Mentors

Mentors

The Mentors is a volunteer program overseen by Neos Moderation but run by Mentor Lead Team. Those who are a part of it are volunteers from the NeosVR community who in their free time help out, educate, or assist other users if they are confused or uncertain. They aim to provide help, assistance, and support to the entire community. Especially to new players who need guidance. Mentors act as a bit of a social barrier for those who are new to the community due to limited development resources.

What is a Mentor?

A Neos Mentor is a community volunteer that takes their time to impart knowledge, encourages a healthy atmosphere for the community, and welcomes new and older users alike to the platform. Mentors can come in all shapes in sizes such as Leaders, Teachers, Guides, or even someone who is really friendly and helps out.

To quote someone's experience with a Mentor. "It's like I had a living NPC showing me around, giving me quests, tutorials, and being super helpful"

What would you do as a Mentor?

You as a mentor, only in the free time that you allow, would be helping users, teaching others, introducing them to the community, or even showing users the cool content Neos has to offer. If you are unable to assist, teach, or show another user, you will point them in the direction of another Mentor who is available.

Why would you want to be a Mentor vs just participating in the Community?

Being a Mentor offers multiple benefits. It gives you a badge to signify you are ready and willing to help, it lets you be in contact and assist with other volunteer teams (Moderation, QC, etc), and also gives you resources and environment to learn and enrich your Neos Experience. It's also a lot of fun to see people so happy about what you do!

What are the criteria for becoming a Mentor?

1. There are no hard criteria, but we are always looking for possible Mentors with the following qualities:
   • Following the Neos Guidelines and Mentor Guidelines as community role models.
   • Ensuring you can courteously handle new users and welcome them to the community.
   • Reporting concerns or issues you find to the appropriate channels. (Bugs, Exploits, Moderation)
   • Respect users from all walks of life in Neos.
   • Understanding of the Neos Toolset at the most basic level. (Tooltips, Avatars, Worlds, etc)

If you're okay with this, then please apply!

Who Runs the Mentors?

1. The Mentors are currently run by the Mentor Lead Team and are led as a group by:
   • U-Turk
   • U-MattyK
   • U-dawky
   • U-Caetaena
   • U-Veer

How to Find a Mentor

Mentors can be identified in-game by their unique green name color and badge (as shown above), and they can be found through a couple of methods.

• Reach out on the NeosVR Discord through the #questions-help channel, where you can ping the @Neos Mentor role to find free volunteers for help.

• Include a request for mentors or help in the name of your session. When opening a new world you will be prompted to give it a name, with the default as “<User name’s> World”, clicking on this will open a keyboard to edit the name.

What is the goal of the Mentors?

The Mentors was created with 3 Goals

1. A dedicated community of helpers for Neos to thrive, grow, and help the rest of the community. Being that core group of people that passionately care and wish well for the platform.
   
2. Mentors must be knowledgeable community members volunteering to near new users the basics and provide support during the difficult first couple hours of Neos.
   
3. We hope Mentors will maintain a healthy Neos culture by keeping it friendly, helpful, and being a guiding light for the community.
   

Mentor Guidelines

As a result, Mentors are expected to follow an extra subset of Mentor Guidelines on top of the normal Neos Guidelines.

1. Follow the Neos Usage Guidelines
   • You will often be teaching new users and old users, and they will look to you for information on what the guidelines are.
2. Treat and respect others and agree to disagree.
   • Everyone in the community will come from all walks of life. In this environment, people will disagree, but if you can’t respect others despite their differences then you are not a good fit for the program.
   • If you have criticisms, be constructive. A lot of situations and moments where you disagree often come from a lack of knowledge, take these opportunities to learn, grow, and teach yourself and others.
3. The Mentor program is not a place to advertise yourself or your friends.
   • Don’t showcase only works you prefer, the Mentors Program isn’t intended for self-promotion. Ensure new users see the full scope of what’s available in the community.
4. Do not take advantage of new users and indoctrinate them on your beliefs
   • This includes beliefs such as political, religious, financial, social, or moral.
   • Indoctrination in this instance is defined as using your influence and knowledge of Neos to force personal views onto others as something socially acceptable.
5. Escalate and report moderation issues when guidelines are broken.
   • Being a Mentor is not the same as being a Moderator, nor becoming one. To submit a Moderation report please go here.
   • Reports need to come directly from the user or victim in question, third party reports will not be accepted as this has caused issues in the past.
   • Do not impersonate Neos Moderation. If an incident goes past your capacity to self-moderate, report it through the ticketing system.
6. You represent the Mentors and Neos as a whole, do not abuse the role.
   • You officially represent Neos as a volunteer helping hand, this doesn’t give you any authority to use over others. We encourage working with others to solve problems instead.
   • As Mentor, you can share knowledge, help people out, and answer people’s questions, but doesn’t give your the authority to be *right*
   • You also do not speak for Solirax or the Neos Team and should make that clear.
7. You are the voice for the community, make good use of that. Let us know when things are amiss and identify upcoming problems.
   • As a Mentor, you are a valuable source of feedback and insight to community wants and concerns that many of us may not be aware of.
   • Please use discretion when engaging with the community, both on and off the Neos platform. You are a Volunteer and directly represent the platform, do not act in a way that would bring harm to other users or the platform.
8. Encourage a healthy community!
   • Lead by example, not just telling people to follow, or arguing with people.
   • If people don’t agree with your suggestions that’s okay, it takes time to learn or become a part of any community. Please make sure to respect their different approaches.
   • Show appreciation for people’s works, efforts, and knowledge so that they can do the same!
   • Avoid passive-aggressive statements and be clear when explaining issues you have with other users. Encouraging people to talk out their problems is good.
   • Listen! Sometimes it’s just better to sit, listen and think.

How do I become a Mentor?

Apply through the application!
Neos Guidelines
Mentor Application
Mentor Guidelines

NOTE: Applications do take some time as the leads themselves are also volunteers. You will receive a response from one of the leads within 1-2 weeks if you do apply.
_{If a month has passed since you applied, contact one of the leads (Turk, MattyK, Cataena, or dawky) through the NeosVR Discord.}
NOTE 2: Becoming a Mentor is not a path to Moderation. There will be a Moderation application further in the future as more info arises.