Why isn't there a "complete privacy" button?

Not everyone is here to socialize and those are don't necessarilly want to be social every minute they are online. When SL was started it wasn't that big a deal I guess, everyone was in the Happy, Hippy,everyone is your friend mind frame, but it's different now. If one wants total online privacy here at times, I think they should be able to have it. In RL your friends can call you whenever they want , but they can't tell whether you are home or not if you don't answer the phone.

I guess I now know what to do if I'm ever lonely - just uncheck the box 'can see my online status' and wait.

I have to go with Brenda's phone example, there should be a kind of 'beep beep' and you should have the choice of answering the call...

I think we should remove IM mode and Teleport offers. We would have to remove Teleport offers because if there was no IM mode then people would just offer you a teleport whenever they wanted to ask you something.

If you're a store owner then you could put an email address in your profile or tell customers to drop a notecard onto your profile.

My problem is that I'm afraid to meet new people these days because I fear that they'll keep IMing me. I like meeting new people. But new people quickly become old people and you suddenly find youself stuck with a thousand old friends that keep messaging you.

I just can't chat with a thousand people at the same time. Yeah I know, I'm rubbish.

So these days I find myself drawn to internet forums because I find it's easier to "hang out" here and far less demanding.

That's exactly it. I can't hold a conversation with (well, not a thousand) too many people at the same time. It's also very rude to the ones you're presently with. They're talking to you while you're answering IMs... Sort of like talking on the phone with someone and they continuously speak to others in the room with them, (children, pets) or watch tv, etc. Rude!
Or you're dancing, having fun exchanging comments with a group, and you have to basically excuse yourself to answer your IMs. By the time you get back, the event is halfway over and you have no idea what everyone is talking about.

I usually say 'I'm busy right now. Can I get back to you?'
Fortunately (unfortunately), I'm not as popular as some of you, but I would accept more 'friends' or calling cards if there were more privacy options.

I get total privacy because I am so annoying.
I even get it on the forums!
Super-private implies (as earlier said) invisibility. That is opening the floodgates for griefing. I believe there IS an attachment to do this BUT if I find anyone on my land wearing one I will immediately ban them.
Coming to SL means you accept an unwritten ToS - you are going to enter into social interaction. Being a curmudgeon (an asshole) is one way around it - but I love annoying curmudgeons so that is just a red flag to a bull.

QFT! Very well put!!

IMHO, the best solution would be a quick check box to "send IM to email." You could check that when you wanted privacy and all IM's would get a "User not online message" or "User not accepting IM, message has been saved." This way you wouldn't lose the IM and could reply to it at your own leisure.

People who just offer teleports without asking first should be de-friended on the spot.

except unfortunately you can still go onto the website and view the list.

Yeah but most people will give up after 10-12 503's.

Ok, I'm a bit confused here. I thought checking the "send IM to email" box meant IMs would be sent to email if one was offline but would receive them normally if online.

So, if one is offline do IMs get routed to email automatically by default?

And totally agree about the teleports without asking first!

What I was thinking might work would be that you could option to send all IM to email while online. Leave the IM to email when offline as a preferences item and put a checkbox on the Communications window for ALL IM to email. That way if you didn't want to be disturbed you wouldn't miss anything. I've lost plenty of IM's by crashing while AFK or by having SL minimized browsing the forums and then it crashes when I restore. I personally care less about being disturbed than I do about IM's lost via crash.

Yep, it's a good idea and one that I've suggested myself several times in the past.

And do you know that there is an option to have your IMs recorded to disk?. It's actually much better than it sounds and each person that IMs you has their very own file in the chat log folder. The feature will help you to recover any missed messages when you crash.

LOLOLOLOLOL

yer hurtin' me.