Essential Second Life Community Building Tools

Here's a draft I'm writing for a class. : )

Essential Second Life Community Building Tools

The welfare and existence of voluntary groups, small or large, depend on the willingness of group members to make regular investments in those groups (Van Vugt & Hart, 2004) The tools below will help group leaders in Second Life build an active virtual community.

Calendar: Every location that is serious about having regular visitors must have a calendar. Some operate entirely in world and others feed information from a Google calendar. Web calendar access allows members who are unable to connect at any given time to Second Life an easy way to learn about events.

Greeter: A sign, preferably with a built in "greeter"script that gives new visitors a customized greeting message in chat, gives them a notecard and landmark, and lets them know where they are and lead them to a next step. The web based ones also collect visitor statistics.

Group Tools: Built in Group tools allow you to create group notices, and create polls. The key is to use them regularly and wisely. Users generally enjoy being informed of events but no one appreciates group spam. Unless the group is very small, users are usually discouraged from using the group channels for chat. Setting up member roles can allow for advancement, giving promoted members a feeling of achievement and potentially increased responsibility.

Unless your group is for marketing purposes, I recommend not choosing open enrollment. The goal in a virtual community is not to collect members, but to gather active participants compatible with the group. Having potential members obtain an invitation from a current member or to do something to join the group helps reduce future weeding of inactive avatars.
The member list keeps a record of each member’s last login date. I have found that periodically clearing people who are not logging on, after sending out a brief notice to all members of your intentions, helps keep a more accurate list of members. If one joins a group of 800 members hoping to make some new friends and finds that none are ever online they will most likely become disillusioned and drop the group.

Remember that in Second Life you cannot currently have more than 40 people in one region at any time. To determine the ideal group member target for your group, take into consideration the time zones or “play times” of your members, how active your members are and the amount of people your location will be able to support. A 512m2 plot would be fine for your group if your region neighbors were never home, but if you have a neighbor that supports camping, you may find you can accommodate fewer people at once and need to find a new meeting place.

Live events: If you build it, they will come....once. Live events are simple and fun, and add immensely to any space. If users did not want to interact they would be someplace else. Timed trivia is a favorite of mine as it allows members to actively play a game and win a couple lindens while getting to know each other. Contests, socials, new member days, dances, roleplaying, lectures, classes, primtionary (like Pictionary but with prims), Name that Prim (challenge players to make something with the fewest prims possible in a limited amount of time), and best practice events can bring your group together. They also provide you an opportunity to spot and nurture member talent.

RSS Feed Reader: Feed any RSS feeds into SL! RSS feed readers set up a sign with easily updateable information. Some readers can serve multiple feeds.

Streaming Audio and Video: Use Second Life’s built in media parcel settings to deliver music, podcasts and video. Any prim can become a television by dragging the “default media texture” onto one side. If you want to be cutting edge cool, use a higher end radio or TV that allows users to select channels and shows.

Language Translator: Bridge the language gap with one of many free or bought tools designed to translate in real time. The translators will either translate what you say into a different language or you can target avatars and choose the language for translation.

-Robin Williams is a former classroom teacher and current graduate student in SJSU’s SLIS program. Her alter ego Greylin Fairweather, runs the Star Trek Themed Cardancia, various other Second Life groups and as Gray Falkayne she is a Bard and Guild Leader of The Khazi Travelling Circus, one of the oldest active guilds in Everquest.

Van Vugt, M. & Hart, C. M. (2004). Social Identity as Social Glue: The Origins of Group Loyalty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 585-598.