Little issue with rude existing users

This is a truly bizarre thread. Lots of great excuses for assuming people are griefers and alts. Just the perfect thing to make folks feel good about being arses to other people.

I guess it is understandable that people are treating new folks badly, but not because of "the recent paranoia", but rather because lots of folks are just plain arses.

"Look a new avatar! Look at the way he looks! OMFG, he asked a questions about how to do stuff. He's just standing there! Let's go yell at him before he griefs us!"

Lost, go about your bidness, you will find that there are some nice chaps about. Feel free to look me up if you need anything.

OMG, you griefer! Get outta here, before I blast you but good!

Lots of reasons. For one, most griefers are attention whores. By making themselves look all deformed and mis-shapen they increase their chances of being noticed.

Another reason is a griefer's general "anti-establishment" attitude. Where most residents take care to adjust their appearance sliders just right, a griefer might choose to abuse those sliders to displays their disreguard for any interest in their appearance.

Lost, let me also say I'm not condoing you change your appearance. I just wanted to point out a potential flag you've placed upon yourself in the eyes of some overly-paranoid though otherwise pleasant residents you might encounter.

Lost, a few notes in perspective:

There were asses here in 2003, 2004, and 2005. I think you found some of them.

I wouldn't say the cause is that they're old. They're just assholes that have been around a while, that's all.

These people would probably say similar things to folks who have been here longer than them, they'd just find a different excuse.

The unfortunate part is, you simply have to dig to find decent people at all. But they are out there. Some from 2002, some from 2006, and between.

ok. I'd have to agree here --- "Deformo-avs" are kind of a griefing staple. Nine times out of ten, they aren't trying to be "different", they're trying to get attention.

Now I'd be lying if I said I haven't met some decent "deformos". But they're rare. Hell, I thought Vektor Linden was a griefer when I first saw him.

But Harris is right: if you make a grotesque, misshapen av, most people are going to make judgement calls on that. Unfortunately with the amount of folks in SL right now, you can't "wait until they orbit you" all the time, to make a judgement call.

Well, to be more descriptive, I have no face, it's invisible. BUt I have nice hair and a cool monocle floating in midair. But I see your point.

Naked and deformed with a gun and a penis on, with a name like "bigdong Wingdang" -- I'd be willing to spin that roulette wheel on the fact that the guy isn't coming by to learn how to script particle rainbows.

Just a hunch.

That wouldn't say griefer to me. Or to many people, I don't think. But sometimes, you can absolutely tell.

i am happy with my avatar, but i understand it's difficult if nobody helps you .

So now anyone who has an ugly avatar is a griefer? Do you call ugly people in RL griefers too?

To the OP,

Come to Odds and Ends, do a search or look in popular places.

They have freebie vehicles and scripts and plenty of people there are scripters themselves including one of the proprietors.

And come as you are! Avatars of any shape, color, and size welcome!

Read the whole thread, Zepp. All we're saying is that there is an actual, factual trend of griefers using deformed avatars (not "ugly" but deformed using the sliders) and that it's happened enough times that many older residents have started stereotyping them cautiously. The real jerk residents don't even bother to confirm and assume deformed avatars are griefers and this likely explains Lost's recent experiences.

Quote from previous post:

This is what unverified registration has done to us.



I would beg to differ. This is how many people have chosen to act as a result of unverified registration.

According to the Lindens, the ARs have only gone up about .3-.5 per hundred residents per day. With approx 5-10k residents online at any one time, that's somewhere between 15 and 50 more ARs per day than before the verification changed. Before the change, ARs had been steady at 1.2 per hundred residents online, which translates to 60 - 120 ARs per day.

One could say that there's been an increase of 25-40% more ARs than there was previous to the switch, but it's pretty silly to say that the Apocalypse has come to SL becuase of a lack of verification.

As is typical of online forum communities related to online activities (I don't think of this as a "game" - I'm one of those "platform" people), this one is just as polarized, just as given to hyperbole, and just as likely to make broad sweeping judgements as any other I've frequented.

Part of me thinks that the paranoid people should put up their fences and hide in their pixel palaces if they're so damned scared of everyone.

Give new folks a break. We're not all out to steal your textures or watch your sex games without paying.

Sorry, that just struck me funny ^.^

Lost, in addition to Ivory Tower and Abbotts Aerodrome others mentioned already, look up Home of the Kazenojin ... that's another place for people interested in building aircrafts of all kinds, has a free library covering basic subjects related to how these things work in SL, as well as some other interesting stuff that you might find helpful.

Most like just someone going to a hot naked and deformed orgie. They're pretty common.

Checking out the subtler details, he doesn't have the griefer look. Check out the settings on his face. He has a very well formed non-default face.

All he is, is short and chubby. Overall it's a very well-made avatar, actually above average in quality for an avatar made solely on the appearance editor.

I don't fire off alarms on appearances because griefers can look like Mr. Default (the avatar you begin with). If they get their hands on even one normal looking custom avatar set then they'll look normal too.

Ironically, all the people who've griefed me before had very normal-looking avatars.

Hey, Lost. Drop by sometime.

I'm a noobie of two weeks and I have to say I've had the opposite experience, everyone has been terribly friendly and helpful.

Yes but it took a certain ammount of care and pride to put that together.

If you're referring to Ben Linden's blog entry on this, let's remember that (a) he leaped to a conclusion only days after the change; (b) during the ONE week of data he used to support his contention, the grid was down for one full day for an update, after which a fair number of residents could not even log in.

I could accept the suggestion that incidents of griefing may be isolated to popular places (WAs, Help Islands, the Shelter, other newbie welcome areas, sandboxes and adult communities) rather than less-popular spots. Yet some business owners have reported here that their AR rate has sharply spiked. Luskwood reports griefer incidents that sound like they're epidemic. My own experience since the change coincides with these reports -- even if only 1-2% of new residents are misbehaving, those 1-2% are also creating an endless line of alts for the express purpose of disturbing the peace.

I don't accept Ben's conclusion in the least. If anything I think it resounded too strongly of an "nothing's wrong here, go away" attitude.


I'll repeat this every time I get the chance - I love helping new people. I give freely of my time and have even TP'd them to spots to help them get started.

As for Lost's avatar, I think he did a good job. I love seeing different shapes and styles instead of the standard blonde hoochie-girl and the bronze Adonis stud avies. It's part of the amazing diversity and creativity in Second Life.

Aw, I thought he was cute. What a sweet face!

Thanks Aodhan, I did spend some time to make my avatar not look like the guy next to me, who looked 8 foot tall or the girl next to him 7 foot tall.

What I did was look at the signs on help island, I assumed that signs should be set at eye-level. Thus I made my character based on that, yes it's shorter than average and it's chubby, ment to be funny and non-threating, I didn't know this was what people exepected grefiers to look. Personally, I find shorter and funny look avatars more interesting than the Barbie/Ken types. And my baldness on the avatar kinda matched my name. I thought that was funny

Maybe this is a clash of two different type of users. I am personally a gamer. SecondLife as I see has two types of people, or people from two different backgrounds: The gamers and the texters (or chat people who evolved). The gamers would have better movement, and tend to be drawn to non-sexual type or non-drama based type of interaction. While the texters (or chatters) usually go towards this and expect their avatars and the ones around them to look like someone from the Bold and Beatuiful.

I personally do not mind my avatar looking crazy or non-Ken type.

One more thing I observed was that these people might be role players, and someone like me who is very much real life and expect friendly/courtious type of interaction would just be thrown pretty far when someone responds like this. I'm pretty sure they would not talk to me like that if they were to meet me at some public place RL. SecondLife, like chat boards (?) I'm assuming brings the worst and best in some people.

I have had people call me such things in other games, but usually it was much less vulgar and most often it's someone I know already. No stranger has ever reacted to me this way in my previous game. (And I know there were teenagers who played WoW -- maybe it was the good enforcement of abuse in that game that did this).

Once again thanks to the people who helped me get out of Korea 2 I really don't know why SecondLife would drop a newbie like me in a place like that... Maybe they ran out of places to put newbies?

Regards.

Lost Newcomb.

Welcome to where the two worlds collide, althought it is a game, there´s real people playing it. People that is mean in the First life might not be nice in the Second Life, not actually a rule, but it happens. And a lot.

Specially at the welcome island (which is miscalled) since newbie hunters go there to harass and grief newcomers.

Best thing to do: choose what you want and you don´t want to hear and have fun. If ppl do unpleasant stuff to call your attention the best stab is to ignore them. I´m sure you will find nice people around, and have much more fun than picking a fight with stupid people. They are SL Player Killers, if you get my idea =D

Glad you found the forum Lost and spoke up. You seem to be on the right track now.

I am new enough myself that I remember that "ok what now?" feeling. I don't know if I would of stuck around if met with hostility. Lucky for me I met very helpful people. I am having a blast now!

I hope we all learn better ways to sort out the griefers from sincere newbies.

Finding out your height when your new is not straightforward. I made my original avatar 6'8" thinking it was 6'. It was quite a chore to resize so I kinda settled on the still-a-bit-tall 6'4". Still very tall but not as towering as original.

LOL XD