Why is help often so half-hearted?

... of zombies. In a mall.

Zombies? In a mall?

Yumi, there's no pleasing you, it seems.

You don't want to create, or to compete. You don't want to hang out and socialize. You don't want to explore or look around for something or someone new. You, my dear, are in a Grade A Funk.

I suggest a sabbatical. Log off, turn off the computer, and don't turn it on again for at LEAST two weeks. Maybe four. Go reconnect with RL for a while.

Um, these aren't true.. when did I ever say any of these?

Have you ever thought of creating just for YOU? Personally I don't put much of a mind to if my creations see the light of day. I just create to create, could not give a flying... if anyone else likes it and wants one. Just not something I concern myself with as long as I enjoyed creating it.

I've never seen anywhere in SL where the dogs act like dogs and the robots act like robots and so on, with any consistency or to any great degree, if that is what "role playing" means outside the confines of a special purpose RP sim or parcel or group. You can't do 3D actions in a spontaneous way, you have to obtain or make actions, gestures, sounds or such, which makes it hard to do spontaneous roleplaying. If your avatar is, say, a big lion, and you come across, oh, an R2D2 robot, what's the chances the two of you'll will have any gestures that permit a sensible lion-R2D2 interaction? What kind of communication would take place with growling and beeping and whistling as the sounds that would be in-character?

Ok Yumi, I am going all the way back to your first post. You are making statements you represent as fact. It is up to you to prove them. Those saying you are wrong do not have to prove you are wrong. You have to prove you are right.

Why would I do that? Remember that my aim is to BE proven wrong, so that I get the information/experiences needed to provide the proof!

This is a fairly pointless exercise because you say you don't wish to debate people, but you are. You say you want to create, but don't want to have it feel like hard work (although it is). You say you want to socialize, but maybe you just don't relate and you're blaming everyone else. You say there is no RP but a dozen different places have been posted and you haven't explained why they don't suit your needs. You haven't found your niche, but we can't tell you what your niche should be. It is something you need to put the time and effort to wander around and immerse yourself in stuff to find out. People can point you places, but it is up to you to put in the requisite energy and make something of it. It's tough being new anywhere, but sometimes you just have to really open up and lose your expectations and go with the flow. I don't feel that you're doing that. I don't know what it is you want, but I will concur with others that you probably don't know (it's okay to not know) but expecting everyone to give "whole hearted help" - no one can make you happy, that is under your control.

I think it is a bit more than not finding her niche, I think she expecting her niche to find her.

i read all the way through.. and thing that the help is not half hearted but being half heartedly responded to.

Yumi you expect others to fullfill your needs while at the same time you have already decided that they arent going to do the job.

defeatist passive aggression... if there is such a term... might fit better.

youre not open to suggestion, youre not willing to make an effort for yourself.. but youre pissed off that people arent running all out to make you happy.

the suggestion that you step away from SL .. especially if it is making you so unhappy, is perhaps the best thing you can do.

when youre hungry .. dont eat until you are. its that simple.

I'll jump into the muddle and join the splashing. Why not.

Lots of things I've noticed. I don't expect you (or anyone else) to agree with all or any of it, Yumi. But I think you may be confusing disagreements and various perspectives with 'being proven wrong'. No one can prove you 'wrong' because 'wrong or right' is something you decide for yourself.

What's right to, or for, any of us is not necessarily right (or wrong) for you.

So this is an exercise in futility if that is your aim.

If your aim is at least in part, to be helped to find a way to enjoy SL, and you haven't hit upon it yet, why not be more clear with all of us as to what it is you have tried, in detail, and why you disliked those things.

Is RP'ing what you are interested in? Sorry, I don't personally know of any that are failproof, that are as reliable as a computer game (the type on a disc, with just you and the game) and that have people in them every time I've gone in. There just are not enough players in a given time zone for that, for one thing. Sorry - that's just how it is.

That doesn't mean there aren't any, but again, what one person finds fun you may not. Which RPs have you tried and which types are you interested in? Reading through all your posts and almost all of the replies, I still do not know what it is SPECIFICALLY that you have ever enjoyed in SL. As others have said, maybe this game just is not for you - at this time. It could change later and be more to your liking - no way to know til time went by and you tried again, though. At least joining is free.

Another thing that might be happening is a cultural difference. What is your nation, if you don't mind (ignore the question if you wish of course) and time zone? Knowing your time zone might help people point out RPs or groups or activities for you. Knowing your background might help people understand your frame of reference. In some nations, teaching and helping are prized more than in others. That is just for a very very rough estimation of one possible problem.

But even in nations where helping is prized and politeness is expected to be the norm, etc., (of course speaking in generalities by necessity or we'd all have to write a thesis on this topic) people are less apt to follow a given stranger to the ends of all possibilities in order to help them enjoy a video game, when A. they do not know the person i.e. a stranger as said B. the person is not socially gracious or fun in return C. they may never see the person again, or in some other way the putative helper projects no return for their services.

It seems perhaps you are bemoaning a lack of selfless helpers, but that's the case in real life as well. Those who do practise altruism risk 'burnout' as others have pointed out, and *people may be a help vampire without realising it*. A negative attitude or a tendency to quibble, argue, demean the help already offered, etc is one way of being a 'help vampire' - those can all be very draining.

As you can see by my long post I tend to overexplain. I'm worse at fending that tendency off if I am tired, drained, cranky, etc. I don't wish to be insulting, at all - but perhaps your tendency to overanalyze/overthink a problem and over examine people's conversation (and that is just my observation in THIS THREAD, not of you since I don't know you obviously) feeds on itself when you are feeling down or drained also. Then it becomes a vicious cycle.

In other words the sense you feel of spinning your wheels comes thru loud and clear - the thing is, do you really want to fix it? (Or just talk about fixing it - is that more fun?) And are you willing to help others to help YOU if so.

Possible solutions - 1. tell us more about yourself, in general terms obviously, as relevant here. No personally identifiable info naturally!! 2. be a bit more gracious, in the thread and when people try to help you in SL (I'm guessing, if you are "pointing out they are an idiot" etc.). 3. Have another interaction with people besides demanding (I'm assuming) they help you enjoy a computer game, when really they are only there to do the same themselves 4. Figure out another way to enjoy SL than the ways you have tried and failed. For instance, do you like watching plays? Hearing live music? Those can be fun in SL. and 5. Once you figure out some things you MIGHT enjoy in SL let the rest of us know...so people can better help you.

6. If it's someone who will stick with you until the problem is fully solved/keep you company when you wish/answer all questions until you are through asking each session, that is your aim, then you will either have to luck out and find someone who is endlessly patient for reasons of their own or, pay someone to help you. The 2nd option is easier to find someone willing and able.

Czari's incredibly nice, though, so if you tussled with her, that may be a possible attitude control problem to look into...just a thought. (I doubt there are any helpers out there nicer or more willing to help!) I hope some of this has helped you even if it sounds blunt - and I hope you find a way to enjoy SL but if not, find another form of entertainment. Or come back to SL later to see if things have changed. In the end though, you pretty much get out of SL what you put into it...or so I've found.

As with many of Yumi's posts in the past, this thread just keeps nagging at me, demanding deeper thought than the surface subject seems to warrant. And that gave me an idea.

Yumi, your ability to pose deep questions about the meaning and context of Second Life and virtual worlds is something of great value, I think. Making us expand our vision of what's possible, meaningful, enjoyable -- that's not something just everybody does.

If ya got it, flaunt it.

There are plenty of saloons in SL. Not so many salons. If you were to organize a regularly scheduled discussion group... maybe a little like Thinkers... I'm pretty sure you'd have many devoted attendees.

+++

Now, if that doesn't sound like fun to you, just ignore it. I've got another suggestion anyway: A deconstructivist NPIRL.

So, NPIRL collects and disseminates findings of (mostly) "Not Possible In Real Life" builds and installations, focusing on (mostly) artistic innovation. But it's pretty much "go forth and be amazed" without a great deal of context about why the feature is significant. I think it would be much more interesting to explore someone's ideas about the meaning and implications of discoveries in SL--how they relate to or augment RL human experience, for example, and in-depth.

I honestly don't know anyone who could do that better than Yumi, and I for one would eagerly await each installment.

+++

Okay, so if that doesn't sound like fun I have another idea:

Imagine Yumi were out, scouting for the above "Not Obvious In Second Life" group/blog, and thinking about something she found, she realized there was an opportunity: a Brave New Thing that *could* exist, and *would* stretch the current state of the practice in-world. It might be fun to implement that, or to rally troops to the cause of implementing it together.

So the suggestion is to just do that without the group/blog thing. Scout, analyze, but instead of writing about the possibilities uncovered, just go directly for the Brave New Thing.

+++

Not fun yet, huh? Well, one more idea:

Suppose Yumi were running a salon, or doing "Not Obvious", or building Brave New Thing. Whence do the RL referents arise? How does Yumi find these amazing ideas that nobody else ever thinks about?

My guess would be that there's a lot of RL content in Yumi's head, put together with an intelligence and insight that most of us can't bring to bear on the subjects.

Maybe that "well" could do with a fresh "priming." Maybe reading a book that's very different from the usual fare, listening to a podcast never before sampled, surfing somewhere off the beaten web, watching a movie that is totally out-of-character--Yumi's brain on a holiday from Yumi for a few hours--maybe a new idea, a new direction will emerge.

That's kind of like Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies"... and just following the Eno connection a bit: The Long Now Foundation. Another step from there: Clay Shirky's _Here Comes Everybody_. And while on the Amazon books site, Jeff Howe's _Crowdsourcing_.

My bet is that Yumi cannot avoid thinking of new SL possibilities while exploring RL content like that. (Well. I couldn't, anyway.)

+++

And if none of that sounds like fun, let me know why not, and I'll try again.

Just for the heck of it, going back to the first post, there are a couple things I can 'prove wrong'...

RP is everywhere in Second Life. I'm not an RPer and yet I RP nonstop. In RL I am a 30-something Canadian lesbian witch who runs her own business and worries about financial stuff and family stuff. In SL I am a 20-somthing lesbian witch of Asian descent who runs her own business and pretends to be a governor of a small tropical island colony, while worrying about financial stuff. See? Completely different. In RL I have no islands and I'm a decade older.

And that's just the non-RP me. I have an alt who is Atashi's 'cousin' except she's a lot more terse and to-the-point. Where Atashi is often polite to the extreme and doesn't want to make waves or anything, the alt is right up in peoples faces and not shy to call people out if needed.

Beyond that, there's people I know who, although I do not know them in RL, I am fairly certain that their entire SL is RP. Like the nekos, the vampires, the demons, just to name a few. I have a friend who's part of a Stargate team, I know someone in Star Fleet, then there's the Gorean, and the list goes on. If they're not RPing then my understanding of the real world is seriously wrong.

This is also flat-out wrong. The viewer still has a "Build" button and there continue to be lots of sandboxes and other property with create-objects enabled. However I think you really are referring to your belief that newbies have no chance to sell anything (since you seem to believe that there is no building without sales and marketing). This too is completely wrong. See, once, a little under 2 years ago, I was a noob! Yeah I admit it. I thought SL was a wonderous place but I looked around and very quickly decided I would not bother trying to learn LSL and would play with prims only enough to tweak some things I had bought.

There was no point, I thought, trying to build anything of value because I looked around and saw so many others who had already built so much amazing stuff. How could I, a newcomer with no SL skills, ever get even halfway close to being good?

I was wrong, and you are wrong. The key is, don't build for the money. Build for the fun and passion. One of the first things I did was import some of my RL paintings and build some frames. I think I was about a week old when someone wandered by my little 512m lot where I was working, and bought a painting. It might have been L$100 or something token like that but I was chuffed! Then at only 2 1/2 months old, my friends were urging me to try and sell some of my macabre creations. I thought they were nuts, who in SL would want a gallows or impaling spike... appearantly, lots of people.

So there you go - new people can not only build, but can even sell stuff.


I can't / shouldn't comment on the bit about making one's avatar look really good... I'm one of those oddballs who typically refuses to wear any prims and keeps my "avatar rendering cost" at 1. I'm told that people think it's part of my quirkiness, or something like that.

So, I think you are wrong about those two things and I have provided my evidence. It's your call if you accept it or not, of course.

-Atashi

Exactly right Atashi.

I am building at any spare moment I have in SL between family and my small career as a DJ, and if I am not creating something I am pondering my next build. It may be something new, something in SL I think I can do better, or a new idea for one of my old builds... Hell my Phoenix MKIII Yacht is sitting in dry dock doing the interior sculpty work and preparing to be textured. I don't build to market these things even if others think I should. Love building and planning builds.

Awww, thank you so much Clarissa...that made my day.

Pssst...will pay you the 500L in world

Well, that's because I haven't gotten the information/experience that I need yet. If I stayed quiet, the thread would just end. Now I know maybe, some people would prefer that, but I wouldn't (yet).



No, that's not quite it. What I want is the feeling that I can improve or change my Second Life as a result of creating - and that's really missing at the moment. That's because of the feeling that, as I mentioned, you can't step back any more - you can create, but the moment you want to stop work and enjoy the rewards of creating (and I don't just mean money), someone who didn't stop work overtakes you and those rewards are withdrawn. And I don't just mean money/sales, if a product is popular then yes it makes a lot of money, but also that means that there are a lot of people using it, which means that they are _not_ using your version and are probably not compatible with it either. So any "creative vision" that you had embodied in what you made, is basically lost, because you can't involve other people in it - others are happy with the ones they have, and don't want to switch for _your_ sake, kthxbye. If everyone's happily watching a Disney DVD, you can't eject it and put your home movie in instead. At least, not if you don't want to be thrown out.

Now, can you build simply for the joy of it? I will be quite honest and say, yes, I am suspicious about that viewpoint. After all, would you be so keen on building if everything you build was lost when you logged out? I am sure that there are some people who would, and that's fine, but I think many wouldn't - certainly I wouldn't. But if it's not lost, that means you want to be able to do something with it, and if that's going to be more than "rezzing it and looking at it" and that usually means involving other people - which means you hit the "vision mismatch" problem I mentioned above if a popular product exists, even if you aren't competing in the market. Why would anyone want to look at, interact with, give any virtual depth to (let's say) a magic wand I made when they all have (let's say) Zachh's already and it's better? (And don't say, "I can practice and improve" - that's true, but it ultimately comes down to the "you have to work 100% of the time" race again.)



No, I said that RP mostly comes down to going clubbing in fantasy dresses - and don't get me wrong, that could be great fun and I'm sure many people enjoy that. I haven't explained why they don't suit my needs because my original statement hasn't been contradicted yet - I've been to many of these places and sure enough, all the dots are clustered in the "hangout spot" and - if I can hear what they are talking about - it's just generic club chatter. Of course part of it is that I strongly dislike any RP place that drops visitors into a mall and has the rest of the sim banlined off, because being told "we want your money but we don't want you" is hardly a pleasant welcome. (It also shows that their business model depends on them having sales to people who they don't involve - otherwise, they could put the store inside the banlines. That would make me much more confident if they did that - essentially saying "we must involve people, because if we didn't, we would go broke."



People have been a lot _more_ helpful in this thread than many have been in-world, and I'm grateful for that - that probably hasn't come out so far, so let me say now, thank you to everyone who has posted here. Many of the half-heartedness things I was talking about haven't shown up here. What I usually mean by half-hearted help is things like giving canned answers ("go to the ivory tower of prims" is a favourite for building - no offense to the Ivory Tower, it's fantastic, but it's not the be-all-end-all solution for everything), and coming up with limits that don't make sense. (Eg, "you can't be helped" - maybe a volunteer could not help, ok, but how do you know a paid professional couldn't? Or "something) can't be taught" - what they usually mean is that it can't be taught by talking while standing in front of a blackboard, which is usually correct, but whoever said that was all there was to teaching?). What these usually come down to is, the person doesn't really want to help but wants to avoid saying that out loud.

I only "pointed out that she was an idiot" because the same person had, earlier in the same conversation, said that anyone who made argument X was an idiot - and then she made it herself.

In the field that you created in (scripted gadgets), that is true and, since it's true, it seems that creating such things lost its appeal some time ago or I guess you would have continued - improving them, etc.

Earlier this year, because of the deleted scipts fiasco, I learned that the animations in my stuff were all illegal, so I created a whole set of new ones, many of which are better than the previous equivalents. I'd fiddled with Qavimator in the past but I'd only made a few anims. But I got stuck in and found that I enjoyed it, to the extent of thinking up plenty of animations that I'd like to make - and I did. Since then, some people have asked to buy the animations set seperately (without a bed) - that never happened before - and one regular here still want me to do them as a builders set.

What I'm coming to is that, I didn't particularly want to make animations, or I would have already been doing it, but I was inspired once I got into it. AND animations don't get bypassed as quickly as scripted gadgets do. Also, with your scripting ability, you can compete with animations like Lovescene.

So that's a suggestion for you - make and sell great animations, including making them as builders sets. You never know - if you get started, you might find that it's a very desirable thing to do.

Yumi, earlier you wrote about the magic of SL being something that others seem to find but you are unable. That led on to writings on the fun vs. hard work of creation. I would like to say a few words about that...

Creating things can certainly be hard work. Anything that requires concentration and creativity can be hard work. Hard work can be fun, there is certainly the hard work that is pure slog, where you watch the clock hoping for it all to be over soon. There is also the hard work where you immerse yourself, the time flies and before you know it you find yourself reluctantly having to break away due to something else needing attention. You are still tired but you are also jubilant, excited and eager to get back to doing it again. That latter one is the fun kind of hard work.

Finding the magic in what you have done, is to do it, put the hard work into it and then rest from your labors. Sit back and consider what it is you have done and what impact it is having on others. Use your imagination to try to immerse yourself in the illusion it represents. It is hard to convey this in general terms and yet give specific meaning but hopefully if you bear with my writings it will give insights in to this.

If you look at anything by its component parts only it is hard to see the magic of it. Often it is only when you consider the whole of it together it becomes more than the sum of it parts and becomes apparent there is magic there.

For example, take Caledon, as this is a great example of something that is imbued with magic in SL. What is the magic of Caledon? What sets it apart?
Is it the theme? The build? I shall attempt to tell you what I think it is and remember it will vary from individual to individual because the magic is in the way it speaks to each individual.
If you were to look at Caledon's component parts. It is a set of residential/commercial sims based around a steampunk victorian theme for the most part. When looked at in this way the magic is not apparent. Had things worked out differently this view of Caledon might have been all it was.
Certainly it must have started out like this at one point even as just an idea in Desmond's mind. However once a certain amount of effort had been done, it stimulated the imagination of other people. They found the illusion of living and in a steampunk victorian fanstasy setting simply irresistable. These people wanted to live and interact in such a fantasy setting, came and settled there. They immersed themselves in the fantasy of the environment as completely as they could.
A community in a fantasy place was born and grew. People with a shared dream beleived in that community and gave of their imagination amongst other things to sustain it and make it grow.

Desmond also provided the right balance of setting, management, his own immersion into victorian life and hands on getting involved approach to the community.
Once a certain point had been reached, the magic was made and Caledon took on a kind of life of its own. Now in SL terms it has in effect created its own legend. Now it is far more than the build, the management style or the people that make up its component parts and it is all them and more - it now has the magic that you talk about Yumi.
I beleive it was that willingness of people to immerse themselves in the dream and fantasy with like minded people who about all other concerns wanted to help make Caledon the kind of place they wanted to play, coupled with Desmond's nurturing yet relatively hands-off style of managment which made a fertile ground for this magic to spring forth.
Caledon's magic is in fact the same sort of magic that Disney brought to the world. Both brought people a dream to beleive in and inspire them.

There is a problem here though. It only works for you if you can immerse yourself completely in it. Suspending disbelief for some people can be an immense barrier. Being able to overcome that and become a different person, living in a different time and place is key to the magic of such places.

The good news is there is also non-immersive magic in SL too. Take the magic of the Starax sculptures. These have now also passed into legend almost. There are many examples of things people have built that captured and enraptured peoples minds. Once you are able to do that even in a small way you have created magic.
Lucrezia Lamont (I think I got that right) wanted to create a newbie kit to help people find more quickly the things that were more experienced residents just know through experience. Things that enhance SL for us all. It too gathered momentum and the effect it has had on new and more experience residences who used it, contiubuted to it and help distribute it also imbued it with a kind of magic. This was the magic of collaboration. Now it is possibly the most well known newbie kit out there.

Mentors too, or for that matter anyone who's patience and communication skills enable them to guide and answer newbie questions create a type of magic also. To people coming in they are often the rock with which to cling to in a maelstrom of information overload. It is no mean feat to be able to accomplish this.

There are so many examples if you look for them. They are the things that inspire the imagination and/or awe of other people.
They are not easy to create, it takes time and effort but it is possible to enjoy them even if you create or help create them.

My advice is to go to a welcome area or infohub and spend some time with very, very new people. Often their wonder and awe, naivety and almost innocence can refresh your view of SL. Adopt a new person for a few weeks even, spend time with them, assist them. In return you will see SL from the eyes of a new person again.

On the point you mentioned about classes Yumi, I too was/am in your position about timezone. I am from New Zealand and I am mostly online at the time when most people are sleeping and the grid is at its quietest. There are certainly no classes running and never have been. However the rich SL I have had so far proves that it is still possible to learn the things you want to learn in alternate ways.

I am sorry this is so long, it started out small and grew. I hope some of it helps you understand some of the magic of SL as I experience it.

Desmond I hope you don't mind me using Caledon as an example to try to help Yumi see that the magic is there and why it is there.

Yumi, you remind me of my wife on her days when she wants something, can't tell me what she wants and isn't happy until she gets it.

Pep (I just get a beer and watch TV until she finds the means to communicate)

LOL this was me today (or yesterday?). I was wandering around the house, thinking that I wanted chocolate, but knew that I didn't really; I was just substituting it for some other unknown thing. No happy ending. I just got over it.

I do that too! I wonder if it's a "girl thing."

Yep, 'cos men know exactly what they want all the time.

Pep (Sex, sleep, beer, food, sport, tv and to be left alone to enjoy all of them; except the first - occasionally)

I guess the problem I have is that whenever I try and do one of those, I get so wrapped up in frustration about SL's limitations that it short-circuits what I'm thinking of. If I build, I'm mad at the lack of automatic prim alignment or spacing. If I script, I'm conscious that 90% of what I'm writing is the same in every script, to deal with "quirks" in LSL or to work standard functionality into LSL's event model. It's just overwhelming after a while. Now, I do have ideas for projects to try and _change_ those, but that's quite the mountain to climb, and it isn't rewarding in an IC or OOC sense (technical client mods have to be given away for free due to GPL and they would hardly have anything to do with role-plays!)

Your brain was telling you to go shopping. It happened to me today, too. A trip to Nine West and DSW , along with a burger and 2 pints took care of it quite nicely.