Scylla Rhiadra

Indeed not. There are some people to whom you barely have to respond, though. They are not going to change or grow, because they are incapable. And their inner ugliness is so readily apparent to everyone else every time they open their mouths to speak, that it is hardly necessary to refute them: they are their own counter-argument.

So much empathy and compassion on display here.

Assuming that I understand what you're asking (and maybe I don't) . . . That would seem likely involve an enormous amount of complication, as there must be many dozens, if not hundreds, of different rates of sales tax that might be applicable, not just for the US, but for other international residents as well. Presumably they have a database for that somewhere, or they couldn't charge it -- but connecting that to individual land tier calculations would probably not be trivial, especially as they'd need to know where you resided, information probably not associated directly with your account dashboard.

There was, at one time, an SL sim for Toronto. Its focus was the Eaton Centre, a giant shopping mall . . . (Although, in fairness, it did include Dundas Square, which is a legitimately "Toronto" people place, and the subway system.)

Right! That's actually a good case in point. I don't have an "answer" to this. An actual Parisian or Roman or Londoner would be likely to think of what is most representative of their cities as things quite different from my experiences. And honestly, I'd be disappointed if I went to "Paris" and there wasn't a nice boulangerie there, or shopping arcades, or vendors along the banks of the Seine.

Oh, I get it. But you're Dutch, and what you think of as especially representative of the Netherlands is likely to be different from what I, as a foreigner and/or tourist, thinks.

Transphobia (which would generally include intolerance of non-binary identities) is definitely covered by the LL ToS as a form of intolerance, but the likelihood of getting any response from the governance team would depend very much on the nature of the harassment. In general, as Molly suggests above, they'll expect you to deal with it yourself by blocking the person. If that proves inadequate, you'll need to carefully document the harassment and file an AR against the person, which can be difficult if the harassment is indirect (for instance, spreading lies about someone and trying to have them ostracized or banned from a community). For good or ill, someone who is just displaying intolerance and bigotry in chat, say, or perhaps even on their profile, is unlikely to be disciplined -- although I think that can vary somewhat depending on the nature of the infraction. There ARE plenty of LGBTQ+ groups in SL that are likely to provide support for you -- in fact, I created one many years ago myself, although it's no longer very active. And search reveals at least one group that is actually called "Non-Binary," and is intended to function as a support group. You might check these out.

I think that there are some dangers in assuming that a recreation of an RL place -- including, often, something of its culture -- needs to be too obviously "representative." The problem is that it would be very easy to reduce complicated locales to cliches. For instance, I am Canadian -- would recreating my home city, Toronto, necessitate cramming in a hockey rink, a poutine take-out, a smiling red-coated Mountie, and a moose or two? I've no doubt that there are parts of Norway that look very much Second Norway. Isn't it maybe pandering a bit to stereotypes to cavil, as non-Norwegians, about how people from that country represent themselves?

Many thanks, Strawberry. I was pretty sure I'd been relatively recently! That'll teach me not to actually check it out for myself. And hopefully, it will be of use to Milla too!

I could have sworn I'd been to it more recently than that -- although certainly not within the last year or so. But I'll take Tyche's word for it. All of which just makes the fact that, 5 years later, it is still in the Destination Guide all the more incomprehensible.

Paris 2000 is the more modern recreation I was thinking of. But Machu Picchu is gone? And Venice is closed off? Then why are they still in the Destination Guide!?!?!? Grrrrrrrr!!

I assume you mean objects that light things up, rather than environmental lighting (e.g., the sun and the moon)? You can buy lights on the Marketplace, but they are very easy to make yourself. You'll find all the information you need here:

I'm always a bit puzzled as to why this subject creates so much contention. Like most people here, I wish that more avatar components, accessories, and clothing were "mod." I doubt I'd do a lot of modifications, but there certainly have been occasions when I'd have liked to. But were I to limit my purchases of these things to items that had mod perms, my choices would be severely limited. So I don't. (Structures, decorative objects, vehicles, furniture, and so forth, are a different thing: I won't buy these if they are no-mod.) I'm not particularly impressed with the "don't mess with my perfect creation!" argument: I'm not buying art, I'm buying objects that I want to modify to make them uniquely me, which is the whole point of avatar customization. I do suspect that selling objects mod would increase the volume of people requiring assistance of CSRs, and so forth, but I don't think that in itself is a compelling enough argument. There are ways to respond to that. So I think more clothing and avatar components could, and should, be mod. But what I, or you, or anyone thinks on this subject is kinda irrelevant. Creators mostly don't want to do this. And, given the free market system and lack of guidance, incentive, or coercion from above, the only thing likely to change their minds about this is market forces. Enough people have to start demanding mod items, that sales of no-mod goods start actually suffering. And that's just not going to happen. So, SL will drift along in its own inimitably inefficient way, with creators calling the shots, and a mostly oblivious, passive, or indifferent community of consumers making do . . . because mobilizing to a degree that might compel change is work, and not much fun.

It occurs to me that @milla0097 might find her task a bit easier if she can locate recreations with active communities already in place. Lindal mentioned Mother Road (Route 66), which I should have remembered myself, as I took a photo there 5 days ago. It has, I think, a pretty active community -- but I don't know how many people visit Route 66 in RL as tourists? On the other hand, 1920s Berlin has a probably unrivalled community -- and although it's an historical recreation, I'd be very unsurprised to learn that that community includes at least a few people who have visited Berlin subsequent to their experience of the SL place, and probably in part prompted by it. Scapa Flow also has a smallish community -- but again, do people visit the RL place as tourists? (*shivers*) If she is willing to also include more "generic" RL destinations, there are places like The Village of Ciampi, which is a sort of generic recreation of a small Italian town and port (Tuscanny? Umbria?), and which also has a pretty active community. And in that case, I also know the owner reasonably well.

I won't likely be able to log in until sometime tomorrow to see what I've got in my LM folder, but a few thoughts off the top of my memory. Kowloon Scapa Flow -- Historical, but lovingly recreated. I know the owner/creator quite well Venice -- If this is the one I think it is, it's VERY well done Machu Picchu -- Quite an old build I think, but still really interesting Hotel Chelsea, NYC -- Also reasonably old, but worthwhile and quite popular New Berlin -- Quite nice, modern recreation. Includes Alexanderplatz. There is another quite nice and more modern rendition of Paris, but I'd need to search my LMs. Also, the Time Portal has recreations of New York (1930s & 40s; 1950s & 60s) and London (1940) as well as Berlin. I'll send you more . . . eventually!

ok

In instance at the club that I recounted, the issue wasn't really about trying to change anyone's opinion or "educate" them. The woman in question characterized the joke as "racist" herself -- she knew what it was. And she was clearly aware that it might be deemed offensive, or she wouldn't have prefaced it by announcing she wanted to tell it despite the fact that she knew it to be racist. The point of my comment was to confirm that, yes indeed, telling a racist joke would be offensive, and she shouldn't do it. And the point, in turn, of that, is to ensure that she didn't toxify the environment by making it unwelcoming and insulting to anyone of the particular ethnicity she was going to be targeting. Not to mention those, like myself, who also don't want to be exposed to toxic and racist discourse. Sometimes it's not about changing minds or educating people. Sometimes its about preventing someone from consciously and deliberately targeting and excluding others. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism have rendered great swathes of the internet uninhabitable for the targets of this kind of behaviour. It's well past time to take these spaces back, and ensure that they are welcoming and inclusive for all.

I haven't specifically checked for Amy Tan, but the Internet Archive has a ton of books available for reading for free. Books still in copyright can often be signed out for online reading. It's a safe and ethically sound source for free reading materials of all types.

At the club I was at on Sunday night, another patron announced in local that she had a "kinda racist joke" she wanted to tell. I politely responded that that was something she didn't really need to share. Happily, she decided not to. I didn't (and wouldn't have) ARed her, or ask that she be booted from the club, or report her to the PC Police, but . . . I guess you could say that I "cancelled" her? I'm not feeling too bad about that. For a very, very long time, and until quite recently, actually, the dominant strain in Western culture worked pretty hard, and, what's more, used the institutions of power, to silence those who transgressed against received "truths" and norms. Remember Joe McCarthy? And that James Webb guy, the one NASA named the telescope after? In the 1950s, he led the way at the US State Department in efforts to "weed out" gays in administrative positions during the so-called "Lavender Scare," and went on in the 60s to do the same at NASA. In parts of the US now, in 2022, there are people, and actual school boards and local councils, banning books from libraries. In at least one instance I know of, there was an actual book burning. But the real threat to free speech is me asking someone not to tell a hateful and hurtful joke in a club, right? Such a useful cartoon.

True, but I've had some success with clothes made for Maitreya on a Slink, with judiciously applied alpha layers. Sometimes it's worth the effort just to avoid Maitreya's horribly distorted shoulders.

It occurs to me that the provision of alpha layers with new clothing just might render my Slink Physique Redux relevant again, even though virtually no one rigs for it anymore. Slink has those nifty sliders for adjusting the alphas, so . . . might work?

I'm seeing that mostly just for Kupra unfortunately.

I know the old pre-Redux Slink HUD allowed you to turn it off. Is that an option in Maitreya and Legacy I don't know about?

What is HOD? Autohide is an appalling invention that should be banned by international agreements, like cluster bombs

It is such a crappy thing -- and, I'd have thought, a pretty stupid business practice -- to ban people on the basis of someone else's evaluation of their desirability. Yeah yeah, your land, your rules, you can ban who you want, blah blah blah. It's still stupid and awful. As for the RedZoners -- god, I hated those guys. I engaged with them on the RedZone forum, where of course they amused themselves by publicly outing my location and alt (I only had Richard at that point). They were arrogant, obnoxious jerks with God complexes. I wish I'd kept a list of all the SOBs on that forum: it would be nice to know that I wasn't still accidentally patronizing their clubs and stores.