I'm tempted to say that the #
Fediverse should be more like #
SecondLife or an #
MMORPG.
Before you do
anything, you get to some landing-place that points you directly at a comprehensive tutorial. You're at least strongly recommended to go through the entire tutorial that teaches you all the ropes. #
Mastodon isn't just whatever instance you take for all of Mastodon (usually mastodon.social), the Fediverse isn't only Mastodon, what else is there in the Fediverse that isn't microblogging, general handling of course, #
Twitter lingo vs. Mastodon lingo, what it's like not to have automatic algorithms that shove content into your face, how else Mastodon or #
Pleroma is different from Twitter, why that's good etc.
After going through the tutorial, you may start. The main difference: In the case of the Fediverse, it isn't before then that you even create your account.
In all cases applies: If you can't be bothered to take the tutorial, don't complain if you don't understand the whole thing from jumping right in and derping around cluelessly.
Now, notice how I haven't mentioned #
OpenSimulator in this case. This is because hardly any grid offers a newbie tutorial. #
OSgrid does have one, but it doesn't land newbies there. #
3rdRockGrid has the best one I've seen so far, but I'm not sure if it's the first thing a new user sees when their avatar rezzes in-world for the very first time. The landing-point of that sim
is right in front of the tutorial building, though; the question is whether this is the sim where new avatars land. Granted, a perfect tutorial would land you right in front of a panel that teaches you how to walk instead of expecting you to walk to it. But basic walking is so intuitive that I don't think it really needs to be taught. It's just for completion's sake.
Most other grids seem to be more geared towards Second Life converts or seasoned #
OpenSim users who want to change grids or create an alt on another grid, for they expect new arrivals to already know everything. I've fairly recently seen a complete newbie at a party who didn't even know most basics because she had nowhere to learn them. A much more experienced user took her to the local sandbox for a two-hour crash course.
This, unfortunately, is how many had to start in the Fediverse when they were #
NewHere. Only that they're pretty much never shown anything even resembling a tutorial prior to creating their first account. And so, the creation of their first account is often their first mistake already because it isn't after the fact that they learn that they'd be better off elsewhere. Maybe they notice that their new home is bogged down by too many users, maybe they discover an instance that'd suit them perfectly community-wise, maybe they would have chosen another platform than Mastodon if they had heard about it in time.
But I guess there aren't exactly few OpenSim users either who created a new avatar with the same identity on another grid within their first few months or even weeks.
