How many ?

Very much so, Weston. I still mentor, even though the official Mentors group no longer exists. I'm a professor at Caledon Oxbridge University, and a teacher at GQ Start. If, for some reason, I was unable to mentor in those capacities, I STILL would mentor and teach. It's very important to me, a part of who I am.

How could Linden labs help the new residents at the help islands and should there be dedicated team players there to help them rather than searching through the resident answers page surely it makes sense to have someone on hand to be there to guide them.

Agree 100%. That's what the Mentor program did, using volunteers instead of Lindens.

The problems with that were that 1) the Mentors weren't screened or policed well enough. A small percentage of them were ineffective, or pursued their own agendas using the Mentor role, and 2) the Mentors were not allowed eject/ban powers to deal with troublemakers (probably wisely, since some would have abused those powers, but it stlll meant that arrival areas were often plagued by disruptive people).

Caledon Oxbridge University is the example I always hold up as to how the new user experience SHOULD be run. The build itself is beautiful, and there is an extensive walk-through tutorial. There is always someone on hand to answer questions, and if necessary, to keep the peace.

MANY good ideas for improving the new user experience have been suggested to LL by the residents. They ignored them, and hired an outside contractor to revise things instead. We'll see just how badly they've managed to mess things up when we see Viewer 2.0 and the new Orientation Island, coming soon to a sim near you.