Dillon Levenque

Jimbo Mimulus wrote: Edit To Add: Wow that was theraputic That comment made me smile. I know exactly what you mean. You should visit a thread having to do with community in this section and check out the archived thread listed there. A lot of people got some therapy with that one. And stick around; never know what might happen. It's Second Life :smileyhappy:

What a nice surprise to click on 'Make Friends' and see this thread.

Sounds like a very cool idea, Dee. And pay no attention to Quinn's bragging. I got moves just as good as hers. I know who's HUD to join, too :smileywink: Since it's a Friday I'll only be able to catch the late shows, but I'll be looking.

Mags Indigo wrote: This thread is taking on a life of it's own, so much though I'd like to take credit for that I can't. Oh, go ahead. Take it. :smileyhappy:

kattatonia Wickentower wrote: Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"? Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously, and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Dr. Raymond Stantz: Total protonic reversal! Dr. Peter Venkman: Right, that's bad. Okay, alright, important safety tip, thanks Egon. I do think that having a spouse in RL and having a partner in SL is cheating. And I do think that cheating is a bad thing. But here's the thing, when I first came to SL, I was married in RL. The marriage was in deep trouble and I am now divorced. I found the relationships I formed in SL were much more intense and satisfying than my RL marriage, and while I didn't come to SL intending to cheat on my then husband, I found myself doing so. I never would have considered cheating in RL but somehow I fell down the slippery slope in SL. So I guess I was bad. Now I am divorced so that bad thing is gone. But my SL partner is married in RL. And so I guess I am still bad, and still tortured by it. But somehow I can:smileyhappy:'t give up my partner. I'm not going to pretend that what I'm doing is OK, but I'm not ready to stop either. I am pretty honest about who I am but I don't think that means I should be excused for the bad things I do. Gutsy and honest. Nice. You're right, it can be very difficult to arrive at a decision but to my mind the most important thing is to be honest with yourself and clearly you are. Thank you for the quotes at the start. It need hardly be said that any friend of Dr. Venkman is a friend of mine:smileyhappy:

Mags Indigo wrote: Hmmm lots and lots of comments... as the discussion has progressed I feel the 'issue' that I'm finding most intriguing is the one of... Is lying to an SL girlfriend/boyfriend/partner about your status in RL actually a form of cheating? Now I'm not talking about straight RP, or 'just friends' - I mean getting involved with someone in SL in an intimate, sharing secrets, getting all romantic sort of way. What I'm most interested in is how people in SL 'really' see the people they share pixel space with - as mere playbuddies not to be taken seriously, as real people but as we'll never meet them we can lie/cheat and it doesn't matter - or somewhere in between or different. Lying to an SL girlfriend/boyfriend/partner about your status in RL is lying. Don't know as I'd class it as cheating. Well, maybe, I would. If you establish a relationship with someone in SL and let them think—or flat-out tell them—you have no RL relationship, then you'd be cheating on them every time you were with your RL girlfriend/boyfriend/partner. Did you really think you would delve this deeply into the souls of your fellow forumites when you started this thread, Mags? Not that I'm complaining. I like it. ETA: Once again I seem to have deleted one too many division lines. I'll get this all figured out eventually.

This is possibly Off Topic for this thread; I most fervently hope it does not count against its survival. My subject has to do with both my real life and my Second Life, and how in some cases Second Life can impact real life in ways that possibly no other medium can. Last night I had a long talk with a very good friend about relationships in SL versus RL and what that all means. My friend is partnered in SL and RL to the same person. That's not unheard of but in my experience it is not common; I know personally only a couple of other people who are with their RL partners in SL. I do not have a partner in SL, but I am permanently partnered in RL. There'd been a thread started earlier in the day having to with SL versus RL relationships. One of the main thrusts had to do with fidelity. If a person with an RL relationship develops an SL relationship with someone else in SL—with or without the RL partner's knowledge—is that person being unfaithful? To me, the obvious answer was "Yes". My friend felt the same way, not at all to my surprise. The difference between us in this case is that I might go ahead and enter into a serious relationship (okay, enough with the euphemisms: love affair) with someone in SL whereas my friend would never consider that. I hate to tell you this, but the previous two paragraphs are background only. I've yet to get to the point. It's next. We both wound up inworld later in the day. Sent each other some IM's about it all and then met for a chat at my friend's house. In the course of the conversation we talked about a lot of our real lives. In my case we talked about my transgendered-ness and whether that was known about in my RL family and several other things. I would NEVER have even allowed such a discusson with the people I know in real life (other than fellow TG's that I talked with in the past: I've dropped out of the scene in RL; SL is my release). After thinking today about the frankness of our conversation, I was reminded of something I'd read. A reference—I think in a novel but it might have been a biography—to someone who had just lost the last member of his nuclear family. The author called it something like "..the last person he could be truly comfortable with..". It resonated with me at the time; I have thankfully a good relationship with my siblings and I know exactly what he meant. But it seems to me that in a way Second Life can provide something very like that comfort zone. Our parents and siblings can overlook our faults, at least when they're dealing with us, just because they are our family. They will ignore the opinion of the rest of the world. Our Second Life friends have the luxury of not having to even deal with the rest of the world. They can just relate to us, person to person. I've said other places that I believe the best thing about Second Life to be its contribution to tolerance of the different. I'd not thought about how that could lead to friendships that might otherwise never have been.

Never mind. I is an idiot. Just for fun I tried it on a different box with XP Pro (mine is 7 Pro) and all that was happening is that on my view I've got some blanked boxes in that bottom task bar, so in a way, yeah it's a browser thing (the other PC is also using IE8 but it's set up a little differently. It just so happened that the spacing made the entire link cut off exactly at the last letter of your name (didn't even see the foreslash) so I'd no idea I was only seeing half the link displayed in the hovertext.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Curious! It must be. I'm on Chrome and get the proper hovertext. When you click the link, which entry in the Attendees list winds up at the top of the window? Mine or the proper one? Usually yours; I was just clicking at random and a couple of times I seemed to go different places (could have just been me moving the mouse a bit; it was very non-repeatable). In all cases I see Darrius_Gothly (along with your wiki.secondlife.com bits) in the hovertext. When I clicked I jumped to near your name, not highlighted or anything, in the attendee list.

Huh. When I tried that latest version, I did get hovertext but in every case it was your link: Darrius Gothly. Is that a browser issue (IE8)?.

Mags Indigo wrote: For many the RL is RL thing really is their mantra and to me, at this stage, that means that although they may be nice people they treat SL and whoever they meet there like a fantasy with no real impact on life as it were. Honesty is good even if it's an honest no :smileyhappy: I'm an RL is RL person, totally so. But I don't by any means think relationships here are a meaningless fantasy. I do think that having an RL relationship and indulging in same in SL is cheating. Might be pretty painless, but nonetheless it is something not shared with the RL partner. I am permanently partnered in RL. I am single in SL in that I've never had nor really thought about having a partner. Doesn't mean I haven't thought about having some rather serious relationships. In my defense I'm at least honest about it in SL. Nothing in SL is ever going to move to RL for me. Does that mean I'm only half bad? Probably not.

Darrius Gothly wrote: I've seen mentioned a few times the problem of "signal to noise" for in-world meetings ... meaning how much of the conversation pertains to the actual topics of interest vs. how much is side conversation, useless bickering and general good-natured goofing off. For a lot of people, these "extra" comments from people just pollute the meeting and distract them from being able to follow what is actually being discussed. I can sympathize. But I cannot agree. Because the meetings occur so seldom, and because the attendees are not accustomed to the "noise" that goes on in those meetings, it can be very overwhelming. But that noise is also an integral part of the relationships between ourselves (resident to resident as well as Linden to resident). Without that socialization, a lot of the "glue" that makes each of us more familiar to others will be lost as well. From my perspective, this is a very important aspect of the meetings. Some of you may have noticed that during those meetings I'm just as likely to joke with or pick on the Lindens as I am with fellow Residents. This is because, IN those meetings they are just the same as "us". No .. even better ... they ARE us. The artificial division between the Lindens and the "rest of us" is mostly gone .. and what is left can be easily (but respectfully) disregarded. This is integral to helping them understand our perspectives .. and for us to understand theirs. I fully understand the benefit of of chat. I live on it. Ask anyone; I never shut up. I could also see from the transcripts that the Lindens were part of the general joshing around, and I can surely understand why that would be an important part of forming relationships. That being said: I do not agree that something like a problem-solving meeting is an appropriate place for the typical SL chat free-for-all. What would happen if all of us with an interest could actually get inworld to a meeting? The chat window is only so big.

Ishtara Rothschild wrote: But there still are a few hardcore fans and cheerleaders who believe that SL is destined to become the shiny new 3D internet and AXE deodorant can really get you laid, and anyone who says different is a hater. What? It can't? Sorry, that was such a good line I had to comment (I've never heard of Axe Deodorant, actually). I can't see how SL can be 'ported' to mobile. Unless maybe we're finally gonna get Virtual Reality—remember Virtual Reality? Then we can just slip on the helmet and plug it into the phone and go. I think not. I also think Ishtara is correct; SL will eventually fade away. Not because the concept is outdated, but because there will be better ways to do what it does. When those ways exist, I'll be watching. For now, I'm right where I want to be. ETA: that's twice that's happened to me; I thought I got all the cutoff lines in the right place but I see my post looks like it's part of Ishtara's. For anyone who cares, my content starts with the line 'What? It can't"'

Wildcat Furse wrote: I love the night .... soooo romantic :smileysurprised: *meows* I love this picture. It just....I dunno what it just is, but I love it. btw I have sent a number of people to the 'plotting' link that I first saw in your sig—I can always tell when they're reading it because I hear the laughter. Our current kitty is in perpetual 'failed ambush' mode, it seems.

Darrius Gothly wrote: I especially like the ability to "Moderate" a channel and then grant "Voice" (the ability to chat) to specific people. IMs are of course still permitted, so people wishing to be heard could IM someone in charge of granting "Mic Time" but the general audience would be in listen-only mode ... IF desired. It also has a really handy "Mute" feature that lets you shut someone up without actually removing them from the channel. To my way of thinking, that's a very effective way of cooling down a hot temper without going to the extreme of removing them from the discussion. I do not know anything about IRC, mostly because for the greater part of my career my main point of contention with computers was getting a lot of I/O, motor control, etc. working. I couldn't care less about chat. So even though I am plenty old enough to have used IRC, I haven't. When the topic of the OP was first mentioned, I commented that one of the really big problems I had with reading the transcripts was signal to noise. I thought forum posting would be better (and still do, but as has been pointed out in this thread there can be lots of noise in posts). It would seem to me that a method such as you describe would go a long way to improve a live SL meeting. A very long way, even. I'd think maybe that should be on the Agenda. If somehow that could be implemented it would be a huge improvement in the User Group meetings and it might even be somewhat marketable. I assume any corporate meetings here have restricted access, but things are always easier when there is a default solution.

Bitsy Buccaneer wrote: How people who aren't creators manage to be so busy in SL is beyond me. Doll-dressing is something to do when I log in. That's all. I'd gladly trade that for friendships that weren't one-sided. Bitsy, there are ways to have friends that aren't 'sided' at all. The SLadies Who Lunch (featured in this very subforum) are an example of that. Most of the ladies know each other, some are in each others friend's lists, some might even be very close friends. But really the group is just a bunch of people who have a good time together. I have several friends who are DJ's and that schedules a lot of my time: going to their gigs. I am in some groups that tend to have a lot going on (as noted above). That's why my SL is busy. My time is limited and there are frequently more things to do than hours in which to do them. Quinn is clearly in the same situation. One more thing: it takes me a really really long time to get dressed if I'm trying anything new. I've seen your looks; maybe part of the difference in our 'free time' is that you just have a much better idea of what to wear and how to wear it.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Rand Linden wrote: Anyone up to the challenge, or know the slog.whiz-kids.de folks? Rand, I finished the first revision of the Chat Log Wikify tool then updated the transcript from the most recent CTUG Meeting. Please have a look and let me know what you think. Community Tools User Group 2011-04-07 Darrius Would it be appropriate to continue the discussion Deltango started regarding inworld vs. fora 'meetings'? Or should that be a new topic?

Qie Niangao wrote: As a service provider, LL is somewhere between AT&T and the guy who cleans your pool. I had been thinking about my earlier comments and this one of yours speaks to that in a way. Especially the pool cleaning part. Were Lab/Resident meetings conducted as business meetings, there would be little chat. Lindens would be in charge, residents would speak when appropriate. It would be no different than, say, a typical webinar session (and imagine one of those in which every single participant spent a third of the time talking to other participants). But Lindens, even though this is their playground, aren't really 'in charge' in the sense I used. They actually are working for us. So even in a meeting that is all about requests from residents for action by LL, hosted by LL, they are in the awkward position of having to tolerate a lot of interruptions and derailments. The end result is rather chaotic. I still think Deltango's approach would be superior. Slower, yes, but I think it would have a much higher signal to noise ratio. And imagine if you owned a business with customers who woke up in the morning thinking of ways your business could be even better. There may not be as many of us as LL would wish, but boy do we like their product.

Cali Souther wrote: My least favorite after A/S/L is..... "So what are you wearing?" Ahh, Cali. That one was useful, back in the pre 'Do Not Call' days. It was my favorite response to female telemarketers.

I am pretty sure that subject came up in the last meeting; it may not have been on the agenda but I'm pretty sure someone asked for the feature. Can't even call it a feature, really: it's something that would be reasonably expected, don't you think? ETA: I recalled it incorrectly (that almost never happens). Was in the meeting on 3/31 and the question had to do with sort by most recent post not being the default setting in Preferences. I know I've seen requests and/or comments that the first thing you see on getting here is the most recent posts, though.

Deltango Vale wrote: Why go through all this trouble? Okay - deep breath - let me try this again, from the beginning, step by step. The purpose of usergroups (inworld or fora-based) is to: facilitate communication between resident experts and Linden Lab employees enable realtime communication There are two media suitable for usergroups: inworld meetings special sub-fora with regular, 'live attendance' timeslots How would fora-based usergroups be set up? create a new forum called User Groups (Second Life, Content Creation, Technology, Commerce, Buy and Sell Land, International, User Groups) create 11 sub-fora within the User Group forum (Scripting, Mesh, my.secondlife.com, Simulator, V2, Viewer Evolution, Marketplace, Community Translation, Community Tools, Events, Server Beta) only LL employees can create threads in the User Group sub-fora each User Group sub-forum has a top-level thread called Agenda Linden employees would create threads for agenda items (which would persist) How would these sub-fora usergroups work? members and employees could post in the usergroup threads at any time, 24/7 employees would have a 'live attendance' schedule when they would participate in realtime Advantages of fora-based meetings: the location of the User Group forum is fixed and obvious to everyone members could contribute at any time (bypassing RL constraints) members and employees could read posts, think and prepare for 'live attendance' slots realtime communication (text, image, video) contributions persist and can be added to even if a 'live attendance' slot is canceled business is conducted in non-competitive posts employees can post on an ad-hoc basis if they wish (outside of 'live attendance' times) no need for transcription no need to log inworld Disadvantages of fora-based meetings: no visible avatar less fun Advantages of inworld meetings: avatar-to-avatar visual symbol exchange realtime communication (open chat, IM, notecard) more fun Disadvantages of inworld meetings: participants must search for date, time and location of meetings participants must be available at time of meetings (RL schedule, timezone differences) meetings are very limited in terms of time no business can be accomplished outside of alloted time meetings may be canceled, resulting in zero productivity business is conducted mainly in competitive, open chat time wasted in non-business banter chat history must be transcribed (including non-business banter) lag and crashes So, if the goal is to meet up for a bit of fun chitchat, then inworlds meetings are definitely better. If the goal is to actually accomplish something, then let's set up the Use Group forum. Really, Deltango. If you'd just take a second to organize your thoughts before just blurting stuff out like this.... I would like to comment. Not from a participatory point of view (as I'm clearly not qualified) but as an informed observer. I'm impressed with Darrius' argument regarding the 'face to face' aspect of the inworld meetings (and I also thank you for the transcript and the Linden highlight was a great benefit) and if they really were face to face—that is, spoken—they would probably be an improvement over what Deltango suggests. In a true face to face there is a fast exchange of ideas, and sometimes an ability to exert influence that can't really be matched in print. But in a real meeting, there's very little 'aside'. In the two transcripts I've read the usual chat asides that are part of SL are everywhere. It makes following the thread of the conversation almost impossible. I realize it's worse seeing it in print, but it would have been almost as bad live. Nobody has meetings like that in RL, at least nobody that gets anything done. Given that the actual ambience of a face to face meeting can't really be captured in SL (even with Voice, in my opinion) it would seem to me that Deltango's suggestion is a superior method on that basis alone, to say nothing of making things more accessible to those who cannot meet the Inworld schedule.

As do many who've posted, I like the fact there is almost no limit on creativity. I've nothing against themed regions and I spend plenty of time in them, but I am happy to live on the mainland. Yes, I have some issues with some of the things that get built close by, but I knew it would be like that. I like that there are no zoning laws. No Neighborhood Councils. No real rules. It's true my house is completely conventional, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy seeing what others come up with. I like surprises. Mainland is fun.

Great idea, Hippie. And how nice to see the picture on the Forum again :smileyvery-happy: I'll be joining soon. Peace.

Marianne McCann wrote: I dunno. I mean ti is "tethered" in so far as there's a prim connecting it to the build... and it's not really a microparcel or anything like that... I dunno. I don't think it's "enough." But that's just me. Well, actually the tether is an 8m object attached to my spine. I couldn't rez on the land so I had to bring my own yardstick. The objects are all set so that I can't read the dimensions using the Edit feature; I assume there's a way around that but I've never had a reason to learn it. In any case it's a bit lower than I thought and even though it's free-floating and not on a pole as I'd remembered, it's probably borderline. I'll continue to live with it, I guess. From what I've seen in this thread it could be a heck of a lot worse. Thanks for the advice, all of you. ETA this from Qie: On the other hand, the FAQ explicitly excludes from the policy signs above stores, so that may not be good news for Dillon's case, unfortunately. I'd say that answers that. It's clearly above a store, and advertising same. To little purpose since as I said the place gets virtually no visitors. (No virtual visitors?). Anyway, I'll leave it alone.

Marianne McCann wrote: I think it covers that at:https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:About_ad_farms_and_network_advertisers Thanks, Marianne. Clearly my 'neighbor' is neither an adfarm or anyone trying to sell land, but it seems the sign violates this section: In addition, advertisements must comply with these requirements: They must be grounded to the terrain, not floating. They must extend no higher than 8 m from the ground. I went over there tonight and took a pic, I know it looks dumb because I don't have the smarts to do it any other way but that beam I'm next to is 8m long—I brought that with me as an attachment; the sign is free-floating. Wasn't sure if the rule was in reference to the top or the bottom but it looks to me as if even the bottom of the sign is out of bounds. Before I file an AR, something I've not done, I just wanted to take advantage of the brains in this thread and ask if it really does look to be against the rules.