Beth Macbain

The lesson to be learned is to always be Dolly... unless you can be Rose. Always be Rose. ❤️

Being the person accused of the alleged “scorn laughing” I can only say my use of each of the five emojis provided to us to respond to posts covers a plethora of emotions and summing all of them up in one choice is often difficult and frequently misconstrued. Scorn is absolutely not the emotion I’m attempting to convey, and since I’m the only person privy to my emotions, unless I specifically use actual words to say what exact emotion I’m feeling that could be displayed through laughter, and there are many, no one else can really be certain, can they?

❤️

Gobsmacked.

I am Satan, it seems. Or satin. Possibly Batman. Satanic Batman in satin? Something like that anyway...

Patch’s balls.

Who’s to say I’m not the one who put him there?! 😝 I love trains, btw. All sorts of trains!

I love this so much!

I LOVE IT! We need something to replace the Belliserrian newspaper, right??

Gosh, Luna, I'd hate to have to report you for harassing me by following me around the forums and scorn-posting responses to everything I say. Just kidding... I can defend myself perfectly fine. Pot, meet Kettle.

Chasing the Dragon If Patch so much as shifts and lifts, someone is going to read some deeper meaning into it and start speculating that he's about to release 20 regions simultaneously, and then someone is going to read that and report that Patch is definitely going to be releasing 20 regions simultaneously, then that is going to morph into someone saying Patch said he was absolutely going to release 20 regions simultaneously, all because he adjusted his balls. These balls, you dirty birds...

Yes, isn't it?

I genuinely find your posts hilarious, Luna. There's nothing scornful about it.

Or repeatedly telling others to shut up? If use of an emoji provided by our hosts is a reportable offense, surely that is as well.

This thread has gone from offensive to outrageous. Is there anything more to say? Stefon doesn't think so.

They could easily be part-time Mentor-Moles working remotely from anywhere in the world. I'm not necessarily supportive of the mentor thing, though, unless it's done on ask for basis rather than having a bunch of cheery people greeting me as soon as I have my noob pixel legs underneath me. Instead of posters and signs, new users should be given notecards that they can read once they realize they aren't going to figure things out on their own, and one could be about how to find a mentor. People learn in all different sorts of ways, and any one way shouldn't be forced on people, and the current new user experience feels extremely forced to me. For some that would work great, for others, though, not so much. One thing I do know is that it would be a terribly tacky mistake to have advertising vomiting all over the new user experience.

What an unfair and ugly thing to say.

Don't know what news you're reading, but does it start with an F and end in an ox? Because I wouldn't give much weight to that particular news...

It would be great if I knew I was supposed to do those things, but I didn't. I'm just starting a new, exciting Thing and I want to get into doing the Thing. Take me where the Thing is happening, and give me the tools to be able to go back and figure out the Thing once I realize I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the Thing and need more knowledge. Chances are when people are joining SL it's because they've seen something that piqued their interest. Imagine if when they very first started, they were brought into something that is interesting instead of being forced to run the gauntlet and then dropped in the middle of a puzzle. What do people really want to know when they first log in? Not what they need to know, but what they want to know? Base the new user experience from that starting point. And when I left Social Island, that freaking HUD wouldn't detach for anything. I've been attaching and detaching HUDs for 13 years and nothing worked. Since other people aren't complaining, it was probably just a glitch, but if I were brand new, I wouldn't know that. Had I been an actual new user, I don't know that I'd have come back for a second try. I think the entire new user experience needs to be tossed out the door and rebuilt from an entirely new perspective, and one that doesn't assume that the new resident isn't computer literate. Most people are these days and I don't think they need the basics. Provide the tools to learn those, yes, if needed, but not forced on everyone. Getting started in SL is still an utterly exasperating experience.

So you're only a white knight on the internet? Because an adolescent isn't a small child, and knows damn well he shouldn't be saying something is "gay" in a derogatory manner. And perhaps, as you were sitting in that dentist office, there was someone else in the room who is gay, and was left feeling awful after both hearing what the kid said, and seeing no one even so much as side-eye the little twerp. I don't think I'm a white knight at all, but if some bratty kid sitting next to me is calling things "gay" or using the n-word or the r-word or something else horribly offensive, and Mom and/or Dad is doing nothing, I'm going to tell the kid to shut it because I don't want to hear his crap much less anyone else. As for this particular thread, if the OP knew the guy as well as some here want to assume she does, she would not only know for certain whether or not he was disabled, but also know the exact nature of the disability. There is something that smells incredibly off about her post, and her responses, and I'm pretty tempted to call BS on all of this. Is there really any argument to be had, though, when it comes to freaking not using words that are broadly considered offensive? The R word. The N word. Calling things or people gay as an insult, or *****, or *****. Any of the words and phrases Selene posted that refer to Indians? The K word, the S word, the B word... almost every group of people who have ever been marginalized have words or phrases that have been used as insults, derogatory slang, etc., and we all know what those words or phrases are. How can anyone argue that any of those things aren't offensive, when they absolutely offend large groups of people?

Oh, I completely agree. My point there was that to see these children one would never know that their brains were completely cognizant and that they are able to hear and understand what is being said around them. It's just a nasty word and shouldn't be used. There doesn't need to be conditions put on it.

A few months ago, I created an alt for the first time in years. The first part (I'm assuming that was Learning Island) was fine, if needlessly HUGE. The second part? I guess it's Social Island? I was completely lost. I had no freaking idea what I was supposed to be doing, no direction to go, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to any of it, had no idea what I was supposed to do once I gave up on trying to figure out what on earth I was supposed to be doing, what this HUD thing was that attached to me was, what the not-Linden currency thing was... I just thought it was absolutely unhelpful and nothing a real new user would need in any way, shape, or form. There are so, so, so many ways the entire experience could be easily improved to be actually useful.

I work with children who have all sorts of mental and physical illnesses and disabilities. I would venture a well-educated guess that many of these kids with extreme physical limitations and disabilities have higher IQs than anyone in these forums, yet they frequently and maliciously hear the r-word or are called the r-word in school, on the bus, on outings, even in the halls where I work (and they live). How lacking in empathy does a person have to be to argue the hateful point that these children, or any children, or any adult, should not be offended by a word that is almost always used in an incredibly derogatory manner in today's society? How dare anyone think they have any right to tell another person what is offensive and what isn't? The r-word is an offensive word. Period. It causes pain to a great many people. It matters not one single iota that anyone believes it isn't offensive because it is. The individual human beings that this word is used to describe say it is an offensive word. Why is this so hard for anyone to understand?

Shhhhh... don't tell my bosses that I've been watching this at work... Congress isn't nearly as much fun to watch.