Socially|Mundane

IMs get capped a lot? Do off-line item deliveries fail? Peter Stindberg wrote a damned good detailed blog post on this subject (and in response to that, so did Ciaran Laval at his blog) - but one thing with regard to all of this that they both hadn't thought of to mention is the hiding of your on-line status. (Links to their respective pieces at end of this post.)

As you know by now, I tend to be verbose, so please indulge me. The preference to 'hide' your on-line status actually might be causing you more problems than you realize. Firstly, you cannot hide your on-line status. Period. So you may as well turn that preference off.
As for the issue with failed item deliveries (related to Capped IMs, of course) - I'll refer you to Peter's and Ciaran's blog posts. What I will focus on here is this misinformed idea that the preferences to hide your on-line status actually works at all, and how it is very highly likely contributing to your IM's capping.

Back when the grid and asset and other systems in Second Life (SL) were totally hit-or-miss (constant crashing, failures, slow-downs and all that stuff at the server side) - people were voicing their shrill shouts of epithets and expletives at Linden Lab (LL) to fix it all. And fix it fast.

Among many things, LL implemented the "Instant Message Cap" - plainly to mean after a limited number of "Instant Messages", the queue will be full and all messages after that will not be saved (though they are still forwarded to email if you have that preference turned-on via your account page at SecondLife.com web site.) Before this there never was any cap and every single IM would be nicely waiting for you, even if you were off-line for a week. However, in order to relieve 'stress' of the back-end systems, LL implemented the cap (just as all Group notices are now only held for 15 days instead of the previous 30.)

Since most communication (including back-end, under-the-hood stuff) happens the same way by the same means - those caps interfere with a lot of things. On the user's side of the system, one thing you can do is to turn-off the "hidden" feature in your preferences - as there is no reason to have it on anyway. Seriously.

No.

Reason.

And it doesn't even work.

In the "old days" - there were no IM caps. Everyone could be mapped. Then, LL decided to add a cool feature: to show whether you are on-line or off-line right in your profile page in the upper right. Everyone cheered. As always with those who are professional complainers - be careful what you wish for.

Other new "features" included the ability to block people from seeing you on the map, and the ability to hide your on-line status from friends there (in your friends list.) However, there was a lingering problem of your on-line status still appearing in your public profile.

So LL eventually added the preference to 'turn it off". Which is really stupid because anyone can still see your on-line status at any time - especially your friends, no matter what your preferences are set to. This on-line status 'view-ability' is handled at the viewer, not the servers. In other words: the ability for someone to see if you are on-line or not is simply masked at the viewer level to "hide" the status from you by simply not showing it, even though it's still there.

So do consider this: every time a friend request is accepted (no matter if you or the other person offers it) - a "calling card' file is exchanged. The calling card is how the SL system keeps track of you - the source information for other systems - such as friends, etc. This file sits in your inventory - a little folder called "Calling Cards". These are handy, but never used by anyone in SL - even though they can be quite useful. Think of it as your personal "business card" in SL. See? You don't have to friend everyone you meet because your own calling card is in that folder and you can give it to anyone and everyone.

Open the Calling Cards folder in your inventory and look at all those cards. Unless you've thrown any out, every single person you have ever friended since the first minute you've been in-world is in there.

Notice how some will show who is on-line? Hiding yourself from your friends list really doesn't do any good. And here's an additional little kicker: once someone has your calling card: they will have it forever until they choose to throw it away. Even if you delete them from your friends list later - they still will have your card.

And if I don't have your calling card, it's still far too easy to see if you are on-line. Go to Xstreet SL and search for any "online indicator" - especially those for "mall owners" or "club owners" and the rest. I have some of these and all I have to do is know your SL name. I set one out, put your name (any name of any account - even surname Lindens) in there and viola! I know instantly and constantly when you are on-line or off. It works if you are in my friends list or not. There is absolutely no possible way you can hide your on-line status from me. None. Zip, zilch, nada.

Hiding yourself from friends is really a false sense of 'invisibility'. What's worse is that preference I mentioned earlier:

"Only my Friends and Groups can see when I am online"

Linden Lab would do well to just remove this preference because it not only creates a seriously false sense of 'invisibility' - it is part of the problem with regard to capped IMs and by extension, failed deliveries of items (if you are off-line at delivery time.)

I used to have that preference turned-on (to hide my on-line status from my profile widget - I have no idea why I would want this) - and I often would get "Hi" (full-stop) or "Are you online?" (full-top) and so on. And what's worse is an IM that looks like this from one person:

Are you online?

I have a question.

Can you please IM me when you come in world?

I need your help.

The above counts as four IMs toward the cap. The term "Capped IMs" is kind of a misnomer. The cap applies not to each IM per se, but rather each IM message sent by the 'Enter' key. So a single person (in a single IM) can cap your IMs if they press the 'Enter' key 15 times (creating 15 'lines' in the same IM message 'window tab') - as it is assumed by many the cap is set to 15. So the term should really be "Capped IM lines".

Since there really is no way to hide your on-line status - why do it at all, especially if you get IMs like the previous example? I figured what the hell, I'll turn that preference of "hiding" off. So now when anyone views my profile they will clearly see when I am not only on-line (in green), but also off-line (in red) and guess what? No more of those silly "are you online?" IMs. People tend to write-out a more complete message before they hit that 'Enter' key the first time.

My IMs are rarely capping now. And I have not experienced a failed delivery of an item since. As it turns out, the preference to "hide" from everyone (including your friends) is a complete useless waste of time since it is an impossibility.

It is a silly choice to make anyway. But nowhere near as utterly stupid as "Show in search" check-box being turned-off (a.k.a. "Hide from search") in your profile. You always can be searched in-world and also on the SL web site. The only difference is on the web site - if this preference is turned-on - doesn't show your picks or picture or SL page. It never shows any of the other tabs anyway. Since many of your picks are likely hidden anyway, what are you so ashamed of that you feel the need to hide from web search?

I do know that it breaks some features in-world as more and more scripted items are using your web-based profile for assets. For example, my products offer automatic updates. But if you have your profile hidden, oh-well. My updater won't find you and you miss-out. (/me snickers).

To turn on the "Show in search" preference for your profile, look at the bottom of your profile widget in-world. But more importantly, to stop the "are you online" IMs that help cap them every day, turn off that silly "hide my status" preference in your preferences widget. You can find it here:

Open Preferences
Go to the Communication tab.
Look for the check-box titled "Only my Friends and Groups can see when I am online"
Turn that check-box off
Click OK or Apply (just closing the widget or clicking Cancel will cancel the activity.)

Leaving this preference turned on only means you are another Emperor with new clothes.

Peter Stindbeg's original blog post is here.
Ciaran Laval's original blog post is here.

art: UW-Superior