Tag: Community Gateways

Dreamer’s Landing: a community supporting new users in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Dreamer’s Landing, February 2025

Update, March 27th: Dreamer’s Landing is being overhauled and is currently closed. 

Co-founded by Ⱥvalon Bouvier and Fire (Fire3850), I first dropped into Dreamer’s Landing in mid-December 2024, drawn by the concept of a setting which brings together both those new to Second Life and those engaged with the platform in order to foment a sense of community, learning, encouragement and support, in which new users gain a better foothold in-world, from being able to find a free home through to having the opportunities for direct mentorship and to engage in social events – users can even apply for jobs within the setting.

At the time of my first visit, there was still work going on setting-up parts of the region, so I had intended to hop back again at the start of the New Year and take a detailed look at Dreamer’s Landing; unfortunately, things being what they were, I didn’t manage to do so until later January – so my apologies to Fire, Avalon and their team for the delay in getting this article put together.

Our mission at Dreamer’s Landing is to provide housing, mentorship and community to new and experienced SL members, where everyone contributes and respects the people within the community. We do this by attracting seasoned residents who want to create community and mentoring.

– Dreamer’s Landing Mission Statement

Dreamer’s Landing, restaurant – February 2025

Occupying a Full private region utilising the Land Capacity bonus offered by Linden Lab, Dreamer’s Landing is not currently a part of the Lab’s Community Gateway programme, as re-launched in 2017. This is primarily because it is more a “next step” community for new users rather than a place for leaping in from sign-up and getting started; however, it does have links with several community gateways, including the Lab’s own welcome hub, where such on-boarding does occur. By keeping a little apart from the usual mix of on-boarding, focused learning (mixing self-learning with mentor support) found within “traditional” Community Gateways, Dreamer’s Landing is able to focus more on personalised support built around the overall sense of community.

In addition, Members of the team may have their own homes within the community and are very much a part of social activities; thus, the sense of friendship and community is further fostered, and this helps lower any embarrassment newer users might otherwise feel when it comes to asking questions / seeking assistance. Within this, Dreamer’s Landing wraps within itself the concept of paying forward; new users obtaining a home within the region are asked to give a little back to the community in support of others, as Avalon noted to me.

We have about 12 mentors at the moment who are volunteering to spend time with our new residents, and we have onboarded 14 new residents so far, hopefully giving them all a lift up to their new life in SL. Part of the project is that we encourage new users to give back by becoming greeters at the Landing Point or by contributing directly to the rest of the community here. We also try to encourage them to discover things they’d like to do in-world. 

– Avalon Bouvier, co-founder, Dreamer’s Landing

Dreamer’s Landing, February 2025

The Landing Point is located on the ground level of the region, which has been attractively laid out in a style of 18th and 19th century French metropolitan architecture, with some Greco-Romano touches. A region surround offers a sense of greater space, whilst the region as a whole mixes community spaces, a small business district, gardens, and residential rentals, all brought together by cobbled avenues and boulevards. As well as the gardens and parks, copses of trees and the waterway cutting through the region help to avoid any sense of the setting being overcrowded.

The residential properties here are kept to the outer edges of the region to offer those renting them with a sense of personal space. If I understand things correctly, these units – taking the form of large classical French townhouses as might be found in Paris – are available to volunteer mentors and new users who wish to remain a part of the community.

The Landing Point sits within the small business district with boutique-style shops focused on fashion, couture and avatar customisation, together with gallery spaces to introduce newcomers to SL’s art scene, and similar.  It is rounded-off by the local café,  which joins with the dancing / music / games square towards the centre of the setting, the restaurant to east with its outdoor terrace / dance area build over the waters of a small cove, and the pool, spa and beach to the south-west as the major event and activity spaces.

Dreamer’s Landing – new user homes, February 2025

Getting around the ground level is easy enough on foot, but the various areas are also linked by the Dreamer’s Landing teleport system which also provides access to the region’s sky platforms. These include:

  • The Education Centre – where classroom lessons can be obtained for those who prefer them, together with self-help guides (touch the bookcases), and residents can apply for volunteer and paid jobs within the community (ads for these can also be found on the ground level). This level also includes the Dreamer’s Landing passport centre and a gifts centre to help new users to get started.
  • The Sandbox – where community members can unpack boxed items they have obtained, practice building, etc., and where community paintball games might be held.
  • The Walk-in Closet – offering space for users to sort their inventory, try outfits, learn about (and purchase) web-based inventory management systems, change their appearance / adjust the positioning of non-rigged attachments  and try them out with various poses, etc., with with the assistance of others or in private changing facilities if they prefer.
Dreamer’s Landing – Education Centre, February 2025

And of course there is the new user free housing. This takes the form a chalet-style housing spread over a sky platform with light landscaping, with personal touches added by the Dreamer’s Landing team, such as a sign welcoming incoming users to their new home and small outdoor community spaces as well.

We currently have 24 free homes for new residents, with about half occupied. Each house is supplied with furnishings and décor, and have an additional 50 LI for personal use. However, if someone wants to have the supplied furniture removed, they can, and that will give them up to 100 LI for personal use. Houses are generally supplied for a two-month period to help people get started, although this might on occasion be extended according to circumstance.

– Fire3850, co-founder, Dreamer’s Landing

Dreamer’s Landing – new user homes, February 2025

From my multiple visits to Dreamer’s Landing, I can personally attest to the friendliness and helpfulness of the folk at Dreamer’s Landing – both established and those who are more recent to Second Life and have volunteered to help within the community. If you know of any recent arrivals to Second Life who are looking for somewhere they might initially treat as home and be among a helpful community – be sure to direct them towards Dreamer’s Landing. Further information on the community – including the schedule of events and entertainment – can be found at the Dreamer’s Landing website.

SLurl and Links

A newcomer-friendly Mindful Cove in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Mindful Cove, September 2024 – click any image for full size

The Destination Guide recently led me to visit Mindful Cove, an interesting Full private region with something of a double life.  On the ground, it offers a natural setting in which to relax and explore and – it you are interested – join in the local music and mediation session (subject to available guides). Up in the sky, it offers a new user orientation centre, allowing it to a part of the Second Life Community Gateway programme.

Mindful Cove is a Second Life Community Gateway with a focus on mental health resources.. We offer plenty of fun, interactive resources for New Residents, and a tranquil space for all SL Residents to come and enjoy.  

– From Mindful Cove’s About Land description

Mindful Cove, September 2024
The region design is largely designed by Ella Pavlona on behalf of the Mindful Cove group. The ground level are offers an open wilderness with a backdrop of off-region mountains which, together with the sequoia-like trees, give it the sense of being somewhere in North America. The Landing Point offers a fair amount of information on the local group, events in the region, and the all-important teleport board up to the orientation area.

From the Landing point, exploration of the ground level setting is simply a case of following your feet; there is a trail that loops around  the setting, starting as a dirt track leading away from the Landing Point. This will take visitors around to the group’s main headquarters, with a café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc.

Mindful Cove, September 2024
Beyond this, the trail continues over a stream to an outdoor events area, which I gather hosts the music events and other activities (details on the notice boards to be found there and at the landing point and elsewhere). From here the path gets a little wilder and harder to follow, but it is worth persevering as the region is photogenic and you might come across peddle boats to rez and ride, places to sit and pass the time, and so on.

Find your way across the eastern stream as it passes close the the Landing Point (there are stepping stones!), and although trail offers further opportunities for exploration and / or relaxing  – although I would suggest a few more would not go amiss in helping to attract visitors. Within its screen of high hills, this eastern and southern part of the region has a very calming sense of remoteness to to and makes for an engaging space in which to wander and take photos.

Mindful Cove, September 2024

The orientation air follows the look and feel of the ground level, with a country trail circling a wooded lake. It also follows the familiar approach to teaching new users about the viewer and its controls and key aspects of Second Life: via a follow, read, and try orientation walk.

In this case, learning takes the form of following the trail as it takes the user through a series of lessons: basic avatar movement / navigation suing the keyboard and / or a mouse, progressing through camera controls, sitting, discovering how to make friends, join groups, communicate in text and / or voice, and so on and so forth. Information boards are provided in English, and despite being on transparent panels (which gives them a nice sense of floating) are very clear and easy to follow.

Mindful Cove, September 2024

The approach may seem pedestrian (no pun intended) to some; but the fact is, it works; there is nothing better than learning at your own pace, and I would suggest that by-and-large it is potentially somewhat more successful than having an orientation area loaded with “helpers” or “mentors” all with an eagerness to help – which can be a little overwhelming for some new users. Of course, a lack of mentors does mean a lack of people of whom questions can be asked; but again, I’d suggest this is not a significant loss – again, people are liable to be less nervous or embarrassed with any mistakes they make if they don’t feel they have someone watching them – possibly critically.

The orientation walk at Mindful Cove travels roughly half-way around a central lake, ending at a pair of building with an outdoor terrace area with a rezzing, new starter gifts and additional information. This also provides a teleport back down to the ground level, while beyond it is space into which the orientation walk could expand.

Mindful Cove, September 2024

To be honest, I’m not sure how much use the orientation area gets, or how active mindful Cove is as a Community Gateway (but then, LL don’t seem to be as engaged with the programme as they were when it relaunched in 2017). No-one was making use of the orientation area during my visits, which could make it an ideal place to take anyone you bring into SL yourself and want to let them try the lessons, or come across a new user  struggling with the viewer. Again as already noted, the lessons are nicely laid out and easy to follow, and the location pleasant enough and quiet enough such that that might welcome the opportunity of work through ay of the lessons that are relevant to them and reach a place where they feel more at home in-world and with the viewer.

Taken as a whole, Mindful Cove is an interesting / pleasant visit with some nice opportunities for photography and for participating in any events held there (there were two music events for September, so not sure what October will bring).  The region has a evening sky EEP setting across both the ground level and orientation area (although I used my own EEP when photographing the former), and the landscape on the ground is nicely laid out and accompanied by a suitable soundscape, so do have local sounds enabled.

Mindful Cove, September 2024

In all, a very pleasing and interesting visit.

SLurl Details

Community Gateways in Second Life: Ajuda SL Brasil

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ajuda SL Brasil

As a community gateway, Ajuda SL Brasil (“Help SL Brazil”) has a long history. Original founded in 2009, it celebrated its ninth anniversary in May 2018, and primarily – but not exclusively – serves Portuguese speaking users. Located on a single region, the gateway has been through several different variations over the years, including a major make-over in 2011, and then acceptance into the new Community Gateway Programme beta in 2016, prior to becoming a full member of the Programme following its official relaunch.

“We are entirely self-funded as a non-profit group,” Roth Grut, the gateway’s founder,informed me. “Which, given the value of the real against the dollar, hasn’t been easy” (at the time of writing 1 BRL = 0.268 USD). He continued, “Since joining the new Community Gateway Programme, we’ve had a lot of practical support from Linden Lab in transforming our work into an official gateway programme partner.”

Ajuda SL Brasil

I can personally attest to the warmth of the greeting on arriving at Ajuda SL Brasil, with the team there both friendly and inviting, encouraging me to explore and find out more. They were also quick to guide genuine newbies to the learning centre and to help them refine  / customise their look.

The region itself is informally laid out in a design that works well in encouraging exploration. From the landing point on the south side, it’s a short, clearly marked route to the learning centrally located on the region. This presents a series of familiar self-learn lessons about the viewer and getting around in Second Life and essentials such as inventory use, etc. This area also features an auditorium, providing weekly lessons. In addition, there is an information broad displaying the Caledon Oxbridge two-week class schedule for SL-related lessons and events presented in English. Alongside this is a board offering information on other gateways and resident help groups.

Ajuda SL Brasil

Around the learning centre on the remaining three sides of the region sit, the aforementioned freebie centre, a sandbox where people can learn about building in prims and practice their skills, an events area for music and dancing, changing rooms, table-top games and various interactive elements – such as a “hydro-bike” for pedalling around on the water, a rezzing platform where people can learn to fly a helicopter. There are also some humorous little touches – such as a dollar bill innocently stuck on a manhole cover, inviting people to click on it – the result both demonstrates object / object interactions and how objects can be used to animate avatars.

“There is also a photo studio up in the sky,” Kon Magic, a gateway volunteer told me. Set out like a New York street scene, it offer people the opportunity to experiment with the viewer’s snapshot floater, using the provided poses or their own animations from inventory.

“We get an average of about 500 visitors a day,” Emma Floresby, another volunteer informed me. “Sometimes it might be 350 a day, others about 1,000.” I wondered how many of these were new arrivals as opposed to returning users.  “A lot of people come for the freebie store,” Emma told me candidly. “They account for some of the higher numbers.”

Emma continued, “While we are Brazilian and Portuguese based, we also cater for all languages, and get many non-Portuguese speakers. We try to provide a good place to welcome people and help them at basics, and also provide help and support to established users as well.”

Ajuda SL Brasil

Support is offered in a number of ways – in-world at the region itself (obviously!) and via the in-world group, Amigos Ajudam Group. There’s also the gateway’s supporting website,. This is a rich source of information for incoming new users: hints and tips, information on features and capabilities – such as Bento and mesh bodies / heads -, notes on viewers translations of SL documents such as the SL Terms and Conditions, can all be found, and those interested in joining the team can discover more about being a volunteer.

In particular, the website includes a link to a Portuguese-specific sign-up process, which will deliver incoming new users directly to the Ajuda region. While this is a capability offered to all the of the Community Gateway Programme partners, the language-specific nature of Ajuda SL Brazil’s approach helps maintain a contextual feel for incoming new users, starting in Portuguese and them delivering them (post viewer installation) to a Portuguese-speaking region.

Ajuda SL Brasil – new user sign-up

Now into its tenth year of operation, staffed by  dedicated, enthusiastic team and providing a service not just to one of SL’s larger ESL communities, but SL users in general, Ajuda SL Brasil continues to provide a valuable service to new and established users alike.

Related Links

Are you running a new Community Gateway? Want it featured in this series? Contact me in-world, or use the Contact Me form on this blog and drop me a line.

Second Life Community Gateway Programme officially re-launched

Posted on by Inara Pey

In September 2015, I reported on the re-introduction, at least on a “beta” level of the Community Gateways,  a programme which had been discontinued in August 2010, with Linden  Lab citing several reasons for doing so, including issues around scalability and management oversight, together with question marks around the overall effectiveness of the programme.

Indications that the Lab were reconsidering the programme first surfaced at the “Meet the Lindens” events at SL12B, and following the hints, I was able to discuss the beta programme with Patch Linden in July 2015 while preparing that original piece.

Since that time, the beta Gateway Programme has been moving forward, and I’ve been able to visit a number – the London Gateway, Ayuda Virtual, catering to Spanish-speaking users, the Firestorm Gateway (touched upon in the article linked-to above, and Helping Haven, which formed the focus of its own report.

Helping Haven Gateway – one of the new Community Gateways which formed a part of the beta programme, 2015-2017

Somewhere in the region of 18 communities were involved in the beta Community Programme. However, the programme did have its share of hiccups along the way – such as with sorting through a registration process with would address both the Lab’s one legal requirements for data integrity and the needs of the Gateway operators themselves, some of which I documented in 2016.

All of the major hiccups have been addressed over the ensuing months, and the results of the beta programme appear to have been positive. I say this because on Wednesday, May 31st, 2017, Linden Lab announced that the new Community Gateway Programme is now officially open, with around 6-10 community-led gateways now operating in Second Life.

Part of the Firestorm Community Gateway, also a participant in the Community Gateway Beta Programme

In explaining the programme, the blog post offers an easy-to-grasp bullet point list of the what it is, and what it seeks to achieve:

This programme allows Second Life Communities to:

  • Create a new user experience and attract Residents to your specific community.
  • Assist those new Residents in beginning their journey into Second Life.
  • Lend a guiding hand in the creation of their new avatar personas.
  • Assist with increasing new user retention.

This powerful new tool will allow you to register new users right from your own community website and add them automatically to your group, thus helping your community to grow!

Part of the Ayuda Virtual Gateway

Communities within Second Life wishing to establish a Gateway of their own should refer to the new Community Gateway guidelines on the SL wiki. Requests to join the programme should then be made by filing a Support Case ticket under the Case Type Land & Region > Community Gateway Application.

Call To Gateway Operators

If you are a part of a group running a Community gateway, and would be interested in perhaps seeing it covered in this blog, please get in contact with me. You can do so via IM or (preferably) note card in-world, or via the Contact Form on this blog. Just include a brief outline of the gateway, its name and location and details of some of the coordinators behind it (if you’re not one yourself), together with preferred contact details, and I will get back to you. please refer to the Helping Haven article as a example of how such an article might look / read.

Community Gateways in Second Life: Helping Haven

Posted on by Inara Pey
Helping Haven Gateway
Helping Haven Gateway (click any image for full size)

The new Community Gateway programme was unofficially announced in September 2015. At the time, Pete and Patch Linden provided me with an overview of the programme, which involves a number of new user oriented groups and established communities across Second Life. More recently, I put out a call to those engaged in the programme to contact me about their work, with a view to presenting an unfolding series on the programme, starting with a look at those who responded to the call. For the first of these pieces I sat down with Aullere Ocello, owner of Helping Haven Gateway (HHG).

Those who have been around Second Life for a good few years and who had the good fortune to pass through Help People Island prior to its closure in 2011, might have an odd sense of deja-vu; if they drop into Helping Haven Gateway for the first time. There’s nothing accidental about this: the core team behind HHG are all Help People Island veterans, as Aullere explained to me.

Haven Haven Gateway provides a wide range of facilities and environments across, over and under the region for news to experience and enjoy - such as the forest walk, which provides a natural introduction to exploring regions in SL and interacting with in-world objects
Helping Haven Gateway provides a wide range of facilities and environments across, over and under the region for news to experience and enjoy – such as the forest walk, which provides a natural introduction to exploring regions in SL and interacting with in-world objects

“Notfragile [Aullere’s SL partner] and I ran HPI for the 4 years it was in SL. When it was forced to close, Notfragile, Lily, Charles and myself wanted to carry on. So we created Helping Haven, and for 6 years we were on a 1/4 sim, completely non-profit. A lot of the staff who came with us also started helping all over SL, which was amazing. And we boogied on through it, and made Helping Haven a well-known name by what we provide.”

The group were among the first of the existing community gateways to become involved in the new trail programme, back in around May 2015. “Brace Coral [Caledon Oxbridge University / New Citizens Inc] mentioned it to me, and then Patch invited myself and Lily Swindlehurst to a Gateway meeting,” Aullere said. “It was the beginning of a whole revisit to the programme. That went on for a couple of months, then things started falling into place. It’s taken a long time to reach this point!”

Even before Patch contacted them, the team had been looking at how they might once again expand their work to again encompass a full region and offer the broad range of support services they’d been able to give via HPI; so Patch’s approach was serendipitous. “It gave us the push we needed to take action,” Aullere said. “And when it came to building the region, I loved the HPI approach so much, and we knew it worked, so I modelled HHG on it while incorporating the lessons learned in running Helping Haven for four years on top of our HPI experience.”

Helping Haven Gateway's map to their ground-level facilities
Helping Haven Gateway’s map to their ground-level facilities (credit: Helping Haven Gateway)

The region itself is spilt into four areas (as shown above, looking across the region from the west side) at ground level, each area presenting multiple opportunities for learning, having fun and engaging with other users. The Gateway Entrance is the first point of contact with Helping Heaven for newly registered users, offering an initial introduction to learning the basics – walking, text chat, camera movement, media – presented in a familiar walk-through approach. From here, new arrivals are encouraged down into the plaza area.

One of the core ideas for the new Community Gateway Programme is the ability for those presenting a gateway to be able to bring new users directly into Second Life via their own web presence. While Helping Haven do indeed have their own website, delays on the Lab’s side in getting the new user registrations API fully up-and-running means that it isn’t currently being leveraged by HHG. So, how do they attract new registrants?

Helping Haven Gateway: the new user gateway provides newly-registered users with the esseentials of using the viewer as they progress through a garden to the rest of the region
Helping Haven Gateway: the new user gateway provides newly registered users with the essentials of using the viewer as they progress through a garden to the rest of the region

“The Lab direct incoming new users to the Gateways,” Aullere informed me. “So we get people from the main Orientation areas, plus they’ve put a number of the gateways in the Social Island portals. Also, some of our helpers go to the Social Islands as well to help direct new users to us.”

I wondered how this approach was faring. “It fluctuates daily. We keep a close eye on traffic; certain times of the day, we’re downright packed!” Aullere said, before indicating the gentle flow of people into and out of the region and adding, “At others it is like this, calmer!”

Helping Haven Gateway: some of the ground-level activity areas
Helping Haven Gateway: some of the ground-level activity areas, complete with lesson boards

Once new users reach the plaza, they are free to wander. Volunteers are on hand to provide assistance, and while there is a main Tutorial Walk on the north side, which continues the lessons from the Gateway Entrance, so too are many of the tutorial boards repeated across the plaza and the rest of the region. This might appear to be a little redundant, but it actually serves a two-fold purpose.

Continue reading “Community Gateways in Second Life: Helping Haven” →

A call to Community Gateways

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Lab have been re-working their own new user experience with new Social Islands - but there is also the new Community Gateway programme - and I'd like to offer more reports on what groups and communities involved in it are doing
The Lab have been re-working their own new user experience with new Social Islands – but there is also the new Community Gateway programme – and I’d like to offer more reports on what groups and communities involved in it are doing

As some residents are aware, Linden Lab has been working on a new pilot programme for Community Gateways – see my original article from September 2015 for background on this, and I’ve reported on some of the issues which have delayed a formal announcement of the programme.

In doing so, I have reported on the work of the Firestorm team with their Gateway, and in October 2015, I offered to report on the efforts of other groups and communities involved in the programme. However, as that call was buried at the foot of an article, it may not have been seen, so I’d like to repeat it here, and ask that people spread the word.

I've previously covered the Firestorm Community Gateway, and continue to do so - why not yours as well?
I’ve been covering the Firestorm Gateway since my original article on the new Gateway Programme previously covered the Firestorm Community Gateway, and continue to do so – why not yours as well?

If you are a part of a group, or know of a group actively engaged in running a community gateway which would like to gain further promotion to Second Life residents about what you’re doing, your thoughts on the programme, how you’ve approached things, and so on, please get in contact with me, I’d be happy to cover your work.

You can do so via IM or (preferably) note card in-world, or via the Contact Form on this blog. Just include a brief outline of the gateway, its name and location and details of some of the coordinators behind it (if you’re not one yourself), together with preferred contact details, and I will get back to you.

Related Links