Suella Ember

It's Comic Relief (or Red Nose Day!) in the UK which has got me thinking about charity work in SL (For non UK residents who want to know more about Comic Relief see here). There are many people and organisations in SL who run charity events to raise money which, obviously, is a wonderful thing. Due to the anonymous nature of SL though, people may often have that nagging doubt about whether their money is going to the charity. Of course, most well organised events (such as relay for life in SL) have clear chairty backing and organisation behind them and I'd always encourage people to get involved in such events. Where there are individual avatars raising money for charity though, it can be difficult to know whether you are being scammed. Which got me to thinking .... LL recently blogged officially about fundraising efforts for relief in Japan. I would imagine people feel a little more comfortable donating when LL are in control of the money like this. So what could LL realistically do to help ease the concerns of people donating to indivduals raising money for charities inworld? Perhaps they could have a directory of supported charities and hand out official vendors, donation boxes etc which anyone could use for their fundraising events? Money would go straight to named Linden accounts and paid on to the charities, with LL placing official confirmation of payments somewhere on the website. The problem with this though, is that LL obviously can't support ALL the multitude of charities there are in the world and would it be fair to support one charity over another? Having said that, there would be nothing stopping people from still individually raising money for other charities inworld, it's just that LL would have a few officially supported ones (which could perhaps even be rotated year by year to support as many as possible?) Or am I looking at this from the wrong angle? Maybe it shouldn't be all down to LL. Maybe what we should be doing is approaching our favoured charities to have an official presence in SL, where people can be safe in the knowledge that if they donate to a vendor or donation box of an official organisation there money will definitely get to the charity (as is the case for Relay for Life) Of course, the issue here is that there would be some small overhead for the charity in maintaining their inworld presence and they would need to determine if any funds they could raise in SL would be more than those overheads. Or is it simply a case of common sense? Should we continue to allow the status quo where anyone can raise money for their preferred charity if they wish and it's up to us to make sensible checks to ensure that its a legit fundraising effort, and if it turns out to be a scam we AR and let LL deal with it? Please also note that I'm most definitely not trying to discourage anyone from running individual charity events or from donating to other events in SL! Please DO! I'm just trying to provoke some thought on discussion on if there are potential ways to lessen the liklihood of scams in SL or, indeed, on if it's a non issue. I actually suspect that, for the most part, it might be a none issue. I'm sure there are occassional scams, but I imagine they are relatively rare and dealt with relatively quickly. Should one scam be too many if there is a better way though? So people - thoughts, comments, suggestions? /me is now off to settle down in front of the TV for a night of ... well ... of comic relief! (I was going to eat as much cheese as possible for Comic Relief, but I haven't been feeling too well. So I'll just get on the phone and donate this year! :smileytongue: )

Oh how marvellous! They created an Art & Photography subforum. Thank you LL! One simple tip from me to start with - get yourself some windlight presets. It will make your photogrpahy so much better. Ana Lutetia has some good ones here (particularly for making avatar skin look better on snapshots) and Torley has many here for great, moody skies. I have a ton of tips for photography I could share, so I'll definetely be back here to add more

Storm Clarence wrote: PS Most people that participate in this forum want humor, answers, and a sense of belonging. The people that try to make a case for brown-nosing use their blogs as weapons: This Should we be afraid of people like this? Or should we participate in this forum and have fun and laugh at ourselves. I probably shouldn't get into this minefield, but I have to say there is a very large dose of irony in that link! It seems that one of the strongest advocates of action being taken against people who abuse the reporting process is angry having been shown that abuse of the reporting process is now being actioned! :smileysurprised:

Mags Indigo wrote: serendipitous Big words no fun! Hurt brain! Mags Indigo wrote: Anyway Happy St. Patricks day etc :smileyhappy: And to you too! Speaking of which, I really ought to go inworld to package up the St Paddy's Day costume I made and list it on the Marketplace, but I really don't have the energy! (Plus packaging and listing is no fun!)

I imagine it depends on your definition of fun and what fun thing you are talking about really If you are writing a 'fun' thread about something that happened to you while out at a fun concert inworld, then the 'Entertainment' section would probably be ok. If you are wrting about something more general such as a topic of "What's the funniest thing you have ever seen in SL?" then the off topic section is probably best. I've seen it said that the more structured nature of these forums resticts 'fun' but I certainly don't think that's true at all. It's perfectly possible to have fun in context and without breaking the community guidelines. It's just that some people think it's fun to break those guidelines and, when they are prevented fom doing so, they interpret that as not being allowed to have fun. I also don't think LL themselves have any intention of restricting fun where it is within the bounds of the guidelines. Try telling Torley, for example, not to have some fun! :smileyvery-happy: It's all about balance as I see it and I think the wonderful quote from Maddy aptly sums up the way I use, and will always use, forums: "Hopping from loony chat to deep philosophy is not schizophrenic. It's mental agility at its best. - © Madelaine McMasters" :smileytongue:

I don't believe there is currently any immediate way to turn off the badges, no. There may be a way to do it with the Greesemonkey Firefox addon. While I agree with you in principle that, ultimately, it is the text of a post that is important, it's not as if the badges are in anyway stopping you from reading that text. If you don't like the badges you don't have to look at them and they are not impeding your ability to read posts.

You probably can, it's just that the checkout from the Marketplace is a little confusing when you only have free items in your cart. When you go to your cart, first click the big orange 'Checkout' button. Then click the big orange 'Continue' button. It gets a little confusing at this point because now you see a lot of extra items! Don't panic though, you are not buying these items. They are simply ads designed to try and get you to part with some cash Scroll down the page past them and click the 'Place order' button and you will then get just your freebies delivered to you.

It's takes some practice designing templates for clothes etc in SL, so don't necessarily expect to be able to create brilliantdesigner items straight away. Practice lots though and you'll get good at it There are some excellent guides to get you started here: www.mermaiddiaries.com/2006/11/build.html

Great idea! Can I also suggest that LL consider doing similar for major chairty events in the future. Perhaps you could even pick a preferred charity, or do a different charity each year. I know there are many great people raising money for charities inworld for which we should be hugely grateful, but I think that if LL were to do something more formal people might feel more secure in the knowledge that their donations would get to the charity. Offering a script that people could use to set up donation boxes etc in their own locations that made sure all payments went direct to a defined account such as "Donations Linden" might also help There's always a slight uncertainty when donating inworld to an anonymous avatar, so being able to make donations via LL might ultimately help raise more money. Just a though. Anyway - my thoughts go out to the people of Japan and anyone affected by the earthquake \ tsunami.

Ha! Ok Torley - you know the little music sideline you do? Can we please have a 'Friendly Greetings' remix? I'd buy it! :smileyvery-happy: (Although having just watched that vid I fear I'll be hearing you say "friendly greetings' in my sleep!)

Doh! Ok - I just realised I worded my answer incorrectly. I mean to say "I'd turn off kudos sorting" (meaning I'd turn it off if I were LL) rather than "I turn off Kudos sorting" (I'll edit that). I don't believe there is currently a way to turn it off for ourselves unfortunately. I'm kinda hoping LL will see sense and turn it off though and I'm going to gentle nudge Lexie and Amanda if I speak to them at the User Group meetings and stuff. I don't mind having various sort options someone can select if they wish, but I think the default should be oldest to newest and nothing else. We are slowly getting there. They have at least switched from the previous default of newest to oldest. Now we just need them to turn off the default kudos sorting! (Mind you - if kudos is to be a sort option the user can select, I argue that a more suitable sort option might be number of correct 'solutions' rather than the slightly more arbitrary 'kudos'!)

Torley Linden wrote: I once tried an experiment where I used a deliberately boring ("conventional robot") voice in some videos. Let me see if I can find... oh yeah, . That wasn't even the most monotone/sedate one... you should've heard the feedback on those. Actually, I noticed a while ago that you seemed more 'conventional' in one of your videos - I think it might have been the one you did when Display Names was first introduced. I remember wondering if you had done that because it's quite a detailed, important and hotly debate issue. Whatever the reason was, I also remember thinking you sounded so unlike you and I wanted to shake you and say "Oi! Why didn't you say 'friendly greetings' and be all jovial!" :smileyvery-happy:

Venus Petrov wrote: I was on the opposite side of this argument a few days ago. I have been looking at it from the other side. I can see some positives. It's interesting you say that because I find myself in a similar position, although I'm not yet prepared to say I fully support the idea of limiting people to a certain amount of new topics per day. I do however, see a lot of good arguments for it. It would undoubtedly help to keep the forums 'cleaner' and hopefully ensure that everything was of good quality. There can sometimes seem to be a tendency for people to start threads just for the sake of starting a thread and I've seen quite a few threads where I've though it was basically just a repeat of an existing thread worded slightly differently. I often wonder why that happens when, to me, it seems much more sensible to reply in the exisitng thread rather than start a new thread. There's probably a variety of reasons why people do that, some innocent, some not so innocent. I'm not going to get into that though! It would be nice to be able to do something to try and avoid those issues of multiple repeat threads and new topics just for the sake of it. However (and this is where I'm still not fully swayed on the issue) I dislike having to restrict people who might genuinely have a reason to start a lot of threads just because of others who may be starting lots of threads less genuinely. It's perfectly possible, for example, that someone might happen to have 3 or 4 really important things to highlight on a particular day which they couldn't do if they were only allowed to post 2 new threads. Although I suppose it's also likely that such instances would be quite rare because you can almost guarantee that if there is a really important issue to start up, someone else will start it up pretty quickly. Interstingly, I've always found that to be the case myself. I've only had cause to start 2 new threads here since it opened and, back in the days of Jive, I think I started maybe 10 threads max over the whole year or more we had it. The reason for that is, whenever I had something I wanted to talk about, I'd have a quick scan of the latest existing threads and 9 times out of 10 I'd find that someone had already started a thread on the topic so I'd add my comments to that rather than start a whole new thread! So limiting the creation of new topics? It certainly has its benefits, but I also feel it's a measure that shouldn't have to be taken if there is effective and pro-active moderation in place to try to control spammy repeat threads and people who are posting new threads just for the sake of it. Having said that, it's not always a clear cut case when moderating such isssues and could cause more drama when people find themselves moderated for what might have been a relatively harmless thread, but one that was arguably an unecessary thread. Basically, it's yet another read why I have a love \ hate relationship with these forums and why I'm glad I don't have to make decisions on how to try and keep the natives under control! :smileyvery-happy:

Kylie Jaxxon wrote: I'm sorry, but what an a**backwards way to follow a conversation...come on, admit it :smileysurprised: :smileytongue: Well yes, it is, but only because of the sub-sorting by kudos that I think should be turned off. Take a look at a couple of threads in Answers with a few respondents and look at the times. It's actually doing things correctly now (oldest to newest) The first person who replies is at the top, the next person who replies is next etc. This is the natural flow of a conversation of 'answers' and is as it should be (the same as the forums). It just looks confusing becuase you don't see 'oldest first' on the sort dropdown, but the reason you don't se it is becuase it's already sorted that way If you turn it back to 'newest first' you then see the option to turn it back to 'oldest first' - but you don't need to do that as Cerise says because it's already that way! (I'm confusing myself now but I hope that makes sense! lol) Basically - it's doing things right now as I see it, but the kudos sorting needs to be turned off and just available as a sort order if the person wants to sort it that way. ETA: Take a look at this for example: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Everything-Else/Who-the-F-thought-kudos-was-a-good-sort-order/qaq-p/737091 Peter asked the question an hour ago. (Skip Cerise's reply for a second) Then Peewee answered 52 mins ago Then I answered 30 mins ago Thats the right order for Peewee and me (oldest to newest - the natural flow). Cerise's has got bumped to the top though because she has 2 kudo whereas Peewee and I have none. Cerise's should be between the two of us to keep the natural flow. In other words - 52 mins, 35 mins, 30 mins etc (Obviously those times and kudos might change depending on when you look, but the principle stands )

Just to confirm how It appears to now be working for me: It automatically sorts by oldest first (this is good a it allows the natural flow - in other words its sorted just as the forums are - question, then person A's answer who answered first, then person B's answer who answered second, then person C's answer who answered third etc) However if, say, person B had the most kudos they would get bumped to the top. So it would be Question, person B's answer (who answered second but has more kudos), then person A's answer (who answered first), then person C's answer (who answered third). I'm all for the oldest first to get the natural flow, but I think also automatically sorting by most kudos as a sub-sorting of that breaks up that natural flow again. By all means have kudos as a sorting order for people to choose from if they want, but don't have it sorting by kudos automatically. To me the default should be oldest to newest and nothing else, but give people the choice of other sorting options. (Although if we are having other options I'd argue that perhaps most correct 'solutions' might make more sense that 'most kudos' as a sort order?) Also, I do thing that once a question has been marked as answered by the OP, that 'correct' answer should then be bumped to the top to make it easier for subsequent viewers to quickly see the 'correct' answer. Hope that makes sense

Actually, it looks to me as though it is now sorted by "oldest first" in Answers automatically, which is a good thing (it only shows "newest first" as an option because it is already sorted by oldest first!) However, it is also sorted by "most kudos" as a sub-sorting of oldest first. So you will get oldest first but if one newer one has more kudos then it will come higher, if that maakes sense! I like the fact that its sorted by oldest first, but personally I turn off the kudos sorting and just let someone sort it by kudos if they wish.

Actually, it looks to me as though it's now automatically sorted by "oldest first" which is a good thing! However, it is also sorted by "most kudos" as a sub-sorting of oldest first. So you will get oldest first but if one newer one has more kudos then it will come higher, if that makes sense! I like the fact that its sorted by oldest first, but personally I'd turn off the kudos sorting and just let someone sort it by kudos if they wish. I'm hoping LL will see sense and do that.

It's all about common sense really. This is a bit of a generalisation, but it's probably fair to say that a good proportion of SL users have some sort of health issue. It's interesting because, for those people, SL can be a means to socialise, interact and do creative things that might otherwise be difficult for them to do because of their RL health. So in that respect SL can be a good activity for people with health issues. It does require the person to be sensible though as sitting at the computer for hour on end could also possibly worsen health issues. Which is why it's all about common sense. Each person's particular circumstances may be different and only they can truly know what is good and what is bad for them (along with health advice from RL professionals of course). Use SL wisely and it can be a good thing if you have RL health issues. Just be cautious not to neglect your RL health and not to allow anything in SL (or the internet in general) to become too much of a burden and stress you out or make your condition worse

That voice will probably have been Torley Linden's. Torley rocks and is an ever cheerful soul, always willing to help and spread awesomness! :smileyvery-happy: Torley does most of the videos for SL guides etc and, while a few people may find is cheerful persona off-putting, I think most appreciate it. I know I'd much rather have a cheerful voice that a boring 'matter of fact' voice! Either way - don't let something as simple as a voice put you off from getting involved in SL. That's SL all over - a whole host of different people with different personalities from all around the world. It's almost certain that some of those people might not be to your taste but, hopefully, many will.

I'd noticed that too and wasn't sure whether it was intentional or not. There is a message at the top of the old guidlines saying they will be suceeded by the new guidelines with a link, but not sure why they haven't just linked directly to the new guidelines.

Technically speaking, repeated spam IS against the ToS and you could report them. However, what might be easier to do is to identify the obejct that is sending these messages to you and to simply mute it. For example, if you are getting the messages from a server on the person's land, it should show you the co-ordinates of that server when you get the messages. Simply TP to that location, find the server that is sending the messages and mute it. Unfortunately this does not always guarantee success 100% of the time as some unscrupulous people will only rez out the server when they are sending messages, or keep it well hidden where you can't get access to it. On a side note, frustrated that you understandably are, you ought to remove the reference to the business in question from your post as it is against the rules to single out people / businesses like that on the forums. (Which is a sensible rule - I'm sure you are probably telling the truth, but without that rule people could come along and make similar false claims against competitors etc to cause drama!)

As Darren says, try logging in to a different location. If you need help on how to do this take a look at the Knowledge Base entry here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Navigating-the-world/ta-p/700123#Changing_your_login_location Note that this references the old Viewer 1.23 in the screenshots, but the principle is essentially the same in Viewer 2.

You mean this one? http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Viewer-2/Bring-Back-Inventory-Jump-To/m-p/726133 It's not 'closed'.

Cato Badger wrote: @Suella: "Unfortunate"? As far as I am concerned - and I am probably not alone - Amanda's credibility will never recover. As is your (and others) prerogative. I much prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them to clarify their position though. If I thought someone's 'cedibility would never recover' every time they made a statement that I thought was not completely accurate, that would mean I'd think that of most of my friends and most of my friends would probably think it of me. Even friends don't 100% agree 100% of the time. Thankfully my circle of friends, like me, have a more forgiving and less narrow minded attitude .

Irrespective of Hamlet's apparent obsession with Facebook at the moment, what's more important is Amanda's clarifications in that post of his. It was perhaps a bit unfortunate that she said Facebook was "the best place" to find out about SL in that original blog post, but she went on to clarify that in the comments to that blog post, and her responses to Hamlet in that article of his clear things up too. Everything she says there is how it should be - all about choice. As an individual I dislike Facebook and will probably never use it, but as someone who loves SL I fully support giving people the choice of various levels of cross-linking SL with Facebook. Any business with an online presence would be foolish not to offer some cross-linking with Facebook given however many millions of users it has!