My short lived ban from Second Life.

Using an alt to post with:

It cannot be assumed to be cowardice. There can be many reasons for doing it and not wanting to take any flack from the posts is only one possible reason. The people calling it cowardice are just not thinking straight, simply because the precise reason for it isn't known by them. If those people were sensible, they would simply address the contents of the posts, which are as valid as any other posts' contents, including their own.

Here in this thread, we have someone posting something and an alt posting something else. Then we have people posting that what the alt said doesn't count because s/he is a coward - without knowing the reason why the alt is being used. How stupid is that? It reminds me of a TV ad that's running here at the moment, in which three bank employees are spying on another bank. Two of them are wearing disguises but not the third one. The third one doesn't have a right to an opinion because he isn't wearing a disguise. How stupid is that? The 'coward' charge is just as stupid.

Personally, I appreciate that alt because he pointed me to a place where I learned something about someone. I learned that a person who pretended to be friendly (not friendship - just friendly) is actually a person who stabs you in the back, thinking you won't see.

Why no, darling, I was asking for clarification, rather then making an assumption. But you have not answered my question, which was:

If your avatar is not an extension of yourself, how can you be bothered by it actions? You say it causes you drama and you have experienced harassment because of how others interact with it, but how can that be when you are not your avatar? Shouldn't you, the human being, be able to disconnect yourself from an emotional response to anything that happens to your avatar, including annoying friends and customers? Do you have friends you know only thru your avatar? How can you do that without extending yourself, your personality, your YOU, thru the avatar into the virtual world?

I'm sincere in my attempt to understand. Really sweetie cakes, you can insult me all you'd like, but if you can't answer the question, just say so.

I have to plead guilty as charged. I used a reference to Phil as the basis of a poorly conceived dig at someone else over at SLU. While it wasn't meant to be a slam at Phil himself, who I still held in high regard, it was a cheap laugh that shouldn't have been said. I apologize to Phil, and to anyone else who may have seen it.

Wow, awesome drama!

Nah, just one of those little things that happen.

/me stands in the corner and covers her ears as the war continues. Hey, let's have some fun today it is Halloween in the USA. Go scare the heck out of someone out there, instead of doing battle in here. Clicks submit and runs....

Neither does a posting to a bulletin board.

This is a "bulletin board", not a virtual reality. It's a bulletin board *about* a virtual reality, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a bulletin board, and an avatar is just a little 50x50 image that's associated with your name and not even seen by all readers.

But that's OK, like I said in my original message, there's a deep misunderstanding going on here, and any attempt to bridge it is likely to lead to more confusion, so I yield this debate.

I don't know, you didn't describe it very well, and I haven't seen the ad (I don't even watch TV). I can see some ways it might superficially relate to this discussion, but it's kind of a stretch.

I answered your question: I pointed out that you are inferring what is not present.

My point and concern is and has always been that there are those who so totally lose themselves to a fantasy world such as Second Life that they honestly believe that their avatar is actually real to the point of it really being them. There is always an emotional response. The difference between myself and a good number of those I have observed is that it generally takes a whole hell of a lot more BS before I say enough is enough.

The issue itself is quite complex enough without reading any further into my own viewpoint than simply looking at it at face value: The Avatar is not you. Have an emotional response to some things? That's perfectly normal. Take an insult concerning your Avatar's appearance, 'race', or other factors that can be directly linked to it? No - that's not ok. This includes the notion that your Avatar has a name to uphold. It doesn't - YOU, the person behind the keyboard have a reputation to uphold. It irks me to no end to see people so correlate their own reputation with that of their Avatar that they actually believe that a slight against it is directed at the real person.

If I were to say to John Doe avatar that I found his appearance revolting ... I am not making a comment concerning the real person behind the Avatar. It is a comment on the Avatar itself. The same goes for many other factors.

In addition those who pour their entire personality into an Avatar concern me. Not a single person in Second Life - save perhaps two or three - actually knows me through and through. I personally do not show all of my personality to anyone I have not physically met. There are even a few that have only ever seen the negative aspects of my personality! The friends I have that see these aspects directed at someone else are often so shocked that I could be so vicious, it actually amuses me a bit.

as I said to someone else recently: The Internet is the ultimate tool of anonymity. find me one person who truly shows their real face to anyone they have met online and I will most likely have a heart attack.

The problem I have always seen here Argent is that the posters correlate their names (which are the same as their Second Life accounts) with their SL Avatars. It is this that I protest and part of the reasoning behind my views concerning this board.

Now I will concede that there are those who do not do this. To them, I tip my pipe.

Things would go a bit smoother here if people tried to treat things as they appear on the screen instead of concerning themselves with the name that appears next to the post.

Somebody call him a defibrillator...

all I see here are opinions, there isnt a right opinion or a wrong opinion, just opinions. I do however firmly believe there are some who wish to argue, no matter what the subject is.

Or not. I've worked customer support in a lot of places, two of which would even let me terminate contracts over such behavior. I, for one, never put up with that kind of BS and would hang up on or terminate the contract of anyone who treated me like that. Sarah got off lucky: In the real world, that kind of behavior doesn't fly.

Based on firsthand experience from places that I have worked: Domain registrars, ISPs, web hosting, hospitals, courier services... you name it: People do not want to do business with abusive jerks.

considering that I know very few here, if any of them .... no need. I will assume that no one is being who they really are until I have enough information to prove otherwise.

I fired all my domain registrars because they were abusive jerks and moved all my domains to a Tucows reseller where I know the people I have to deal with. Where were you working? Network Solutions?

More like people are unbelievably sore over their own lack of foresight... 67% price increase is nothing. My business weathered out a 210% price increase in fuel. I didn't get all sanctimonious about it, I just raised my prices and held on for the ride.

Cost overruns are a fact of business life. If you can't deal with that, you shouldn't be leading: You should be following someone else or getting out of the way of everyone.

$75 to $125 increase is worth the F word. I also find it funny Phill, the traffic bot farmer, is trying to push his morals around...

Have your heart attack Solar. I am who I am and don't pretend to be anything else. I don't lie and I don't make things up. If I don't want you to know something I just won't tell you. I take people at face value, even after they prove me wrong. I guess you can call me stupid for living my life that way, but I would rather be honest.

As I - and others - have noted in our posts, it actually flies all of the time.

In any case, Sarah was in no way speaking directly to a Linden Lab employee...the real world equivalent would be standing outside of the door to a room and overhearing someone say something derogatory about the company you work for to a group of their friends. She probably should have kept in mind that Lindens were likely to be lurking about, but overlooking that in her frustrated state does not equate with 'abuse.'

It's just the idea that, if you don't wear the right clothes, your opinions don't count. That's what's been happening here (the right clothes being the right av name), along with the stupid accusation that the person is a coward.

That's probably because you don't understand about morals. Also, I'm not trying to push anything around. I'm posting my views, like everyone else.

See, to me, it's the guys in disguise whose opinions I would tend to discount.

The ad is the other way round, but it's the same thing. There is no sensible reason to discount anyone's views, regardless of whether or not they want to state who they are. Their views are just as valid as anyone else's.

It doesn't matter whether you type this sort of thing a hundred times or a hundred million times: it still defies common sense.

Of COURSE people who won't stand behind their words---by saying 'I am the one who wrote this'---are cowards.

The views of an in-hiding alt might happen, by chance, to be valid.

Additionally, the in-hiding alt might be typing generally-accepted factual statements, and of course those would be accounted as valid.

But when it comes to statements of opinion, it defies common sense to declare that OTHERS should attribute validity to the opinions of someone who won't stand behind their own words. Naturally, people of sense will discount the opinions of someone who insists on anonymity.

No declaration (such as you've been making) that common sense is rescinded because you say so, can change the fact that it's common sense.