Miss Ophelia's Metaverse Manners: Plurk Etiquette for the Avatar Who Wants to Avoid Stalkers, Backstabbing & More

Iris Ophelia's ongoing take on etiquette & ethics in virtual spaces  

Plurk has been a haven for Second Lifers looking to socialize with each other without being in-world. While other social networks shut SLes out altogether, Plurk openly welcomes Second Lifers (to the point of allowing Second Life to be chosen as a users official location), and often feels more intimate than popular alternatives like Twitter. But all this mingling comes at a cost and, like SL, Plurk can be the catalyst in serious digital drama. This week, I'm addressing the Do's and Don'ts of keeping your Plurk timeline active and drama free.

Someone on my Plurk Timeline is pasting things I say to people I don't like. I don't know who it is and I want to just leave Plurk, but I'd miss my friends. What can I do to stop the backstabbing?

                    - Julia Caesar

There's no easy answer for this common problem. Consider making your profile private and reducing your contacts to only close friends and people whose Second Life identities you're sure of, so you can limit your vulnerability to alts. However, if one of your friends is the one leaking your Plurks to your foe, these steps won't really help you. You may need to take a serious look at which of your words are making their way back to the people you want to keep out of the loop. Ask yourself, if they were the ones saying these things, and you were the one hearing them through the grapevine, would your opinion of those words change? Another important question you may need to consider: Do you really need to be shouting these things out across Ihe internet, or are they best kept to close conversation between even closer friends?

Keep reading for 2 more dramatic dilemmas!

I joined Plurk to make more SL friends. I'm active, I respond to plurks and try to post interesting topics like SL news, stuff I'm working on in PS, funny things I find on the web, etc. It's been months & no one ever responds back to me. I don't get it.

                    - Anonymous

As great as Plurk is for meeting new people, it works best when you approach it like a pyramid scheme. You need a core group of friends first, and they bring their friends and so on until friends of friends see your plurk responses, check your Plurk out, and decide you're an interesting person to follow.

It's also very important not to flood your timeline with lots of unrelated things. Your timeline should be fairly consistent so people know what they're getting when they follow you. If there's too much chaos, and too much content, people will be turned off. Remember that Plurk's appeal to SLers is its intimacy and its sense of community, so don't try to be an aggregator instead!

What do you do if an angry bear is stalking on you on Plurk? I'm afraid that It will come by my house anytime and walls won't stop.

                    - Anonymous

Though this definitely reads like a minor trolling question, it raises an interesting issue. Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, and all social networks often make maintaining privacy difficult, and more often than not we give it up willingly. So what can you do when someone is far too close for comfort? I'm young enough to get advice on protecting my personal information from strangers online. There are a lot of adults online and in SL who never got these talks, so allow me to play the parent for just a moment: ALWAYS limit the personal information you share online, because you may not know everyone you're sharing it with.

As I mentioned in my first answer this week, you may need to consider setting your Plurk to private and pruning your contacts down to only people you are entirely comforable with. You may also want to make a secret account with a different, unrecognizable name that you share only with your close friends to protect your privacy. In the worst cases, remember that stalking is a serious and very real issue, and you should consider contacting the authorities if you ever feel threatened (or animal control, in the case of an angry bear.)

Submit your virtual etiquette dilemmas to ophelia.iris [at] gmail [dot] com, or submit anonymously to the Metaverse Manners Formspring.  Be sure to include a pseudonym (i.e. "WTF from the Welcome Area") so you know when I'm addressing your query!

Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Ann Otoole InSL]

I tried plurk. But there was no way to find anything so I never went back. Social networks that are effectively blank are useless. Nice to know they made a big fashionista drama queen clique but nobody else is invited so it does not exist to anyone but those already in it.

[Lissa Pinion]

I like Plurk altho I'm not as active as some and I've not had the drama (gawd I'm boring I guess lol). For those just starting out, reach out and follow others or request friendship if they look like someone you have something in common with. There can be a great deal of drama but there is much more benefit if you do it right.
For those who hate the drama..don't get sucked in. close the Plurk and let it go by. Drama rarely lasts long unless it's fed

[Gracie Kendal]

Drama, what drama?? I guess I'm boring too...LOL I am very lucky to have friends in all social networking platforms who, if they have drama, don't drag me into it. I love Plurk, Facebook and Twitter... but I use them all wisely and don't get caught up in that stuff. I am very fortunate to have the amazing friends I do in all platforms. Thanks guys!!

[Scarp Godenot]

Putting your plurk timeline on private is a horrible idea. This guarantees you to not get many new friends.

When I see an interesting post and go to their timeline to find out if they are interesting in general, and the timeline is private, I just go away and forget about them......

The best of plurk is information and friend groups responding and joking around. The worst of plurk is all the 'good mornings' and emoticon only plurks.... heh

[Alicia Chenaux]

I love plurk!! I have met some of the most amazing people on there, people I probably would not have gotten to meet in world [because face it. SL is big.] and I just love getting to chat and share with my buddies. Twitter is too dry for me, and I only use Facebook for games. Plurk is where it's at! :)

[Annabell]

I had to leave plurk after one month because i couldn't take it anymore. Plurk basically is:

- "I am sad, I need a hug"
- "I don't feel so well today, I need a hug"
- "Eating yumyum cookies" "I want tooooo"
- "hazhaz [insert random kitty pic here]"
- "[insert stupid plurk emoticon here 5 times]" "[as reply insert totally cool 3rd party emoticon here 7 times]"
- "[insert latest flickr upload here]" "[insert usual flickr reply here like beautiful, adorable, great lighting, awesome pic, great work]"
- "I want a cooky" in variation "I want a hug" every 30 minutes
- "who wants a hug?"
- "[insert here another bunch of random emoticons]"
- "[insert random youtube video here and a stupid emoticon]"
- "sleepy, I go to bed" or "just woke up. helllllooooooo alllll"
- "I need more Coffee"

And now all again in endless variations and combinations.

[Wondering]

LOL! Annabell is so right. I was on plurk in the beginning before it mainly became what Ann OToole pointed out. I only post the stuff I post on my blog now there as I'm not interested in people who both steal from their employers by sitting on plurk all day and those who revel in the plurk drama.

[Cajsa Lilliehook]

I don't recommend making plurk private unless you have a stalker. Keeping your plurk public reminds you to think about what you write and to avoid writing anything you would be ashamed to be public.

[Franklin Lubitsch]

While the inane Plurks are annoying, the good conversations that are possible in the medium make it very worthwhile. As with anything, you have to use it judiciously, and that includes choosing who you interact with wisely. But, once that's done, Plurk becomes the best use of social media around, because of its unique format. Conversations are so much easier to manage and follow there. I'll take Plurk over the others any day.

['Kota Buck]

Cajsa's comment pretty much sums up my philosophy (this is so frequently the case whenever Cajsa comments on something <3) with plurk and any other online forum. I'm very open and forthright (possibly to a fault) but as casual as the plurk atmosphere can seem it's important to never lose sight of the fact that you are putting it in writing, regardless of the lol or (cozy) you appended.