Messages Capped

For a long time now when I read someone's profile I get annoyed when they tell me to please drop a note card, their IM's get capped. I don't mind the note card, it just seemed like too many people were trying to advertise how busy and important they are.

Then today I logged in as my alt after a lengthy period away, and his IM's were capped. This is weird because he doesn't get any IM's. We are both even more reclusive in SL then we /I am in real life.

Then I thought it might mean the blue notices were being capped from the groups he is in. Is this what other residents are talking about, that they just belong to a lot of groups and can't log in often enough to get all the blue notices? Maybe I shouldn't think them pretentious any more.

I don't log into SL every day and my messages get capped all the time. I have no friends and my business ticks over slowly. <sob> But I do belong to a lot of groups. I don't know what the limit on IMs is but it isn't very high. So it's not pretentious to ask people to drop a notecard. Just careful.

Notecard request? Pretentious? Nooo! Not if you are having some kind of business going on...

Lately I desided not to be a member of any groups other than my own.
The reason is that sooner or later some groupmember will use the group for chat, messages, questions or ads of there own.
Then the rest of the groupmembers answer, telling them 'NOT to chat in this group' and it all ends up in a trillion IM's.

What happens is:
My IM's get capped! All of them! So if a friend or a customer IM'ed me with important stuff while I'm not logged in - I don't get those IM's...

And there are other reasons to the notecard benefits:
If I log in just to upload some textures or for other private reasons -
I can save a notecard for later when I have time to answer ( I have a special folder ).
If it's IM's I have to copy them all into a notecard anyway to keep on track if I dont have time to answer this minute...
Or crash for some reason before answering all of them...

That's also one of the reasons I have an ALT... The alt is member of groups I want to have updates from - that way I don't miss out on important IM's...

(WOW! Doesn't THIS advertise how busy and important I am! )

Show off!

I have visitor counters that IM me also and this contributes greatly to my caps. I have IM's sent to email so they do end up there but I miss a lot of IMs that way. Pretentious or not- drop notecards- it is more reliable. Think of it as an answering machine for when u r away.

I have never had general group chat contribute to IM capping, but the group notices do - as well as personal IMs and any inventory offers.

However, if the 'go to email' stuff is working, you will get an email for every one of those whether the IMs cap or not.

And for me, I actually will get emails telling me so-and-so offered me inventory, but then I do not really get the offer when I log in -- so I don't know what glitch is causing that one. At least with an IM, even if capped, I will get the words in an email - whereas if for some odd reason SL really does not deliver the inventory offer (notecard), then I get nothing other than an email saying "so and so offered you inventory".

I get that sometimes. Usually, the notecard is in my inventory -- SL just didn't bother to wait for me to accept it.

Yes, I get that version also, but I really do not get some of the offers that my emails tell me I have coming.

I have decided that no form of communication in SL is fully reliable.

between slex notices, IMs, inventory offers, group notices, visitor things... my IMs get capped daily. I still think the "only notecard me" is pretentious.

My profile's front page:
I don't have office hours. If I am online I will respond. If I am not leave a message anyway and I will get back to you. My off liners go to email and I promise as soon as I sort through all the random group invites that get tossed, I will respond. Don't bother with notecards unless they make you happy. Then by all means leave three.
I don't do custom work..naw, thats a lie. If its a fun project and you are a swell person, and I have the time..or you make it worth me *finding* the time.. hell yes I do em.

I also think people who advertise that they dont accept unsolicited friendship requests is rude. If I get a random friendship request, I dont accept it right away but I do IM them, and ask them if I can help them.

I ALSO think telling people not to just say "Hi" (in your profile) or are you there? is condescending. I don't like it either, but I am not going to explain to people how to speak to me.

I have seen many profiles that contain all of the above. and I think it looks pretentious, rude and condescending...

On the other hand, when I have an issue and I must message a stranger, I usually note card them, and or explain the entire issue, and what has been done to resolve the issue, or what I (more likely) have done to cause the issue. so that it is easier for them to get back to me. I also *never* try to friend random strangers. Nor do I often find a need for a custom job.

So I do get why people have those things in their profiles.

Very true.

I actually do like using the notecards. Trying to compose a coherent message in the IM window when you can only see 6 - 8 words is a chore and very awkward. It was just the attitude behind the request that bothered me.

I am learning to rethink that now though. I think I owned that problem.

Do your IM windows not expand? Granted you only get to see one line, but you can make it the width of your screen.

If I actually have to explain a situation, I will write up a notecard and drop that on the person and then also IM them to tell them that I sent a notecard about an issue. I figure at least one of those two will get thru somehow.

Never thought of that!

What people don't seem to understand is that inventory offers (group invites, etc.) are just special kinds of IMs. So if you arer IMs are capped, it will also cap any inventory offers including notecards.

The irony is that since you can forward IMs to an e-mail, IMs are better for busy frequently capped accounts than notecard. The full text of an IM even if capped will still be forward to your e-mail account. Whereas the e-mail forward for a notecard offer is just "You have been offered inventory by..." without any clue to what the inventory item was, and if you log on and find IMs are capped you may not get the item, and have to IM the person who sent it to find out what it is.

Matthew

/me spanks Weston.

Exactly so! Since I activated the "forward to e-mail" option a few months after I joined, I never worried about capped e-mails anymore. Notecards are fine, IMs are fine ... whatever my friends and customers may find convenient.

note cards are best if you want a result.. Im's can get lost.. if you are afk and crash with 10 IM msgs that you haven't read you will lose your messages..and possibly piss off a cartoon character somewhere..

it doesn't take much to cap IMs everything counts against that.

If you have your IMs and Chat set to go to logs, you actually will not ever lose them due to a crash - but you would have to go check the log folder to see which files changed last.

The problem that I find - and know for a fact from checking group notices when I get inworld - is that not everything manages to actually get forwarded to my email. And *some* inventory offers that come in after the cap point still seem to actually come thru, whereas others seem to disappear into the void.

There truly is just no real rhyme or reason to it most of the time -- sort of like a crap shoot.

I dislike notecards sent to me because if my IM's are capped, I will not receive notices that I was sent a notecard. IM to email is the best. I do not understand why LL limits your offline messages. You should be able to opt whether you want 20, 50 or 100 offline message storage.

That's not that hard. Just search Google Desktop for the latest logs.

I just go to the folder and click the date column to sort by mod date.

Even though it is true that IMs that are lost to the in-world cap still make it to e-mail (under ideal circumstances), relying on e-mail is inconvient. It is easier to have all the information in the real world, rather than shuttling back and forth between Second Life and my e-mail viewer. At least for me. Notecards are more convient for me.

Since I do not know anyone who doesn't like receiving off-line communication through notecards, I always use them when communicating with someone else.

When I send a notecard, though, I often accompany it with a brief IM, one-line saying, "I have offered you a notecard about <subject>." I figure if my notecard is randomly lost, then at least there's a chance that I have alerted the other person to contact me if that person did not receive the notecard.

(Actually, now that I think about it, I do know one person who told me he would prefer everything be done through IM-to-email rather than a notecard from me. That's because he would rather respond more immediately with email-to-IM, rather than log in to Second Life to get my notecard. There is always an exception to every rule.)

One thing I think is annoying is if someone sends me a n/c named "To Osprey Therian." Put YOUR name on it when you send a notecard to someone.

Wow. I thought it was my imagination, or that I was deleting offers by mistake, when I logged on and had ten or fifteen blue screens to wade through.

Yes, this happens to me too...both ways.

/me looks puzzled. "But I'm not sending it to me...I'm sending it to YOU. If it said, "To Lindal Kidd", you'd send it right back!"

(I'm blonde today. Can you tell?)