HOME / COMMON TERMS

afk Away from keyboard. If someone types this, you can expect them to be unresponsive for a while.
Alpha Alpha channels / alpha textures - referring to transparency in images. Only 32bit tga (targa) format files can support transparent areas and be uploaded into Second Life.
Alt Alternate account.
AR or Abuse Report If someone has done something that violates the Community Standards, the Terms of Service, or that you feel was abusive - you can file an Abuse Report from your Help Menu. The Abuse Team will then look into it for you, and may take action against the offender, including suspension from Second Life.
Av Short for avatar, your in-world representation. A custom Av would be a combination of body shape, clothing, skin and attachments that can be applied all at once to change how your avatar looks. Be sure to have a backup of your normal avatar before applying a custom one.
brb Be right back. A shortcut to let people know you'll be away for a moment.
Charter Charter members are account holders who have been with Second Life since the early days and are marked as such in their profile.

Group charters are set by group officers to provide a description of the group, what it stands for and any other useful information.
Debug Menu A menu that is hidden by default but includes some useful advanced commands. It can be toggled on and off by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Shift D. You can also read more here.
Estate An Estate is a collection of one or more regions, and has specific tools available to help landowners manage multiple regions more easily.
Gesture A combination of animation, pose, text and sound that can be triggered by shortcuts. Read more here.
HI or Help Island The place most new Residents reach having passed through OI (Orientation Island). Mentors often help out new Residents on Help Island.
IM Instant Message.
Liaisons Liaisons are the Linden staff who spend their time predominantly in-world, helping Residents and ensuring that the grids run smoothly.
Help Request The team of Resident volunteers who provide support to other Residents via the Help Request command in the Help Menu.
LM Landmark - an in-world bookmark to a specific place, stored in the Landmarks folder inside your Inventory.
lol Laughs out loud.
LSL Linden Scripting Language.
Machinima Usually refers to the making of animated movies using game engines and virtual worlds. Our own Second Life Movies, which employ real people acting through their avatars, and created using the inbuilt movie tools - are related to the machinima trend.
OI Orientation Island - the first place most new Residents see when they enter Second Life. Teaches the basics of Second Life.
omg Oh my god!
Pie menu The round context menu accessed by right-clicking on things in-world (command-clicking on Macs).
   
Prim The basic building blocks in Second Life. A Prim (Primitive), is a cube or sphere or other shape that you create using the build tools, and which are combined together by linking to make much of what you see in Second Life - houses, vehicles, furniture and so on. The number of prims you can use will depend on the amount of land you own in a region - simply put, more land equals more prims.
Private Island Along with buying land on the mainland, Residents can also purchase a Private Island, an entire region that is usually separate from the mainland and offers far greater control over access and landscaping.
Quicktime The video streaming technology that Second Life uses when you watch streaming video content in-world. You must have Quicktime installed for this to work.
Region The whole of the Second Life world is divided into square 256m by 256m areas called Regions. If you look on your Map, you will clearly see these laid out across the grid, each has a unique name and is rated Mature or PG.
Relog To log out of Second Life, then log back in again.
Rez / Rezzed To Rez something usually means to pull it from your Inventory onto the ground so that it appears before you. If something is 'slow to rez' then it is slow to appear or slow to load fully. When you teleport for example, you will see buildings popping into view, textures loading and avatars appearing around you - all of this can be referred to as rezzing.
Sandbox Both main and teen grids have sandbox areas, land that is available for anyone to build on. Sandboxes are cleared automatically, twice per day. Selling, gambling, and combat are not permitted in most sandboxes (there are combat sandboxes for weapons development). The signs should make it clear what is and is not allowed.
Sim Sim or simulator - often used by Residents to mean Region. To be entirely accurate, we have servers, that run one or more simulations of regions. Therefore for most purposes, region is actually the correct word to use.
Skin In Second Life, "skin" tends to refer to a custom skin - a texture you can apply to your avatar to make it look more realistic. Custom skins tend to have muscle tone, skin shading and can include tattoos and makeup.
Stipend An allowance of Linden Dollars paid out weekly to eligible Residents. Basic accounts created before May 29, 2006 must log in at least once to qualify for that week's payout. Basic accounts created after May 29, 2006 won't receive a stipend. For Premium accounts, a stipend's paid regardless of whether or not you've logged in.
TG Teen grid, for 13-17 year olds.
TH / Telehub Telehub, a designated landing spot on private islands - mainland telehubs have became Infohubs since point to point teleportation was introduced.
Town Hall The Town Hall events are held regularly by Linden Lab to discuss a wide range of Second Life topics with Residents more directly than the forum announcements allow.
TP Teleport. 'Can I have a tp please', meaning, can you send me a teleport invite through my profile page.
Traffic/Dwell Traffic is a way of tracking the most popular locations in Second Life. Landowners can earn Traffic (formerly known as dwell) for being one of the most popular locations in Second Life and may show up in the "Popular Places" tab in the Search.
rofl Rolls on Floor Laughing.
Void regions / sims Refers to landless areas such as water filled regions owned by Governor Linden, that are held to provide areas for flight and sailing.
WA or Welcome Area On each grid there is a welcome area, where new Residents often get their first real taste of Second Life.