This is the seventh in a series of largely demographic interviews that are conducted with established residents, to find out more about them and their involvement with Second Life, and to contrast the differences between their views and experiences and those of the newer residents. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

I see Dustbin regularly at my office hours in Hallasan. I originally met him on what I think was his first day in Second Life. "I am a Second Life Mentor," he says, "I have been since I was about 90 days old I think. It has been a great experience. I have met people that are great artists just starting out in SL, it is incredible watching them progress quickly to making new and unique things."

This is the seventh in a series of interviews that are being conducted with new residents, in order to gauge the effectiveness of the orientation process, and to gauge disparities between the preconceptions and the realities of Second Life. The questions may be tailored slightly for each interview; responses may be edited for purposes of clarity.

Rigrunner is another lad who volunteered to answer questions for me, having heard about the interviews over the NCI channel. His favorite place in Second Life is Devilfish Mall, in the Dahlia Sim. Rigrunner's favorite things to do in Second Life revolve around music and interactive builds.

Tateru Nino is a wonderful person. There, I've said it, it had to be said. She's one of those residents whose ideals and activities inform each other, to the benefit of us all. Involved in Mentoring and Live help, Tateru is as beloved a personage as Torley is, and in much the same way, though their respective traits are polar opposites of each other's. Nevertheless, they are good friends with each other, and I'm happy to have finally had the chance to meet her and ask her a few questions.

You can read her blog here, and there's a wonderful article devoted to her in the New World Notes archive here.

SLI: So: How did you choose your SL name?

Tateru Nino: Well, Tateru is a japanse verb. Plain dictionary form. "To build/to construct". Nino was easily representable in Japanese, and was the last name of the person who dragged me in here :) Nino apparently wasn't all that popular as names go. It took a while for it to leave the rotation.

SLI: And how did you discover SL?

Tateru Nino: I'd been aware of SL for ages. Following the press for some time...even some of the early pieces around the time it went Alpha. It was Nene Nino who finally prodded me into giving it a try. Haven't looked back :)

More of the interview and photos after the break!

A thread on the forum about a mentor griefing people, reminded me that this was a subject I had intended to blog about.

When I first entered SL there were less than 10,000 avatars and many classes were run every day. SL basics classes, building, texturing ... all presented by mentors or instructors. At that time Char Linden was in charge of the volunteer groups, and she conducted a small interview with candidates and made sure that they were suitable to be mentors. You had to have been in-world for 30 days and to have a clean record to qualify, but more than that you were expected to run a mentor event of some sort or another at least once a month, or consider leaving the group.

Over the course of the last two years, I have run mentor events, helped new people to take the first steps in SL and answered calls for help at Help Island and in the Welcome areas. I had already concluded that the standard of mentor - and all meaning in the title - had already gone to pot. I have met mentors who can't get stuff out of boxes, for goodness sake, others wearing very mature outfits in PG areas, or joining new people to club groups before they can get off Orientation Island.

I think that it is certainly true that everyone has their forte, and some mentors are offering people expertise in appearance, or fashionable places, which I might not be able to offer. I do think that being a mentor should carry with it a requirement for people to be polite, unprejudiced, and non-griefing, with a minimum basic knowledge of SL. They shouldn't use their position as a way to promote goods and services to new people. They should definitely not give the impression that being a mentor makes them in any way superior to the other residents.

I went to Help Island, which is the island in the centre of the Orientation Islands. It is only accessible to volunteers like mentors and greeters, and new people who haven't been to the mainland yet. Help Island didn't exist when I was a new avatar, you went straight from Orientation Island to the mainland. 

It is sooo nearly right ... and yet so wrong. The confusing thing for new people when I joined was that once you had worked through the Orientation Island, you were dropped at the welcome areas, when you arrived, and were completely disorientated  and there were lots of people ready to assail you with information.