back to main

• Developer Focus
• Teen Grid
• Tips & Tricks
• Civic Center
• As We See It
• Your Letters

Tips & Tricks

Knowledge is the most democratic source of power."
Alvin and Heidi Toffler, futurists

Second Life Knowledgebase

This month, I wanted to explain a bit about our Knowledge Base. It's a central repository for Second Life support info. The Knowledge Base includes the usual documentation you'd expect, as well as an eclectic variety of tips & tricks.

How this came to be

As we've seen, sharing of information in Second Life has evolved over the ages: I recall when much advice would be passed "orally" in chat, and some of it would get formalized on notecards by Resident volunteer helpers. We also had a now-defunct wiki, and eventually, we moved to compiling those notecards into Welcome Area kiosks, and the Inventory's Library > Notecards folder.

Still, that wasn't enough. Recognizing that the hunger for knowledge will always be insatiable, we advanced to releasing F1 Help, which is just a press-of-the-key away (F1 of course!) as an easy to access in-world help guide. It's compact and relatively streamlined. Finally, we now have Knowledge Base on our website which is entirely searchable.

One might wonder: "Why have both F1 Help and the Knowledge Base?"

This is a good question that we've asked ourselves as well. Thinking long-term, we're evolving toward a better system; a more unified source which combines, or at least closely connects, most of the info you need directly to your fingertips. Our goal is an easily and infinitely expandable.knowledge base with improved search, richer presentation and timely updates.

Second Life Preferences Guide

Beyond words, you may have seen the revised Second Life Preferences guide I recently put up:

I think this article is particularly useful because just about everyone touches the Preferences. It was also a golden test for experimenting with a more visual progression of articles. A few other examples of useful, recent articles:

• How do I find the 'Client' and 'Server' menus?
• Multiple monitors guide
• Next-owners permission FAQ
• What computers do the Lindens use to run SL?

Harmony, Frontier and more Lindens have been helping me to add and edit articles as well as fill in the gaps that have come up many times. It's time we boldly build bridges to satisfy your curiosity.

Onwards and upwards!

As of this writing, we're still looking for a Technical Writer & Editor to oversee the Knowledge Base and steer it into uncharted waters. Linden Lab continues to grow rapidly as Second Life expands, so if you're reading this and go, "Hey! That sounds right for me!" then by all means, please apply. There are numerous other employment opportunities here.

Second Life Wiki

Finally, related recent happenings on the front of sharing knowledge have already proved exciting: a new Second Life Wiki and Volunteers programs has been launched. We are focused on creating documentation our community can contribute to.

What's distinct about the Knowledge Base is how, to use a colorful analogy, it reminds me of the Great Jedi Library because it draws from such a spectrum of experience. Information is accumulated across time and space, and there's comfort in knowing you have a source to depend on when you need answers. We know there's a lot of out-of-date stuff we need to revise and we're far from being comprehensive, but what you're witnessing is the sometimes painful process of growth in action.

Want to help us grow?

If you know of something broadly useful for the Knowledge Base which is missing, please email me, Torley Linden. Submissions go in a triage queue, so while I can't promise we'll add them all soon; we'll at least know what you asked for. And hopefully, we can answer.