Thursday. Discussion. Topic, Mentors in Second Life (SL). Easy? Nope! And that is how we like it! A fantastic group of discussers, old friends and new friends, met at LnL’s Discussion Lounge for the weekly get-together. London, the moderator, started by asking the group what were some of the difficulties new residents faced when rezzing in SL for the first time. The lack of information, the lack of guidance, the complexity of SL, finding others with the same interests and understanding what is real and what is not were only a few of the aspects mentioned. The new welcome areas seem to try to solve some of the griefing problems by not allowing avatars to stay there more than 30 days or returning, but have been said to have very sketchy information. How effective this really is, we didn’t know... The general idea about mentors was positive, although some discussers preferred to learn about SL by themselves; it was generally accepted that mentors can be a useful resource for new residents, but certainly not a compulsory one! There are a lot of mentoring locations but a new resident doesn’t know they exist. Before/during the first couple of weeks in SL, many went to forums off-world to get more information, but that is not a resource for someone who is not computer savvy… Should mentors be paid, get tips or should they be volunteers? Should LL’s mentor program be reinstated? Should Premium accounts have a mentor program included? Are all residents with certain knowledge about SL mentors, in a way? Or is mentoring only for a few who have the drive to help others? As far as LnL discussers were concerned, mentors are needed, useful and a powerful resource to guide both old(er) and young(er) residents! And, allow this blogger a personal comment, knowing most of those present well, we believe they would and do help any time they can! Join us next Thursday at 2’m SLT in LnL’s Discussion Lounge for a new topic amongst a group of friendly people! :)
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