Mail from the Lab

Dear Laetizia Coronet, Your submission in the Mentor Directory has been removed. This may be because you have submitted a new listing, or because you have requested its removal. You’ve been removed from the Second Life Mentor group.

Of course, this is due to the AR that Mia sent out after our little run-in on April 19th. And of course I did not ‘request’ this, as the automatically generated message says. That mail is about as wrong as can be - as is this whole sorry affair.

And so, after a year of mentoring, a year of gaining experience in this crazy job, I am no longer a mentor. And eventually this happens to almost all of us, keeping the mentor group as a whole inexperienced and inept. Because sooner or later you are going to lose your cool for a second, and those love spreading hippie idiots of the Lab are going to turn into the police they say they hate, and throw the book at you.

Want my advice? Don’t become a mentor. Don’t become an unpaid worker in the client relations department of the Lab. You get no benefits apart from a laggy party sometimes and a line in Mia’s (and Amber’s, etcetera) profile that says ‘Volunteers Rock!’, which they’ll repeat way too often during their teambuilding efforts - which reminded me of those I attended when I was a forklift driver. I hope you get the picture of the kind of level we’re talking about here. Amateurish doesn’t begin to describe it.

From day one I realised, thanks to this teambuilding thing and the memories which that brought back, that these people are not my friends - they just act as if they are. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’ll be friends with Lindens by becoming a mentor - it’s their job to be friendly and go Woohoo and join in the traditional pie fight. I suspect they are encouraged to put themselves on Facebook as well and be ‘friends’ with everyone. And well, if your goal is to befriend ‘a Linden’ you need to get your head checked anyway - I don’t know about you but I befriend people because I like them as a person.

Don’t become a mentor. Thanks to the example set by people like Mia a lot of mentors act like the police, even amongst themselves in the mentor IM channel, which by now is so strictly policed you can’t ask anything without being attacked by 20 of your colleagues. And because a lot of the mentors act like the police, you won’t get much love from the community either, unless you stay at the orientation islands to help the newest newbies around that impossible build with that impossible HUD.

Despite the obvious flaws and the obvious fakeness of the Lindens’ attitude, I enjoyed being a mentor. I enjoyed my colleagues and the way we used to think about the job, and the way we changed certain things in-world by leading through example. But that mostly came from the Mental Mentors group and not from the official one. And it most certainly did not come from the Lab at all. They just follow automated procedures and send automated mails, as the corporate hotshots that they are.

Perhaps one day they’ll replace Mia and Lexie and Amber with bots. What an improvement that would be - then at least you’d know you’re dealing with a machine.

Are we not the police?

We are not the police. I do not exaggerate if I say that I hear that at least once every day, coming from various sources, but always a repeat of Linden Lab policy regarding Second Life Mentors. I even repeat it myself, in group IMs, on our SLVEC island, everywhere. We are not the police. But what are we then? Why are so many of us lured into the role of virtual police, standing around populated public places and sending out ARs, sometimes seemingly for nothing more than sneezing in the wrong direction?

A while ago, Mentors at Waterhead were greeted with custom made gestures: a stressed-out voice going I’ll report you! in a tone reminiscent of the teacher on Pink Floyd’s The Wall album. Hey! You! Yes… you! Stand still laddie! Now of course you can react to that with an AR - for gesture spamming, which apparently is a reason to ban people - but it’s good to ask yourself why people go through the trouble of making such gestures in the first place. Or group titles such as Second Life Mentard. And seeing some colleagues in action I know what’s going on - they come to Waterhead or any other fairly unruly area and try to lay down the law. They do not allow any swearing, they issue warnings and threats, and they write ARs like there’s no tomorrow. I know. I was once like that, in the very beginning. And that’s what makes us Mentors such ‘beloved’ figures in the community.

Now it’s easy for me to say that with examples like our own Mia Linden of the Volunteer program it’s no wonder Mentors behave like coppers on Monday mornings. But seriously, any Mentor who wants to help new people in some places (and that’s, shall we say, our core business) is faced with a huge problem - some of the regulars in those places. In order to serve the newbies who get kicked into the infamous Welcome Area by the exit signs on Orientation and Help Islands, we need to protect them from people of ill will - be that people who deliberately give out false information or people whose “funny” racism, homophobia and foulmouthed attitude is enough to turn any but the most fanatic neonazi skinhead away from SL.

To serve and protect - surely the good folk at Linden Lab must have read that somewhere on the streets of San Francisco. Leave out one of the two and you’re left with a defunct system. What good is my serving the newbies going to do when, ten meters on, they walk into the corrupted world of fratboy pranksters like the man calling himself Ringleader (his alts go by many names - the group title is the same), whose whole existence evolves around continuously spouting horrificly vicious racist tripe in a fake British aristocrats’ accent? I serve the new Resident as best I can with the purpose of keeping him in-world and interested, only to see him enter hell two minutes later. One can only hope that he’ll TP out to a better place. I wonder how many just switch off, never to return.

On the other hand, if I am only there to protect, I am a security guard. A silent, unapproachable figure of authority - not the person to come to with your first questions. Imagine that: an empty Waterhead with five silent security guards, and the first visitor who dares say shit (before even knowing the difference between PG and Mature, mind you) gets it. I wonder how many would switch off then.

Therefore, we serve and we protect. Of course I can use other words to make it sound less like the motto of police departments all over the US, but that doesn’t diminish it’s meaning. So are we not the police?

In an ideal world, we shouldn’t be. But in places like Waterhead we are. We stand around, sometimes outnumbering the new people, and watch, and listen. And yes, we report as well - I hope we don’t all report like it’s our favourite pastime, but from me you can count on a report for racism, for violence, and for threatening or otherwise unpleasant behaviour towards others. In voice, in text chat or otherwise, I don’t care.

The regulars at Waterhead (some of them are really nice people when you talk to them, /me greets 13 Jun, Crunk Munster and Gnu Curry) tell me that the solution is to stop sending newbies to Waterhead. But are they the ones to tell Linden Lab what to do with their areas, on their turf? Should the Lab just beat a retreat and give up on a Welcome Area in one of the oldest and most pleasant areas of the Mainland, right in the middle of Linden Village? Even if - how many more areas are going to be taken over by these groups? Ahern is shaky at best, Hanja is scarcely visited by Mentors at all and I have seen some of the more notorious figures in Miramare, too. Retreating is an open ended option, of which the open end points towards Berlin itself, pardon the historical parallel.

I think the option is to stand firm and to stare down the pranksters until they beat a retreat. There are thousands of places in SL which are Mature (Waterhead isn’t), open to everyone, not frequented by freshly minted newbies (or by Mentors for that matter), with building and/or scripting enabled. For all I care they can go there and be idiots all day long. I’d happily build them some infrastructure, too, if that’s what it takes. But the Lab, and by extention it’s volunteers, should draw the line at Welcome Areas and Infohubs. They are intended for everyone and especially for new Residents, and should never be relinquished for reasons of lack of manageability.

And so, for now, we need to be police. Call it what you want to, but policing is what we do in places like Waterhead. Showing up in numbers, sporting our group titles, just to make enough of an impression to take the sharpest edges off of the irritating behaviour. I tried to make do with other comparisons, like for example emergency medical services, but after all is said and done, that’s just not the whole truth. In places like Waterhead, sometimes when the ‘right’ people are all there, we are an imperfect and virtually powerless police. Why? Because behind our backs the newbies keep dropping in, straight from Orientation. And without any people overseeing what’s going on there, they’d leave in droves.

(Second Life, SL and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. This blog was written with the intention of not infringing upon any trademark.)

M.I.A.

I discovered it too late, because Yahoo decided to drop the message from Linden Lab into the bulk folder, but there it was – disciplinary action has been taken against me. I’ll tell you what happened.

Last Saturday was one of the rare moments in the weekend that I am on Second Life. I was happily building away when someone on an IM channel said she was being flooded at Pooley. Out of couriousity I TP’d over and found myself knee deep (and more) in griefer cubes. Fine then – send an AR and get out. However, Doc Gascoigne called me at that moment for an urgent delivery of T-shirts for the new Mentors – the ones they had available read “Security” which is exactly what Mentors are not supposed to be. So I went off-world, forgot about building, and managed to make some hopefully acceptable shirts for the newly minted Mentors. Mind you, the grad party was already under way.

Back to the grid I went. I delivered the shirts to Mia Linden and got no reply. I IM’d Doc and got no reply. Thinking I had better go there myself I went over to the SL Volunteer Island complex, in the middle of which the party was in full swing. These are Mature rated islands that are furthermore off bounds to non-volunteers.

At the four sim crossing where the party was held, lag was terrible. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t see properly, I couldn’t do anything. Four times or so I got close to Mia, but when I tried to get closer I ended up half a sim away. A very frustrating experience if you have an urgent message to deliver. And so, in my anger, I typed “Fuck this place” – or words to that effect, it had the word Fuck in it anyway – and clicked Shout. Remember, I was in a complex of Mature and furthermore private sims.

Then Mia got to me, thanking me for the shirts, and in the same breath berating me for what I just shouted across the party. That’s just typical, I thought, and I first told her that I was in a Mature sim (and I added a smiley) after which she told me she knew the guidelines very well. “You know what, Mia?” I said next. “AR me.” I knew it could cost me my Mentorship but at that time I really didn’t care anymore. She said she would, and apparently she did. Being that I am hardly ever in Second Life on weekends, I never noticed until I found that mail. I am still a Mentor – apparently one can be disciplined and maintain Mentorship.

A stressful hour, beginning with griefer cubes, a request I happily (and at the cost of 20 of my own Linden dollars for uploading) and swiftly obliged to, the insane lagginess of that party I only went to because of those damn shirts, and the non-responsiveness of people you just finished an urgent assignment for, was reason for me to say ‘fuck’.

Mia Linden does not understand this. Mia Linden never says ‘fuck’ even though she has a New York accent broader than that of Fran bloody Drescher. Mia Linden is an absolutely saintly person – and therefore hasn’t the slightest idea of how real people react to things. She would have reacted with a hearty ‘Golly!’ or an honest ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!’ and that would be all – because nothing is going to knock her train of happy, positive thoughts off the rails, don’t you know.

I am still a Mentor. But I am wondering why I would be volunteering for Mia, or doing anything for her at all, for that matter. If she is so fucking saintly I am sure she can conjure up happy T-shirts for all to wear while being immersed in griefer cubes, loudmouth newbies demanding help and Waterhead regulars calling her a nigger bitch. And so she really doesn’t need me to do all that for her. Because that’s what I fucking do out there - taking shit for the Lindens. Every goddamn day.

So Mia, next time you need anything at all for your happy band of volunteers sending positive rays all over the grid, don’t come asking. You know the reply, girl. It starts with F.

(Second Life and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.)