Phil Deakins

Not merely special friend, but the "highest level" of special friend

Absolutely not! It would fly in the face of what SL is, in that we wouldn't have control of who can and cannot be in our own groups. It's a ridiculous idea.

Ah no. My last couple were from someone who has a reputation for being a bit trigger-happy. It was overturned anyway. I've never heard of yours. ETA: I'd never heard of Jagix until you mentioned him/her, but I've just seen that s/he viewed my profile in June - so it was nothing to do with these posts. Maybe they check on a user's history when they are considering whether or not to penalise the person. Or maybe s/he's just the latest Linden to come and see who this fine fellow that the whole Lab is talking about is

It's so much easier, and a lot less confusing, to have enough cutlery (you don't expect us to believe that yours is actually sliverware, do you?) to have a full dishwasher load of washing up, and still have plenty to continue using.

Eh? What have I got to do with it? I've seen that a number of Lindens (not many) have viewed my forum profile. I don't know why, but I like to think that word has spread through the Lab about what a jolly good fellow I am,, and some of them came to look

I don't doubt that. I said earlier that I don't believe that you do it with significant amounts of real money, but in case you do, allow me to offer a word of caution that I know from personal experience. Not every stranger who asks for even small amounts of money on the street, and who look like they really do need it, is genuine. I knew that at the time a couple of men asked me for money for food for themselves. I wouldn't give it because I was certain they wanted it for drink (I could smell drink on them). So, since I was going into a cafe for a meal anyway, I offered to buy them a meal. They didn't want it. They sat on the next table and watched me eating my meal, whilst pestering me for money for food, with the excuse that they would go to a another place that they prefered to eat. They only wanted money for drink. Unfortunately, their pestering succeeded, but I regretted 'helping them out'. Another time, a guy asked me for busfare to get home, telling me the direction where his home is. I gave it to him, and he went off in the opposite direction. I don't know what wanted a couple of quid for, but it wasn't to get home. Many street beggars here in the UK make a very good living from begging. I usually add to it, but I do know that some of them are conning us into believing that they are so down on their luck that they need our help, when they don't. So, as the saying goes, be careful out there.

I haven't judged you. I stated what your post looked like to me. That's not a judgement. It's simply a statement of what your post looked like to me. Read my post again, and don't be so quick to judge. You quoted it, so you ought to have understood it. In the same way, your indication that maybe I don't have a generous heart isn't an actual judgement about me. It's a statement of what I might be, based on your reading of my post. Probably all of us do that, but I've never heard of anyone giving complete strangers (not charities) significant amounts of money just because they ask for it, so I'm inclined to disbelieve that you do that "all the time" in RL. That's not a judgement. I can't know one way or the other, so it's just what I'm inclined to believe. You don't have a post in the sense that you mean. When you start a thread, or even just post in one, it's open to comments/replies from all. You don't have any control over it. I don't know what you need. What I do know is that you don't get to pick and choose who replies, or the nature of the replies.

No.

Trying to be smart about it is rather silly, because it just serves to make you look ridiculous. You have no reason in the world to expect the owners of a world to do what you want. You won't go into a supermarket and find directions to competing supermarkets, will you? Or areas set aside to specifically discuss other supermarkets. You started off ok with this thread, but now you're starting to look like someone who wants to be waited on hand and foot, and everything to be just as you want it to be. You won't find any support for that here.

There may be groups within SL that cover what you want, but there is no forum for it. You could do a search for groups that cover what you want.

If you mean there used to be one in the SL forum, I don't remember one.

@Qie Niangao It sounds like the OP was spamming far and wide, Qie - using groups for names to spam. But it reminded me of a contest that I was persuaded into years ago. I was told that it was to be displays of furniture and, at that time, I was one of the biggest suppliers. I wasn't told that it was a contest, or that people had to pay to vote. I'd been 'used', and it annoyed the hell out of me. It was a money-making scheme, like those beauty contest. But that's irrelevant. The point is, I did not consider the initial contact to be spam, because furniture was my business and the event was only about furniture. It wouldn't have been spam if I'd been contacted out of the blue, and invited to display in an SL Birthday event. Not all unsolicited contact is spam. The OP's was though

An aside, but related: Some years ago, I had a lengthy argument with someone in a forum. I was arguing that unsolicited mail/email/contact is not spam in and of itself. The scenario I used was a manufacturer of pens. A new pen range is manufactured and, imo, it is not spam (in the negative sense) to inform the retailers who sell pens, regardless of whether or not the retailers have been customers or expressed an interest to hear from the manufacturer - sending a brochure through the post for instance. So I contend that not all unsolicted contact is spam. Thank you very much In this case, just because a pair of accounts are partnered doesn't mean that they are into 'couples' events and couples things. The retailers of pens are into buying pens. They depend on them for their livelihood. But a similar conclusion cannot be drawn about SL partners. What the OP did was spam.

That's called spam. I think you'll find that in the SL ToS that you agreed to when you signed up. Imo, the money you paid for the rental weeks that weren't provided was stolen from you. It's not only unfair, it's a crime. But I can't support your spamming. It doesn't matter if you only IMed targeted people (couples), it's still spam. Banning you from a sim (the rental sim) is fair. Keeping the money you paid for the weeks that weren't provided is theft.

Unless the land's covenant contains clear statements about it, it is theft. Unfortunately LL allows thieves to operate like that in SL.

That's how websites should be designed these days. So, for websites that are designed to do that, it's perfectly normal behaviour.

They don't have to be registered as scripted agents, unless they are owned by the land-owner of the land they are on, and the land is in search. Some people seem to imagine that bots must be registered as scripted agents, but those people are totally wrong.

lol - especially about bots. Some people see a bot and think, 'That's not allowed. Traffic bots are banned'. What I don't understand is why LL chose to make it so that we are unable to see whether or not an avatar is registered as a scripted agent. It would have taken a bit of work, as opposed to what they did do - make the simple statement that traffic bots are now banned, but, in the long run, it would have saved work, because it does take time to check on all the bot ARs. I know from personal experience that there are enough interfering busy-bodies around to cause a good deal of extra work checking out bot ARs. Not that I've checked them out - I've never been on that side of things lol. The experience is from is people ARing my bots, and threatening to AR them if I don't remove them, which I never did, of course. I never broke that rule so their ARs got nowhere, except that they wasted the AR team's time. Busy-bodies like being busy-bodies, and they constantly keep an eye open for things they can interfere with.

What on earth makes you think that it's traffic bots that have ended up there? Don't other bots get logged out and end up in such places on auto-logging in again?

@Maryanne Solo Now I understand you. My first post responded to what it looked like you were saying, and after that I misread 'conversion' as 'conversation'. In view of your explanation, I now understand that you meant that you'd like to see a sim/portal in SL that links to other worlds. At first glance it does seem like a reasonable idea, but, apart from mega technical difficulties due to the design and operation of avatars in the various worlds, the fact remains that anything you take with you from SL into another world can be stolen. Avatar design and operation isn't a big problem though. All a person would need need is an account in the other world, and a portal here in SL that moves the person into the other world in their account in that world. You mentioned something about flexiprims and freezing the avatar as it is, so I guess that you were thinking of moving your SL avatar into the other world. That idea presents huge technical difficulties. So huge that, for that reason alone, it won't happen. A portal that automatically logs a person out of SL and automatically logs them into another world can be easily done, but is incredibly unlikely to happen, for the simple reason, why would one world (SL) send its customers to a competitor's world? I wouldn't if I were in charge of a world like SL. I just can't see competing worlds agreeing to do that. Sansar is different. It does what you want, but you're probably thinking of other worlds such as WoW, and it doesn't do that. It only moves avatars between Sansar worlds. The worlds can be huge though. Not yet, because I don't think anyone is paying for their world. People are just fiddling with it, but when people pay, they can create huge worlds - as big as they want to pay for. Maybe in the future, a few Sansar worlds will become very popular, and even compete with successful worlds like SL. I don't think that will happen, but that's just my current opinion. I hope I'm proved to be wrong.

@Maryanne Solo Your problem was, and still is, that what you claimed to be "quite clear and precise", wasn't that at all, and your further explanation didn't clear anything up. Do you want a portal for avatars to go through to reach other worlds?, or do you want a conversation facility between worlds? Your 'clarification' said, "A conversion hub for your avatar to use it elsewhere. Thats all.", and yet you still talk as though you meant avatars to actually go to the other places. To be quite clear and precise, you really do need to be clear and precise, and state exactly what you mean, leaving nothing for the readers to work out for themselves. There are people here with plenty of 'tech savviness'. Your "game company dev friendships" mean nothing about your own tech savviness. They are merely friendships and are nothing to do with your own knowledge. I don't know what your I.T. qualifications are. They may or may not say something about your tech savviness. But having I.T. (Information Technology) qualifications doesn't mean that a person knows anything about I.T's underlying systems and programming, and it's that tech savviness that needs to be understood to achieve what you suggested - whatever it is you suggested, because you still haven't been clear about it. ETA: Oops. I made a mistake. I originally misread "conversion" and thought it said "conversation", and I've been misreading it ever since. So cancel everything I said about 'conversation', and refer back to my first post in this thread.

Along with yours then. I saw those posts. Even so, it shouldn't be telling me that there are 8 new posts and then continually adding then to what's already being shown (repeating them). Still, nothing''s perfect. Not even me. Well... maybe me

This thread has gone weird. I clicked it in my 'Unread' list and it showed post down to PeterCanessa Oh's but it didn't show the post that was listed in my 'Unread' list - Ceka's post. Whilst I've been looking at the thread, it kept telling me that there 8 new posts and I click to show them. All it does is repeat 8 posts, from the 2nd post (ist reply) down to PeterCanessa's. Then next time it adds them again, and so on. I'm wondering if this post will be shown. ETA: It's shown for me, but where's Ceka's post?, and the new one she replied to? And will anyone else be able to see this one?

So how does... equate with... What you consider to be "quite clear and precise" when it's in your mind, didn't transpose to your written word. E.g. "Your avi is locked down clothing/appearance wise and off you go." sounds very much like 'off you go to another world', and nothing remotely similar to "A conversion hub". In short, your proposal, as you posted it, was a very long way from being "clear and precise". As it stands now, your proposal is still a long way from being clear and precise. I don't know if you just want inter-world conversation, or if you want avatars to be able to go to other worlds from SL. If it's the latter, and I do think it is, not only has it been discussed before but it was actually done. It was only a test though, and the other world was an OpenSim grid, I think owned by IBM, and not a commercial player, such as WoW. The idea was rightly abandoned. I don't know why, but let me be clear and precise about this. Once you take your avatar to another world, the owner of the other world can steal whatever you take with you, such as clothes and skin. So your idea of locking the avatar down is no good. It can't be locked.

I don't think so