Pamus, when I was RP'ing in another context where SL heights were enforced, I made myself a 5'3 shape - very convenient when I land somewhere with doorframes that endanger my 6'8 Antiquity skull.
Excellent idea!
I enjoy cooking the fancier foods, and save some for decoration, and for hosting/event buffet tables (please folks, eat the foods) or for sale (please folks, eat the foods) if I know someone wants it.
And a lovely job you do of those buffet tables, Una! I've been know to wear a dress with large pockets so that I can hide all the delicacies I'm saving for later 
I came to SL armed with floor & elevation plans for some of my favourite buildings. I knew it would be difficult developing my building skills but what I hadn't counted on is described in Getting Better Camera Placement in the SL Viewer:
Camera placement is important. In the videogame industry this is common wisdom. Game developers spent decades experimenting, improving and pretty much perfecting the art of camera placement in 3D videogames.
Unfortunately, the SL camera does not take advantage of any of that experience. As a result, the camera sits way over your avatar’s head, angled down. Not very immersive or engaging. More like you’re watching a character from afar rather than interacting with the world through them.
This has also affected how we build. It’s common knowledge that avatars are generally oversized, often close to 7 or 8′ tall, some pushing almost 9′. And yet, the environments we build and explore are larger still, often fully double scale compared to real life. 5m high ceilings instead of the more typical 2.59, 20x20m rooms instead of 10x10m or 5x5m rooms. We need to build so much larger to compensate for SL’s camera.
Some will point out that you need to compensate for any third person view. This is correct, however with a proper 3rd person view you’d only really be affected by a room as small as about 2x3m, like a bathroom or walk in closet. You’d easily be able to navigate a 5x5m apartment with a typical 2.59m high ceiling.
Common building ratios at the time were 1:2 which took care of the camera problem. Unfortunately it just wasn't that simple (nothing ever is) as avatar size ratios were something like 1:1.5 so even the giant people looked like children when surrounded by the huge buildings.
What to do as a builder?
I figured I had a choice between being perfectly accurate in my building proportions or creating builds that were actually functional. For some reason I'm really claustrophobic in small SL rooms so I will choose functionality over accuracy every time. No use me building something that I don't enjoy spending time in.
When I eventually found out about improving camera placement and the push to a 1:1 ratio I truly wished that I could adopt it. If I was working on grand palaces like Versailles I definitely would. My problem remains that I work on smaller structures like The Boudoir of The Queen's Hamlet. Even with the Petit Trianon the average room size is relatively small so the 1:1 ratio doesn't work for me 
I basically cheat the proportions of all of these builds and try to make both the look & feel as best as I can get them. Horizontally I tend to go with a 1:2 ratio and vertically I go with a 1:1.5 ratio for the room interiors. This allows most of my builds to feel roomy but not oversized for an avatar. It also means that the horizontal to vertical proportions are off and the buildings will look squat unless I cheat the vertical exterior proportions to bring them closer together.
It's a lot of finagling, building the way I do, but I haven't found a better method so I'm most interested in the ideas from others. There's always room for improvement!
I am not sure what you mean by "the height of a child". Being 2m both in SL and RL is tall for anyone, could you perhaps elaborate? I have found in my many years, that the whole height issue seems to arise from the odd camera angle that is put as default in all viewers (though of course I'm not as experienced as most of the contributors to this thread ^^;;). After tweaking however, I've since found it really easy to keep to around 1m80 for my IC character and about 1m90 for my OOC looks...
I've continually fascinated with RL:SL size/building ratios. When I started building in SL it was the bane of my existence and though I've developed my own style over the years I would love to discuss this with other SL builders especially those of us here that are attempting to re-create historical builds. Please join the conversation over at RL:SL Size Ratios - What are Your Building Methods?
I've continually fascinated with RL:SL size/building ratios. When I started building in SL it was the bane of my existence and though I've developed my own style over the years I would love to discuss this with other SL builders especially those of us here that are attempting to re-create historical builds.
Please share your thoughts & experiences here
An excellent resource for using 1:1 ratios can be found at The Digital Pasture which is written my Penny Patton whom I like to think of as the patron saint of smaller scale building. Among other things, she talks about camera settings, Reducing the Cost of Land by Scaling Down and A Matter of Scale.
Just a bit of clarification; when I'm speaking of "new" people I mean new to the RP group no matter what their SL age. We've never put SL age restrictions on the Duché though I actually did consider it at one point when we were being bombarded by griefers. As fast as we could ban them, they'd create another alt and be right back. It would have slowed down the griefer cycle a bit but at the cost of blameless newbies. I'm glad we left our estates unrestricted but I do have sympathy for other managers that need to implement it.
On another note; it's been mentioned before but worth repeating that there is a weekly coffee hour on Rocca Sorrentina (usually Saturday @ 11am SLT) which is an excellent example of people from different groups visiting each other.
Which brings me to another thought. How do we go about promoting Historic Estates? Is it through advertising if so where? Is it through Blogs, do people who play a visual game read Blogs.
For a start Historical Estates can be promoted through this site (LHVW) by posting events, blogs etc. I promote LHVW as a whole from Facebook, Twitter, and various inworld groups. Because of rl family committments, I had to let this site slide the last year or so but I'm back now barring any other family disasters (knock on wood).
If you are interested in building your own blog or website and think you have what it takes to maintain it I would encourage you to go for it (again you can cross-link your content here). The new St. Petersburg site is a lovely example.
In my experience, using social media doesn't suddenly result in a flood of interest. It's more of a gradual way to build an audience. What does flood your estate is being listed in the SL Destination Guide which really is a curse. Tourists everywhere. What you want to achieve is the right kind of traffic and that's a very slow process.
PS: I think the ways of how to rp, in terms of light, para, etc. might be another topic.
I would be very interested in that discussion. If someone wouldn't mind starting it up I would be glad to chime in
Many thanks to Louis for starting a new discussion: Historical RP/Sim : How to get new people and retain existing
Let's hope we can solve the problems of the world over there 
