Help Island for Volunteers
What is Help Island
Help Island is an intermediate place between the hustle of the main grid and the scripted orientation of orientation island. New Residents arrive from the Orientation Islands and find live volunteers willing to help them learn anything they want to know about SL.
Help island does not rely on scripted educational systems beyond a few straightforward info cards and building and scripting tutorials.
The core facilities of Help Island are built and owned by Jeska Linden and Brian Linden, and Jeska would like suggestions and feedback by email. The rest is a team effort of volunteers.
New Residents and Orientation Islands
There are multiple orientation islands as well as help islands. OI Public and HI Public are available to all Residents.
Environment
HI is relatively peaceful. There is a sandbox in the northeast corner, a freebie store in the southeast corner, a demo house in the northwest, a building tutorial area in the west. Autoreturn is enabled with various time limits depending on location. Please be sure to clean up any prims you rez.
Sandbox
Please clean up after yourself, and make sure your objects do not obstruct the middle of the sandbox area. Selling items and freebies is not allowed.
Freebies
Freebies and free-to-copy items for Help Island are to be given to AMBER LINDEN with an explanatory notecard. Object must be copy+modify+transfer and you must have the creator's permission for them to be distributed on Help Island.
Freebie boxes and free-to-copy items in the sandbox will be removed. You may still give free items to new Residents at your own discretion.
Teleport restrictions
New Residents can teleport from an OI to HI via a landmark. New arrivals appear in the center of the greeter hub. Once a new resident is on the mainland, they cannot return to their original Orientation Island or Help Island. The exit kiosks notify new Residents of this fact. At that point they will need to use the public OI and HI. If they log out on their original OI or HI they will log back in to that same location.
Help Island resets your Home Location
Any person teleporting FROM Help Island or an Orientation Island will have their home location reset to whatever point they land at.
If you want to avoid this, teleport HOME first, then to whatever other destination you wish.
Staffing
Spending time on HI is not a requirement. There is always plenty of need for volunteers out on the main grid. If, however, you are short-handed on HI, or are the last to leave, ask for reinforcements on the Mentor IM group channel. Keep the request short, letting the group know how many volunteers remain and possibly the number of new people in the area. There is no need to wait for a reply and you should under no circumstances harass the group in the rare cases no one else is able to show up.
There is a communicator available for volunteers working Help Island. If you are in the mentor group, you can get one from the ? in Tenera sim at 197,100,70. Other volunteer group members will need to IM Tateru Nino in order to get one. It allows volunteers a group discussion channel anywhere on the island, and also works on the mainland as long as the wearers are within 100m of each other. Useful for script enabled Welcome Areas like waterhead or at Instructor events.
Ideally we should have no more than 6 or 7 volunteers on the island at once, especially when it gets busy.
Communications Network
When newbies arrive, they are announced on the communications network. When they click on one of the volunteer call boxes, announcements are sent on the communications network. If you don't have your communicator on, you will not hear calls from the call boxes, and newbies may think you are ignoring them and become frustrated.
The communicator functions as a relatively low-traffic device under normal circumstances. If you cannot answer a question, or you need assistance, do not hesitate to use it to call other volunteers on the island. See the reference card provided with it for additional functions.
Talking to Them
On HI, by all means say hello. Ask how they are doing and if they need assistance (more likely to get a response). Some new Residents may prefer to learn on their own. Give them a card with some FAQs and landmarks if nothing else.
Length of stay
New Residents tend to stay between 5 minutes and a couple weeks, with an average length of stay of 30 minutes. The longer they stay, the better adjusted they are. Some will spend time passing what they know on to other new Residents. This is generally a good thing.
Abuse
Anyone who breaks the rules (you think intentionally) Abuse Report them. Make some effort to see if their behavior is accidental due to inexperience. Sometimes a friendly suggestion of the proper way to do something can get the point across. Feel free to explain the differences between PG and Mature sims and how to identify which you are in by looking at the label in the menu bar.
Guns and Mature Content
There are no combat-enabled zones on HI. We are permitted to use guns there for demonstration purposes. Do not hand out guns, push-weapons or shields - we have had persistent trouble with these on quite a few occasions.
HI is PG. There's plenty mature content out on the grid if they want it, and little opportunity for them to use mature content on HI in a non-infringing way. Only give out PG items. It's a safe assumption that anything you hand them they will try to use or wear. Make sure handouts are appropriate.
Please Do
- DO call for additional Mentors if the area is busy or if you're the last one out.
- DO encourage the use of the appropriate sandboxes for those with vehicles or weapons.
- DO clean up after yourself.
- DO be civil and friendly.
- DO use private IM's with other Mentors for debates or disagreements. Keep general chat positive and productive.
- DO donate freebies, freebie boxes and free-to-copy items to the Freebie Store via proper channnels.
- DO feel free to give out PG, Help Island acceptable items to a new resident if you wish.
- DO spread out around the island.