Meet the BBB | DR Ferry Services | New Locations

MEET THE BBB TEAM (SERIES INTRODUCTION)

People often ask What is the BBB? There are two answers. The first is literal; it stands for Bellisserian Bureau of Bureaucracy, which still means little to most SL'ers.

The second answer is about our mission and purpose. We are a team of people from the Linden Homes Continent of Bellisseria who are committed to help build community in SL and to give residents fun things to do.

We are unpaid volunteers. Many of us put in several hours a week working towards our goal of connecting people and helping them to enjoy fun activities. Why do we do it? Because we are passionate about the SL community in general and Bellisseria in particular. We get a personal sense of satisfaction from helping others enjoy their Second Life®.

I should probably explain that our name – Bureau of Bureaucracy – is playful. In RL several of the jobs we do are done by bureaucracies; issuing drivers licences, passports, etc. We just do it for fun and don’t really think of ourselves as bureaucrats or take that title seriously. However we do take our volunteer work seriously and do it with pride and enjoyment.

At the moment there are 14 active members of the team. Over the next 14 weeks, we will highlight each of them briefly for you. and give you an opportunity to meet them.

Article by Teresa Firelight of the BBB

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DR FERRY SERVICES

You may encounter posters for DR Ferry Services around our offices and embassies and wonder what it's all about. DRFS has its HQ at Miller's Pond in Bellisseria and is led by Dariah Raynier – the "DR" of the company's name.

Dariah has been in SL since 2009. Her first home was in Second Norway. She told The Gazette;

Second Norway was an isolated private estate. I developed the idea of connecting it to the Blake Sea and proposed that to the former owner. I had my first ferry service and travel agency there.

Now her current company runs long distance ferries;

I always liked sailing and public transport. Now I have worked out 24 routes on and between the continents. Most are long-distance with sailing times of 1-3 hours. For example, one runs from Peleliu Field in Nautilus to Second Norway on the Blake Sea. Others connect Corsica and the Blake Sea or sail around Gaeta etc.

When creating a route I explore the area first with a small boat, looking for good stops, docks, harbours and marinas. I collect the SLURLs and put them into a sailing hud. Then I start a sailing test with a ferry and use the measured sailing times for creating a schedule.

DRFS uses two types of ferry boat. The first is the Feral Marine Catamaran, which is  to be found operating from the company's ports in Sansara, Second Norway, Satori, Corsica, Gaeta and Nautilus as well as at the Light of Aurelia lighthouse in Bellisseria. The second is the Michie Marine Trawler, which operates from ports in Heterocera, Sansara, Second Norway and Bellisseria. 

You can pick up the details of DRFS's 24 routes (a 25th is in the planning stage) by clicking on the poster illustrated here at our various BBB and CPCB locations and embassies. Dariah told us;

I have rented docks in Peleliu Field, Marina Kuna, Paradise Marina and Arimto Marina. I also have free parking in Second Norway. On Bellisseria I start my routes from Light of Aurelia or Red Hook.

I sail by schedule and stop at all scheduled stops. I also develop leisure tours, e.g. a "Lighthouse route" on Bellisseria or an expedition route to Mount Cooper in Sailors Cove South.

People can IM me or click on the boards at my docks to contact me to arrange a tour.

All services are free. My maximum speed is about 10 knots, so people experience travelling, feel the distance and relax. I will not cross Blake Sea in 2 minutes. Sailing from Bellisseria to the Satori south coast takes 2 hours 45 minutes.

Dariah is making a great contribution to SL transport so why not give your teleporters a rest? Exploring Second Life® by sea is fun!

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NEW LOCATIONS

There are four new locations this week, all of them on Mainland. There's a café and an airport in Satori, and a rail works and an amphitheatre in Heterocera. Both of the Heterocera builds are by our old friend Cranston Yordstorm, who seems determined to connect the whole mainland with his quirky railways!

Enjoy visiting these fascinating new builds!

Connie BlahBlah Cafe ST
The Lunalis Sponsa Railworx HE
The Unity Amphitheatre HE
Unity Airlines ST

Destination Guide | B3B Video | New Locations

DESTINATION GUIDE

The BBB is very happy to announce that our headquarters office now features in the SL Destination Guide. We hope this will help even more SL'ers find us and join in the fun of exploring SL with our Bellisserian Passport or the CPCB's Mainland Passport. 

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B3B VIDEO

The celebrations at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds for the third anniversary of the founding of Bellisseria were a huge success. For those of you who missed it, here is a video Sceneris made of Patch Linden's speech opening the festivities and announcing what is now known as Sakurasseria – the new Asian-themed Linden Homes that are coming Soon®.

For those who missed Delain's impressive particle show, Robert Rhodan filmed it and his movie can be seen on YouTube here. Freddie Harrington also posted some photos of the show on his Flickr feed here.

Daniel Voyager reported on B3B at his long-running eponymous SL Blog and gave a good short history of Bellisseria too. 

The folksy village-fete type activities on the Bellisseria village green went down very well with the B3B revellers. Many people took part in the folk-dancing organised by the good people of Hooten Haller, for example. All available dance pads were in use and the events were extended beyond the planned times. As were the more modern dance events too. All the DJs did a great job and the dancers just didn't want to stop. 

There was also a good take up for the Easter egg hunt organised by our own dear Teresa, with 108 people claiming their prize of her custom-made Bellisseria baseball cap. Even more popular – and also great fun – was Teresa's make your own plushie sewing stand in the Arts & Crafts tent based on Keiko Zoon's scripts. Robert made a movie of his own successful efforts to sew a plushie, which you can view here.

All in all, people seem to have had a great time. Forza Bellisseria! Onward to a fourth year of SL community and fun. 

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NEW STAMP LOCATIONS

The first update this week is a new location for an old location. Le Messier Airfield is now here. Not a new stamp though so be careful not to get a duplicate.

Speaking of airports, the first new location this week is Customs at Gateway International Airport. Regular readers may remember our recent interview with the owner, Lethra. Next is a DFS farm and a proud member of the Bellisseria DFS Farmers Co-Op; the Circle B Ranch. The Moonshine Motel in Heterocera is the latest build from our old friend, Cranston Yordstorm and is on the wrong side of yet more of his railroad tracks. Also in Heterocera is Hiraya Town Station, serving a Japanese-themed group of regions of which Hiraya Town is just a part. Finally

Gateway International Airport, Customs - SN
Circle B Ranch - BE
The Moonshine Motel - HE
Hiraya Town - HE

B3B | Do you remember? | New Locations

B3B

The big SL event of the week is the third anniversary of Bellisseria, celebrated in the form of a village fete at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds. It opened yesterday with a speech by Patch Linden at which (as well as name-checking The Gazette, which pleased your editor immensely) he announced the new Sakura Theme for Bellisseria homes in Japanese style. Please follow the previous link to Patch's Flickr to get SLURLs to the demo regions. For ourselves, we can't wait to see the new Sakura community centre!

The 3rd anniversary event is continuing throughout the weekend so be sure to go along and take part in the celebrations!

The organisers have commissioned a special event stamp for your Bellisseria, Mainland or Generic SL passport. Don't miss the opportunity to collect that and also to take part in the special flight tours being run during the event. 

You might also like to check out Inara Pey's report on the event and her thoughts on Bellisseria and its future. She mentions the BBB as an example of an active group in the Bellisseria community, for which we thank her. 

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DO YOU REMEMBER?

Do you remember your first day in Second Life®? It can be quite a culture shock! I have no statistics for the newbie attrition rate, but "onboarding" (acquiring the skills to move from "noob" to established user) is not easy. It's fair to assume that many SL-curious visitors simply don't return after their first look around.

Many SL veterans have forgotten those difficulties. Most of us try to "pay forward" the help we got as noobs, but still it's easy to underestimate the difficulties new residents face. In some ways they are greater than they were in our day. Before mesh, it was easy to have an avatar as slick (!) as the one used by SL's inventor. Now there's a mountain to climb (and many $Ls to spend) to look as soigné as experienced avatars. Some SL residents can be snooty about noob avis, which does not help. 

We established residents have just as much interest as Linden Lab in making SL a success. The fun, friendship and creativity we all enjoy here depends on new residents both arriving and deciding to stay. So how can we help reduce the newbie attrition rate? 

1. I make a point of IM'ing anyone I meet who is less than a month old to say "Hi, welcome to SL. How are you enjoying it so far?"
2. Having struck up a conversation, explain that SL is quite literally what residents choose to make of it. It's not a game where everyone has the same goals and progresses by the same rules. They probably won't enjoy it here until they've found like-minded friends. Ask them about their interests and, if you have useful suggestions for groups to join or places to visit, make them.
3. Don't assume you are going to be one of those friends. You have found a path in SL to suit your personality, interests and skills. You may sometimes get lucky and make a great new friend but in reality, the chances a random noob will follow the same path as you are small!
4. By all means tp them to some of your favourite places to show them why you love your Second Life®, but see (3) above!
5. Before you say goodbye, send them to the experts: the enthusiasts who staff the 25 "Newcomer friendly" places in the Destination Guide. They have learning resources targeted to newcomers and some of them are language-specific. However good our second languages may be, most of us find it easier to learn – especially to learn techie stuff – in our native tongue. 

My personal favourites are the Firestorm Social Island New Resident Help Area and one I first visited to write this article, Door to America. Both have good resources and greeters to sign visitors up to their groups. Both are staffed by volunteers who have dedicated some of their time in SL to "onboarding". They'll do a better job than you will! 

Newcomer Friendly Places

click to enlarge

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These are my suggestions, but I am sure you will have your own. What is your approach to helping newbies feel at home? Let us know in the comments please!

Article and photographs by Dave.

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NEW LOCATIONS

There's a very special new stamp this weekend for the Bellisseria 3rd Anniversary event at the Bellisseria Fairgrounds. As always with events, the stamp will only be there for the duration - in this case, for this weekend. So don't delay! 

The other locations this week are all very different, but have one thing in common – their names are very descriptive. The Folkdance Center is a center for folk dancing, for example. 

There are two new stamp locations in Corsica this week. Firstly there's the Butterfly Conservatory and secondly there's the Corsica Tourist Center. Again, both names rather speak for themselves!

Finally, not a new location but please note that Neural Networks Art Gallery & Café has relocated. The Gazette Online Travel Guide has been updated accordingly. 

Enjoy your virtual tourism and – as always – don't forget to pack your passport!

Bellisseria 3rd Anniversary / April 15 - April 17 BE
The Folkdance Center PE
Butterfly Conservatory CA
Corsica Tourist Center CA

 

Early Publication | Interview with Lethra | New Locations

EARLY PUBLICATION THIS WEEK

Your editor is taking his beloved sports car on a real life road trip this week - the first since the miserable COVID times. He won't be around on Saturday to publish at the usual time, so The Gazette is being released early. Normal service will be resumed next week.

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INTERVIEW WITH LETHRA

Lethra has been in SL for less than four years and yet is already the owner of three airports, including the Gateway International Airport in Sansara, which bills itself as:

The entry point to Sansara and Heterocera for air and sea traffic from all over the mainland.

Given its location, it's also a transport hub for traffic between those mainland continents and Bellisseria. Dave from The Gazette interviewed Lethra about her Second Life®. He asked her how she came to be into SL airports in such a big way and she said that aviation was an RL interest too, but that it is "way cheaper" in SL. 

Asked about the "gateway" role of GIA, she said it was an easy way to arrive in Sansara. by air. 

Easy. Land your plane at Gateway, rezz a car, and follow the signs for the nearby towns. Boom, you're in Sansara. Make your way to the northwest of the continent and you can connect to Heterocera by boat. 

As for the connection to Bellisseria, she said;

If you're asking how the two will be physically connected, I'd say just by sea and air, at least in the Sansara area. It would be cool to have some kind of road/rail tunnel between the continents, but I just don't see LL going for that, given the quiet suburban vibe they're going for in Bellisseria.

We love the idea of an intercontinental tunnel. That would indeed be great - and our friendly Moles have provided tunnels elsewhere so perhaps it's possible – or maybe even a bridge?

Lethra continued; 

If you're asking about the interaction between Bellisseria and the other continents, I think organizations like BBB are critical for getting Bellisseria residents to explore the rest of the mainland, and that they should work with groups like Drivers of SL and the Skyward Flying Club, who regularly take their members on excursions through the mainland. That would help residents of all continents appreciate just how much is available outside of the skyboxes and private islands.  

On that point, Dave asked if, as Bellisseria continues steadily to connect the older mainland continents to each other as it grows, if she thought more SL residents would become interested in exploring SL by land, sea and air? Or will most still teleport from place to place without any thought of geography?

She said;

That depends on two things: publicity, and Linden Lab making the mainland as transportation-friendly as possible. I know people who had no idea the mainland existed for years but became enthralled by it once someone took them for a flight, drive, or sailing trip. I was one of those people for about a year and a half, until someone took me flying. Had it been better publicized, I would have done it much sooner. 

The other major impediments to growth, though, are things like security orbs set to teleport people home instantly, and other methods of preventing anyone from entering a parcel under any circumstances without being invited. Even in Bellisseria where the covenant puts clear restrictions on orbs and ban lines, people either don't read or ignore it, or even get visitor trackers and manually ban anyone they don't recognise. Getting randomly teleported home or bounced out of a parcel for doing nothing wrong is no fun, and it turns a lot of people off to the whole experience. Ask anyone who owns an airport outside the Blake Sea!  

Drivers, pilots, and sailors need to advocate constructively, and work with LL on ways to keep the seas and skies (especially the skies) open to everyone who plays by the rules. 

There will always be a certain crowd who join SL exclusively for stuff that doesn't involve recreational transportation, or who will try it once, hit one ban line, and give up. But I find that the more time people spend on SL, the more they want to branch out, and if they're made aware of the mainland as a target-rich environment in terms of places to spontaneously explore, many of them will want to try it out.

Dave asked her about the Greek Theatre she's built at Gateway International. What was the idea of that? Will there be performances there?

Gateway is a flat airport on top of a mountainous region, which lends itself to building things beneath the runway. It actually looks kind of silly if you *don't* build something underneath. And many SL airports connect to nothing in particular, even if they're also accessible by road or water. I decided to shake things up and take advantage of the topography to make Gateway a destination in itself, not just a stop on a journey. So I hopped on the Marketplace and bought myself a Greek amphitheater and a convention center.

We are planning an art exhibition in the convention center soon, and are working on getting some events going for the amphitheater as well (if you're interested, drop me a notecard). It's a great space and can be used for many things--plays, live music, even open-air art displays.

We're grateful to Lethra for agreeing to be interviewed.

Article and Photograph by Dave

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NEW LOCATIONS

We have a new coffee-house destination in Jeogeot this week, a treehouse in Nautilus and a volcano in Sansara. The first belongs to Buttacwup Pwincess and the others are LDPW locations build and tended by our beloved Moles. 

butta cwup coffee
Treehouse
Orwood Volcano

What's up with the Post Office | Enhance Your Experience with a Weekend Tour | New Locations

WHAT'S UP WITH THE POST OFFICE?

This is a relatively new feature and it is still growing and expanding. It is a fun way for SL Residents to communicate with each other by sending transferable notecards and objects to each other. It does nothing that could not be accomplished by IMs, but offers a fun RP aspect.

The first phase was only offered to Bellisseria residents, with a Main Post Office to service Bellisseria. Belli home owners could go to the post office to get their own personal mail box to rez on their property. They had to go to the post office to send mail, but could receive it at their home.

Shortly after the initial release, the Post Office was expanded to serve all SL residents. We added three further post offices in Horizons, Sansarea and Satori. We also added a second Bellisseria post office, which offers free seasonal cards (Christmas, Valentine’s day, etc).

Now, anyone in SL can use any of our Post Offices. In other words, anyone in SL can get their own personal mailbox and rez it on wherever they call “home.” The mailbox will notify them if they have mail, and deliver it to them.

However, if you want to mail something to another resident, you still have to go to a post office and drop it in the outgoing MailBox. (This is similar to going to a post office in RL to mail a package). Also, each post office has a wall of PO Boxes where anyone can pick up their mail – even if they don't have a mailbox at home. 

We've just added another new feature. It came about because someone asked if they could use their own “cute” mailbox to receive mail from our system. We thought, “What a great idea!" So we started offering scripts that you can drop into your own personal mailbox. Of course, you still have to enable the “BBB Experience” for the script to work.

We also have some Documentation – a book-style Post Office Manual. It is offered at the BBB Headquarters. You can add it as a HUD, or you can rez it. It gives a lot of how-to information about our Post Office service.

There are more exciting plans in the works. There is also the possibility that Linden Lab might send the occasional Official Information/Announcements via the BBB Post Office (in addition to other mechanisms they use to get the word out). Also keep your eyes open for International Friend Appreciation Week. You will hear more about that after the Bellisseria 3rd Anniversary Celebration – coming soon!

Article by Teresa Firelight. Photograph by Dave.

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ENHANCE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH A WEEKEND TOUR

Enhance your passport stamp-collecting experience with the BBB+Embassy Weekend Tours. Or just join them to enjoy exploring and travelling in a group.

Every 1st Saturday each month at 11am SLT, you are invited to join a guided tour around Bellisseria and Mainland continents to visit locations that offer a BBB stamp terminal.
The meeting point is BBB Headquarters. 

The tours are not just about traveling and collecting stamps: They are to have fun, share an adventure, socialise and, who knows, maybe make some new friends! Also unexpected challenges are to be expected!

We will travel by bus, train, plane, boat, balloon, mini-copters, and more. Subject to alteration, depending on the actual number of tour attendants. The current tour route will be announced in the BBBug and CPCB group notices and chats. Your host is Yukiko Yeshto. It's important for a comfortable trip that you please detach unnecessary attachments and scripts to avoid issues with region crossings.

The next BBB+Embassy Weekend Tour will be today April 2, 11am SLT. We will be visiting the Alpine Regions of  Bellisseria by bus, train and hot air balloon.

Article and photograph by H.E. Yukiko Yeshto, Hon. Ambassador to Sansara

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NEW LOCATIONS

The Gianfar Peaks of Pern is a "3d role-play homage to Anne McCaffrey's Pern." If you love dragons, check it out! 

The Nature Collective is a gateway to exploring other locations and is to be found just off Route 3 in northern Heterocera. It is;

a Second Life group created with the goal of cultivating a community around sims, spaces and projects which share a common focus on nature. It is our hope to foster a movement to help people engage and reconnect with the wonder and joy of nature, in the virtual world and beyond.

As well as picking up a stamp for your Bellisseria or CPCB passport, you can get a notecard with details of all the other locations for SL's nature-lovers in the collective.

Corsica South Coast Airfield is another of our old friend Cranston's builds and part of his growing Corsica South Coast empire. There's so much to do and see when you've landed there, especially if you catch a train from the local station. 

Gianfar Peaks of Pern PE
The Nature Collective HE
Corsica South Coast Airfield CA