finding out what's inworld.
Conversely, even I after seven months might login and just stand quietly in my home tweaking a shape for an hour depending on my mood.
I hope any formal structuring on orientation will take notice of this.

I'm afraid for me, the barn door has been tighly closed and the horse... well it's dead already lol.. Too little too late.

I hope someone opens a Sexual Orientation island where people can learn how to have sex in SL and dicosver, perhaps, if they're meta-gay or not (for some other meta-sexual orientation). hehe.

Documentation... hehe... good one!

Considering in participating in this effort myself vis-a-vis Caledon.

Won't get into details. Still undecided; my main concern is if the effort will be sustainable over months and months, and if my input ($L, effort, community focus) will be sufficient for a quality experience.

I don't know that an orientation needs to take up an entire sim. There is no reason you couldn't create levels/platforms that accomplish the same thing. It certainly isn't a prim intensive undertaking....

Being one of the first group of Mentors active when Help Island made its debut and we were allowed access to the Orientation Islands for the first time, I have some words of advice for those thinking of taking this on:

Make the appearance adjustment station LAST (as has been discussed)

Your people going through orientation are going to come in a lot of different ability levels and personality traits. It has to be simple enough that the "less bright" can figure it out, but not so easy that the quick studies get bored and blow it off as being for idiots.

Be ready to provide those that need help with some help, be ready to sigh and walk away from those who think they know everything and just want to get into SL regardless that they can't even fly.

Figure out how you are going to deal with the occasional griefer rampaging through your orientation.

Realize that half the people won't read. Anything.

Accept from the start that orienting newbies is largely a thankless job. Only two or three out of every 10 are going to come out on the other side as regular residents, more often than not, you'll be able to tell right away in orientation which ones they are.

Linden Lab, give me a sim free of charge, and I'll build you an orientation island.

Broccoli