Where do humans hang out?

When I joined SL almost two years ago I couldn't go anywhere without finding conversation. That's not true anymore and I want to know why. It's not a matter of degree or perception or nostalgia, either. It's night and day. I used to stay up 'til 6am chatting.

I don't even remember the last time I was griefed. Does anyone remember when griefing was a big concern? Is it even discussed here anymore? Do you suppose they just got nicer, or found something constructive to do? My theory is that robots make boring griefing targets.

Here's something that didn't get a lot of notice in a thread about clubs...



Here's a thread I started in December, where I described two hours in a crowded club where there were apparently only two people at the keyboard, and they weren't even giving it much of their attention...

/327/b6/231809/1.html

The Lindens say only a small percentage of the tens of thousands signed in are bots, based on their analysis of their behavior, which apparently doesn't look "bot-like". I say the Lindens simply don't know what to look for. I figure they spent twelve minutes deciding what a bot looked like based on no observation at all. Or they're lying.

One of my fondest memories of my early SL experience was dropping in on Luskwood as a human and having a great conversation involving lots of people. Last time I was there it had become a store with a few silent avatars hanging around. I'd write it off as a bad time to have visited, but this is my experience everywhere I go. Except usually there isn't even anyone hanging out.

So what do you think? Is the number of humans growing or shrinking? And if there are a lot of humans online, where the hell are they?

Elves FTW!

hahaha I was thrown ot of a club that 50 people like that in there.. I asked .. what's wrong with you people.. how can you just stand there and not talk? as it turns out .. it may have been 35 bots 10 security dorks and 5 actual patrons - 4 after I was ejected and banned.


People become anti-social on SL.

The reason I think is that once people get the hang of things and after being abused and told by rotten people what they are not allowed to do so much they withdraw to their platform in the sky to make stuff. Its too bad because there are a lot of smart people on here to talk to. - I sometimes get bored and go to Helpless Island or a club just to chat with people.

Also too much emphasis is placed on access restrictions, which helps people shield themselfes from contact with others.


I would strongly support the removal of all inactive players such as bots and traffic slave alts and removing the access restrictions on mainland, but putting the eject button up front center when clicking on an AV so you can get rid of people that are bothering you on your land in a split second.

I'm traveling the grid looking for people right now. I just spent an hour in a club with about 18 people present and the DJ talking to himself making no sense. A couple Hi's, and someone responded (incorrectly) to my asking where she was. Nobody responded at all to anything else I said. There was no other chat in text or voice.

I offered L$100 to anyone who could name one of the Beatles. Got no takers.

There are humans in SL??? Whatever next?

Goodness me I think I will stick to the forums... I dont think anybody has invented a forum bot yet... or have they?

I think the problem is teaching the forum bots how to spell....

Anyway......I know what ya mean about wondering where all the people are. But I don't go to clubs much anyway....I did in the beginning but then as I got more wander lust I spent most of my time exploring and working on my home in world. Then I got into photography in SL and my time spent in world is almost 100% do to projects related to that, or custom avatar work.

But, that said....one of the places I go when I want to find people is October Country.....and the other is The Forum Cartel hang out.....Also, helps to check events because simply club hopping in hopes of finding warm cyber bodies is only going to prove frustrating. At least by checking events, you have some hint as to where people 'might' be. I've rarely encountered bots.....then again....I haven't been to a club in a long time. I think folks in SL form social cliques the same way we do IRL and once that happens, those clicks become pretty insular.
Most of the time I've met the coolest people just by exploring......and not clubs, or malls....but cool interesting places like Emvee Cuba or Mexico or Carnival of Doom or October Country......or.....well.....you get the idea.

Gee, where were you folks when I had my club open? We had no bots at all. Just real life human people, looking for interaction. When they couldn't find enough of it...they left.

I think you are right .I joined about your time and talked to people all the time.Now I think perhaps a lot don't speak English as their mother tongue.Everyday I see people at my store and just say Hi to start a chat but mostly I get blanked or an instant tp away.Are these people just shy? surely not.As for bots,I think half of the numbers could well be alts or traffic bots.SL has become a vast horrendously lonely place.

I was once looking for Arabic items and when I TPed to one of the promising places I found in Search there was actually a club there with people chatting up a storm. I was out for shopping and not socializing so I left right away But if I remember correctly the place was called Habibi or some variation on that. I hope to go back some time when I'm feeling social.

Some people are, but there could be other reasons too. For example, if I'm in full shopping mode, I usually don't notice chat much and, even if I do, I don't like being distracted from what I'm doing. Someone could also be deep in IMs, speak another language, or just not realize you're talking to them.

Depends on where you go, I guess. I was in a club a moment ago, admittedly on an off-hour. Not very busy, as it was near the start of the US work day.

One dancer, who was actively working the crowd with eloquent, long posts.

One guest had just left, after flirting with the dancer. (Their departure was mentioned in the first post from the dancer that I heard on arrival.)

One AFK person. I wasn't there myself long enough to know if they were active earlier.

One person flirting with the dancer, and clearly not a bot.

One person who was kind of quiet, but who did say good-bye to me when I left. And with a shortened version of my name, not the full first and/or last, so unlikely that was a bot.

And me...

I had to go due to RL conflicts just a few minutes after I got to that club. But I'd say they had no bots padding their numbers.

When I have been in a really busy club, the lag has often made it very hard to do more than occasionally shout out "Woo hoo!". Pretty much all the serious flirting between dancers and customers, or between customers, was in IM's. So if you're concentrating on an IM window and the image of someone you're talking to, you might miss what is said in open chat.

Yet I can easily imagine some idiot using Bots the way the OP described. Same idiocy that drives some mall owners or club owners to fill their sim with 35+ bot-filled camping chairs or dance pads. It ramps up traffic ratings, but no one can actually come in and USE the facility, so in my opinion, it's stupid and wasteful.

True

I think people are just dragging RL habits into SL. Psychologically, human beings are not wired to recognize more than the average hunter-gather group...say 20 to 40 people. In cities, of course, this is an impossibility with thousands of other people living in the same area. To cope, folks usually just pretend that those other people don't exist. That's how people can live next door to each other in apartment buildings for years without ever talking. The human mind was just not built to cope with large groups of people.

I think if you're raised in a city, you internalize this and do it without thinking. And you bring it along with you when you come to SL... It's not personal. You're just disrupting a coping mechanism in your customers, and they are reacting to that discomfort by TPing out...

Come over to Help Island Public.

There's some real human conversations
going on in between the day-to-day hellos
and help.

There's occasional griefing which always
gives everyone something to look forward
to.

And some bots perhaps.

...always lots of lag...

It's GREAT!

* * *

That recommendation aside, what you're experiencing could be that
when one is new to Second Life, one is more open and naive, like
that newbie who wonders into a group of people and says: HI!

Someone who's been around for a while would do that, unless they
were intentionally doing so.

So as time spent in SL accumulates, I think one might become a little
more reserved, more guarded, a little less willing to just jump into an
unsolicited IM or initiate one, or accept a gift from a stranger (which
can sometimes be a fine thing).

Innocence lost. Innocence regained. It's possible I think.

- Infrared

When I want human interaction there are usually four places I look for.

#1 - I search events for trivia. I always find real people playing trivia and I enjoy playing.

#2 - I also love to play DMC Slingo. Again there are real people.

#3 - A sandbox. Yeah, I have a buildbox high in the sky, I generally only use that when I'm creating class notes, but there are some friendly places out there to build (one being SLLC public building area or TUI - huge sandbox here). There I can meet like-minded people, and who knows, maybe make a new friend.

#4 - I find a building or scripting class. Generally folks are pretty busy there working on their builds but sometimes you land in an especially fun class where folks are laughing and having a great time.

I wanted to find a nice club to go dancing, and went to a place listed in the most populr place search. Wow a lot of people there! Lag on all 3 points was so bad that I went looking for other places.

I had the same experience as others here: The clubs I visited was either 100% bots or close to it, and I went to a lot of places. I actually appreciated nobody (nothing) at some vacant clubs, as I didn't waste my time trying to talk to a script.

Funny it seems that only one place gets practically all the action.

Don,t get me wrong I never take this sort of reaction personally.It's just the way of these things as you say.I will shop for a nice paisley gag to match my tie!

Pfft.... Just keep doing what you're doing. It will help people overcome those feelings, and so make SL a friendlier place....

And that's a good thing!

/me smiles

Caledon group chat / events.

It's almost nonstop. Enough to drive you mad sometimes... grin

People quit sometimes because it is just 'too much' chat, then typically ask to be re-added 3 days to a week later. Because they miss all their friends, new and old.

It's a totally different SL experience; certainly not for the "go away, leave me in silence, at least I have my poetry" types. Literally half the people asking to add are there *just* to feel some life on the grid, not get land or anything.

On a Side note, it was me who was Quoted about my friends club being offered Bot Dancers.

Well she turned them down, and her club has been nothing but a success, we had a 1 month party there the other night and people trying to port in were getting the "Sim Full" message... and everyone of the people there was a live person !

I must be doing something wrong. I'm having a hard time keeping up. My closest friend is offline for a while to get some RL issues out of the way and now I thought I was going to have some time to start building or adventuring. It ain't happened yet. I'm always finding someone to hang out and chat with or take on a shopping trip. (^_^)

There are times when I think I want to take a break and get to building again. I've been doing good at making glasses and want to continue it so I can have a whole line. But, well, I'm always finding more fun in jumping around the grid seeing what each crowd is doing. I've even found myself having a hard time visiting clubs lately because I'm having such a blast with the people I know now. (^_^)

Maybe it's a good idea to step out of the club scene and check out educational and contest specific events. And, like a few people have said above... "Hi" goes a long way. Though... I take it a step further and have my favorite gesture "Konnichiwa! <Hi> (^_^)" .... (^_^)y

Destination number two turned out to be a bare skybox with about a dozen avatars. There was no conversation in the six seconds I was there before I was ejected by a security orb.

Destination three is a club in a skybox. I was greeted from outside the box. No other conversation that I can hear. Another group of avatars at ground level on dance pads. 14 people total.

BTW, the current rate for camping seems to be L$5 per half hour.

Checking out some individuals and smaller groups I found someone building, and someone standing in a field. I didn't disturb the builder. I was unsuccessful getting the attention of the other. A group of two dots on the map turned out to be two avatars in cages in another club. While I was writing this two people have come, and they're talking! I think the two in cages are bots. And now the two visitors have agreed to go elsewhere.

I've been asked to join a group, and to feed a 'sploder. It wants L$50.

No... Kids FTW!

To the OP:

Griefing still happens, but it's become old hat. It's like hearing the boy across the street deliberately set off his car alarm for the 4,000 time in the last year. It long since left annoying and into "meh."

Mari

I read this all the time- and for the life of me I don't get it- I always find people- I may not always find stuff- but I always find people. That said- I still REALLLY miss Phat's- the new place is nothing by comparison.

Seems to me to have a successful club you need a theme and you also should cater to a social group without being to restrictive.

I think this is why my friends club has been so successful, she and her partner decided to make a Womans Only Club but shyed away from making it a Lesbian hang out, so we have lots of Straight Girls, T-Girls, Butches and Femmes, Dommes and Subs, Gorian and Furries, Neko's and Vampires show up... heck we even have a few Trekkies (*shudder*) ... anything in SL that wants to be considerd female can hang out and is made very welcome there....

Clubs that advertize themselves to be much narrower themed eg. "Green Furry Pony-Girls from Mars Club" or Having just a generic theme "Club Club!- We Play Music and have a Dance floor!" dont seem to do as well.

PS Shamless plug, my friends club is named "Fabglitter"