Partial Solution to the Events Problem

They either need a better search engine or a pay to post an event cost. The pay to post dynamic would certainly curb the event posting abusers. Its probably just a matter of time before this happens anyways. Dwell and rating whoring were the forerunners. Classifieds were a joke until they implemented the current cost structure. If you want your classified at the top you have to pay the most money and not come up with some clever alignment of spaces and punctuation.

The events listing in Find is veritable unusable. I don't even look at it anymore. I don't look at the events on the website or the event location markers on the map either. I used to really enjoy attending random events and now its total crap.

Vivianne has a point, if there's a lot of rolling scrolling going on then you could VERY easily miss an announcement.

I don't think I understand the problem.

1. The events are no longer announced.

2. How someone runs their event is none of my business (Shades of the new Repubnik party (Neo-Cons) wanting to control everything)

If someone chooses to have no host at an event, then thats none of my business. Its their choice and thats all there is to it.

As I said, I don't understand the problem nor do I see a problem here... Its none of my business how someone wants to run their Event.

There are a very few simple rules that we need to follow in order to be listed in the Events calendar. One is that a host needs to be present at all times. It's difficult to see how something could BE an event without a host, anyway. I run long-term contests at the Photography Studio, which are NEVER listed in Events. Awards ceremonies and specific short events to give new people a chance to ask me questions are listed in Events.

Why is it hard to follow a few simple rules?

Being fairly new I don't know if the Events List has always been filled with crap or if it is a recent problem. I do use the Events List and try to find random events that look like fun and so far have had a fair amount of luck. It does make me wonder if it total crap now....what it used to be like and what I missed.



That is a shame; sounds like something I might have liked to check out if I saw it listed. But how will I (or any other noob) ever know about your studio & the contests if you never post them? (That question was really rhetorical; sorry to use you as an example).

I'd really like it if the Events List were more useable - at the very least let me have a personal crap filter so I can eliminate things I DON'T want to see. (As someone mentioned....anything with an INGO).

I can tell you from a noob's perspective that Events List is damn site better than the Popular Places tab. Took me only about a week to realize that was the most useless tab in the entire Find box.

With the exception of one recent event that made it to the Popular Places tab (Hair Fair) any place listed on the Popular Places tab is a place to avoid like the plague IMHO... unless an odd mood strikes me to be laggy and watch people camp. Whoo.

Opinion:

I fail to understand why some people consider the Events list "unusable" and thus have avoided looking at it for ages now, and yet want it to be shorter so they can use it more easily. Or maybe want it to have the kind of events they prefer and not the kind they don't prefer so they can use it more easily.

I use the Events list all the time, to find out what events are being offered.

I don't know how others use it, but I use it this way:

I click on the category that interests me. I was in the Events workshop group when these categories were instituted, and I was happy they were and have used them ever since.

I almost always click on Discussions. If I'm in a yard sale mood, I click on Classifieds. If I'm in a game mood, I click on Games. I often click on Arts and Culture. Sometimes I click on Pageants just to see if there is actually anything in it! (That category simply didn't work out.)

Sometimes I skip the categories, and just go to the list. However, I don't attempt to read the entire list. I scroll down to the time when I am on, and for the next couple of hours thereafter. It seems to me most people would approach it that way.

Sometimes I go to the categories as usual, but then go to the whole list to look at the hour I happen to be on, just in case there is something interesting I might have missed otherwise.

The Events calendar, as I told Robin in that workshop, is one of the best things SL has going for it. How we would have loved having that in TSO!

I don't know what the Events calendar was like in the good old days, because I wasn't here then - I've been here only since February of 2005. Consequently, I don't have any nostalgia for those days, and enjoy using the calendar as it is, especially after the categories were added.

coco

The problem remains that out of the five events I checked yesterday, they were five advertisements, not five events.

Great ideas, and criticisms - my original proposal would definitely fail, but some of the ideas I've read here are great ones. If we were to open source the event creation system we've built, and allowed for multiple events lists of multiple flavors and restrictions, would that help? Just thinking out loud here... no promises!

Regards,

-Flip

This is just an idea I'm tossing out there. *shrug*

How's about this for an idea:

When an event starts, an "Event Ball" appears on the land where the event is scheduled to happen. The Ball is Linden owned and cannot be removed by anybody but a Linden.

The 'Event Ball' seeks out and follows the event 'leader' (define that as either the person posting the event of the person designated as being the event leader) and stays near them for the duration of the event as described in the event advert.

The 'Event Ball' will then poll the event leader every 2-5 minutes (random) and record if they are there AND active.

Once the event ends, the 'Event Ball' disappears and it reports back to the Lindens.

If the event leader was there for the majority of the event (50%-75% of the time???) then they get credit for the event, get paid by the Linden's etc.

If they were there less than the set percentage they get a strike against them. Being inactive would be counted as not being there.

After three strikes in a 45 day period, they lose access to post to the Events Calendar for 90 days. If they lose access a 3rd time (9 strikes total) they are permenantly banned from posting events. If an alt of theirs gets 9 strikes (18 times for a single real life person) that person and all their accounts are banned from SL for 90 days and permenantly banned from ever posting events with any Avatar they ever create. Ever.


This gives people who are genuinely away for a reason, a way to erase their strikes. This also gives the spammers real consequences for breaking the rules. It's also a gradual enough scale that they will be able to see it coming and know to not be stupid and continue their ways.

The events list used to be a posting of all events such as: Trivia, Contest, Game, Party, Discussion Group, Class etc. Granted the world was smaller, but the events list wasn't so bogged down with non-events or perpetual events for ex. if you have a 24/7 nightclub, tringo parlor etc. Do you really need to post an events listing every hour or every other hour even? Same thing goes for yard sales.

Now, today I checked the filter to show me all Arts & Culture related events and two of the events are duplicates for the same time for a store grand re-opening -- no prizes, no contests, just a come buy my stuff under the guise of it being a grand reopening. I've quite a few store opening events over the years and always made sure to have a raffle or some kind of contest going on simulataneous too. Because just having a "come buy my stuff" event is nothing more than an advertisement.

Besides which 90% of the events listing fall into two categories Nightlife and Games.

Perhaps there should be an "All Day Event" category? My calendar software has it, why not SL?

Opinion:

I think there should be, and also have it be for events of longer duration than a day (but not for forever), like the Touchstone Fair was, like a week or several weeks. Or two categories - day-long and week-long or longer events.

If you are going to have a day-long event it's kind of a bummer to be able to list it only once, when people getting on later in the day may be looking at the events list for the time when they get on, and later.

CC

Here's a complete solution: Kill the List; Stop Coddling Us; Be the Host.

Wait; did I post this already?

The awards ceremony for each contest is always an event. The exhibit is up for around two weeks, then there's another contest. Sometimes I have an event to show people how to enter, sometimes I don't. The contests are listed in Attractions here on the forum.

I used to think we needed a "long-term" category for intereting things that don't fit the short-term criterion. However, the way things get gamed and abused it would just allow for a whole new list of things for legitimate long-term events to get lost in.

Astrid, I'll drop a poster on you - maybe you'll get inspired and enter

Just from my own experience with hosting game shows during the week:

Half the folks that come didn't find the event because of the Event calendar. There appear to be a good number of folks that don't even bother with it because there's too much noise, and only came on account of word of mouth.

I too remember when I was a new resident: our world was much smaller, and the event calendar was actually useful for all. On a normal day, you wouldn't even have to scroll - and the events that were listed just seemed all that much more important.

I had some downtime at work today, and did some analysis of today's calendar. We're all supposed to be limited to 5 event listings per day, per location, right?

One location had over 30 listings for just 3 unique events! I remember when it'd be a banner day when we had 30 events for the day total. Creative parcelling means its a simple task to get around the 5-a-day limit.

The event calendar is a mess. I hope Linden can work to make it more useful either through vigorous enforcement, or better technology.

Thanks so much for sending this! This looks like a lot of fun and I think I may give it a whirl this weekend!