Hooking SL into social networking?

This. Hearing a pixie speak like she smokes two packs a day just doesn't do it. Nor does hearing their dog bark, kids cry, or them snapping their gum, or munching pretzels. Or, in one of the few times I used it, the dead air as they were "multitasking", reading emails or photoshopping.

I'm not anti any tools and features in SL. Everyone can use it how they want. I can respect your choice and work around it.

Also it works both ways: I like to keep my RL 'issues' and even chat out of SL as much to protect others and ensure that I don't mess up their day when it is most likely they logged into SL to escape the usual stresses and strains that we all have to deal with.

I think 2008 has got to have been the worst year I've had in a long time but I wouldn't soil the 'escape' feature of SL by dragging it in-world. You know there's only so much leeway a stunningly handsome av will get before folk start talking about what a sad-assed depressing bore he can be.

Yes. Why do some try and dictate or limit other people's game?

With one exception that I mention in another thread (oh and other obvious things like copybots) why should anyone else care. If someone is on voice and it's gross I mute them. If someone uses gestures excessively same thing.

I do hate it when someone leaves their mic open though and I can hear their kids, their dog, their phone conversation, their dinner, and their typing! That's a bit too much sharing for anyone, imo

What's odder is they often don't care! ha

How would customizable tabs work? Would we have a choice of say 10 tab types from which to choose? I think it COULD be a good idea, but there should defo be a default setup so that newbies aren't smacked with that whole thing right at the start. Maybe install a Setup Wizard, that would prompt you by asking questions, that gets generated the first time you open your own Profile? More advanced users could skip the Wizard and do their own thing.

I'm sorry if it wasn't clear.

"Client" is just a term that identifies a particular piece of software. It's only slightly more precise and informative than "SL program". It doesn't actually tell you anything about the user interactions.

Do you remember when they reorganized the friends list, groups, local chat history, and IMs all into the single communications box that we have now? Before they did this, the various frames were all part of the same SL client. Afterward, they're still all part of the same SL client. Tear off one of the IM tabs into its own separate box, and it's still the same SL client. Some people complained loudly about the change when it happened. I think the only reason people have stopped complaining is that they realize LL won't change it. I know of no evidence that what we have now is any better, or for that matter, worse, than what we have before.

Another example: You can click on a web link in SL and bring up a web page within SL. Or you can change your preferences, and have it open in your standard browser. What makes one preference better than the other? There simply isn't enough information here to identify what may make one better than the other. At best, we might assume that the standard browser has far more features, which leaves one wondering whether the built-in browser has any advantage whatsoever.

The point is that "client" is an artificial boundary. The only real boundary is that you have a keyboard, pointing device, and screen, all hooked together. The mere act of hitting alt-tab to switch applications has no substantive difference from hitting ctrl-tab to switch panes of the SL communication frame - either way, it's just hitting two keys simultaneously, with the result that something new appears on the screen and something previously on the screen is hidden. So when you talk about doing things within SL that can already be done outside of SL, there needs to be more information, first about what makes it different from simply switching apps, and then about what makes it better.

Ideally, you'd drop a notecard on the tab and whatever's on the notecard would be in the tab, and the title of the notecard would be the title of the tab. If the notecard started with <HTML> it would be rendered as HTML, with <IMG> tags referring to embedded textures in the notecard.

Next step, HTML notecards that could contain <INPUT> and <TEXT> fields that would simply be remembered, so you could create something that looked like the current tabs with places you could fill stuff out and they'd be saved.

Then you could have example tabs that looked pretty much like the ones that are there now, but that'd be the "bunny slope". And people could hand out tabs-to-fill-out.

No off-page HREFs or images without user request, so you couldn't stick web-bugs in your profile or in hand-out tabs.

For some people, apparently it is. But it's a real one. People use the client for listening to audio streams instead of just having the DJ post a link to their stream to bring up in Winamp or iTunes. People use the client to watch video, which I find kind of surreal. There's a difference between voice in-world and using Skype alongside SL. Building in-world and building in sculpty-paint feels differently... one's a social act in a way the other isn't. If a program calls llLoadURL, there's a dialog before you're taken outside the client...

So whether it's artificial or not (and that's kind of a funny objection, since the whole of Second Life is artifice) it's most definitely real.

Has anybody submitted a JIRA for the customizable tabs feature? I think it would be a great suggestion and add to the experience.

Sorry but ixnay on the HTML-speak. I've diligently avoided learning HTML and now in my dotage I refuse to learn it just so I can customize my dern Profile. Plus, not every knows it. Does the average internet user know HTML? I'm pretty proud of myself that I can use the "quote" and "img" tags here in the Forums.

I'd rather see a Wizard that asks a series of questions:

"Do you want other SL users to see your Real Life information?"
[click yes or no radio buttons]

[No gets rids of the First Life tab altogether]
[Yes allows for RL A/S/L etc input, as desired by the user]

"Do you have a Facebook account that you want others to be able to access?"
[copy and paste Facebook info]

etc for Flickr, Twitter, Plurk, MySpace, and all that other crap.

People GET installation Wizards. We've been using them ever since Windows was born. There are a gajillion open source installation Wizards ("Druids" out there that LL could use. I don't see why we can't utilize something that everyone on the planet already understands, rather than forcing people to look up obscure HTML codes.

If the ability to communicate from outside were vastly improved, would you still need the ability to login without showing as online? Not that I think it's a bad idea, I'm just trying to understand what the real need is.


Good point about the social pressure, but I don't have a feel for how big it is.

I've been able to avoid any pressure to use voice. My hubby, for some reason, hasn't. So I know it's a problem for some people, but perhaps it's a problem that's avoidable. SL comprises numerous sub-communities. Maybe what we really need is an improved way to find communities based on their dominant styles of interactions (voice/no-voice, share friends/noshare friends, RL is public/RL is private, etc.). That way, people with different views could still have what they want.

^^THIS^^
The divide between the "all RL/no RL" camps is much more evident lately, yet there's still tons of people who won't even admit that such a divide even exists. I've already been the recipient of more harassment over voice in the last 3 months then in the entire rest of the time voice has been in SL, and it's only getting worse. I've had female friends of mine say they don't want to go to a certain club because it has voice enabled.. not because other people may be voicing there or nobody will be type-chatting, but because inevitably they'll end up getting asked/probed/pleaded/argued/belittled/accused/insulted BECAUSE of voice, in that order. Happens every time and it's kind of bothersome that so many people don't see the DIRECT link between this kind of harassment and the tool that spawns it. Many will just chalk it up to that particular person being a jackass, but when it happens SO often you have to stop and look at the tool as being the enabler that it is. No, I'm not in favor of more web interconnectivity.. not one bit. Inter-SL stuff? not a problem.

You wouldn't need to.

* You could use a plain old notecard.
* You could use and fill out the canned tabs provided by Linden Labs that would work pretty much like the tabs that are there now.
* You could use the canned tabs provided by people in your circle of friends, in groups you are members of, so that people could set up a role-playing tab for members of their role-playing group.

You wouldn't need to know HTML. HTML would only come in for people who wanted to design new tabs or micromanage their own.
You'd start out with that tab, but there would be a "delete tab" button at the bottom of the profile window that would delete the tab you've selected.

I'm not in either camp and I've been harassed over not using voice.

There are times when I want to log in and build or script without being disturbed. Busy mode doesn't cut it; people know you're there and *can* get their messages, so you get pressured to answer your "friends" anyway. For me, SL is about more than communication. There are times I want to be in SL and be alone. The current system doesn't allow that without forcing me to growl at others to keep them away.

I'm not either and that was kinda my point... the middleground where both sides of the anonymity thing meet is where most of the casualties happen. Some people who share a lot of their RL, but not as much as others get pressured into sharing more than they want. Others who only share a little of their RL rebel against being harassed about it and end up not sharing anything at all. The middle gets thinner and the dividing line gets clearer as time goes on. Only the stubborn shits like me who refuse to get pushed to one side remain

Here is how those Voice/Cam convos go:

[2009/04/21 3:48] JA: do you like the english accent
[2009/04/21 3:48] Briana Dawson: yes
[2009/04/21 3:48] Briana Dawson: my step dad is English
[2009/04/21 3:48] JA: are you alone now
[2009/04/21 3:49] JA: we could have some dirty phone sex and cum together
[2009/04/21 3:50] Briana Dawson: hmmm
[2009/04/21 3:50] Briana Dawson: no thanks
[2009/04/21 3:50] Briana Dawson: thats a major turn off
[2009/04/21 3:50] Briana Dawson: bye
[2009/04/21 3:50] JA: ahh so that answers my question
[2009/04/21 3:51] JA: i was wondering if you were really a man, and now I know
[2009/04/21 3:51] Briana Dawson: what?
[2009/04/21 3:51] Briana Dawson: lol

Why did that remind me of this?

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time as when I first read Blood Ninja's stuff. "I take off my robe and wizard hat..."

But now you're discussing specific issues, and that's my point.

When listening to audio in SL, the stream changes automatically if I move to a different parcel. It also changes, usually automatically, if the parcel owner changes the URL. Furthermore, I can bring up a set of sliders that help my balance relative volume between the audio stream, ambient sounds, object sounds, etc. I don't know whether it's possible to have SL switch channels or volume in something external like Winamp, but it seems highly unlikely that the set of sliders could be done outside of SL.

On the other hand, I ran into someone the other day who specifically used something else, because for some reason on his system, his SL audio was much choppier than using an external player. It doesn't make sense to simply assert that SL should have integrated audio in the client because "in the client" is good, ignoring the fact that at least one person has worse audio that way. You need to identify the specific ways in which the embedded client audio has advantages, and make sure they're implemented. (The pop up volume slider panel wasn't there a couple of years ago.)

Either way, these are issues that are unique to audio. Other issues require different analyses. Just because it makes sense to implement a particular subset of Winamp or iTunes features in SL doesn't mean it makes sense to implement arbitrary Photoshop features.


I can see the irony, but they are two different uses of the term.

But I agree, there are certainly examples where there are important differences between doing something in the SL client and doing it in an external program. The mere fact that something happens to be built-in to the SL client isn't one of those important differences.

On the other hand, I only turn on streaming music when I'm listening to a specific stream for a specific reason, not because I just have it on. Sometimes I gank the URL and play it in iTunes so I can use an Applescript to make a history of the tracks. My point is that audio is not automatically inside or outside the client, but some people CHOOSE to treat it as something that's part of the SL environment, so for those people the artificial barrier is a real one.
Similarly, it doesn't mean it isn't, for example the detailed Windlight settings are similar in many ways to some of the Photoshop filters.
Even without the pun, the entire SL environment is artificial and arbitrary, based on a long series of historically relevant technical and business-related reasons made over a period of years... for some people that environment includes the desktop, for others it doesn't and leaving SL and going to the desktop is a break in continuity that bothers them enough that they don't consider anything outside the SL window as part of the SL experience.

For you, no. For me, sometimes. For other people, it's a complete break to leave the client.

I just realized another reason for NOT connecting SL to other social networking sites.

The luddites, especially Rep. Kirk and his crowd of torchbearers, lump all social networking sites together as a Danger To Our Kids.

Sites that specialize in displaying Real Life information like FaceBook and MySpace are seen as hunting grounds for RL sexual predators...and, in my opinion, rightly so.

After making the Teen Grid, and then the (flawed) age verification system, and now all these additional restrictions designed to keep underage users from accessing adult content, does LL *really* want to link SL with services that are the cruising grounds of pedophiles and predators?

/me walks away shaking her head and muttering, "idiots!"

For those who decided to attack me....

Yes, I'm female in RL. I've been online and well-known in a few different internet communities for about 14 years now. I've managed large e-mail groups and web forums, chatted on IRC for hours a day, and been public with my real name, university attended, city I lived in, etc. with those groups, which anyone on the internet could join or read. I've met people I knew through the internet in RL, dozens of them, and they were all really nice. Many became good friends, one became my best friend and we eventually lived in the same city for 5 years and saw each other every day.

I would get the occasional hate e-mail from someone who got booted from my forum for being a jerk, that sort of thing. I now run a t-shirt company and sometimes get nasty e-mails from right-wingers because I sell Democrat and pro-gay shirts. But, I never, ever, had someone seriously tried to threaten me, until SL. An angry person with whom I'd had previous business dealings decided to track down my home address and post it along with satellite photos of my home to a SL forum.

It was scary, and disturbing, and if he ever does anything like it again, I'll call the police. But since then, I've thought a lot about WHY it happened due to SL, and never before in 14 years. And I realized, it's the anonymity here. People think that because we're avatars, no one can find out who they are. This gives them the illusion of safety, and so they do things they wouldn't in RL...like deciding they can get away with harassing women and making us hide. It's a problem on the internet in general, but it's much worse here. But to me, the answer isn't to hide, it's to fight back and say we won't allow people to get away with immature and threatening behavior.

Now, that doesn't mean being stupid. Like I said, I'm not going to tell every noob who asks, or every renter on my friends list, all my RL details. But the people I am really close to know that about me, and vice versa. And if someone doesn't trust me enough to be themselves around me, we aren't really friends.

I also think that a push towards less anonymity would increase accountability. More personal information would be available, and those who don't provide it might feel under pressure. However, the people who like to harass might do so less, because THEIR info is right out there too.

Also something to keep in mind...for me, personally, I'm here for business, and for friends. I run a business here for the RL income and I run it professionally, as I would a non-SL business. I realize that I can't expect the same in return from my tenants, but I can expect it from those who work for me. I can and do expect them to behave professionally and not allow personal SL drama to get in the way of their work. And so far, I have found that differences in expectations of sharing personal info on SL is a leading cause of drama in friendships and relationships. When someone finds out their lover is a different gender than they thought, when people are married in RL but date others in SL, when one person ends a SL relationship that had RL plans, because it's easier to walk away from someone when you don't have to see their face - drama ensues. Which really explains the direction this thread has gone!

That's all interesting (though I think you're reading more into the responses you got that the poster put in there... that's not because they're anonymous, it's because you have to work to create AND interpret emotional cues in text), but connecting to social networks really doesn't change the level of anonymity all that much. Linden Labs actually expects and maintains MORE verification and accountability from most SL users than most social networks do. Whether they share that information with other users or not, they do have it.

Sometimes they are not so judgemental:
He: hello wanna sex on voice?
Me: No thank you. I can do that in RL
He: ok