[MOVIES] Come and watch SL trailers! Wheee!

languishing in mellifluous turgidity i see...

LOL.

Yes, and I wasn't even credited *sniff*. Albeit I just crouched under your elbow

I stand corrected on the grammar, Introvert; I'm actually one of the worst writers to ask about many exact particulars of the Queen's English beyond What Sounds Right.

Far as the judging, as the ancillary journalist Linden who helped LL organize/host the trailer contest, I can only recommend that contestants who aren't happy with the democratic process for selecting the winner e-mail [email]trailers@lindenlab.com[/email] to make their discontent known directly. I do however want to make three points, only speaking for myself:

- The rules don't specifically state that LL will be judging. Rather, that:

"Trailers will be judged on these categories: 1. Originality.../2. Visual quality.../3. Editing quality... /4. Trailer must feature these essential elements: Resident-made content, Residents depicted building, and socializing"-- and indeed, that is the very wording specified in the trailers' premiere/judging debut here: "We strongly suggest Residents consider Originality, Visual quality, Editing quality, Humor and/or coolness factor, and the highlighting of Resident-made content, building, and socializing in their voting decision." Moreover, the script review and development process up to deadline was where some LL staff did in fact have input on these qualities.

- It's an interesting theory that any open vote in a society with 50,000+ members can be decided by the mere "popularity" of one Resident or a group of Residents. In my experience (as with the last two New World Notes Expos), popularity per se only gets one so far, and in the end, quality does prevail. The old "Wisdom of Crowds" phenomenon, something myself and many LL staffers subscribe to. Of course, the smaller the vote sample, the more popularity does have a chance of effecting the outcome. I'm working with LL as much as possible to Rock The Vote promotion-wise, and encourage everyone reading this to get every Resident you know to vote on their favorite trailers as well. That's really the best way to insure a crowd's wisdom.

- Again in my experience, Second Life Residents as an aggregate have as much creativity, skill, and most key, knowledge of SL culture as Linden Lab, if not more. That's my own hypothesis, however-- it'll be interesting to see if it bears out in the vote. And the reaction to it.

If all that stuff that Introvert was talking is the queens english she can keep it :/

Great videos.. I enjoyed em all!!

I'm not going to get into my thoughts about how this contest should or should not be judged here. Though I feel it is unfortunate that the voting process has been plagued with faulty scripting, I do want to say that I'm glad the new machine hides the votes.

I've been in Second Life for about 2 whole months now, and a good amount of that time I've had my head down filming my trailer. I don't have a lot of friends yet, and those I do have could verify that I told them to choose their favorite film, not just vote for me because they knew me. I have not 'campaigned' at all.

I remain firm in this conviction, that ALL residents who go to vote, should vote for the film that they think represents the best trailer for Second Life.

As for the grammatical error, if that is indeed poor grammar, then it snuck by a whole bunch of pretty smart folks who viewed all three of my rough cuts. I think this is probably one of those cases where the rule book says it is wrong, but common usage says that it is accepted. If the video wins, and the Lindens prefer it to be changed, it would only take a few minutes to change and re-render, and I'm happy to do it.

I want to offer thanks to everyone who have supported myself and the other filmmakers with kind words, assistance, and patience as they work through the voting issues.

- Javier

It's a damned fine film, Javier. Almost makes me jealous.

As for the technical grammar "mistake," I worked in an ESL Department for a year and a half and have some pretty high English scores, so I feel I can speak to this one.


Pulling from the dictionary definition:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=were

were - Second person singular and plural and first and third person plural past indicative of be.


http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=was

was - First and third person singular past indicative of be.



It's technically correct either way, and in common use (which is the point of language), what's there is absolutely fine.

I could go into detail, but think of it this way. Assuming you use "world" as a singular object, we get "you were a world" versus "that was a world." It also gets into whether or not "world" is quantifiable, but ehh... that's a bit much for something so minor.

First, regarding the grammar thing (and let's get this out of the way... lol), I think Confuscius once stated, "The whole purpose of language is to be understood." Javier's film is a fine production-- especially from one who has been on Second Life only 2 months-- and I think the whole grammar things has been makin' a durn mountain outta a flippin' molehill. I mean, does anyone really believe people are going go say, "OH! That's bad grammar! I'm sure not going to use Second Life!" chee...

That said, Hamlet, I'm gonna dive right into your statement re the voting thing. I do agree that if anyone isn't happy about the voting procedure, they could write to the trailers email. Like they're going to risk LLs ill will should your company turn around yet again and decide to judge it after all.

However, me, I'm onea them "plow ahead guys" and I'm going to tackle some statements you made if you don't mind.

etc etc

Hamlet, from my understanding the participants in the project were TOLD by LL that this would be judged by LL in meetings held before the projects even started. Further, the statement above infers that the judging WILL be done by Linden Labs... again if we want to get down to grammar... the rules stated the competition would be ***JUDGED***... not voted upon by residents. The word 'JUDGED' means by one or more judges, not random voting by whatever resident happen to decide it's worth his/her time (and apparently, that was relatively few).

In addition, there was nothing that I am aware of that was near the voting booths-- no sign, no notecard giver-- that told residents the criteria they were supposed to vote by. Here's how it went down: the average user would come by, view the videos (if even that), click their vote, leave. Even if there were a notecard giver, would that assure the residents would READ it... and then follow its directions? SL users are notorious for not reading rules and for ignoring notecards. Every time we hold a sporting competition, the biggest problem we have is gonzos that try to play the game without reading the rules-- wasting everyone else's time when they can't figure out how to shoot a simple bow and arrow.

Sorry, the claim that judged voting was never specifically stated by LL doesn't hold water. The simple fact is LL changed the rules after everyone had already put in their hard work.

This is not the first time this has happened in a LL project I've been involved in. You folks recently held an avatar contest in which the rules stated clearly, "No robot avatars. We will be holding a separate competition for robot avatars at a later date". And what happens? There are robot avatars ALL OVER THE PLACE. Now I didn't complain, because you folks extended the entry deadline of the competition, which is how I was able to enter at all. But the explanation I was given, namely, "Oh, we're allowing humanoid robots in this one, just not pure robots" also didn't hold water. It skewed the competition and messed up the voting when those who made fascinating, creative standard avatars suddenly found themselves competing against ultra-high-tech, mega-scripted avs that the initial rules stated should have been presented in a catagory all their own. If there's one thing that people hate, Linden Lab, it's wishy-washy.



Is LL script review and input, "judging"?



A society of 50,000+ members? I didn't see 50,000 votes come through those voting machines. I didn't see 50,000 people attending those videos. Shoot, I don't see anywhere near 50,000 people even using SL. The reality is that tens of thousands of people have registered on SL and then remain registered because SL never clears out its registration banks. They log on once and then either never come back, or don't use SL on a regular basis. (Myself, I'd like to see regular demographic figures on how many unique individuals-- not alts-- actually used SL during the previous 60 day period, and a chart on day/time population figures. Surely such would help in merchanting/event planning).

At any one time there are only about 2,500 people online-- if even that. A large number of those people spend the majority of their time at their favorite club and don't really bother with anything else. The result: if there were even 300 votes total at the video event-- I would be surprised. The first day, the prime period of voting when votes were being counted, the most the voting machine ever showed for any one entry was (if I remember right) 37 votes. There were five entries; do the math. Nowhere near 50,000. And it is very possible for an individual or group to influence a small-sample vote.

I agree 100% that whoever votes should vote for the one they truly think is best. When we made our announcement to Elf Clan, we told folks to come and see all the videos and vote for their favorite. We did tell those who'd had a part in making our video the name of which one was the one in which they'd participated (because many had never seen the video and wouldn't know), but beyond that, it was their choice.

First, I'm NOT saying that Javier got his votes through popularity. Durn nice video, that. I still prefer Total's--and hope it's not because of bias because I truly think Total's represents the very heart of SL-- but Javier did a very nice job. But I'm not stupid enough to believe that everyone refused by sheer ethics to call in their friends. Do you honestly think no one hollared at all their friends/group members/clubs and said, "Hey! Come vote for ME!" Of course they did! To imagine otherwise would be a little naive regarding human nature. And there's nothing wrong with that. We all want to support our friends and have friends support us. Even in RL people constantly try to influence the votes of others. But it doesn't make for professional JUDGING. It has nothing to do with quality of production or validity to the SL experience.

That voting move turned the whole thing into a basic popularity contest, pure and simple.



I remember an old quote: "The majority is usually wrong." While this tongue-in-cheek statement may bring a chuckle or two in its witty humor, it often holds true. The majority are easily influenced by fads. The majority often do not know the facts. Very few people seem have what is referred to as "common sense"-- the rest just go by whatever they want to do at the time and don't even pause to think about consequenses (and doesn't that describe the world in general?). So the concept of "Wisdom of the Crowds" is really an oxymoron. Every world despot that has ever ruled knows the "crowds" are easily swayed by charisma and propaganda. So LL might want to rethink this philosophy. There is a place where the common opinion is valuable and valid-- and there are places where it is not.

Regardless of these concepts however, valid or no-- when a competition states that it will be JUDGED--- then perhaps judging is what should take place rather than switching last minute to a voting system.



/me resisting tongue in cheek comment.

Again regardless, aggregate vote was not the initially presented parameters of this competition. You had only 5 of 8 entrants follow through with this project as it is (what? out of 50,000 residents, only 5 were interested in earning 500,000L? I wonder why...). Had we known in advance it would be a vote rather than a judging, likely you wouldn't have had those 5. Changing the rules at the end of the competition was unwise and unfair to those who worked so hard. I dislike the concept... and my role was not as major as many others who entered. So far of all the entrants who have commented, no one has voiced approval of this development-- just the opposite in fact. Maybe that is something LL needs to consider if the company is interested in user response.

Technicalities, Hamlet. I asked this exact question in an email to the LL trailer staff in late July, and received this response via email on July 28th: "Selection of the official trailer will be by Linden Lab, but we are also planning to have a Residents' Choice Award event, as well."

One would have had to actually read "all that stuff" to know that:

1. a question regarding "correct" usage was asked
   
2. an answer was posted saying roughly "it was correct but I don't have an authoritative reference, does anyone?
   
3. Introvert provided an authoritative reference showing that both usages were "correct" depending on which "correct" you choose to use.
   

We ("royal" first person singluar pronoun - pay attention) consider your words a challenge and suggest that you and I settle this like gentlemen: with pistols at 20 paces at Rausch 128,128 at 13:00 game time, today.

I've found myself wondering, too, if such picky details aren't a subtle way to sabotage the competition. (Something that wouldn't be the issue if LL made this decision themselves as they originally intended)


It's just gonna have to be who they are.



When I last saw the first machine, there were around 100 total votes. Not much more than that.


Two thoughts here:

1) As a friend of Javier's myself, I can assure everyone that he at NO time said anything like this -- in fact, let me quote what he posted on our group board elsewhere, as an illustration of his integrity:

On several occasions, he has encouraged us to see all of the trailers and vote our conscience, not for our friend. I also saw Torley's name on the credits of one video, yet she is on the SL board saying the same thing as Javier -- see them all, and vote your opinion.

2. It is human nature that some folks will vote for their friends no matter what you do. That's ok. The circles of friends around these video makers is, as Hamlet notes, small in comparison to the larger circle of SLers who are involved. I know of some club event hosts who took votes for "sexy av" but never counted them and arbitrarily gave the prize money to whoever they chose, but I don't think that's happening here We're probably growing cynical based on the pervasive club contests that have despoiled SL's landscape.


What Wayfarer said.


I love your cynicism. And here I thought I was all alone in that sentiment

However, in this case the whole point of the video was to create a presentation that would appeal to non-SLers and hopefully draw them into SL. In that respect, high-energy marketing is a plus. Showing off a 'fad' is a plus (Are tinies fads? The point could be made.) "Wisdom of the Crowd" may not use the same criteria as a panel of experts, but it would probably be more indicative of what LL was after on this project.

LOL.



Very valid point Cindy. One way this could be accomplished would be for LL to show the videos to a group of people totally unacquainted with Second Life, who are in no way associated with the makers of the videos, and get their opinions, which is commonlly referred to as market sample. To use the votes of those already in Second Life is what those in the business call a "tainted" or biased sample-- and invalid for marketing purposes.

But you're 100% right-- to get an impartial opinion of the general computer populace would be an excellent way to determine popularity. Of course, that requires showing the video and getting responses from about 500 people from a wide computer-user variety, which is difficult and costly to do. Another way they could accomplish such a thing would be to choose at total random a few dozen people who have entered the game as newbies within the last 7 days and ask them to vote on the videos. That would likely yield a much more valid result.

Here's the main question I have in all this:
Linden Lab is themselves going to choose which video goes on the Home Page of their website. But they're going to award the prizes according to popular vote???

That's kinda like saying, "Hey, we're going to use your hard-worked effort to promote our business-- but we may decide to not pay you for it." Considering this decision came AFTER the videos were completed and entered-- that has lawsuit written all over it. LOL

Not that anyone would ever sue good ol' Linden Lab-- perish forbid! But don't they ever think about these things? Crikey!

In my business we call this a "Focus Group" -- it's a very popular method of getting customer/potential customer opinion. And it's not that expensive. They could even run polls at a Gamecon if they wanted non-SL opinion on the appeal of the things.


If it was worth much, it could. $50,000L is worth less than $200US, and that's if you sold the whole ball of wax on GOM. (Going on the total $L500K being split between 10 team members). So really, they're saying "we're not actually paying for this" anyway

I have some Monopoly money in a drawer somewhere. If I hold onto it long enough, will it be worth something?

LOL. Actually, this is something that I expect will come to legal light before long: is online "money" actual currency? And can someone be sued for breach of online contract? (Even the TOS would not stand up to legal scrutiny if willful breach of contract is involved). Interesting legal concept, that.

Even at the alarmingly declining rate of the L$ on GOM... the offered 1st place prize of L500,000 comes to about US$1,750.oo. A piddling amount considering what is involved-- ie, the primary advertising trailer to be used on SL for the next year (LL is really getting by cheap on this one. LOL). But this amount may be enough to perhaps raise some eyebrows regarding the last-minute change in method of "judging" / award. Face it, considering the history of LL... sooner or later someone somewhere is going to get royally ticked-- and LL is going to find itself trying to defend the TOS against 200 years of U.S. case law. So if I were in their shoes... I'd kind of avoid doing things that majorly tick off users-- especially where money is involved.

This also brings up another "common sense" matter. We are told that LL doesn't just "create L$ out of nowhere" for their own use. But this seems to be exactly what they've done here. L5,000 or L500,000... like you pointed out, to LL this is "monopoly money". Doesn't cost them an actual red cent. And they've offered this prize at a time when the market is already flooded with devaluating L$. If they weren't using the L$ for their own gain-- then they'd have just offered a 1st place prize of say... US $2000 and have done with. That should raise some financial eyebrows as well.

As of Tuesday, Noon, there are about 300 voters accounted for by the machine (and about 550 ballots since now everyone gets two but don't have to use both). Announcing the contest during the Log-a-Thon was a good move, I think.

If between the rest of us, we could help promote the contest and get the number of voters up to 500 or so, that would be great.

On "popularity contests": So far, I think the process has been handled relitivley well by the competitors, an opinion based on hanging around Supernova way too much and talking to people. Which is not to say there haven't been worries: one film in particular seemed to be gathering a lot of highly negative reactions from viewers, for example, but had a high number of votes, which lead to a lot of speculation and rumors. But I talked to a member of that team and was assured that they weren't doing any more or less than what anyone else was doing in respect to bringing people to the contest: inviting people to come, encourage them to watch all the videos and vote for the one they liked. That's fine. We can call in all the friends we want as long as we don't tell them who they should vote for. This won't stop people from voting for their friends "just because", but plenty of them are certianly voting for other videos too.

Nevertheless, the more people we can bring into watch the contest from outside our firend groups, the more any inherent bias from people's friends can be mitigated. So help the cause by plugging the hell out of it...that goes for the Lindens, the video creators, and anyone else following and enjoying the contest. Hamlet's 50k potential voters is unrealistic, I agree, but we can do better than even 300.

I did expect judged voting, based on the way the rules were phrased and the prescident set by stuff like the recent Linden build compititions. But based on my opinions of the videos, I don't think the Linden verdict would have been much different regarding who the winner will probably be in the popular ballot (although there's still a fight for the runner up spot).

This is a good question: I'd assume they're not so stupid as to simply print money for that sort of thing, but I've made a Hotline post out of it. - /invalid_link.html

We shouldn't pick on Javier too much for a relatively innocent grammatical error ("What if there was a world". There are other errors in the titles and credits of these movies.

Don't trust spellcheckers. Don't trust proofreaders.

Here are a couple interesting lines from Linden emails sent to contestants:

This is a change from the original announcement of a Grand Prize and two runners up. Now all movies will be used to promote SL, but some will do so uncompensated.

Regarding voting:

This email was sent weeks after the original deadline so it certainly implies that community voting was not the original plan. Prior to this email there was some mention of showing the movies at a Resident Film Festival, but no indication of the voting change. Also, there's a bonus grammar error in there.

The contest deadline changed twice, voting policy changed, a vote was botched, and now (September 21) the voting deadline has been extended. This is bad for the participants, actual and potential, and bad preparation for the next contest.

I was in the contest but had to withdraw for family reasons. If I had known the deadline would be extended twice, I would have known I'd have time to finish even with the unexpected RL responsibilities and I wouldn't have withdrawn. However, if I had known the voting would be changed to a purely popular vote I wouldn't have entered in the first place.

*bump*

Note to self: Bug various Lindens regarding what the contest deadline has been extended to.

You know, I am going to be pro-LL for a moment here just to be fair about all this... and for the reason that I really do enjoy SL. Too much, in fact. LOL

No organization makes the right decisions all the time. And LL has a WHOLE LOT that they have to concentrate on at one time. So I can 100% understand a foulup here and there. And from time to time they are going to have ticked customers, and look back and say, "Oops, we shouldn't have done that!" Comes with the territory.

That said... once an "oops" is discovered, it's NOT unfixable. Right?

It seems to me that LL is seriously in need of a "devil's advocate" watchdog in their organization... someone who will look at something they plan, mentally follow it forward into the future and foresee the obvious consequenses, and then say, "Folks, we don't want to do this."

Then LL needs to LISTEN to that person. Because that's what a watchdog is for. If you ignore a barking watchdog... you're going to suffer the results.

It seems there are many, many things that LL does that a common-sense watchdog could have averted early on, steered the company in a better direction and resulting in more satisfied users and less gripes. This video situation is not the only in which LL has made very unpopular, self-throat-slitting decisions. Seems they'd get tired of the flak after a while.

*bump*
Oct 8th is the new deadline...so sit back and enjoy

Is there anywhere to view these trailers on the Web (since the grid is down)? .. Maybe that's a supid question and they're supposed to be view inWorld...

REALLY impressed...

You know, I just went back and re-viewed those movies, and I'm rather impressed by the fine work in most of them.

I only had one question (and not begrudging Javier at all.. because his video rocks)... but of all of them, why is Javier's the only one that is crystal sharp? The others are all pixelated. I know that Total's is not pixelated in the orginal version available on his website and I would doubt that Elle's was either (and a fun video that is Elle).

So where did all the pixelation come from?

I gave LL a high quality OMG-70-WHOPPIN-MB video file, and I think that's what people are viewing on their website. When viewed in Second Life, the quality (and frame rate) is reduced. I'm not sure what format or quality the other directors turned over.

- J

According to Total, he provided LL with a high-quality cut. So dunno what happened in the translation. On SL, the pixelation is even worse.

BTW... nice vid Javier.