who are you talking to?

when you talk to some avatar in sl or the forums, say charlie smith,
who is run by some person in first life, say pat jones,
who are you talking to?
say this person has an alt, kelly green.

who are you talking to?
are you talking to the role charlie smith as run by pat jones?
are you talking to pat jones?

when you talk to the alt kelly green?
are you talking to an alt of charlie smith? or an alt of pat jones?
are you talking to the same person as when you talk to charlie smith?

who is responsible for what charlie smith says?
the role of charlie?
or the person pat jones?
who is responsible for what kelly green says?

how do you know who you're talking to?
what's the difference? is there a difference?

i have my own answers to this, but people seem to have different answers to this.

I'm talking to the person behind the av, but I'm too lazy to try and keep track of who is an alt of who so I just treat each individual av according to what behavior I've seen from them. I might be really nice to one av and hostile towards another and it might be the same person. Once someone has made it obvious that they're an alt then there stops being a distinction between the alt and their other avs in my mind, but that's just me.

uh so do you treat them nice or mean, if you've been treating one alt nice and one alt mean, and you now know they are an alt?

I am not sure who I am talking to even when I am the alt.

I recently made an alt for the first time (cause all my friends were), but I am still confused about who I am suposed to be.

Dianne is "me," and the alt is something else, but then the alt is also (obviously) still "me". But then SL Dianne is not *really* the same as RL Dianne, so maybe Dianne is not "me" in the first place.

Is the alt a split personality of SL Dianne?
Or are both SL Dianne and the alt, split-off versions of RL Dianne?
Is an alt even supposed to have a different personality?
Or is it just a disguise like a mask?
Are you supposed to tell people you are an alt?

What if you have a realtionship with them?
Should you tel them that you are actually another person entirely?
And that that person may also be another person entirely?

I found these questions so confusing that I have given up on using the alt.

What do you do with an alt other than grief people anyway?

???

I also assume that, here in the forums, I am speaking to the person behind the AV. I never worry about alts, as I just don't care. I respond to ideas, not to the person promoting them. Makes it much easier to take the high road and remain above the fray

Also makes it easy to bail out of the discussion when it is clear that all reason has left the building and it would be a waste of my valuable time to continue. My final rule for forum sanity is to praise those whom I respect, value and admire and never let those I think are idiots know my opinion of them.

I talk to the avatar. I don't care who the person is in rl, as long as they are nice ingame. I have problems with alts because of this... a good friend can come up to me with one of their alts and i'll treat them like a stranger because well, they aren't the same person.

*shrugs*

these are all very interesting responses to me.

for me everything goes back to the person running the avatar.

but i find my response to people as they seem in an av over time, but if i know they are an alt, they get treated as one person. i'm bad at keeping track.

however, i know some people who roleplay extensively, and i try to go along as much as i can, as long as it doesn't distort reality too badly - especially in regards to responsibility towards one's deeds.

I try not to treat anyone mean ... because I dont want to be treated that way.

And, I, too, have trouble keeping track of who is who ... was worse when I played multiple games more often. So I interact with the avies and generally dont concern myself too much with who the person behind them might be.

I talk to the AV, but if I get to know the IRL background of someone a bit then I talk to the person behind too.
If I knew an AV is an alt of a friend but intended to play it as another character, I'd (try to) play along and treat it as someone else. It's simply better for ALTs never to reveal there main account name IMO, if they want to "play" another role.

Whats more confusing is when you knew Pat Jones in RL casually from work, then they started playing SL, and you became really good friends. I'm in that situation and sometimes at work call the person Charlie, and in SL have called the AV Pat. Then everyone says who is that?

So, I guess to me they are one and the same.

Quite a trip, but in RL it offers a great way to start singing the praises of SL.

Exceptions apart you talk to a "person" that the "real person" wants to show you.
You don't talk to the avatar or the real person, because the real person maybe faking everything and you would never know.

I'd be more inclined to be hostile towards the alt. If I know their main is a complete ass then I will assume their behavior as their alt is completely disingenuous.

Initially..I talk to the AV. As time goes by, I can generally get a feel for if the person is playing a "role" and would like me to play along and treat the AV as the primary contact or aquaintence, or if they are "themselves" and then I will treat them as the person behind the av, no matter what alt they appear as.

Some folks like the escapism or fantasy aspect, and i veru much respect this. Even if I know there is a man behind the female AV, I will treat that av as female, and vice versa.

Of course, even the greatest player of roles still uses a great deal of themselves in their characters. There is generally no escape from one's self, other than several extreme mental disorders...

i take it that happened to you? that's cool!

Same here.

Good point, David.

I'm talking to you!

I treat everyone as if they are all the ALT of one person called "SecondLife"

And so this one person is huge (in the walt whitman sense), of course, often misguided and just as often - well meaning.

They can be pretty bright sometimes, pretty stupid at others, but I always see growth, improvement, and maturation.

Somtimes they really piss me off and I let them get the better of my emotions, but after hanging out for awhile I've begun to realise you have to take a pretty casual attitude about everything. You have to be patient with them - they're still very very young. Things will get better, they will improve.

Just hang out, nudge them along (and let them nudge YOU along) the right path and hope the both of us find something pretty amazing at the end. Or, I guess, at least along the way.

I'm right there with Merwan! I'm talking to a person, who is the same being whether I meet them in one av or another, one account or another, in another game, in SL or RL. You're you. Even if I meet you in another life 1000 years from now, you're still you. Even if your memory is a little hazy.

"You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? Huh? Ok. "

I talk to the rl person, at least that is who I want to be speaking with.

I can only recall one instance of someone pretending to be someone else. Of course, I respect a person's privacy and don't ask for any personal info. But I do treat the person on the other end as someone who is very real and most important to me.

On the whole my SL is filled with the most wonderful rl folks I have come to know and love very much.

A good thread!

In SL I generally assume that I am talking to the person behind the av. It seems odd, because I come out of a heavy roleplay background on other games, but in SL, mostly I am just me, only better looking.

So unlike in WoW, where when I speak I speak as a character, and speak to the other players character, in SL I am speaking always player to player-like in a chat room.

i really don't care who i'm talking to. if they are nice to me, i will probably be nice to them. if they are unpleasant, i will walk away (and probably ban them from my estate (the commune).

bette aka reddish tigereye

Are you... talkin' ta me?

all your alts are belong to us.

i speak to the person behind the av. i have my alt, but they're both me, i just play whichever one the mood strikes me to play.