Second Life Glossary
alt - alternative account. When a resident holds more than one Second Life membership account. All that aren’t the main account are alternative accounts.
avatar - a character in Second Life, usually referred to as a person or a resident. A new resident is a newbie.
cam - the act of zooming and panning the viewer’s camera
chat - words typed in chat are visible to all people within 20 meters of the speaker. Optionally, the speaker may shout and the words will heard all the way across the sim in which the speaker is located.
grid - the basic structure underneath all of the Second Life world. The grid is subdivided into thousands of regions simulating physical surface geography. Linden Lab provides the grid and residents build the superstructure and surface infrastructure. Sometimes the grid goes down temporarily for maintenance.
griefer - an avatar acting as a vandal or attacker who is harassing other Second Life residents by using offensive language, bumping, generating trash objects to leave on land, or other activities that intentionally disrupt another resident’s in-world experience. Remember, there is no real danger in SL, just inconvenience caused by the griefer. Griefing attacks should be reported to Linden Lab as they violate the terms of service (TOS). Click any person or object and go to the third layer down in the pie menu to file an AR (abuse report).
Help Island - A tutorial area in Second Life. Another is Orientation Island. Help Island (HI) allows activities to be selected and is not mandatory.
Home - your place to return to if you become disoriented while traveling in SL. A 'home' location is set via the World tab at the top of the SL viewer screen or via the Map. The shortcut to home from anywhere is CTRL+SHIFT+H.
HUD - heads-up display, visual display of preset options as part of the user interface (UI)
In-world - being inside or online in a virtual world
Instant message, IM - a private one-to-one message sent to a specific person who need not be at your current location.
IRL - in real life.
Landmark, LM - a shortcut address that enables a Second Life resident to teleport to another place, it has the required coordinates of any location in SL. LMs are equivalent to web browser 'bookmarks.'
Linden - an employee of Linden Lab, the company that produces Second Life. The entire LL staff takes the name Linden as a last name for their avatars.
Linden Lab, LL - common name for Linden Research Inc., the company that owns, controls and hosts Second Life.
Lindens, Linden dollars, L$ - SL money that has a fluctuating exchange rate like any other currency. The virtual currency can be traded for US$ or US$ can be used to buy L$.
LSL - Linden Scripting Language used to program objects in SL.
Newbie, Noob - new resident of Second Life.
Orientation Island - the tutorial area where all new Second Life users start out. Unlike Help Island, Orientation Island (OI) is directed and mandatory.
Prims, Primitives - the raw 3D objects from which everything in SL is constructed. A basic building and creation material. Linden lab provides these so anyone can build. Every object, clothes, houses, furniture, cars, plants, etc. are created from prims by the people who use SL. All things are created from these basic building blocks.
Real Life, RL - The natural world where we live when not visiting Second Life.
Region - also called a sim - or a simulation, as in a virtual region of the Second Life world that simulates a physical environment. The SL grid is subdivided into thousands of regions.
Resident - an avatar or character in Second Life. A new resident is a newbie.
Rez, Rezz - to create or spawn an object in the Second Life world. Also used to refer to the sharpening of the image seen on the computer monitor screen.
Second Life, SL - the 3-D virtual world published and maintained on the Internet by Linden Research Inc. (a.k.a. Linden Lab) of San Francisco. It is built entirely by its residents.
Second Life Time, SLT - the same as Pacific Time in California because Linden Lab is there. SLT is the same as PST or PDT depending on the time of year in RL.
Shout - words typed in chat that are visible to all people across an entire sim.
SLURL - short for Second Life URL, a web address for a place on the virtual world Second Life. URL is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, the address of a page on the Internet.
Teleport, TP - a main method of moving around from place to place in SL. It is an instantaneous transport from one set of coordinates to another. Teleporting is not the same as flying.
Terms Of Service, TOS, Community Standards, CS - the standards for behavior of residents or the laws of Second Life.
TSL, Teen Second Life - the teen grid (TG) for persons 13-17 years of age. The larger main adult Second Life grid is for persons 18 years and older.
Voice - used for talking instead of traditionally typing.
Welcome Area - a designated location in Second Life new users (newbies) are sent after passing through Orientation Island.
Windlight - sky, water and atmospheric lighting effects in Second Life.
