The Seven Isles Official Blog

Many Citizens and visitors who love the Seven Isles have asked what they can do to help the Seven Isles and its community.  Certainly every donation–no matter how small–helps us meet our tier payments every month.  But we understand that many Second Life Residents don’t have money to spare, and that’s okay!  Here are seven ways everyone can help the Seven Isles without any cost.

Put the Seven Isles in your profile Picks. This way, anyone who reads your profile might find out about the Seven Isles.  The Pick even includes a teleport to wherever you were standing when you created the Pick!  (So make sure you are standing in a good spot on the sim, preferably not your private home, otherwise random strangers might land inside your home!)  You can write something about the Seven Isles in the description if you are feeling creative, too.

Park your avatar at the Seven Isles. Sometimes people stay logged into Second Life for hours on end, and aren’t always focused on Second Life.  (Chernobyl in particular does this a lot!)  If you’re going to read e-mails, do some cooking, take a shower, or work in Photoshop while in-world, consider sitting down somewhere on the Seven Isles sim while you do.  Your avatar’s presence helps increase the sim’s daily traffic numbers (which help people find the Seven Isles in Second Life Search), and your avatar will also show up on the map as a little dot.  Visitors who explore the grid looking for something to do tend to be attracted to dots on the map.  The more people on the sim, the more dots on the map, and thus the more likely we are to have visitors–who may in turn become Citizens.

Bring a friend. Word of mouth is a simple but powerful tool.  If you like the Seven Isles, recommend it to a friend.  Bring your friend to an event, or just give your friend a tour of the Isles.  The Seven Isles is even better when you have a circle of friends with whom to share it.

Have fun, and tell us about it! Use the group chat to send IMs to the whole group, asking everyone to join you in whatever fun game you’re playing.  It could be anything from a centaur race to a jam session at the Drum Circle!  Anyone can do this; you don’t need to plan ahead or send a group notice.  Just send an IM in the group chat saying “Hey everybody, my dragon friend has a saddle and she’s giving dragon rides to anyone who wants one!  Come and fly with us, it’ll be fun!”

Plan an event. Sometimes you may have an idea for an event that takes a little more planning, or requires help from several people.  In that case, tell an Elder about your idea.  Tell us when you plan to do it, and what you will need to make it work.  We can help you organise it or at least find someone who can.  Anyone can pitch an event idea! If you’re a creative person who has often thought of something you’d like to see done on the Seven Isles, tell an Elder and we’ll try to bring that idea to life!

Volunteer your talents. The Seven Isles sims may periodically need various things for an event or for the layout of the sim.  For example, we may need prizes for a treasure hunt, or a script that does something specific for an object on the sim.  If you are feeling generous, volunteer your talents as a donation to the Isles.  Tell an Elder what your expertise is, and you may be called upon if the need arises.

Report offences and disturbances. You may not be a Steward who can eject troublesome avatars from the sim, but everyone can alert a Steward or Elder when something goes wrong.  It helps the Seven Isles when there are observant Citizens ready to call for help when there is a griefer on the sim, or someone is being harassed, and so on.  Even if you’re not sure if it’s a problem or not, it’s usually a good idea to bring it to the attention of a Steward or Elder anyway.

All of these simple suggestions cost nothing to do, and yet they help the sim function and bring new Citizens to the community.  While bringing in new members is all well and good, there is one huge caution we must make apparent:

Do not recruit members from other sims or communities. Just as we expect others to give us the same courtesy, the Seven Isles does not condone “poaching” or actively recruiting Citizens who already belong to a sim or community.  This does not mean that we don’t accept new members who come from other communities–we certainly do, as long as they come of their own free will.  Please respect those who already make their home on another sim as part of another community.