friends and groups removal... please discuss!

Hello, this is my first post here, and I'm doing it having searched in the wiki and the forums. Well, here goes:

1. Having gathered a great amount of friends and beeing part of many groups, I wonder if trying to remove them from my list of friends or groups will notify them that I did so? e.g. "John Doe has removed you from his friend list" or "John Doe2 has removed his/herself from the Fantastic Avatar group".

2. Is there a way of choosing to be invisible to others, even better subcategorizing to:
A. groups
B. friends
C. the whole SL
D. a combination between those

which would prevent from having to say to an online friend "Sorry John, I'm doing all sorts of other things right now so cannot join you at the beach"...

2. Is there a way to be part of a group without it showing up in the own profile tab? Since the profile tab is browsable by everyone, it could be embarassing or even prejudicial not beeing able to communicate with someone because he saw that you're part of the (eg) "Anarchist" or "Sex Loving" group. It certainly occurs, even if few persons would actually admit it, that someone takes a peek at someone else's profile to find out about the second one's social behaviour in SL; I think that knowing about one's belònging to whatever groups has an analogy in RL to knowing a-priori if a certain person is part of a syndicate or political group, which could automatically create prejudice in one's mind, and consequent mis-behaviour. Example: You're part of a group that is sexually or politically explicit, and decide to rent a space somewhere in SL. You start speaking with an eventual landlord, he/she looks at your profile and decides that since you're part of the X or Y group you wouldn't be "adequate" to having a space on rent in the space you're asking. Which is, IMO, prejudicial, even if not explicitly stated from the landlord or any other SL person.

Lastly, and this is not a question but a proposal, I think privacy in SL should be enforced, especially in regards of sexual or political behaviour, which should be, as in real life, based on the discretion of one's will. For example, beeing able to not show to everyone the belonging to a group which could bring up prejudice on one's person.

Thank you in advance for answering and/or discussing this.

MaryJane! A warm welcome to SL and the SL Forums. Many friends already, that's fantastic!

What you ask about was recently discussed at a Community Roundtable meeting--these have been held at the Pooley Stage near the beginning of each month, and I encourage you to watch Announcements and come on down to voice yourself next time if you'd like!

There's a thing I like to say here: "A cellphone that won't stop ringing!" Does that resonate with you too?

Currently, we don't have more controllable privacy modes in SL, and there hasn't been a formal development plan put in place for this specific featureset, but one of the most lucid Resident-created documents about it, which sums up a lot of previous forum threads (searching will dig up a lot!) is FlipperPA Peregrine's, which doesn't seem to be posted on here, but you can ask him for a copy. I think you two would have a lot in common to chat about.

We'll continue to evaluate how it might be done. I know I'm anxious because it's very useful for the reasons you pointed out!

Finally,



Yes. If you're the member of a group and "Show Members In Group List" is unchecked, then only officers will appear to others who aren't in the group. "Show In Group List" can also be unchecked in the group panel for further covertness.

I'm sorry SL Answers isn't a discussion forum, but please leap into Feature Suggestions and bring your vision up if you want, or join one of the many other threads already on the topic!