Suggestion: Warn if IMing Someone On Mute List

[Rygel Ryba]

I can't even begin to count the number of times a customer contacts me with a "I bought such-and-so and it never arrived!" so I resend it with a message and then the next day they IM me again saying they still don't have it and they start to call me names for not getting back to them. Invariably, the solution is to find a friend to IM them and say, "Hey - you accidentally muted him and his stuff - unmute him and he'll send you your purcahase!"

 

It doesn't seem that difficult to create a bit of warning text that would appear on the chat window that lights up if you IM someone who is on your mute list. Could also have another flag on their profile or something. I know steps are being taken to make that "Ignore" button further away so it's less likely to happen on delivery, but... it's still happening and it doesn't seem like it would add much overhead (if any) to check a local cache of the mute list when a profile and IM window is opened up.

[Freecilla Kuhn]

If you IM someone that is on your mute list you will get a warning telling you if you send the message they will be off your mute list or click cancel to keep them on your mute list and you will not be able to IM them.

In the old profiles of V1 the Mute button greys out as after you mute them so you know they are muted, I do not remember noticing if this happens in the new profiles though.

[Dazler]

I have used Snowglobe and the Linden Lab Second Life viewer and I am not sure what your problem is. If you send an instant message to a person who is muted, a warning dialogue appears on screen to inform you that the person was previously muted. You can only send an instant message to that person if you elect to remove them from your mute list. If you refuse to remove the "mute" status, the message cannot be sent. I assumed other viewers would have a similar system.

[Rygel Ryba]

Hmmm. Maybe there are just a large number of my customeres using old 1.x based viewers still.

[Dazler]

You say that you have lost count of the number of times this has happened. Perhaps, if this is so, it is a completely different problem. If this is costing you the loss of goodwill, I would recommend that you talk to your customers and find out what the issue is.

[Innula Zenovka]

I know there's an issue with the llDialog menu in newer versions of the official viewer, in that it has a Mute button that's a very good defence against spam attacks, but is also too easy to hit inadvertently.

While I'm sure that (accidentally) muting your product server would mute you, too, I'm not sure that unmuting you will also unmute the product server.   So that might be the problem.

However, I think it would be worth investigating the alternative possibility that your customers are, in fact, being sent the items but are missing the notifications; I know my building partner (who certainly doesn't have me muted) often doesn't seem to receive items I've sent her because the notification toaster gets lost under all the other things popping up in the same part of her viewer window at the same time.  

If that happens, I think the fate of your items depends both on the viewer you're using and what you have it set to (it seems more of a problem for my building partner than for me -- I'm not sure it that's to do with the fact she uses Firestorm and I normally use TPVs more closely based on the Official viewer's UI, or if it's simply that she pays less attention to the little notifications button than do I).

[Rygel Ryba]

Yeah. That could be right.

The big problem is that I don't know if they have muted me or if it's a failed delivery until they write me back a second time to tell me that they are annoyed that I didn't respond to their first enquiry. At that point, I can be certain that it comes down to them muting me somehow. I know it's inadvertant, but I can't fix the situation without finding someone else to IM them and tell them.

 

Based upon the initial posts, I'm suspecting a large part of it is people still using 1.x based TPVs where some of the advances haven't taken place. I don't mute people, so I'm not really sure how 2.x+ viewers are handling it.