Recently, Reuters ran an article about what sort of avatars adults want in Second Life. It was based on a poll done by Zogby for the U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. It found that 14.7% of the respondents would dramatically alter their avatars appearance from their real appearance.

This raised lots of interesting comments from the Second Life educators list. One question was about what constitutes a dramatic alteration of an avatars appearance. Presumably this would include presenting as a robot or a furry. Does it include presenting as a different gender, a different age, a different race or a different level of physical ability?

As I noted in my email, my primary avatar is constructed to look as similar to me as possible, without me spending a lot of time or money tweaking my avatar. As alternative OpenSim grids become more common, I’m spending more time trying to get my avatar on these other grids to look essentially the same as they do on the Second Life main grid.