How not to ask for texturing help

I just had an odd experience. Anyone else who volunteers time teaching here ever have this happen? Check out this IM log. I've changed the name of the other person, obviously, so as not to breach privacy.



I'm wondering what would possess someone to ask for a favor from a complete stranger, and then become so rude and belligerent when said stranger is unavailable at the moment. At the very least, wouldn't it be smart strategy to pretend to be respectful when you want something from someone, even if you're not?

I'm happy to help almost anyone with anything I can, but I don't think it's a whole lot to ask that I be allowed to do it at my own pace, is it?

I usually get hit with referals. "So-and-so said you know about this - can you help me?" But I have yet to get anybody being rude in the slightest. I always make it a point to thanks such folks for not being rude.

The whole busy thing is why I'm apprehensive about talking to folks that I know from the forums. Maybe someday I'll drop you a quick Hello in-game.

I'm afraid this is classic ineffective behavior seen in many families (including the one I grew up in.) Our hypothetical Dis Respectful has not learned how to interact effectively to get the responses he is seeking. When his behavior fails to get his desired response he experiences uncomfortable emotions. He has choices here. He can blame the other person which is the easiest and most comfortable for him but of course it is even less effective for getting the response he wants and it is so icky for the other person. Or he can look at his own behavior and (gasp!) think about changing it which is uncomfortable and difficult. I believe we all have moments when we choose to blame the other person, I know I do.

-Sylvia

People do this to me alot. It upsets me the most when they see me in my store obviously putting things up for sale and working and start pouring on the questions. Somehow I normally can't bring myself to say no...so I end up spending alot of extra time in world doing things that I could have done an hour quicker if I hadn't had to explain something to someone. It'd be ok if it were ever that the question could just be answered with a simple sentence and they went along their way...but they always have a trail of questions behind the opening one it seems...and they just keep coming. XD

The few times I have tried to explain I was working were disasterous. People get way offended when you don't have time to let them pick your brain it seems heh heh.

I get a lot of tech support IMs.. so I leave my avatar on overnight so the IMs don't get capped. funny thing is, I ususally get redmapped overnight. So when I wake up, I look through the IMs I've gotten through the night. If the person is concise.. saying things like "I went to the beach and it doesn't work" or "it's not attaching properly" things of that nature... I'll ususally take the time to note down their name.. and open up an IM to respond to them after relogging.

The ones that don't get responses from me are ones like "can I ask you a question?" (a pet peeve of mine... technically that WAS a question)... and "hi". Frankly, I tend to ignore the ones that say "it's broken" in some form as well.. because I can't really respond to that little information.... and if it's still a problem, they'll surely get back to me. When I do end up IMing those people back, I almost uniformly post "are you still experiencing this problem?" So far, only one of them has ever IMed back.

I've had my share of really odd, and sometimes rude IMs.. but the rudest and most invasive, was when someone who was banned from these forums, decided to IM me in world to flame me, regarding some post I made.

I really hate that these forums use our inworld names.

Do what I do...I just don't answer people if I'm not in the mood to talk.

Or put people on mute.

One thing I notice is that the person did not ask for help.

That does not contain a request for help.

Your response is needlessly contentious. A simple "I don't take IMs about texturing or building. If you post it in the forums I'll take a look at it" might have produced a better result.

When the person said "Weirdo thanks anyway" you could have let it drop. Instead you chose to extend the discord by saying "Let me get this straight. You're asking me for a favor, and calling me a weirdo?"

The other person presumably did not respond. You could have let it drop there, but instead chose to prolong the conflict by saying "No response?"

When the other person said "Fixed it. Busy now" you could have let it drop. Instead you chose to attempt to extend the conflict by saying "Too busy to apologize for calling me names just because I was too busy to help you?"

The other person responded by saying they were sorry: "Sorry bud." You could have let it drop then but chose to make one more statement.


The sentence in your about section, "Please do not IM me in-world with forum business",could be interpreted as meaning "don't IM me with forum drama or questions about the forums" rather than "Don't IM me with questions about texturing or building."

The suggestion to use the forums doesn't work for people with unverified accounts created after August 28th of 2006, if my memory of the cutoff date is correct, who can't access the forums. How should people in that category contact you and others who make that request?
I have a feeling that you might tend to get technical questions like that because people who read your forum posts get the idea that you are so knowledgable that you could spit out the answer to their question as easy as taking your next breath.

So far as understanding how people could possibly behave in some of the ways they do in SL, one should consider that being online is something one can do in the privacy of their room, while drinking alcohol and massive amounts of coffee, smoking way too many cigarettes, maybe snorting some coke, doing some meth, or something of that sort, staying up till all hours of the night and never getting enough sleep or eating a proper meal. This sort of thing generally tends to cause behavioral problems.

I also suspect there are a fair number of folk using SL who are desparately lonely and thoroughly bored; their IMs never get capped because no one ever sends them any IMs; they don't have many or any friends to chat with, they aren't busy with SL stuff like building or texturing or scripting because they don't do any sort of content creation at all, and they've been in this state for a long time. These folks may have trouble behaving in a way that seems appropriate to someone that is extremely busy and possessed of more chat opportunities than they could possibly want or deal with properly because the busy, always in demand person's lifestyle is so alien to them that no picture of what the busy person's world is like ever occurs to them, and thus they don't respond in an empathetic manner.

I actualy find with human beings there is no "right" way to ask a question so I tend to avoid asking unless its on a forum lest i get my head bitten off lol

honestly I will say that people can be overly picky on how they want to be addressed

I usually say hello and try to be nice i got my head snapped off for not just iming and "spitting it out" out once the person demanded to just be imed and asked a direct question and niceties they did not have time for..

another guy bit my head off because i was in a rush one day when iming someone and did just "spit it out"

there is no right way if you dont like "how your being asked" the best thing to do is ignore it that is what I do but honestly I have not had many people be rude to me ingame. Language can also be a barrier but if your busy giving people instructions on how to ask etc its not gonna work either

Just say "I dont take im's inworld can you post it to the forums?" if he says wierdo ignore it mute him and move on ..

/shrug


Its impossible to accomodate in your interactions via written text for every type of personality out there I dont try any longer because someone is always unhappy or gets cranky somewhere. The only thing I do is not "shout" and be polite even if someone is being rude

I actualy didn't find his original IM's disrepectful hehe

it also doesn't appear from the continuing argument afterwards that you were short on time hehe you took time to fight with him in that time you could have answered his query and done it faster then with that long drawn out conversation

I'm with Chosen on this one.

Maybe next time Dis Respectful wants some information he will ask more politely and get a much better response. If his family/school/life so far hasn't trained him to communicate effectively and taking into consideration other people's time, one can but try to help to point out the errors of his ways.

And if that fails there's always Mute.

Sorry Suzanne, I think you are sooo off base. I just don't get blaming the victim for being rude when in fact the questioner was the rude one. I also don't see why whatever problems (poor) questioner may be experiencing should have to be tolerated by the person contacted.

Look at it this way, if person X stabbed you because they had a tough day, should we empathically excuse their behavior?

As a (very, very new) designer, I would never dream of asking the 'pros' for help in-world. I know I'm usually busy, so I'd assume they were. I've asked one well-known builder for help, and that was just because it stemmed from a conversation we were having anyway.

If you ask me, that's what these forums are for. If someone has a question they need experienced answers to there is a wealth of knowledge right here. Question posts usually don't go very long before someone answers with help. Also, chances are, the question has been answered before and can be found with very little searching. It seems disrespectful- to me- for someone to track a desinger down in-game to pick their brain.

Heck, I can even summon up a "I like your stuff" when I'm standing next to someone who's work I admire in SL, because I figure they're taking a well deserved break...

I am sorry that has happen to you
I am starting to do more custom jobs and I often find it bit frusterating with certain types of communication.
I sometimes get people who want me to make things that they can turn around sell as their own this makes me a bit frusterated.
Sometimes I ask for i.e please put this in notecard and send me but they don't hear me or even follow through.
There times I have sent private messages to people within forums and even within instant messages and do my best to be respectful.
If they don't have time I don't take it personally but I know there are people who do.
Sometimes when I am working on something and I get quite frusterated it is hard.
It sounds like the person took your rejection personally because they are frusterated and stuck.
I must confess I have had my moments with similar situations.
It is okay to set boundaries and say I only do such and such.
If person is rude its their problem but sometimes because I am human I take it very personally.
When I am get really hair pulling frusterated and have no way to get help with project sometimes I get cranky and needy being new and all.
I have to often have remind myself to calm down and just put whatever texture, building or art problem on shelf and come back to it when I don't know how to fix it, because often I don't even know how intelligently to explain the problem I am dealing with sometimes.

There are groups in SL for people who create things. There are several builder groups and one animators group I believe. Not sure if there is one for texture artists. You can generally ask a question there. You might get a facetious answer once in a while but most people will help you.

Sorry to hear that happened to you. With the contributions you've made to this forum, it's quite evident you're anything but what that person has called you. I've learnt alot about designing clothes thanks to your threads. I get people like that asking me about land sometimes. Like you, I'm sometimes too busy and will inform them of such. However I've never had anyone go so low as to call me such words... It's appalling that someone would think of another person as a useless "bum" merely because they don't immediately drop everything they're doing and rush out to help someone they don't even know. We have 15k+ players online at pretty much any given time... Clearly some people need to remember that we're all human, we all have priorities, and even if we choose out of the goodness in our heart to volunteer our time, there's a limit to how many people we can possibly help regardless of our circumstances...

I've got to agree with Suzanne on this one ... you did seem to prolong the contact and "egg on" a little. A quick "I'm sorry, but I don't do in-world support. Please post your help request in the forums." would have been more than sufficient.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. As for the "is Suzanne right or isn't she" debate that seems to have sprung up, I'll say it really doesn't matter. She is right that I didn't do everything I could have done to help the subject drop as quickly as possible, but that really wasn't the point. The point was that someone was boneheaded enough to think that insulting someone he wanted a favor from was somehow a good thing to do. I found that amusing, so I figured I'd share it, and I was curious if anyone else had had similar experiences, so I thought it would be interesting to ask.

Suzanne, with regard to your notion that the "please don't bring forum business in-world" statement in my profile is unclear, and that it could mean lots of different things, you would be right if that were all it said. It's not though, so allow me to quote the whole profile. I think you'll see that it's pretty clear.



I think that first paragraph says what it needs to say. The only reason someone wouldn't get it would be if they didn't read it, which obviously the person in question did not. I'm happy to entertain suggestions though if you think you can make it better somehow.

Well, the person was an ass whoever they were. Chosen could have dropped it but we are all human and I myself like to call asses out from time to time when they are being asses because sometimes they do need a mirror held up to their faces to show them that they are what they are.

Personally I think the asking questions in world isn't necessarily a "right" or "wrong" issue. I think it depends on the personality and ability of the person questioned as well as the questioner who is asking. The asker should always remember they are the one with their "hat in hand" so to speak and the askee should remember they are being considered an "expert" in the subject matter and IMHO is an indication of success and should be considered a compliment. Obviously this "Dis Respectful" did it the wrong way so Chosen's response was certainly appropriate for the situation. (By the way, I hope you negatively rated them).

For myself, I don't mind people asking me questions in game. Then again, I'm somewhere in the middle of the "food chain" as well and not a Chosen Few or Munchflower Zaius so its not like I have a trainload of IMs either. I myself have asked questions in game of people when I've gotten frustrated, but have done it in a respectful fashion and it generally a fine point detail that is a sticking point as opposed to broad based "how do you do an alpha channel" type of question.

Some questioners aren't aware of the forums as well and I think this is a point that also needs to be considered.

Bottom line is the old fashioned golden rule (and that applies to everything). Do unto others.... If one is too busy to answer a question and the questioner is respectful then I would respectfully ask them to send me a notecard, email or go to the forums. If they are rude and disrespectful...well, I'll either ignore them or do back unto them.

You were maybe a little harsh, Chosen, although any sympathy I had for the questioner instantly evaporated at the "weirdo" response, haha. What? You don't provide free tech support 24/7? How odd!

I'm different in that I'd prefer someone to just get right to the question they have, "Hi are you busy?" is fine... but if I'm offline it's just annoying. (I do answer IM's via email if they contain specific questions...)

I have gone out of my way for some thankless bastards though. If someone can't be bothered to type 'ty' at the very least... I figure it's not personal, but rarely feel inclined to help them a second time.

Also... There are quite a few people that treat me like some wage slave that should be grateful for their custom mod request. (as if I weren't busy enough with my own stuff.)

They get warmly invited to learn how to create what they're looking for on their own with the help of my lab.

Of course, quite often, polite people get the same answer.

I think part of the problem is that an IM fulfills a dual role in SL: it serves as a means of conducting a private conversation, but it also becomes an answering machine when the intended second party is unavailable. Unfortunately, we cannot always be certain of the recipient's online status, unless that person is a friend who has chosen to let us in on the secret. It's too bad we don't have an in-game mail option in addition to general chat and IMs. Creating a notecard is a bit too cumbersome, in my opinion.

I will usually preface any 'new' conversations with something along the lines of, "Hello - got time for a question?" Why? Because this is what I do in real life, and honestly is a part of what I consider common courtesy, especially in a professional environment. To walk into someone's office and simply blurt out a question without regard for whether or not your intended target is busy working or on a conference call is, in my opinion, rude and unprofessional. But ... translating real life 'proper behavior responses' into their SL counterparts is not a perfect science obviously.

I prefer to err on the side of being courteous. I also try to exhaust existing resources and references before resorting to 'bothering' a person online, which is obviously how some people in SL view such interactions. I will also typically review a person's profile in advance of contacting him or her.

I do ask that some of you be more forgiving of those who choose to be courteous enough to ask if you have time for a question. I sincerely respect your time and if you respond that you are busy, I move on. But if you respond with impatience or with a rude retort, I also move on. Why? Because then you are not worth MY time. Why lambast a person for being too courteous, especially given the flawed mechanics of online communication. It shows a lack of respect. This is just my opinion.

I think the main issue in this case was that the person only prefaced their question with "hey" and upon getting a response launched immediately into their spiel. That's treating Chosen like a tech support worker and not like a private citizen who may be busy. If he had just said something like "I'm having a problem and was wondering if you might have time to answer a quick question or two." That would have been the respectful thing to do and I'm sure it would have elicited a very different response, and it would have given Chosen a chance to head him off at the pass and steer him here to the forum if he was busy and didn't have time or just wasn't in the mood.