Are alts necessary to operate in multiple social spheres?

my alts are not allowed to speak. *chuckles*

I have just the one account and have held many positions and ran many businesses in SL without any problems about what and who i am. If i am busy i turn busy on and leave a message that ill get back to them asap

It's too bad that setting "Busy" mode does not make some sort of indication on the Friends list than a particular friend is busy.

It doesn't bother me that my friends have other things to do on a particular day than talk to me. But I feel like I am bothering them if I IM them and they say they are busy, or I get the busy message, or I get no response at all before they log out, or that Emerald "feature" that spits out a "don't bother me message" before I've even typed anything into the chat window (and that feature is just rude.) If I get that busy response several times in a row, I will stop IMing them- it becomes their turn to IM me for once.

If I knew they were busy before sending an IM, I wouldn't send the IM and wouldn't feel like a bother, and I can wait to IM them when they are available. Linking up the "Busy" feature to the Friends list would be a nice addition and may solve some of those social delimmas for which people think they need an alt to avoid.

This.



Augh! They got me AGAIN!?

Alts are a great way to seperate work from play and also keep your inventory from being a crazy size.
Combat orientated alts with smaller inventories tend to be less laggy and TP around easier too.
Also it may be good to have a distinct sexed name to go with a same sex alt or it can cause a lot of eyebrow raising.
Till we can change our displayed name to suit our avatar alts will always be handy for roleplay too.

There are 4 of us. We all refuse to be called alts. We were created to explore different paths. But we are all related: me, my partner, and her grandparents.

Usually 2 of us are on at a time. We constantly say things to each other like "You never told me that!"

YES! As I said before, it does not feel right to call either of my 2 accounts not a main and they have distinct personalities. Alts are those accounts I only use for a day or so to test something.

A friend in SL has dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality syndrome) and commonly passes information from one personality to another through a third one. They also form a family. I have no problems grasping the concept as my two accounts are mother/daughter or packmates depending on what form the older account chooses to take.

No. Alt are not necessary.

I have been in SL over 6 years and never used an alt for more than just logging into another sim to look at something while i am preoccupied, or occasionally, making a build that i would rather not have anyone know is me so i don't get IMs etc.

But i don't do social things with alts. All my alts look like me, have the same tat skin and pierces as me. Anyone seeing my alt who knows me, will know who it is immediately.

Alts are not needed for social circles unless you have something hide, like your past, and to me, my past is an integral part of my life in SL so i won't ever be alting out - this is my SL, the good, the bad, the ugly, it's all mine and i am going to own it, live it, and love it for better or worse.

Just me too. SL isnt big enough for two Jigs. There aren't enough men.

so if masturbation is "onanism" then is shagging your own alt "duonanism"? That would make Gor sex "Conanism"...

For the circles you move in, maybe. For me, I am conflicted: on the one hand I can see that an alt is an easy way out - on the other hand, I find the taboos which drive people to make the "alt choice" are the source of a lot of energy, and interest. Like others here I don't play in the alts I've created, because I have a strong identification with my main. I will however change the appearance of that main, and it's been my observation that this combination of decisions makes some of the tribes of SL quite nervous - or sometimes, excited...

/me wonders if the OP is still around to read this after a year and a half...

That's the main use of "-multiple", isn't it?

It's the best way to really learn how to use sexbed menus and know what the position names mean, too.

Of that we can be thankful.

/me is a very-adult club owner.

I see the appeal of having a kid avatar - Mari always seems to be having fun! - but there's no, NO, way that I'd associate kid-anything with /me. If I felt like exploring that side of SL, it'd be as an alt and would be 100% divorced from anything and anyone I know. Really gross stuff does happen with kids/adults and I just want zero part of that.

Also, as a club owner, I get tons of IMs.. Group invites, griefers, he-said/she-said drama. Having a mostly-unknown adult alt just to get away from all that is how I keep my sanity.

Some are better at it than others. I sometimes get IMs from somebody I've never heard of, confessing that they're an alt of a friend. My *only* concern about things like that is that I'd try to hit on them without knowing they're an alt of a friend. I've done this before and it's usually a bit embarrasing.

Argent David is my original I didn't like the name, and he kind of lapsed for a long time.
Argent Stonecutter is me.
Argent Silversten is my banker.
Argent Pinion is my crash test dummy
Argent Koskinen was created to see if an empty inventory would help my login problems.
And my female alt is none of your business.

Mustelida?