Lucretia Brandenburg

A sim owner can make any rule s/he wants and enforce it as s/he sees fit. If you break a rule, silly or not, and the consequence of breaking a rule is to be banned, it doesn't matter if it is a dumb or silly to you rule. I have a friend who is a DJ. he DJs at a place that allows adult male avatars only. Now, there is no rule about furries or nekos or non humans, merely that they be adult and male. If I want to hear my friend DJ, I dress like a guy - male shape, skin, the works. Still looking for good shoes btw. Now, my RL pic is in my profile, and my name is Lucretia, its pretty obvious to everyone around that I say I'm a woman in RL (I am, actually, not that that really matters). However, the rules state adult male avatar, and I do not disrespect the sim owner or fellow patrons by showing up in female form, which would be bad form, as its against the rules. Some of the guys have a problem with it and leave in a huff, I tip my friend extra to make up for the people who left and have a good time. By the way, some male avatar only places can be a bit gung ho and ask a supposedly RL woman to leave, even if she is in a male look. Conversely, some RL guys get upset when they are in a female avatar and are banned from male avatar only places. Stick to the letter of the rules and there shouldn't be any trouble, and if there is, politely suggest that the rule is unclear and it be changed to avoid further confusion for others.

As one of the estate managers of a gay residential estate where there is a rule against child avatars, I've had to make that call. Now, there are child avatars and there are underage looking avatars. I've found, in general (and I do mean this as a pretty broad generalization) that anyone when questioned about the age he is playing says he is a "young 18" that is likely to be an age player. Their "young 18" tends to look 12. There's one guy who says he's a young 18 and he wears argyle knee socks and short pants. I may not be up on fashion but I can't imagine any 18 year old wanting to wear argyle knee socks ; ) Height means nothing. I was booted from a G rated sim years ago when someone there accused me of being a child avatar because I was my RL height of 5'3" so I took off my clothes and asked if that looked like the body of a child? I figured they were going to boot me anyway, might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb. Oh, and yes, if someone is obviously very into RPing a child that does not make that person a pervert, as far as I'm concerned, the fact that I would be "accused" of being a child avatar on a G rated sim - I mean, aren't G rated sims where child avatars are supposed to be? But back then, the assumption was that anyone with a child was a pervert. Personally, I tend to think anyone who considers people portraying child avatars to be perverted to be the perverts. OK, didn't mean to open that old stale can of worms, mini rant over now. I have noticed a lot of child avatars will talk "baby talk" far beyond the supposed age of their avi .. no, 4 year olds do not talk like 2 year olds in RL and by that age, most can speak quite plainly. The need for speech therapy aside, baby talk is a pretty good indication. Now, the younger than 12, genuine child avatars rather than surrepticious age players, as another poster said, tend to look like kids. Button noses, big heads, big eyes, chubby cheeks, freckles, a sway to the back that pooches their stomach out, and wear children's hair styles and clothing. And they usually do state the age they are portraying in their profiles. By the way, nekos tend to look very early adolescent and childlike; that's the aesthetic, if they look 14 I just add a decade and call it a day.

I don't know, there's an awful lot of leg showing with that gown :matte-motes-sarcasm:

What Qie said.

A friend of mine couldn't log in for days, it seems that his password was giving the login page indigestion.He had to change his password and was advised, no funny business with passwords, just stick to the main keyboard and he hasn't had a problem since then.

A friend of mine suggested Exodus viewer. Whether or not it's a resource hog, the graphics are great, things rez super fast, no need to build a bridge or wait for much to load. it is a V3 based viewer. I switched to V2 as soon as it came out, why fight the future? And yes, at first the interface is really awkward, and it might take more than a few days to get comfy with it. But now, if I had to use a V1 based viewer I would just about flip out - like the pie charts when you right click, how annoying is THAT? Give me a drop down menu any day. I tried Firestorm, I found it took forever to rez, and I thought it was sort of cluttered with alot of stuff I would never use. As for getting used to a V3 viewer, it's like switching from a QWERTY keyboard to a Dvorak keyboard and learning to touch type all over again, just stick with the new one until you learn it. I know people who get too frustrated when trying to learn their way around and switch back to another viewer. I tell them look, might as well pick a time to take a break from whatever you usually do in SL and get used to it because what is going to happen when you REALLY need to be in SL for something and your viewer is no longer supported and you have no clue how to find your way around a viewer that is supported?

*ICING* and DNR are also very nice brands for more modest or elegant clothes, and SN@TCH - don't the the name scare you off, its sort of punk, urban, and Goth for the most part but not too much by way of trampy.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'd considered that, and may wind up doing it, I just know that alot of creators are busy, I hate to bother them with special requests.

I have been looking and looking for a well done shabby chic style bathroom without any sort of cuddle or sex animations. I am 46 years old, the last time I bathed with someone was with my sister when I was four and no cuddling was involved. The tubs and showers with basic washing animations are not the best quality, and the really nice ones are all cuddle/sex sorts of items. OK, I'll stop here before I start ranting about how most in SL seem to assume everyone here has sex or wants to cuddle someone else at one time or another :matte-motes-sour:

LOL Trinity, and THAT is always the fun part of written communications, the inflections and interpretation :matte-motes-delicious: ... always opportunities for miscommunication and sorting it out. Have a great day!

Wow, Trinity, you certainly read a lot into a dislike of inworld shopping, and your reply comes across as rather snooty and a tad judgmental. Really, it is more about my dislike of shopping, whether the RL noise, crowds, and traffic or in SL lag and headaches from shopping inworld. You make a lot of assumptions about people who dislike laggy, busy, unpleasant inworld shopping experiences. I get the feeling it would surprise you that someone who wants efficient shopping, in RL, makes her own pasta and bread from scratch (no fancy electric machines), grows her own herbs and vegetables organically, and makes her own soap from scratch ... not from a kit, from measuring out sodium hydroxide and water, blending vegetable fats and oils, and hand stirring. I pour it into molds, I insulate them for 24 hours, I take the block out and slice it and cure it for 6 weeks before use. Come to my SL home, you will find a place for hanging out, and dreaming, with stunning landscaping designed by Nila Byron,fantasy creatures by Julia Hathor, a house by Maxwell Graf, a Novatech holodeck that friends and family use, a Henge for special events. I work as an estate manager, I host events, I meet a lot of people in SL. I do not prefer to shop in SL, I do not like clubbing in SL, I haven't built much in years, I haven't had a SL romance or sexual relationship in over 3 years. So what do you suppose I do in SL, if not hanging out, meeting people, exploring all the beautiful, creative sims to be found in SL?

Thank you for a merchant's perspective. I had originally thought it was number 2 on your list, compel people to shop inworld to increase impulse buying but then thought wait, that seems sort of silly, since the reason I'm shopping on the marketplace is because I don't want to shop inworld, and if someone would rather shop one place than another, strongly nudging a person to do what s/he doesn't want to do seems a bit counterproductive, since more often than not it can be the deciding factor for me in not purchasing from one person and continuing to look for what I want elsewhere on the market. I know for me, there are two shopping mindsets, one is this is what I want, I don't want to fool around and look for something else. The other is a more general browsing mentality that isn't so specific, usually when shopping for a gift or to say, decorate a place for a party. Either way, I want to be able to find what I'm looking for with the greatest ease or efficiency. I know some people shop because they're bored or because it's a social activity. My shopping for SL items is very close to how I shop for RL items, I have a shopping list, I determine where I can most likely get what I need, and I go there, sticking to my list. Unless it's grocery shopping while hungry, then I might pick up a snack at the register on the way out the door, which is never an issue with SL shopping :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

Why do some people prefer to purchase items on the marketplace rather than inworld? I'm not a merchant, but I've been in SL going on 5 years and in general, I've had few good shopping experiences in world. I have seen a lot of flagship stores that are far from customer friendly, large builds with walkways ... wait for a sign to rez, read it, walk this way for this, that way for that ... get to the area where what I wanted to purchase is, wait for the textures on the vendors to load, start searching for what I wanted, not finding just what I was looking for. Go to another store or mall, go through that all again. OR log into the market, do a search, wonder a bit how did THAT get listed HERE? Move on, in general, even with the totally unrelated listings that are likely to pop up, I can find what I'm looking for in a quarter of the time it takes me to shop inworld. There are some merchants on the market that only offer demos of skin, hair, etc. and someone has to go to their inworld shop to purchase the full version. I figure that's so that someone doesn't purchase a pricey item on the market and then write a bad review or cause a headache to merchants when it isn't just the thing they wanted. To me, there are only a couple of merchants for whom that is worth the annoying inworld shopping experience. There is far more to SL than malls and shopping, the decrease in inworld shops is no harbinger of doom. Rather than worry so much about inworld sales v marketplace, and wonder why more people do not shop in SL, why not make the shopping experience more user friendly for the customer? Shops that are easier to navigate, fewer laggy scripts, fewer big textures. Sometimes I see stores laid out in such a way that I think OMG are they trying to keep me here longer? Personally, if I see a store with massive traffic stats, all I can think of is I want to stay away from there, it must be laggy. As for the marketplace, like I said, I'm not a merchant. I understand it can be a huge hassle. On my part, I have very rarely had problems shopping on the market. BTW, one thing that is really really annoying is when I read bad reviews for items and it turns out it is because someone hasn't read the description carefully, or didn't know how to unbox something, or the delivery failed. The rare times I have an issue with purchased items, I always contact the seller inworld rather than complain in a bad review, most merchants are really nice and helpful.

Just curious, I have literally dozens of high quality skins and a lot of shapes and more eyes than most have shoes in SL, and I switch it up all the time. I doubt a week goes by when I haven't changed my skin at least 3 times. I used to have one look that I stuck withall the time and then thought hey, this isn't RL, I don't have to stick with one look. I know a lot of people who have fantasy avatars they switch up frequently, just wondering how many have "regular" avatars who like to change skins and shape with different outfits.

Personally, I do not like ban lines or security devices. I have been in sims that are heavily advertised as nice places to visit and invite people to wander and explore and then kablooey! a security orb tells me I have to leave. I advise people to set the security on their sex beds, rugs, pianos, refrigerators and all if they don't want strangers to use them but in general, I see no harm in people out exploring. Now, if it's a squatter who just wants to pretend the place is their's to impress a date or doesn't want to spend for a hotel room or whatever, that's obnoxious, and setting the sex toys and furniture and all to owner or group only can be a fun way to frustrate that. I think land owners who rent and allow ban lines or security devices can lose a lot of potential renters, it sends what is to me, a distinctly unfriendly and unneighborly message. On the other hand, rude people who show up while out exploring, who do not respond to open chat or IMs at all, or respond in a sarcastic, obnoxious manner I boot and ban on the assumption that they are likely up to no good. As an estate manager for a gay owned estate, I tend to look at strangers as potential griefers first and friendly explorers secondly, so manners count a lot. A friend of mine had a woman pop into his living room quite frequently, never when he was home. One day she did pop in while he was there and they got to chatting and she said she liked to come there and look at the pictures he had on the walls, and his collection of pets, and they had a nice chat, no harm, no foul. If you're not at home, so what if there's some stranger in your house? Its not as if they can steal or vandalize the place (the latter assuming you've set your object entry and object creation, and running script settings correctly in About Land to prevent that). And if you are home and they're obnoxious or rude, they can be booted. To boot strangers immediately is a great way to not make new friends, or get new customers or patrons. It depends on how one wants to live their Second Life.