Complain for some newcomers

[Goldrazer]

I am a newcommer and I have totally different opinion.

 

As a new person of course I am looking for help. Even the old account users have started once and were new. There was always someone to help them. I have already found out that asking some people for help is a big mistake as all you get is ignorance. There is always space to say Sorry mate, I cannot help you, rather than ignoring new people!

So basicly I am very active person, reading forum. What I do not like about old account users is the fact of abusing they knowlidge towards new people. Especially werewolf or vampire recruiting. That is pretty sad. Some people wont bother to help but if they see they could recruit someone they play well. That I found it quiet wierd. They will be sweet to you, even pay you the HUD, but when you are in and counted as a member-then you are in inactive family where nothing happen at all. After you realise you do not know How to bite or attack and there is noone to bother to ask for help.

So at the end each side has its ups and downs.

 

Sometimes a kind word to new people is more than a help. Coz as from my experiences in this game soo far is the fact, that I am mostly alone as noone talking to me.

So far I experienced there are great people who offer help but more people who rather laugh at newbies.  SL is really hard from a start thanks to this.

 

As I said I have met few people who helped me without wanting anything back. It is just a good manner to be greatfull and respectfull to such people.  So it is just as in real life. Some people are nice as they are nice and some people are bad, unwilling to help and rather goofy.

PS: I just felt like I should write here but if it's not suitable then I am sorry but I stand by that :-)

[Venus Petrov]

Welcome to SL and the forum, Goldrazer!  When I rezzed several years ago, the 'clan' bit either was not as popular or I was ignorant of them because I do not recall meeting any vampires for several months until two wanted to bite me in a shop (I declined).

I suggest that you search for groups that share your interests and join them.  Also, go exploring, check the event listings and check some things out.  I recall logging in one time and I found a snail race scheduled in Events.  I went there and it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in SL.  Those snail races still happen, too!

You will always find people here willing to help you as long as you do not expect an A to Z explanation on things.  There are many many helpful videos on the front page of your dashboard you can view, there is the wiki, and there are Answers that have been provided in the Answers forum and you can search those, too.  It does take some searching on your part but if you try and then have a question, hit us up on the Answers forum for a reply.

[Goldrazer]

Hello Venus and many thanks for your advice.

I love traveling around SL. I always get somwhere which surprisse me. I am a member of a few groups, especially the clubs. That all is great. I have found SL website and Wiki very great source of information. My problem is I am very friendly. To me, more important than having the most sexiest avatar in SL is having actually friends. Friends to hang out and let our avatars to grow up together in skills and soo on.

 

I am in a game around few days. For new people SL might get quiet fast. Talking especially about the clans, families and soo on and you can get part of it , even you do not want. lol

 

Thank you very much for your suggestions. My favourite activities are Make him over and Earn2life at the moment. As both of them I can do alone, I can meet people if I want and get some freebies as well. I found Make him over as a great way to learn How to use given info to your benefits. Is a great way to learn How to use camera and How to walk in SL places. Most of the helpfull people I met in Make him over and I am soo very greatfull for that. I also have  one favourite club where I already found a friends.

 

Thank you :-)

[Venus Petrov]

For someone who has been inworld less than one week, you are doing quite well!  I do not think I joined a group for at least one week:  when I found a fun club and met one of my best friends in SL.

Enjoy!

[Goldrazer]

Well I had the priwilage to meet a great person on my first day. He helped me with clothing, my avatar and explained me few basic things. Gave me some landmarks. It took him all day to help me. So thanks to him I learned the basics about avatars, shapes and were to buy stuff etc. That is why I am a little advanced.  Ever since we met we talking 5-6 hours a day in game. Not meaning we hang out in a same places but just talking in IM. :-)

 

Thank you very much Venus, hope I meet you in game :-)

[Kyoka Setsuko]

My intention is not to create a massive flame war because of this comment... So I won't name any names, in order to avoid anyone from any particular community/group getting upset and raging at me or turning this into a Us vs. Them. Frankly, I like to hope we're better than and can maintain a civil discussion, but I can see how these kinds of things can get out of hand.

So, without naming any names...

Yes. I do judge people, to some extent by their avi. I judge them by the quality of their avi and by the particular avi that they select (at that given moment anyway). I do not only judge them by this, I judge them by many other things, including what they say in their profile (if anything), and by the way they act and what they say to me and others.

Lots of people will say they do not do this, but they are largely liars. We instantly assess and form judgements based on what we see immediately before us ("first impressions are everything" and so on).

Furthermore, not only is this a feature of human beings which we cannot escape, but I would argue it is highly useful.

For example, let's say you see someone's avi, and it looks extremely noobish (poor quality clothes/skin/shape/no AO/etc.) That doesn't neccessarily have to be a negative judgement, it's simply a judgement. The idea that "judgements" are a negative thing is an idea we should do away with. We do form opinions of most things we encounter, and that can't really be helped. That opinion is informed and developed as we come into greater contact with that thing.

However, and this is a real sticking point.. Generalizations are not necessarily always untrue. I know we have modern civilized standards, where we believe that bigotry (roughly meaning, making generalizations about others based on various groups they belong to)  is a horrible, terrible thing... But forming judgements based on experience and based on knowledge of those groups isn't necessarily wrong. Prominent scholars have argued it is a survival mechanism that is built into us.

I am with Celestial Nightfire on this. Our RL judgement making skills are (so long as they tend to be accurate, which I think mine are) very useful things indeed, and it's asinine to cast them aside.

Psychologits have more or less proved, as far as I'm concerned, that at a very young age we begin to form generalizations. The ability to categorize things is essential to learning. We cannot possibly comprehend the world as a series of completely distinct objects. If we had to refer to each object as a new object, we would have an infinitely long list of objects we could not possibly keep track of- thus we group things together and classify them.

Just because we classify and group things together, it doesn't mean exceptions fail to exist. Exceptions certainly can exist. The "grouping" or generalizatioon only brings things together based on generally common attributes. If similar traits emerge, those traits are only similar, but not always necessary to that group.

Furthermore, to argue the case, I would suggest that people choose to belong to these groups in SL. For example, if you have a Robot AV, you had to have made the conscious choice at some point to have a Robot AV, and either acquired it by purchase or for free. Either way, you chose to acquire and wear it.

And, I believe, we can see certain traits emerging from certain groups. Some of these traits do frustrate or annoy me.

For example, people who intentionally talk in baby talk ("Hewwo, how awh yew, awh yew doing okays? *giggles*"). I cannot stand this kind of thing.

I also cannot stand gesturbators (people who constantly spam or hotkey gestures), or people who constantly run in circles and act hyper. I don't like people who act nosey (they usually claim they are "curious"), or people who I feel are harassing me.

I'm not openly accusing any particular group of committing these grievances, but I do feel certain groups do commit these acts more frequently than others, and my experience really confirms this.

I'm not saying that every member of those groups do this. I'm not saying that members of other groups never do this. There are always exceptions.

But when i find a group that is by-and-large, committing these, and numerous other annoyances (or breaches of ToS), I tend to want to further avoid those particular groups.

I have numerous theories on why particular groups behave worse than others. Perhaps it's that particular group or type of avatar that attracts those kinds of people. Or perhaps people in that community think it's acceptable (it becomes normative) to behave in such a manner. I don't have statistics to back up any argument, I'm merely speculating here...

Hilariously enough, it tends to be those very groups who get the most "butthurt" and tend to engage in flamewars. They overzealously defend themselves, and act like they are entitled to rights above and beyond anyone else, rather than equality. This, in my eyes, does not help to encourage me that these groups are mature, non-annoying, or worth my time. In fact, the people who usually intentionally attack or insult these particular groups do so simply because they know they will get such an over-the-top reaction. If these groups simply ignored the insults/attacks, the attackers would lose interest, and simply stop targetting them. They make themselves easy targets, without even realziing it, by being so utterly defensive.

The fact is, I can treat people however I want to- and I will, as long as I'm following ToS and the rules of the particular sim I am in. If you don't like that, tough luck.

And the truth is, by and large my intuition and experience has been correct. So the fact is, I'm going to keep on avoiding and ignoring those people who fall into groups/categories that tend to annoy me... I still give people enough of a chance. If you can prove you're not going to act like a moron, then I'm not going to judge you at the end of the day. In my eyes, judgements based on things like AV and other affiliations help to inform my decision on how to react to someone.

And really, come on. You consciously chose that shape/those groups/etc. You must have thought at some point about how you are portraying yourself to others. Image is so malleable in SL, if you choose a particular image (whether by youor AV or your profile), I think that says something about how you chose to be portrayed, and how you choose to represent yourself to others.

And at the end of the day, sorry, but there's no such thing as Robotism (just an example, I am not neccessarily a robot-hater, per se). It is not a constitutionally protected right to "be a robot", nor a hate-crime to dislike or bash robots.


As for the Vampire/Werewolf discussion:

If we're talking about Bloodlines or something similar, I feel like that stuff was a big trend back in like 2008 or 2009 or something, but it's not nearly as active anymore. Back those days, everyone used to get those annoying "bite requests"/"invites". It got to the point where some guy created a "Garlic necklace" which was supposed to be scripted to prevent them from sending those to you. I also saw on SLX a HUD that send annoying invites right back to anyone who tries to send you a bite invite.. And many sims have signs (largely relics from back in the day when it was more popular) saying "No Bites/BL Invites" or that they will boot you from the Sim if you do so.

I personally feel like Bloodlines is a huge pyramid scheme/scam. It's a huge money making venture for the creators. My explanation will be a bit rudimentary because I hate BL and have never actually engaged in it, but I will do my best. BL creators essentially built a HUD, and to play their little game, you generally have to
1) purchase their HUD for $L,
2) send invites to get more people to join, in order to "stay alive" or whatever.  This invariably constitutes harassment, and annoys other people and barely even gives you much to stay alive on.
3) Drop a crapload of $L on items that will keep you alive longer, items which are essentially useless after being used, and which you will need to keep repurchasing over and over and over. And these items are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.
4) Join a clan where they split some of the proceeds with BL by having vendors on their land. Every time you make a purchase, BL gets most of it, and the clan gets a small portion which helps keep them afloat.

So basically, it's a huge money-making scheme for the owners. They have you buy into a "game" where you purchase their HUD which does nothing except slowly deplete energy until you die, and then to stay afloat, you have to harass people and/or drop more $L.

Even 7Seas is more reasonably priced and at least you walk away with useable items (the caught fish are wearable and have numerous scripted features. Sometimes you can walk away from places with special items including clothing, fishing rods, and components for builds that you can piece together).

Oh, and as for the actual "roleplay" that goes on in BL. I don't know every single clan, but by and large very few that I've ever seen engage in much actual RP. If you want RP, you're better off going to a real RP sim.

That being said, I've heard BL is ok as a social tool for meeting people.


One last thing, based on Celestial's point. Sometimes when you're offering or getting help, others don't need or want it.

Have you ever had someone really pushy try to force something on you? Like trying to push you to buy a piece of clothing you don't want ("It'd look great on you!"), or to get a certain hairstyle/hair colour? It happens in RL and it happens in SL too.

Sometimes sticking your nose too far into someone else's business and trying to dictate who and what they should be isn't actually helpful at all.

When I do help people in SL, I only do so if they actually ask me for help first. Usually they have to come to me with a question or request. I won't go out of my way to stick my neck out for them unasked, because I refuse to give assistance where I'm unwanted.

And even then, I always try to understand their goal and help them achieve it. Not my goal. Not my interest. But theirs.

On a down note, I've had a lot of experiences where I helped someone, only to feel like I totally wasted my time, because they do the exact opposite, or don't use what I slaved over making for them. In those cases, it really discourages me to bother helping people much at all.

I also find a lot of people tend to just ask stupid things. I know they say there aren't any stupid questions, but there are. Actually, what my problem is with is lazy questions. Things people could've looked up on google or the SL website to learn the answer to (yes there's a whole huge FAQ and Help Forum where people have undoubtedly experienced similar issues before). I am tired of answering people's questions, when those questions more adequately and accurately have already been answered and are easily located on the web. Stop being so lazy and look it up yourself before asking people >_>

[Smoothie Perl]

First of all I respect your point of view and I agree in some issues with you ( to be honest in very few).
It's obvious we are in two opposite worlds.
For you, gestures, shouts and giggles are negative behavior and it is noise but for me it's a way of expression, it's fun. joy, happiness.
In the matter of fact Gestures is my primary profession because it's one of the things I loved from my first day in SL.
Music, dance, gestures among many other things makes Second Life one of my favorite occupations.

Oh God, I'm too noisy person for you, that's for sure

But that's a subject of another thread.

[Void Singer]

I think the wall of text and the dancing around not liking certain things doesn't help you your case, and may hurt it in the case of "certain groups".

and while I agree with you on the points of judgment and personal discretion, it feells like you may have missed the point of the OP, which was to say "if you are new and asking for help, don't be picky about where it comes from, only about whether it's correct or not."

[Eileen Fellstein]

If I understand the OP correctly Smoothie, your complaint is new users who base their opinion of wether or not you can be helpful to them on information in the RL portion of your profile?

I've run into that a lot. Usually duck waddling noobs whose only question is something synomamous with 'ASL???'

If that was your point, then IMO, you are best off just letting them mosey on their merry way in search of whomever it is they think they are going to find here, because nothing you can say will stop it, even after they learn about SL and how to make themself appear less noobish.

Chipmunk? hmm. seems to me anyone that has figured out how to make themself appear to be a walking, talking woodland creature probably knows a few things about the platform we are on. It may actually be the best person in the room to ask, if you are really looking for technical help, lol. I actually have a very cute chipmunk avi I wear on occasion and having done 3 years of club work and having used several viewers, I can usually give some pretty solid basic help on the things a newcomer might ask.

It wasn't a chipmunk for me on my 1st day. It was an alien. He had more answers than my head was ready to hold and most of it didn't sink in till later when I tried putting it to practical use. I do recal he gave me a joint and a cool hat. That was probably the best part of the encounter asit is still memorable to me as an act of kindness

[Dogboat Taurog]

---

Eileen Fellstein wrote:

If I understand the OP correctly Smoothie, your complaint is new users who base their opinion of wether or not you can be helpful to them on information in the RL portion of your profile?

I've run into that a lot. Usually duck waddling noobs whose only question is something synomamous with 'ASL???'

If that was your point, then IMO, you are best off just letting them mosey on their merry way in search of whomever it is they think they are going to find here, because nothing you can say will stop it, even after they learn about SL and how to make themself appear less noobish.

Chipmunk? hmm. seems to me anyone that has figured out how to make themself appear to be a walking, talking woodland creature probably knows a few things about the platform we are on. It may actually be the best person in the room to ask, if you are really looking for technical help, lol. I actually have a very cute chipmunk avi I wear on occasion and having done 3 years of club work and having used several viewers, I can usually give some pretty solid basic help on the things a newcomer might ask.

It wasn't a chipmunk for me on my 1st day. It was an alien. He had more answers than my head was ready to hold and most of it didn't sink in till later when I tried putting it to practical use. I do recal he gave me a joint and a cool hat. That was probably the best part of the encounter asit is still memorable to me as an act of kindness

---

thats like knowing how to wear clothes, useful to a noob i suppose but hardly advanced stuff.

you chipmunks are getting above your station.

[Eileen Fellstein]

lol!

and yea, wearing clothes seems to be one of those 'advanced' things they haven't got a handle on yet, (though many are already proficient at attaching a 3 prim tinker-toy prim part to their pelvis). Oddly enough, most of them seem to be able to fly, run and TP around the grid rather well, along with having the ability to appear inside of houses in range of a menu driven bed -which they seem to have little problem operating either

[madman626 Fall]

Don't bet on that I have family that still don't have a ideal on how to start a PC and 2 not every one on high speed yet if it wast for my being wireless I still be on dial -up I am not joking ,,, and yeah this is in the USA try looking in the south you find that alot dont have intennet yet .

[StelaNokt]

Well the title says it all.  I lose my inventory until I reboot, but my clothes and hair until I redress.   I have this happen in dressing rooms, but this could happen in PG areas.