Doc Team/2008-11-14

[12:59] Jeremy Linden: Hey Becky. Having trouble landing?
[12:59] Becky Pippen: yeah :-)
[12:59] Becky Pippen: hi!
[12:59] Jeremy Linden: Also, hello Arawn and Kaye!
[13:00] Jeremy Linden: er, KATE.
[13:00] Jeremy Linden: Hi AmadeuS. Welcome to Documentation Office Hours.
[13:00] Kate Linden: Hi Arawn, Becky, Joe, AmadeuS
[13:01] AmadeuS Lefevre: hello to everybody
[13:01] Becky Pippen: I met AmadusS at a welcome area, and he expressed an interest in today's office hours
[13:01] Jeremy Linden: Oh, excellent!
[13:01] Jeremy Linden: Hello Joe. Welcome to Documentation Office Hours.
[13:01] Becky Pippen: Hi Kate, Arawn, Joe, everyone :-)
[13:01] Jeremy Linden: For the next hour, we'll be chatting about the Knowledge Base, and possible other Second Life-related documentation.
[13:03] Jeremy Linden: We'll wait another couple minutes for our third team member, Jon.
[13:03] Arawn Spitteler finds something worrisome, in https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3408 : I've found an issue, that looks to impinge on corporate communications. Is Katt the linden to jira for?
[13:04] Jon Linden: hello everyone!
[13:04] Jeremy Linden: Arawn, my understanding is that if the bug is filed correctly, it will be correctly triaged to the correct Linden.
[13:05] Arawn Spitteler: Then, we have to show up at office hours and nag. There's an issue that was technical, but it's administration indicates administrative failures.
[13:05] Jon Linden: what is currently under discussion?
[13:06] Jeremy Linden: Arawn, I think I'm having trouble understanding what you're trying to say... Could you break it down to one particular objective?
[13:07] Arawn Spitteler: The original issue, was a misfeature, that should have been retained, but the misfix has now been made worse. The effort to make it worse, should have been better documented, like maybe at all.
[13:08] Jeremy Linden: Hmm... Is this the result of a change to the way a scripted behavior works?
[13:08] Arawn Spitteler: We're supposed to address these in Office Hours, but the person who wants Avatar Link Distances throttled, is an undocumented feature.
[13:09] Arawn Spitteler: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3408 is on top of SVC-2931
[13:09] Arawn Spitteler: The desire to unmisfix the feature is public, but the objection secret, and SVC-3408 is just getting weird.
[13:10] Arawn Spitteler: I was just trying to test that myself, but I couldn't fix a block to be sat upon, in the beta grid
[13:10] Becky Pippen: it's a technical issue of linkage and LSL semantics.. this should be resolved through the usual process... triage.. assignment...etc. The JIRA issue is working properly, collecint documentaiton about the issue from all parties.
[13:11] Jeremy Linden: Yes, that appears to be the case.
[13:11] Arawn Spitteler: But hte objection is secret, violating transparency
[13:11] Jeremy Linden: Arawn, I think you should visit Benjamin Linden's office hours. He has a hand in bug triage for public Jira.
[13:11] Arawn Spitteler: The only opposition is Jahar
[13:12] Jon Linden: i agree with jeremy
[13:12] WidgetHUD v1.1 (Mono): Jon Linden has pinged you.
[13:12] Arawn Spitteler: Yesterday at 3PM?
[13:12] Arawn Spitteler: I'll try to pencil yeterday in
[13:12] Jeremy Linden: Or you could try 6 days from now.
[13:13] Jeremy Linden: Benjamin is more likely to be able to make it to that one.
[13:13] Arawn Spitteler: The technical issue is a debate, but that transparency issue is a bit fuzzy
[13:14] Jon Linden: arawn, not every decision about every aspect of every feature is going to be made public knowledge
[13:14] Jon Linden: that is not actually what transparency is about
[13:15] Jeremy Linden: Anyway, I think we've taken this discussion about as far as this group can take it-
[13:15] Arawn Spitteler: This latest change was without warning, and is a bug, according to what's supposed to be fixed in 1.25. It just feels strange, and a problem of corporate communication
[13:15] Jon Linden: noted
[13:15] Jeremy Linden: AmadeuS, I hear you had an interest in attending these office hours. Did you have any discussion topics or questions in mind?
[13:16] AmadeuS Lefevre: I'm too new to give an active help/ opinions
[13:17] Jon Linden: actually, that's perfect
[13:17] Arawn Spitteler: That's actually the best opinion, Amadeus, since this is for the instruction book
[13:17] Jon Linden: have you had a chance to take a look at the Knowledge Base yet?
[13:17] Jeremy Linden: Heh. Well, someone as new as yourself has a unique perspective on trying to learn about Second Life.
[13:17] AmadeuS Lefevre: if you don't mind, I would like for this time to listen and to learn
[13:17] Jeremy Linden: Ah.
[13:17] Jon Linden: no problem
[13:18] AmadeuS Lefevre: where can I find the knoledge Base?
[13:18] Jeremy Linden: Well, you're not exactly seeing us at our finest, today. Our team is most knowledgeable about the Knowledge Base, and teaching people how to use Second Life. We sometimes stray onto other conversation topics, but we're not always competent to answer off-topic questions.
[13:18] Arawn Spitteler: When I first rezzed, a little over a year and a half ago, there was this big sign, telling us to press F1 for help, and it would inevitably send us to the Forum, which we couldn't access.
[13:18] Jeremy Linden: You can find the Knowledge Base at http://secondlife.com/kb
[13:19] AmadeuS Lefevre: thank you
[13:20] Jeremy Linden: As a new Resident, what would you say your biggest challenges have been, so far?
[13:22] AmadeuS Lefevre: thinking that I was born in SL just some hours ago, I just understood the very basic commands and rules
[13:23] Jon Linden: wow, that was fast
[13:23] Kate Linden: Welcome to Second Life AmadeuS
[13:23] Arawn Spitteler: Did you appear at an Orientation Island, or somewehre else?
[13:23] Jeremy Linden: Do you feel that we did a good enough job teaching you the basics? Enough to start exploring on your own?
[13:23] AmadeuS Lefevre: but after what I have seen and heard I think that it's really interesting and fascinating
[13:25] Jeremy Linden: What are you most excited to learn about next?
[13:25] AmadeuS Lefevre: no, my experience tells me that new things neeed time to be understood
[13:25] Jeremy Linden: Ah.
[13:25] Jon Linden: this is true
[13:26] AmadeuS Lefevre: if someone thinks to own the knowledge after a short time it will be a big mistake
[13:27] Kate Linden: Hello Annettah
[13:27] Annettah Jewell: hallohallo
[13:27] Jon Linden: welcome to Documentation Office Hours!
[13:27] Becky Pippen: Hi Annettah
[13:27] Arawn Spitteler deigns to notice the arrival of Annettah: Hi, Annettah
[13:27] Jeremy Linden: Oh, indeed. What I'm most interested in right now is your feedback as a brand new Resident; if I know what specific troubles you had, and what troubles you -didn't- have (because of tutorials, or Becky, or more) then we can better target our documentation to people like you.
[13:27] Jeremy Linden: Hi Annettah. Welcome to Documentation Office Hours. If you have questions about Second Life or the Knowledge Base, this is the place to be.
[13:29] AmadeuS Lefevre: Jeremy, I think that the first problem was to understand how to move on long distances
[13:29] WidgetHUD v1.1 (Mono): AmadeuS Lefevre has pinged you.
[13:29] AmadeuS Lefevre: teletransport
[13:30] Arawn Spitteler notices that neither Annettah nor Amadeus have anything in their profiles: Annett's over a year old, but could have just gotten a computer upgrade.
[13:30] Jeremy Linden: Ah, that's a good point, AmadeuS. I think we may talk about searching, and using the world map, but teleportation is seldom the focus of those articles.
[13:31] Jeremy Linden: It's one of those things that many of us take for granted, once we know about it :-)
[13:31] Jon Linden: that is interesting; was teleporting something you were interested in doing right away?
[13:31] AmadeuS Lefevre: may I ask a question?
[13:31] Jeremy Linden: Of course!@
[13:32] AmadeuS Lefevre: why are you so interested to write these articles?
[13:32] Jeremy Linden: It's our job ;-)
[13:32] Becky Pippen: :-)
[13:32] Arawn Spitteler: Having articles to write is what keeps doors on apartments
[13:33] Jeremy Linden: Our specific task is to write informational articles to help people learn how to use Second Life.
[13:33] AmadeuS Lefevre: sure, but how could a new one know about it?
[13:34] Jon Linden: know about the Knowledge Base?
[13:34] AmadeuS Lefevre: I mean, I arrive and have difficulties, how can I know your articles?
[13:34] Jon Linden: oh man -- i wonder if it would be worthwhile to put a link to the KB into the new user tutorial
[13:34] Arawn Spitteler: Yeah,
[13:34] Jeremy Linden: That's another area we're always trying to improve upon. We try to make the Knowledge Base as prominent as possible; if you choose Second Life Help from the Help menu, you'll open up a web browser pointed at the Knowledge Base.
[13:35] AmadeuS Lefevre: do you know what new ones do in such cases?
[13:35] Jon Linden: it's not something we have a lot of data on
[13:36] AmadeuS Lefevre: they just chat and ask help in populated places
[13:36] Jon Linden: when you first appeared inworld, was there a tutorial in the corner that walked you through the basics of movement and talking in SL?
[13:36] Jeremy Linden: We haven't done any formal testing with new Residents, but we do like to gather anecdotal data from people like you, when we can.
[13:36] Jon Linden: AmadeuS, is that what you did? just talked to other people? were they helpful?
[13:37] AmadeuS Lefevre: no
[13:37] Jeremy Linden: Heh. I'm guesing that's in response to the tutorial question.
[13:37] AmadeuS Lefevre: I found something useful in google
[13:38] Jon Linden: interesting
[13:38] AmadeuS Lefevre: my answer was for both questions
[13:38] Jeremy Linden: Believe it or not, that's actually very good for us to know.
[13:39] Jon Linden: definitely
[13:39] AmadeuS Lefevre: yes but my behaviour may not be the same of the majority of new users
[13:40] AmadeuS Lefevre: my question is: what's the average age of new entries?
[13:40] Arawn Spitteler: New Entries?
[13:40] AmadeuS Lefevre: what's the average experience and education?
[13:40] AmadeuS Lefevre: new users
[13:40] Jon Linden: that's a good question whose answer i don't know
[13:40] Arawn Spitteler: Oh, the average meat-side ethnic, of new users? Does anyone ask?
[13:41] Jeremy Linden: Hmm... I don't remember the exact statistic, but last time I checked, the average age here was much higher than I expected. Hold on, let me find our statistics page.
[13:41] Arawn Spitteler's probably younger than most of the girls he's dated, but hopes they were mostly girls
[13:42] Jeremy Linden: Here's some public information: http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php
[13:42] Jeremy Linden: And I do remember a chart that was broken down into demographics.
[13:42] Jeremy Linden: Does this link work? http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxbDc4B2FH94OkiJffGTwWg
[13:43] Jeremy Linden: There is a Demographics tab on that spreadsheet.
[13:43] Becky Pippen: ooo that's a good spreadsheet
[13:44] Jeremy Linden: It's from the Key Metrics Download section of that Economic statistics page.
[13:44] AmadeuS Lefevre: yes but I don't see any age there
[13:44] Becky Pippen: " Usage hours by Age Band" on the demographics tab
[13:44] Jeremy Linden: There is a section called "Usage hours by Age Band"
[13:44] Jon Linden: it's on the Demographics tab, at the top of the page
[13:44] Jon Linden: sorry -- the Demographics tab is at the top of the page, and the data is at the bottom of said tab
[13:46] Jeremy Linden: It actually looks like a pretty good spread, with slightly more people in the 25-34 and 35-44 range.
[13:46] Shaun Altman: Hi :D
[13:46] Tyler Messenger: **Halllooooo**
[13:46] Jon Linden: hello Shawn and Tyler
[13:46] Jeremy Linden: Hi Shaun. Welcome to Documentation Office Hours.
[13:46] Shaun Altman: is this the documentation chat?
[13:46] Jeremy Linden: And Tyler too!
[13:46] Shaun Altman: ah cool
[13:46] AmadeuS Lefevre: what about IT knowledge and education?
[13:46] Jon Linden: for the next 14 minutes
[13:46] Jon Linden: AmadeuS, i don't think we collect that sort of data
[13:47] Kate Linden: Shaun! Hi, great to see you again.
[13:47] AmadeuS Lefevre: I see, but it may be interesting for the documentation
[13:47] Arawn Spitteler: How would such data be collected? Maybe a sampling done by statistics students?
[13:47] AmadeuS Lefevre: maybe
[13:47] Shaun Altman: hi :D
[13:47] AmadeuS Lefevre: :-)
[13:48] Jeremy Linden: Shaun, Tyler, do you have any documentation-related questions or discussion topics to bring up? :-)
[13:48] Arawn Spitteler: What proportion of the Teen Grid has been sent there, when their ages were discovered?
[13:49] Shaun Altman: No I just saw the office hour in the wiki and wanted to see what the thoughts on documentation were shaping up like these days
[13:49] Jeremy Linden: Arawn, I'm afraid we probably can't talk about that, for legal and TOS reasons.
[13:49] AmadeuS Lefevre: what does TOS mean?
[13:49] Jeremy Linden: Mostly just whatever comes to mind, Shaun. This week, we've mostly been grilling AmadeuS for his new-user experience stories.
[13:49] Jeremy Linden: TOS is shorthand for "Terms of Service"
[13:49] Arawn Spitteler: Proportion shouldn't violate ToS, but it illustrates how little is known of incoming ethnic
[13:49] AmadeuS Lefevre: thanx
[13:50] Shaun Altman: yes that's where I'd be looking to document things... as part of the first hour
[13:50] Shaun Altman: the number one thing I'd like to see here isn't really "strictly" documentation... but... have you ever played EVE?
[13:50] Jon Linden: i've never played EVE, but i've read reviews of it
[13:50] Shaun Altman: put something like their really simple and polished tutorial in SL! :D to help people "get it" and become engaged right away
[13:51] Jeremy Linden: Hmm... That may be something to check out.
[13:51] Jon Linden: can you characterize their tutorial experience? is it typical of videogame tutorials?
[13:51] Jon Linden: haha tyler
[13:52] Shaun Altman: its an engaging/interactive walkthrough which is really easy to follow and is task-based (you accomplish useful things along the way)
[13:52] Jon Linden: i find that a lot of videogame tutorials are good at what they do, but they have a comparatively small set of things to teach you how to do
[13:52] Shaun Altman: well I mean
[13:52] Shaun Altman: I wouldn't teach people how to build and script in it lol
[13:52] Jon Linden: right, heh
[13:53] Shaun Altman: but maybe teach them how to search, use the map etc
[13:53] Shaun Altman: a search walkthru is perticularly great I think, b/c it will help people to know how to find something or someone they like right away
[13:53] Arawn Spitteler: I learned that sort of thing, on Teleportation Trail
[13:53] Jon Linden: aahhh interesting
[13:54] Jeremy Linden: Shaun, that's essentially what our old Orientation Island system tried to do. It aimed to teach new Residents the skills of Movement, Communication, Search, and (I think) Inventory.
[13:54] Jon Linden: i was going to say
[13:54] Shaun Altman: but it really wasn't all that polished
[13:54] Shaun Altman: (I mean that nicely, lol)
[13:55] Jon Linden: no doubt! ^__^ it's just that it's really hard to do well
[13:55] Jeremy Linden: However, we found that it didn't really make much of a difference when compared with the new HTML-based tutorial HUD. (Help > Tutorial.)
[13:55] Shaun Altman: *clicks*
[13:56] Arawn Spitteler: I get to use this?
[13:56] Shaun Altman: Oh, well that's much nicer yes :D
[13:56] Jeremy Linden: Go for it, Arawn.
[13:57] Arawn Spitteler: Will an OI be made public, for remembrance sake? I wanna go back to see that frightening dragon
[13:57] Shaun Altman: why are the top 5 items on the list that new residents are told to use in search.... education and non-profit?
[13:58] Shaun Altman: I mean this is the funnel point... do newbies really head off to stanford, princeton or harvard law as a first step? :D
[13:58] Kate Linden: Arawn, the older Orientation Island Public is still open.
[13:58] Arawn Spitteler: I started on the newer, though, and it should be fun to revisit. The older OI might be popular enough to justify
[13:59] Jon Linden: shaun, you never know -- they might!
[13:59] Shaun Altman: Well you know, you have the logs! :D
[14:00] Jon Linden: it's something i think we should definitely discuss at the next office hour, heh
[14:00] Jon Linden: looks like we're just about out of time on this one!
[14:00] Becky Pippen: thanks guys!
[14:01] Jon Linden: everyone have an excellent weekend!
[14:01] Jeremy Linden: Thanks for coming, everyone. It's good to see some new faces here every week :-)
[14:01] Becky Pippen: yay weekend!
[14:01] AmadeuS Lefevre: May I say thank you for having invited me here?
[14:01] AmadeuS Lefevre: it was really interesting
[14:01] Kate Linden: Nice to see you all. Enjoy your weekend and thanks for all your feedback.
[14:01] Jon Linden: of course -- feel free to come back and share any insights with us on your developing experience!
[14:01] Jeremy Linden: You are most welcome! We're here every week at the same time, if you want to return.
[14:01] Jon Linden: especially if it's something like "argh i can't find the info i need on ___"
[14:02] AmadeuS Lefevre: hehe sure
[14:02] Jon Linden: excellent
[14:02] Arawn Spitteler: You're the expert, on what you're experiencing; the rest of us are faded memories
[14:02] Jon Linden: be well, everyone!
[14:03] Free Radar HUD v1.1 by Crystal Gadgets
[14:03] Shaun Altman: sorry had to afk
[14:03] Shaun Altman: guess its over hehe
[14:03] Shaun Altman: bye all, thanks for having me here
[14:03] Jeremy Linden: No worries! If you found this interesting, we'll be here again next week.
[14:03] Jeremy Linden: Actually, we'll be here next week whether you found it interesting or not :-P
[14:04] Shaun Altman: yes I get so busy sometimes but I will try to stop by for sure
[14:04] Shaun Altman: I've actually been working on something kinda doc related... not really documentation per se but may have some overlap
[14:04] Jeremy Linden: Cool. What's it do?
[14:06] Arawn Spitteler: Ehhhh, what's up, Doc?
[14:07] Jeremy Linden: Heh.
[14:11] Jeremy Linden: Alright, I'm off... Have a good weekend, everyone. Thanks for coming!
[14:11] Becky Pippen: By Jeremy
[14:11] WidgetHUD v1.1 (Mono): Becky Pippen has pinged you.
[14:11] Becky Pippen: Bye*
Category: Documentation Office Hours