Annoyances from neighbors, and how to find a quiet place to do design work

I'm quite new to Second Life, and am mostly drawn to it by the opportunity to build things and script them.

I started with the trial membership, and went to public sandboxes to start learning how to build and script. I met some nice people there, including some who were experienced in building and scripting. Unfortunately, I also kept getting affected by people who were playing with big weapons. Once I was blown into a neighboring sim by someone's weapon, and another time I was blown high into the air and had trouble getting back to the ground again. Both times I was simply minding my own business, quietly working on scripts, and both times I found the interruption very annoying.

So I decided that it might be best to find a quiet, reasonably out of the way place to work on my projects. This motivated me to upgrade to a Premium membership and buy a plot of First Land.

I looked for a place where it appeared that most of the neighbors were doing interesting, design-oriented things. That way, I figured, we would all more likely be in tune, so to speak, and not have clashing lifestyles.

So I bought a nice flat little 512 m plot in a PG sim.

Soon after buying it, though, I realized I had a problem. The next-door neighbor has an object that continually cranks out a message to the chat channel, some sort of error-type message about not being able to find a texture. This message spams my chat channel when I am standing in my own property. It affects about one-fourth of my land, and makes it unpleasant for me to use that portion of my land.

I wasn't able to find a way to keep those chat messages from crossing into my land, so I left a polite IM for the neighbor, asking him if he wouldn't mind changing the object so it stopped sending those messages to the chat channel.

I'm worried, though, that this neighbor may not be reachable. I don't know when his last login was, or when he will next be in the game, and get my IM. I don't think there is a way to find that out.

The above experiences lead me to ask several questions, and I'd appreciate any comments from the Forum community:

1) Is there a way to keep chat messages from crossing a property line? Is there a way to block the chat messages from a particular object, owned by someone else?

2) Is there a way to find out how frequently someone has been on line recently? I figure there isn't, since it may violate people's privacy, and expose them to stalkers, if that sort of information is public. But I think it worth asking, since it could be useful to know if a neighbor is reachable.

3) Assuming that a neighbor is not reachable, and that neighbor's object is doing something as annoying as the one I mention above, is there a way to appeal to the Lindens to intervene?

4) A general question: what is the best way to find a quiet workspace for design work, where one can minimize annoyances from neighbors, interruptions from gun nuts, etc. I'm hoping that the answer isn't that one has to pay for a high tier, and have a lot of land. I might do that eventually, but I'm not yet persuaded to put down that much money for this game. Keep in mind that I'm not asking how to be a complete hermit. I anticipate, based on other forum comments I have read, that some will chide me for wanting to be on my own, and tell me I am supposed to be sociable. I actually want to have social time, it is just that design work and socializing don't mix well for me. So, I need a getaway space. Also, having a one-way chat session with a broken scripted object is not socializing.

Darren, I believe if you open your chat history window, you'll be able to mute your neighbor's object.

You can mute objects just like you can people. When it spams, you'll see the option to mute at the top of your chat history window.

As for finding quiet space... most of us go "up" - there's a reason skyboxes are so popular.

I cant really answer any of your questions ... what I can do is offer you a quiet retreat where you can work. Im not looking to sell, but am willing to let you work in the area if you want.

Considering its convenient to a telehub, its fairly quiet and I believe its large enough to avoid the problem you describe with the chat channel.

I know this isn't an optimal solution to the problem itself, nor to the situation with your neighbor ... but it might be a temporary solution.

IM me later if you are interested. I'll be inWorld after 5 game time.

Jim

Darren, in the event you can't get any intervention or find you neighbor, you can always build yourself a work platform up in the air. Many people in SL so exactly that. Chat range is 20m, so all you have to do is go up 20m to be out of range. If you need, IM me and I will show you what to do..

Ah, Darren, I remember those days. Plagued with spam and lag, nowhere to build peacefully.

As Jillian mentioned, the solution is in the sky.

Try this:

(Once you've muted the offending object, as suggested by Pol, above)

1. Rez a cube
2. Sit on your cube
3. Edit the cube's Z-axis position to read "512"
4. Now that you're in the sky, stretch the cube out to a comfortable size for you to stand on and work
5. Enjoy the blissful framerate and get to scripting!

Ooo, I didn't know that, Jillian and Pol! That's good to know.

I joined a zoned community - which I paid for as a basic member, in Lindens - to get a good place to build, and to live in peace. Now it's a private island, and I'm a premium member, and still pay for it in Lindens.

I also have a friend who lets me build on his land, as I don't have enough prims to do it.

So there are ways. But I think you should be okay with your own land now, with the answer about the chat window. Just saying, there are ways around the problem. Also, you can report those push-gun people in the sandboxes, and the reports do get acted on, judging by all the entries on the police blotter regardint push-guns and whatnot in sandboxes. When I have something huge to try out, I take it to the sandboxes, and so far I've been ok there.

coco

As long as you're not doing certain complex scripting functions. I've found that a few will NOT perform correctly over 500m.

A safer height for scripting would be between 300 and 400 or so.

Another thing Darren might try: When you're busy, set yourself in "Busy" mode. When that happens, IMs and spatial chat *should* be muted.

If it were me, I'd do both

Mute an object? WOW! .. Cool .. does that mean I can silence the tringo board shouts? Does it survive from session to session? Or do I have to reselect it each time ... Guess you can tell I've never used mute in the year and more I've been here

Very nice, thanks!!

And Darn .. now with all these great answers .. I dont get to have a scriptor working on my land ... LOL 'drat

Thanks, everyone, for all the tips. I'm delighted to hear that there is a way to make things more pleasant for me without asking my neighbor to change what he does on his own land. I wasn't complaining about him, but about his object. I've never met him, and I actually like the look of the things he's got on his land.

When I'm next in game, I'll try out the chat block options.

Jim Lumiere, thanks for the kind offer to do design work on your land. I'll pass on that for now, since I figure I can probably use my new land for what I want.

I'm blown away by how quickly so many people responded with helpful information. This is a nice forum!

Yes, you can mute an object, and it will stay muted.

One warning though - often spammy objects are just called 'Object'. If you mute that, you'll never see another message from any object called 'Object' ... which led me to a fruitless 6 hours trying to track down why the script I was working on wasn't responding (of course I had temporarily put it in a quickly-rezzed cube)

I go for hanging out on private islands owned by benevolent dictators (or in my case it seems, dictatrices). Search for a group that looks like it does the kind of things you're interested in, find out where they tend to hang out (many have a home base), go and check it out. Say hello, make some cool stuff, become part of the community

I suggest you rent a house somewhere, like... I don't know... (shameless plug) South Paris.

Me too, exactly! I not only hang out on the private island owned by my benevolent dictator, I happy to give him my Lindens to live there!

coco

Darren, I totally get what your saying. Some people stretch out a prim to make platforms in the sky to build on with less distraction.
Be aware that the more land you buy, the more you will use and there never seems to be enough prims for what you want to do lol! This is the reason I always end up back at a sandbox no matter how much land I've ever owned.
Good luck to you!