Cat Fratica

Excellent - but one step better would be click and cam to it and/or click and go to it! Sure you could find yourself in some odd places if looking for lost items

Innula Zenovka

Exactly my question, Inhandra. I certainly can't recall any, either, though I certainly can recall several devs being asked in their blogs and forums to adopt them and their flatly refusing or adopting them in heavily modified forms, precisely because they find these features creepy and invasive.

But clearly you and I have missed some viewers, and Tonya will be along shortly to tell us the names of the viewers to which she's worried they'd "lose users" if Phoenix didn't cater for snoops. She might also explain why it's so important to her that they keep these users in the first place.

__________________

Dolly

It seems to me that Phoenix has always tried to be everything to everyone. There was hardly any feature that it did not have...and we will surely see multi-layer support in a future Phoenix version soon enough now that Henri has got the essentials of it working in his Cool VL viewer.

I would suggest that the migration from Phoenix to Firestorm presents an ideal opportunity to avoid going down the same route of adding "feature creep" which includes those features that compromise user privacy.

Indeed, I wonder why retaining as many Phoenix users as possible seems so important, particularly since a great many of them continue to resist Firestorm - yet that is where the future truly lies.

Inhandra

I had remembered this too, but I didn't want to say it because I wasn't sure if I was recalling it correctly or not. With you having the same information though, I feel a lot better about it.

__________________

Innula Zenovka

I very much hope that the devs will encourage the migration from Phoenix, if not to Firestorm, by not adopting Henri's multi-layer support. I can see why they had to adopt mesh, since otherwise that would have been a huge impediment to the use of mesh generally, but if people want to use multiple layers and don't want to use something based on V2/3 (I don't know what Firestorm's based on now), why can't they use Cool VL? OK, Henri doesn't have creepy snooping and drama-creating features, but I'm sure some Phoenix users could learn to live without them.

Beezle Warburton

Ah, so you'd have no ethical qualms about making a copybot viewer (aside from LL saying no) if people wanted a copybot viewer. Because hey, people would just use a copybot viewer.

Features before ethics.

A pity Kokua is in Limbo.

__________________

Andromeda Rage

These comments about losing users to other viewers if certain requested features aren't included really rub me the wrong way. So you possibly lose users to other viewers. So what? What exactly is the problem with that? Money and livelihoods are not at stake here. This all smacks of trying to win an e-peen war rather than "giving people what they want."

And again... *what* other viewers? The only viewer I know of that includes these stalkery features is Phoenix. Other developers have the stones to flat out not touch that crap, even if it drives users away from their viewers to the enabler (Phoenix). But in the end, those developers' hands are clean.

Joshua Nightshade

They're even funnier when you take them in context alongside Tonya's usual deflections of criticism — "well, who cares what you think, it's the most popular viewer. /hairtoss"

__________________

ShrugDangle

I agree. Most of the people I know personally that are still sticking to Phoenix are folks that are in a situation where they can't upgrade their hardware or have some other unfortunate variable that keeps them from using a more powerful viewer. They're not attached to the stalker features, they just want something that runs, is familiar, stable, and can see mesh.

I use CoolVL for Inworldz and I've actually had quite a few of my friends switch over to it after seeing that A.) Henri developed the stuff in the first place, and B.) he updates it more than twice a year.

Da5id Weatherwax

FWIW, IMHO any "feature" that exposes info the user has set in their profile as unavailable - and that includes bypassing "hidden" in online status - should categorically deny any viewer a place on the TPVD and should be an automatic trigger for LL to consider banning it.

ETA: What if some enterprising coder found a way to datamine your facebook account even though you set everything as private - wouldnt you want that exposed as a browser privacy flaw? Wouldn't you want it fixed? If I set myself in SL as "only friends can see me online" I WANT only my friends to see me as online (as it happens, I havent, any of you can find me online if you want) but that this principle aint violated is important.

Raindrop Drinkwater

Wow I'd skipped that thread until now. The features in question... bloody hell! That's just plain disrespectful!

If someone chose to hide their online status, then that choice is theirs, and that's it.

Likewise, the ability to fly everywhere (no matter how tempting such a feature is) doesn't sit right with me. What next? Ability to enable damage on no-damage land? Object entries? Scrap the "limit chat, voice... to parcel" settings?

No thanks. I don't want features like that in my viewer, and I don't want other users to have these features.

__________________

Tonya Souther

Oh, get real. Quite aside from copybotting being in violation of the TPVP, there are limits.

The difference here is that 1) there are plenty of products that permit viewing true online status available inworld and on the Marketplace, using an LSL function LL provides and fully supports, 2) there are quite legitimate reasons for someone to know whether another user is online or not, and 3) even if it weren't in the viewer or LSL, it would still be possible to find out whether another user is online without their permission and while the status is hidden. (Offer them a teleport, for one.)

The situation is not as black-and-white as the privacy advocates here are painting it.

LL can ban it. They've been aware of this controversy for years. That they haven't yet should tell you something.

Tell it to LL.

That's built into the official viewer. To enable flying ability, you simply need to enable the admin menu - whether or not you are in admin mode.

So you won't be using the official viewer either?

Joshua Nightshade

Boo hoo.

Innula Zenovka

We've been through this argument before, I think; in brief, at least to my mind, you're making an unjustified jump from the fact it's easy enough to override the settings of any particular individual in whom you're particularly interested in order to determine whether she or he is really online or not to the proposition that it's therefore perfectly OK to offer a viewer that enables people, in effect, to over-ride, all the time, everyone's preferences in that respect, regardless of whether you're interested in whether they're online or not.

And I certainly don't know of any product on the marketplace that will allow you to skim down your friends' list to see who's hiding their online status from you.

Be that as it may, I'm still wondering which viewers you fear losing users to, if you remove these particularly contentious options (as far as I know, they're unique to Phoenix), and why it's so important for you to keep these users in the first place. Of what benefit to the Phoenix/Firestorm project are they? Why does the number of users matter?

ETA -- That argument cut no ice when Zfire and his friends deployed it, and it's even less persuasive now.

Brenda Connolly

Do the hair toss thing again. It's cute.

Joshua Nightshade

Only Tonya would use "privacy advocates" like it's a pejorative.

Brenda Connolly

Or to put it colloquially: Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should.

Beezle Warburton

LL alllows it. It must be okay.

Limits to what you're willing to allow in a viewer?

It was just an example of "things people will just go use a different viewer to do."

BUAH HAH HAH HAH HAH.


It does tell me something.

I don't think it tells me what you think it does, though.

Brenda Connolly

Inconceivable!

eighthdwarf Checchinato

Actually I see nothing wrong, stalker-ish or "privacy invading" in the True Online Status shown in profiles.
Each Online Indicator script (like those in the owner/employee posters you see in clubs or shops) has the very same function.

btw, I was among those who voted FOR keeping it.

__________________

Innula Zenovka

One difference between those online indicators and the functionality provided by Phoenix is that people usually choose to put those up to indicate when they, themselves, and, by agreement, their staff are online, as a convenience to their customers, in addition to leaving their online status unhidden in their profiles. They don't normally put them out as a way of over-riding the preferences of complete strangers.

Some people might consider that difference rather significant.

Andromeda Rage

Yup. They're opting-in. Huge difference.

Brenda Connolly

We have seen many cases of people in SL who feel their right to know something trumps someone else's right to decide what to disclose and when.

Beezle Warburton

LL did give us the "only show my status to friends" option, but it's bloody useless because they didn't change any other functionality to account for it.

Until we can convince LL and TPV's that "oh, hey, I don't always want to be seen, thx" is a valid concern, then the only option is to make an alt and not tell anyone, which has it's own set of inconveniences.

Beezle Warburton

This demonstrates the value of not being seen: