Disclaimer
These are just personal thoughts on how to improve the efficiency of the SL Volunteers.
It is in no way official nor approved by VTeam or representive for the thoughts of them or other volunteers.
So basically it's just my absent-minded junk but have a look and feel free to contribute your suggestions as well =)
In case you're not already wiki-experienced: Don't worry about the formatting. It's your thoughts that matter to me. I can still fix the design later. So add your thoughts to the page and i will mark them as yours. In case you would like to discuss one of the thoughts mentioned here, please use the discussion page. It has a manual on how to write a comment.
Communication
- Use a public suggestion box (for example a wiki page like this one)
- This would give all volunteers the chance to see what others came up with. It could be a platform to discuss and improve ideas. And to become inspired by the ideas of others. We could even start a suggestion box category on the wiki and everyone who has a suggestion box links his or hers to the category. Or make it really public / official with a suggestion-box-wikipage in the main namespace linked to the Volunteer Portal.
- Post transcripts of office hours on the wiki (*approval of attendees needed!*)
- Again, this will keep the ones interested in what's going on up-to-date, even when they aren't able to attend an office hour due to which reasons ever (uhm... yeah what reasons btw? Please come!!). I know it's always exhausting to clean the chatlog from online notifications and stuff *sighs*. But it would really make a difference if people were informed. There is a public website application that automatically converts SL chatlog into wiki code. Well... and if it's really 'cause of busyness, I would offer the service to wikify and clean the transcript and post it within a few days after the meeting (depending on my own shedule).
- Since it would be best if these transcripts were posted in subpages of the Lindens userpage who hosted the office hour, it would be best to encourage that Linden to post it or to ask for permission, so you can post it on a subpage of her/his userpage and link it to the userpage afterwards.
- In the Mentors group we unite probably the most friendly and helpful bunch of SL Residents who LOVE to share their knowledge or contribute with their skills. Otherwise, they wouldn't be volunteers. So in case there is a problem, please ask your fellow Mentors for help on that topic. You got an idea how to improve the volunters program? Please discuss it with us, plan it with us and let's build it up together! We're a team!
- Shedule a meeting with your topic at the Volunteer-sponsored Events page about 1 week prior the meeting so people got the chance to stumble upon it (btw: you can add articles to your watchlist by clicking the watch button on top of the article)(Note: watch feature currently buggy due to WEB-602). Please also write an E-Mail that shedules your meeting to the mailing list so we got as many people as possible informed about it. You don't have an account? You can also send the date and topic of your meeting to me and I will send the mail for you.
SL VI Island Organisation
- eeeep... Yeah i know =/ It can be an emotional topic if something vanishes in what you invested a lot of time. But it doesn't really vanish. You still carry it along with you in your inventory and maybe, you can take it out again at the revised islands. But please, take some minutes to visit the SL Volunteer Islands, walk along and look at the stuff. Fly up in the air and look at skyboxes. I really don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but honestly: It became really messy there. So what could we ask for:
- A complete restructure of the existing Volunteer Islands (maybe except SLVEC).
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- We got so much space at the volunteer islands but we can't invite newbies there to teach them. We don't really need all this space just to entertain ourselfs. We could use maybe 1 of the 6 sims (woah, six sims!!!) as a Volunteers Help Island. And I don't mean "Help Island" like a copy of the actual help island but as a help island designed by Mentors. How kewl would that be???
- Provide a prestructured inviroment that is maintained by mentor commitees.
- Prestructured? Prestructured! Let it become MEGA-SLVEC. So install different areas that are maintained by different commitees. (See notes on commitees as well.) And involve Mentors in the restructioring and planning process. Remember the Ask for help!-paragraph in the priviouse topic? We got so many skilled builders and clever people. We could even let it become a competition: "Who comes up with the best concept for a new mainstage? Reward is a limited Linden teddy!" or something similar. It's more fun if it's fun! :P
Coaches
- Volunteer related classes at SLVEC
- There are lots of classes with global content taught at SLVEC and inworld but I'm missing some with specific mentoring content. Like "How to mentor on an OI"? Tips and tricks. A class doesn't need to be one hour long. It's ok if it's just half an hour. You can still spend the other half on discussing :P
- A Coaches meeting where Coaches exchange coaching tips and gimmicks like slideshow tools and similar stuff. Build up a coaches kiosk at SLVEC (or MEGA-SLVEC if it would happen ^^) and share tools there. Or wait... we already got a Tools Shop *woot*. But so empty *sniff* Did you know that you're allowed to just drop useful content there? You are!
Commitees
- Be visible and transparent
- So what does this mean, huh? It means: Show that you are an active commitee and advertise your commitee for applications. That's the visible part. The transparent part is about your goals and about your work in progress. Tell the world what you're working on and why. How to do that:
- Create a wiki page that states your goals
- For which purpose is the commitee formed? What are your goals and how do you try to reach them?
- List members that can be contacted inworld to ask questions about the commitee.
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- Again like before: Shedule a meeting with your topic at the Volunteer-sponsored Events page about 1 week prior the meeting so people got the chance to stumble upon it (btw: you can add articles to your watchlist by clicking the watch button on top of the article)(Note: watch feature currently buggy due to WEB-602). Please also write an E-Mail that shedules your meeting to the mailing list so we got as many people as possible informed about it. You don't have an account? You can also send the date and topic of your meeting to me and I will send the mail for you.
- Post transcripts of your meetings on a subpage of your commitee page or summerize what was discussed and what the conclusions were. That way, everyone who would like to join you, knows, what you are currently working on.
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- In case you're not experienced with wikis and afraid of the editing: Don't worry. Just write all the info in your page (no matter how messy it looks) and then contact a Mentor Scribe. S/he can do the formatting for you =) We're a team!
Linguists
The Style Guide for translations to German mentions to translate "You" with the German word "Sie". However, this is not what the majority (all?) of the German Linguists feel like would be an appropriate translation. It is true that in formal language, Sie would be right. But in net culture (and no one can deny that SL and this connected wiki are net culture related), it is most likely considered as a reserved (or oven worse: an arrogant and unfriendly) behaviour to address a person with "Sie" instead of "Du".(discussion)
- Our current work as Linguists is most focused on single articles. But how can people who are not able to read English actually find the article they are searching for? They will have to find the correct English topic that covers their concern and then use the links provided by the {{multi-lang}} template to browse to their language. It doesn't have to be that way. We can translate the Volunteer Portal itself and then link the articles in the correct language. I know that this is a much bigger challenge then just to translate single articles, since it needs some teamwork. You got link to English pages (and mark the link as a link to an English page) in case that there is no translation handy at the time. And you got to change that link when the translation is available. It needs frequent updates and careful observers who browse recent changes. But it is something that we can manage. Some already begun with doing so. Volunteer Portal/fr and Volunteer Portal/es are already available (altho unfinished and most probably unaware of the majority of linguists). I started Volunteer Portal/de in my sandbox as well and might soon call a meeting of German Linguists so we can discuss further steps. Start a portal in your own language. Call a team and discuss how to do it. If you need assistence by Scribes: you know where to find us.(discussion)
Buddys and Apprentice Buddys
- Please create a userpage at the wiki
- The new Buddy Panels at SLVEC (not set up at the time of writing) display a link to your wiki page in case you created one. So it would be great for those who are seeking for help, if you could state your special fields there. Like "I rule da help islandz, ya!" or "Ahern is my second home" or "I'm a landlord and am experienced with land related concerns" (ok, that one was kinda lame... but useful) etc. etc. The person seeking for help will be very thankful about these informations.
- If you're an Apprentice Buddy, it would be AWESOME if you stored your voucher criteria for shadowing on your profile. You wouldn't have to repeat them over and over and apprentices could search around untill they found a session that fits their needs and skills.
- Have a look at the Quickie Wiki Intro for infos on how to create a page and/or contact a Mentor Scribe for help. Please make sure to provide the content you'd like to see listet on your page. The Scribe will have a look at the formatting then =)
Wiki related suggestions
- Don't ignore the Summery bar
- It is highly recommended to write a short statement on what you changed with your edit. That way, people who browse the recent changes or those who marked a specific page to appear on their watchlist doesn't have to compare different versions of the site to find out what you did there. It really makes a difference.
- Please use the checkbox This is a minor edit in case your edit was a spelling correction or something similar that didn't change the structure of an article or added vital information. Why? Cause it helps to keep the recent changes log easy to obtain.
- Please use the Show preview button before you save your page, since the wiki saves the whole backlog for review, multiple saves not only spam the earlier mentioned recent changes log, they waste resources on the database as well. Wikis remember everything =)
- Use the discussion pages of articles
- If you label articles with *Needs update* or *Out-Of-Date* or similar labels, please leave a comment on the discussion page of the article so others know why you labeled it the way you did, so they might be able to add the missing information or improve it in another way. If you are already on an improvement on your own, please add that as well, so we don't have to do the same work twice =) Every article has a discussion page that is linked on top of the page next to the edit button.
- Please sign your comments on discussion pages with four tildes: ~~~~ or use the signature button
 . These will automatically be converted into your username and a timestamp. It's just easier to keep track if you know who wrote what =)
- Watch the video tutorial about the wiki
- Torley made a neat video tutorial about the wiki. If you got some time left and are interested in the wiki, then please consider watching it here.
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