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Nikolai Warden

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Posts posted by Nikolai Warden

  1. I have read the TOS, and have long known that child avatars are permitted (at sim owner discretion) on adult rated sims. My question has to do with the bit about proximity to sex scripted objects.  Just how far away must a child avatar be from such an object without violating TOS? For example, if I have a sex bed and a friend wearing a toddler avatar visits in the living room, 10 meters away from the bed, is that far enough away? If I have a large house or skybox with several bedrooms, is down the hall far enough away?

  2. No, you are correct. They are not hard and fast facts, merely observations I and a few other hosts, DJ friends, and dancers have made over the years. People tip what they can, when they can, of course.

    However, I think what constitutes a "good" tip has somewhat of a cultural basis. What is sometimes perceived as under tipping at some gay clubs is perceived as exceedingly generous at other venues. I did not mention that as a criticism.

    Having attended parties for years at European owned clubs, I noticed tips of 10 to 25 Lindens being more the norm. This led to my belief that SL is pricier for some than others. Once again, these are my impressions, not hard facts.

  3. I think that the majority of free accounts are not griefing/stalker or content theft or scammer accounts. I think it is just that there is no incentive to be a premium member unless one wishes to own mainland parcels.

    The majority of people I have met in SL with premium accounts have them in order to live economically in SL. A Linden home, and 300L a week that they save up in order to shop in SL, and whatever other perks premium membership offers. I suspect it is the opposite of what severa, here seem to think ... LL may attempt to peddle premium accounts as being oh, better or elitist or what have you, but those I know with free accounts spend more in SL in a month than many with premium accounts spend in a year, including the cost of the premium membership.

    As to the issues of griefing, stalking, content theft, and scamming, other than the last on the list, I suspect  there is much less of that in SL than one would suppose if one goes by the content of the forums.

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  4. All these suggestions are great. One thing I would add is to treat everyone in a friendly manner regardless of whether they tip or not. Also, thank everyone sincerly, whether someone gives you a 20 L tip or 500 L tip, the thank you should be just as warm and friendly.

    Along with not asking for tips, I would add not getting in someone's IM and disparaging that person for not tipping, or threatening to boot someone for that reason. Yes, incredibly there is at least one host I know who threatens contest and sploder winners for not tipping a portion of their winnings.

    Every DJ, dancer, and host I have encountered always says it is not about the tips, but rather the fun. I tend to think this is for the most part bunk, but if you are doing it for the money, some virtual method acting may be required.

    Also, patrons at gay venues tend to tip better than at other venues, and a lot of Europeans tip less than people from other parts of the world, due I suspect, to the added cost they have in purchasing Lindens.

  5. Some people I know rent parcels, full sims, and homesteads at cost, because owning a private region is not always driven by profit. Two people I know parcel their sims quite generously and rent by the prim rather than by the amount of land. So for instance, a renter wants use of a maximum of 1000 prims. The parcel they rent holds 1500 prims. The parcels are all set to the same group and the "owner" manages the parcel via the settings in about land.

    The group that the parcels are all set to are closed groups, so the only people who can rez are one's neighbors. Given that each parcel has prims to spare, people can "borrow" prims if they are building something, or say, having an event, without having items returned. If prims get tight, people clean up their building platforms or tighten their orim belts a wee bit here and there, because their neighbors do the same for them.

    This does not work for everyone, of course. However, for the last three years I have lived at sims that run this way and it is a very friendly, neighborly way of doing things.

    I lived on a large mainland parcel owned by a friend, and it was a less than satisfactory experience. One can live in sky boxes or domes, or use screens on the ground, but if living on the ground, there tends to be such flotsom suspended at low altitude nearby that reducing one's draw distance is necessary.

    Ban lines abound, and it can take a lot of prims to hide the horrid, dated ground textures. The limited terraforming is also a challenge in creating a nice environment on the ground.

     Lag on a mainland sim can occur with nothing to be done about it. One cannot turn off a neighbor's heavily scripted objects, nor do anything about someone who has autoreturn off and their parcel open to object entry  object creation, and scripts.

    Given such limitations, I would choose to pay a wee bit more to live on a private sim than mainland, were that necessary. I do not know, but suspect that there are at least as many reputable private estate owners as there are mainland owners.

    Oh and in my experience, "purchasing" land at a private region usually costs very little if anything, or at most, the first week's rent.

    I have friends that get together and share the cost of a sim, and that can work out well. It can also end in disaster, though it seems to me that if they are good friends and not romantic partners, it tends to work out better. 

  6. I do not know what clubs you go to, but the straight clubs I have gone to and danced a gropey couples dance or waltz or such tend to be jazz clubs or ballrooms with both me and my fellow wearing tuxedos. I have seen other male couples at such venues as well.  In general though, if it is not an intentionally romantic venue or event, I do not see couples dancing together  ... oh the occasional couple here and there, dancing some slow romantic dance to high energy dance or rock tunes, but I think I speak for more than just myself when I tend to think "gosh, can they not just get a room?"

    As for being inhibited, well in general, a club that defines itself as "straight" can be full of straight men, and while no, they are not going to drag me outside and beat me up for being gay, as it is SL after all, they can (and do) make snarky, hateful, anti gay comments in IM or open chat. The prevalence of such unpleasant conversations is far less than it used to be, but still, who wants to go out for a nice time and have nasty remarks and such directed toward them?

    In gay clubs, there are straight men who come for the music, for the dancing, and to hang out with friends. Some bring their girlfriends, others do not. No one is inhibited. I am a stripper at one such place and the straight fellows will tip me and not balk at a sexy emote for a thank you from me.

    From what I have seen and experienced, a good many gay men prefer to dance in sync on someone's chim, in pairs or a row. I do not quite grasp that, as it always reminds me of a chorus line or dancers on those 1970s era variety shows (WOW, I am in a gay version of the Donny and Marie Show!).

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  7. The quality of your graphics card, your graphics setting, a good eye, and use of effective windlight (relating to having a good eye) can produce superb results without needing any post processing beyond perhaps cropping and resizing. This is particularly true in regard to landscape photography, but applies to portraiture as well. Especially now with mesh bodies that do not have jagged angles and edges that would require editing out, great photos can be done by choosing proper lighting and poses.  Some of the really well known photographers in SL do a lot of heavy post processing which is part of their personal style, and that is grand but not necessary. There is a flickr group for unedited SL photos, and I am often quite impressed.

    That being said, I go through phases of taking unedited photos and then alternating with photos I have edited the heck out of. Both have appeal for me.

    As Chase said, it is easier for people to take better quality profile pictures of themselves, and I have seen a fair amount. However, a good many cannot, as they lack the vision of which Tamara wrote. A good way to get business is to do an amazing self portrait for your own profile, as well as asking those whose photos you do to credit you in their profile. But definitely get out and about ... take photos at parties and give them to the venue owner if they are great shots, get involved in social activities and venues that oh, have contests and calendars featuring staff or regulars. Sometimes when I see someone with a very well done avatar, I ask if I can take his or her photo and send it to that person gratis when done, asking if I can post it on my flickr page.

  8. It has nothing to do with unfair land pricing advantages. One must own a heck of a lot of sims in order to get any sort of discounts ... I remember years ago, someone who owned upwards of 40 sims (most homesteads with a few full regions) complaining bitterly that he was not a big enough land owner to get discounts.

    Some places have a good vibe to them that takes years to establish, regardless of how pretty (or ugly) the sim is. Other places open and become popular sooner, once again, because of the vibe ... lots of parties, lots of shops, and things to do. A homestead simply does not have either the prims or the resources to support that sort of thing. Hanging out at a pretty place and the occasional party is not enough to make a gay hang out popular. Parties with popular DJs all week long, places to shop, snuggle areas and residential rentals, and a positive attitude and sense of genuine fun, rather than worrying about traffic or how to make tier, will usually generate traffic.

    I know several sim owners for whom rentals and donations are not enough to break even on the tier.  Many do not aim to do so, but when they do, it is a plus. For some, making a bit back on the tier is enough, and the rest is chalked up to monthly entertainment budget. It seems to me that if one struggles to pay tier, and must rely on others in SL to supplement it, one may be living beyond one's virtual means.

    Your sim has not been open very long ... I recall the notices on Facebook. If you are not getting popular DJs for several parties a week, if it is just a nice place to hang out ... well, people can stay home for a nice place to hang out. I will also point out that your sim bears the same name as an iconic SL gay club that closed in 2010, due to the owner's ill health. He passed away in 2013 and was much beloved in the gay community. When I saw the Facebook post for your place, I thought ... but that is the name of Marcus' club! That might be a bit off putting to some. I know it was to me.

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  9. On 5/19/2017 at 0:12 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

    The OP believes that if she follows her landlord's policies, she will BOTH be paying the search fee to LL, AND paying an additional $L30 a week to her landlord.  That's the whole point of the discussion

    Yes, I realize that is the point of the discussion, but from what I read of the original post, that does not seem to be the case, and the OP's belief is an erroneous one, as you pointed out earlier in the thread ...

     

    On 5/15/2017 at 2:02 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

     What they are doing:  As the actual estate owner, THEY pay the $L30 per week to show any parcels in Search.  What they are doing is, if you want your land to be shown in Search, they're passing that cost on to you.  You are NOT being charged both by the estate and by Linden Lab

     

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  10. Purchasing any shape can be seen as a scam really, as anyone can modify the system shape with which an avatar is virtually born. When I see "bento" shapes on the market, I see them advertised as being optimized for a particular bento head, and they usually come with a style card. So really, what people are buying is a shape that will influence the look of the bento head. It is no more a scam than selling any shape for those who are shape modifying impaired, so to speak.

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  11. You can contact an estate manager and ask if that person is banned. If it is a large estate, the ban could be estate wide, though the option to ban someone on a single sim in an estate does exist.

  12. On 4/26/2017 at 9:40 PM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

    The difference is, when you rent land, you can't "buy" mainland like u can "buy" on a private estate. When I rent a parcel on a private estate, i "buy" it, become the land owner instantly, and have full land rights. On mainland i have to wait for the owner to show up and add me to his land group before I can do anything, which when compared to a private estate is probably very little

    While this is often the case, a good many private estates do not rent parcels in such a way as to make the renter the "owner" of the parcel. Renting, rather that buying at a private estate, is fairly common for urban sims. Other estates have it set up so that while all or some of the parcels may be "purchased," regardless of titular ownership of the parcels, all must be set to the estate's group. Some estate owners do not like to give full land rights to tenants because not everyone knows what they are about when it comes to land settings and the like.

  13. Hmmm ... the 30L per week listing fee has nothing to do with rent. It is an additional feature that costs additional Lindens. I do not see how it is charging a person twice. It is a service fee, not part of the rent. If one chooses not to have one's parcel show in search, the fee is not incurred. It does not seem fair to expect a landlord to pick up that fee. That landlord could have hundreds of tenants, each wanting the parcel to show in search. At 30L a parcel, that would add up significantly. The 30L per week for a listing in search is a cost of doing business.

     

  14. In my experience, it has, on occasion, taken a very long time for contents to load, when there are say, hundreds of things in a box. Eventually they will load, although it might take a VERY long  time... as in going away from the computer, cooking a meal, eating, doing the dishes, taking a nap and coming back later long time.  I have never experienced items never ever loading though. However, sometimes when I am putting items into a box, they do not show up. In that case, I hit the refresh button and click on another, unrelated item nearby while in edit mode and  then back on the item I want to load and that seems to get it to load. If no items in anything you rez ever ever load, no matter where you are, etcetera, well I would suggest submitting a support ticket.

  15. If this person is making alt after alt and there is no keeping him away from the sim ... well is he doing anything other than obnoxious and vile IMs?  As soon as it is apparent that it is the same person, if you do not reply, mute, and ban him immediately, he may lose interest. It seems obvious that he derives pleasure from being offensive, so if you do not give him the chance, he may tire of this. As far as keeping him off the sim you call home, unless the sim closes to the public and uses a white list for access, there seems little chance of that happening, unless his alts do not have payment information on file typically, in which case the sim could be set to allow only those with payment information there. Of course, that might have a negative impact on your club. As for there being a club on the land ... some time back, a popular club was suffering serious griefing attacks and the sim was closed to the public, with group access only. That is another option. If this person is using offensive HUDs to push or rez obnoxious things, then setting the sim to group only for rezzing, object creation, and scripts, while a tad extreme, would put a stop to that. If he is IMing people and saying offensive, obnoxious things, that is not necessarily against TOS or community standards, it depends on what he is saying in the IMs. If he is violating nothing but good manners, there is nothing LL will do to put a stop to that, as you have the tools to stop it yourself. If that is the case, ignoring him via muting is the best option and booting him when he comes around ... keep in mind, the amount of people that can be on a sim's ban list is limited to 500 and banning his alts will only go so far.

    I have found that people who are stalked in SL cannot seem to help but respond to obnoxious messages and efforts the stalker takes to disrupt the person's SL. Every time you respond with anything other than muting without saying a word, you will add fuel to the fire. In one case I know, harassing a fellow has seemingly become another person's SL reason for being, and getting upset and outraged over this has become the first fellow's entire SL. It goes on for years because the one doing  the harassing knows it upsets his victim. At this point, it has gone on so long that it is doubtful the stalker would believe it were his victim to pretend to ignore him, as he knows if he continues to push, eventually he will get a verbal response.

    It is only a serious issue if you make it a serious issue. Someone saying vile things is merely someone saying vile things, until you react. If there is no ridding yourself of this person, perhaps a change in perspective could help. Why get worked up over someone being obnoxious over and over? Why not see it for the pathetic buffoonery it is?

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  16. Caitlin, your video of Chelford is wonderful. Ian did an amazing job of landscaping and decor and it is good to have photos and videos to remember both the sim and the charming, creative fellow behind it. Keira is a friend of mine, and Ian I knew more casually, though he impressed me with his intelligence, wit, charm, and devotion to Keira.

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  17. Ziggy, come visit us ... I can put up a skybox for you or rez a BB mat for you ... I shan't peek (hmm there is a pun in there related to peaking), I promise. Seriously, it is a pretty private sim and oh one of the naughtier residents already has stuff in his skybox you could use. Just open the windows and launder the sheets when you are done.

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  18. Rhonda, I mistyped something ... I meant to say that I know many who spend more in a month than premium account holders spend on the premium in a year. 

    As far as the rest of my post ... it is not my vision. I was relaying the gist of various conversations I have had over the years with others. Nice mainland sims are expensive to purchase after all, and I have certainly seen (and know) quite a number of premium members who spend a lot in SL. Those I know in SL with premium accounts tend to live on private estates and use their Linden homes for a safe haven on Tuesdays while fleeing the rolling restarts. I lived on a mainland sim myself for 15 months. It was actually during that time I heard the worst of such comments. One friend of mine who has a very successful business in SL and is about 10 years in SL swears he has never once been to mainland. That is much of what I hear, OMG I would never go to mainland, how _____ (insert negative stereoype). In fact, some of the clubs these people frequent and places they shop are located on the mainland. 

    I was attempting to address something I noted as a mite odd here in the forums, this notion that people who have premium accounts are seen as elite when I have not encountered many who view them in such a fashion. I was not disparaging those with such accounts. There may be divisiveness in SL for various reasons but whether one has a premium account or not does not, in world, seem to be one of them.

    Offering blessings to some does not mean cursing others, and the perks offered for premium accounts are not excessive nor do they seem to have much impact on those without such accounts.  

    I have no facts or data to back up what I said, as I was recounting the essence of myriad conversations I have had with others, though I do know what some pay for rent, and I have seen how much a great many spend on tips at parties ($15 to upwards of $40 USD a week).

  19. Most conversations I have had with people questioning the benefits of premium membership go something like this ...

    "Well, you can have a free Linden home or purchase a 512m plot on mainland without having to pay tier on it." 

    "Who the heck wants to live in one of those ugly houses, with such a small prim allowance, or on mainland with its lack of covenants and poor region management>"

    "Hmmm ... you get a 300L per week stipend too."

    "I spend 10 times that just tipping DJs in a week, that is a drop in the bucket."

    "Oh there are sandboxes and regions only open to premium members"

    "I have my own sandbox on the homestead I rent/ my landlord provides a sandbox to tenants/who the heck wants a use of a sandbox when I can buy what I want. I have seen pictures of those premium only regions, and why would I want to go there?"

    Many I have encountered have never been to mainland, they are not builders (and have no need of a sandbox), and they spend far more per month in Second Life than a premium member spends on the membership fee. Quite a few have also voiced the opinion that premium account holders, far from being the elite, are in fact, the hoi polloi, too hard up financially to afford tiers or rents on private estates, or spend money on nice houses, and are forced to live in the LL free premium home ghetto. 

    The perks that LL gives premium members are viewed by more than a few as attempts to make those who cannot afford nicer things feel welcome in SL. A good many premium members spend far less in SL than non premium members, living on the cheap, so to speak. I have encountered few, outside the forums, who think of premium members as the elite of SL. Given how many premium account holders do live cheaply in SL, I wonder whether they would have that much an impact on sales events to the point that non premium members would sense there is anything unfair or amiss.

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