What Are These Experiences and Their Enablers in The Viewer?

[Prokofy Neva]

I recall asking a lot of questions about "Experiences" and who would get to make them and whether they would be accessible to others, for free or for sale, and how they would be vetted.

Basically, what the Lindens have done has allowed a whole bunch of them into the viewer, and you have one option: add  or remove, allow or block if you don't like some of them. They may feel that's enough; I don't.

None of this has really been presented to the public properly -- and note to fanboyz who can't take any criticism of "their game": going to a Linden office hour or knowing Lindens or hearing about it somewhere doesn't count as "the public".

Basically, you find out about how this works in the marketplace, by trial and error.

You buy a product that the maker in fact hasn't even told you is experience enabled in some cases; in some cases, they've provided a helpful notecard that tells you that your item is "experience enabled" and that you must select "AvSitter," an "experience" created by someone named "Colin" to make that cup of cocoa work. "Experience" sounds like some big vaunted thing (like Jimi Hendrix, "Are You Experienced") but in fact it's just some little thing, like being able to get a cup of cocoa in your hand without first having to accept it into inventory, then fish it out of inventory, then drag it on yourself.

You can see what has driven more rapid adaption of Experience at least for AvSitter: accepting an item can now often remove your mesh outfit and leave you blank or naked. So people will stop using things that do that as it's a chore to put your clothes back on.

So all of this is nice and everything except...this is the third  time in history that the Lindens have taken a radical new step to allow "their own" to get into the viewer and it has some consumer issues. The first time was when the Lindens allowed residents to make things for the library, mainly avatars but a few textures. This was a very mixed bag I've discussed elsewhere and goes on being a decidedly mixed bag. The second time was when the Lindens unwisely open-sourced their viewer, which had already been hacked anyway, and allowed all kinds of copybotters and griefers to make viewers to harass the unsuspecting public, but then finally they regularized that, although of course not fully as no rogue viewer can be fully blocked for all the obvious technical reasons. Even so *a policy* against such viewers is a help, with the willingness to ban those who misuse them.

Now comes Experiences. You can't see the list of them anywhere; who the people are; or what thing they've made for your delight. No, this tiny list doesn't cut it -- it has a tiny fraction of what is in fact in the list on the viewer on your about land menu and gives a completely different impression of what this product is.

Nothing about this is explained here on the Land Menu COPIOUS explanations.

Instead, by literally just typing in random letters of the alphabet, you find some of these people. For example, somebody named Tweetie Bird who has made...a something, I have no idea what...who says on her profile "Lalalalalalal I don't care." Ok, that sounds like one that you should block, but what is it, anyway? Maybe it's an experience that enables you to pull a sword from a stone.

The Lindens really should create a list of these people; who they are; and what they've made. Because they've  put it in THEIR free viewer to the unsuspecting public, not as a marketplace option. If their reply is "we can't possibly do that because it's open to anyone who wants to upload it after passing a cursory test" then we have to say, well, let's hope some consumer group gets involved in this -- and can EVERYBODY really make an experience and upload it or only your select friends?

I'm going to bat away the usual objections to criticism of anything LL or its friends does here by noting: there is no official LL Forums post about these things showing up into the viewer. If an office hour, club meeting, speech by Ebbe, whatever has it, that's great but it doesn't count as notification to the public.

If your respons is oh, but the Lindens already notified you of this in June, you missed it, no, of course I didn't miss it because I asked questions about it at the time. Their notice makes it seem like if you have a Premium account, and you are a skilled coder, you can code these things for use on YOUR land and invite people to experience it.

That post says NOTHING about that land being available to show up ANYWHERE in Second Life that someone pulls it down on a menu from the viewer. Presumably if you are a premium member, and you pull it down on your parcel, non-premium members will be able to enjoy it, right? Or not? Only other premium members? None of this explained, least of all the process for GETTING INTO THE VIEWER and how the consumer can see what the offerings are and make rational choices about them.

And for all the Helpful Hannahs who want to object, oh, but the Lindens gave you a list right here of resident-created Experiences. Yes, I saw that, and even went to some of the things. But that is NOT what I am talking about! That's a list of a half dozen things on somebody else's sims that are destinations I can choose to go to. They are NOT things that download into MY parcel or my neighbour's parcel possibly to cause my havoc each time I fly over his parcel now. Seriously, it doesn't say who Tweetie Bird is with her Lalalalalal.

If you can't grasp the difference between letting some scripters being able to enabler something on their OWN land and venue that is explained as a game or lifestyle thing or whatever, and your opting to go there or not, and letting it wild into the viewer to be put on ANY little 512 on any Mainland sim anywhere, I don't know where to start.

The entire reason some of the less giddy devs put "block" and "remove" on this thing is because some people noted its very vast capacity for griefing. I could add its very vast capacity for making Mainland life, already tough, an absolute misery. But no matter, the main thing is to batter the public into submission to flee to Sansar, right?

 

[Darrius Gothly]

I have extremely little experience with "Experiences". I have avoided them with the same fervor as I avoid anything new from the Lab. I am not aware though of any manner by which an Experience can be forced on you or your viewer. I have been to sims with Experiences allowed and provided .. and have neither enabled, authorized nor executed any of them.

Are you saying that in some situations the viewer is forcing you .. or worse .. automatically installing and running Experiences?

If so then I am not aware of that happening .. to me at least. I use the Firestorm Viewer and haven't had that experience. Is it perhaps a side-effect of your Viewer?

I will (gasp!) agree with you that something as pervasive as you describe an Experience to be should be something only allowed to install and execute after at LEAST an approval box that must be ticked or authorized in some manner before the process can begin. Most automatic stuff? Is either of so little consequence as to be unworthy of notice ... or something you really REALLY do not want to run on your machine.

[Prokofy Neva]

@Darrius Gothly You always make a point of mis-reading or reading into or tendentiously interpreting anything I write so it's almost not worth answering you, but here goes:

 

o no where in my post did I say that anything automatically installs -- that's not the point and it does not say that

o I pointed out that you can opt NO to any experience and also not add it and also remove it *on your own property*. 

o The problem is that if OTHER people put it on THEIR property, yes, you will have the opportunity to say "no" the first time and hopefully that will 'stick" forever, not only for that log-on session but always without having to repeat.

o But the issue is that when there are SO MANY of these things the possibility for harassment and annoyance increases, as it does now with no-show residents' banlines and over-active security orbs. You could be batting these things away constantly.

o The other problem is that you *don't know what they are*. You don't know what you are adding, or who the people are, or whether they are trusted residents because there's no catalogue of them -- only a few of them are listed.

If you think the problems I've outlined are taken care of by "an approval box" then you're describing the issue I've complained about here -- people who think that, starting with the Lindens and their friends. It's not about being *able* to say no; it's about *being harassed* by constant messages that force you to do that; it's about not knowing what is in the list in THE VIEWER which is given to the unsuspecting public.

I realize all of this may fly over your head -- it doesn't matter. Hopefull the Lindens will grasp the relevance of explaining more about this and creating a catalogue of all such things put in their viewer explaining what they do, and merchants will also realize they have to explain more in one of their many stupid unnecessary box packages they inflict on us.

Then there's this: do only Premium accounts get this? Will non-Premium avatars never see these messages and therefore fly obliviously through space without any of these annoyances? That may be a reason to move to premium.

[CallumBH]

Indeed - so you agree to an experience of pulling a sword from a stone - instead, your av becomes deformed and viewer crashers attack you. And you file an AR against...what or whom, exactly?

The Lab marches on in defiance of all reason or user feedback...

 

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

I'm sure some scripter will be along any moment to cry FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) about ANY concern with this feature, and some will also ridicule concerns, and I can't tell if that's what you're doing. (BTW, whenever any Disruptor cries "FUD" at me, I cry back "RDB," which means  Regulate, Defund, Boycott. Consumers do not have to endlessly accept that their concerns are FUD and be treated like scared rabbits.

The explanation might be "but of course your av doesn't become deformed when you use my Experience you just pull the sword from the stone."

There is ever greater capacity for deforming avs now because of mesh. People now buy mesh  heads, even (something I will never do). They buy outfits in mesh that rely on blanking out your system skin to appear, or requiring you to put a disappearing invisibility texture over yourself to be able to put on their outfit and not have your purchased skin from somewhere else poke out. 

So the ability to skin you and have you show up as invisible is greater now -- as I noted, this happens now *without* experience just from items that come at you.

User feedback is important, and that hasn't been provided on this feature yet, because a select set of regulars at Linden office hours or geeks interested in testing new shinies are not really "user feedback" as they are not ordinary users.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Prokofy Neva wrote:

o no where in my post did I say that anything automatically installs -- that's not the point and it does not say that

---

TBH you were less than clear. Thus why I asked for clarification and stated "if you mean.." in my reply. Thank you for the direct answer.

 

 

---

Prokofy Neva wrote:

o I pointed out that you can opt NO to any experience and also not add it and also remove it *on your own property*. 

o The problem is that if OTHER people put it on THEIR property, yes, you will have the opportunity to say "no" the first time and hopefully that will 'stick" forever, not only for that log-on session but always without having to repeat.

o But the issue is that when there are SO MANY of these things the possibility for harassment and annoyance increases, as it does now with no-show residents' banlines and over-active security orbs. You could be batting these things away constantly.

o The other problem is that you *don't know what they are*. You don't know what you are adding, or who the people are, or whether they are trusted residents because there's no catalogue of them -- only a few of them are listed.

If you think the problems I've outlined are taken care of by "an approval box" then you're describing the issue I've complained about here -- people who think that, starting with the Lindens and their friends. It's not about being *able* to say no; it's about *being harassed* by constant messages that force you to do that; it's about not knowing what is in the list in THE VIEWER which is given to the unsuspecting public.

I realize all of this may fly over your head -- it doesn't matter. Hopefull the Lindens will grasp the relevance of explaining more about this and creating a catalogue of all such things put in their viewer explaining what they do, and merchants will also realize they have to explain more in one of their many stupid unnecessary box packages they inflict on us.

Then there's this: do only Premium accounts get this? Will non-Premium avatars never see these messages and therefore fly obliviously through space without any of these annoyances? That may be a reason to move to premium.

---

Even someone agreeing with you is wrong. Prok .. you need to get out more. *sigh*

You say "hopefully" in regards your response to the approval box sticking. Am I to assume that you've never tested it? So you have your panties in a bunch because you think it MIGHT not work? But you aren't sure. Gotcha.

You see approval boxes and similar ilk as a concerted attempt to flood you with .. what? Noise? Messages beamed into your subconscious designed to take command of your soul? What other method would you propose for the computer to ask your permission? Or do you just want the computer to assume "NO!!" and 'OH HELL NO!" to any options that might exist? There is an option for that. It's called the Power Switch. Turn it off and you will never be bothered with another intrusive and ill-meaning prompt box .. EVER!

I did .. and still do agree with you that any option or feature that can cause damage to you, your account, your avatar or your possessions needs a very detailed catalog of creator and purpose. That is lacking in the current Experiences. As LL sees fit not to produce such a list, and you seem amply able to find and root out the Experiences and their Creators, you make a dandy candidate to create such a list yourself. Here's your chance to FIX what you perceive to be wrong .. so do it.

Pointing our problems is all well and good Prok. But just seeing the problem and reporting it is useless to the wider good if you can't also provide some inkling of a solution too. Your default solution of "KILL IT!" or "REMOVE IT!" is not a solution, it's a knee-jerk reaction to a bigger problem that has no actual usefullness in practice. Yeah, it makes YOU feel good to rant about something, but you've seriously damaged others by not carrying forward and proposing a sensible and viable solution.

There are facets of Second Life that annoy or harass us. There are facets of life that do the same. We have developed means and methods to minimize those facets because for many they are necessary. The gas guage on your car for example. If you own one of the new cars that chimes every 5 miles or so, it can become annoying after the first notice. So you engage the one tool designed to protect you from such repetitive harassment .. your MIND!

You are someone that appears to use your mind for many productive and valuable things. Yet those places where you should be using it, you demand otherwise. Really you are a conundrum Prok. Why do you use such amazing mental prowess to debate endlessly .. then shut the thing off when you spot an "issue"? I would suggest you apply some of that power to adjusting your own perceptions; you might find the world a wee bit less intolerable.

But .. since changing you is a pointless exercise in futility .. how about you grace us with your SOLUTION to the problem? And not just "kill it" or "elminate it". Take some time, apply your knowledge, experience and imagination to develop a solution that helps more than just soothing a jerky knee.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Prokofy Neva wrote:

User feedback is important

, and that hasn't been provided on this feature yet,

because a select set of regulars at Linden office hours

or geeks interested in testing new shinies

are not really "user feedback"

as they are not ordinary users.

---

The points I bolded above are .. to my opinion .. right on the money. I have felt and blogged and posted loud and often that LL uses not only too small a sample, but a hopelessly skewed sample to make their critical decisions.

But them actually gathering up a representative sample, presenting them with choices, and then listening to their feedback would require LL to dispose of their most valuable business practice:

 

 

• "We didn't think it up, so it's WRONG!"

Come to think of it, the one person on the Forums that says that same thing more than anyone else is .. YOU!

AH-HAH!! YOU are the Linden Lab plant! Now it ALL makes sense!

[Amethyst Jetaime]

You could have saved yourself a lot of typing by using the Knowledge Base on Experiences

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Experiences-in-Second-Life/ta-p/2744686#Section_.4

If you read it before posting then you didn't comprehend what it says and you should read it again because you don't know what you are talking about.

The coco cup example is a poor one.  Chances are that you will only be asked permission to animate you and/or accept the cup just like always.  You are asked permission in all cases each time a scripted item will effect your avatar by animation, giving you something, teleporting etc, unless YOU choose to attach it to your avatar or sit on it.  Even if you sit on something, if it is going to do anything other than animate you, it always asks your permission.  When you stand, the animation can't continue.  If clicking a button is too hard for you I don't know what to tell you.  These individual permissions have nothing to do with  "Experience".

Experience is NOT a product.  It means a place where you can grant permission OR not one time for the whole experience, rather than each time it wants to animate you or tp you or give you something.  The permission is revoked when you leave it.  You can also revoke permission at any time.

Only premium members can create something involving experience permissions.  They can market these products the same way someone can market a group of buildings, landscaping etc.  However the group of products can't do anything to you unless you grant permissions.

Nothing in the viewer effects you if you don't activate it yourself. So your objection is moot.

Becoming naked because you accept an item happens because clothes designers are too lazy to attach rigged mesh to the appropriate attachment point.  It should never be the hand unless it is for the hand.  You can change the attachment point from hand to any other part of the body.  So just check where your clothes attachment point and change it if they attach to the  hand and you can avoid this problem all together.

 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

You really know how to suck all the fun out of a lively debate! *GRINZ* Stop confusing us with reality and facts! After all, what's the use of knowing the truth when you can wile away hours spitting and fuming at each other over inconsequential technical detritus. *wink*

[Sassy Romano]

---

Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

o But the issue is that when there are SO MANY of these things the possibility for harassment and annoyance increases, as it does now with no-show residents' banlines and over-active security orbs. You could be batting these things away constantly.

---

Hmm, i've not encountered a single one!  However, if I do, I'll blindly trust them all as they're allowed by Linden Lab.

(See what I did there?)

My take is that Experiences here are just a testing ground for Sansar, nothing else, the features will be added later (or not, as i'm confident that all LL resource is diverted to Marketplace fixes for a while.)

[Prokofy Neva]

@Darrius Gothly as I mentioned, you won't/can't grasp the issue here, and are not worth answering given your prejudices. I assure you I "get out" quite a bit. I think you don't.

@Amethyst Jetaime No, you're wrong on a number of counts here.

1. I read the Knowledge Base, hon. I always start with that. I referenced one of the KB's on the land menu (which has NONE of this and should!) and didn't happen to reference the one you did, but no matter, because my issue was not addressed there, or in your reply.

Let me go over it again: the Lindens have allowed all kinds of people into the viewer we all use; they have not created a list of these people; we have  no idea who they are or their reputations or their quality; we don't know if they are vetted; even the very nature of what their script is, is not explained there. And that's all wrong, and the KB is not enough to address that.

2. Experience IS a product. It's a product like anything else in this world. People may develop these scripts and sell them down the line, possibly in Project Sansar. Just because they are uploaded now for free doesn't mean anything. And even free, they are still a product in the sense that the provide reputational points and visibility for their scripters -- all mentioned by names -- which helps them sell their OTHER products in their store, a very old SL story.

3. The cocoa cup is only a "poor example" if you live on the forums and the alternative universe of SL sandboxing/Linden office hours/geek discussions/etc and not in the "real" world of actual experience-small-e on the grid.  It's a very common one; possibly the most common. (After visiting your inworld office, I see the problem now.) Therefore it's a good place to start to grasp what this new PRODUCT and "feature" is about.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that Experience is "a place where you can grant permission or not" -- although that really isn't a solid definition. It's a script uploaded into the viewer that offers this to the person who accesses SL through that viewer, first and foremost. You may have missed my many questions about this months ago, none of which were answered at the time, and I don't have time to fish it out of the tech forums now, but this was covered already.

4. Your conviction that premium members "can't" market this is misplaced. Of course they can -- and do. There are sims where these "Experiences" function, and whether or not they are literally/technically for sale doesn't matter; the sims are either selling other stuff; they are drawing traffic for other purposes (reputational enhancement to help sell other products) and at any time, these might become sellable given that they are "a thing" in "Second Life". 

BTW, I could point out that through testing with a tenant's help, I've discovered that you don't have to be a premium member to experience the Experience, only to make it and also add it to your land via the viewer.

5. Once again, as I said from the outset and indeed it was clear, derp I get it underp that you have to GIVE PERMISSION for this to "act upon" your avatar. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Because the issue is that there are gadzillions of these, you don't know what you are giving permission to, you have no master list of them, you can be flying over land and be hit with them, and merely to get the screen out of your face you might click "yes". That's not the way to make a world.

6. Trying to explain away a problem by then shifting the burden to "makers who are too lazy" is common in SL but not acceptable. Nobody should have to stand and re-edit all their clothing or dress themselves with add instead of wear or whatever just because they want to grab some oars to take a boat ride. Gasp, imagine, this entire attachment/edit/mesh thing might be RETHOUGHT you know? Perish the thought, the horror.

At this point I have a dock at my rentals with two offerings -- boats that take off mesh; boats that don't take off mesh. Ridiculous. Mesh could have just not been introduced into THIS world which is really not suitable for it and could have been added just to Sansar. Or it could have been put into this world with more care and forethought for THE CONSUMER instead of the geek/designer. Just a thought.

At this point, most mesh items cannot be rezzed out on to most other mesh items -- desks, floors of houses, etc. Pretty frigging ridiculous. You have to rez an old-fashioned prim to put out your beloved mesh, you know? Then cam it into place where it goes in your post-card picture table -- which used to be a functionable table that you could put things on normally in SL.

I realize the gulf of experience and understanding of the actualities of the consumer world in SL as it is now is so great with forums-dwellers, especially the helping geek class, that I don't know why I bother. However, there are Lindens that one can reach by talking over your heads. So to these Lindens I would say:

1. Update the KB article on the land parcels to explain Experiences -- you don't, and that's where people start in trying to fathom the vast rocket science of the land parcel. It's astounding how long and complex that article is already but it's a must.

2. Make a list of the people who provide Experiences to the unsuspecting public -- avatar names, name of script, and simple function of what it does. For extra credit, have those avatars have a real name and payment form on file. Let us know whether you exercise any quality control or whether you just hope "NO" and "REMOVE" will take care of it all for you.

3. If you refuse to do no. 2 because there are "too many," make a list at least of the top 100 and what they do.

4. Explain whether you anticipate these scripts/things to be marketable or sellable or not, because the reputational gain that these individuals get through free advertising in your viewer is tremendous.

5. Give some thought about how you can make both non-Experience interactions and Experience-interactions stop messing up mesh clothing and making people or parts disappear or look ugly. Are attachment points really the only way to handle these things? 

 

[Darrius Gothly]

(skimmed it .. cuz frankly .. fantasy isn't my favorite genre)

Yup, as I said in my last post to you Prok, your best solution is the power switch. Once turned off, all the issues you imagine having with computers, geeks, Linden Lab, the FIC and all those annoying things popping up .. will be DONE!

[irihapeti]

agree

like you say

it isnt what Is An experience that a new user wants to know. Builders/creators want to know this

it is: what is This experience that a new user wants to know. What is This that I am being asked by

+

the same when we use mobile apps. Before I grant access to my phone then I want to know Who/What is asking. I want to know about This app

i dont want a technical reference about how apps can be used, or how they are built. What the implications are for the creators who make these things. Or even how as a user I might broadly benefit from this technology somehow

i dont care about any of this, at This moment

I want to know about This. Who are you ? What are you ? Why should I ever do what you asking of me ?

 

[Bobbie Faulds]

What most people use Experience for is to actually make things easier...For instance...Ivey Deschenel recently had her yearly "haunted house". It asked to allow experiences. What it did was allow you to TP from area to area where different parts of the build were rather than having to ask for it every time you clicked on a TP. It's more of a convenience for the most part and benign. I'd only allow Experiences from a trusted person though you can deny it to continue affectiong your avi. Don't get so paranoid, Prok.

[Qie Niangao]

---

irihapeti wrote: the same when we use mobile apps. Before I grant access to my phone then I want to know Who/What is asking. I want to know about This app 

---

This is particularly apt in light of the new, as-needed permissions in Android 6.0 ("Marshmallow"). In contrast, Experience permissions are all requested, all at once, so the list looks super scary.

If one can get past that initial scare, there's really nothing an Experience can do that could be more than a temporary inconvenience, at worst. So that's probably why the Lab developers figured: Keep It Simple Stupid and just get a one-time comprehensive grant of all "Experience" permissions.

Thing is, in addition to looking way scarier than it really is, this approach really complicates ever adding more permissions to (some) Experiences (a notable example: the ability to force-sit an avatar).

[SirLeighBastard]

---

irihapeti wrote:

i dont care about any of this

---

+1

***Call me, Prok, when you have something interesting to say

[Qie Niangao]

I can't begin to address everything raised in this thread, so I'll just try to clarify a couple things that seem fundamentally confused.

First, though, I'm unclear what problems are arising with Experience-attached Mesh items. If I understand what I'm reading here, it seems that some Mesh items disappear when other items are attached (I presume that's whether the attachment is done by an Experience script or otherwise). I don't know if this is some kind of bug, or what's even going on here -- I've never seen it. So... does everybody else understand this, and I've just lead a charmed existence? Or... am I misunderstanding the complaint?

Now, back on "Experiences": There seems to be a fundamental confusion that Experiences are "loaded into the viewer." (E.g., " It's a script uploaded into the viewer that offers this to the person who accesses SL through that viewer, first and foremost.") This is just not correct, and I think it's leading to more confusion. Because Experiences are strictly script features, they execute on the sim only, not in the viewer. The list of available Experiences is only "loaded into the viewer" in the way that the list of a group's members is "loaded into the viewer": the viewer queries for information and it gets displayed -- but that's really all the "loading" that takes place.

In fact, viewers used by non-Premium members don't even need to know about Experiences at all; really, they know about permissions. Old viewers from before Experiences ever existed get along just fine; they only lack the tools to conveniently administer Experiences and to develop with them.

One other point of clarification that may help: Right now, it's true that Experiences available for general use are all land based. That is, they must be enabled on a parcel in order for them to affect avatars on that parcel. In the longer term, Experiences are (were?) intended to also be available that are not land-based, that can operate anywhere on the grid once the user approves them. Hence, while there are definitely Land-related aspects of Experiences that need to be documented, they also have a standalone, non-land-based existence, and all that needs to be documented separately from the Land topic.

[irihapeti]

i am a new person. I am exploring mainland say. Just flying along. Then I get something like this:

 

+

what is This ? Who are you ? Why do you want This from me ?

i go hmmm! there is a link PQ2015 or whichever. I click and get the Experience Profile. Is nothing on there that tells me what This is

i click on the Creator Name. I get a blank profile ( we actual do in this case)

as a experienced SL user I can kinda sorta "know" what This is

as a new person I cant "know" This at all

+

wheres the button which will tell me what This is ?

like a button which will open my browser and take me to a web page that will tell me what This is

if XP creators were able to point the button to their XP tools page that comes with the Experience then that be good

be good as well for the new person. And even experienced users. To get info on what This is

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

Prokofy Neva wrote:

You buy a product that the maker in fact hasn't even told you is experience enabled in some cases; in some cases, they've provided a helpful notecard that tells you that your item is "experience enabled" and that you must select "AvSitter," an "experience" created by someone named "Colin" to make that cup of cocoa work. "Experience" sounds like some big vaunted thing (like Jimi Hendrix, "Are You Experienced") but in fact it's just some little thing, like being able to get a cup of cocoa in your hand without first having to accept it into inventory, then fish it out of inventory, then drag it on yourself.

You can see what has driven more rapid adaption of Experience at least for AvSitter: accepting an item can now often remove your mesh outfit and leave you blank or naked. So people will stop using things that do that as it's a chore to put your clothes back on.

 

---

Okay, I see part of the problem. You're using the term "experience" for something it isn't.

The furniture you're seeing uses a common poseball-free sit system called AvSitter. One of the things that AvSitter furniture can do is temporarily attach things like cocoa cups to you using a comparatively new script command called llTempAttachToAvatar. If a piece of furniture uses llTempAttachToAvatar it has to ask your permission every time. This command was put into LSL in order to be used in Experiences, but its use doesn't mean that the use of it makes a furniture item part of an Experience.

AvSitter has "hooks" to allow owners to use the furniture in their Experiences, which are tied to a specific piece of land and allow multiple permissions to be granted at once by users, but the furniture itself isn't an "experience." I have one of these benches on my land but that doesn't mean it's an "experience" or that I'm "loaded into the viewer", and it's going to ask permission every time to attach that cocoa cup.

Oh, and the "taking off mesh" issue? Use "Add," not "Wear."

 

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

Hmm. Yeah, I guess there are sort of two separate bits of missing information here. First is the overall documentation about what any Experience is and what all those permissions mean and how simple it is to back out of an Experience later -- it's not obvious how the user is to figure that out from what they're presented. Perhaps some contextual Help button on that grand unified Permissions dialog would help with that.

The second, though, is what the Experience provider is supposed to provide in chat (or somewhere) so the person getting asked for the permissions can learn what they're getting themselves into. Ideally the Experience programmer would make this blindingly obvious before the corresponding Permissions dialog ever appears, but if they don't supply it at all, then the user must fall back on the (missing) general-purpose Experience information.

(What I don't know for sure is whether there's any risk of being flooded by permissions dialogs, Experience-related or otherwise. I seem to vaguely recall that those were throttled long ago in response to griefing, but I'm not confident I'm remembering that correctly.)

[irihapeti]

yes agree that experiences permissions is way better than the old/standard permission system. For everyone. Once we know what permissions are, what their purpose is

+

just about the Experience Profile. I think that if Experience Owners were able to put in a fairly comprehensive html page (or pages) then would be quite good

from a safety pov then would be better to be contained within the SL domain as a property of the Experience, rather than just a link to a external website. (A owner can always make a link to own website in their personal profile if they want)

for most well-made experiences we get a HUD that can tells us what This is. Which is pretty good. Downside is that we dont get the HUD until after we click Yes

+

i think the scariest thing about that dialog for new people (based on what they know already) is: What do you mean by controlling my camera ?

what I know about is the camera on my PC ? I dunno why I would ever let you control that, for something I dunno

maybe it could be said differently. use View instead of Camera maybe 

+

eta clarify

[Marianne Little]

I remember when I was new in SL, I got lots of freebies and played around, making outfits.

It was some cool sunglasses that took off my hair and made me bald every time! Can you imagine that? But not with all my hairs, some hair was knocked off by the sunglasses and others not.

(Prokofy Neva: You can see what has driven more rapid adaption of Experience at least for AvSitter: accepting an item can now often remove your mesh outfit and leave you blank or naked. So people will stop using things that do that as it's a chore to put your clothes back on.)

I stopped using these prim items that I couldn't trust. This was in 2006. Some had made hairs that attached to the nose instead of the skull. Probably they thought ah, if the hair attach to the nose, then people can wear hats more easy. So when the glasses also attach to the nose, then bam! Marianne is bald.

LL has made it possible now to have several attachments in one place, but we must use "add" instead of "wear". I know that you know this, because you say in another post that you will not hear about workaounds like adding instead of wearing. So a thing that is positive for most of SL residents is negative. It was made to allow us to wear several objectts at the same attachment point... as a help for us!

Many creators leave the default attachmentpoint to be the right hand. This is bloody annoying, because I assume that the oars or cocoa cups that you talk about, can not be scripted to be added, only worn? It is many things that could be made better in SL. 

The mesh is better than prims in that I can change attachment points to a new attachment, and the mesh will work just the same way and without editing. Unlike prims, where I had to spend a long time on a poseball if I wanted to change attachment points. I had to manually edit the item to the new place. And even if I had a free attachment point, I could not attach a shoe to one of the upper legs. I could move it in place on my avatar when it was posed on a poseball, but when moving, it didn't work.

A more experienced user of SL can change the attachment point of his/hers mesh body to avatar center, the mesh hands to overarms, the dresses to pelvis, the feet to upper leg.. and leave the right hand attachment point free. This is something you can not expect a new user to know and do. Heck, it is hard enough for me who buys new stuff constantly, to control where it is attached and change it.

I think Experiences should have a new attachment point open just for the scripters who has permissions to make Experiences, so a wellmeaning dress designer can't attach their clothes and avatar attachments to that point because hey, it is a new attachment point and I can use it, now my customers will not loose the dress if they wear something else...

This, at least, could be the easy way to solve the "I allow Experiences and I am suddenly naked" problem?

 

[irihapeti]

---

Marianne Little wrote:

 

I think Experiences should have a new attachment point open just for the scripters who has permissions to make Experiences, so a wellmeaning dress designer can't attach their clothes and avatar attachments to that point because hey, it is a new attachment point and I can use it, now my customers will not loose the dress if they

wear

something else...

This, at least, could be the easy way to solve the "I allow Experiences and I am suddenly naked" problem?

 

---

^^ this ^^

i vote for this

[Prokofy Neva]

@Qie Niangao You're overly complexifying this.

Some mesh things, when you receive them, take off your mesh outfit because they are attaching at the same points so one replaces the other, is all. It isn't about Experience; it's merely about how mesh works badly in a world not originally designed for it.

Your notion that explanations of Experience don't belong on explanations of the Land Menu has no basis because this *happens on the land menu*. It doesn't happen elsewhere in the viewer or on the web site; you pull down "AvSitter" in a tab marked Experience *on the land menu*.

That *is* being loaded into the viewer. Precisely because yes, the list is loaded into the land menu on the viewer like a list of group members is loaded into the viewer, it's, *in the viewer*. In the most basic, ordinary sense.

If you are trying to get geeky and explain that oh, Experiences load server side like scripts do, I get it, but that doesn't matter. This isn't a technology discussion. It's a policy discussion. Do you see the offerings from the world's wayward scripters in your viewer, in your land menu? You do. So then they are in the viewer, for all intents and purposes. Really, it becomes completely academic to parse where the viewer ends and the server begins when they are interconnected and one displays the other.

It's not true that non-premium members "don't need to know". The reality is *for them* they load, and they ask, "Do you want to..."  The issue of "premium" relationship refers to both being able to script them, and being able to load them into land you own.

It *doesn't matter* if there are "other" Experiences that take place in the air or sea or in your mind. This "itch to set people straight" is such a bane of the forums.

There's a simple problem here:  a bunch of the Lindens' friends got an early gander at new tools, they made stuff with them, they got to put them in the viewer *we all use*; we know little about them beyond the cursory explanation of a handful of them on "Destinations"; and  yet they LOAD FOR ALL OF US ON OUR LAND MENUS. I don't know why this *policy* issue is so hard for this bunch here to grasp, but it's the usual Two Cultures problem of CP Snow.

The reality is, the Lindens need to explain this better. It doesn't matter if it takes other forms, other chapters need to be written and blah blah blah. On my land, where this is pulled down, I want to know what I'm getting, what this crap is, how it affects me and my customer, fully stop.

Eventually, some urban lore may form around this, who knows. I'm all ears when someone wants to tell me what Tweetie Bird's gizmo does. lalalalalalal.

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, you've explained the problem perfectly. Thank you. Now guys, that wasn't so hard was it?

The example you used has a clue in the name "PaleoQuest" that it is related to that game the Lindens are hawking all the time on the splash screen.

But most of them don't sound like anything, the names mean nothing, and it's a black cat in a black sack.

And indeed, why doesn't a button take you to something that says "Hi, I'm Bob, and I've made a thing that makes you kneel involuntarily every times a forums helper appears." Then you can know to click "No."

Every discussion on the forums that looks at the technology here critically is always like this -- with zero awareness of how they are wrapping the swing around: