Project:About

Important: The majority of this wiki's content (like SL itself) is Resident-created and while it may be helpful, we can't vouch for its accuracy, except for pages in the "Linden Lab Official" namespace. For official documentation, see the Second Life Knowledge Base.

About the Second Life Wiki

This wiki was started on January 8, 2007, as a collaboration between Linden Lab and Second Life Residents to provide help and information.

Linden Lab can't review every submission, but reserves the right to remove unsuitable content at any time. Linden Lab provides this wiki as a service to numerous communities, including those represented by the portals on the Main Page. New portals are added at Linden Lab's discretion.

We encourage you to contribute your awesomeness this wiki! See Editing Guidelines for how, and policies regarding acceptable content.

How to use this wiki

If you're not familiar with what a "wiki" is, think of this place as containing "help pages". A question you have may already be answered!

Can't find something that should be here? Tell Torley.

How to search

It's easy to get started. A couple suggestions:

1. Use the SEARCH box on the left of every page: type in something and click the Go button or press Enter ↵. (The Search button uses the wiki's built-in search, which can be more specific but less flexible, instead of Google.)
   • Typing in a partial match and waiting a few seconds can autocomplete. For example, try "ani".
   • If your search matches an exact page title, it goes there.
   • Otherwise, search is powered by trusty ol' Google, and shows relevant pages on top.
2. Click links to browse from one article to the next (it can be addictive). Many articles are categorized to help you learn more about related topics.

Finding out when a page was last updated

Click the history tab on the top of a page. This shows, in reverse-chronological order, all the edits that have been made to a page over time. It can be fascinating to watch how a page has evolved. If you suspect a page is stale (has outdated info) and the history shows it was last updated ages ago, it's an excellent opportunity for you to either update it directly (if you feel comfortable) or let someone know.

While the wiki is collaborative, a page may have stated "owners" that watch over and shape the content of a page. This is notably true for Lindens (Linden Lab employees) providing official documentation. If there's no contact info called out on-page, the history may also show the most frequent editors of that page, who are likely going to be the most knowledgeable about the topic.

Tip: All pages whose names begin with "Linden Lab Official:" have a contact form link at the top you can use to let the Documentation Team know that something needs to be updated.

How to discuss a page

You need to login to this wiki first. Then, click the discussion tab at the top of the page to get to that page's matching "talk page". Every page has one. See example. Discussion is done similarly to regular edits, but your posts should be signed for attribution.

Every user (including you!) has a talk page, which can be seen by clicking my talk at the top of the page when logged in. See example. Whether you choose to use this as a means of contact is up to you. (Compared to inworld IMs and regular email, it's generally uncommon, so don't worry.)

Unless specifically stated, Linden Lab does not generally check talk pages for comments. Instead, other tools like the blogs and forums and Office Hours are used. Linden requests for feedback usually specify which channels for communication are right for a specific topic. Most talk pages deal with issues of a technically intricate nature, such as scripting functionality or wiki meta-organization.

Also, talk pages can be quite user-unfriendly to wiki newcomers. Due to this, talk pages aren't broadly used places for discussion, and while they have the advantage of being inseparable — and easily accessible — from the page they're referring to, they don't support communication-optimized features found elsewhere.

Also see talk page etiquette.

How to contribute to the wiki

To be able to edit and create pages, you must log in to the wiki using your Second Life user name and password. Once logged in, you will be able to edit any page, with the following exceptions:

• Pages in the Linden Lab Official namespace, that contain official policy or other sensitive information. There are also corresponding localized namespaces for various languages (for example, Linden Lab Offiziell for German) that are also protected.
• Pages in the Viewerhelp namespace, that provide content for the Second Life Viewer's context-sensitive help system.
• Certain pages in the main namespace that have been protected.

For general information and guidelines on what's acceptable, see Project:Editing_Guidelines.

To Do List

Here are a few things that need cleanup:

• Double redirects

Involved Lindens

Several Lindens administer the wiki, and numerous others contribute. There isn't a single Linden who has "ownership". But like video game bosses, each one of the following has a specific area they lord over and a special attack power, or something like that. Here are some of the people involved:

• Jeremy Linden
• Oz Linden - The coordinator of the open-source Viewer project, Snowstorm.
• Rand Linden - Documentation team lead; originator of the Viewer 2.0 Help System; previously focussed on developer docs.
• Torley Linden - - Community-facing stuff. Has written tons of help pages/documentation, established wiki policies and structure, continues to make connections and fill gaps. Eager to help you if you're curious about that, so get in touch.
• Yoz Linden