Do AFK avatars drive new residents away?

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: We could go back to if you are AFK, then you SHOW as AFK, possibly even with whatever the default AFK/snoozing animation is!

[Istelathis]

I like rounding them up and tossing them in volcanoes 😀 j/k

I did have one pop on my land once, and he was there for a few hours.  I built a cage around him, and he became a fixture for my medieval themed parcel.  Eventually he came back, and had a laugh at it and apologized, apparently he had owned the property previously and had it set to his home destination.  I was disappointed because I lost my fixture, I was kind of hoping he was a bot that would come back from time to time and become a part of the scenery.

[Gabriele Graves]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Idea: We could go back to if you are AFK, then you SHOW as AFK, possibly even with whatever the default AFK/snoozing animation is!

The problem with that is if, for example, you have dual monitors and the SL window isn't the one you are working on all the time.  You aren't actually away from the keyboard.  Periodically, you could still be responding to conversations and/or doing other things in SL.  The viewer cannot know if you are really away or not and so a purely automatic solution is just a guess and isn't really any more accurate.

I think it is better if the person at the keyboard decides if and when to show AFK status as they are the only person who really knows.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

The problem with that is if, for example, you have dual monitors and the SL window isn't the one you are working on all the time.  You aren't actually away from the keyboard.  Periodically, you could still be responding to conversations and/or doing other things in SL.  The viewer cannot know if you are really away or not and so a purely automatic solution is just a guess and isn't really any more accurate.

I know. I think a "timed away" (let's say, you could set "5 minutes") vs. "I switched away from the SL viewer" would work better.

Anyway, whether my suggestion was serious or not, flawed or not, I know people would hate it 🙂

 

[Gabriele Graves]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

I know. I think a "timed away" (let's say, you could set "5 minutes") vs. "I switched away from the SL viewer" would work better.

Anyway, whether my suggestion was serious or not, flawed or not, I know people would hate it 🙂

 

You can set 5 mins away time if you want, it's just that most people switch it to never once they've been around a while and so to me that suggests that people don't like it much.  I don't think the slumped avatar stand helps much tbh.

Whether you were serious or not, hate is too strong a word for "disagree".

[animats]

2 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

You can set 5 mins away time if you want, it's just that most people switch it to never once they've been around a while and so to me that suggests that people don't like it much.  I don't think the slumped avatar stand helps much tbh.

Whether you were serious or not, hate is too strong a word for "disagree".

I keep my avi at 5 minutes to "Away" and slumped. If my avatar goes to "Away", I feel I should either be sitting, or logging out. Or at least on my own property, not in public. I feel it's rude to be "Away" in a public place.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

hate is too strong a word for "disagree".

Sorry, I'm used to all the rage around here when suggestions are made!

4 minutes ago, animats said:

I keep my avi at 5 minutes to "Away" and slumped. If my avatar goes to "Away", I feel I should either be sitting, or logging out. Or at least on my own property, not in public. I feel it's rude to be "Away" in a public place.

You are a good citizen.

[Gabriele Graves]

18 minutes ago, animats said:

I keep my avi at 5 minutes to "Away" and slumped. If my avatar goes to "Away", I feel I should either be sitting, or logging out. Or at least on my own property, not in public. I feel it's rude to be "Away" in a public place.

Your feelings are certainly valid and you should do what you feel is right for you but not everyone shares this point of view.

At every hangout place I've ever been where there are real people, some like to dance and only occasionally interact when something worth interacting with happens, others like to watch them dance.  This even happens at the Welcome Hub, auto-sitting/auto-slump would ruin that.

Edited January 13 by Gabriele Graves

[Rowan Amore]

I set my Unavailable when afk.  Not sure what the big deal is with people doing other things while standing or sitting around somewhere.  There are people who don't respond to IMs even when they AREN'T afk.  Should those people be logged out, too?

[Arielle Popstar]

2 hours ago, animats said:

I keep my avi at 5 minutes to "Away" and slumped. If my avatar goes to "Away", I feel I should either be sitting, or logging out. Or at least on my own property, not in public. I feel it's rude to be "Away" in a public place.

I feel slumped avatars make the place look messy but a something saying AFK would be nice because if I go through someone profile to look for a commonality or something that we could chat about, it is a let down if there is no response until hours later. It in fact happened so regularly at one point I stopped messaging anyone other then to compliment them to which I don't need a response.

With something signifying the avatar is AFK I wouldn't bother wasting my time and move on to someone who is there. Not talking about someone taking a bathroom or snack break for 5-10 minutes but someone who is gone in excess of that.

[Prokofy Neva]

The AFK avatars *are* the newbies.

[Gabriele Graves]

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Edited January 13 by Gabriele Graves

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I feel slumped avatars make the place look messy but a something saying AFK.

The slumped anim can be overridden obviously as most of us are doing that knowingly or not.  When an avatar is marked as away they do get the "Away" tag above their head.  If a person isn't marking themselves as away or sets AFK idle time to "Never" then SL doesn't think that they are AFK.

Edited January 13 by Gabriele Graves

[Midnoot]

I don't want you to know when I'm afk, so you can't find a reason to eject me.  AFK indicators are a bullseye for aggressive micro managing sim moderators who need every reason they can get to eject someone. I've had moderators even message me like " Are you there? " and I reply, cause I AM at the pc, but I wasn't looking at SL and  heard the IM. I've been ejected and when I ask why, they say " I thought you were AFK. "....  Why do you think everyone turns off the AFK indicator? Such a criminal offense to not dedicate every waking moment of my time in SL to chat participation.

[InnerCity Elf]

To me, afk-ing and it's (perceived) rudeness seems highly dependent on the circumstances.

 If I go to the bathroom or to set up and later get a tea, I refuse feeling bad about it, as I'm rather sure that's the default of how the overwhelming majority handles such brief afk-ing.

If I'm at a packed event or somewhere it's highly probable that others might see and talk to me, I'll tp home when I have one, or to some zero traffic place. If anyone IMs, I'll reply as soon as I'm back, and, really, if someone gets funny over not hearing back from someone right away, that's their problem.

This doesn't apply in an "active conversation setting", in which I'll let people know something like "brb (+assumed number of minutes if all goes well/reason for afk, in case of too many variables, like doorbell rang, and I've no idea why the heck...;))". 

In theory, I wouldn't mind some automated visual like a hover text or (somwhat graceful) universal afk stand that indicates your as afk after 5 minutes.

However, in practice, I don't want to have to type or move my cursor or anything every 4.5 or so minutes in all the situations where I "just hang out" in a pretty scenery and would be cool to chat a while if anyone IMs, or wait for para roleplayers to type their posts, hang out at a not yet lively sim in the hope someone will come by to play and to help out the ones who kindly set up the place to maybe get some rp going at a time I can play - while I'm working in another window, with sound notification on, so that I can and will reply right away if someone does come along. In case of such a forced afk marking, at least, I'd want to have a ping with customizable sound to let me know I need to move my cursor or something.

Should we get that far during my lifetime that SL would somehow determine my afk-ness from spying on the close proximity of my computer setup, to safely know if I'm actually physically away from my keyboard or not, no thank you, I fear I'd finally have to quit for good then, not that I'd really mind if SL or the internet at large would know how long it takes me to... make tea, but, you know, out of principle.

Edited January 13 by InnerCity Elf
bolding something I *really* feel strongly about :)

[Silent Mistwalker]

I wonder what would happen if groups created a role for everyone with the title of BRB. 🤔

BRB = Be Right Back (for those who don't know)

It's better than AFK, imo, if you're not going to be AFK for long. It also lets people know your intent was to return quickly, in case you get delayed. AFK implies you intend to be gone for a long period of time.

Or maybe, just maybe, LL could add that option to the AFK so you can choose between the two.

Makes sense to me.

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I wonder what would happen if groups created a role for everyone with the title of BRB. 🤔

BRB = Be Right Back (for those who don't know)

It's better than AFK, imo, if you're not going to be AFK for long. It also lets people know your intent was to return quickly, in case you get delayed. AFK implies you intend to be gone for a long period of time.

Or maybe, just maybe, LL could add that option to the AFK so you can choose between the two.

Makes sense to me.

They need an IJL one also.. I'm Just Lurkin..

[Silent Mistwalker]

29 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

They need an IJL one also.. I'm Just Lurkin..

Visitor tags are how they distinguish actual role-players from observers in RPs. I've seen both "observer" and "visitor" used. 

This time I wasn't kidding around. 🙂

[InnerCity Elf]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I wonder what would happen if groups created a role for everyone with the title of BRB. 🤔

BRB = Be Right Back (for those who don't know)

It's better than AFK, imo, if you're not going to be AFK for long. It also lets people know your intent was to return quickly, in case you get delayed. AFK implies you intend to be gone for a long period of time.

Or maybe, just maybe, LL could add that option to the AFK so you can choose between the two.

Makes sense to me.

Now that you mention it, I have either been at a roleplaying sim that had such an option in their rp hud, or had joined a group that had BTB for a title. Could actually make a group oneself, and even have "BRB", "back in 5 minutes (hours 😁)", "in another window but will hear if you IM", or whatever personal afk/brb messages that would be most useful.

[PheebyKatz]

If a sim has a lot of traffic, and occasionally others can't get in because of it, I'd see the sense in booting people who were just camping out.

If it's a low-traffic sim, and people like to lurk in ambience while doing other things, I see nothing wrong with campers though, at least if they aren't obviously parked there to offend others (like with their junk out, or something).

Personally, I use a titler I made. If I think I might be away, or busy, or I'm doing other things while doing SL, I just put it in my title.

Some Examples:

Prolly Blenderin'

Makin' Dinnar, Semi-Here

I Swear I'm Doing Things

I Swear I'm Not Doing Anything

Prolly AFK Or Sleeping

Back In A Bit

I also do myself the courtesy of hovering at 4000 meters. Not only does this keep me out of the way of people who are trying to play and have fun and chat, it also gives nobody any (real) way to (effectively) mess with my avatar while I'm away.

Edited January 15 by PheebyKatz