Ignorant residents?

Do you think it is okay to completely ignore someone who comes up and talks to you in-world? Having discovered that I was suffering from the 'missing image disease' that seems prevalent at the moment I cleared out my cache, went back into SL and asked four people, over an evening, if they could see my clothes. Every one of them completely ignored me. Were they all busy? Perhaps. But I would never completely ignore someone without telling them I was busy. I wouldn't just say nothing. None of the people in question had 'busy' above their heads. And they were all, but one, doing something immediately before I talked to them and then afterwards. Now I can see why so many newbies have complained recently about no one wanting to talk to them.

If you are busy at least let people know.

I would never ignore someone on purpose. If I didnt see the chat or something beyond my control that would be another matter.

Having said that though this shows You and I would find the act of ignoring someone as rude. But this is a world, virtual yes, but like in the real one there are many who would have no issue ignoring others. All people are different.

I would not purposly ignore someone and I'm sorry that you feel you were purposly ignored. Do keep in mind though that a lot of people may be building, creating and scripting in other windows other than SL. For instance when I am in photoshop I have SL minimized until I am ready to upload. Also when someone is in build mode it may look like they can see you, but actually they may be zoomed in very close to the object they are working on and never even know you are there, same with people who are scripting in a notecard. I try to turn on busy when I remember but sometimes I just forget. So I guess my point is, don't take offense or get discourged, most people in SL are very nice and helpful, but they are also busy doing the things they enjoy in their own SL.
Take Care

I have never once used the busy sign. I hardly would remember, and when I did, I'd forget about it and leave it on, leaving me in the dark.

Also, quite a few people aren't even there.

You haven't told us where you encountered this, nor the exact phrasing used, or how long you waited for an answer, whether or not you IM'ed or said in main chat, so without details, we can't give you any more specific answers than:

They are busy.

ETA: And quite frankly, it's rude of you to make assumptions and call resis ignorant. Why should we have to broadcast we don't want to talk to strangers?

What do you mean 'we'? I'm a resident too. Unless you're an alt of one of the people who did ignore me and you're being specific. You do seem to have taken it personally.

I sometimes miss local conversation if I've got a lot of IM's going...
or a lot of script windows up, so I try to at least keep my volume up enough that if someone walks by or starts typing nearby I hear them.

Doesn't always work, but it helps. If I'm busy I'll let folks know if they're near me. IM's... well, I get to them when I get to them, and sometimes it takes a while.

When approaching other folks that I don't know, I usually wave, or sa Hi first... from around 15m away. If they respond favorably I approach, if no response, I typically wave goodbye and move on.

Without gates and doorbells, it's difficult to tell who is or isn't receptive to drop-in company.

If someone that doesn't know you is rude... either they've got a problem, or you did something that annoyed them. In the first case there's not much you can do about it. If you stepped on someone's pet peeve, there's not much you can do about that without increasing the awkwardness, move on and try a different tactic with the next person.

We means everyone else that isn't you, specifically regarding this statement:




And I say again, I shouldn't and don't have to broadcast to all strangers that I am too busy to talk.

I see you failed to answer any of the questions asked, which makes me wary of your plight. But in any event, you wanted opinions, I gave you one. I'm being specific, because it would be 'ignorant' of me to comment on a situation with only 1 fact - that no one spoke to you in those 4 people.

I didn't create the title post of ignorant, you did and in turn, insulted people simply because they may not have even noticed you.

Hmm... perhaps he merely meant it as an "ignore rant"

or, perhaps an ignorant is someone that ignores?

You're crazy!

Maybe it's an aunt who ignores.

You mean the title post that ends with a question mark? And I don't recall suggesting that you did create the title post. Can't think why I would.

What do you mean by being wary of my'plight'? Do you see ulterior motives? After asking my question to the four busy people I waited around just about long enough to feel like a prick. Then I left. The exact phrasing I used was, 'Hey, ignorant resi, answer me a question or I'll tell on you in the forums.'

It's an interesting question that I've thought about. I spend most of my time on my own land and I'm usually busy even if I don't have the busy sign on and I'm not moving. My camera is likely detached and looking at something that I'm working on or looking at the terrain. Or I'm thinking about what I'm going to do next. Or it's very possible that I'm not at the keyboard.

But on many occasions I have had people come up to me out of the blue and in most cases they have been beggars or people going around trying to provoke me in some way. I used to talk to these people, but in the end I decided it was just better for both of us if I played possum and ignored them. Usually, I take it as an opportunity to go to the kitchen and get something to eat. When I come back, they are gone.

Then, there are nice people who just want to talk. And sure, I could tell them that I'm busy, but that makes me feel bad. And if I talk to them, it's not good either because my work is waiting. And whatever I do, I'll be thinking about my decision for half an hour afterwards and not get any work done, too.

So, I have to admit that I do ignore people. And the most common way that I do it is to leave the keyboard when I see them approach. I won't sit there watching them, but I do sometimes take an unplanned coffee break when I see someone headed my way.

Rudeness is a problem in SL, and it escalates. People that started out friendly end up getting . . . well, snottier.

One thing that helps though, is to say the person's name when you are asking a question, so they will know you are talking to them.

If I'm in a store and my camera is trained on the products on the walls, and there are several other people around, and I hear a question like, "How old are you?", I won't necessarily know it's directed to me.

Nor could I know without wrenching my camera around to see, which isn't exactly easy in a laggy store. "Hey, Coco, how old are you?" would be a better approach.

(I'm using that as an example because that is the question I was asked in a store today, minus the Coco part.)

If I am working, on my own land, chances are I won't even see someone come up. They have to talk outloud before I know they are there. Sometimes my friends just hang quietly around on purpose, just to see how long it takes me to notice they're there, haha.

coco

I won't touch the first question. It doesn't have a yes or no answer. However, I will point out that anyone can log into SL with multiple accounts simultaniously to independently check thier avatar(s). This thread explains one method to do this. Here's another that has links to the lslwiki.

Even though avatars may be nearby and appear to be looking at you, they may not be able to see your words, because of camera focus, or other problems.

I often have this happen. I come out of IM and look at the chat history to find that someone's wandered into my house, tried to get me to talk to them, and generally been quite impolite about it: "Helloooooooo? Anybody hoooome? Oy!" etc.

That's what I consider rude. I wouldn't ignore someone on purpose, but then someone who walks into my house when I'm sitting alone and demands my attention probably deserves it

I need to install a doorbell or something...

Double-post to say that if it was you who tried to talk to me whilst I was busy last night, this wasn't meant as a thinly-veiled attack, I really can't remember for the life of me the name of the last person who did this. I posted my comment because this happens a lot, and since it happened just last night it was on my mind.

As others said, there are many many reasons why people might not reply - I go to the bathroom, make coffee, check my email, talk in IM windows, build, write notecards, sort my inventory - all with SL active and generally without 'busy' unless I really don't want IMs from friends disturbing me. I don't think that's rude. But I do find people expecting you to talk to them, and getting arsey when you don't notice, particularly (as I said lol) when they walk in through your front door to do it - that, I find a touch rude

I agree that actively ignoring someone is rude.

That said, if someone ignores me in SL, I wouldn't give it a second thought and just move on. Happens a lot of times in SL and it's not worth being pissed off, much less hold grudge.

Her screen could be filled with script editor windows, or he may be in multiple IMs. She could be working in Photoshop. His doorbell or phone might have just rung. Children crying. Cat scratching sofa. Turned over coffee cups. Anything can be happening with that someone. People you meet in SL are not NPCs that are always there for you conveniently. Just don't take it personally and let it ruin your day.

I agree with everyone else's answers about reasons for not responding to chat.

I know I very often pop in to my RL kitchen to make a cup of coffee, or answer the phone or door. I usually forget, especially in the latter two instances, to set busy, and sometimes come back to find someone has spoken to me, got no answer and moved on. On one occasion it was no loss - the person was unknown to me and had asked if I would have his babies.

With that in mind, I have to say that it's possible those you addressed thought the remark about clothes was some sleazy chat-up line. I don't know how you phrased your question, but I've noticed that people often have a way of cutting straight to the chase in SL without any of the RL preliminaries.

Of course it may have been that because of some glitch you were not actually visible to anyone - in the world but unable to interact fully. That's happened to me several times.

What about us Ants?

signed: Ignor - Ant, and proud of it

I've been on the end of the ignoring thing a few times. If someone doesn't answer, and hasn't spoken, I just assume they're afk or busy with other things.

I can see where your situation may have been irksome. It's really a yes/no question. Could just be there was a slew of people nearby, though, that used a simple yes/no question to hook them into drawn-out conversation.

That's a losing scenario sometimes. Folks may have time to snap off a quick answer but aren't necessarily available (or willing) to chat.

Then again, I'm pretty thick-skinned, most of the time, so if I don't get an answer from one person/group, I just move on to the next.

What you might want to try (specific to the missing image/clothing issue):

hit ctrl + alt + d <--this brings up the Client option on the top toolbar. Click and scroll down to Character, then the corresponding drop-down menu to Rebake Textures. Also, popping in and out of Edit Appearance on the right-click-self pie menu sometimes helps.

Obviously, you won't know if it's actually worked without speaking again to someone, but it's something I've found I now do routinely ...since the "update" that caused us all to go grey/white *sighs*

Anyhow, it isn't easy, but try not to take it personally.. You may find at some point in the future, you've been doing something else, check in history and see someone's asked you a question and split. Happens to the best of us

I had the opposite scenario the other night,hehe

I was standing in my house building a chair. A guy suddenly walked in and started doing the 'I am trying to edit' thing at my chair - you know, I could see the line of dots and his arm was pointing at it, hehe.

I said 'Hello' and his name.

He ignored me, carried on inspecting my chair!

'Hello' I says again, twice. (I am very patient, lol)

My visitor bores with my chair (which is understandable, it had no textuers, and only two legs so far) and starts examining the wall of my house.

'OK' I says 'If you are not going to speak to me, I hope you understand that I will have to eject you from my land, I am building and you are rather in the way'

He stops prodding my house and sits down on the chair. Still in silence.

I eject him (oooh, I love that land-owners power, focus your camera on them first, delicious).

And that was the last I heard of him. He was not even a newbie, three months in.

Now THAT is what I call ignorant! lol