As a Second Life Resident, you have a profile that you can customize to share more about yourself. It is opt-in and can be a lot of fun to fill out. Why bother? Many fellow Residents surf profiles, and if you're open to making new friends, a completed profile makes you a much more fascinating person to get in touch with.
How to view and edit your profile
Depending on which you prefer, you can view your profile on the web:
- Go to my.secondlife.com and click Log In.
- Login with your username and password. Your profile appears.
In the Viewer:
- Select Me > Profile...
- Right-click your avatar and select My Profile.
- OR, in the toolbar at the bottom of the Viewer window, click the Profile button.
On both the web and in the Viewer, you can click the Edit Profile button or the Settings tab to start customizing.
Fill out your profile to show off your personality
On the Profile tab of Profile Settings (accessed with the Gear icon on the left sidebar of your profile window), you may fill out the following optional fields:
- Profile Picture
- Display Name
- Biography
- Interests
- Homepage
- Social Identities
- Partner
- Real World Profile Picture
- Real World Biography
Remember that everything in your profile is optional; if you are uncomfortable sharing your real life identity or social identities, you can either leave them blank or update your privacy settings accordingly.
Keep it suitable for everyone
Privacy settings let you choose who can see your information
On the Privacy tab of Profile Settings (accessed with the wrench icon on your profile window), you may choose who is allowed to view specific parts of your profile or post on your profile feed. For each profile section, you may select:
- Everyone - Allows the whole world to see this part of your profile on the web, even if they're not Second Life Residents. You may not allow Everyone to post on your profile feed.
- Second Life - Only Second Life Residents may view these parts of your profile.
- Friends - Only Second Life Residents who are on your Friends list may view these parts of your profile.
- Nobody - This option is only available for your profile feed; if you select Nobody, you may stop everyone from either viewing or posting to your feed.
Receive notifications when someone posts or comments on your profile
On the Notifications tab of Profile Settings, you may choose to receive inworld or email notifications whenever someone posts to your profile feed, comments on your profile, or starts following your profile. Make sure to check all your desired boxes, then click Save.
Some hyperlinks get automatically detected
As you may have already seen when editing your profile, you can provide a home page. But what if that isn't enough? Type in something beginning with "http://" and it gets recognized as a hyperlink. Some domain conventions, like a link beginning with "www.", is also detected. For example, "www.secondlife.com" is recognized, but alas, "secondlife.com" isn't.
Profile icons in the PEOPLE window
Click profile icons in the PEOPLE window (accessed by clicking the People button on the Viewer toolbar) to see a person's profile without having to right-click or go through another menu:
How do I grant permission to a friend to see when I'm online/see me on the map/edit my objects?
In any profile window:
- Click the People icon in the profile window.
- On the Friends tab, find the friend whose permissions you wish to edit, then click the Gear icon next to that friend's name.
- Choose Permissions to open a Permissions dialog.
- Check the boxes for permissions you want your friend to have, then click Save.
Remember to be careful when granting permission to Edit, delete, or take my objects, since this gives your friend permission to edit and delete all your objects! However, this permission does not grant your friends permission to access your inventory.
Real Linden Lab employee profiles have a special icon
When someone claims to be an employee of Linden Lab, you can check that person's profile to find out if they're telling the truth. Every real Linden has the following icon in their profile, so even if they've changed their display name to something creatively colorful, they're the real deal:
Also worth noting: some of you have mentioned a similar thing should be done for Scouts, who are official support belonging to StarTek in a partnership with Linden Lab. Sadly right now, their profiles confusingly show "Resident", but look at their username for the lowdown:
Web links can be opened in-Viewer
Upon clicking an external link in a profile, you'll likely see "A pop-up was prevented from opening." You can choose whether clicking Open pop-up window opens it in the in-Viewer browser or an external browser:
- Select Me menu > Preferences.
- Click Setup tab.
- Select either Use my browser or Use built-in browser.
- Click OK to save.
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