Do you follow RL etiquette in SL?

Sometimes, RL can be weirder than SL. Yesterday, I was in Target and this woman came up to me and started asking me questions about what websites I visited and saying a bunch of other weird things. I thought I was in SL for a minute there, but realized, yes I am actually standing in the women's clothing section of Target and this little woman is telling me about the terrible people on MySpace and asking me if I visit MyFlorida.com and if I do I am not a nice person. Too bad I couldnt tp on the spot. But I digress . . .

To me, offering friendship without speaking to me first is bizarre. It's like asking a RL person for their phone number (as they can see your online status, etc) when you haven't met. I normally reject them, unless they are a noob. I think filing an AR due to someone rejecting one's friendship offer is just . . . silly.

As far as manners, I do try to use RL manners in my SL world. There is a person behind each and every avatar we run into, and I use courtesy and understanding in all of my dealings in the SL world.

I use to explain to noobs that I don't accept friendship from people I don't but now I don't even bother. I don't want to waste my time. I just accept it and then clean house once a week or so.

The embracing on the hammock was completely out of line I would think. Except I can only presume that you were on a couples hammock. "Where were you would" be my only question. But in most situations it's inappropriate.

I never thought about that before. So you've changed my mind Yosef. No more accepting friendships from strangers and then deleting.

I'm told that there are people in Second Life who _don't use a butter knife_. They take the butter straight from the dish with their bread knife and spread it on their toast or crumpets. Sometimes they even _use the same knife for the jam_.

One dreads to think what they do when it comes to a full meal, probably using the dessert spoon for soup and so on. I could never take such a person to a respectable place for dinner; it would be like being accompanied by a chimpanzee.

I saw on CSI that you can just leave your calling card on the ground and people can pick it up and get a virus.

True, but in the almost year that I've been here it hasn't been an issue. I'm not going to sweat it.

If they are the sort of people who go around randomly offering complete strangers friendship, then they might be the sort of people who never discover that there is a whole folder full of caling cards in their inventory.

Ordinal - say it isn't so! Not in RL. I would eat soup with my fingers before I used my dessert spoon! I can't imagine how humiliated their parents must feel. At any rate, dinner with a chimpanzee might be interesting.

ROFL

I hear you get good XP for accepted friendship offers

As long as some people think that other people are only "toons" then bad manners will continue. The last I heard we are all real people.

I view offers of friendship from newbies as just someone trying to be friendly. I spend most my time near a Telehub in Periwinkle where many new players pop up and some return regularly. I usually accept and often will initiate conversation if they don't speak first. If I never see them again, I'll delete the card from inventory in one of my regular purges.

I guess I just don't sweat the little things. Since we can control whether or not we allow friends to know we are online, track us and modify our objects, someone I don't know having my card, doesn't mean much to me.

As far as someone snuggling me in a hammock without first asking permission, I would ask him to please get up. With all the newbs around, he may not have known what would happen. For those that are being rude intentionally, I wouldn't hesitate to eject and ban his ass out off my land.

For the most part, I expect people to treat each other with respect and when in doubt first ask permission.

Angel

cept for the land bots

and the camper zombies

and the group bots

and the spy bot

And the Lindens.

I don't really relate to my avatar and so it's like me having a Ken on my desk and somebody approaching me with a Barbie and making it hug Ken. It's like I'm supposed to think that it's an affectionate gesture or something?. Well it aint, it's just freaking weird. and it does nothing but make me cringe and make me think that you're a friggin lunatic.

Please, just keep your slimey hands off my Ken!!

awww and I was hoping you were atleast a GI Joe

~Lana Tomba

Seriously though..theres alot of cross cultur --ism... ...alot of different people from different cultures . I've had guys from turkey..or some strange country over there use HUGs when they couldn't speak my language. And i guess just because you have a PC and SL doesn't really mean you've ever been introduced to any type of etiquette.

~Lana Tomba

Somewhat repetitive, I know...

One year ago, as a noob and building my frindship in SL, I soon realized that behind those avatars are real people, with real feelings, so I follow RL etiquette there.

Been offered friendship by a stranger that never talked to me seems like is a total stranger came to me in the street and ask for my telephone number. I don't give my number to stranger in RL and don't accept frindship from anyone in SL. If he/she gets upset it's his'her problem, not mine. (P.S.- I wrote this after reading the first few messages, now I saw that AndiCat wrote the same )

One thing I think we must be aware. Sometimes RL come to life, so I'm really don't care if someone with whom i'm talking suddenly stays quiet or even leave SL withou a word. Such thing would be unacceptable in RL, but i feel that it is a common part of SL.

Yes = pretty much the same as RL, but with a few additions, such as making allowance for lag, time to rez, RL interruptions, SIM restarts, IMs capped and database problems.

what I've found is that etiquette remains acceptable from RL to SL with one major exception. Time seems extremely compressed especially in the area of romance and I think our need to squeeze every second we can out of our online time causes that.

If I know I have but an hour to spend in SL during a day there's this burning urge within me to meet and get to know as many interesting people as I can. Remember I've only been on a few short weeks so this dynamic might change drastically after being on a year or two. Often the people I run into are other newbies and I find myself trying to share the limited amount of knowledge I've attained with them.

Some of that knowledge seems to lead to the romantic and sensual areas of SL, the use of poseballs for everything from dancing to intimate acts. I find that if I bring their existance up to someone of the opposite sex almost invariably they want a demonstration even if I warn them where it can lead. Simple curiosity often accellerates everything.

Now in real life you certainly couldn't go up to a stranger and say "Come over here into this corner and see the wonderful view. If you stand just right and press on this railing we'll end up in a deep kiss with your arms wrapped around my neck." There are just things that occur in SL rapidly that could never progress to that stage in RL without multiple dates.

Even in the area of just exploring I find myself not content to just walk around a huge area as one would in RL. You find yourself seeing a sight then flying up and looking for your next area to investigate.

In all though, common courtesy and honesty are absolutely necessary as they are in RL.

I dunno. I think if you removed Social diseases, risk of pregnancy, financial considerations of relationships, legal connotations, damage to reputation etc. (basically the risks of dating)

Real Life relationships would probably move at pretty much the same speed.

Look how fast people got together and broke up in High School.

I am manager of two sims and see newbs all the time who dont respond when i speak to them because in many parts of SL no one DOES speak to them...they are often in shock that someone is being friendly. And if they have been checking out the orgy sites...jumping on an open poseball next to woman is quite the norm...LOL So, i try to deal with all of this with humor now that ive been here awhile and the shock of those things has worn off.

If a guy jumps onto a hammock where i am...i tend to say something like - hi, can i help you with something? that usually gets some sort of conversation started where i then explain that the polite thing to do is NOT to jump on any free poseball next to people. I even go so far as to tell them that we are real people and should be treated as in real life. For the most part they apologize, thank me for the info and that is it.

I think we need to understand that there are ALOT of new people who have NO CLUE as to how things work here. So, if we give them some friendly advice and they respond...all the better. If they don't, then boot them! LOL

just my two cents

Sometimes I get friendship offers from thin air - one pops up and I look around to see who it came from and there's nobody there..

It's like a drive-by!