Yay! Another pet peeve addressed :)

Rejoice

If LL keeps addressing all of my little pet peeves, my business will be done on these forums

Now about that pesky devaluing linden dollar...

That'd be nice.

And a boon to the private investigator industry.

That said, I'm not sure how effective it would be. If I didn't trust someone to be where they said they were, doing what they said they were doing, I'd set something up to find out where they were and what they were doing anyway. The map just makes it a faster process.

That's a start, but I was really hoping they'd go the direction of not appearing online in notify and profile instead.

Getting rid of your green dot just opens the field up to spies and stalkers, without really addressing the problem most people I've spoken with seem to be having, which is the ability to have some 'me time' without having to delete your entire Friends list or go into Busy mode.

An "invisible" mode would be fantastic. But it needs to have a cost, to keep people at least SOMEWHAT honest. Such as being completely unable to send or recieve an IM while in it.

I agree. I'm hoping that by final implementation they'll expand it to cover the entire privacy spectrum to the extent that even total invincibility will be a togable option.

I can just see it (or not, as it were), hordes of invisible AN$HECORP employees, one on every sim watching out for land going on sale...

Won't this make spying on other people easier? You can make yourself invisible in-world. With this you'd be invisible on the map. You could be standing right next to someone and they won't know it.

This seems to, ironically, reduce privacy.

Perhaps this should only work while on your own property. I don't want invisible people on my land. I want to know who's there.

HP

Yeah i agree. Not being seen on the map seems a bit useless.

They'd have to find you first, wont they?

That's actually one of the problems I have with Busy mode now, but moreso the inability to see chat. (I once left Busy mode to find out someone had called me a snob for not answering them, even though I was obviously in Busy and focused on something at the time. )

Ideally, what I would like to see, is privacy controls similar to Yahoo Instant Messanger, and probably several other messangers out there. I'd like the ability to be Invisible, except to those I choose to see me.

It would make working on joint or group projects so, so much easier, as well as just being able to log in and address one person without being instantly swamped by IMs and stuck answering them immediately, because they'll disappear without going to email if you log off.

I think the green dots give people a false sense of privacy. If people want to talk about private things then shouldn't they go into IM mode? I know I've had somebody say something a little "private" to me. They didn't notice that a green dot had suddenly popped up on the the radar, they was quite embarrassed about it after.

There are other virtual worlds that don't have green dots. They seem to manage okay. We also don't have a green dots in 1st life. Infact, there could be somebody hiding under my bed right now. I just have to deal with these possibilties.

* looks under the bed *

All clear!!

So down with green dots! No more green dots I say!!!

That too

Just curious...I go all day long not seeing, or worrying about (although perhaps I should ), these green dots.

I assume you always keep your map open, but does everybody always keep their map open when in SL?

That seems like such an inconvenience.

I keep the mini map open. But if I didn't have a mini map then I'd not leave it open. Weird eh?

Yeah, I don't really care if we have the green dots or not, though it is handy to tell when there's someone hovering near me when I'm not facing them.

But getting rid of the green dots without addressing any other possible privacy features is just kind of impotent.

Isn't it possible when Robin says "the option to toggle off your visibility on the map" she is not really talking about removing your green dot entirely, but turning off the ablity for friends to track your location by selecting your name in the map dialog? At least this is what I hope she is suggesting.

I think most people do because I'm always hearing about these green dots.

I just prefer to keep my screen clear and uncluttered with extra stuff and as far as im concerned...that mini map is huge!

Let's hope! That would make a lot more sense.
Regardless, at least it's been acknowledged that privacy settings would be a good step.

I'd say no green dot, you appear as being offline on buddy lists, and if you have "invisible on login" checked, no "guess who's online?" message. Still, the avatar should appear physically normally and be able to send IMs to group ONLY. Private IMs should be kept off as an honesty measure, as well as a way to prevent people from coordinating spying.

Oh wait Hugsy...I think she means people just won't be able to see when we're online. Not invicible as in my standing next to you and you not being able to see me.

What does that mean?

Do they mean making the green dot not show up at all? Why would you even care about an anoymous green dot showing up?

Well, that'll make a lot of people buy my privacy monitor, that's for sure.

[Edit: What most people talking about "invisibility" seem to be referring to is simply letting you log in without showing up as online at all. The "map" part is at best secondary (if they just mean disabling the "Map..." button in profile) or even harmful (if they mean you'd become completely invisible on the map).]

there are virtual worlds that don't have Starax's Wand. They seem to manage OK. Down with the Wand!

That's what I'd like to see also. I think allowing people to be invisible on the map is a bad idea.

If it were not toggable perhaps I could see your point, if nothing other than the fact that it deprives users of choice. But since it is toggable, can you cite a reason as to why this would be bad idea? Perhaps I'm missing your point because I've never utilized the map to track green dots. Hence, I don't see the importance of it.

Like someone else said - maybe have it so you can only hide your dot on your own land?