Why do so many new players not get the inventory system?

[Arielle Popstar]

2 hours ago, BaynBreton said:

My niece is an MBA. Very hard-working, brilliant, dedicated and successful girl in her mid 20s. My nephew is 30 plus, also a very successful guy who has the power to decide if folks get a house loan or not. Yet none of them have any idea of how a directory works. Their iPhones just fill up and get slower, and none of them have any idea of why that happens, so they need a new one. There is a technological age gap here, admit it or not.

Send them to the forum here. We specialize in know-it-alls. Can't retain a new user if a virtual life depends on it but the know-it-alls have the answer!

Edited March 27 by Arielle Popstar

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Aethelwine said:

I can't work out android or Linux folders, but that is kind of an aside. I got lost when programs became apps.

I do have a question someone might be able to clear up about the second life folder system. My wisdom on this may have come from forum advice 13 years ago, or perhaps sage advice of the bloodlines clan that adopted me when I was new. What I recall being told is not to use the system clothing folder for storing clothes, because it was for making clothes not storing them, the implication being it would be more likely to lose them. I may have misremembered but aside from a few things I unpacked in my first weeks here it is otherwise unused. So my question is, is it current wisdom to be using the clothing folder for storing clothes or not?

You can use the clothing folder for any kind of clothes. The system doesn't care what you put in most of the system folders. The only ones that act differently are Lost and Found, Trash, Favorites (for Landmarks), Favorite Wearables (special tab in Firestorm), Received, and the Firestorm folder (for the bridge, AO and certain RLV wearables).

The Create New functions don't care which system folder you're in either (exceptions noted above in some cases).

[Theresa Tennyson]

18 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Send them to the forum here. We specialize in know-it-alls. Can't retain a new user if a virtual life depends on it but the know-it-alls have the answer!

It's certainly convenient that the secret to retaining new users is someone else addressing your personal petty annoyances though.

[Arielle Popstar]

59 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

It's certainly convenient that the secret to retaining new users is someone else addressing your personal petty annoyances though.

They are far from personal however since I've talked to quite a few over the years about why they did not stay in Secondlife. That and I pay attention to the many posted pet peeves relating frustrations with the setup. Only those SL fan boys and girls who either think others are too stupid and think others should listen to their many and wonderful workarounds, don't get that SL has the "most complex user interface ever designed for a 3D virtual world environment".

[Orwar]

2 hours ago, BaynBreton said:

My niece is an MBA. Very hard-working, brilliant, dedicated and successful girl in her mid 20s. My nephew is 30 plus, also a very successful guy who has the power to decide if folks get a house loan or not. Yet none of them have any idea of how a directory works. Their iPhones just fill up and get slower, and none of them have any idea of why that happens, so they need a new one. There is a technological age gap here, admit it or not.

   As a lower-end-of-30-something I find that rather shocking, to be honest. By the time I started high school there wasn't a one of us my age who didn't know how to use folders, in fact even before then we often had the option to write school works and essays on the computer and everyone was running around with USB sticks to take stuff home to finish or into school to print. Those processes were done entirely manually, both getting files off and on USB sticks, in and out of your personal folder on the school network, and into the printer queue, were all done via directories. Also to keep the school IT guy from nuking Liero and Soldat for us, we'd just hide the games in random person's folders (although sometimes we had to install them again because we'd lost track of where we put them or because the student in question ran to ask him what all the weird stuff in their folders were). And when he caught us playing games and banned our school network logins we just locked him out and unbanned ourselves and held the entire school IT hostage until we were unbanned (which we usually were when we totally pinkie-swore we wouldn't play games on the school computers .. Which, on average, lasted 5 minutes, tops). Also pranked people by putting random junk in their essays if they were silly enough to actually use their personal folders in the school system (which were about as private as a sex swing in a greenhouse) - everyone knew (eventually) that the only way to avoid getting into an awkward conversation with the teacher about how their essay on Greek mythology was just a filthy 'love letter' to the teacher in question was to hand them a paper or a USB stick rather than them fetching the document from your turn-in folders.

   And of course most of us had already gotten into piracy by middle school, which at the time was entirely based on sharing X amounts of data to be allowed into the nicer, faster servers with all the cool stuffs, which again, was all done via directories. And because, usually, it was easier (and sometimes quicker) to download an album than to rip it yourself (and you needed to, because, mp3-players - speaking of which, it's also how we put music into our mp3-players, which also had their own directories to represent albums and artists, or making playlists, etc, and for a long, long time, no one went anywhere without their mp3 players), everyone was doing it. 

[Rowan Amore]

From a 2022 article about what basic computer skill children need to.learn...

 

4. File Maintenance and Organization

Schoolwork adds up, and with hundreds of files saved to a student’s hard drive, the need for a system that addresses how and where students store their work is imperative. To ensure a student’s computer continues to function at its best, students must understand how to:   

Create and label folders  

File content in folders and know that each folder may hold individual files or additional folders with subfolders. 

Read file suffixes and interpret their importance (e.g., that a file ending in .docx will open in Microsoft Word, and .xls will open in Microsoft Excel ) 

Use external drives, such as flash drives  

Transfer and share cloud files, such as via Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and Google Drive   

 

[Qie Niangao]

7 minutes ago, Orwar said:

By the time I started high school there wasn't a one of us my age who didn't know how to use folders

I dunno. Although they have folders, seems to me iOS and even Android go out of their way to disguise the filesystem(s) and scatter most of the directory structure around invisibly to the end user. Load a proper third-party file manager and behold a whole, heretofore hidden storage hierarchy.

So I wonder if the "app" model of phones has made the average user think of storage as unstructured magic. Who needs "files" when there's "user data"?

And in SL, objects have inventories ("Contents") but nope: no storage hierarchy permitted.

I bet there are funky old games like that, too, where the player collects stuff in one big bag of loot.

[Theresa Tennyson]

47 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

They are far from personal however since I've talked to quite a few over the years about why they did not stay in Secondlife. That and I pay attention to the many posted pet peeves relating frustrations with the setup. Only those SL fan boys and girls who either think others are too stupid and think others should listen to their many and wonderful workarounds, don't get that SL has the "most complex user interface ever designed for a 3D virtual world environment".

Second Life has two great strengths:

1) It's flexible - it's possible to do an incredibly wide variety of things.

AND

2) It's continuous - most things from twenty years ago still work, but that doesn't mean that you can't also do things that literally weren't possible when the basic platform was created.

In order to do that, there's a certain amount of complexity that really can't be eliminated.

If someone wants to do a single thing simply, another application designed to do that will always be the best choice. And if Second Life isn't the best choice for someone, it does neither Second Life nor that person a favor having them stick around.

And it would be no loss for either if some people who are currently in Second Life leave too.

[AmeliaJ08]

22 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

So I wonder if the "app" model of phones has made the average user think of storage as unstructured magic. Who needs "files" when there's "user data"?

It is definitely phones and mobile devices running IOS and Android. The absolute extent of filesystem that the average user sees there is if they try to save an image from the web or something where they might get a glimpse of the 'Downloads' folder.

I mean we're moving in that direction on PC as well to some extent, the default save dialog in any modern OS will bring up a nice bunch of quick links to various user folders and has done for many years but I guess there is still some semi-regular need to browse deeper into the filesystem sometimes, particularly on PC... mostly because whoever wrote Windows start menu search tool needs fired, damn thing still doesn't seem to work properly.

 

 

[Orwar]

9 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I dunno. Although they have folders, seems to me iOS and even Android go out of their way to disguise the filesystem(s) and scatter most of the directory structure around invisibly to the end user.

   The under-18's, who aren't even supposed to be on the platform, not understanding how directories work because their parents stuck a mobile monitor in their face as toddlers and called parenting a day, whenceforth they're somehow incapable of understanding really simple concepts of digital boxes just does not feel as if it has anything to do with SL though. Maybe we should change how cars work too because kids who only ever rode bicycles prior don't understand how motor vehicles operate? Oh wait, we do something about that, don't we - we teach them to drive, I believe? 

   Hmm, what would be a good way to teach them, though, driver's licenses are so expensive and time consuming to get. If only there was a short-format way of sharing information, which could explain the concept in less than maybe 5-10 minutes, perhaps with some visual aid along the way, one that those sorts wouldn't feel totally alienated by .. Preferably something easily accessible, maybe with a comment section or something where they can find more info or ask questions, now where might we find a system like that ..

[AmeliaJ08]

4 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   The under-18's, who aren't even supposed to be on the platform, not understanding how directories work because their parents stuck a mobile monitor in their face as toddlers and called parenting a day, whenceforth they're somehow incapable of understanding really simple concepts of digital boxes just does not feel as if it has anything to do with SL though. Maybe we should change how cars work too because kids who only ever rode bicycles prior don't understand how motor vehicles operate? Oh wait, we do something about that, don't we - we teach them to drive, I believe? 

   Hmm, what would be a good way to teach them, though, driver's licenses are so expensive and time consuming to get. If only there was a short-format way of sharing information, which could explain the concept in less than maybe 5-10 minutes, perhaps with some visual aid along the way, one that those sorts wouldn't feel totally alienated by .. Preferably something easily accessible, maybe with a comment section or something where they can find more info or ask questions, now where might we find a system like that ..

It isn't just under 18s. I have watched my parents use their primary computers which are all Android devices these days and I have also watched (and helped) them use a Windows PC in recent years.

The things they learned about how to use a Windows PC in the 90s are being forgotten, fast. They seem to find interacting with Windows quite difficult in general which I find quite frustrating given I know they handled Windows machines just fine until the 2010s. Even basic concepts seem to trip them up these days because they seem to want everything to work as it does in Android.

It's easy to blame the kids because yeah, they've pretty much grown up in this and until they're work age they probably won't interact with many Windows (or Linux or MacOS) computers. They're even using ChromeOS at school...  but it isn't just them. It's the average user.

Edited March 27 by AmeliaJ08

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Orwar said:

     Hmm, what would be a good way to teach them, though, driver's licenses are so expensive and time consuming to get. If only there was a short-format way of sharing information, which could explain the concept in less than maybe 5-10 minutes, perhaps with some visual aid along the way, one that those sorts wouldn't feel totally alienated by .. Preferably something easily accessible, maybe with a comment section or something where they can find more info or ask questions, now where might we find a system like that ..

Or we could suggest SL programmer Think, think, think and code in the triggering of a dialogue box that askes the user where they would like to put the folder they just received. I mean how profound would that be and in short order of time the residents would get prompted to learn about the directory structure of the inventory naturally and maybe start seeing the need to organize it on the fly rather then wait a decade or more and realize their inventory structure is flat and causing problems. 15 minutes of coding could save thousands of hours of organization after there is a problem. 

[Qie Niangao]

3 minutes ago, Orwar said:

Preferably something easily accessible, maybe with a comment section or something where they can find more info or ask questions, now where might we find a system like that ..

I know, I know! TikTok! It's the answer to everything! (Although TikTok appears to have peaked and Zuck's loathsome Instagram is somehow the new growth platform. Pick your propaganda algorithm.)

Actually, I didn't realize how much I'd missed in this thread before I posted, so I should have clarified: I don't honestly believe that younger generations are incapable of learning directory hierarchies, nor even that they need some remedial tree-training. Rather, I think they simply may not expect to apply that to a game inventory, nor to other tech operations us old coots may take as revealed truth about the universe.

So here's a dirty little secret: I barely organize my SL Inventory at all. Stuff I create I kinda need to keep structured at least while I'm working on it, but otherwise stuff rarely gets sorted at all… except chronologically: Every few years I sort everything by date and shovel strata of stuff into year-labeled folders or the Trash (old landmarks, etc.) and rely on search and sorting to find anything I want to wear or use.

Why? Because I outgrew folders. I never sort email, for example. Once in a while I'll tag a category of stuff that will stay relevant for a while (and gmail loves labels), but I'll never manually sort mail into folders again. That habit of eschewing folders carried over to my SL inventory management practices, as much as I can get away with it.

I'm not promoting this approach to the SL inventory, I'm just saying that people adopt different practices based on a range of experiences. Different practices may benefit from different affordances in the interface, but mostly they just work with whatever the system provides; the difficulty is mostly communicating among those who adopt those different practices.

[AmeliaJ08]

18 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Or we could suggest SL programmer Think, think, think and code in the triggering of a dialogue box that askes the user where they would like to put the folder they just received. I mean how profound would that be and in short order of time the residents would get prompted to learn about the directory structure of the inventory naturally and maybe start seeing the need to organize it on the fly rather then wait a decade or more and realize their inventory structure is flat and causing problems. 15 minutes of coding could save thousands of hours of organization after there is a problem. 

Yep, that would be a simple first step. Dumping everything (okay not everything) in "Objects" isn't helpful, it also isn't helpful that the default is to just unpack to a root folder.

To go further:

Everything should have metadata. Buy a dress and it should come with tags like "Clothing" and "Dress" and and all kinds of tags for each version that detail which body it fits. Each version could have a standard image tag that points to a picture of the item also.

Then it could just be dumped in a generic /Clothes folder for all it matters since you have the data to make an inventory browser that isn't concerned with location but with metadata. A visual browser of everything sorted and searchable by the metadata, if you want dresses type "dress" and everything with the dress tag could appear in a tile layout with pictures if you want. If you want everything that fits "Legacy petite" then type that etc.

Let the user add their own user defined tags as well, if I want to tag every dress I own that has a certain pattern option then let me.

Let the user have the choice if they desire - it doesn't hurt anyone, if you like hierarchical file systems and manual organization then go ahead, the metadata would be invisible to the traditional inventory window - but give them the choice to use something more modern and more in line with how they interact with other applications if they want.

It's not even particularly difficult, we already have viewers that can scan through inventory inspecting links etc and really the only thing stopping this kind of development is a hard-headed refusal to just expand the options and capabilities in SL. Sure a lot of old stuff would be untagged and unsorted - that's unfortunate - but the time to start is now and adding the functionality would be quite a simple upgrade.

 

Edited March 27 by AmeliaJ08

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

[Charlemagne Allen]

This thread

 

 

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

In order to do that, there's a certain amount of complexity that really can't be eliminated.

But there is also a certain amount of complexity that can be eliminated or at least made significantly simpler. That is what is under discussion.

Edited March 27 by Arielle Popstar

[Ayashe Ninetails]

I'm very confused how someone would go through high school and college/university without ever needing to work with files/folders. Between writing papers, making presentations, creating and working with image files, retouching photos, creating ads/catalogs/book covers/brochures, digging through databases/spreadsheets, editing video files, doing field recording and foley, recording/mixing/mastering audio and music projects, writing and editing resumes and cover letters, navigating through emailed docs and PDFs when classes were missed, prepping files for professional printing, creating an entire professional portfolio, etc., I had my face in folders hunting for files damn near 24/7. Granted, I was a design and media major, but the business majors were always buried in their laptops, as well. 

Are we just not writing and working with media and docs in school anymore orrrr...? 👀

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Yep, that would be a simple first step. Dumping everything (okay not everything) in "Objects" isn't helpful, it also isn't helpful that the default is to just unpack to a root folder.

To go further:

Everything should have metadata. Buy a dress and it should come with tags like "Clothing" and "Dress" and and all kinds of tags for each version that detail which body it fits. Each version could have a standard image tag that points to a picture of the item also.

Then it could just be dumped in a generic /Clothes folder for all it matters since you have the data to make an inventory browser that isn't concerned with location but with metadata. A visual browser of everything sorted and searchable by the metadata, if you want dresses type "dress" and everything with the dress tag could appear in a tile layout with pictures if you want. If you want everything that fits "Legacy petite" then type that etc.

Let the user add their own user defined tags as well, if I want to tag every dress I own that has a certain pattern option then let me.

Let the user have the choice if they desire - it doesn't hurt anyone, if you like hierarchical file systems and manual organization then go ahead, the metadata would be invisible to the traditional inventory window - but give them the choice to use something more modern and more in line with how they interact with other applications if they want.

It's not even particularly difficult, we already have viewers that can scan through inventory inspecting links etc and really the only thing stopping this kind of development is a hard-headed refusal to just expand the options and capabilities in SL. Sure a lot of old stuff would be untagged and unsorted - that's unfortunate - but the time to start is now and adding the functionality would be quite a simple upgrade.

 

As it happens, I use a system that does exactly the same thing in real life.

So, what field structure are you going to use for the data? Because if you want a proper sort/search you'll need those fields defined beforehand.

Are you going to use set values picked from a list, where you need the values pre-determined, or are you going to allow typed-in values, which puts you at the mercy of the spelling and language use of those entering them (are pants with a front and back bibs and straps "overalls" or "salopettes" - and what are the "overolls[sic]" I bought from a well-known maker?)

I regularly find myself going "Why did you do things thahhttt way?" when I deal with something one of my predecessors entered and that couldn't have been more than six people who all spoke American English, as opposed to hundreds of makers from all around the world.

And, of course, I'm only dealing with clothing instead of literally everything in the world, which is what you get with Second Life objects.

Easy peasy.

Yes, there are things like The Sims where you can do exactly what you're describing, but that's because everything comes from a central source. At least the last time I was active, Sims mods are clones of game assets rather than completely new things.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Yep, that would be a simple first step. Dumping everything (okay not everything) in "Objects" isn't helpful, it also isn't helpful that the default is to just unpack to a root folder.

To go further:

Everything should have metadata. Buy a dress and it should come with tags like "Clothing" and "Dress" and and all kinds of tags for each version that detail which body it fits. Each version could have a standard image tag that points to a picture of the item also.

Then it could just be dumped in a generic /Clothes folder for all it matters since you have the data to make an inventory browser that isn't concerned with location but with metadata. A visual browser of everything sorted and searchable by the metadata, if you want dresses type "dress" and everything with the dress tag could appear in a tile layout with pictures if you want. If you want everything that fits "Legacy petite" then type that etc.

Let the user add their own user defined tags as well, if I want to tag every dress I own that has a certain pattern option then let me.

Let the user have the choice if they desire - it doesn't hurt anyone, if you like hierarchical file systems and manual organization then go ahead, the metadata would be invisible to the traditional inventory window - but give them the choice to use something more modern and more in line with how they interact with other applications if they want.

It's not even particularly difficult, we already have viewers that can scan through inventory inspecting links etc and really the only thing stopping this kind of development is a hard-headed refusal to just expand the options and capabilities in SL. Sure a lot of old stuff would be untagged and unsorted - that's unfortunate - but the time to start is now and adding the functionality would be quite a simple upgrade.

The problem with asigning metadata to user-created objects is that most creators can't be counted on to take an extra step properly. Most clothing creators don't even bother to set an appropriate attachment point for mesh clothes.

Maybe SL could attach metadata to distinguish prim, sculpt and mesh objects with different icons, but even this feature would have limited usefulness.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think one "problem" with SL inventory, is anytime you get a new object (or folder IIRC), it just gets added to all things in the "Objects" folder. 

It's up to the user to sort and organize things into different subfolders. If the user chooses not to (or does not know how to) sort these into folders, their inventory becomes one big unsorted mess.

 

[AmeliaJ08]

38 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The problem with asigning metadata to user-created objects is that most creators can't be counted on to take an extra step properly. Most clothing creators don't even bother to set an appropriate attachment point for mesh clothes.

Agreed, none of this would be optional if I were in charge. I'd come down like Stalin on them

On upload you *have* to select certain required tags relating to the object, its compatibility etc. Do it wrong to try and get your product noticed? no more upload privileges for yuo. Make a mistake? content moderator steps in and fixes it.

I'd sift through uploads fixing tags and reporting rulebreakers for minimum wage, I'm sure they'd find ways of making it work.

 

[Orwar]

41 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The problem with asigning metadata to user-created objects is that most creators can't be counted on to take an extra step properly. Most clothing creators don't even bother to set an appropriate attachment point for mesh clothes.

   Most creators only do about three quarters of the steps, on average. And even if we assigned some sort of filter, how would it be categorised? People have always complained about the categories on the MP and how a lot of creators don't know where to put their things. And if such a system was implemented, what happens with all our current stuff that hasn't been assigned any such tags? Forced 'mod'-esque rights for people to assign/reassign anything they like freely? I'd approve of the latter, tbh, I don't see how it's anyone else's business how I categorise my inventory - that we can't rename no-mod stuff even for our own inventory displays is also pretty silly. And that modifiable stuff with no-mod components can only be renamed if you rez it first.

[JeromFranzic]

On 3/26/2024 at 9:17 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Wow. So now Millennials have killed the SL inventory system too??? Is there nothing to which they will not stoop?

How many of us actually learned how to use a directory/folder system in school? I didn't. I think I worked it out on my own when I first started to use a computer seriously at about 15 or 16.

I managed fine. So will they.

I intuitively learned it when I first ran the OG IBM PC (1983). Didn't totally understand it until I got a Tandy PC from Radio Shack later in the decade and ran a Windows like app called DeskMate.

I think it's not too hard to figure out file manager apps for Android and iPhone devices, they pretty much work the same way. I even run terminal apps in my Android devices that require typing Linux based commands... Takes me back to DOS and C64 days lol but anyway...

*runs back to RL server farm for a while*

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

The follow-up vidss contain real comedy gold.

 

Gen Z's answer questions such as

"What is the capital of Chicago" - "Los Angeles"

"3 x 3 x 3 = ?"  - "36"

"What state is Utah in" - "I don't know history stuff"

 

Are we sure we want these people in SL, are they RELLY the future?