Project Event List

I realize that these forums are mostly read by the type of residents who rarely check the event calendar and could care less. As such this is not the ideal venue for this particular discussion but seeing as how there is no means to reach the other niche of SL residents this will have to do.

Starting tomorrow I will be making a daily (RL willing) list of events which do not conform to the current event listing policies. I will save this list to a notecard in world and distribute it to any who are willing and able to help.

I have created an open enrollment group called Project Event List. Simply join that group in order to participate. Alternatively, if you do not have an open slot for a new group you can IM me in-world and I'll add you to my distrubution list.

Participation is easy. Once you receive the notecard all you need to do is choose Help->Report Abuse and then copy and paste the contents of the notecard into the AR Details box and send it!

The purpose of this project is to organize a group effort to abuse report event listing advertisements and non-events with the ultimate goal of escalating development of better event listing tools.

I realize in the long term we need better tools (categories, filtering, etc.) in order for the event listings to continue to be viable especially with the recent surge in population.

However, for the time being we are stuck with the tools we have. Due to limited Linden resources we have apparently seen a decline in the moderation/administration of the event calendar. I understand this completely and want to help.

As residents our only recourse in general is the Abuse Report. An organized effort to AR event listings which are blatantly breaking the guidelines could achieve several goals:

1. Blatant offenders receive dozens of abuse reports daily
   
2. More proactive moderation by the Lindens to curb the daily influx of abuse reports
   
3. Escalation in development of better event listing tools
   

I know I'll probably receive several replies saying "The Lindens don't want to police the events" or "We just need better tools to filter the heavily glutted categories ourselves". Please realize that this is what I'm saying.

If you want better tools then join in.

are you high?

Well, we do have categories already.

coco

Providing you're basing your criteria on Haney's post here, I don't see anything wrong at all with what your'e doing. Maybe it'll do some good.

The only downside I can see is that you may be inadvertantly giving some of the folks you feel are abusing the system additional advertising & exposure thru the use of your notecards.

Its important to note that an abuse report doesn't automatically trigger action: instead it simply flags an incident for review by the community standards team.

Since the likely 'punishment' for abusing the event calendar is deletion of the event posting, some sort of quick review would be critical to making this effective.

Unfortunately, the community standards team is notorious for delayed action. Its unlikely that they would respond to a complaint in less than 24 hours time - by that time, the event has already been held & passed.

Who else is big on using bulleted lists?

Me too, and:



An upside tho, is I've noticed huge swathes of the events which don't follow the policies are redundantly repetitive. They show up in big clumps and are easy to find, day after day. One of the easiest ways to look is to sort by NAME.

I will simply say I used to look through the Events calendar frequently last year, particularly for things like trivia contests and happenin' parties, but I currently don't.

If you'll notice in the three goals I mention above don't include deletion of offending posts. I don't think that is important in the long term.

It seems people too often confuse the abuse reporting feature with a panic button where in actuality it is a way for us to help the Lindens to piece together long-term trends of abuse and react accordingly. Once they have identified a trend they can begin to treat it proactively.

From that point there are generally two paths: implement a solution by throwing development time at the problem or removing the problem altogether.

I suppose it's in the realm of possibility that the Lindens could remove the event listings if it's costing too much time to police, but I doubt this will happen.

In the short term - with the current set of tools - the event list spam mostly affects new residents (residents who haven't figured out how to sort by name or even why it would be benificial to do so). I certainly was suckered in by an advertisement on my second night in SL.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've heard last years event listings weren't nearly as bad as they are currently. This is probably due to a combination of the population surge (more people means more rule breakers) and less moderation.

I really don't want to lose focus of the long term goal here: better tools. Removing the spam will mainly help new players. The long term goal should be beneficial for everybody.

Tempting idea, in some respects.

I was in-world for the first time in a couple months the other night, and was button-holed by a newb not far from the WA. I told him about the orientation classes and Q&A sessions that had helped me as a newb, and explained how to find things in the Find... Events tab. But man, I think I found one event in 24 hours that had any instructional value, and it was a session on creating textures -- important, but not immediately helpful to a newb.

In my experience, last year, November 2004, they were a LOT easier to look through. A lot less events, yes, and a lot less repetition too. Infact, it's easy to look them up, they're all archived!

HERE WE GO!

http://secondlife.com/events/index.php?month=11&year=2004

The system itself hasn't changed a lot since then, which points to things which could be scaled nicer.

We're a week into this project and I thought I'd give an update regarding the procedures we're using and the results we're seeing.

Every night for the past week (around midnight SL time) I've compiled a list of events posted for the next day which do not conform to the event listing guidelines. This list includes the event time, event title, and the name of the resident who posted the event listing. Each notecard begins with the following information:



I then distribute this notecard to the small group of residents who have shown interest in this project who then copy and paste the contents of the notecard into the abuse report window. Due to the character limit in the AR window the list must be divided into several abuse reports in order to report them all.

In addition to abuse reporting I've been dropping a copy of the notecard to one of the Liasons on duty each night.

Last night I received a note of encouragement and appreciation from one of the Liasons who asked me to pass along the well-wishes to the rest of the group. Apparently our efforts are being noticed to some extent.

The past few days have actually shown a marked reduction in the number of unhosted/non-event type listings. I'm not sure whether to attribute this to the holiday or to actual Linden policing, but the improvement is welcome nonetheless. Unfortunately advertisement/shopping listings are on the rise but I'm convinced this is due to the holiday.

The next week we will continue on the same course. I may try some of the suggestions that have been offered up in an attempt to increase awareness of the project. If the next week shows the same kind of improvement I will begin the push for better event listing tools.

I am not sure what you mean by advertisement. There is a Commercial category on the pulldown menu when you post an event and also when you look at the Events lists in Find.

I am also pretty sure that Haney post is out of date, as we are all allowed to post commercial events - sales, shopping, yard sales, store openings and so on

What exactly is the problem with the events?

I have not seen anything on this thread that explains what it is you are having problems with aside from your advertizing comment which is moot considering the posting rules as they stand now do not forbid (but in fact have a place for) commercial events.

If you miss trivia or certain types of events, perhaps the people who used to hold them are no longer in SL anymore.

Perhaps they could not do the events for long due to having no compensation for prize money.

Perhaps you should be better off organizing a group to start up doing the events that you would like to see. Sitting around waiting for help and things to change will take a long time.

better to take action and flood the calendar with "your kind" of events?

A certain scattershooting of random accusations has caused me to seek clarification on the event listing guidelines.

It should be noted that although shopping events make up a very small portion of the listings that have been abuse reported so far I am making an effort to clarify this so that we are only abuse reporting the rule breakers.

If the Lindens clarify by saying that these types of events are acceptable for the event calendar then the only criteria for abuse reporting will be "a group activity led by a host at a specific time and place".

The specific instance I'm talking about was an advertisement for a non-event - a listing specifically there to advertise a product or service that did not have a host-led group activity associated with it at all. This is all commercial and absolutely no event. Do you think this should be allowed in the event calendar?



No matter which source you use to define appropriate event listings any events which are not led by a host are against the rules.

That post has been updated within the past six months "to reflect current Linden Lab event policies". I have Hotlined this question for further clarification.



The shopping events make up a small percentage of the event listings which have been abuse reported. A large portion of those listed are not led by a host and are not group events. You don't have a problem with people breaking the rules?



I am not an event poster, just an event attender. My purpose here is to make it easier for average residents to find real events.

Hmmm. Proper steps to determine exactly what the rules really are might have been thought by some to be the very first step. A prerequisite, so to speak, to abuse reporting others for breaking them.

Particularly on an organized basis, sheep following leader, and probably just trusting he/she is right.

Somewhat undermines my personal confidence in the operation.....

What is your basis for making this statement?

Perhaps you could get the people who are hosting these events you don't want people to attend to pay you for distributing these advertisements for their events, thus working both sides of the street at once.

The group is open enrollment but the membership list is not displayed, is that right? I would be a bit leery of joining a group with such a public purpose but with a private membership list, especially one that is organized for the specific purpose of organizing mass Abuse Reports.


It strikes me as as highly unusual that someone who really started in Second LIfe on your born date takes such a strong stance on this issue so quickly and has a distribution list. I suspect you the person have been a member for longer than Intent Unknown the avatar has and that you are attempting to further some a pre-existing personal agenda, most likely for economic gain.

An updated sticky in the Event Discussion forum posted by a Linden titled "Event Posting Rules" would seem to be official at first glance.

Regardless, the majority of the events that have been abuse reported will not be affected by the minor descrepancy hinging on the validity of "shopping events".

I'm disappointed that a worthwhile cause is being discredited by insignificant symantics and baseless accusations.

I will continue to abuse report those who break the rules. I believe that dilligence and perseverance will trump accusation and consternation in the end.

I will be updating the events posting rules on the website and the events forum sticky soon with some clarifications on what is and is not acceptible when posting to the events calendar.

informally, though, the issue here is simply:

1) an event, by definition, is 'framed' by a beginning and end time. Thus 24hr yard sales and non-stop Tringo casinos are not events.

2) people are posting 'events' that are clearly ads that belong in the classifieds. The Commercial category was meant for posting grand openings, product launch events etc. which have a clear beginning and end time attached.

3) the use of alts to post more than 5 events per day runs counter to the intent of the events posting rules and will not be permitted.

Its really our fault, as Lindens, for not providing greater clarity here in the rules. The majority of residents who are currently spamming the calendar are not malicious or sleazy. They are for the most part simply unware or unsure about what is acceptible and what is not. I'm hoping over the next week to provide some needed clarity on this topic and set an appropriate tone for the events calendar that will not require any further resident nor Linden policing.

Probably the most encouraging Linden post (other than grid status reports) I have seen in months.

Thanks Jesse.

Great news indeed! Thanks for the update Jesse.

Please consider carefully any changes in the Events policy. What you are proposing will kill most real yard sales. A yard sale operating as a business will likely not have a problem coming up with 250L every two weeks; however a yard sale running for a few days or a weekend only would unlikely find paying 250L for a two week ad economically viable.