Saying you're off-line should be seen as such

I understand that you don't want to be disturbed, but to be honest I think people will still IM you. I get plenty of IMs when I really AM offline. If the system is such that people know that many people are routinely invisible, they are going to IM you anyway. I think what is really needed for situations like that is a more workable busy feature, which simply spits out a "busy signal" on all incoming IMs when you toggle it.



I don't see it at all like RL, to be honest. In RL, if you do not answer the phone, or if "you are on your other line", people know that means you are busy -- that can be in the middle of another call, or in the middle of doing something else that is important, or just having some downtime -- all of that counts as "busy". You are not telling them "I am logged off of RL". When you are setting your online status to appear as offline, that is simply telling somone something that is plainly false -- it isn't saying you are busy, it is saying you are offline, which is not the case. As I wrote in another thread, the interesting thing about online worlds is that they very much allow people to appear to be very much what they are not -- and a part of this, it appears, is appearing to be offline when they are not as well.

As I wrote above, if LL has a "hiding" feature in the game, then it should work, and the current one doesn't because the groups listings and the website both rat out the people who are hiding pretty effectively it appears. That should either be fixed or it should be scrapped, but the current halfway system which encourages people to think they are hiding when they can't really hide seems silly to me. So I am not against the hiding feature for those who wish to hide ... it just seems very odd to me that people feel the need to deceive others, or view this kind of deceit as politeness.

That's what I've always assumed calling cards are for. I used to use them all the time, but people are so lazy that they just immediately 'friend' you. What would be ideal is if you could offer someone a calling card through their profile; that way if they want to find you, it'd be great.

I get a TON of IMs sent to my email from customers consisting of one word: "Hi." Not only does it clutter up my email account, but I feel like these customers, as well-meaning as they may be, can't be bothered to write me a full IM explaining their concerns and want to talk to me "live" when I can just as easily solve or answer any questions via email back inworld. I get the feeling that they send the "hi" message just to test whether I really am online or not. I respond via email 100% of the time, but I'd say 50% of the time they've gone away and I never hear from them again.

If "privacy" acted like it should, this wouldn't be an issue, or at least it would be less of one; people could be absolutely certain that I really am offline (or unavailable) when I say I am.

The reason was mentioned above - because it essentially gives everyone who IMs you an automated message saying "I am busy and am ignoring you."

for some people a canned "i'm busy at the moment" message doesn't go over very well .

please vote on this issue http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2669

I like that one. The other thing I want is for Busy mode to disable my incoming IM window. If I'm busy, I don't want the blasted phone to ring and distract me.

I still get whining messages when I am busy. Having said that, the messages from people who make my heart race are just the ones which trigger the damned busy and THEY have the decency to give me the space I am looking for. It's not them I need space from!!!!!

Not trying to disrespect or insult you Victorria, but I can't understand why you are so determined to dictate such excruciating detail over a feature that you refuse to use and are morally opposed to. We get it, it's not your thing, just like a lot of stuff in SL isn't my thing. So why not give it up, and let us deceitful polite people have it? How would that affect you in any way?

Somehow, I get the feeling that I'm not getting the sympathy I feel I deserve.

Honestly, aside from the pictures (keep them coming, it's the most fun I've had in SL so far), the last couple times I've been on, I've had STACKS of stuff to go through - not just that stuff. I have to clear it out before I can move on, and it makes me a little frantic when I'm trying to go through stuff and talk to half the people on the dang grid in IM's and keep up with everyone and, and, and...

I just need a couple minutes to get on top of everything. It's just not fair to say that I'm being rude when I ask for that. I do the same thing at work - I have a do not disturb button on the phone. If I'm in a project where I really need to concentrate I hit that. The receptionist doesn't say I'm in a meeting or away from the office, she says that I am in, but that I can't accept calls and I'll call them back when I'm able. That's not rude, it's honest and the people I work with respect that.

I think there are also cultural differences that come into play. A lot of people would prefer the calling card option for casual contacts and a much smaller "friends" list of people who are actually friends and are thus granted a different access level to your availability. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are very involved in social networking for which "friends" is a totally different concept and includes everyone they have a social contact with. Differing overall philosophies about friends and contacts mean different people want to use the friends list in different ways. I divide my list mentally into "contacts" who are not allowed to see my status or map location and "friends" who are.

Where am I "dictating" anything? In fact, what I have written several times in this thread is that if there is to be a hiding feature, it should work. To be honest, I think that the better approach would be a better "busy" feature, but since so many people want to be deceitful and encourage others to think that they are offline, because they think this is more polite than simply telling them the truth that they are busy and can't speak at the moment, I suppose this is a lost cause. But it's nonsense to suggest that it doesn't impact me at all. How others use the friends feature impacts everyone in SL.

This debate is beginning to look like the Voice/No Voice threads. The seeming majority were opposed to voice but we got the unstable mess shoved down our throat anyway. Now it seems the majority do want better privacy features, so following LL logic, the features that do exist will never be fixed to work properly, or the minority will be catered to again and all privacy features will be removed.

He, and ironically, The "What do you have to hide?" line comes up in both cases.....

"Dictate" was probably a poor choice of words. What I'm getting at is, why worry over the details of a feature that you have no desire to use. Don't sink the feature for the rest of us just because it isn't perfect. I think we can all agree that the "fix" as described in the JIRA isn't a perfect one, but it's an extremely welcome step in the right direction for those of us that want to use it.



Well now we're getting somewhere. If this honestly affects you in some adverse way as the receiver of an away message, then explain how. My point of view is that this is purely the "hidden" person's business. I could take a wild stab and guess that since the deceit aspect bothers you, maybe you don't like that you are being "lied to" with an officially sanctioned feature. I don't know, but tell us what the problem is, and we can work it together rather than just calling bullshit.

I always shudder when words like deceit, lying, etc get thrown about in these discussions. It is like when during the voice and ID/privacy debates, certain parties were accusuing others of hiding something, lying, or my favorite, being morally reprehensible. In every one of these debates one side is looking for a greater level of privacy than the others if possible, while others claim it is either impossible in the program or even if possible some sort of strange idea, being suggested for some disingenuous , nefarious reason. We all want different things from SL, but what you may want or not want is not necessarily any more right, or wrong than the next persons.

Agreed about the different ways that people use the friends lists. Unfortunately, if I set my "contacts" (i.e. not my close friends) to not be able to see whether I'm online, they get all butt hurt if they IM me and can instantly tell that I really am online. "Why are you hiding from me?" is the most often asked question, and I really feel uncomfortable saying that I actually consider them more of a "contact" than a "friend" and therefore not entitled to know exactly when I log in and log out.

I guess I could remove those people from my friends list, but THEN it gets even worse. It's just weird because most of these "friends" are people that I hear from MAYBE once every 2 months. That's not my definition of a friend...

But that's THEIR problem.... not yours. Do your friends get upset in RL when they call you and encounter your answering machine?

Why should this be any different in SL???

I would prefer people to actually know that yes, sometimes I'm in SL and busy and can't talk, than trying to pretend I'm offline when I'm not. They just need to get used to that. Sometimes I'm building, sometimes I'm working on a playlist, sometimes I'm spending private time hanging out with someone... Otherwise it gives a false impression of my time in SL... that impression being, whenever I'm online, I am available 100% to my friends... which isn't true.

Jade, that's the whole point: we're trying to get SL to allow the equivalent of an answering machine. If my RL answering machine said, "The person you are calling is available, but chooses not to answer you," then yes, I would expect my friends to get upset. That is what SL's current crappy hide feature does in effect.

Answering machines allow the beautiful ambiguity of the caller not being immediately aware of whether the person is even there or not. Why should this be any different in SL???

And yes avatars can see I'm online in other ways if they work hard enough, just like my RL friends can drive by my house and see my red car in the driveway and know there's a 99% chance I'm just ignoring them. But my real friends won't do that.

It is my problem when I have to stop and take the time to explain it and deal with their immature hurt feelings. My real friends don't have a problem with it, but unfortunately I have important contacts on my friends list that must remain there. If LL would provide a "friends" list and a general "contact" list then that would be most ideal, then I could turn off one or the other. Calling cards aren't an option. I would assure you 90% of the people out there don't even know what they are there for.

The funny thing that hasn't been mentioned much at all here is sex. I don't have sex in SL but if I did I don't think I'd want to stop regularly to say "Sorry, I'm busy". I don't have to do that in RL with my answering machine.

if i get someone "test" im'ing me , or scanning the website or doing other things to see if i'm online when i have them set to off i'm probably going to drop them from my friends . if i choose to have privacy i would expect they would respect that .

Okay... I understand that... but what bothers me is the deceit aspect... I wouldn't want the message to say "Jade Angkarn is offline" when I'm not... maybe some other message would be preferable.... maybe ""Jade Angkarn is currently unavailable" which would show when I'm offline OR set "busy". I still advocate for a Better Busy mode since my friends are reasonable people who can deal with the fact I might be busy.

There is a concrete disadvantage for me to the current system, which is that when I'm in Busy mode the messages sent to me are not forwarded to my e-mail so that I can answer them when I have time.

To me an RL analogy to the current system would be if every time I sat down at my computer to program or use Photoshop or whatever, my e-mail program took it on itself to send a message to everyone in my address book, including my mom, that I am at my computer right now.

I read the thread in bits and pieces as it evolved over the past few days, so sorry if someone else already suggested this .

Every modern (and antiquated) IM application I know/remember has the ability to indicate "Status" next to your name which would solve most of the current issues before they occur.

If someone can spot a generic "Away", "Busy", "Do not disturb" next to your name (and in the IM session) most people would simply respect that, but the problem today is that you don't know someone is busy when they're online until *after* you already IM'ed them. The friends list is broken often too so if you spot someone you know online in another fashion there's not always a clear "they must be busy, I'll leave him/her be" message, but just a "great, friends is broken again, I'll just say hi".

For the people that really want/need another status would simply be "Appear Offline" (which I just use on MSN when I know I'm only on for 15 minutes and so I won't have to spend typing "I have to run in 15 minutes" to 10 people as they pounce on me) and it would mirror actually being offline as far as avies/scripts/whatever is concerned. Whether or not it would break anything isn't really important, setting "Busy" also made a precedent for breaking things (inventory transfer for instance).

Set everyone to hide your status and tell them that you've done that. You aren't trying to hide, you are trying to manage an almost impossible number of IM's that you get flooded with. if they want to talk to you all they have to do is IM you and you can talk if you're online. if they IM you and you aren't online, the message will be waiting for you when you get on. No harm no foul. Problem solved.

uuuugh I gues everyone knows that it doesn't matter if they are in your freinds list or not. In fact your freinds list isn't all that accurate. To really see if someone is online then just check the listings of a group that you are both in. Want to know if a favorite linden is online? Just see if they belong to any groups that you can join.

Excellent point Kitty... Being able to set the status would be awesome. For example, I DJ a few times a week and when I'm DJing things are very hectic so I can't talk much... but I don't necessarily want to set my status to "Offline" nor do I want to go into Busy mode. If there was a text status indicator I could customize (e.g. like you can in Yahoo) that would be ideal for me.

Right now, ironically, some of my friends use Yahoo as the way to indicate their SL status (e.g. In Photoshop). Being able to do this within SL would be, of course, preferable.