When did it become polite to just walk away when talking to someone?

People do this all the time in SL, and especially in IM. Is there any particular reason for it?

nope no particular reason..its a virtual world..nobody owes anybody anything, so they just figure that rudeness is as good as being polite

You're saying that the rules of society and courtesy are held together by the need to get on with others to overcome shared hardship - so in a world with NO shared hardship, it's out of the window?

If that's true then that's.. truly terrifying.. if there is ever utopia, people will ruin it for each other, because there is no reason for them not to.

Do you have your typing animation turned off (if they're leaving while in open chat)?

Maybe they didn't know that you were still talking.

If they leave during an IM exchange, they could have technical problems, a crash, something boiling over on the stove, kids crying, power failure, or maybe they were just bored.

I always just assume that they got engrossed in cybering.

But when it happens while they're cybering with me, it can be a bit ego-deflating.

What I am saying is this is secondlife there are no curtesy rules. No one respects anybody in here...But I tend to find the worst in people or maybe it is my string of bad luck. From what I have seen, people leave all respect and common curtesy at the log in page and become complete a**holes when they log in.

As far as im concerned respect is completely earned in sl and definitely not given

Far as I'm concerned, it is never polite. But it sure does happen. :-/

On the internet, we can hear each other even if we walk away

There are some people I talk to who respond some 2 hours later to what I said. But they also have many RL and SL things going on. There are some others who I play IM tag with and our conversations will draw out for days as the RL time differences for us are really huge.

Sometimes its just accidental. If its someone you are close to, ask if things are ok. A lot of times they will be apologetic or give you an idea what happens. Courtesy can be a 2 way street.

I admit I am really bad about wrapping up conversations. oooo bright shiny...

Yeah, it's pretty rude. But I can kind of understand it if it's in IM. No matter how far apart you are, you're still going to be heard with IMs.

But in general, I think manners is following right behind common sense for becoming an endangered species, both RL and SL. It's pretty bad in RL when my son uses good manners by saying "please" and "thank you," people act really surprised. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised none the less. Says so much about today's society.

Sometimes it simply a matter of the conversation not being of interest to the person walking away. I know I've been caught up in conversations with people I've just met that is of absolutely no interest to me. Though I tend to find a way to excuse myself I have had to simply walk away to go do what it is that I really want to do. Some people just don't pick up the hint.

By "walking away" in IM, I don't mean moving their av away; I mean suddenly going idle.

Often, it's something unexpected or needs to be done RL and the person can't get the message out before doing it. Or in my case, I'll lose my internet connection and spend half and hour trying to it back so I can get back on SL and apologize to the person I was chatting with.

Well one thing many ppl tend to forget is that however real this all is, it is still a game in a viewer on the computer, and RL stuff happens, such as phone calls, babies, friends, work, etc, that could draw u away suddenly from the computer.

I know that happens to me alot n i try to be as polite as i can but sometimes u just dont hv the time to close off every conversation.

Same thing for both IM and open chat. People sometimes are interested in the conversation. But, when IM it's also very easy to get caught up in something that is happening were you are in SL at time........such as a good song at a live music event. Or maybe a long lost friend suddenly showed up that you want to talk too more than who you were talking to and they simply forgot you were on hold. Is it rude? Yeah it is.......but if you get your feelings hurt you are way too much into yourself. In my opinion.

I notice this a lot, too. I think it's a societal thing - people do this in RL also. And no not only to me and yes I do bathe.

By "walking away" in IM, I don't mean moving their av away; I mean suddenly going idle.

If I am in an IM or an in person convo, I do try to warn people that I had to afk - but if something sudden happens it cannot be helped. Also, sometimes if there are too many IM's they get buried and u may not realize someone sd something until way later. I do not take offense if someone answers three hours later- just cause they forgot we were talking - but like Qie said above- I think I wd take offense if it were in the midst of ... adult activities (though I did actually fall asleep once! )

Because they were at a danceclub and on their third glass of red wine and they replied to your IM in open chat by mistake, which got them into some drama and finally they crashed!

Or maybe their RL husband/wife/son/daughter walked into the room and they had to stop, like quick!

wrong.

In parts of the IRC world that's known as 'The "RR" Effect', named after the engineer with those initials who had a habit of continuing conversations in IRC after a gap of hours or days. It's become traditional to indicate such late comments with < rr>....</rr> tags.

Since when are everyday people not worthy of common courtesies just because they are online?

That makes absolutely no sense. The people are the keyboard are no less real than if they were in your face in RL.

With IM's, if you cross a sim border or teleport, you may not get the other person's IM, so you are still waiting for their reply. Then they happen to check email, and see it, and try to pick up the conversation again.

What's worse, it can be 20 minutes before you get that IM in email, so it is 20 minutes before you realize that you have missed a IM from that person.

I'm a weirdo without a doubt, but I like the idea that if you hold a conversation on the internet, because the messages are persistent and you can come back to them whenever you want to, it can transcend the limitations time would enforce upon it... If I take a day or two to think really hard about your question ("what's your favorite color" I might maximize the meaningfulness of my reply! I also like to avoid saying things like "hello" or "welcome back," because when I do say those things, it breaks the continuity, and if I don't, it's really possible to feel like we were never apart!

This.

With the additional understanding, of course, that RL can unexpectedly interfere, or lag can intervene, or three new IMs suddenly pop up on screen, etc., etc., etc.

Actually, what used to drive me nuts (and still does on occasion) is when I say hello to someone and they just ignore me. On occasion, they've been afk, and have replied 10 or 15 minutes later, but sometimes I think it IS a matter of simply not feeling interested enough to be polite.

I think, like so much else in SL, the rudeness derives from the anonymity, and the sense that there are no consequences for being rude.