Collective groups

Well, you might have heard that the largest collective group in SL are the furries. I've heard rumours that after that it's the goths, not sure about that one though. So being quite new to Second Life, having only had an account for a week now, what other "collective groups" are there in SL?

Another thing that I've heard about is greifing against members of collective groups. Particuarly the furries. I'm curious if anyone could tell me if they've had similar experiances or anything at all on this topic. Thanks.

I think that girls are the biggest group in SL, then guys, then furries, then people with boxes on heads.

Yeah.. the W-Hats (yes.. THEM) used to cause trouble for furries. Mostly it was the newbies who would go and harass furries. Not so much though, at least, not from what I've seen.

I guess the harassment comes and goes in a cyclical fashion. New goons come in, harass furries, get Abuse Reported to the point where the Lindens HAVE to take action against them because of the sheer amount of PMs to them about it. Then it kinda dies off and there's a period of non-harassment, however that long depends on how vigilent the Lindens are in banning or suspending accounts of people who are disrupting other people's SL experience.

Let's see, off the top of my head, these are the groups you generally run into throughout SL. Some are large, some are small, all have an impact. They're subcultures, really, not just groups.

(opinions of cynical oldbie follows, possibly tongue in cheek)

1) BDSM folks. Whips and chains, with the slaving, and the biting, and the mhay-mhay. Sub-section of this group called Goreans (or followers of Gor), who seem to glorify women as property and fight with large swords.
Location: Goreans have a sizable continent, with the main sim being (I think) Port Kar. Very roleplayeresque.
Countermeasures: universal sufferage, gunpowder

2) Furry folks. Two general types: PG and not-so-PG. Most are very nice people, and very smart.
Location: Their main hangout is Luskwood, or I think the Forest (is that still around?)
Countermeasures: SomethingAwful.com

3) Misc. roleplayers: Ageplay, kidplay, ponyplay, playplay, kid'n'play... whatever. There are a lot of roleplayers around SL, and they each have their quirks.
Locations of hangout: Skyboxes 500m up in the air.
Countermeasures: staying below 500m

4) Jedi: Mostly 12 year olds who haven't been shipped off to the teen grid yet.
Hangouts: Sandboxes.
Countermeasures: age verification, bedtime, school hours

5) Gunplayers: These guys script guns, weapons, turrets, and so on, and have wars and all that. Mostly harmless, regardless of the size of their chaingun; downright impotent if you sit on a box.
Hangouts: Sandboxes, Jessie.
Countermeasures: Lindens, abuse reports, plywood cubes, safe areas

6) Mafia, Mafioso: Likes to roleplay as "The Mafia". Usually Americans speaking broken, improper Italian. They enjoy "warring" with each other, cursing every other word, and "staking out" their "turf". Usually blinged out. A lot of them are rumored to be refugees from The Sims Online (unsubstantiated) Totes guns around.
Hangouts: There's a few private sims they lurk about in (Little Italy?). If you see any vaguely Italian group names, chances are it's a mafia.
Countermeasures: Really being from Italy, big words, turning off particle effects

7) W-hats: Folks whose only common denominator is they read SomethingAwful.com. Some are nice, but some are really, really big assholes. Major bent against anything not considered mainstream. Very testy. Amused by dead baby jokes.
Locations: Baku
Countermeasures: none so far, although letting them crash the grid a few times stops them for a few hours while the grid comes back up. Even Lindens seem generally defenseless against them.

Land Barons: These folks buy and sell land. People villify them much like Generation Xers villify "The Man". Lucrative career, also fairly risky. One of them makes (allegedly) six figures in $US a year.
Location: Almost any piece of land for sale
Countermeasures: $L inflation, grid instability, communism

9)Forum folks: Imagine a ball of sarcasm, dripping with words soaked in acid. These people are in the core of this ball, producing enough venom to drop a moose. Small subsection of the population, but an even distribution from all walks of life. Perhaps 5% of the population participates in the forums.
Location: Forums.Secondlife.com
Countermeasures: Jeska Linden, flame wars, General Forum

10) IRC Folks: Snarky. Half of them just idle. Secretly pulls the puppet strings of SL society. Stays crunchy in milk.
Location: #Secondlife on Efnet
Countermeasures: Netsplits, tiramisu, any link by Belaya.

I think that's all I can think of.

It's so true. XD

#secondlife++

<3

Oh come on, it was funny.

And inflammatory enough for at least 5, 6 pages worth of posts.

haha it was very funny LF

Lordfly FTW!

I thought it was funny, and I don't want to take issue with any of it at all! So there.

Saved and notecarded for future humerous reference

11. The Starchamber: Group of unknown people (possiable shadow government???) who mostly exist in real life but extend influence to Second Life, who have incrediable power and seem to get what they want. (End of bonus pay, End of Dwell, End of Money Chairs, End of Negative Ratings (Probably because 100% of them have huge negative ratings) End of Pay linked with Positive Ratings, End of Event Money (Which has backfired on the Starchamber resulting in only money centered events instead of creative events)) They seem to Govern Second Life from the shadows, and may extend their influence to governing real life in some sort of way. Maybe cause of dissiappearence of Avatars. May extend influence to Real Life World Governments. Possiable members are, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Condi Rice, James Kirk, Jean Luc Picard, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Thomas Magnum (AKA Magnum PI) Tony Blare, PM UK, Osma Ben Ladin, Richard Nixon (RIP) John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Phillip Linden, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, General Tommy Franks, Al Gore. Other names are classified.
Hangout: Unknown, probably Real Life. (Meeting in Cafe's, The White House etc in Real Life)

Countermeasures: Making the activities of the Starchamber Public.















The above is satire and ment to be funny.

From my experience, this is much more true of the Sith-type Star Wars groups, rather than the Jedi.

I think you'll find the groups that actually roleplay as Jedi are much more mature. The Jedi Alliance group has its own sim now, New Holstice (think I spelled that right ) which is coming along rather nicely, and they're getting well organized.

-Ghoti

And with all that, there's no collective second life science fiction fandom. Anime and Trek and other media fans, yes, but finding people who actually read much current SF is a rare exception, and there's hardly any non-media fanac.