Etiquette in Second life?? Is there any?

What do you think the common protocols and etiquette surrounding interpersonal relationships are in Second life? What happens to people who breach these protocols?


I'm a new user of second life and have noticed different people with their mannerisms and etiquette towards other users. What are your opinions in regards to personal relationships and etiquette. Your input is needed!!

Perhaps it might be easier if you listed some "hypothetical" scenarios you've encountered (without mentioning names). As in the RW, it's 90% context that matters WRT etiquette.

No.

One point of good manners (and for your own safety) would be to never click on someone's project while they are working on it. It's annoying and might cause you to get blasted into orbit depending on what kind of scripts are in it.

Surreal

I will provide an example. I took ownerwship awhile back of a well-established club. It seems that people either LOVED this club or HATED it. I am trying to run a fun, clean friendly establishment that all can enjoy.

There have been instances of drunks coming in and disrespecting customers with rude comments, such as calling the women sluts and whores and making rude and obnoxious sexual advances.

The perpetrators feel that they are entitled to say and act as they please, and that because it is a mature sim they are not vilolating any rules. It is my opinion that my customers deserve to be treated with respect and should not be subjected to rude or obnoxious behavior. My policy is to warn them, and if that fails to ban them. They feel that my policy is too strict and somehow infringes on their rights.

What do you think??

Patrick Playfair

No.

Well. it always helps if you politely introduce yourself before you rez your giant penis on their land and then shoot them into the next sim with your push gun.

Etiquette makes me laugh

ha ha ha

Its your club, ban their asses.

Amen.

Yes and no. Some individuals do live by and practice a certain level of etiquette within game. On the flip side, there are individuals within SL who feel that it is their <insert choice diety here> given right to act whichever way they wish.

Now having said that, I do maintain a certain degree of etiquette inside of SL. Generally, the way I compose myself IRL spills into SL, and I have found that for the most part, many people are the same way. Someone says "hi", its often customary for people to reply "hi, how are you" in return.

As for all those individuals saying "no", as I said, yeah, thats true too. You don't have to maintain any etiquette at all. I know one specific individual who will not say hi to anyone, and only will answer IMs if he feels like it. Heh, thats his choice.

Finally, the specific definition of etiquette is up to the individual. There are no real "written in stone" protocols any of us follow, as for Etiquette, the closest we have is our community standards as a guide of "faux-pas"'s

I always like these guidelines.

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/

things i had to get used to:

everyone typing at once - this is not considered an interuption because it generally takes so long to type what we're saying that we just go ahead and start, then press the enter key when it's our turn

people just walking into anywhere anytime - this is not considered rude either. there is no privacy in second life; that's not a bad thing; it's just true

brb phone, brb door, brb eating, brb need some coffee...it's a wonder we ever manage to carry on a conversation

contacting someone and not getting an answer - for hours, if ever - this happens because people are sometimes overwhelmed with ims and such while they're trying to host or build or script or browse the web or watch tv or pet the dog...

finally, not ever needing to offer anyone my chair - his grace laughs at me because i sit when i get tired of my av standing ha ha ha ha ha

hmmm......seems like people generally have the same respect for the personal space of your avatar as they do irl. usually people stay 5-6 feet away and don't stand right up in your face.

walking right into someone's house is usually ok but if it's locked and you sit on a box and edit yourself through the wall that's pretty rude.

most people i've known don't have a problem changing outfits in front of other people but if they're going to expose avatar "skin" they usually only do it in front of close friends etc.

that's all i can think of offhand that are specific to sl.

Great SL-specific etiquette points. SL is amazing because you can actually explore social proxemics in a very realistic simulated virtual setting. Things like respecting personal space, looking at someone when talking to them, how to sit in a group...all this and more can be explored.

This was a primary reason why I started the Brigadoon project. People who have trouble figuring out how to interact in a social setting in the real world can practice in SL, and basically use it as a simulator to learn and gain confidence when dealing with real-world social settings.

Groovy.

If you poke around the forums you'll see that there have been heated debates over what sort of ediquite (if any) should be extended to one's neighbors in a sim. The big question is that as long as you paid for your own land, shouldn't you have the right to do anything you want with it regardless of your neighbor's opinions? (This also assumes you don't live in a planned community, of which there are some in SL and they have their own rules).

There are, of course, some rules in the Community Standards about this sort of thing, most of them fall under "disturbing the peace" and if you're intentionaly violating them you can get suspended or banned for them. It's disturbances of the peace that happen unintentionaly, or disturbances of the view from your land/hogging of limited sim processing resources/things that supposedly lower the value of their property that cause the comotion. Clubs get a lot of derision heaped upon them because the scripts, high volume of avitar trafic and often unattractive builds tend to lag the sim to a crawl. People who try and form themed communities have a problem on their hands when someone outside their group buys the land next door and could care less about their theme. Certian people (some who have a reputations as being greifers) will put hidieous and sometimes offensive things on their land and then defend them as "art" or "satire" (in the way that a monkey flinging paint at a canvas might create "art" ;p). Modern and contientious mall builders have been trying to create builds that are sim-friendly and attractive while their owners establish rules in regard to the use of lag-producing scripts and light-casting objects but all bets are off once merchants move in because all the objects and textures required for all the different stores will produce lag.

I believe in being a good neighbor...if someone offers a valid complaint about something I built, I'll try to address it. I've built a mall for one of the biggest mall-owners in SL and i did it without any light objects and minimal scripts. I tend to treat SL neighbors in the same way I'd treat my college roomate...we had established if unwritten rules for sharing the space in our room. If one of us was trying to sleep while the other was still working, we'd dim our lights as much as possible. If one person didn't want to listen to the other's music, we'd use headphones. We could make messes as long as they stayed on our respective sides of the room. If her SO was visiting, they would refrain from having sex while I was in the room (or at least not sleeping very heavily), and I would have done the same if I actualy had a SO. During the two years we lived with each other, we never had a serious arguement (and we're still friends too).

A lot of my morals are based on the saying "I will not live my life for another man, nor allow another to live for mine". A better-known variation of the second half of that line is "your right to swing your fist ends at my face". The problem with SL is that it's hard to agree on exactly where the other person's "face" is in relation to land.

Other rules of ediquite for land that are agreed on: don't build over another person's property, don't leave random prims lying around, particuarly on group land, clean up after yourself in sandbox areas...

that saying about "your right to swing your fist ends at my face" always made me wonder why it's not "your right to swing your fist ends slightly in front of my face". the other wording could still be painful and it reminds me of that other saying "i'm not touching you! i'm not touching you! does this bug you cause i'm not touching you!"

The question reminds me of an old joke about geographic stereotypes which still amuses me.
Ahh, I guess you had to be there.

Ettiquette? In SL? Naw, these rude college kids keep on coming up and asking me wierd questions about SL and philosophical situations. Sigh, whats a cherub to do?

OMG elite and the clowns that are in at times...........LOL For one being targeted at those rude and unthought of event i say boot their buns and fly the feet LOL

Uhm, what did she say?

1. Always say excuse me when you plow into people, whether due to lag, lack of flying ability, or just to cop a quick feel.

2. Don't leave your trash on another persons land. This inculded picking up the container that you just unpacked that new outfit from, or the vehicle you crashed into someones front lawn. Pick it up folks.

3. If you see someone is in what appears to be thier home or hideout, and you want to visit, either IM them first or stand OUTSIDE the door and say , "Knock, knock". Also, don't bug people that are obviously in a hard to access place, such as a skybox, unless you IM asking if it's ok to drop by.

4. If you do explore another persons home, don't leave beer cans, used condoms, or sheep poop laying around (see #2 above).

5. If you rate someone, don't EXPECT to be rated back. Many people rate on merit, and will rate you when you do something to earn it in thier eyes.

6. Leaving your land open to all, and then shooting or pushing folks that go there, is really bad manners.

7. If you are attending an event with a specified dress code, at least make an attempt to follow that code. The host or hostess probably worked hard to set things up.

8. Say thank you or a word of appreciation to the host or hostess of an event that you have enjoyed. Keep your mouth shut and just don't attend another if you didn't enjoy it.

9. Don't appear in the middle of a discussion, or other focused event and start blabbing away or causing distractions. Just come in, sit down and participate as desired. You can IM folks your hellos, and wait to rez that 6m penis till you get home.

10. Feel free to ask questions of people, but thank them for thier time when they answer. Also, don't beg.

11. When moving into a new neighborhood, look around a bit. Get a feel for the place, and try to fit your build into the theme, if there is one. If there isn't a theme, at least try and be considerate and make things nice looking. Try not to block other poples views, although sometimes this is unavoidable, and try not to bump your build right up against someone elses.

12. Ladies first, specially in lag.

13. Don't constantly shout across a sim, when you can just as easily send an IM.

14. If you are hosting an event, show up on time and be prepared. Don't waste people's time.

15. Manners are a good thing.

16. Don't use alts to neg rate people. It's cowardly and unfair.


These are just my preferences, of course.

BRAVO, David! I think lesson #3 is especially worth noting. Thanks!

Wow David...enjoyed your article...very nice.