Tip of the Week #9: How to create and join a group
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 4:44 PM by: Torley LindenI’ve returned, bringing more knowhow to share with you! Today’s Tip of the Week is: How to create and join a group!
‘Tis a basic guide with newer Residents in mind who’re getting familiar with Second Life, but if you’ve never created a group before and want to see how the process works before shelling out L$100, watch as I do it. It’s really easy, and for more in-depth articles on how to use groups in Second Life, visit our Knowledge Base (hi Jon and Jeremy!) and search for “groups”.
And oui, I very much appreciate the well-wishing from last week, and the “I knew that already, but I watched this video tutorial because I enjoy your presentation!” comments, as well as the “Hey! Why haven’t you covered Topic X yet?” I am gratefully listening and responding to the Positive Feedback Loop (P.I.L.) I receive here in the comments, emails, IMs, etc. and hope you’ll continue journeying with me through future video tutorials across a broad variety of topics —
OH, and ON A SORT-OF RELATED NOTE, I often get asked, “How do you take such pretty pictures?” Well, due to FREAKIN’ POPULAR DEMAND, I’m putting together a Snapshot tips guide; it’s still in-progress, but thought you might wanna see it early.
It ain’t all about pretty pictures, though. I do lots of serious stuff on the job, and if you want to hang out with me inworld AND help make Second Life better, remember that in addition to my own Office Hours, I can be found at these bug triages:
- Benjamin’s User Interface on Tuesdays @ 10 AM Pacific Time
- Bridie’s Release Candidate on Wednesdays @ 3 PM PT
Sometimes I spontaneously drop in during other Lindens’ hours too. 
If variety is the spice of life, that makes Second Life pretty spicy!
Torley Linden is a Product Manager & more who regularly contributes to the Official Linden Blog. Watch more Tips of the Week. WindLight?!! OMG… we’re getting close…
November 1st, 2007 at 4:57 PM
Thanks so much Torley! It’s nice having these tutorials here - they have been a real help!
November 1st, 2007 at 5:17 PM
Guys, anyone else notice that his head is a watermelon mudkip? It’s even the same mudkip head that the regular Mudkip object uses.
November 1st, 2007 at 5:47 PM
Thanks for the tutorial
I’ve already joined the group
November 1st, 2007 at 5:56 PM
This is a godsend to new residents. Most new residents don’t even know groups exists when they first start SL and it is the most important way to find out about events and activities. Thanks for the vid.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:27 PM
I´m not able to go ANYWHERE in the second life world, All I see is a frozen picture of mountains and trees in my screen, can someone give a tutorial of how to REALLY start. I got No menus, no right-button menus… nothing but a few links to News and Announcements…what am I supposed to do?
November 1st, 2007 at 6:58 PM
@5, sounds like you need to login, fill your username and password in at the bottom and hit the login button.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:02 PM
It seems if you create more than one group that the second group will no longer appear in your Groups membership in your profile as viewed by others although it remains visible to yourself when you look at your profile. This is almost impossible to detect unless someone else notices that you are not a member of your own group you created. This is a known bug but the only work around so far is to make someone else the owner of the group temporarily, remove yourself from the group, then add the group back either by joining or having your temporary owner add offer you an invite to be the owner.
It took 40 minutes of frustration and calling each other liars for a friend and I to eventually figure that out. We thought each other was just being an idiot and couldn’t read a profile correctly. Then we found the following thread:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=1732158
November 1st, 2007 at 7:13 PM
Ahh, luckily I had room for one more Group, after I left one I never needed anyway
Keep up the good stuff, Torley!
November 1st, 2007 at 7:22 PM
@5 - If you hve already registered, fill in your SL First Name and Last Name (avatar name) and password and click Connect. If you haven’t already registered and have an avatar name click the New account button.
You should mention it in the blog here, since more people will see it, and you might have put it in the video, but a critical thing is that a group must have two people. You can create it with one, but if you don’t have more than one in it, after about 5 days the group is disbanded and you lose your L$100. And I think the group name cannot be reused.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:34 PM
Good idea Torley…wish I had seen it a year ago when I formed my first group and misused/spelled one of the three words in the title. Still kicking myself for wasting 100L and it is the source of much amusement among a close few.
Natalia good luck, breathe deeply and eat your watermelon. Like secondlife it is 91.51% water..metaphorically metaversally speaking.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:00 PM
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November 1st, 2007 at 9:19 PM
[...] Tip of the Week #9: How to create and join a group ‘Tis a basic guide with newer Residents in mind who’re getting familiar with Second Life, but if you’ve never created a group before and want to see how the process works before shelling out L$100, watch as I do it. [...]
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 AM
Im logging into secondlife then it asks for a updated version. it starts to load but after a few minutes a message comes on screen saying “the update failed cause maybe the firewall.
i goto the website and try doing it there and the same thing happens.
I turn off all the firewalls and it still happens y is that?
can someone help me plz
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:18 AM
I tried to view the Tip of the week #9 on Friday 5:17 AM SLT and it says it’s no longer available
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Coucou! Torley!
“Melon d’Eau” or “Pastèque” is deee-lish, SMACK :p For someone like me (Newbie with the attention span of a sparrow) these Tip of the Week Videos are great!Thanx a bunch, I will now go make my own group - just because I can!!!
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:16 PM
Thanks for the Snapshot Tips Torley
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:02 PM
Now..all I need to know is how to delete a group..which I don’t think is possible
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Thanks for the tips ..I have found them to be very helpful and useful..keep up the awesome work!
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 PM
@12-Stretch: If you are not able to download the entire file it may be because your web browser is incompatible. I use Safari browser on a Mac. SL runs fine on my Mac but when I try to download an updated SL viewer (either at login through the viewer or on the web at the SL site) I need to do so through Firefox.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:26 PM
I look forward to further halping SL become a descent place to live work and play.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:21 AM
@16 - How to delete a group. Well to leave one, simply highlight it and click Leave in groups.
Deleting it is trickier. But it relates to my post #8 above. All you have to do is delete all the other members of the group. If it’s open enrollment, change it so it’s not and random people don’t join through search.
After about 5 days of less than two people, Linden will autonatically delete the group. Be sure about this, as you cannot then create a new one with the same name. It seems those names are taken forever, ay least for a while IMHO.
Note: theis means TWO things. One, be very careful that your group never reaches just one person, ie you for more than that time, eg by using an alt, as there is nothing you can do to stop the group being automatically disbanded, and of course losing your L$100 too; and secondly, be careful of joint or co-owners, because you will have to wait for one or more to leave. If there are two, then you really need the other to leave. If you leave, there is the possiblility they can then effectively takes the group over.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:34 AM
@18 - I use Safari on a Mac and have absolutely no problem downloading it. I think it will be more firewall or proxy orientated. One thing I NEVER do, is use the update button from the viewer. That will download, install and delete the old one. Often, the new feeatures and bugs introduced with a new version make it worse than the old one, so I always download it manually from the web site, and then I have the old version to go back to if things are more borked, as is often the case.
Sorry guys, but that’s how it is. Generally, more than 50% of viewer updates are worse than the previous. I generally use the older ones until they become obligatory, and the bugs, bad perforance and unwanted shinies are forced on me.
Kudos to the OnRez Team, for their implementation of the viewer (used for the CSI:NY people). They keep the Friends Button, move some menus around, and have handled the comms very well - you still have just a chat history only you can pull up, an IM button, and a voice button for the few who use it, and Friends are a separate window.
Altogether it’s a much cleaner, sounder, more well thought out interface, and clear their programmers at least have an idea about GUI design, or have read Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (the general introduction is applicable to all coders, the rest is how Apple implements the theory). Let’s hope it becomes the next SL viewer proper. Only a couple of niggles with it: some sort of browser pop-up control (but only because it is now a proper browser, resizeable window unlike the stunted and next to useless LL one), and not sure I like some of the chnages, eg no View my online/access to my objects logos in Friends window, and the settings for those are in individual friends where Notes was, and not in the friends window itself - a little counter intuitive, but otherwise I think the revamped layout is good.
Of course it crashes just as much as the standard viewer…
November 4th, 2007 at 11:12 AM
Now..all I need to know is how to delete a group..which I don’t think is possible
November 4th, 2007 at 5:39 PM
Toreley,
Can you PLEASE help me since I don’t know who to turn to. For some reason I no longer have sound in SL since Saterday. All outworld music and streams work fine, only not SL. I have SL viewer 1.83(5) and Quicktime 7.2
What can be wrong.
November 4th, 2007 at 7:05 PM
@22: Groups are automatically deleted after 2 days if only one or two members (the owner included) remain in the group. That’s in the video.
Oh, and just the other night someone asked me how to create a group. With a big, satisfied grin I told them “browse to the blog page and watch the latest TOTW.” Thanks, Torley, for making this one easy for me LOL
November 5th, 2007 at 2:15 PM
may i ask for a tutorial on how to deal with the fact that editing my groups ends up always in desaster because the settings are always going back to default?
November 6th, 2007 at 12:32 PM
Thanks Torley that is grouvy (SLINGO def.2)
this is also *How to have your own custom tag* for people I always hear asking the question
November 14th, 2007 at 3:00 AM
It sure would be nice if we would be able to ressurect group names that were dissolved automatically. I wouldn’t be opposed to paying another hundred lindens to resurrect a group name I lost by being at one member longer than 48 hours.
Why can’t we ressurect names we have previously registered? (And why is it so hard to dissolve a group?)
and how about increasing the number of groups allowed…and and and ….