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

Because if people can't even be bothered to engage in an IM conversation, what's the point of doing either of those other things?



Because it isn't really face to face?

Because if you DON'T choose to do other things, you wind up making yourself, and your enjoyment of SL dependant on what other people do.. not what YOU do.

But as a social game/world, it inevitably is. SL isn't much fun if you are always alone; and it's only by the grace of others that you aren't.

That's very much true, but there's a huge difference between having others enhance and enrich your SL with their voluntary involvement in it, and throwing control over your SL at someones feet and then being disappointed with what they do with it. Waiting on, and actually being held up by waiting on someone elses responses is giving them control over things.. things specific to YOUR SL and what you get out of it that they should not have power over. It's not a bad thing to have faith in other peoples humanity, but it is to assume that they all will behave that way given the option.

Don't forget the "so and so is typing..." bug. When they were not still typing. And ages later, you've given up waiting for them to finish typing. I know this isn't just a made-up bug, because I've not been typing and someone after a long while asks, "are you typing?"

Unless of course THEY were just goofing off and said that to make it look legit...LOL.

I hate this one!!! omg... endless, or or the never get the IM at all bug???? you know the ones you find later in your mail? after of course you get mad at your partner for not replying!!!

Yes! For some reason, some IM go to email and I never received them at all. Think if I hadn't had it set to email...

This is definitely a bug. I had it happen several times.

This happens to me all the time, but only when I'm TPing. I've yet to 'lose' an IM when not moving between sims. When I TP, I take care to make sure no one 'is typing' in my IMs when I hit the tp button. Kind of a PITA. Ugh!

This happens if you've typed at all in the IM chat line for that tab. It may even include certain control characters. So, if you accidentally typed anything in that line and then click to another tab, it shows as "typing" to the person at the other end.

It may also be that there's a bug, but I know that this happens as well, and it's easy not to notice that I entered a space on the IM chat line.

Ahhhhhhhhh... You are saying that it says typing the whole time, once you enter a single character and stops if there is not at least a single character? I assumed it started and stopped as you typed..or didn't type.

So it's a feature, not a bug!!

i think it's a growing problem and I think there's one social reason, and two technical ones:

1) people just get tempted into other IMs and lack the manners to say "sorry, busy". If I think I've said something which warrants an immediate reply then I will definitely walk away after a fairly short period - and why not? the person has shown that I'm low priority, so I should cut my losses & move on. So I do.

2) I'm certain that the rate of soft crashes has been climbing - by which I mean, conversations that hte chat servers just lose altogether. You're looking at an "x is typing" prompt, and they ain't - at least, not to you. The prompt doesn't update and you won't get anything out of those guys until you log out and back in again. It's just one of those things where SL performance is declining in a way that isn't instrumented, so we can't trap it like we can lag or frame rates or what-have-you.

3) the removal of voting/feedback scores makes people care less about being offhand. I never understood why this was removed in the first place.

Another thing that I noticed after I got a phone with text message support, so I had something to compare it with, is that many (maybe most) people think of IMs (not just in SL) the same way they think of text messages, you send a message, and unless the other person has something to say about that they don't text you back with "later", "later", "stay in touch", "ok", "bye now", "bye...".

The way I personally feel is that SL is very empty without the involvement of others. Creating an avatar, building a home.. all of those things are only interesting in-so-far as they shape the social interactions you'll have with others in those situations. If others are unwilling to participate in that, anything more just seems like an exercise in self-delusion; if I am required to, purely in my own head, attribute that I am a (something) purely because I have paid for the ability to have a (something) displayed on my computer screen, then I might as well attribute it in the same way to something I just imagine.



As far as I can see, it sometimes continues to say you are "typing" even if you have started typing and then deleted everything on the line.



As I understood it, the main reason was that because it was one-person-one-vote it wasn't really representative (ie, an excellent builder actually had a lower building rating than an escort, because the escort was in direct contact with more people); and because, with the new you-have-to-pay-for-every-L$ rules, the need to pay for giving ratings would make them go haywire between people who did or did not have L$ to hand.

/me throws up her hands in despair.

Yumi....you always want to talk about fairness. It's just not fair to make others responsible for your experience here. (or in RL). Not fair at all. That in itself....is far beyond impolite.

Wot?

I'm not holding other people responsible in the sense that I _blame_ them. Of course I don't. People are busy, people have lots of things to do, and so on; that's fine. All I'm saying as regards politeness is that if people are busy, they could say so, so that I could log off and do something else - rather than having to hang around because a) I don't know what they're doing (they might have crashed, etc, in which case it'd be rather harsh) and b) it's really awkward for me to have to say basically "you aren't responding quickly enough so I'm going"; whereas if they've said, "I'm busy, we can talk another time", it's just a logical response.

Now I might argue that the fact that the experience is so dependant on others, who cannot be relied upon, is a design flaw in SL itself - but I certainly don't blame those others for it.

I'm sorry....this may sound blunt....but based on a reminder today.... you are expecting more than most people want to give, more than most people "should" give.

There are times when I log in to a whole slew of demanding IMs that have nothing to do with store business.

It gets old....really old (concerning the demanding personal IMs).... Even responding politely gets old. If there are half a dozen to respond politely to....you've spent 15 minutes to half an hour of your precious time, maybe longer. Plus, you are weeding through business IMs and prioritizing importance. Some times you just want to ignore the personal demands....that's not what most come to SL for....and you do ignore them. This is not new news.....people mentioned it over and over again, above.

And I'm titling yours as a "demand".....because that's what it sounds like. It's just not fair, Yumi. And it's not fair to call them impolite.

Someone used a term in forum one day....that I treasure....and can't remember who it was....but thank you.

Self Preservation.

This is not impolite....nor is it impolite to use it yourself, and if you spend a considerable amount of time in SL....it's required. You could have used it yourself, to handle this current dilemma.

Yumi, I'd like to offer my suggestions and gentle criticism.

On these forums you often come across as very negative. You often start threads complaining about some aspect of life in SL. Many people come along with helpful suggestions, and yet you have an answer for each one, an explanation for how each suggestion is inadequate to solve your problems.

I don't know if you are like this in world as well. But if you are, and I were in an IM conversation with you, I know that I, personally, would find it very difficult to engage. It's not all that much fun to be trying to offer someone help and suggestions and conversation, and in response to be told at every turn that one's suggestions are inadequate. It disinclines people to want to engage.

I have an acquaintance in SL who can be quite a charming and interesting person. But she gets on "nobody likes me" jags that I find very difficult to deal with. These sorts of prophecies are truly self-fulfilling. It's just not that much fun being around someone who is a downer, who demands constant reassurance and praise, and who then argues with you when you give it. I want to tell her, the more you say "I'm no fun to be around" the more it becomes true. And at some point I just find myself with no incentive to contradict her when she gets this way, because I know she'll just argue back with her own negativity. There gets to the point where there is simply nothing more to say to her.

I'm not saying that you do precisely this, Yumi, but if you are as negative and contrarian in world as you are in the forums, then it's not really surprising to me that some people might just quietly disengage after a while. Most of us are here to have fun, not to be regaled with all of the reasons that the things we do to have fun aren't fun for *you*.

Even if I am completely off base here - and if I am, I do apologize for that - you cannot expect your conversation partners to read your mind. That is a completely unfair burden to place on other people. It has been pointed out here that lots of people multitask in SL. That is a simple fact, not a reflection on anyone's character. If you don't like talking to people who do this, you have to TELL them so. Otherwise they have no way of knowing.

You can say "You seem to be busy with something else right now; I'd really love to have a more focused talk with you, can we meet up somewhere when you finish what you are doing?" You can even tell people that you find multitasking distracting and would rather talk to them when they aren't doing so. Many people have busy SLs and find it hard to focus on one person at a time. But if you don't *ask* your friends to do so, they will never even know that you want them to, and they won't know to try.

But regardless of the approach you take, staring at the screen waiting for them to respond, when doing so makes you annoyed and unhappy, is certainly a recipe for nothing other than being annoyed and unhappy.

Which, again, probably does not make you a delightful conversational partner.

Just some food for thought ... I hope at least some of it is helpful.

^^ ETA: oops, I posted on the wrong account; this is Madhu Maruti speaking.

Yumi, I'd like to offer my suggestions and gentle criticism.

On these forums you often come across as very negative. You often start threads complaining about some aspect of life in SL. Many people come along with helpful suggestions, and yet you have an answer for each one, an explanation for how each suggestion is inadequate to solve your problems.

I don't know if you are like this in world as well. But if you are, and I were in an IM conversation with you, I know that I, personally, would find it very difficult to engage. It's not all that much fun to be trying to offer someone help and suggestions and conversation, and in response to be told at every turn that one's suggestions are inadequate. It disinclines people to want to engage.

I have an acquaintance in SL who can be quite a charming and interesting person. But she gets on "nobody likes me" jags that I find very difficult to deal with. These sorts of prophecies are truly self-fulfilling. It's just not that much fun being around someone who is a downer, who demands constant reassurance and praise, and who then argues with you when you give it. I want to tell her, the more you say "I'm no fun to be around" the more it becomes true. And at some point I just find myself with no incentive to contradict her when she gets this way, because I know she'll just argue back with her own negativity. There gets to the point where there is simply nothing more to say to her.

I'm not saying that you do precisely this, Yumi, but if you are as negative and contrarian in world as you are in the forums, then it's not really surprising to me that some people might just quietly disengage after a while. Most of us are here to have fun, not to be regaled with all of the reasons that the things we do to have fun aren't fun for *you*.

Even if I am completely off base here - and if I am, I do apologize for that - you cannot expect your conversation partners to read your mind. That is a completely unfair burden to place on other people. It has been pointed out here that lots of people multitask in SL. That is a simple fact, not a reflection on anyone's character. If you don't like talking to people who do this, you have to TELL them so. Otherwise they have no way of knowing.

You can say "You seem to be busy with something else right now; I'd really love to have a more focused talk with you, can we meet up somewhere when you finish what you are doing?" You can even tell people that you find multitasking distracting and would rather talk to them when they aren't doing so. Many people have busy SLs and find it hard to focus on one person at a time. But if you don't *ask* your friends to do so, they will never even know that you want them to, and they won't know to try.

But regardless of the approach you take, staring at the screen waiting for them to respond, when doing so makes you annoyed and unhappy, is certainly a recipe for nothing other than being annoyed and unhappy.

Which, again, probably does not make you a delightful conversational partner.

Just some food for thought ... I hope at least some of it is helpful.

^^ ETA: deleted and reposted because I accidentally posted on the wrong account.

I've had people IM me when I'm in the middle of a show. The show takes precedence and needs my full attention. I'll try to get back to the person afterwards.

I've also had people IM me while piloting my boat. The choice is... type in the IM or crash.

Yup, except that evidently, it doesn't always go away if you delete all the characters (according to folks above, whom I wouldn't gainsay).

I don't always come across as negative, and I don't necessarily think that "the things people do for fun in SL aren't fun" - it's more that I'm left out of most of them.

As for the solutions offered, the problem is that too often they aren't actually tested solutions but just easy responses. An example is the well-known claim about building, that I (or others in this position) should just build blind and that somehow when it's done, people will suddenly notice. But after asking a few questions, you find that the people giving this advice didn't ever go do that themselves; those who created builds had friends around throughout the process. So how do they know it works? They don't.

So what it means is that they don't like to see me sad, but they don't really care in depth. And that's fine, they have a right not to, and I don't complain at them for that. But, ya know, don't then complain that I'm still sad when I find out that there's nobody who _does_ care in depth. You might not have to think through to that extent, but I do, because it's my experience.