Suzi_Avonside^✦ @Suzi_Avonside

I have a dedicated Google Drive I use for OAR storage, and also back up to DVD as well as having an HDD clone of my working disk. Using a USB stick is also an option, but remember to plug the USB stick into your PC/laptop every few months to keep data rot at bay.

This grid needs to do something about the near impossibility of getting there. I'm not alone, as there are many comments about difficulties getting to Chubelz. I've tried from several different locations, but every time I get timed out. Please fix this issue.

Having taken your advice and gone away and done an albeit brief bit of research on the interwebs I can only conclude that it is you who misinformed. All the articles, both popular and academic, (and there are a lot of academic studies out there on this subject) refer to it as 'sexual ageplay'. You may disagree with that usage, but it seems that the usual interpretation is directly opposed to yours. For clarity my search terms were 'ageplay in virtual worlds' using the DuckDuckGo search engine on Brave Browser.

Whilst not generally related to the article above, let's also clarify some differences. According to the New World Notes article dated August 19, 2019:

"Unlike the United States (where the Supreme Court, in 2002, struck down a law prohibiting “virtual” child pornography on First Amendment free speech grounds), many countries criminalize non-photographic images that appear to depict minors in sexual situations."
https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2019/08/second-life-virtual-agep...

Basically what this means is that two 'cartoon' child characters simulating sexual behaviour is legal, (if not wholesome, or even generally acceptable) so long as those behind the child avatars are adults themselves, i.e. over 18. However, the trouble lies in that not everywhere in the world is the USA, (and I have to stress ALL of my American friends have unhesitatingly said that they find sexual ageplay in virtual worlds both obscene and repugnant, regardless as to whether the avatars are cartoonish in appearance). Similar images would, in Germany and the UK see someone prosecuted with a serious crime, as images do not have to be photographic in order to trigger a prosecution.

My personal approach to child avatars is by all means have one, just don't visit my regions, or appear anywhere on OSGrid Plazas whilst I'm there because I will report it without hesitation. I think most regions in Opensim ban child avatars, partially through the creepiness factor. but also for those of us who have been here a while, the fallout from when the Meta7 grid collapsed in 2011 under somewhat mysterious circumstances, (ostensibly over a copyright claim by a company that came into existence after Meta7 - which just sounds a little weird). Meta7 was notorious for being very lax when it came to sexual ageplay, and that is allegedly why the grid had to close. Afterwards several Opensim grids revised their ToS to underline that they were not a haven for ex Meta7 refugees. Most of us subsequently have decided to play on the extremely safe side and have banned child avatars from our regions.

None of this is to undermine the possible benefits of adults using a child avatar as part of professionally guided therapy in order to work out traumas or other mental health issues stemming from childhood. But there is no need to for anyone to have a child avatar for general use, especially when all are 18+ in RL in any case

This sounds a much more promising proposition than Ruth and Roth 2.0 as the constant changes and incompatibilities between the different versions, plus the various forks is confusing. A great project a bit let down by no really well thought out development plan. Hopefully the creators of clothes and avatar accessories will get on board so that those who would prefer to use truly legit content can look good.

Very nicely done. Thank you!

And much of the Opensim metaverse seems to operate along anarchist lines, each community or standalone, or even individual region making their own rules. Sadly, for the ignorant anarchy will always mean lawlessness and disorder. Most will be familiar with the anarchist symbol of a letter A in a circle = Anarchy is Order. Also, anarchists tend to disagree with one another a lot... So the Opensim metaverse is well anarchist in that aspect!

That old trope about virtual world women being men... I'm sure there are some in Opensim /Second Life who play as a sex other than their RL sex, but as you say, what's the issue? However your basic premise is somewhat false as anyone can use voice morphing technology to change their voice.

I think that's certainly possible... But the pricing is off the scale! Take a look at the pricing structure: https://unity.com/pricing#plans-individualsand-teams

Costs like that put the cost of developing a home-grown Opensim solution in perspective. Personally I felt that the $60k EchoVoice wanted was a big ask of the Opensim community.

Discord is a popular work-around, but is sub-optimal (no spatial sound or lipsync) and there are questions about how secure user's personal data is. Discord is a little vague about whether it keeps recordings of people's conversations etc. according to this article: https://www.makeuseof.com/is-discord-safe/

That pretty much means the same thing as time goes on the number of people with keys will reduce. As it is, Vivox is still pretty restricted unless a paid (very expensive) service is used, as the free version is restricted to 5 avatars.

There are no other options, that's the whole point. Vivox is less and less an option for voice in Opensim. FreeSwitch is basically a non-starter and any of the other work arounds, (Discord, Skype etc) are clunky and sub-optimal. Towards the end of my comment I highlighted a general need for funding for other aspects of Opensim that need support.

I think that part of the problem there is that virtual worlds are so niche. Second Life can afford to pay its developers and also for a Vivox licence. Opensim suffers from a malaise common to opensource/libre projects in that too many mistake the free for free as in free beer rather than freedom. Another common error is to view opensource as hobbyware, which it most certainly isn't. Far from Openlife's view that the opensource community is full of passionate people selflessly giving up their free time to bring us amazing software the truth is that they are passionate, and they do do other work in order to keep a roof over their heads and their families in clothes and food etc, but they'd far rather that people donated money to their projects so that they could give up their day jobs and focus on their projects and bring us much better versions much sooner than is currently the case.

I currently run Ubuntu MATE 22.04 on all my machines, and each time I download and install it on one of my machines I make sure I donate the recommended $2.50 to the project. No one expects those who cannot afford that to pay, but those that can afford to pay that small amount should really do so, in my opinion.

I think Jupiter covered that with his Option one - basically it ain't happening, there are no opensource programmers out there willing to work on this project. So the only viable option is to pay for a project.

I've deleted Harper Held's comments (and blocked them) because their initial comment was intemperate and abusive towards me and made assertions based on their very liberal and incorrect interpretation of what I wrote.

Fort clarity, of course no one should feel obliged to contribute more than they can genuinely afford, and nor should they feel any kind of guilt because they are not in a position to contribute. However, whilst I know some people are really struggling, (and I have been there) most people can afford to contribute small sums, including very small sums, if that is all they can afford.

In Wales we used to have a University of Wales, and the very first university college was funded mainly by ordinary working people contributing their sixpences and shillings. The system of healthcare now used in the UK was based on a healthcare system set up by coal miners in a part of Wales where they each contributed a small sum each week so that they and their families could receive comprehensive health care. It's quite amazing what a lot of people, all contributing a small amount can achieve.

FreeSwitch theoretically works, but is not spatial and there is no lip sync. I know the Moses project settled on it as it was something that they ran themselves and didn't have the security issues that Vivox has. It's supposedly quite difficult to set up, which is hardly ideal.

I don't agree with you about Medicens sans Frontieres, who do vital work, often in very dangerous parts of the world, and who are far from idiots. However, I wish I had your confidence that a solution can and will be found. Whether we like it or not, the primary focus of any viewer is likely to be Second Life, unless of course the Opensim community will cough up the necessaries.

Will you please learn: opensource does not necessarily mean it's free of cost to develop. All projects have at least server costs, and some projects pay their coders. Some opensource applications or operating systems charge for the software, and all opensource means in any real sense is that the code is open for everyone to read, modify, change, make sure there are no nasties hiding in it etc.

EchoVoice is an opensource project, but in order to actually get the project delivered before we all shuttle of our mortal coils professional coders need to be engaged, contracted to do the work, and PAID.There are also other costs, such as running servers etc.

Thank you Safine :) If only more people could engage the bit of grey matter between their ears and look at issues the way you have here. I have in the past written similar cost breakdowns to illustrate the power of numbers. Your kind of thinking is the kind of thinking behind how we fund our healthcare system in the UK, so many people all contributing a small relatively amount.

The breakdown of what the $60,000 will achieve is outlined on the EchoVoice project webpage. It seems a lot, but professional coders cost money and the only certain way to get anything done in good time is by paying people properly and them working as per contract. And that $60k is just initial funding, it would require more to fine tune the project.

Payment is necessary because people have rent to pay, food to buy and kids to support. You seem to misunderstand what opensource is about. The app developed by the various projects might be free of cost to you the end user, but they are not free in the sense that people have to be paid, and servers also cost money. The opensource definition of free is more in the sense of liberty rather than free of cost. There are many paid for opensource projects, amonsgt them Red Hat Linux, Mandriva Linux and many other applications. And as far as Opensim is concerned, IBM was quite heavily involved in the early days, and their developers most certainly don't work for nothing!

Finally, sure, a voice module could be developed through voluntary effort, but that begs the question, why hasn't it already been done? The answer to that is largely because Vivox was the go to for most who wanted to use voice because it is 'free' and relatively easy to set up. Part of the reason why Opensim isn't as developed as it could be is because it's not paid for, and thus far any attempt to set up a scheme to put the project on a more planned footing with a roadmap and proper funding has been stymied by the complainers who begrudge coughing up a small amount of cash.

What is a collider? is it just a massive invisiprim rezzed at a certain height? Forgive my ignorance, but I'd like to know as I too experience quite a few visitors who think it's okay to fly in a no fly region. Most of my region builds are built specifically to be viewed 'first person shooter' style walking and it's a bit galling, to say the least to have visitors think they've truly seen the region when all they have done is rather cursorily flown over it, missing most of what there is to see.

Many of us work tremendously hard to create rich, immersive environments where we have built with a particular way of seeing it in mind. Flying over this kind of creation is to miss what the artist intended the viewer to see.

As the general consensus here suggests, there is no 'ideal' height, but with all my builds I point out that avatars taller than 2 metres in height will not be able to enter my buildings. I also build all my buildings to scale, and make no allowances for the default viewer camera angle, but there is an easy way to get the 'first person shooter' camera angle: enable Advanced settings in the viewer and choose Show Debug Settings. Once there, type in 'CameraOffsetRearView' and there you can set the Z co-ordinates so that the camera view angle is more natural than the default 45 degree camera view.

As for avatar height, the average female in the USA today is just under 5' 4" (1.265m) and with a bit of work the avatar shape can be made slim and pleasing, so I personally don't understand when some claim that taller avatars look 'better'. They might look better against the usually comically oversized furniture, houses and vehicles, but most of those can be resized with the possible exception of buildings as most seem to have been constructed taking the default viewer camera angle into account.

But there again, it all depends on why one is in virtual worlds in the first place. For me, and those like me it is to build virtual environments that are as realistic and true to life as possible, despite sometimes falling foul of the technical limitations imposed by doing such. For others, it's about having a fantasy virtual life, which doesn't necessarily demand that everything conforms to realism. Both are perfectly valid, though I do sometimes wonder about those avatars that have reached considerable age who still have legs that form two-thirds of body height and who are stick thin, and whose arms are about a third too short. Very few of us conform to the classic proportions used in much western art, but I think a simple look in a full-length mirror, or even one's reflection in a shop window would suffice to give an indication of human proportions to serve as a basis for credible avatar creation.

Ultimately it's about having fun, so best not to worry too much about what is the ideal avatar height or shape.