1. Isn't this material out of date? The Shelter has been going through some turmoils as I understand it, and overwhelmed by griefers as well as Travis' need to take care of RL, and from what I gather, it has split into a "Shelter in Exile" and the original Shelter, which appears still to be open, but not especially supervised as I see from a visit.

I don't know what percentage of newbies go to these 2 venues, which are very important, but it's probably not more than 20 percent. Still, both are overwhelmed, and the situation cries out for more and more such volunteer groups to spring up and handle newbies to whatever extent they can.

Since most newbies skip orientation and skip these newbie traps, too, then that does still exemplify a need for actual peer groups (the peer group of 'all newbies' and 'their enthusiastic careakers' isn't a peer group *most* people want to go to.

So what can be done to help? Most people find their own peer group either before entering SL or soon after -- if they stay. A group of friends walks them through the first steps or business or non-profit colleagues.

What about the masses of confused souls who remain?

Here's what to do:

1. Not design an entire orientation/welcoming system around clueless 15-year-old girls from middle America visiting SL between trips to the SL mall. Let them go. You win some, you lose some. They are too young to be on there, but all too many of them are getting on because of the ease of free membership without credit cards. Stop wringing your hands and catering to them -- their parents should take care of them, not you or us.

2. Make a better SEARCH interface and educate about it. The search button is way down at the bottom of the screen. Changing the term from FIND to SEARCH was a bad move. It was calculated to be "more like the Internet" but most people already know how to use the Internet and its search engines; but they don't know how to use SL. When they come to Second Life, they wish to FIND stuff, not SEARCH endlessly. So help them FIND people, places, things with a bright button at the top of the screen that even looks like a cartoon. Perhaps it can even disappear on command later as optional, but put it in at the beginning.

3. Pay attention to what newbies themselves say instead of endlessly preaching to them from the tekkie wiki Bible. They don't want classes on building and scripting. They don't want to sit and listen to oldbies drone on about the complexities of the platform and how to enter their specialized feted class of content creators. They want to get right at the content. So provide them with easy and quick access to what the overwhelming majority of them are seeking: jobs. That means more public job exchanges -- again the improvement of search could help -- and also some volunteer groups and businesses stepping up to meet this need. LL itself could also be creating jobs as the federal government. Yes, I'm not kidding. Let them put newbies to work clearing garbage from abandoned land.

4. Another reply I get often to polls about improving the newbie experience is "suggest places to visit". This means not having Tatero Nino suggest her little friends and other mentors steering with bags of landmarks. That's obviously not working to do anything except increase sales at mentors' stores. And it doesn't mean keeping the August 2005 Pathfinder Picks live at all the welcome areas either, that thing is growing moss at this point.

It means:

a) expanding out Popular Places beyond 20 so that thousands of interesting venues show up ranked by traffic for browsing
b) create a Welcome Wagon that is not limited to the feted group of mentors and Lindens but anyone who wishes to help in order to refresh suggested places to visit every week with new sites -- it's hard work, I do this myself for Ross every 2 weeks, but it is well worth it
c) allow advertising in Welcome Areas and Infohubs -- improve the ridiculously clunky and stupid interface of the official LL advertiser and sell advertising on boards that can be tasteful and helpful and also provide revenue.

This is what normal, regular real life does; the allergy and neuralgia around this topic in Second Life as it is hijacked by a few in the welcome industry is ridiculous -- some managed advertising of services and venues for newbies would be a good thing for newbies and the economy in general

There's lots more, but the first thing to do is to pry loose the newbie industry from those who have grabbed it to enhance their sales or their reputations as Second Life social mavens and gurus. Let it go -- it's a big world flooding in and you all can't cope unless you open it up.

Posted at 9:33AM on Nov 3rd 2006 by Prokofy Neva

2. Something that would help enormously, would be if LL would tell the *whole* truth about Second Life. Namely, that almost all property in SL is privately owned property, owned and paid for on a monthly basis by residents who have the power to eject and ban people for any reason or none.

Telling people this up front would make a big difference when it comes to hurt feelings by newbies who get into SL and, not knowing any better, simply start walking into any structure they see, or building or even setting up house in any clear space they find, etc. wind up getting involved in confrontations with established residents that lead to bruised feelings on both sides.

It would also help if newbies were informed that unlike in other games, a level of manners closer to RL is expected when dealing with other residents, and faliure to do so can get you quickly ejected and banned and, if the misbehavior takes place in a club or store, that it can in fact get you banned not just from that particular place, but from a wide range of places as ban lists are shared.

(In my own sim, my neighbors and I tend to share griefer lists, so being obnoxious there is likely to get someone banned not just from the batch of property where they misbehaved, but from pretty much the entire sim, all at one go.)

It's my own feeling that in their drive to get subscriber numbers up, Linden Lab would just as well prefer that newbies *not* find this out in advance, but the fact is, that the lack of this information leads to hurt feelings and giving up on "Such an unfriendly game," on the newbie side, and to the banning of unverified accounts and to flat out universal bans on all but friends by established residents in general.

A way of educating newbies about these things that they aren't told when signing up would lead to a nicer Second Life all around.

Posted at 9:20PM on Nov 3rd 2006 by Jack Harker

3. Darn good point, Jack.

Even most of the places that are privately-owned but used as public and semi-public spaces (educational institutions, some sorts of sandboxes, freebie zones) often have rules above and beyond the background TOS and CS, and people just don't know to look for them. In fact there's not a wide awareness of any restrictions at all.

People just assume that - like most MMOs - they will be prevented by the system from doing anything they shouldn't be able to.

Posted at 9:35PM on Nov 3rd 2006 by Tateru Nino

4. Thank you SO much for posting this information as well as the commentaries! I wish this info. was made available on SL's official site!

Posted at 7:07AM on Nov 27th 2006 by Lindsay