Perimede

I’ve not questioned your gender, Mar-Mohan, so don’t pull that one. Let’s try a different tack and develop a set of criteria to test whether suggestions are worth presenting to the devs. I’d suggest these:- 1) suggestions should stand a chance of doing some good. 2) suggestions shouldn’t inhibit role play, building, messing outfits or avi. 3) there shouldn’t be any unintended bad consequences. So i’ll test Xeno’s suggestion of parent name for alts. Criterion 1 it meets because the parent name will be visible as soon as the avi ventures out in public to all. So if the user is up to no good then he, most likely, gets found out pdq. Criterion 2 is met because most role play, building etc is done in private. Should a user be involved in a role play in a room open to the public they can always explain to any friends they see, or ho ask. Criterion 3 meets this to my mind because I haven’t thought of any beyond Mar-Mohan’s point about trust. As the use of avis for nefarious intent declines so trust will build. Now i’ll Look at Ex’s suggestion. It doesn’t meet criterion 1 unless the lead avi name is included. It does meet criterion 2 for the same reason Xeno’s suggestion does. It doesn’t meet criterion 3 without the lead avi name included because people mistrust alts because of the activities of a small minority. So people could becomes suspicious of somebody who doesn’t want their alts revealed. So there we go. Let’s get this discussion moving forward. I must confess to thinking there is a strong case developing again for Sage’s idea about OP’s being allowed to moderate their own threads.

So, your point is? There isn't data? There is, the problem for you is you just don't like it. The last set was good enough as it came from a site that has a purpose for game developers. Go find some you do like, prove me wrong, that's fine. In fact I welcome it, as I said to you in that thread. Pull your finger out, stop whinging and do something that moves the discussion forward. Look hard enough and you'll find data - each with it's own good points and bad points. That is the nature of statistical data - it is up to the reader to decide if i's good or bad and to work out a sensible interpretation of it. Go for it Mar_Mohan, you can do it! Good night from here too

@Mar_Mohan - random hugging is not a good approach to a woman you fancy but don't know reasonably well. As a woman you should recognise this. The fact you don't appear to confirms things I surmise and won't express in public although maybe to close friends who won't take it out of context. Randon hugging says at best perve, at worst someone who doesn't value women. It certainly doesn't make you think 'OMG he's hugged me I really must shag him now'. Just saying hello, making interesting conversation and making women laugh is a much better strategy don't you think? And I'm sure you too would much prefer Aidan Turner with his scythe if he turned up outside your TV. Now if he were a bit taller he could hug me any day, but not without my permission. Given a choice between him and my husband, there's no contest ........................................................ Lastly I've just had a great evening with my husband, rl bestie (who you'll be pleased to know was able to find a baby sitter), her bf, plus my Dad and Step Mum. So I've popped in now, OMG that is soooooooo sad. G'night

Statler and Waldorf were funny - it's curious how few trolls mange to pick up and duplicate their sense of timing, irony, use of natty word play, one liners, question and answer word play ........................ basically brilliant humour. Certain trolls on 3dxChat have an awful lot of work to do before they can claim them as anything other than influences that are beyond reach just now.

Very funny, not ........... certainly not apposite given other threads. I do love hugs though but only from people I know well enough and, in particular, my husband. Other people hugging me can make me feel a little uncomfortable if I don’t know them that well and make feel they’re total pervs if they’re just some random bloke. Is this that much different to other people? I do like the guy in Slough who wore a free hugs sign, the press coverage made it clear he wasn’t being pervy.

Not that I'd want it all to be porn .................. but this is good use of the game. Do it right and you might be able to show something of the different ways people play 3dxChat.

If this were an RL covnersation I'd say 'watch the lips' ..................... what I, and a few others, are arguing for is to be treated decently according to accepted mores in most of the world, both real and virtual. Not so hard to understand is it? The reason people get pissed off with you, Rob, and your funny little friends is this. You always argue in favour allowing the people who behave like total Knobheads and to continue to do so because their behaviour doesn't impinge on you. And any way you appear to suggest they have the right to piss people off by behaving like twats. You also try to trivialise what people are saying when they point out that they really don't like such behaviours as random hugging, naked wanking, rumour spreading, using alts to mess with people's heads etc. etc. etc. I refer to your supporters as your funny little friends because they back you up no matter how unsavoury your outpourings are. Fortunately my experience with alts messing people up happenned long enough ago for me to have got over it. It happenned at a time when RL was particularly difficult so it had a greater effect on my overall wellbeing than it should. There are others playing the game who are not as resiliant as I am. I think it important to show due consideration for them. That is in addition to just trying to be a decent nomal human being. At least the people who seem to lean towards my way of thinking do not back me up willy nilly, most make it clear they think I've said something crazy when they think I have. If you need evidence then look at some of Amelia's posts. Now I consider her a friend, not because she agrees with me some of the time but we were able to communicate about stuff we didn't agree on before she deleted her forum account.

O ....... M .......... G - simple good manners ................. just because you accept such behaviour does not make it ok. I don’t like being treated with disrespect, Just like most people. So everybody go hug Mar-Mohan, be rude and disrespectful and you’ll have a friend for life. At least it means the once a day of my being randoml hugged will reduce ‘cos these people will all go hug Mar-Mohan.

I found three sets of data in the gender balance thread. It’s all there if you chose to go looking. So rise to the challenge, find data and present it instead of whinging.

Shitty death, RobT! Random hugging is bad manners, if nothing else, end of. Simple good manners in game make the whole thing much better for everybody. Random hugging does not facilitate sex in a sex game. Being nice to people is a far better strategy. Why is it some male avis feel the need to randomly hug female ones? Why is it some male Avis think female ones will fall over themselves at the sight of a knobbly veiny cock with a wrinkly scrotum attached to it. Give me Aidan Turner scything any day! This thread is about one strategy which might help reduce bad behaviour in game. Random hugging is just one example of bad behaviour because it represents a bad attitude on the part of the hugger towards the huggee. Particularly so in this instance because the hugger, or bastard, knew exactly what they were doing and their intention was to annoy, possibly intimidate. Let’s take another example. The day before a noob randomly hugged. I challenged him in the way I often do. He apologised and thanked me for the heads up about in game etiquette. Now that is good manners. Another example would be if you move off the landing zone of a room before everybody has rezzed and you bump in to somebody, then you apologise. Well I try to anyway. That is good manners. Treat others like you would like to be treated is a good rule of thumb, in my opinion. There’s no excuse for behaving like an arse. And if you do, then apologise. Is that so hard to do. It would seem that it is for some people, therefore threads like this arise and people suggest ways things might be improved. I get the impression that some people believe is it their right to behave like an arse and think there’s something wrong with people who don’t like it. Particularly if they express their displeasure.

I suspect you, too, Mar-Mohan, know this person. I gather he someone who participates in trolling WC. He is a long standing player and his response showed he knew exactly what he was doing. So how dare you try and defend him.

Either it is OK to hug a random woman or it isn’t, RobT. You cannot have it both ways. Try it RL and see what happens. You know and I know you never would. So stop trying to make out it’s ok in one situation and not in another. It is never ok to invade someone’s space without permission.

So, RobT, you agree that it is not a good idea to hug a random woman without permission?

Back to enjoying the dappled shade under a tree in the garden - shame there's work to do as well on a lovely day like to day.

That says a lot about RobT's attitude to women generally. He obviously thinks it OK to go out rl and hug random women. Or does he wear a disguise to do it so people think he's Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un?

Oh dear ............................................... here we go again You can't be bothered to find any data to support your view ........................... shall I go looking and find some for you I still have the link to the one that clinched the gender balance thread somewhere on my computer? It is all there if want to find it badly enough. No I won't, well not today, the weather is lovely and I've got other stuff to do. Barbie in the garden with husband later, maybe my rl bestie will come up if she can get a babysitter.

Yeah, yeah Xandi, some things, like basic good manners and treating others with respect, do not need a classroom to learn. You get the point Mei was making?

So it seems Mar-Mohan felt strongly enough to make suggestions about poor in game behaviour which never gained traction and and now claims not to be frustrated. Yet now seems to favour anything goes. Funny that. About random hugging - you do not invade someone’s defensible space without permission. Hugging without permission is as good as assault. So stop making light if it. If you hugged someone rl at best you’d get a severe telling off, at worst you get prosecuted for some form of assault, probably sexual if it were a man hugging a woman. ***Edit here***** BTW - wearing a sign saying 'Free hugs here' is inviting someone to ask for a hug. That is OK because both the hugger and huggee have agreed to it, so don't use that to try and make light of my feelings on random huggers. That in itself shows an attitude towards women that is decidedly unhealthy. 3dx being pixels does not make this sort of thing ok. In my case the perpetrator was possibly an alt of someone, certainly known to them and knew exactly what he was doing with the intention to cause offence. Seriously not ok. **Significant edit here in the form of an addition** - using alts to mess with people's heads or spread rumours is not OK behaviour and causes harm The case in favour of finding something that will deter this sort of behaviour rests on that. I think the benefits of doing something outweighs the difficulties it could create for people who use alts sensibley. In any case workarounds are possible if something is implemented properly. I think we all accept that bringing in the XGold for alts did improve things even if it didn't eradicate the problem. Other behaviours, the ones that piss me off more regularly, are the attitude ones. Random hugging, naked wanking etc. all show a really bad attitude towards the victim, usually a woman, by the perpetrator, usually male. They are as good as saying that because you are a woman you don't count. Is that not offensive? It is certainly considerably more inconsiderate than those people who chase each other round on the beach when it is crowded. I could extend the idea that someone I spoke to once, **correction here** - delete 'once' and insert 'a while back', who plays as a dark skinned female felt that she was discriminated against, yet it is OK for the people who play as dark skinned males (BBC - not the broadcaster unless they're also naked wankers). **addition here** - She felt it was both sexist and racist. How come the people arguing so strongly against doing anything about poor behaviour cannot accept the basic rule of thumb that if you wouldn't do it rl then it's probably a good idea not to do it in game. I think we might well be getting a sense of why. It's not because they role play, want a bit of peace and quite to shag their favourite person, build or mess with outfits ......................................... what's left except .......... ?

It really is time this thread was locked - as always happenned back in the bad old days of a few months ago threads were derailed and turned into point scoring exercises until somebody got so pissed off they said something certain people could use to get the thread pulled. How long will it be before we see deliberate misunderstandings and teh outright bullying we saw then? It's certainly reached a borderline situation. So just pull it in a little and start discussing stuff, not mudslinging. To my mind the problem Ex is trying to address with her suggestion is poor behaviour in game by those people who use multiple alts to cause trouble. Xeno suggested identifying, flagging in UK English, alst as alts. Ex's suggestion shows how this could technically be possible. Mar_Mohan comes across as very frustrated because suggestions made a while back failed to get traction, I wonder why they didn't ......................... So I say to the people arguing against anything happenning - Do you or do you not feel that in game behaviour could be improved? If you do agree what do you suggest could be done, other than talking about it? If you don't agree please explain why, given that I, and a few others, have personal experience of it. And no, just saying it doesn't happen to me is not good enough because there are people who have been on the recieving end of unnacceptable behaviour, my random hugger last night being just one example.

OMG, Niblette, that is a good point about there possibly being a greater proportion of women on the forums. I hadn't thought of that, and in some ways it explains the difference between other data on gender balance and this survey better. I'm not sure I totally agree, though. My feeling is to assume that the gender balance on the forums would represent the gender balance in game. I'd be interested to know more of your thinking on this. I'd say this - surveys like this always tell us something. Even with a small sample size. As I've said before, in this case some results are loosely supported by information obtained from elsewhere some aren't. Together with additional data and by encouraging people to participate in this survey we stand a chance of finding things out. Just saying it's wrong because we can never poll everybody using 3dx Chat is a bit like saying no new cancer drugs can be used until they've been tested on everybody in the whole world. In that case the sample size may be a few thousand as compared to 7.6 billion world population. So to keep the figures simple we'll say it's tested on 7600 people, that's one hundred millionth of the world population. If the sample increases to a few tens of thousands it's still one ten millionth of the world population. Our survey represents a greater proportion of the 3dx Chat user base than that. Oh and btw - if anybody wants to argue abotu what a billion is - I'm using 1 billion is the same as one thousand million. So, the point is? You check your data with data from other sources to check its validity. There is data out there, game developers use it to plan new games and to develop existing ones. I agree it's not all that easy to find but it was possible before, it's possible now. The thing is that the people who say this survey is wrong aren't even looking, they're just saying it's wrong. It was just the same in the three data sets I presented in my gender balance thread. Is this because they don't like what the results are implying? In that case it was that there are far more men than women playing 3dx Chat. They also didn't like the idea that it might be in the best interests of the game to try to increase the porportion of women playing. The challenge is to find data, if it's that important to you, and present it here, together with your understanding of what it's telling us. That will move the discussion forward. Until then we're just going round and round in circles. Yes, people are right to be doubtful about the validity of the data this survey, on its own, is producing, a larger sample would be good. Checking it's results against other data is even better, no matter how big the sample grows to.

Now we see exactly where some people stand ...................... on many of the issues that have been raised here. In reply I'd say this to both RobT and Xandi - today go out and visit a busy crowded place and hug, without asking, the first woman you see. I bet the consequences will be quite unpleasant. Quite simply you would never do it rl, so why then does it become OK in 3dx Chat. How would you feel if some random guy hugged your wife or girlfriend without permission? You'd do something about it (possibly even punch their lights out), yeah? Even if only because if you didn't she'd no longer be your wife or girlfriend. OMG I should never ever have to defend myself for objecting to someone invading my defensible space without permission.

I really shouldn't be here now but I'm still pretty miffed about it and need to get it off my chest before I settle down for the night. Earlier this evening I landed in Sin and was randomly hugged by an old time player. I believe him to be an alt of somebody but have been told otherwise. What I was told suggests that the two are known to each other and the guy in question reads the forums. So I believe this guy randomly hugged me because he knew it would piss me off. Surprisingly it did. I challenged him pointing out that it's not the done thing. To which I got the reply 'I do what I like'. So I told him to fuck off and put him on iggie. This is just another example of the kind of bad behaviour in game some of us are trying to reduce. In this case it was deliberately intended to cause offence. No I won't say his name, he knows who he is. If he does anythign similar again I will report it. I'm posting because I think it important we demonstrate that this sort of behaviour is not on. Quite simply if you wouldn't do it rl then it's prolly not a good idea to do it in 3dxChat. Simples, yeah?

So to flag something up is offensive now? Please explain to a humble Brit for whom flagging something is to identify it.

In my thread, which got itself trashed and deleted, about increasing the population of rl women in game, data was found, reliable data too, I will go and find it if I have to but I'd prefer to do stuff like go to bed with my husband and get a decent night's kip. That data suggested that as little as 10% of the user base of 3dxChat is female in rl. My hunch was around 20%. I even found data which suggested the user base was as much as 30%, if I remember rightly, women. I got slated for it until the reliable data was found and then somebody got the thread pulled. Interesting that. So this survey is innacurate on the gender balance front, it shows just shy of 50% of user as female. As I've said before, even that tells us something if we think about it. On the number of avis - other data, from Pandora, suggests a correlation albeit a rough one. So we know this survey data has some use. Consider both sets of data (about 50% one avi from Pandora and about 75% who mostly use one avi even though they have more from this) we can say that a majority of users here mostly use one avi even though we can't really determine an exact figure. By allowing the survey to run a bit longer then the sample will become more representative. By finding other data we can determine whether our survey is representative or not, despite the small sample size. Without other data we cannot say that our survey is completely unrepresentative. The small sample size suggests it could be, correlation with the Pandora data suggests it could have some meaning despite the small sample size. So denying other data when there is some doesn't help, neither does denying any correlation when there is. All I'm doing is applying KS3, that's Years 7 to 9 in UK schools, statistics. Which isn't my strong suit but good enough for this. The challenge, if you feel it is that important, is to find other data which can support or deny the validity of this small survey. What we have at the moment is the best we have so far. It shouldn't be that difficult to do better. And, no I don't want to use up more quality time with my husband on doing at at the moment. I think I've done my share, over to someone else for a while. That's it from me on this for now.

Before I go - I was replying to Rob’s post, not yours, FullofBollocks3dx.