Penny Patton

I created a free "Average Man" shape for my Vitruvian Shapes line. Not only is it not the typical "manly man" caricature with the overdoen shoulder width, maxed out muscles and tiny head, but it was made to be completely proportional (as in, the proportions you'd find on the average real world man rather than the gimpishly short arms and stork like legs of most SL avatars) and entirely to scale (5'10"/178cm rather than the 7 to 8' tall avatars most men typically sport). Of course, depending on where you go and what you like to do in SL these could all be considered pros or cons, but I made this particular shape free and entirely full perm for people to try out and share. It's perfect for sims like Doomed Ship or 1920's Berlin where realistic, well proportioned shapes are encouraged. For the average welcome area or dance club 5'10" would make you shorter than most of the women.

Pac Lorefield wrote: I hope folks don't think I'm trying to discriminate against size here. I was just truly curious. I've been here 3 years and this is the first time I'm noticing the differences. I think as a builder I worry about proportion when it comes to building and poses. I agree as well that you just make yourself how you want and are comfortable with! Thanks for everyone's input! It tends to be a bit of a touchy subject for several irrational reasons. First, there's the fact that so many people have no idea how tall they are, leading to the incorrect assumption that "short" avatars are children which in turn can lead to shorter avatars on the recieving end of some undeserved harrasment. That has lead to shorter avatars becoming irritable about the topic and harassing taller avatars for being giants. Understandable but not at all helpful. That said, there's actually some pretty good reasons to scale down and it's mind boggling that Linden Lab continues to provide gigantic starter avatars to new users and has failed to fix a bug in avatar size reporting which has lead to a lot of unecessary confusion. The whole situation is pretty inexcusable and remains one of SL's biggest obstacles to seeing real growth, if you'll pardon the pun, because of both the social issues and how it affects the quality of content created in SL. Here's an article I wrote on the topic some time ago, to give some perspective from someone who actually does visual design for a living. The scale issue affects pretty much everything, from animations to how much you pay for land. The impact has been huge and would be considered a "showstopper" level problem for any company other than LL.

Senga Recreant wrote: Penny's personal crusade has been successful to the point where I'm almost at loathe to even speak to someone normal sized, because so often they're so militant about it that they refuse to acknowledge that towering over them is the entire point of my persona and character. I'm truly sorry you're running into these kinds of reactions in SL, but don't you think it's maybe a bit disingenous to blame me for it? I have always discouraged this kind of behaviour, in this and many other threads I have repeatedly stressed that it is not at all helpful and just muddies discourse on the topic. I am not the only person aware of SL's scale problems and pointing them out, I'm just someone with the right mix of design and education experience to put it into terms that those without such experience can, hopefully, understand more easily. The people you describe would be here treating you in precisely the same way whether I was in SL or not.

Deej Kasshiki wrote: Forget it Dogboat. Some people would rather namecall and ignore any points of view other than their own. Heaven forbid that there's actually more than one user case, one "right" way... Sadly it's this attitude that is causing as much damage to the SL community as any of the dumb decisions made by the Lab in the recent past. If my username is login2317november because I didn't know it was going to be visible, I set my display name to "Suzy" and you insist on referring to me by my username then you're being offensive. That's all I'm saying and if that offends you then I really can't help you.

Remember when sculpts first hit? Tho I'm pretty sure when sculpts arrived LL made the upgrade to sculpt compatible viewers mandatory. I'm actually fairly surprised they didn't do the same thing with mesh. Ideally they'd have kept the TPV community in the loop enough to follow up with mesh compatible TPVs soon after release or left open a grace period window before making mesh a mandatory feature. Excluding things like text viewers, of course.

Victoria wrote: I have received gifts meant for people whose display name is Victoria, so I know for a fact that display names can mix people up. I've seen similar mix-ups between people with similar, even only vaguely similar, usernames. People can be careless sometimes. I don't think that means we need to childproof the grid. Since usernames default to being visible and many people have been using viewers that don't even support display names, chances are high that the person making this mix-up had usernames displayed on their screen.

Dogboat Taurog wrote: you can of course refer to me as Dogboat Taurog, thats my SL name, easier no? So what makes YOUR SL name a good option, but a new users SL name something to be avoided? Remember, new sign-ups don't have the same naming options you did. Remember, usernames are no longer avatar names, they're the account name you sign in with. New sign-ups don't have nearly the freedom in choosing their usernames that we did with our SL names, meaning a lot of people are going to be stuck with usernames they really don't want as an avatar name, hence they set their avatar name using the feature designed percisely for that purpose.

tako Absent wrote: what's wrong with v a g ina?! my god! Well, you see the **bleep**s at Linden Lab believe we're all a bunch of **bleep**s who need constant **bleep**ing or else we'll **bleep** ourselves to **bleep** at the **bleep**. But they went a bit overboard with the **bleep**ing **bleep**s and now even words like **bleep**, **bleep**, **bleep** and **bleep** wind up getting **bleep**ed by the **bleep**ing **bleep**. Just the other day I was **bleep**ing to one of those **bleep** Lindens about the **bleep**ing **bleep** but they were no **bleep**ing help, just told me to submit a **bleep**ing Jira ticket. Which I did, but in the meantime my **bleep** on the Marketplace is **bleep**ed so I can't advertise it as the **bleep** it is without it getting **bleep**ed! Which is pretty **bleep**ing **bleep** if you ask me.

Is there a bug with prims larger than 10m sometimes being counted as more than one prim? Because I've been using them a lot since they were unleashed on the grid and so far SL has been counting them as 1 prim in every single case.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: You have clarified that you did not understand my point. Take this example from your 'clarification' The viewers in your example displays only display names. A scripted device announces that some user name has just won some L$. Everyone except that user name is then thinking 'who is this user name?' Yes, it's true that everyone can then look around the area and hover their cursor over each AV to discover their user names. Or the winning AV could shout 'It's me - I'm user name whatever' Still it's confusing to see only display names and have scripted devices referring to user names. People can find out the information eventually but unless they do or until they do they'll be confused. I hope I've clarified that for you. I understood you perfectly fine, all you've clarified that you're willing to stretch creduility well past the breaking point. Let's say we're in such a situation, a club with a scripted device that announces someone won some L$. How many people are actually confused? Probably not many at all. First, we all know what usernames and display names are. It's not like some secret new feature LL snuck in last week. They've been a reality for about a year. Longtime SL users are, by now, used to legacy content referring to usernames. Second, the winner has their money, they're certainly not confused. They probably let out a jubilant cry of victory, clearly announcing who they are, but even if they're not everyone else has the only key information they need, that they themselves were not the winner and that's probably all most of them actually care about. They're going to offer the same general congratulatory remarks either way. I use scripted items that refer to usernames all the time, some of them for keeping track of people in busy sims. Guess what? It has not been a problem. I'm sure there could be situations where it would be an issue, but I've yet to encounter them and the example given was not very convincing.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: There are scripted items around that identify by user name. If viewers are set to show only display names that leads to confusion. Display names aren't required to be unique and can change over time. That limits what they can be used for. Let's clarify. If the viewer only allowed you to see display names, then yes it would be confusing. However, the viewer, even with usernames not displayed overhead of every avatar, makes usernames easily accessible to the point where putting usernames over everyone's heads is silly and redundant. LL also added LSL functions that work with display names, combined with the fact that we now have better tools to manage script memory only legacy content and poorly scripted content will be negatively affected.

Not to mention the various ways in which the appearance editor is outright broken (as in women cannot be properly proportioned over about 6' tall, the torso muscle slider for women is broken, the height displayed in the appearance editor is broken, etcetera). If you want a run down of the problems and quirks of the appearance editor I think I covered most of them in this article about creating proportional avatars.

melody Swashbuckler wrote: @Penny, Exactly my point! The proportions in sl are so screwed up that we get so many different thoughts on what is considered a child avatar and adult avatar. It's hard to tell without a definitive answer from LL. i would like to see actual numbers of what numbers on the slider bars of what is a child avatar, such as height and body thickness. That's actually quite impossible tho it takes a decent understanding of the appearance editor to relaize why. Let me use height as an example because it's the easiest to explain. The number of the height slider does not represent a static measurement of height. It is possible to have a height of 0 and be over 6' tall, it's possible to have a height of 15 and be 5'5". You see? The shape you wind up with is the end result of a multitude of sliders working together and affecting each other in various different ways. One shape may have a head size of 63 and look like an adult. Anither may have a head size of 30 and look like a child. Therefore it is impossible to nail down a specific number or range of numbers that are considered "childlike". You'd have better luck trying to define the shape of fire.

Dogboat Taurog wrote: lol i dont see any change for the better when twinkletoes (who?) is now known as fairywings. i must have known them once i but its beyond me now who they are or were. some of us crotchety old SL users prefer people not changing their names every week, wierd i know.... I've got a fairly large contact list and yet only one person on it who changes their name with any frequency. People frequently changing names is a non-issue, anyone not blinded by their own stubborn refusal to accept change would see that. Even so, I agree LL shouldn't have made it so easy to frequently change names. If someone abuses that ability then the problem is their's if their friends don't recognize them, or start to get annoyed by it. Or are you suggesting I'd be better off referring to you as 1a084e61-abc2-40e8-8fae-41de0272be8c because twinkeltoes changed her name to fairywings one week then queenbee the next and it's made me decide to avoid the whole "names" thing altogether?

Yes, really it was necessary. Look, there's very valid complaints about the newer LL viewers. I have plenty myself. Lots of people I know use Phoenix, Singularity, I'm using Firestorm myself and for the longest time Ascent was my viewer of choice. I only reluctantly went to the 2.x viewers even tho I find the 1.x viewers are far, far, far better for content creation. However, if I'm walking around with "Princess Sparkles" as my display name and you insist on referring to me by my username herpyderp5656 because you don't like display names then you are being silly, petty, rude, stubborn and need to get over yourself. And sure, there are people out there who make their display names illegible, in those cases use their username, or do what I do and make names up for them. In that situation THEY'RE the ones being difficult.

Ceera Murakami wrote: Think about it this way. You walk into a club, and there's ten people there all with the Display Name "John Smith". You seem to recall that your friend "kurt7D8 Avon" was using "John Smith" this week as his Display Name. Is one of those people your friend? Well, you could mouseover each one, and check their profiles. If you can find each of them, in a laggy, crowded club. Or you could mouseover their name in chat each time one of them speaks, and try to remember which one is which. Or you could do what most people do, and display both names, so "John Smith (kurt7D8 Avon)" is instantly and visibly different from "John Smith (Peggy Patton)". Now imagine someone IM's you. You're showing only Display Names, because you think that's what you prefer to see. You get an IM from "Polly Avon", which is the same name as your SL Partner, or is maybe the name fo your business partner in SL, and they say they need L$5000 to cover the tier on your shared parcel. Are you going to remember to mouseover their name before sending them the money, to make sure that the person is really "Polly Avon (Polly Avon)", and not "Polly Avon (DetestableScammer)"? That is the kind of impersonation that many people were worried about, when Display Names was first proposed, and it still is a possible issue. As for the first case...that is extremely unlikely to ever happen unless the club is running a "John Smith" event. We've had display names for over a year now and this has never been an issue. With the second, you do realize that usernames are displayed automatically in the payment window, right? That's even with usernames not shown over people's heads. You will always see a person's username when you go to pay them so you don't need to remember to check.

And yes, like wiked Anton points out, changing display names only applies to current SL viewers SL 2.1 and above, including third party viewers like Firestorm and Kirstens. Outdated viewers that are still in use obviously do not support all current features. Phoenix apparently shows display names but doesn't let you change your own.

@Kurt Yes, "username" is your log-on to SL name. No, it does not matter if your username and display name are the same. Most older users keep their old usernames as their display names. As for the naming of different features, Linden Lab has always been extremely bad about that. I've been saying since 2005 that the so-called "Friends List" should be renamed a "Contact List" that we can organize by friends, acquaintances, etcetera. About both username and display name being shown, go to Preferences > General > and un-check "Usernames". This will leave you with only display names shown. If you need to see anyone else's username for identity purposes, usernames are displayed in mouse-over pop-ups, the little information boxes that appear when your mosue cursor lingers over an avatar or scripted object, or the display name of an avatar or scripted object in chat/IM history.

Some clarifications. Your "user name" is the name you log in with. It is not meant to be visible beyond being a unique identifier, like a social security number or other government ID. This is unique and cannot be changed. Your "display name" is your avatar name, what you want to be called by people you meet in SL. This can be changed and it is not unique, so there may be others with the same name just like in real life. To change your display name simple edit your profile, there is an option for changing your display name there. Unfortunately, LL handled the upgrade ot display names with all the wisdom and grace they've become known for over the years, which is to say they took a great idea and managed to implement it in the worst possible way. LL set up the viewer to display both user names and display names by default, a stupid, stupid move considering how easily accessable usernames are making impersonation impossible. So this move only served to confuse the issue. On top of that, LL introduced display names shortly after the release of Viewer 2. The initial releases of Viewer 2 were awful, absolutely atrociously bad, it took them almost a year to turn Viewer 2 into what was eventually a superior viewer, but by then they'd burned so many existing residents that many refuse to touch it, citing problems that were resolved half a year ago or longer. So they continue to use older viewers that only show user names. Still others are simply crotchety old SL users who hate change, even when it's change for the better, and simply refuse to use display names. Those people need to get a life.

I agree with Perrie. With a real person a child can be easily defined in the legal sense. If you're under xx years old, then you're a child. In SL, we don't have that clear cut view. We can make assumptions based on how someone acts, the way they dress. If SL had a better sense of proportion then we could go by that, but much like scale, proportions in SL are skewed well beyond human norms. It's impossible to point at an avatar and go, "That's a child" with 100% certainty. So it winds up being like the United States government's approach to "obscenity" which is, "I'll know it when I see it." If LL makes any hard rules they will be arbitrary, unneccessary, and certain to anger a lot of adults using adult avatars that happened to get flagged under an inflexible, unrealistic policy. @ Heyley: Good to know! I always have to point it out tho because there are so many people who don't realize the official appearance editor is broken.

Hayley Spore wrote: I'm 5'4" in RL and I've reflected that in my avatar. I really do look tiny compared to your average giants in SL. It gets worse. How, exactly, did you determine your avatar is 5'4"? If the answer is, "That's what it says in the appearance editor" and you're using an official viewer, then chances are you're actually closer to 6' tall. The height displayed in the appearance editor has been broken since the feature was introduced.

Usernames are basically your avatar's government ID number and Display Names are your avatars names. Unfortunately, a lot of crotchety old SL users come from the before times, when usernames were our only names. Static, unchangeable, limited. LL finally improved the name system but a lot of people had a panicked, kneejerk reaction, believing that display names make it too easy to impersonate people, so Linden Lab, in what passes for wisdom with them, decided to make usernames display by default, thus ensuring the issue would remain confusing for eternity. Even worse, when the 2.0 viewer launched over a year ago it was terrible, atrociously bad. It's improved greatly since then, so now it's even better than the old viewers 2.0 replaced, but a lot of people are stuck with that initial bad impression and refuse to upgrade. So a lot of people are still clinging to ancient, outdated viewers that don't even show display names. There's no way to change your username, that's what display names are for, so you're stuck reminding people that they're being silly and stupid and they should stop.

The 1.6m "legal minimum" is particularly silly. My grandma was shorter than that and I'm fairly certain I'm not older than my grandma. An adult man I've worked with in that crazy "real world" place away from the computer was much shorter than that and I know plenty of women shorter than that as well. In addition the whole height issue is skewed by over-sized avatars, poorly scripted height detectors, and LL's own appearance editor being broken. A 6' tall avatar is going to look like a child next to an 8'10" giant and sorry, but I'm not interested in paying more money for less land because someone is hung up on the size of my avatar.

Sorry, I should have specified. I was replying to both yours and Rowan's comments.

It's pretty ridiculous to insist that content in SL is currently built to any consistent scale. That is ismply not the case, and easily demonstrrated with a quick glance around pretty much any given sim (1920's Berlin excluded). The average male avatar is about 7' tall, but men 7' to almost 9' are common. Women tend to average much smaller, with women 5' to 5'10" becoming increasingly common. Even the average SL woman is only about 6'4" and it's becoming increasingly common to see women shorter than that and increasingly uncommon to see them taller. Already there's a scale inconsistency between the genders! While most furnishings (chairs, tables, etcetera) are built to slightly larger scale than the more common avatar sizes (even the 7' tall men look like children sitting in a lot of the chairs around the grid), most environments (houses, studios, skyboxes, RP sims) are built to a much larger scale, most pushing around double size to accomodate for SL's poor default camera placement. So we're already working with at least four different sets of scale here, and we're bound to see these inconsistencies before we've even left Help Island! Vehicles are a mixed bag. Many cars are created way over scale, often pushing double size. Many boats, the physical vehicle variety at least, tend to be smaller than realistic scale. Airplanes tend to be built on the small side as well, with some scale inconsistencies built into them to accomodate their large scale pilots. To put it plainly, scale in SL is broken. Completely and utterly. It doesn't matter what size you are. Chances are your avatar won't be to scale with everything inside the room you're standing in, let alone the rest of the sim. So where does that leave us? My take is that SL users to make their avatar the size that suits them. Just have fun with it and there's no need to harass anyone else for their choice in the matter. However, if you own land or like to play with SL vehicles it's simply a good choice to scale down. Land is a static size. If your avatar is larger, it's exactly the same as making the land around you smaller. An 8' tall avatar with default camera placement pretty much needs a double scale house, which means they are paying four times as much for the same experience a 5'10" avatar with improved camera placement enjoys on a smaller parcel of land. This is basic grade school geometry. So the "it's a virtual world so scale doesn't matter" argument goes right out the window. Also, nearly every single gigantic SL avatar out there has no idea how large they are. They did not make their avatar that size due to a concious decision, they made their avatar that size because LL starts everyone off a giant and does not provide the tools to make that obvious. So the idea that people are huge by choice is a pretty faulty argument as well. Still, it's foolish not to consider the social side of things. The casual user doesn't want to fight the good fight against Linden Lab's design mistakes, why should they? They're here to have fun! There's nothing wrong with that! Having a 7' tall avatar because that's what LL started you with and it's to scale with all your friends and more or less to scale with the inventoy you've acquired over the years is a perfectly good and valid reason to stay just the way you are! Anyone who says differently is as much an idiot as the people insisting the smaller avatars they should scale up. I personally recommend smaller avatars. Both for the money issue and because of the creativity issue. If the average avatar were more realistically sized we'd actually wind up with a wider variety of avatars because it would be possible, for the first time in the history of SL, for the huge avatars to stand out from the crowd as huge. In addition, building smaller affords larger, more detailed environments. I am consistently having builds I've created in SL mistaken for being much larger than they are. Hamlet at New World Notes recently mistook my build for the Milk and Cream club as a full simn build. It's only 1/4 a sim. Before that I had a similar build on a 900 prim parcel that was mistaken on multiple occaissions for a quarter sim build. But this doesn't mean I'm going to tell everyone they need to scale down? No! I understand the problems associated with scaling down, first hand! It's difficult! Do you know how much work it is to take a 7' tall shape and scale it down even to 6'? It's pretty time consuming. You're looking at a few hours worth of work, and that's before you get into the issue of having to scale down all your outfits and attachments to work with the new size. Then there'sthe issue of your circle of friends. Are you comfortable being half their size? No? Then maybe you're better of staying the way you are and enjoying yourself! How difficult a concept is that? What I do strongly believe, however, is that Linden Lab needs to address the scale issue themselves. They need to start providing realistically scaled and proportioned human starter avatars. They need to start building better quality starter environments and leading the scale issue by example with those builds. They need to fix the appearance editor to display correct height. They need to fix SL's camera placement so it doesn't recquire excessive amounts of space around the avatar. If LL takes these steps then the scale issue will correct itself over time and without breaking content anymore than the introduction of sculpties, flexiprims, windlight or mesh broke content.