ability to turn off IM

Ok forget the invisibility thing, how about just the ability to turn off your instant messages. preferably to certain people but to all would work too. There are times when you don't want to be bothered.

What happens when someone tries?

They get your Busy msg and their IM gets sent to email?

I've had to drop out of a number of groups, and just rejoin when I had a particular issue because the traffic was so heavy (builders of SL) that it made me miss any number of personal IM's in the noise. Now I don't want to use groups as just my own personal info system - I like being able to help out other members from time to time if I have someone else's answer, but i would like to be able to have some quiet time where I'm only dealing with personal (eg: freinds list) issues.

So how about some "temp mute" controls: mutes that unmute automatically when you log back in (that way you don't forget to unmute them) and the ability to use this on whole groups. Personal IM's that have been temp muted get essentially the "busy" message - that way no one feels they're being singled out when you're trying to have a conversation with a select few. Most important here though is the ability to temp mute groups.

Just my two bits.

There's a whole bunch of IM-related functions in SL, including showing up in the "friends" list and being mappable by friends, as well as IM, that you shoudl really be able to opt-out-of without having to leave the world completely.

Let's call it "appear offline". When you log in with "appear offline" checked, or enable it in-world, your only visible presence in-world would be your avatar. Any attempt to use remote mechanisms to contact you would get the same response as if you weren't in-world at all.

Would that include avatars and OBJECTS sending you IMs get the IMs sent to email?
Think about some of the games out there that IM the player instead of whispering....
(IM better than whisper, btw)