Big Damn SL Glossary

IM Hell - Like IM trance, the state of being overcome by Instant Messages, so much so that you are unable to pay full attention to what is happening around you.

You are welcome to, but I'd like to finish revisions based on this thread (and get two remaining approvals from people who contributed) first.

Please let me finish it first so I can add the additional suggestions people have made in this thread and get the remaining approvals from other posters I need. Then you will be welcome to. I will post a final list when I'm done in a day or two.

I can't imagine why a moderator would lock a thread asking for input and corrections to a resource for answering resident questions in a Resident Answers forum. But if they do, they do.

Thank you Yumi--I will be using most of these!

Thank you Marianne. I'm grabbing most of these, too

Well--yeah, but I want to _help_ new residents; not make their heads explode

A few more I've just thought of!

Couple balls - Pairs (or larger sets) of poseballs (qv) which synchronise with each other to create animations showing avatars interacting in various ways.

GIRL (in capital letters) - Guy In Real Life. Sarcastic term for a female avatar controlled by a male player.

KK - Equivalent to "OK."

Local Coordinate System (LCS) - a way of describing locations in the world relative to an object. The LCS of a particular object has its origin point <0,0,0> at its center, and the 3 correspond to the forward, right, and upward directions from the object's point of view. This is as opposed to the Global or World Coordinate System (GCS or WCS) in which everything is defined by absolute position in the world. For example, if a human lies down on the floor on their left hand side with their head facing North, then in GCS terms their head would be described as "West of their shoulders", since this is their literal position; in the person's LCS, their head would still be described as "above their shoulders", since this is its position relative to the rest of their body.

MDC - Metaverse Development Company. A real-world business which charges other real-world businesses real money to develop areas or promotions for them in Second Life.

Non-Phys - Non physical movement. A method of avatar movement obtained by sitting on a non-physical prim and then moving the prim with the edit tools, or using a script in the prim for controlled movement. A non physical avatar can pass through walls and cannot be pushed; they are considered an immovable object from the point of view of any physical object that strikes them.

Prim Sculpture - The art of using overlapping, modified prims to create more realistic and organic shapes. The term "Prim Sculpture" originated well before Sculpties (qv) were introduced, to describe skill at working around the fact that custom prim shapes were not available at that time; thus, Sculptie Prims are (paradoxically) not generally referred to as Prim Sculptures.

Prim Torture - A method for adjusting settings of a prim which are not normally accessible, by switching the prim between different types. For example, you can set a prim to type Tube, adjust the Profile Cut setting, and then set the prim to type Box. The result is a Box with a Profile Cut applied, which is usually not possible.

Sculptie - A prim with a customized shape, created outside of SL using 3D modelling software.

Security Orb - A simple single prim scripted objects which uses script commands to eject avatars from a land parcel (qv) whom the owner of the land does not want there. (Most often, this includes all strangers.) Security Orbs are required to warn you several times before ejecting you. If they do not, they can be AR'ed. (qv)

Sex balls - Couple balls (qv) which show sexual behaviour between avatars.

Summon - Alternative term for "offering a teleport". Also, a special form of teleport offer - which only a Linden can perform - which cannot be refused.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now.

TP - Also used as an abbreviation for _offering_ a teleport (eg, "tp me" means "offer me a teleport"

TYVM - Thank You Very Much.

Great work, Carl. You have my permission, of course.

I would change the SexGen definition...SexGen is, if I'm not mistaken, a (trademarked)system for providing sex and cuddle animations in *furniture*. XCite (and Sensations) are the popular "attachment" makers.

Thank you very much



Good catch. I confused those two.

I don't know if the thread I started was locked

and it was not for forum acronyms it was for SL acros

it was said in the thread by some ppl that it might be locked and some even said it should not be there

*shrug*

I lost track of it, so it may have been locked

Hi Carl,

Of course you can use whatever I've done. Unfortunately most of my work went into the SL History wiki Glossary (I added a BUNCH of entries) which has now been merged by some jerk into another wiki, and everything that I ever did on there is gone.

/me de-lurks to mutter "Lurking" before shambling off.

Carl - just a thot. might it be helpful to split the glossary into two, one section for general internet abbreviations, and one for SL-specific? I know that I would use the glossary in two ways:

-- Readthrough entire SL section when a noob

-- download to pc and search when puzzled

a lot of folks coming into sl prolly already know the kk, ttfn, brb, afk lingo. tho, of course, not all.

Yer welcome!

I can't wait to see a completed glossary!

Mari

Primnis - the male member in prim form.

SLove - love in Second Life

SLengaged - people in SLove often get SLengaged to be SLmarried.

SLmarried - people who are SLengaged often get SLmarried

SLdivorced - people who are SLmarried usually get SLdivorced, often because the husband behaves like a primnis.

I'd like to make it more complicated by suggesting a general internet glossery, a basic SL lingo glossary for the majority of things suggested and then an advanced or technical glossary for such terms as LSL. Overwhelming a noob with too much might make it useless.

ROFLMAO

Rolls on floor laughing my ass off

(add this one too Carl)

imogen

Can you add "Trout Certified"?

I think it might help my burgeoning business enterprise.

Maybe we should also add something about lighted and singing features to the primnis description?

dunno about sensations, but excite added furniture and poseballs some time back

I would suggest removing all brand names from the Glossary, as including them is walking right into the controversy of "you promoted some businesses over others". Certainly on Live Help and when Mentoring we'd be forbidden to send someone to XCite or Sensations if they asked where to get that kind of attachment (and yes, they did...)

Good point. Maybe just delete SexGen, XCite, and Sensations altogether.

Since NCI receives no funding or well... anything from Linden Lab, I don't really care what rules the Mentors are under. My purpose with this document is to present as complete as possible glossary of the SL-specific terms that new residents will commonly run into. To that end, I think adding some important brand names (Dreamland, Xcite, Sexgen) is appropriate.

Below is the revised (close to final) version of the "Big Damn SL Glossary". I should have posted this to this thread instead of starting a new one, where it promptly got lost.

NCI's “The Big Damn SL Glossary”
Version 0.9
11.29.07

Edited by Carl Metropolitan

Definitions contributed by Candie Apple, SuezanneC Baskerville, Lindal Kidd, Marianne McCann, Carl Metropolitan, Yumi Murakami and Oryx Tempel. Thanks to the NCI Land Officers and the Resident Answers Forum for fact-checking and assistance.


16m2 - (adj) the smallest size of land parcel that can be created in Second Life. Often used for single prim servers or eyesore ads.

Abuse - (n) a violation of Second Life's Terms of Service or Community Standards.

Adfarm - (n) clusters of rotating towers of advertisements, considered by many to be an eyesore.

Admit List - (n) the list of those allowed in an area that otherwise excludes everyone by use of a script.

AFK (Away From Keyboard) - (adj) describes a player who has left his computer to take care of some task in Real Life (RL). Typing "afk" in chat sets your Avatar as "Away" and displays the word (Away) next to their name. After 30 minutes of inactivity, you will be automatically logged off Second Life.

Alpha - (adj) Transparent, from Alpha Channel (cv).

Alpha Channel - (n) a special channel of a texture file used to indicate transparency, marking which parts of the image should be clear and which should be opaque.

Alt (Alternate Account) - (n) many Second Life residents have more than one account for a variety of reasons, including: keeping one’s business life separate from social life, role-playing, avoiding harassment, keeping track of L$ (bank alts), and being able to work uninterrupted by Instant Messages.

Animation - (n) a file or in-world inventory item that moves or animates your avatar. You can use animations to make your avatar clap their hands, dance, blow someone a kiss, and much more.

AO - (n) Animation Overrider. A scripted device that contains replacements for the default walking, sitting, flying, and standing animations of your avatar. Some also have other functions. An AO can be customized by loading your own favorite animations. AOs should be turned off before engaging in poseball or other animations, since the animations can conflict with one another.

AR (Abuse Report) - (n or v) formal report to Linden Lab of a violation of community standards or SL terms of service. Also used as a verb. ("I AR'd the guy."

Asset Server - (n) the database that tracks all Second Life objects in-world and in inventory. Overloaded asset servers can cause search, inventory, rez, teleport, and Friends list failures.

Attach - (v) usually, to take an item from inventory and cause it to be fixed to a certain part of your avatar's body.

Attachment - (n) an object (clothing, weapons, jewelry, shoes, etc) that can be attached to an avatar at a specific location. Usually location is set by the creator of the object.

Avatar (AV) - (n) (1) the animated being that represents a Second Life resident in the virtual world; the digital representation of your virtual self in Second Life. (2) a "costume" or outfit; a full set of avatar body parts, clothing, and/or attachments that provides a specific look.

Baked - (adj) freshly donned clothing will often look clear and sharply defined and then, a short time later, become fuzzy and clear again. At this point, it can be assumed that everyone in the area can now see your clothing clearly. The textures are then "baked" in.

Ban - (v) (1) the act of explicitly forbidding entry to a land parcel. (2) to add someone to your ban list and thus eject them from your land. (3) permanent removal of someone from Second Life (which can only be done by Linden Lab).

Banlines - (n) lines of floating red letters spelling out “no entry” that appear on the boundaries of a land parcel that your Avatar is not allowed into by the owner.

Banlink - (n) Distributed ban sharing system developed by Travis Lambert and Mera Pixel that allows subscribing locations to share banlists.

Banlist - (n) the list of those banned from an area, by use of a script, or by Landban that otherwise allows visitors.

BIAB (Business In A Box) - (n) often sold to newcomers as an easy way to make money, BIAB packages generally contain merchandise that is poor quality, out of date, stolen from the original creators, or available elsewhere for free.

Bling (n) - jewelry and attachments scripted to emit particle based shimmering “bling” effects.

Blingtard - (n) pejorative term for a user, often a newbie, who wears too many blinging attachments.

Body Part - (n) a component of an Avatar; shape, skin, hair, eyes, and/or prim attachments are Body Parts that combine to create an Avatar's form. Different body parts can be created and saved to a user's inventory and switched between as the mood strikes.

Borked - (v or adj) messed up, broken. "The teleport function is borked again"

Bot - (n) an alt account run by a computer. (see Landbot)

Boxhead - (v) the act of wearing an object, usually a package prim, on your head or other location. Package prims are meant to be rezzed on the ground, but newcomers often mistake them for the object(s) they contain, and try to wear them instead. Originally the default attachment point for objects was the head. Later updates of the Second Life client changed that to the right hand.

BRB - (acronym) Be Right Back, shorthand meant to imply that the speaker is away from the keyboard for a moment, but will return very shortly.

BTW - (acronym) By the Way

Build - (v) (1) to create/make something out of primitives in Second Life, (2) an object comprised of 1 or more primitives, (3) an engineering term for a specific version of the Second Life (or other) software.

Bumpmap - (n) an extra texture layer on objects that adds "bumpiness" to them. This can provide the illusion of detail by resembling wood bark, cut stone or a number of three-dimensional surfaces. Second Life offers only limited bumpmapping.

Busy Mode - (n) a mode where your Avatar does not hear nearby chat, where IMs receive the “busy mode” response, and all inventory and teleport offers are automatically declined.

Cage - (v) to trap an avatar in place by rezzing (qv) an object that surrounds them. Caging an avatar who has not consented to is an AR'able (qv) offense.
Calling Card - (n) an item with a player's name that goes into the Calling Card section of your inventory. Calling cards serve as a contact list of sorts. Double clicking on a Card opens an IM window to that person. Offering a Calling Card is similar, but less personal than offering Friendship, and can be done from second level of the avatar pie menu.

Camera - (n) the particular viewpoint from which you see the Second Life world. Normally, your camera is behind your avatar. Second Life allows you to move your camera around in many different ways to see things from many different viewpoints.

Camping - (v) the practice of earning small amounts of $L by sitting on a chair or engaging in menial activities. Merchants use campers to make their store look more popular on the grid map. Experienced SL Residents usually don't waste their time camping.

Chat Channel - (n) one of the "pseudo-frequencies" that objects and avatars can chat on. Avatars normally speak on channel 0, and can only hear chat on channel 0. Objects can chat and listen on any channel. SL supports are 4,294,967,294 possible channels, ranging from -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.

City Sims - (n) a set of four Linden designed sims (Sistiana, Barcola, Miramare and Grignano) meant to represent a city. These are the only mainland sims with a Simulator Object Bonus (qv). Approximately half of each city sim is composed of Linden-owned low-prim streets and walkways, allowing owners of the available space to use twice the prims they normally could.

Clear Cache - (v) the act of setting the SL client to clear its local storage of SL-related data and textures the next time it is started. Often problems with slow-loading textures can be fixed by clearing your cache. Clearing your cache can also make missing inventory items reappear.

Client - (n) Second Life consists of two software parts. The client, or viewer, resides on the user's computer. The server resides in a remote location.

Client Menu - (n) A normally hidden menu in the Second Life client that allows access to extra commands. The Client menu can be toggled on/off by typing CTRL-ALT-D.

Clothing Layers - (n) jacket, shirt, pants, undershirt, underpants, gloves, socks, shoes, skirt--the parts of your avatar that are worn on top of its body and created and edited in appearance edit mode. You can create different articles of clothing and save them in your inventory, then switch between them as the mood strikes. You can even design your own clothing and upload the textures to Second Life.

Community Standards - (n) the agreement all players subscribe to which determines the limits of appropriate behavior while playing the game.

Concierge Service - (n) a higher level of customer service and assistance available only to island owners and mainland land owners paying more than 125US$ per month in tier. This service level includes Lindens dedicated to Concierge support duties and toll-free Concierge level-only phone help.

Cyber - (v) short for cyber-sex. The practice of engaging in sexual roleplay using chat and Second Life avatars and animations.

Damage - (n) in certain regions, it is possible for an avatar to experience "injury" resulting in a loss of points that may result in death. At that point, the avatar is teleported to it's Home and the points are restored. Damage-enabled areas can be set for one person's property or for an entire region. If you are in a damage-enabled zone, you will see a red heart at the bottom of your screen with a number showing points from 1 to 100. The overwhelming majority of Second Life is not damage-enabled.

Dance Balls (also Couple Balls) - (n) pairs (or larger sets) of poseballs (qv) which synchronise with each other to create animations showing avatars dancing or interacting in various ways.

Day - (n) day time is about 2 hours long. Night is about 1 hour long.

Death - (n) when your avatar is in an area that allows damage to occur, a red heart will appear at the bottom of the screen. Next to it is a number that is initially set to 100 percent. If the amount of damage your avatar suffers drops to zero, the avatar dies. It is then teleported to Home and the points are set back to 100%.

Deed - (v) (1) to give a parcel of land to a group. The group must already have enough tier contributed it to own the land; (2) to give a tier contribution to a group so it can own land. Usually done via the Owner Makes Contribution With Deed checkbox; (3) to give an object to a group. The object becomes the property of the group.

De-rez - (v) to remove (derez) an object from a sim within Second Life. Generally is done through deleting the object or taking the object into inventory.

Detach - (v) usually, to remove an item that has been attached to a specific part of the avatar's body and return it to inventory.

Developers Incentives - (n) a now discontinued Second Life feature that paid US$ awards to the owners of the locations with extremely high Traffic.

Draw Distance - (n) the radius centered on your avatar that your client renders the Second Life world. If you are on a slower computer, you may be able to speed up your Second Life experience by reducing your Draw Distance.

Dreamland - (n) the largest private continent in Second Life. Owned and operated by Anshe Chung Studios, Dreamland covers hundreds of sims.

Drop - (v) (1) to remove an attached item from your avatar and drop it on the ground, instead of returning it to your inventory. (2) to place an item on an avatar or a calling card.

Dwell - (n) a now discontinued Second Life feature that paid land owners in L$ according to their land's Traffic. Sometimes mistakenly used as a synonym for Traffic.

Eject (also, Boot or Kick) - (v) to expel from a property. Ejecting a user will cause them to be quickly hurled off your property. The user can come directly back on your property after being ejected unless you also Ban (cv) them.

Estate - (n) one or more privately owned sims.

Estate Controls - (n) local preferences menu (such as sun position, ground texture, and other things that only effect that region). Estate controls (World > Estate... menu) are only available to private island owners. Residents who own mainland sims can not access them.

Event - (n) a group activity, led by a host, that starts and ends at specific times, and can be legitimately listed on the Search/Events calendar.

FIC (Forum In-Crowd or Feted Inner Core) - (n) originally a term for SL residents who received unusual access or special treatment from Linden Lab, it has now become more general to refer to any influential SL resident (“She so FIC”). FIC originated at a time when the Forums were more widely used and were frequented by Lindens.

First Land - (n) a now discontinued feature of Second Life. Formerly Premium Accounts were entitled to a free 512m2 plot of land from Linden Lab.

First Life (FL) - (n) the so-called "real world" away from Second Life. Synonym for Real Life. Possibly an illusion.

First Look - (n) a version of the Second Life client that contains a major enhancement currently being tested on the Main Grid for a near-future release. Residents can often use the Second Life First Look software and try out new features.

Flexi, Flexible, Flexified - (adj) describes an object made up of a prim or collection of prims, e.g. "flexi skirt" that utilize many of the features on the "Features" tab on the object edit screen. These features force the object to move with the Second Life wind vector pressures and/or movement of the avatar to which the object is attached.

Freebie - (n) an item made available at no cost, often with full or extremely generous permissions.

Freebie Resale - (idiom) the practice of selling items at a cost, which are available elsewhere for free. Reselling freebies is generally considered a scam in Second Life.

Freebie Wall - (n) a scripted device offering a "catalogue" of Freebies from which a user can choose from by clicking on a prim representing the desired Freebie. The first Freebie Walls were provided by the Lindens at Telehubs (qv), labeled "Free Linden Content".

Freeze - (v) a function used by landowners to bring a havoc-wreaking resident under control. Once frozen, an avatar stops flying, falls to the ground, and is unable to move.

Full Perms (Full Permissions) - (adj) an object set so it can be freely copied, modified, and transferred.

Furry - (n) Second Life resident using anthropomorphic animal avatars.

Gadget - (n) a particular form of scripted item; usually one that is a) worn by its user; and b) focuses on providing that user with extra functions, as opposed to doing anything externally visible. HUDs (qv) and AOs (qv) are common Gadgets.

Gesture - (n) Gestures are unique combination of sound, animation, and chat that can be preconfigured to go off with a command or a specific phrase (for example, you can have your avatar clap his or her hands and play the sound of applause whenever you type: /clap).

Ghost - (n) an object or avatar that is no longer in the Second Life virtual world, but is still visible on at least one resident's client.

GIRL - (acronym) Guy In Real Life. Sarcastic term for a female avatar controlled by a male player.

God Mode - (n) a special mode of Second Life which only Linden staff members can access. A Linden in God Mode is invisible to sensors, cannot be pushed or damaged, has unlimited L$ and has full permissions access to every object on the grid. All actions that Lindens engage in while using God Mode are logged and inspected; any use of these powers for other than testing and legitimate administration purposes will usually lead to them getting fired,

GOM – (1) (n) Gaming Open Market, a now obsolete currency exchange service, which closed down in response to the creation of LindeX. (2) (v) to GOM, meaning for the Lindens to create a service which competes with something a resident was already providing ("I hear the Lindens are planning to GOM banlink in the next release."

Gor - (n) series of BDSM-oriented Science Fantasy novels by John Norman that have given rise to dozens of role-playing sims throughout Second Life.

Gorean - (n) Second Life resident who identifies with the culture of one or more of the various Gor sims.

Grey Goo - (n) an object which continuously makes copies of itself. Can be produced by accident, but is generally considered a form of Grid Attack (qv).

Grid - (n) (1) the network of servers that make up the Second Life world (Example: “The Grid is down so the Lindens can fix it.”) (2) a series of intersecting lines that give a regular reference for building.

Grid Address (also Grid Coordinates) - (n) the name of a region combined with three numbers between 0 and 255 for the X & Y (north-south & east-west) coordinates, and from 0 to 760 for the Z (up-down) coordinate. Example: Ahern (200, 155, 50).

Grid Attack - (n) a coordinated attempt by griefers to crash Second Life as a whole, or multiple servers within it. Attempting a grid attack is grounds for instant and permanent banning from Second Life.

Grid Monkey - (n) a Linden (which varies at any given time) assigned to care for the grid and resolve hardware and software issues. There usually is a grid-monkey on-call at all hours of the day/night, making sure someone is ready to take care of any issues at all times.

Griefer - (n) a person whose primary purpose is to harass others and destroy their enjoyment of Second Life. Griefers should be Abuse Reported.

Group - (n) an in-world player-created association. Belonging to a group also includes the ability for several avatars to work on one project.

Group Title - (n) the labels designated for officers and members of a group. Group Titles appear over an avatar's name when that group is active. You can change that title by changing your Active Group. To change that, right click on your Avatar and select “Groups” from the pie-shaped menu. In the Groups window that appears, scroll down to the group you want, and then click the “Activate” button. Group Titles can be up to 21 characters long.

Havok - (n) the physics engine for the Second Life that handles real-time interaction between objects or other characters.

Help Island (HI) - (n) an optional post-Orientation Island new resident learning area. To handle the large number of people joining Second Life, there are a large number of Help Islands which are mirror images of each other. These are referred to as HI1, HI2, HI3, etc… Once you leave Help Island, you can not return, though you can go to Help Island Public

Home - (n) the location that you teleport to when you choose the menu item "Teleport Home" or when you "die." You can set this location with a menu command. Home may be set to land that you own, land that a group you are a member of owns, or Linden Land that is set to allow home to be set (such as Welcome Areas or InfoHubs).

HUD - (n) Head Up Display. A control panel for an AO or other device that appears on screen.

IM (Instant Message) – (1) (n) the chat window that allows two players to speak privately, (2) (v) to instant message another resident.

IM Coma/IM Trance/IM Hell - (n) a state in which one person is not moving, chatting, or responding to chat because he or she is being bombarded with IMs.

Infohub - (n) a Linden Lab-owned information and social area. Infohubs are located at some of the former Telehub locations and are built and managed by residents or resident groups. Some new players first spawn at Infohubs after leaving Orientation Island or Help Island.

Inventory - (n) the window that contains everything you possess that isn't manifest in the world. Your inventory is the collection of clothing, objects, textures, etc. that your avatar possesses. Your inventory travels with you, and you can use any of it at any time.

In-World - (adj) (1) the state of being connected to the Second Life servers and present in the Second Life world (also: online), (2) anything that takes place within the virtual environment of Second Life.

IRL - (acronym) In Real Life

Island - (n) a Sim or group of Sims that are detached from the Linden Lab owned Mainland and only accessible by teleportation (see Private Island).

Kick - (v) (1) the forced log-off of a resident from Second Life by an administrator. An administrative kick is usually followed by a time-out period, during which the kicked resident will be unable to log into Second Life (2) the expulsion of a resident from another resident's land by the landowner (see Eject).

KK - (acronym) equivalent to "OK"