Some Second Life Terms You Should Know
AFK: Abbreviation for Away From Keyboard. You set this message by typing afk when you are leaving your computer. AFK indicates that you are online but not at your computer at the moment. It is a good idea to set this during real life phone calls or short breaks. You don’t want people to come up to you and start chatting, only to become frustrated when they get no reply. They will think you are rude.
If your computer senses no action from you, are after a certain amount of time, your avatar will automatically slump its shoulders, droop its head down, and away text will appear over its head near your name. If you are away for too long, you will be automatically logged out of Second Life.
Animation: These are additional avatar movements that have been created in 3D party software like Poser or qmanator and imported into SL. Animations exist for just about every activity you can imagine. There are lots of free animations. You can also purchase some or even make your own.
Animation Override (AO): Scripted objects with animations which override the default set of animations that come with your avatar. The most common one is a walk AO that is placed in shoes. But, there are lots of different kinds (e.g., a bowling ball that will allow you to have a proper throwing motion, a surfboard or wind sail that give you the proper movements, pairs of ice skates etc.).
Attachment: Objects that can be attached to your avatar, such asgood hair, glasses, jewelry, hats, prim skirts, mops, brooms, musical instruments, etc. Attachments can also have AOs in them.
Avatar: Your representative in a virtual world environment. Also referred to as av, avi, or avie for short. Avatars can come in any shape, size, or description (e.g., human, mix of human and animal, your favorite cartoon, dragons, elves, movie stars, etc.). Always remember, no matter what an avatar looks like, behind every avatar is a real person. Treat them all with respect.
Ban: When someone has been forbidden entry into an area. This is a tool that landowners have to block entry of anyone who breaks the sims rules or SL’s big 6 (a griefer). If someone causes consistent problems, or a very large problem, they could be banned from Second Life altogether,
Build: Something that you or someone else has made out of prims.
Camping: A job that requires you to stay in one place either sitting, dancing on a dance pad, cleaning floors, walls and windows, or playing an instrument outside a shop. These jobs pay a few lindens for 10 or 15 minutes. This is an easy way for people to get a few dollars to play with, and it helps draw people to their sim. Green dots on the map will draw others to their location. You can use the time to organize your inventory or meet new people.
Client: This is the Second Life software that you download to your computer.
Copy: A permissions setting that allows the owner of an object to make copies of it. If something is no copy, be sure to keep and eye on it if you take it out of inventory. If you forget to pick take it back in when you leave it will be gone forever.
Covenant: The set of rules or code of conduct for a particular sim. Read them when they are presented to you so you know the rules. Rules are especially important in role play areas.
Damage: This is a special rating for combat sims where SL’s death and damage rules apply. They will be marked as such, and you should be aware that your avatar can be killed. What does that mean? It means that at that moment of the mortal strike your avatar will die, a heart symbol will appear in your menu ba,r and you will be sent to your Home. Unlike RL, you will be fine. No permanent damage is done.
First Life: Is of course your Real Life (RL). Most often used in “Gotta run, RL calls.”
Flexiprim: A prim that has had a setting applied that will allow it to become flexible. Often seen on avatars when used on attachments like hair, skirts, and tails that move in relation to their movement. But anything that appears to move in the winds like trees, grasses, flags, etc. have been Flexified.
Furry: Also known as Furries. They are animal avatars that usually walk upright. There are residential sims that are furry all the time, some of which role play.
Gesture: Your avatar will come with many gestures. Gestures are usually a combination of animations and sounds that are activated when a combination of keys are pressed. Like clapping, smiling at the same time, or “Yippie,” where you jump kick up your feet, smile, and say it all at the same time. You can find lots of free gestures as well as gestures for sale, or you can make or modify your own.
Gor: A very active role play community based on the novels of John Norman where master and slave is the way of life. The people that live there are known as Gorean. You should be sure to read the notecards at the entrance of their cities before entering.
Grid: The server network for a virtual world which contains the sims you would like to visit. When the grid is down you can’t log in because those servers are down. The SL grid is down most often for maintenance and updates. The update progress can be tracked via postings on SL’s website until the grid is up again.
Help Island: Once you leave Orientation Island, most avatars move to Help Island. People are there (mentors) who can answer your questions, and some hand out free hair coupons and landmarks to noobie friendly places. There is a freebie store for getting clothes, vehicles and your first set of wings. And training is available for learning to build things. Every avatar is supplied with a landmark to Help Island in their inventory folder.
Home: Your home can be set on your own land, at an info hub on the mainland, and on any sim that has allowed group members to set it as home. You can choose to make your start up location your home, you can teleport home at anytime from the World menu options, or you will be sent home if killed.
HUD or Heads-up Display: This attachment often has controls for a device that you are using. Only you would see these controls. An example would be ice skates that contain lots of options, besides forward or backward, to choose from such as different jumps or spins and special tricks. Weapons with lots of options and travel HUDs that teleport you to different places are a few more examples.
IM or Instant Message: You can send and instant message to anyone at any point in time in a number of ways. If the person is near, you can right click on them and choose IM from the pie menu. You can also use your contacts list to choose someone to IM or use the Search button and People tab. If the person is not logged on at the time you send the IM, the message will be stored on the server until the next time the person logs on.
Inventory: A number of preset folders are created when your avatar is created. Inventory is stored in this folder and is always available to you while you are in-world. It is advisable that you make new folders and subfolders as you start accumulating items. Your inventory will grow incredibly fast and before you know it, you will not be able to find the things you are looking for unless you have been diligent with filing items in their proper folders. It is so important, there are SL classes available about Inventory control.
In-world: When you are logged into SL or attending events going on inside SL. such as a horse show, surfing contest, dance, or a live concert.
Island: This is a sim not connected to the mainland and is surrounded by water. A group of connected islands is called an archipelago (i.g., the New Media Consortium or IBM group of islands).
Lag: A noticeable decrease in your SL client performance. The effect can be seen in text chat delays, an avatar’s very slow response to your keyboard, walking or flying as though moving through molasses, or walking off into oblivion among others. This is sometimes caused by your network connection or traffic, the SL servers being overloaded, your computer’s memory limit, graphics card or hard drive, or a combination of both.
Landmark: Is a TP shortcut to a specific location. You can create your own landmarks to your favorite places from the World menu, create landmark here. You can give or be given landmarks by others, by dragging a landmark from inventory to a person or their profile. Landmarks can also be included in notecards or found in a folder with items you have purchased. Most landmarks will appear in your default landmarks folder unless they are embedded in a notecard or purchased folder.
Library: In addition to your Inventory folder, you will find a Library folder. This folder contains items supplied by Linden Labs. These items cannot be deleted. Everyone in SL has this folder.
Lindens or L$: The currency used in-world to purchase things, or used as payment for work or camping. The exchange rate is about 266 Lindens for every US dollar. Lindens can be exchanged for dollars at anytime.
Lindens can also be referred to Linden Labs the makers of SL in general. Or the company’s liaison avatars that appear in-world some of whom hold office hours. (e.g., Governor Linden, Torley Linden, Pathfinder, Adam and Philip Linden and so on).
LSL or Linden Scripting Language: This scripting language makes the objects in SL operate. Planes fly, Cars and textures move, ice cream cones get eaten, guns shoot bullets and particles both large and small.
No-Fly: Is an area of a sim or complete sim where flying is disabled. No-fly is seen a lot in historical or role play sims. You can fly though these areas, but as soon as you land, you will not be able to fly again until you leave the no-fly area. You can teleport out of no-fly areas if needed.
Newbie, Noobie, Noob: Anyone who has not been in SL for long and is not familiar with the tools, options, and rules. Most longtime residents of SL are very generous and helpful to noobs, although there are a few people out there who will try to take advantage of a newbie.
Notecard: A notecard (NC) is a very useful SL text document. They are used most often for presenting information about the sim being visited, for instructions on how to use an object, and some scripted objects use notecards. You can also mail them like letters rather than an IM and include landmarks and photos. New notecards will appear in your Notecards inventory folder.
Machinima: A realtime movie made in a 3D environment or game using that particular environment’s tools for creating the movie. A combination of machine cinema or machine animation.
Mod or Modifiable: The setting chosen by the creator of the object that determines whether or not you will be allowed to modify the object.
Mouselook: A view seen through the avatar’s eyes rather than the back of it’s head. Often this view is used for weapons or driving vehicles. The view is controlled by the user’s mouse. Hit the M key to enter and the M key again to exit. Or hit the esc. button twice to return your camera to its default position.
Object: Anything exists or is built with prims in the virtual world.
OI or Orientation Island: This is the island that new avatars land to learn the basic skills needed to navigate and communicate in SL.
Perms or Permissions: Perms refer to the permission settings of an object or a Region/Estate permission settings.
PG: A region rating that bans mature behavior.
Pie Menu: A menu you see when you right-click on something or someone in SL. It is a round, contextual menu that is divided into pie shaped wedges with different options depending on what you clicked.
Prim or Primitive: One of a number of basic shapes used to build everything in SL. All land has a limited number of prims available to use on it. Prims can be used for buildings, or hair, and clothes.
Prim attachments: A prim that has been design to attach to an avatar (e.g., a skirt, hat, hair, glasses, etc.
Prim limit: The number of prims allowable in a region or parcel or linked together in a group of objects.
Privs or Privileges: A group combined options setting applied to an object that can restrict the use of that object (e.g., Modify, Copy, or Transfer).
Push: Most often a scripted weapon that is strong enough to move an avatar to another location. Depending on the device and script a push can put the avatar very far away from its original position.
Rez: What you do when you bring an object into SL.
Region: An area of land in SL, which is also known as sim or simulator. It is named (e.g., University of Delaware), and its settings are controlled in the Region/Estate menu option.
Sandbox: Sandboxes are places for public building and found through out SL. Most are open to anyone, and usually rated as safe, so there should be no selling, shooting, gambling, and other M rated behavior. You can find a sandbox by using the search menu and typing sandbox. Some are better than others.
Sim or Simulator: A 256 square meter block that can be divided into various sized shapes called parcels also known as regions.
Slider clothing: Clothing that is created using the Appearances settings and optional textures.
SLURL: Abbrevation for Second Life URL. Any Location in SL can be copied from the SL Map into a URL location that can be entered into most web browsers. These web page SLURLs, then become active links that allow avatars to locate and teleport to that location in SL.
Telehub or Hub: A specific area set by the sim owner as the official avatar arrival area.
Themed Community: Usually an entire sim based on a theme. Sometimes these are role play sims, sometimes the building designs are based on a theme, like a country, city, or a time period. (e.g., medieval, Victorian, Old West, Roman, Paris at the turn of the century).
TP or Teleport: A way of moving from one location to another in SL. Avatars can teleport in various ways including, links on the map, saved landmarks, from an offer from another avatar, SLURLs on a web page, or from a scripted device.
Teleporter: A teleporter is an object that has various locations scripted into it. It will move (teleport) an avatar from one scripted location to another when selected.
Temp or Temporary: When an object has this setting applied to it, it will disappear after a designated amount of time once it has been rezed.
Texture: Textures are images that have been imported into SL and applied to prims or avatars. There are lots of textures freely available all over Second Life or you can buy some that other creators have made. You may choose to create your own textures in your favorite graphics program and upload them. There is a charge for doing so, the cost is 10.00 Linden per texture.
Trans or Transfer: A setting on an object that allows it to be transfered from one avatar to another.
WEASDC: Keyboard keys used in gaming to move around in the environment. You can use these keys on your desktop machine, but they play a much more important role when using a laptop.
Welcome area, InfoHub: Basically welcome areas for new residents. There are lots of information placards, notecard dispencers, freebies, and SL volunteers hanging around to help and answer newcomer’s questions.