This is general SLetiquette, not particularly for ZEN METAL, although most of it applies. Anything that would normally apply in real life still applies on Second Life, but the following things that you might not notice will create an issue for someone else on Second Life if not paid attention to.
As a newbie, be patient.
When you first join Second Life, be patient and forgive sim-owners who eject you directly for being a newbie. Many sim owners don’t want to deal with new people who are sometimes rude, looking for “quick fixes,” if you know what I mean, or are deliberately trolling that particular sim by creating a new avatar to bypass their security.
They may also wish for their visitors to be fully mesh – beautiful to look at and dressed to a code, which you, as a new resident, are unlikely to be. Your focus on your avatar shows ‘commitment’ to the game, and that will win points with the Second Life obsessed. 🙂
You might also exercise some patience on how long everything takes to load, how weirdly sized a lot of things are, and how everyone on a popular sim is of a different scale. 😀 Everyone plays a different scale here. (Drives me mental, personally, but… Patience, patience…)
You are welcome on ZEN METAL Hub as a newbie. (You may already be there, who knows.)
Read the profile before IMing ANYONE.
Before talking to a new person, in a private message, ALWAYS check out their profile first. I CANNOT BELIEVE how many men skip this step to be POLITE! The profile is there TO BE READ. (Ladies, men think they’d be snooping, that’s why they don’t read it. The poor things think it’s some kind of a diary. :D)
The profile is basically an opportunity to say: GLBTQ+ or straight. Single or spoken for. CIS or trans. Interested in dating/new friends or not, lol.
It is especially important to check out a person’s profile on Adult and dating sims, or you’ll make BLUNDERS.
NOT ONE profile I’ve ever read seems to be written for friends only. Women seem typically FED UP with the fact men ignore their profiles, or seem to simply skim it superficially. You’ll be INSTANTLY gaining points if you refer to any talking points in his or her profile. (Test this theory by going to a busy sim and read some profiles just for research purposes. Just try it, man.)
The reason why people are sometimes very rude in their profiles.
Please don’t read too much into rudeness you see in people’s profiles. It is HARD to avoid super rude people on Second Life, and the profiles often turn into lectures on basic etiquette for a good, understandable reason. (Test this theory by switching into a female avatar and see what happens. ;p You don’t have to reply to any IM’s you’ll receive.)
Good-looking male avatars and newbie-looking females are often the most hit on characters on the grid, and you can TELL by how “spikey” they behave when approached. (Why newbie females? They seem ‘mouldable’ and very single.)
TIP: If you ever have a fall out with someone… The chances are they’ll edit their profile to reflect that particular fuck up. ;p Curious?
When filling out YOUR profile.
It is POLITE to also add something in your own profile. In real life section, at least inform people on whether you mix RL with SL. There are people who don’t see the point in full fantasy living, and then, there are those who can’t see why anyone would want to mix RL into any of it. You don’t have to say anything more than that if you’re a very private person.
If you are in an opposite gender avatar, the polite thing to do is to inform about it in your 1st Life tab. “Non-binary, M, or F” is enough. And I’m sorry, but it does matter, but it does not matter to enough of people to bother to keep it a secret. You don’t have to win over the world, right? Can’t date all of them, can you, no matter how big of a slut you are. 😉
- Avoid airing out your frustrations in your profile… Although I have committed that sin more than once myself. ;p
- Write about what you love instead of what you hate.
- Write to people you’re interested in instead of to people you don’t want.
- Be yourself, but be careful to notice when something is a preference, not a general rule. Avoid putting (new) people under the impression some practice is generic rather than your personal preference.
- Use Picks to extend your profile.
Have a quick scan of each individual sim’s rules.
When you visit a new sim, you usually get a rule card slung in your face. If you plan on even talking to anyone there, read it before you do anything else. You can have a general look around, but especially if it’s an adult sim, you should definitely read the rules as soon as possible, as they can get pretty kinky! (They can also be a bit of a turn-on, so… That’s what you’re there for.) Do not assume Adult sims do not have etiquette. They usually have a very strict one.
On G- and M-rated sims, the rules are mostly to warn rude people about what will get them ejected and banned. They’re mostly pretty self-explanatory; don’t be a dick.
Tip sim owners, DJ’s, and hosts!
Remember that sim owners don’t work for Linden Labs. They often run their sims at a loss because they love doing nice things for people.
If you like the place and find a use for it—like enjoying it—please drop some Lindens in tip jars you might see around. (50 Lindens is a reasonable tip, especially if you tip every DJ and host, who, by the way, often work for tips, but the more, the better.)
You don’t need to tip sims you don’t care for and plan never to visit again, shops, or sims that don’t seem to be collecting tips.
Notice that there are private sims and public sims
There are residential areas on Second Life that are not intended for public access even if there is no security installed. Some people might not think anyone would access their parcel not knowing it’s there, but you might randomly happen to a private residence, especially following a random teleport or an old landmark.
Adult avatars vs. child avatars
A real life teen girl is about 1.5 meters tall. A grown up female is 1.60 meters tall or taller (up to maybe 1.75 after which they’re strikingly tall). The 1.5 meters is often used as a limit for child avatars to enter parcels. Therefore, if you’re a short adult, maybe set your height to at least 1.51 meters, which is quite low enough for even a person with dwarfism considering most people create way over-sized avatars on Second Life. In general, I urge people to use 1.8 as the absolute separation point between male and female avatar heights. (Average female is 1.65 meters tall, but not on Second Life. 1.83 meters equals 6 foot height, and anything above that should probably be reserved for male avis only – unless you’re a really tall girl in real and want that to reflect.)
Real life vs. Second Life
There are people who mix real life with Second Life and there are those who keep them absolutely separate. If a person offers nothing from their real life in their profile, it may not be polite to ask.
People who DO mix real life with Second Life work the other way around. It may not be polite to keep all of your real life hidden from someone who is open about theirs, and it is not polite to be in a 100% role play with a person who is not role playing. They’re sharing who they are, you’re sharing who you wish you were. That makes a big difference in how you’re “playing the game.”
Friending people
Some quite friendly people send friend requests to complete strangers without talking to them first. Please don’t. You can’t be that friendly if you wish to remain polite.
You CAN talk to people you don’t know without adding them as friends. That said, some people have disabled the ability for others to IM them without being a friend, but if they have, they DEFINITELY don’t want a friend request out of the blue. (Try talking to them in Local Chat if they’re on a ‘social’ sim.)
Living on the mainland requires consideration of others.
Mainland living would be ideally sociable, sharing, caring, and a fun way to build this world together with connected roads to lovely people who have a sense of humor and kindness. Still, sucky fellow players make it a bit of a mothafucka, if you pardon my French.
These are the most commonly seen mainland social blunders people STILL seem uneducated enough to commit regularly. (These practices have been in place since 2009, at least, and there are STILL people who haven’t gotten the memo.)
If you can’t see them, they can’t see you is not true
People access Second Life with different kinds of computers that are not necessarily equally powerful. Therefore, some players use a lower “draw distance” than others, which means that the lower your draw distance is set to, the more likely others see you (and your crap) when you don’t even realize they’re there.
You should check what can be seen AT LEAST from 224 meter distance, even if you have to wait a while for a scene to load. (Why this distance? It’s far enough to see most things on a single region, so if one’s device is powerful enough, that’s probably ideal draw distance.)
Please don’t build big boxes on the ground.
Your mainland parcel lacks privacy, yes. If you want privacy, you can build your scene into a skybox or a private island, and hide avatars and chat on your land as well as use a security orb to stop unwanted visitors from entering your land. NOT by building your scene into a huge box on the ground level.
You also don’t need to “beautify” your scene with a box. If you need to keep vehicles from flying over the edge of your sim on a high speed chase, please use invisible prims for that purpose.
If you NEED a huge box, move that box high up in the air (3000 meters is a great starting point) and try to avoid heights that could, again, ruin the work of another resident who came there before you and built a platform rather than a box. Create a landmark and set your home up into that skybox, and you won’t even notice anyone else exists. STILL, it would be nice if you’d pan your camera around your sky box occasionally to see if there’s anything you could do to improve your neighbor’s view.
If you wish to be SUPER NICE, spare a few prims to decorate the ground level with a tree or two. The standard Linden Labs’ 1-land impact trees are quite fine for this purpose, albeit you could add more with well made mesh that shrinks into fewer prims when linked. You can find them in the ‘create’ menu, where you’d normally rezz a box.
How to start building in the sky: First, while on land you are allowed to build on, turn on flight mode and type in local: gth 3000 (or any other number over 500 and under 4000 m (you can’t build over 4000 meters to keep flight space clear). (gth is short for go to height) Once there, type in local: rezplat
Everything else, you’ll figure out once there.
Mainland water access parcels.
Sure, you paid the big bucks to be on the non-blockable land on the mainland water parcel. STILL, now, you have a responsibility to everyone living “behind” you. Do not block sailing access from your water parcel to the rest of the coast line. The coast line, by the way, is determined by Linden Labs. It is fair for the owners of those parcels to assume they will continue to have an access to the sea.
You may not be aware of this, but mainland continents are sailing connected to each other (apart from Zindra). Don’t be the spoil sport that prevents sailing from one continent to another or for what would be a beach parcel from BEING a beach parcel because you built an edge-to-edge club right on the water.
Second Life Parcel Security
Please don’t use access borders – ban lines on Mainland parcels.
In your parcel settings, there is an option to ban access from your parcel from anyone you don’t know. This creates ban lines around your parcel, and it is UGLY for everyone who doesn’t know you, your neighbors and their visitors.
Please only use them in an emergency and temporarily.
For permanent use, please buy a security orb. (You can also create one from ready-made free scripts if you prefer.)
Security Orb settings.
When you use a security orb, give enough time to fly over your parcel and eject it to a nearby parcel rather than “home”. Use “home” ejection ONLY on private islands. This is so that if there are travellers flying over your parcel, they won’t lose the track of their route simply because you ejected them all the way home.