Permissions: See my online status: Did you know?

You'd like a little peace and quiet. You hate logging in and getting bombarded with IMs. You're feeling anti-social and want to cut yourself off from the rest of the world. Person X is annoying but not so annoying you want to unfriend them.

So, you remove permissions to see your online status. When they look at their friends list, your name never indicates you're online. You're invisible so to speak.

But, but, but...

If you send an IM to somebody who's offline, you get back this message:

User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

Guess what happens if you remove online permission and that person sends you a message while you're online?

Nothing. They sit there at the IM chat window, waiting for a reply. That is, there's no message about you being offline, and if they go check their list of friends, your name will not show as being online. Oops! That may be a bit embarrassing. Now that person knows what you've done. How do you explain yourself out of this pickle?

But, but, but there's more.

If you go to the Second Life web site (https://secondlife.com/my) and log in, you get your dashboard. On the left, there is a column of widgets, the fourth one showing your list of friends with the top section which friends are online. By chance, a few years back, I noticed that somebody's name was missing from this list. If I looked at my list of friends, I could find their name but on this dashboard page, this friends widget did not show their name at all. I discovered that the person had removed from me permission to see their online status and an inadvertent result of this action removed their name from this dashboard list. I'll chalk it up to another of a myriad of quirky things (bugs) in SL.

Is revoking online status a good idea?
Personally, I don't think so. It strikes me as an underhanded and even juvenile way of handling the issue of

I want to be alone. I just want to be alone.
-Marlene Dietrich (1932 movie Grand Hotel, YouTube clip)

Now don't get me wrong. There are jackasses aplenty in SL, or RL for that matter, who probably merit a good shot of pepper spray. However, I, personally, never use the See my online status option, preferring to deal with the issue upfront. Every time I'm friended, I explain that if you're busy, tell me immediately. Don't get bogged down in being overly polite, that is, not wanting to hurt my feelings. I'm a big boy; I won't be hurt; and this could save both of us a lot of aggravation. And I add the opposite, that is, if I'm busy I'm going to upfront about it. Oh, I'll be polite but I can't talk now. See ya later alligator!

Final Word
Old saying: Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Block, mute, derender, there are a number of options available to us in SL to get rid of somebody. Admittedly, during my so-called second life, I've never had to do this. Oh, I've had a couple of run-ins with jackasses but one of them, after I reported him to the SIM owner, was banned never to be heard from again. Easy peasy. But let me add here that I recognise my life is the life of a man which seems to be different, even quite different from a woman's. I've heard tales of aggressive males refusing to take no for an answer and whose persistence - Or should I say obsessiveness? - turned them into some sort of stalker. Then again if somebody is that bad. I can't imagine they would be on anybody friends list.

But my point in this article is to discuss See my online status and how using it is not as invisible as you may think it is. I'm sure not many know what I've pointed out here, but it does exist. Buyer beware.


References

my blog: Second Life Drama - Jun 27/2021
How exactly to succinctly define drama in Second Life? People taking offence at what somebody else said. People saying bad things about other people. People seemingly focused on the negative. Sorry, did I say drama in Second Life? Heck, this sounds like drama in real life!

2024-07-07