Improving the Second Life social media experience

Tags

"second life", communication, facebook, google+, groups, social media, website

The whole debacle with Facebook being nasty to people who don’t use their real name has made me think about the use of social media in Second Life and the communication tools Linden Lab has given us.
I think these can be improved and it may also remove the need for us to use Facebook at all.

At the moment most of us use Facebook or other social media to stay in touch with our Second Life contacts and communities because it is just too cumbersome to do this inworld, because it is impossible at that moment to start up the SL viewer or because the Second Life communication tools just aren’t good enough.
I use Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Hippogroups, email, Google+, Plurk, etc, etc.

Sometimes we have to talk to people in SL quickly, just a short message, we just want to look at something, read something, quickly in and out.
That is not how I would describe my SL experience.
Starting up Second Life for me means having to get my SL laptop, turn it on and start up a viewer, SL doesn’t really run on my 5 year old macbook I use for everything else and SLGo takes time and makes me use the official viewer I don’t like.
And of course once your SL viewer starts you have to wait for the world to rez, you may be bombarded by IMs from other people, get reminded of other jobs that need doing, etc.

Imagine the situation; there is a big event in 1920s Berlin and I want to make sure everyone knows about it.
I set an event on the facebook group’s calendar, I set it on the google calendar, I send a note to the group inworld, I send a message to my hippo mailing list, I stick posters all over Berlin, I send a message to group chat and finally I send a message to the region…
Phew!

And all the time we’re hoping Facebook doesn’t delete our accounts.
Because replacing a Facebook account with a Facebook Page account means you lose a lot of options, including the ones we use most.

Good or bad, Facebook is the easiest and most versatile tool for us and the one we use the most, for serious important stuff but also for quick little chats, for sharing a funny 1920s themed story, event pictures, etc.
We don’t have to tell Linden Lab that, they know, they use Facebook and they have a Second Life page with more than 360.000 ‘likes’.

It would be fantastic if there would be just one place on the internet where we can do all this.
Some people think that Facebook is enough because we already use it, but because most of us use it with a different name than the one we use for our real life, we already have to log in and out when we have to switch accounts.

A while ago Linden Lab gave us mysecondlife, a good idea but not quite enough to replace all the tools I mentioned above.
For starters, I keep getting logged out by the Second Life website, which is a good security measure but not very handy if you want to use a website for social media, it is not uncommon for people to have their Facebook page online permanently.
And as the name suggests, its a very personal page, a place where you share your stories and your pictures.
But we use Social Media much more for community things, for groups activities.

There used to be something called ‘Avatars United‘, it had many of the options we need but was bought by Linden Lab, eventually shut down and incooperated into the Second Life website, but without many of the options the original version had.

What I would love to see is for Linden Lab to improve and expand the mysecondlife experience, give it more options like Facebook offers.

Make it the one stop website for all our Second Life related out-world activity.
Not just have our own page but also a page for every group we have in world, or maybe even let us build pages for groups we create outworld.
A place where we can upload all the events pictures (into separate folders), have a calendar we can use to set up events, invite all the other members of the group, share links, etc.
And who knows, maybe even have it connected to inworld groups.
Let us send messages, notecards and event announcements to groups in-and outworld via the website or the other way around.

This will allow Second Life users to stay more connected with their virtual lives even if they are not able to actually log in or if one day they lose interest in Second Life, they might still keep using the website to stay in touch with friends and who knows, this may one day make them decide to return.

It would be swell if we could abandon Facebook and Google+ and be happy using ‘Second Life Book+’ for that.
Go to the Second Life website that won’t log you off, where you can check each group to see what is going on, set events on the calendar, share pictures, see who else is online and chat with them, regardless if they are in Second Life or just online on the Second Life website, regardless if you are behind your power computer at home or on a bus using your tablet o mobile phone.
Improve the connectability and interaction between virtual reality and reality, make the barrier between Second Life and Real Life smaller.

Have you got any suggestions or ideas?
Please share them in the comments section below.
I know that a few Lindens follow my blog and are interested in hearing your opinions.

The 100 avatar prims limit

There is a 100 avatar prim counting limit in Second Life, that means that if more than 100 people rez something in a region, scripts go nuts.
Prim count scripts for instance stop working and just ignore the 101st person and everyone above that.
This issue is caused by the “llGetParcelPrimOwners” function, it doesn’t count beyond 100 even  though technically, a lot more than 100 people can rez a prim in a region.

I know, this is a luxury problem, but one that will become more and more common as more people are starting to build to scale and it becomes easier to decorate an apartment nicely with fewer prims thanks to mesh.

Also remember that many tenants share their house or apartment with their partner, friend or even a family.
If that is the case, you soon end up with the same problem if you have only 50 tenants or less.
Imagine if you want to build a nice neighbourhood where people are welcome to live together with their partner and their 2 children.
That is 4 people per house, unless you want to count all prims manually, you’re limited to 25 houses.

In 1920s Berlin we’ve been lucky enough to be a place where  a lot of people want to live and thanks to building to realistic scale (using the prim measurements) and having a big poor neighbourhood where people live in tiny apartments or even just a small room (with a shared toilet!), we soon reached this limit of SL.
Which was quite confusing because we had no idea and had to bother our rental system builder to ask him why the prims our tenants used weren’t counted properly.

But here we are, I’ve had to shut some of the apartments and even make some of them into apartments that you’re not allowed to share with friends, simply because we can’t allow more people to rez things in Berlin.

I am sure Linden Lab had a good reason for this limit, 100 people rezzing stuff in one single region is probably quite demanding for servers and not the best way to avoid lag…
Still, would it be such a huge deal to raise this limit to 120 or even 110?

I know that a small change like that would allow us to have more apartments, allow more people to enjoy living in our city.

I don’t know much about the technical side of SL and I’m sure that wishing something like that would be changed is a crazy thing to ask.
Few people experience this issue and who knows, it may blow up the LL servers.

I still wanted to mention it because if you one day find that your busy sim is having issues with prims being counted, you now know it might be that you’re pushing this limit.

Comparing the official Second Life viewer with Firestorm

I’ve been in Second Life for over 5 years and for almost all of that time I’ve been using alternative third party viewers.

Only recently, when trying the Oculus Rift, I tried the official Linden Lab viewer again and it made me remember why I never use it.

Nevertheless I felt it was about time I compared the two to see if and why I am sticking with Firestorm.

Please take note though, this is a very personal choice, I will judge both viewers by the way I use them for Second Life, you may not need the tools that I find essential.

And also remember that I haven’t used the official viewer in a long time, so I may just not realise that some of the options I am missing are actually there but I just can’t find them.

I first need to install an update, unfortunately that keeps crashing, can’t write some file or another, so I’ll have to skip that.

One of the first things that annoys me about the official viewer is the group chat messages that start bombarding me.
I am a member of about 40 groups, some of them use group chat a lot, so the second I log on, the window pops up with all sorts of chatter I am not that interested in.
Especially when I was trying the Oculus, the last thing I wanted to see was all these windows opening, it wasn’t easy to close them and I even had to remove the headset to do that in some cases.
And if you crash or just want to log on for a short moment, this becomes even more annoying.
In both viewers you can uncheck “receive group notices” but Firestorm also allows me to turn off group chat, which I’ve done with almost all of my groups.
Finally some peace and quiet!

As a builder to me the Firestorm building tools are very important, without them things would be a lot more difficult.
Some of these are missing in the Linden Lab viewer.
For instance, Firestorm allows me to copy the grid position of a prim, size, rotation and the texture settings.
Imagine if you accidently delete a building or even half a city, no problem.
I have copied the exact grid location and put that in the description of the building, so all I have to do is take it from my trash, rez it and put it back in the same position.
Of course I could just manually copy and paste these settings one by one, or even write them down somewhere, but that is just a lot of extra work.
In Firestorm all it takes is a click.
And when you’re very busy building something huge and complicated you sometimes need to copy and paste these settings all the time.
To me this has become a much loved and often used tool that I would miss, a lot, if I returned to the Linden Lab Viewer.

What I also miss is the little Firestorm window that gives you some of the more important settings for easy access.
There are some things you need to change regularly, for instance your draw distance when SL becomes a bit laggy or when you teleport into a very busy sim.
In stead of having to go into your preferences and graphics settings, it’s just handy to have that button right there on your screen, I know, I’m just lazy.
The only option I miss here at the moment is the shadow one, turning that on and off quickly would be great because it has a huge effect on performance but its also one you want to use a lot when making pictures.
But after mentioning this here on my blog, my readers informed me that I could edit this Quick Preferences menu myself and add or remove whatever I wanted, how brilliant is that!

I keep crashing, not sure why.
Every time I start SL again, I get bothered by group chat messages again… ironically enough its usually the Firestorm group chat that pop ups the most.

As a sim owner and manager I have to keep an eye on what is happening, even when I am in my skybox workshop far away.
In the LL viewer I can not see that far, the only name that pop up on my radar is my own.
I can’t see who is in the city in the region next door, if any of these people are potential grievers, if they are following the sim’s dress code, etc.
Even when I teleport into the city, only the person nearby shows up on my list.
There are 4 people here, I don’t know who the 2 others are, if they have been here before, if they are trouble makers, if they are wearing 1920s clothes, nothing.
After looking around with my camera for a long time I find the visitors, turns out one of them is waving a gun around, against the sim’s rules.
In Firestorm I would have been able to see every single person in my region and the ones next door and with a simple double click on their name in the radar my camera focuses on them.
While staying in my skybox workshop I can still keep an eye on what is happening in the sim, I don’t have to stop working to go and check what is going on.

Another thing I really miss in the LL viewer are the contact sets.
These allow you to keep track of your contacts but also of people not on your friends list.
I know, I know, this is all sounding a lot like 1984 Big Brother NSA you’re being watched club day, but if you have to manage a busy community and want to keep people safe from grievers and if you promise them that you will try and keep people out who insist on ruining the 1920s experience by running around in latex miniskirts and with dragon wings, you need to keep an eye on things.
The contact sets allow me to put people in categories and colour their radar name accordingly.
For instance, someone who has been trouble, could be coloured red, people who have been in Berlin before and who have put on the 1920s clothes orange, fellow sim managers blue, etc.
By looking at the name list and even the dots on my radar I can see right away if there is someone who could potentially cause trouble, if another sim manager is there to keep an eye on things, if someone is visiting who has never been before and who might like some assistance, etc, etc.

These are a few of the tools that I find essential, they may have no use to you at all, but I wouldn’t want to go without them and that is why I am staying with Firestorm.

In the end Firestorm just gives me more options, more freedom to use SL in a way I like.

Why do you use Firestorm or do you prefer the official Linden Lab viewer?
Or perhaps you use a different viewer altogether?

Share your thoughts in the comments section!

My beloved radar, showing Orange dots (outfit checked avatars) ad a Green dot (first time visitor)

Facebook names update

Tags

avatar, facebook, identity

Sister Roma who spoke today with representatives of Facebook about the real names issue has posted an update on her facebook page.

Since people have been speaking up this story has been mentioned on CNN, NBC and all over the net.
Although many SL avatars have moved to Google+, most of us still prefer to use Facebook because it is just so handy, especially for communities.
If we are forced to create a page, we lose the ability to be in a group, organise and invite to events, etc, etc.

Maybe one day Linden Lab will create a facebook clone just for avatars on the Second Life website.
Till then we are stuck with Google+ or pretend to be real people on Facebook.

Anyway, here is the update from Sister Roma her facebook page;

Facebook refuses to agree that the legal name policy is unfair and discriminatory.

They acknowledged that although Facebook has the legal name policy they do not enforce it.

They acknowledged that the current rash of suspended and deleted profiles have been under attack by users of the Facebook community who report the profiles for using “fake” names. Once a page is flagged it is reviewed by living human beings who police the site all over the world. If they determine that the person is not using their legal name on their page it is suspended for being in violation of the Facebook terms of use agreement.

While we could not get them to budge on the actual policy they did seem more open to considering that there are flaws in the complaint review process.

We met with Susan Gonzales, a public liason, and via skype with Monika, the person in charge of content policy. We also meet with members of the Facebook LGBT alliance. The purpose of this meeting was to establish an open dialogue and that’s what happened. I was very impressed by our team. Everyone spoke very eloquently and intelligently. Our broad community was well represented by David Campos, Steven Heklina Grygelko BeBe Sweetbriar, Tom Temprano, 3, Carmen, Nadia Kayyali, Dottielux Smith, Trisha Fogleman, Matt Cagle, Gabriel Haaland, Lil Miss Hot Mess, Alex U Alex U. Inn. Adam from Scott Wiener‘s office and Mark Snyder from the Transgender Law Center. Thank you all for your passion and dedication.

We left the meeting with an agreement that they would continue to meet with us to further hear our concerns and work together to find a compromise.

Conversations with LGBT employees of Facebook after the meeting left me feeling a little more hopeful. They hinted that this issue has been raised internally and there have been heated debates on both sides of the legal name policy. We definitely have allies working “on the inside.”

Shortly after the meeting Facebook announced that they would reinstate profiles of members of the LGBT community that had recently been targeted, suspended or removed. The statement further goes on to say that Facebook hopes that within 2 weeks time the users will either confirm their real identity, change to their legal names, or move to a fan page. While at first glance this seems like a grand show of support for our community it is actually a completely hollow gesture. Basically they offered to give us our profiles back so that two weeks later they could suspend them, demand we comply to their unfair and discriminatory policy, and if not, take them away again. This is completely unacceptable.

To Facebook this is an issue of broader consequence that could take years to review, rewrite or rescind. We do not have that kind of time. Our communities profiles and identities are disappearing daily. We could be wiped out entirely in a short period of time. If we do not get adequate action from Facebook in a few weeks time I would say that we’re ready to go back to our original idea and hold a protest at their campus. They might be able to wipe us off Facebook but they’ll know we’re still here!

We will not rest until not only drag queens, but everyone, has the right to CHOOSE how they wish to be identified on Facebook.

Stay tuned. This is not over! ‪#‎MyNameIsRoma

If only Facebook Pages came with more options, it would make everyone happy.

Facebook agrees to talks with Drag Queens regarding the use of real names

Tags

"second life", drag queens, facebook, identity, names, virtual reality

Just a few days ago I wrote about the problems Drag Queens, artists and many other people are having with Facebook because they are being forced to use their real name and can’t use their stage name, nickname or in our case, avatar name.

Of course this wasn’t news but I mentioned it because I felt that we now shared a goal with a group of people who’s voice might get more attention than that of us Second Life avatars.

And I was right.

Their uproar has exploded across social media, hashtags galore (#‎mynameis) and when a group of them started planning a demonstration outside the Facebook HQ (imagine how fabulous that would have looked) Facebook Supervisor David Campos got on the phone with them and promised to meet with Sister Roma (the lady behind most of the ruckus) in person.

So of course, cynical me has to say that this doesn’t mean anything.
But publicity means a lot in this game and getting them to talk about it and perhaps think a bit harder about a proper solution, is a step in the right direction.

Of course our virtual identity means a lot to us in Second Life but when you look at the long list of people to whom it is so much more important to be able to use Facebook under a different name, it becomes more and more wrong that they are not allowed to.
And even if I was not in Second Life, I’d still want to support this thing.
As Sister Roma said;

This issue affects a lot of marginalized, creative, and professional communities, including transgender people, bullied youth, activists, LGBTQ people who aren’t out everywhere, survivors of domestic violence and stalking, migrants, sex workers, artists who work under pseudonyms, and various professionals who work in sensitive professions (eg. mental health, criminal justice, etc.) who may want to interact with friends without being found by clients. Facebook claims that its “real name” policy helps protect people from bullying, but this is a form of targeting our communities that can actually make us much less safe. Facebook is today’s public forum and they can’t exclude us — who are they to say we or anyone else isn’t “real”?!

So bravo Sister Roma and lets hope that what all these people are trying to achieve eventually will benefit us avatars as well.

Thank you Herr von Rosenheim for the tipoff!

The ongoing trouble with the new mesh avatars

Tags

"second life", avatar, mesh, problem, virtual reality

I must admit that I was impressed when Linden Lab released the new mesh avatars, they looked better than the very old ones we used to have and looked pretty decent.

However we soon realised that there are a few big problems with them.

One problem was that the faces were stuck like a Beverly Hills ex starlet who’s had too much botox, they couldn’t speak, smile, nothing.

But a bigger problem was and unfortunately still is, that new users find it very hard to figure out how to change these avatars.

Because there really isn’t that much you can change about them and changing your avatar, customizing it to look just the way you want it to look is one of the best features of Second Life.

It is the first thing most new users want and try to do and as I’ve written before, I think that letting new users do this easily helps them bond with their avatar and understand the appeal of Second Life sooner.

I was reminded of this problem today when I spotted one of those brand new avatars in 1920s Berlin today.
Poor chap, turned out he was a 3D creator with years of experience, but Second Life offered quite a challenge when he was asked to change into 1920s clothes for his visit to my sim.

He didn’t quite manage it, ended up wearing part of the free 1920s outfit we offer combined with the modern mesh outfit he got when he joined SL.

Eventually he had to go into his library folder and replace his complete avatar with one of the old ones, it was the only way he could change his outfit.

I fear that this is making things even harder and unwelcoming for the new visitors to Second Life, add this to the horrendous welcoming island experience and its a wonder people still join Second Life.

Luckily the chap in question was so excited by 1920s Berlin that he didn’t think of leaving.

Nevertheless this is turning out to be a serious problem that is damaging SL every day a little bit.
I would consider taking the mesh avatars offline all together and bring back the old ones, although better looking perhaps.
At least till mesh avatars can be improved and made easier to adjust.

I feel that getting new users an avatar they like, they’ve customized and have a bond with is an important part of making them stay in SL a little longer.

Will drag queens help our avatars stay on Facebook?

As it turns out, avatars are not the only ones who want to use Facebook under different name than the one they have in Real Life.

Drag queens and transgender performers have now started a petition to be allowed to use Facebook under their stage names.

I find it insane that we are not allowed to make up any name we want, I understand why Facebook wants it, but people with fake identities buy real stuff too and advertising works on us just as well.

Anyway, most important is that there are lots of people who want to be on Facebook under a different name than the one they were born with, artists, people who change their gender, people trying to escape stalkers or their family, etc, etc.

In some cases their reasons are of course much more important than the one we Second Life users have, but in the end we all want the same.

I don’t expect Facebook to change their rules and suddenly let everyone use a fake name.
But I do hope they are smart enough to either give Page accounts more options or create a new kind of account for those of us who want to remain anonymous.

Hate or love facebook, it is a very powerful social tool that is a very handy way to stay in touch with your SL friends or community when you’re not inworld.
And with a facebook page, it just doesn’t work that well because you don’t have access to groups, group events, photo albums, etc, etc.
So if they let us use those, most of us will be happy enough.

Anyway, please click below to read the article on the BBC news page, it has a link to a petition, might not help us that much, but hey, can’t hurt to sign it either.
Any publicity against the Facebook identity rule is good, right?

Drag queens in Facebook name row

Facebook is deleting avatar profiles… again

Tags

facebook

A while back people in Second Life were panicking because a lot of avatar profiles were being blocked and deleted.

It seems that Facebook is doing it again, if they ever stopped to begin with.

Some people think that your account can only be deleted if enough people report it as being fake.

Personally I think Facebook just has some sort of algorithm software set up that continuously searches for certain flags.

It analyses your pictures, your posts, your groups and, I think, especially your profile.

But we’re not sure why Facebook deletes some people’s profiles and leaves others alone.

During the last avatar hunt nobody I know got caught, this time around a few.

I hope that this algorithm of them doesn’t hop from one profile to another, although that would make sense.
After all chances of an avatar’s friends also being avatars are pretty high.

Either way, it is probably a good idea to try and make your profile appear as non-avatar as possible.
Add a few real people photos, don’t tell your profile you’ve been to school at ‘Second Life Academy’, or live on ‘Linden Lab Lane’, don’t put your birthdate as being 1903.

The more common your profile looks, the less likely it will be deleted… or so I think anyway.

Of course we should all abandon Facebook and its evil ways (of which there are many) but there is just no denying that it is a very nifty piece of software and oh so handy as a way to stay in touch or manage SL related groups.
And the alternatives… well there aren’t really any, not that I like anyway.
I may hate Facebook, I use it a LOT and it has become almost essential for my job, after all I can’t think of many ways to stay in touch with the more than 60.000 fans I have on my RL job page.
Yes, I did just put that in there to show off.

Some people suggest we setup pages for our SL profiles, this is an excellent way to stay in touch with other people in SL, but you’re not allowed to join groups.
And especially those are very interesting for us because those are great for discussions, sharing event snapshots and have a shared calendar with events you can invite everyone to.

I don’t understand why Facebook doesn’t just create a special Avatar (or artist or whatever) profile that in some way is clearly different from others.
Because even though fake profiles may give them less RL information they can sell to companies and the NSA, I still get the pleasure of being bombarded by advertisements when I use Facebook as an avatar.

If you have any idea how Facebook works while hunting us down, share it in the comments and if you’ve noticed more profiles being deleted lately.

Maybe we should start a petition somewhere asking FB for avatar profiles.

It would be nice if the Second Life social page thingy on the official Second Life website had more options so that we could all hang out there and use that place for all these SL related things.
But alas, so far it is a glorified notice board that almost nobody I know actually uses.