Talk:Getting started with Second Life

First Draft completed 9 Aug 2009. DanielRavenNest Noe 22:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Calling this a "first draft" made me smile :-) Great work so far, kudos! -- ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:30, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

More or Less complete 11 Aug 2009.

Page Title

The reason I chose "Guide" for the page title is that is the most likely word someone will look for it, based on google search results: User Guide 216M User's Guide 187M User Manual 62M User's Manual 76M Manual 293M Guide 928M Beginner's Guide 22M Software Guide 227M

I placed redirects from the less popular titles. The idea is we want people to find the information when they look for it. If Second Life search (internal in the viewer, or the search web page) brings up the right page when people look for words like manual or guide, that's fine. If not, please put it back where it was in the first place. DanielRavenNest Noe 01:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah I see. I agree that it should show up at search result with the key words that are most likely to be used, though just "guide" is missguiding. We need to take into account that people might use categories to find information and then only the title shows up. They might be looking for a guide on how to compile the viewer or something else. Guide is still redirecting here so yeah, it won't make that visible for the SL search... hm...

My suggestions would be Second Life beginners guide. Would that be ok?

Oh and on a different note, just FYI: There is also a set of beginners notes with "I want to try Second Life! Where do I begin?" beeing the starting point.

-- ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Lets wait to see how SL search and Google index the pages. In the mean time I am working on this page, and the related menu and floating windows detail pages (there is too much info to fit on one wiki page, I knew that when I started), and adding pictures, which will take some time with Photoshop :-) DanielRavenNest Noe 04:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, sounds good to me :-)

Arg, I also just stumbled upon Getting started in Second Life (note: in, not with). I think we need some merging...

Though it doesn't contain much that isn't already mentioned in yours.

-- ^{(talk|contribs)} 13:15, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Doing some googling and searching within the wiki, there is a LOT of overlap of pages in general, not just this one. People are creating pages left and right, but not a lot of work going into consolidating overlaps and organizing them. Perhaps I should spend some time on that area. DanielRavenNest Noe 01:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the current "structure" is poor. I think it's already way better than about a year ago (since the pages are at least categorized), though it's still quite messy. Gally and I once made some kind of "to do" list of pages where we thought that they'd profit from beeing merged (or at least reorganized) but it's not really up to date anymore. It's located at Talk:Help Portal/New Organisation, in case you'd like to peek. Any kind of work going into consolidating and organizing would be heighly appreciated.

Though I should add that it might be that the Wiki becomes populated with the current Knowledge Base articles. This is currently only done for the ones in the "Second Life for Beginners" folder, which are now located at Category:Second Life for Beginners.

That means that there already is (and maybe will become even more) overlap of Help Portal and Knowledge Base. I guess the long term roadmap would be to merge these, in case the KB becomes imported.

Just wanted to make sure that you know what we might be aiming for...

-- ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:30, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

What I am aiming at is filling in the gaping hole that LL never included a standard "users manual" that most software comes with. The kind that just goes thru all the menus and controls and explains what they do. The information is out there, scattered in a hundred places...wiki pages, knowledge base, forum posts, the programmer's heads, etc.

Right now the F1 key takes you here, which is *almost* useful, but when you click the "Second Life for Beginners" link takes you to the KB2Wiki Pilot page, which is not very much good. You should be able to reach a user manual type document with one or two clicks at most from hitting F1. Of course that presupposes it exists in the first place, hence why I'm working on this.

My other intended goal is to have something that can be handed out to newbies - like delivered with the account creation email. Thats a perfect time to send them instructional links, along with how to download the software.

This is all intended to get at the problem of why 95% of the people who ever create an account do not stick with SL - I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of help getting started. DanielRavenNest Noe 02:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I see what you mean... I think that new Residents are now directed to a Quickstart Guide, though yeah, that's still just a sneak peak, rather than a full users manual. But it covers the basics and should get most people on the right track. I agree though. Having a full explanation of every feature is missing and highly appreciated. Thx for working on that and sharing it here!

-- ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I won't be able to fill in every feature, but I will go as far as I can, and then ask other residents or the Linden staff to fill in the missing parts. There's stuff on the Advanced menu I have no clue about. It's actually become a learning experience for me, I am finding stuff I never knew about as I go thru this.

My current plan is to leave this page title as is, but have the User's Manual serve as the top level page on this topic. This page then becomes the chapter on installing the software and user interface categories, with Viewer menu and Floating Windows and whatever else I come up with as additional chapters with more details. Im open to suggestions, but thats the direction at present DanielRavenNest Noe 03:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a pretty good roadmap to me.

@Stumbling upon new stuff: Yeah, that sounds familiar. Is exactly what I'm running into when I translate LSL pages.

@Suggestions: I'd welcome more connections to more detailed explanations. Like when you're writing about the Inventory button and giving a short summary about what it does, it would be good to link it to the Inventory article. Though I can understand when that's last on the priority list, since you're still working on the skeleton. I may occassionally jump in and add links where I think they might be useful.

I also think that such a navigation box might be handy. To connect User's Manual, the Floating Windows, the Getting started with Second Life guide here, etc. Something that connects these starters articles. I added them to Template:GettingStartedNav. You can add it by placing {{GettingStartedNav}} beneath the {{Help}} template. Maybe it's a benefit to add articles like make money to that box as well? I know it doesn't cover the technical part where you're currently writing the documentation for... Though I experienced it to be a main concern of most new Residents I met inworld. Maybe we split the box in two. Technical doc and uhm... whatever you call the other. What do you think?

-- ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)