postcard

Hello

Is it possible to send an image to another avatar, like a postcard?

People click on a prim, say the name of the receiptant in chat and the picture or prim will be send, with a message like: [avatarname] sends you this postcard

Thanks in advance

Sure. Say you had a prim postcard vendor which contained the texture or even the prim postcard. Script it to get the DetectedName and open a llListen channel on touch, the user then uses the channel to speak the name of the recipient. Check the chatted name for key at w-hat or one of the other name2key databases. Then llGiveInventory the texture or prim postcard. Use llInstantMessage to send the message to the recipient so they know who it's from.

Yeh, spammers use this technique quite a bit.

I know. but they use every other LSL function as well..I just figure as long as we can write something good, others will be able to write something bad

The point is that if you do this, you *will* get ARed for spamming by at least some of the recipients. The well has been poisoned by the spammers, and no matter how careful you are you're going to get treated like one if you send people unsolicited content.

I disagree. If someone sends many of them, that's one thing. If it's a single postcard with a nice picture (rather than something offensive or mean), I don't think many people would AR it, and the AR wouldn't be enforceable in any case, as it is hardly harassment.

If you're worried about senders abusing the system, keep track of some details of the N most recent messages saved and institute some kind of policy like:

- Won't send more than one messages per sender within a 24 hour period.
- Won't send more than one message per recipient within a 24 hour period.
- Won't send a duplicate from the same sender to the same recipient while the message is retained in memory.

You can't tell when you receive a single postcard whether it's spam or your friend sending it from a script, unless you've got a couple of avatars with accounts that are close to each other in alphabet order.

So people ARE likely to assume that a postcard they get with no names they are familiar with is spam. Some of them WILL AR you. The G-Team might consider it spam, or might not, but the G-Team are notoriously inconsistent.

This has nothing to do with whether you're being scrupulous about abuse or not, it's just a matter of human nature. I personally wouldn't risk making a product like this, even with every effort made to prevent abuse, unless the expected payback was many times greater than the value of all my SL accounts and assets.

Argent may have a point..... to a point. I don't think I'd go so far as to call it spam, but I would be annoyed by the junk mail and would probably avoid dealing with the sender's business in the future -- just as I do in RL. That's just me, but I suspect it's a lot of other people too. It's not worth riling people unnecessarily. There's an easy way out, however. You don't have to send the postcard unsolicited. Treat it the way that most people hand out greeting notecards, LMs, and other info ..... Set up an simple blue box dialog and ask "May I send you a postcard?" If the person says "YES," send it. It can't be spam if the recipient agreed to receive it. Even then, figure out a way to show the blue box ONCE per visitor, please.

I'm not calling it spam, I'm saying that you're taking a risk of being treated as a spammer by the G-Team.

Having a notecard/postcard giver at your store entrance is still going to annoy some people, but it's *much* safer.

Point taken. I'm less concerned about the legal liability -- maybe I'm less risk-averse than you are, Argent -- but the whole idea just doesn't strike me as good business. I detest junk mail, whatever you call it, so I tend to shy away from businesses that push it on me.

After watching a few businesses self-destruct with these kinds of campaigns over the past couple of decades, I have to ask "Is it being 'risk averse' when you decline to chew on a power cable?"

Whatever the reason, we clearly agree .... this is a bad idea.

/me is reminded of all the unsolicited fws I get in my mailbox from "friends"... I guarantee you that if I get one I will AR it.... friendly spam is still spam... and you can believe that if someone notes that it's not flood checked, they'll use it to spam someone else anonymously with you taking the blame (so record the sending av, in a list as big as you can make it, then don't allow them to send another till they fall off the list)

Thank you Hewee for the advice. You're the only one who sees the positive side.
If one can't initiate an idea, cause there MIGHT be someone who sends a postcard unwanted, we better stop with this game.

Giving advice how to prevent spam (or how you like to call it), like Hewee did, makes sense instead the useless discussion is it spam or not.

I made the script and incorparated the advices of Hewee and even a 5L$ payment.

Receiving a postcard from a friend is still fun and in RL i don't block my mailbox for postcards too even if it's a postcard from my mother in law

I think you're misunderstanding what I wrote.

I'm not saying that you're spamming.

I'm saying that you are likely to find yourself being accused of spamming, no matter what you do, if there's any way that anyone can misinterpret what you're doing as spamming. And given the way the G-Team works, that could be a very unpleasant experience for you. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or guilty if you get a G-Team member who bans first and asks questions later.

Oh, that's another problem. I'd say about 20% of the spam I see is people pretending to be sending Hallmark e-cards. Be prepared for people trying to fake your activities to legitimize their real spam.

Receiving a postcard from a friend is fun. An unsolicited one from my insurance agent gets tossed. An unsolicited postcard from some shop I visited once gets me very annoyed, and I usually don't go back to the shop. As an advertising tactic, this one is a real dud.

ETA: The key word, in my mind, is not "postcard" but "unsolicited." Looking back through the comments in this thread, it seems that we have each counseled a version of the same thing: make the postcard a one-time choice. People are much less likely to get riled up if you have asked, "Would you like to be on our mailing list?" than if you push unsolicited mail on them.