Second Life. I'm in. Now what? (Part I - Get Help)

I posted about how people were asking me how to get into Second Life here.  Now I figure I ought to make mention of a few standard "once you're inworld" things to know.

I'm no expert, I'm no "helper" and everyone enjoys their virtual experience their own way.  These are just a few tips based on my own experiences and observations.

1.  Get help.

The learning curve in Second Life is huge.  Worth it, but huge.  Get help.

There are plenty of places and people from which or from whom to get help, but I'd advise you to spread it around.  Some people log into Second Life, find a generous soul who helps them with a few basics and then latch onto them and bleed them dry of all good will.  Helping new people when you have a hobby you love is a pleasure.  Feeding a leech who turns your hobby into a grinding job is a special kind of hell. Don't be a thoughtless leech.  Find multiple resources and spread your questions and requests around.  Besides, I guarantee you there are some questions you are going to ask more than once and if you can ask it of multiple different people you will feel like less of a forgetful dork.  Either that or people get fed up and bail before they even know what they are missing.  Don't be that guy either.

Where can you get help?  Good question.  There are LOADS of places to get help.  That and the payoff in terms of Second Life enjoyment make being a n00b worthwhile.

There are multiple forums offworld that include Resident members who have been in Second Life for 5 or more years.  Many of those forums have Answers or Guide sections and people willing to give of their time and knowledge to answer questions for you. Start with the official Second Life forums and then try SLUniverse, the largest of the third-party forums.  Branch out from there and you may even find a forum community you want to be a permanent part of, or at the very least, bookmark for the occasional question.

Youtube has video tutorials.  Inworld clubs, groups, schools and volunteers have blogs.  Lots of Second Life hobbyists and even Second Life professionals have blogs.


You should also check out the Second Life Wiki.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page


Here are some helpful links:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Answers/qac-p/Answers
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Second-Life-Quickstart/ta-p/1087919
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD237D0E11AC1F341&feature=plcp
http://www.nci-sl.info/blog/

Here are some forum links:


http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Answers/qac-p/Answers
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums/ct-p/Forums
http://www.sluniverse.com
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD237D0E11AC1F341&feature=plcp
http://www.rletc.com/forumdisplay.php?7-Second-Life&prefixid=guide
http://www.rletc.com/showthread.php?3128-Downloading-and-Getting-Started-in-Second-Life
http://www.rletc.com/showthread.php?2799-Second-Life-Help-for-New-Residents
http://leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/06/virtual-world-theme-sites-blogs-forums.html


There are GREAT Second Life tutorials on Youtube and beautiful Second Life machinima too.

There are also inworld help centers and help groups in Second Life with volunteers devoted to helping you through that big learning curve I mentioned.

Pull up the Search menu on your viewer and type in "Help" and see what comes up.  You could also look for:

Help at Caledon Oxbridge University Community Gateway, Caledon Oxbridge (92, 197, 27) - General
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Oxbridge/92/198/28

Help Island Public, Help Island Public (119, 115, 26) - General
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Help%20Island%20Public/119/115/27

White Tiger Help & Learning Island. New Resident Services., Lawst Paradise (138, 18, 21) - General
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lawst%20Paradise/141/26/22

NCI Dream Seeker New Citizens Incorporated - Help/Classes, NCI Dream Seeker (44, 198, 23) - General
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/NCI%20Dream%20Seeker/45/199/24

The Shelter, Isabel (34, 226, 81) - Moderate
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Isabel/35/226/81

There, that should get you started.

Enjoy!




The Shelter




White Tiger Help Island


ETA: From Void Singer via Sy Beck on the SL official forum...

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/New-to-SecondLife-and-completely-Lost/m-p/1502255#M19020

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Official-Resources/m-p/1212519/highlight/true#M35623

Void Singer's post:

I had a thought to compile a list of official resources, available from Linden Lab, as a go to source for official information regarding problems one might encounter in SL.

The list I'm attempting to compile is of only the LL direct sources, since most of the informal sources (such as these forums) are fairly well known and often suggested, but not everyone is aware of all the official sources...

so to jump start this list, I'm going to throw out some categories, and populate a few of them, and would welcome any suggestions for Official LL Resources only (which I'll do my best to update into this post)

---

UPDATED Dec 16, 2:58 PM (PST)

Information on current events and changes within SL:

• SL Blogs (general new features, trends and news)
• Grid Status (currently known large scale failures and scheduled maintenance, if it breaks check here first)
• Second Life Server Forum (particularly the weekly deploy threads for news on new features and fixes)
• Second Life Viewer Forum (occasionally has news from Lindens on viewer changes and fixes)
• Rod Humble's Twitter Feed(CEO's take on what's trending in SL now, and into the future)
  • Rod Humble's Profile Feed (more of the same, limited to SL users, login required)

Basic Information and Common questions:

• @SupportLinden (A twitter account that redirects users to the likeliest resource)
• Knowledge Base (a collection of preformated questions and answers on a variety of topics)
• Video Tutorials (collection of video detailing how to do many basic tasks and showcasing SL content)
• SL Wiki (only some information found here is official)

Basic support:

• Quickstart Guide (something to get you started if you are new to SL)
• Billing issues (can't save your payment info? got overcharged by LL, go here)
• File a Trouble ticket (AKA Support Portal, for problems that you are personally experiencing, should be logged in if possible)
  • Live Chat Support (must be premium member and logged into the website, limited hours)
• Jira(find out about known bugs, possible workaraounds, and keep updated on the ones important to you)
  • File a bug report (only bugs that affect multiple users or regions, please search before filing)
  • File a Feature Request (got a great idea? submit it here. please search before filing)

Active Focus Groups:

• Server Betauser group (meets on beta grid [aditi] focuses on upcoming features and fixes)
  • Second Life Beta (inworld announcement group for the same)
• Server/Sim user group (meets twice weekly on main grid [agni] focuses on current server limitations and workaraounds)
• Scripting user group (meets weekly on main grid [agni] focuses on scripting bugs and new features)
• Content Creation user group (meets week on main grid [agni] focuses largely on mesh)
• Community Tools user group (focuses on webside resources for SL) - Closed

---

I only gathered some of the obvious links, it could used fleshed out with contact phone numbers, emails and other direct LL supported resources (one in which an employee of linden lab either directly answers, or can point you to the correct resource)

Additional comments (see linked thread for posters):

Knowledge base ?

wiki ?

Content Creation/Mesh Import user group (transcript archive)?

If you're gonna list Rod's Tweeter feed, why not list his SL profile feed as well?

Thanks much, Void. I have just one suggestion to add to your list: Billing Support? Oh, and maybe a link to the Quick Start Guide?

@SupportLinden

May I also suggest under basic info the video tutorials:

http://secondlife.com/my/whatnext/video-tutorials/index.php?

Colleen's link leads from the SL Feed:

• colleen.criss 

  http://www.nci-sl.info/blog/

  3 days ago  Love
• 

  colleen.criss 

  http://nci-sl.info/education/Schedule.pdf

  3 days ago  Love
• 

  colleen.criss 

  https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=nciclassesandevents@gmail.com&ctz=America/Los_Angeles&gsessionid=OK

  3 days ago  Love

https://my.secondlife.com/leehere.absent/posts/4f9369f156cc970001006a4e

Crap Mariner's Blogroll Summary Project

Back in June of last year I posted an incomplete list of just some of the virtual-world themed blog and forum websites out there.  (There are a lot.)  Some people have found it useful and I've definitely popped back into it to grab a link now and then.  But it was just a bulleted and hyperlinked list.

Crap Mariner is listing blogs and including quick summaries of the type of content you might find on the sites.  Potentially very helpful stuff, so I'm gonna put the word out here.  Check it out.



Related links:
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2012-project/
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2012/01/07/blogroll-project-week-1-review/
http://firstlife.isfullofcrap.com/2012/01/14/blogroll-project-week-2-review/
http://leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/06/virtual-world-theme-sites-blogs-forums.html
http://leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/07/forum-ranking-ratings-reviews.html
http://leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/07/criteria-for-forum-ranking-ratings.html

Blog Stats & Search Keywords

I find the blog stats fascinating.  I have my doubts about their reliability...natch.  Right now, using the "Now"  link that supposedly shows two hours worth of data, I see that there have been seven people from Iran and five from the United States looking at my blog and at least one of them got here by searching Google for "virtual game lil peps."  I would love the opportunity to ask secondary questions.

Looking at "All Time" I see that most viewers come from the U.S., the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.  No surprise there.  There is also an unaccountably high number of people from Latvia viewing all of my blogs (not just this one).

Forum Confidential, Pserendipity Daniels' "Pep's Parenthetical Postscripts," Google, SLF, SC MKII, gV and my own blogs continue to be the top-referring sites to this blog.

Variations of my own name and that of Seicher Rae and Jon Finkel continue to lead the top of the "Search Keywords" list.  Some of the ones lower down the list that amuse me besides "virtual game lil peps" are "realistic pubic hair," "ripped union jack flag shorts," "daddy dom" and "whore wiki."  There have also been some very disappointed searchers for "magic the gathering," I'm sure.  And I'm real curious about the people who got here via "a."

The blog posts that have received the most views are, again not surprisingly, the ones about sex and gV forum moderation.

And y'all are slaves to Windows and Firefox.   ;)



ETA:

This is from today's data.



Really?

Where are the best places to talk Second Life Sex? (mature-adult-NSFW-XXX)

This question has come up a number of times before, I know, and it has come up again, most recently in SLF, so I decided to post about it here, in gV and on SLU.

Here's my post on gV and SLU:

"Where are the best places (blogs, forums, websites, sims, etc.) to talk about sex in Second Life among adults with a frank and open discussion? Topics might include prim genitalia, etiquette, how-to for newbies, fetishes, paraphilias, NSFW & XXX content, sex sims, sex products, etc. And why? (Why is that the best place?) The question came up in SLF and I thought it might be interesting to get comments and referrals."

Here are the questions asked by Aleesha Snow that got the ball rolling this go round.

Aleesha Snow said...

"I'm looking into making a foray into the world of SL sex. Before I get involved, I have been noticing that there are so many options as far as body parts, HUDs, and many other things. Some things are stand alone, others need compatible items to work properly. It is all so confusing. I decided to search for information online. Unfortunately, after several hours, was unable to locate anything on the web that wasn't a number of years old and, apparently, no longer pertinent. I'm not sure I am in the right place to even ask this question. Can someone point me to a place where I can get up to date and accurate information on all of this?  Thank You  A~"

Aleesha Snow also said...

"Thanks Ariel, and thanks to all who replied. I really appreciate it. Reading all of your responses have helped but I think Ariel hit the nail on the head. There is just so much that it is hard to ask specific questions. The "genital Attachment" question was one for instance. I personally don't need one and sex for me is more cerebral than visual, yet I didn't know if guys would look at me as cheap or less desirable if I didn't have one. It is things like that. Its good to know that the older information can be relied upon today. I will look at it with a different eye. Guess I need to find my online mentor. Thank you all A~"

Links:
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Lifestyles-and-Relationships/Finding-Current-Info-on-SL-Sex/td-p/1081169
http://gotvirtual.net/community/threads/where-are-the-best-places-to-talk-second-life-sex-mature-nsfw.2546/
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/64052-where-best-places-talk-second.html
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/lets-make-sexy-time/
http://whatleesaid.blogspot.com/2011/09/sex-questions-on-second-life-forums-slf.html
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Lifestyles-and-Relationships/Where-do-YOU-think-the-best-place-to-talk-about-sex-in-Second/td-p/1086709

Gorean Stopover...Who Knew?

I had no idea there was a demand in the virtual market for a relaxing stopover between Earth and Gor.

S0phia Inkpen said...

"Tetrapoli bills itself as a Gorean stopover, as a place to relax, when travelling between Earth and Gor. It has some quiet resting spots....

And others that are more obviously gorean (even to my untrained eye)...

The build itself is fairly well done, nothing extraordinary.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tetrapoli/162/179/21

The sim is rated Mature/Moderate (I believe it should have a rating of Adult)"

See pics at Real Travels in a Virtual World in the "Tetrapoli" post.

Virtual World Theme Sites (Blogs & Forums)

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