Tags
contact, death, email, emergency, leaving, left, personal, private, profile, social media, stay in touch, vanished, vanishing
If you’ve been in Second Life for a while, sooner or later someone you know and/or care about will vanish from your virtual life.
They don’t say goodbye, they don’t leave a note, they don’t cancel their rent, they don’t clear their land, they simply never log on again.
There can be many different reasons for someone to just vanish like that, it could be something as innocent as being stuck somewhere during a holiday without internet and losing their rental and deciding they don’t want to return, maybe their computer breaks and they cant afford a new one or maybe they have gotten themselves into some drama in SL and decide that simply staying away is the best solution.
But it could also be something rather serious, they may be very unwell or even have died.
People sometimes don’t realise how much they mean to their virtual friends and community and have no idea how worried the people they leave behind may be.
And besides friends who will miss them dearly, there are also landowners, sims, shop managers, club managers etc, who are waiting for them to renew their rent or don’t know what to do with their stuff, upcoming events, etc.
So, after yet another person in SL simply vanished, I decided to write this blog with some tips, hoping it may avoid a few of these painful and confusing situations.
Please make sure there are is more than one way for people in SL to get in touch with you.
Get a facebook/twitter/other social media account and share your email address with a few of your friends, this can be an avatar only email address of course.
But also, if you can, find someone in SL you trust enough with some RL information.
Even if it is just one friend.
Having someone in SL who knows how to get in touch with you in RL can avoid so many problems.
And the more this one person knows, the better.
If you trust them enough, befriend them with your RL social media accounts or even agree with a close RL family member or friend that this SL friend can email them as well or befriend them on Facebook, just in case of emergency.
If something bad happens to you, your RL friends will probably leave messages on your RL facebook wall, telling you to get better or writing how sad they are you died.
If a SL friend sees this, they know enough.
If this is not the case, your RL friend or family member will still know what is going on.
And finally put all this in a tab in your profile.
Yes it will take up one of your very few Picks (let us have more Linden Lab!), but it could be worth it.
It would be even better if Linden Lab gave us an extra tab in our profile that you could use to fill in this information.
Of course you can also choose to use the ‘1st life’ tab for this, but most people like using that space to tell a little bit about themselves in RL.
Here is the tab in my profile, as an example.
At the moment it only has one name in it, my friend who also is connected with me via my RL Facebook account, who knows my RL email address, has my RL sister’s information, etc, etc.
I’ll add a few more friends, but I want to check with them first if they are ok with it.
If anything serious would happen to me, or something stupid like dropping my computer in the sea while sailing, my sister would know about it.
And once my SL friends got worried and contacted my sister, they’ know what had happened.
And if things were really serious, my sister also knows what I want to happen to my sims if I have died in a freak sword fighting tin opener accident during one of my RL time travel adventures.
Of course it is completely up to you how much you explain about why you can’t be online in SL, sometimes it is nobodies business.
But I think you owe it to your virtual friends and landlords to at least know you’re not dead and if you’re planning on returning.
So folks, please remember that even though you may not realise it or underestimate it, there are people in SL who very likely are desperately trying to figure out why you’ve vanished.
Be a pal, give them a way to find out!
Pauline Clary said:
Thank you Jo, these are great and invaluable tips. One of my closest SL friends vanished just recently without any notice, and desperately sending out IMs, e-mails, facebook messages, etc. without getting any response is an awful, saddening and scaring experience. It’s affecting my RL quite a bit at the moment.
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Thomas said:
Reblogged this on thomas mcgreevy and commented:
Helpful and wise
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Rockridge Constantine said:
Great post. Yes, this has happened to me a number of times since I have been in SL. Having an “outside” means of contact is a definite must. I have a close friend and we can alternatively keep in touch on Facebook and Skype. The profile Tip seems to be a good idea. Thx
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Drutim Bates said:
Thank-you for posting what I’ve been experiencing. I’ve recently requested a close, long time friend to be my “executor” in case I can’t get online. Sage advice..:)
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Skate Foss said:
Be in SecondLife long enough and everyone will have experienced this. It’s not pleasant, it’s frightening, unsettling and god forbid the things you begin to imagine.
One day back in 2012, while doing a project on my sim with a dear SL friend, she suddenly said, she was going to take a break and lie down. She logged off, and has not returned to Second Life since. A day does not go by, that I don’t wonder how she is, or where she is, or if I’ll ever log on one day and find her there asking about the work platform we had left rezzed above the sim. To this day, 5 years on, friends of hers stillrez on my sim,looking to see if she’s returned or is there any news.
For the longest time, I kept her home intact, in hopes she’d return and all would just go on as normal.
Loss in SL, just as in RL, is very painful. We do mourn for our missing SL friends. This is the SL pain that is seldom talked about.
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Clementia Merlin said:
Reblogged this on Les Pages de Clementia.
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Richardus Raymaker said:
I agree with this, but…
It’s not so easy todo. if you try to keep RL and Secondlife seperate.
Yes there backip ways some people can contact me.
But the problem for now is that am the only one that have access to it.
So your idea is good. I have some backups.
But when i could not access it. The idea does not work.
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Harper Ganesvoort said:
Reblogged this on Around the Grid and commented:
Something to give serious thought about; not that you have to do, but it might be a good thing to do.
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Venumusvortex resident said:
LL banned me so that why I vanished. I was 2 days away from being able to pay my tier when ‘ll decided to ban me till I do pay which I find to be very unfair to the poor people who wants some happiness in their life. So I refuse to pay ‘ll and stick with open SIM which is cheaper.
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devineteardrop said:
Reblogged this on Its Just Simply Devine and commented:
Something that we have all gone through in SL, this may help!!
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Linn Darkwatch said:
You don’t have to spend a Pick on it – put it in your 1st Life tab.
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Jo Yardley said:
True, I also mention that in the article, but there isn’t much space there especially if you also want to add something else about RL there.
Would be best if LL gave us a specific tab just for emergency info.
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Magick Thoughts by AmandaMagick (photographer, artist, blogger, PMC team) said:
Reblogged this on Magick Thoughts and commented:
I really think the topic of this blog is so important mainly because I have been thinking about this lately as well. I know RL is more important than SL but to me my friends are real no matter in SL or RL. I think if I were to disappear without a trace there would be at least a couple worried about me. I am a classic worrier and so I know how worked up I can get especially if someone I care about is gone and can’t be found.
I always have all my social media links at the end of my blog posts… so there are 101 ways to contact me somehow. But if for some reason there is no trace of me at all anywhere… then I will have a go to person or 2 in my profile… well soon I will because I will follow this great advice Jo has shared with us. Just read her post that I am reblogging. Friends are everything to me just like family and I don’t want anyone worrying about me for sure.
–love AmandaMagick
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Pixel Refresh said:
The first thing that comes to mind is…. I miss Rosa, and I’m worried sick.
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Beth said:
I find this a very good idea. I’ve lost some people I dearly loved in SL not only to death or illness though through real that they have decided it best to live the real world not virtual world.
Skieleigh resident
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Justbeecuz resident said:
I’ve been guilty of doing this a couple of times. I will follow this advice just in case it happens again. I’ve lost touch of some good friends because I didn’t realize I would come back. I also had a couple of premium accounts wiped clean & couldn’t get my stuff back, because I owed LL money…
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badgalririweb said:
Reblogged this on A Day In The Life Of A… and commented:
This is so true!!
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pisia said:
Learnt that people often vanish… learnt not to feel so it doesn’t hurt… it happens way too often…
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Caitlin Mirabella said:
My now-ex sl husband disappeared without a trace three years ago. Didn’t contact me or any of our closest friends ever again. I was RL with him too and he just ghosted completely. People disappearing like this is painful to deal with. Thank you for this post.
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