Double, Double

Am I correct in thinking that no two people in SL can have exactly the same name?

I know this is a rather basic question, but I just want to make sure I've got it right.

you're right.

That's right.

Make sure someone isn't spoofing by using a capital i where a letter L should be, etc.

Damn. I was hoping I was wrong.

Say I was friends with someone in SL, and they decided to remove their name from the list, would I be told?

From the friends list? No, the only way you notice, is when their name don't appear on your list anymore. But other viewers like Emerals, send a notification that you are removed from the friends list. (Or so I have heard)

If they left your friends list you would not be told you would have to notice they were no longer listed. THey may have left their calling card with you though

Not using Emerald, but noticed their name had disappeared from my list. Didn't think of the calling card; thanks for suggesting that. I do have it, and the person appears to have changed sex. Guess there's a good reason for that, which I will respect.

Thanks, people. Damn, what a crappy day this is turning out to be

Yes, they do. I have had at least one old contact defriend me since switching to Emerald and got a notification.

Just another crappy little interfering Emerald feature - not because it's wanted or needed, but solely because they can.

The more I hear about Emerald, the more anti-Emerald I become, and I started out by praising it.

*blink* so is there something *wrong* about being able to find out when someone defriended you? Much better than someone wondering for ages why their longtime friend is never showing as on lately and it turns out the friend had accidentally defriended (but in reality wanted to be contacted). I never did like how the SL client would not give any announcement on a defriending as I assumed one friend just was not on for the longest time before finally sending them a note.

Not to mention that I believe you can just turn off the notifications if you do not want them.

I'm not keen on it myself; certainly have no plans to start using it. But in this case, the information would be apparent in one way or another anyway: ie, friend's name absent from list.

I would have preferred a notification as my first thought was, "is there something wrong with my list of friends", closely followed by, "have I deleted someone accidentally".

Much as I am pissed this person has chosen to disappear, it would have been helpful to have been told rather than have to work it out.

Yes, what Kara said.

The way I see it is this. I purge my friends list periodically. They are the people who offer friendship during or after a conversation (usually business) and who never contact me again, or vice versa. I accept those offers. If the person really wants to be friends it will happen, but usually they don't. I don't get out and about but, from what I read in this forum, it's quite common for people to offer friendships like that. When I purge my list, I don't want them knowing immediately or they may ask why, and I may end up adding them again, only to go through the same cycle later on.

Anyone who has been in SL for a little while knows to check their friends list if one of the friends hasn't appeared for a while. It's the first thing you do. That covers both sides of the friendship, including your (Kara) friend who wanted to be contacted. If a friend is no longer on the list, and if it matters, then IM them and ask what happened. Accidents will be found that way, and reasons can be known that way.

So automatic notification is not a good idea, imo. In fact, it's a bad one.

If there's an option to turn it off, then it should be off by default with an option to turn it on.

I actually like the feature that notifies me when someone removes me from their list.

When its a business contact, not a friend, i click *ok* and keep going. If its someone that i am friends with, i send them an IM and ask, most of the time i get.. *Opps. went to remove someone else and hit you by mistake, or someone logged in and it jumped* at which point we re-add. But for the general business connections on my friends list, no, i don't say anything if they remove me. If i remove someone cause i no longer want to associate, and they IM me and ask, i can either A. ignore them, or B. tell the truth.. go away. or C. just cleaning up the list.

Its all in how you use it.

It might not be deliberate. I have a person on my Friends list whom I REALLY think would not deliberately de-friend me...and yet her name's been missing from my list for two days now. And during that time, we've even met and chatted in world, and she expresses puzzlement as well.

It could be another SL glitch, or maybe she hit a wrong button by mistake.

I think it is deliberate. I met the person as a she, and the bio details matched what we were doing. Now the whole profile has been rewritten: the picture is a guy's; and all the picks have been deleted. It's like s/he has re-defined themself.

It's a bit sad, cos s/he was fun to be with, and helped me a lot. But I know people move on. It has been suggested the change is because they decided not to lie anymore about what they were. Maybe that's true. Frankly, it wouldn't matter - would have been the same person as far as I'm concerned.

And I'm guessing the self-reinvention means I'm not the only one who's been defriended.

Today began as a crappy day, and this is just the icing on the cake. Sigh.

Kay, have you tried contacting the person? I know that those of my friends who have "come out" or engaged in this kind of radical transformation of identity tend to be awfully wary of the responses of their friends, but are generally enormously grateful for support.

No, haven't.

It's funny, but I was just thinking, "If I wrote as sensitively as Scylla, I'd see what was going on". But I'm not going to risk it. I don't want to embarrass her (or him - whatever). My loss.

I agree with Scylla. It may be that if you contact this person and express the same thing you put in your post, that it doesn't matter what gender he is, you still care about him and want to be friends, that he'd be relieved and happy. And if not, you're no worse off.

Well, for what it's worth, your hesitation and concern do you credit.

You know the person better, obviously, than anyone here, so you are best placed to decide what is right. It can sometimes take some time before a person is ready to approach her or his friends about this kind of thing. In the case of one of my friends, she took on a whole new avatar, and sort of stalked me for a week before finally, I guess, building up the courage to talk to me.

Hopefully, it's just a matter of time before your friend does the same.

I would doubt that you have to be extremely eloquent just to say...."hey, I miss you, thinking about you, and hope you're ok." You don't have to ask what is going on. I messed up on that a few times - asking what is going on - or making assumptions - just let that part go, maybe. No response - that's the end, and yeah, it will make you have a crappy day.

Wouldn't you think that if they were truly going to be embarassed, that they would make an entirely new av? But most times you never get to figure out what happened. It's one of those things that really highlights a difference between SL and RL. In RL, someone explains it to you, before they leave, or a friend of a friend tells you, or something like that. Here....you're often left not knowing, and it's painful.

Some people just go back to RL, and never come back, and that's OK. Some times it happens with no planning, no goodbyes.....they just do it, and it's the end. You will never know what happened. And again, it's OK. Meaning it's OK for them to make that choice, not meaning it's OK for you. Has to be one of the hardest parts of SL, but if you connect with people, and use your heart.....it will probably happen more than once. Sorry that happened to you.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking about it, but it turns out it was a bloody alt after all. I will be glad when this day is over.

Actually, you will always have the calling card unless you delete it yourself. It is automatically given when people are added to Friends list. Once you have my card, even if I un-friend you, I cannot ever take my card back.

I don't see a problem with the notifications. We are all, theoretically, adults here. If it was a mistake, then getting a notification might help fix the mistake faster. If it was intentional, one would hope the involved party was adult enough to accept it and move on, with or without an explanation.

I personally wish that I had the ability to tell the system when I unfriend someone, please tell them I did.

Oddly, for a couple of friends I never got a calling card. Don't know why. Pretty sure I didn't delete them.