GWA Project

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German Welcome Area Project.

Last Update: July 24, 2008

Current status: Brainstorming and conceptual design.

Next meeting: Sunday, July 27 2008, 10:00 am - ? SLT in Amblesite - Meeting Agenda
Next meeting with Jean: Project office hour July 29, 2008 Tuesday(s) 10:00 am - 11:00 am SLT Amblesite

Last meeting: july 23, 2008

Project description

In Germany they have their own portal for Secondlife. Work is in progress to have four sims online where German speaking residents can enter Second Life, provided by Linden Lab. Therefore they will not enter SL on the regular OI's. One or more of the four sims have to be Orientation Island or Welcome Area style places. This project page will keep everyone involved updated about the progress and future planning. The findings of the meetings will have to be incorporated into the design of a new OI/Welcome Area for German speaking residents to improve the rate of retention.

Within this project, several Wiki pages have been created already. This project page will have links to those for further reference and also provide an outline for the complete project. Everyone interested in this project is encouraged to step forward and make their contribution(s) as it will require many different skills. Connected pages are added to the Category:GWA Project.

History

This project has a bit of history already. Does someone know the whole story with previous and still existing sims?

A logical result of having a german website for SL, is to have their own entrance sim(s) also. Jean Linden has always been in favour of that also. For this purpose four sims will be created. Actually several islands already exist, but haven't been used ever since. Since june 2008 (and most likely before also; undocumented) there have been several meetings about this subject. Topics where sim names, organising things in this wiki, linear approach, contacting other helpgroups, elections of representatives, the setup of a forum, concept ideas, creating a german mentor group and design of logo's for it. Finally some concepts where drafted up and there has been quite some debate about it. One of the major problems with creating an effective sim in user retentionrate, is the limited knowledge about this subject so far. In between of this project came representation of german volunteers in SL5B and projects on the SLVI's. Recently there have been talks again about concepts and previous testing with the VTeam and others. From these meetings some interesting idea's can be derived for planning a new German Welcome Area. (Lisa Lowe 07:04, 21 July 2008 (PDT))

Project planning And Status

• Project Involvement

1. Jean Linden
2. VTeam (Blue, George, Lexie, Amber and Mia Linden)
3. German Mentor group
4. Deutsche Mentoren - German Mentors (Website)
5. German Welcome Area Officers <- This will be the group with land rights at the sims. Owner is Jean Linden.

• Brainstorming

Discussion is going on how to create an OI that will keep residents online, depending on their different interests. It is wellknown, the retentionrate of new residents in SL is rather low (about 12%). In the past Linden Lab has done several experiments already with different kinds of entry in SL (see remarks for a list of previous projects). Most of these projects gave Linden Lab metrics or at least an idea of what works and what doesn't work. We found members of the VTeam and other Linden Lab employees very willing to share ideas about this already. One thing is cristal clear, Linden Lab doesn't know the perfect solution either yet.

• Meeting transcripts

1. Transcripts (Last: july 17 and summary of july 20, 2008)
2. Planned meeting/Agenda

• Current conclusions/Focal points for design (in random order)

1. Residents entering SL have very different interests.
2. Some need step-by-step tutorials while others soon figure it out themselves quickly.
3. Current OI's and HI's are not very attractive and do not represent SL.
4. SL has a steep learning-curve.
5. Many new residents want to see first if SL is for them and do not want to learn too many things at first.
6. Textures with self-explainatory instructions work much better then notecards.
7. Many are 'too lazy' to read manuals or just do not understand them. Learning by example is a great option.
8. Must be PG
9. Showing new Residents the "real" SL is more important then protecting from griefers.
10. Linear approach with opportunity to exit any time.
11. Do not make SL look like a game
12. Show not everyting is interactive.
13. Introduce Search.
14. Give them a reason to stay.
15. ?

• Conceptual design

Working with a large group in SL is not really easy. At this moment some textures have been created by the previous group, with a possible layout for the sims. In addition to this, a few others now already created 3D-models also. For many that will be a lot easier to visualize things and discuss plans.

1. Previous design textures and related information can be found here.
2. 3D-Models are listed here.

One big question remains still open. Metrics or how many new residents to expect? This will determine how many sims will be required for entrance. The remaining sims then can be german gathering area's.^[1]

Other questions:

1. Group entrance and how it should work? (Note: from MDstyle experiences this was suggested: After a couple of days of collecting names spam the new residents with a group invite. --Destiny Niles 09:07, 6 June 2007. Might be a good idea to contact them again later in batchmode and invite them for more instruction.) Further inquiries will be made to Jean about the 'Willkommen Deutschland' group she owns and automatic addition and cleanup procedures to this on joining SL.
2. Forum pages?
3. At many locations there are signs "Willkommen" (e.g. on HIP/HIP2). Something need to be done with that also?
4. Is it possible to limit sim entry by age, once a new Resident left?^[2][1]
5. Currently (july 2008) tests are being done with the HI201-HI210. Though it does not work perfectly yet (only the english version appears to work so far), they are introducing the Help > Tutorial as a first guide while joining SL. Will this be implemented also by the time the sim(s) are finished?

Note: Tests with OI92 (june 2007) show some interesting charts. Roughly estimated that will be 188 new residents on the sim per day. Take in account about 10% was from Germany, results in about 19 german users per day. Ofcourse this does not represent the whole of SL, as new users are distributed over several OI's using load balancing. Given the fact multiple OI's are usually filled with residents, this amount could easily reach well over a 100 a day. Not to mention huge fluctuations because of media interest in SL. Best would be to have some longer term metrics derived from the german SL-website or from the Linden Lab user databases. (Lisa Lowe 07:41, 21 July 2008 (PDT))

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current status

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• Inventarisation

We will need to make a final list of everything needed instructionalwise. Catagorize subjects with 'Basic', 'Basic Plus' or 'Advanced'. What will be needed in the entrance sim(s)? Our goal for now is: Explanations without notecards.^[3]

1. OI Structure
2. ?

• Decisions

Final decisions will have to be made on where, what and how before doing anything!

• Approval Linden Lab

• Resource planning

In preparation of building new sims, many things will have to be done. It will require different skills for the various aspects. All the help we can get will be most welcome. A first short list of things involved:

1. Terraforming
2. Planning
3. Creating intructional textures (preferably without words!)
4. Creating displays that show what SL actually is.
5. Creating instructional displays
6. Scripting
7. Styling
8. Organising and project management
9. ?

If not already done so, please add your name and skills to this overview: Participant list and skills overview

• Sims online (Linden Labs)

Unknown so far

• Terraforming and layout

Not planned yet

• Building the sim(s)

Not planned yet

• Testing

Not planned yet

• Final approval

Not planned yet

• Rerouting entrance from portal (Linden Labs)

Not planned yet

• Status and Metrics

Not planned yet

Footnotes

1. ^ Question has been sent to Blue Linden.
2. ^ New Residents could return to the OI in case they experience that they need further training. It would give them confidence to know that they have a place to return to and it can also benefit socializing amongst the new Residents
3. ^ Many people dislike manuals and long text and therefor won't read the provided info. Our goal should be to have all information available in a visual way. For example: "How to make money?" could be answered in a short comic strip from content creation to content selling.

Remarks

Previous tests with entrance in Second Life:

• MDStyle: MDStyle Orientation Island, Diary of Events on MDStyle testing
• Orientation Station build by Metaverse Mentors. Have a look at the Scholar sim.
• HI201 - HI210:
• NCI
• OI Testing: Test Team was observing the current OIs when they were new. Diary of Events, Charts, survey results.