Event Discrimination

The only events I have ever announced have been yard sales prior to the edict banning such 'events' from the event calendar. Even though I really cannot see the rationale behind banning yard sales, since there is a commercial category for events, I didn't want to break any rules heaven forbid and stopped posting my yard sales. Early in November I received a notecard from some anonymous alt calling attention to the fact my yard sale along with other event postings were breaking the TOS. I passed this notecard on to powers that be at Linden and asked if I was breaking any rules in the form of an abuse report. I never heard anything directly at that time from Linden, and my abuse report was reconciled according to an email from Linden.

Then out of the blue early February I received an IM from a Linden that my yard sale event listings were deleted cause they were not events. OK fine....but while mine was deleted others were still on the event calendar. When I questioned this I was told they were being handled.

Now if Linden wants to ban yard sales, even though I cannot see 'why' that's okay cause they run this place and we play the game by their rules however unfair they seem to others. But if I am banned from posting yard sales, I better not see any others advertised.

That is not the case. Being fed up by being black-listed and after seeing dozens of yard sales advertised, I put in an event listing for a Sailing event at my yard sale the other day and it was promptly deleted, while other obvious yard sales were still on the event calendar. Today there are a dozen or more yard sales advertised! What's up??? Am I the only one banned from posting them?

Sorry for the vent but this is ridiculous.

The same thing happened to me, i didnt get a note card but someone im'd me. Mine we cancelled as well ... not sure what was so different about mine then the 100's of other that were posted.

It does seem to be fairly random doesn't it. Today I posted a yard sale, in my post I stated that it would be a 3 hour sale only. It was almost immediately deleted. So I went back and this time posted that it would be a 3 hour sale and specified that I would be there hosting the sale the entire time (which I was). Fortunately that one didn't get deleted.

However I did notice the first time that while my first post was deleted, several (8 that i counted, one which in fact was repeated 3 times throught the day) all of which used the words "all day" in thier adds... were NOT deleted.

Like you kitty I dont want to complain, I simply want to UNDERSTAND what the rules specifically are so that I can follow them and yet at the same time I dont want to stop having yard sales altogether. People LIKE them, obviously or else why would they be so popular?

I have a proposal and I'm thinking of taking a poll on it.

Here's my thought. Why not a seperate page exclusively for yard sales and store sales? Not one in which the more you pay determines where you are placed on the list (like the ridiculously overpaid classifieds) but simply arranged by time just like the events list. This would eliminate the problem of multiple postings by those holding the sales and would simplify the search for those attending the sales. This is how newspapers do it in RL. When you advertise a yard sale in a newspaper, you are charged a set fee and your ad is placed in one section along with all the others just like it.

So how about a seperate page in the "find" menu for all sales related events, with a standard set fee of 50L to post it? It would clear all sales from the other events page and it would leave classifieds still available for consistent advertising to be used simply like the yellow pages. Want to know how to find a specific STORE you go to the classifieds.... want to spend the morning just shopping SALES, you go to the sales page. Seems simple enough to me.

What do others think?

It would still be discrimination to make people pay to list their garage sales, when they don't have to pay to list other events.

To find out what the rules are (basically, have it between certain hours, and have a host present) read the page where you post events.

It really pisses me off that people are working hard to get rid of yard sales on the events calendar - and believe me, some people are! - when nobody is making them go to them.

I mean, why the hell do they care? Why don't they mind their own business? I want to be able to find yard sales on the events calendar!

It's a stupid backwards game where griefing with political signs is okay, where using up the land sales lists with your outrageously priced political sign small plots is free speech, and where people can post events like best boobs and ass contest, or training for beginning slavery, or all kinds of other things that are far from wholesome, yet

LISTING A YARD SALE

is this huge crime!

I want ALL the events listed, even the T&A contests I'll never go to, or Tringo, which I never learned.

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off, and if anybody can figure out a way to protest this anti-yard sale crapola, count me in.

coco

P.S. Alana I ABSOLUTELY HATE that I would have been prevented from learning of your yard sale!

Woohoo thank goodness I am not the only one! Thank you Syndy, Allana and Coconut

BTW I do have an ad in classifieds also, which I run with others for my Emporium etc and has been running since the classifieds started up. I guess I must lead a sheltered life because because all I am concerned with on the event calendar is yard sales, and educational classes and a few other non-club, non-tringo, non-slingo events. My daily ritual is to look up whatever yard sales I can find and go to them.

I never complained like some here on SL who get rattled over yard sales when the events calendar is plagued with garbage gambling events. They can have their ads there! My main excitement for the day is going to yard sales (except when I see my partner Dull huh? lol

We yard salers are a definite social group in the SL Community and as Cocoanut said it's being treated as a crime!!! Maybe Linden needs to re-evaluate just what an event is, since yard sales do not fit into the event calendar. Is anyone from Linden listening? And I will go back to my original beef, that if I am banned Linden better have a system to ban all of them, just not a select few! Obviously the system does not work.

Kitty>^.^<

The big problem is that so much of the events calendar is "non events". Now I'm not making any judgement on any particular person or event here, but so much of it just doesn't belong there.

I don't agree with the "no yard sales", but would stipulate that yard sales must, like all other events:

a) Be hosted for the entire duration of their calendar entry (this does not mean the hosting avatar is just on the parcel of land, 'away' for all of it). Hosting requires interaction on both sides.

b) They must not be perpetual events, ie 8 three hour back-to-back events.

The problem is that we have one Linden responsible for the yard calendar, and it's such an awful job because of the abuse, that every now and again they'll take a deep breath, go in, hack the calendar to pieces removing what seems like crap, and then ignore it for a week whilst they recover from the experience. Hence the appearance of some events going (when LL do what they should), and other crap remaining (LL not doing what they should). Of course, as soon as events disappear, someone has put up half a dozen more non-events in their place.

It's a simple solution - give people the ability to report 'non events' in the calendar, and/or instigate some kind of 'ResMod' programme for the calendar so that a group of empowered independent users can take care of it instead.

I would also like to see some form of filtering within the events calendar, so you can - for example - remove any entry that contains *ingo.

Unfortunately many of these 'non events' - such as 24 hour *ingo contests, are run by the 'popular' (ie they pay campers the most) places that frankly do not NEED more advertising.

There will, I feel, sadly never be a level playing field for those of us who make an effort to follow the rules - when you're competing against those who will do whatever they can to be considered successful by doing as much as they can without being caught - then, of course, when they are caught... there is no punishment, so they just go straight back and do it again, making the whole 'tidy up the calendar' effort futile.

Lewis (WWID)

Your points are very well taken and I appreciated the trauma the Linden in charge of screening the events must experience. It would be super if this can be fixed and have consistent monitoring. Thank you.

Kitty>^.^<

How about less "government" interference and greater emphasis on the spirit of free enterprise? Or is SL destined to degenerate into the welter of petty regulation and "nannyism" that characterises modern society?

If sound reasons really do exists for a regulatory framework, for goodness sake make it light touch and make it a level playing field for all.

There are some who say this has already happened.

Except it is more a combination of randomness, cluelessness, I can't remember what the person in the next cube said were the "rules" yesterday, cronyism, and general carelessness than true pettiness. Knowing they are on a death march to closure and busy preparing their resumes while trying to look busy probably contributes somewhat.

Every few months Random Linden says "yeah, I'm going to do something about the event calendar"; that initiative usually lasts a hour or two.

How about people just follow the damn rules in the first place, then none of this problem would exist. Quite simple really, if people can't be trusted to regulate themselves, then the "Government" - in this case LL - have to take control when it gets out of hand. Just take a look at the events calendar; I'll save you the bother, shall I?

- six back to back 3 hour "free jewelery giveaway"
- five back to back 3 hour "Blackjack"
- five back to back 3 hour "See pictures fo my country" slideshow
- two back to back 3 hour "Condo rentals" - just an advertisment
- four back to back 3 hour "Free balloons" - just an advertisment
- five back to back 3 hour "Garden sale" (most likely unattended)
- five back to back 3 hour "Magic mushroom picking"
- four back to back 3 hour "Mall rentals" - just an advertisment
- four back to back 3 hour "new homes" - just an advertisment
- five back to back 3 hour "fishing" (most likely unattended)
- six back to back 3 hour "Tringo" at the same casino.
- three back to back 3 hour "camping chairs"
- six back to back 3 hour "Slingo" at the same casino.

There are currently 184 events in the calendar. In my judgement, listed above, at least 60 have no place being there just by simply doing a 'sort by name' to see multiple entries. I'm quite sure that further investigation would render at least 50% of the current calendar invalid entries. Now do you see why something has to be done?




That's what we've been asking for. Yet you seem against regulation. Please make up your mind.


Call me cynical if you wish, but perhaps this 'under-regulation' is all part of the LL plan to make everything look more popular. After all, 150,000 registered players is a great selling point (apart from the fact that less than 3% are ever online), perhaps seeing hundreds of calendar event entries makes the game look really active to new players when they enter the world (yes I include the events calendar as part of my greeter new player training) until they go to 95% of them and find that there's nobody there to talk to.

Lewis (WWID)

Silly me, I'm supposed to be going to bed and yet here I am browsing the forums instead. Ok so one more before I crash for the night.

I can understand everyone's points I think. Part of me says more regulation, part of me says less, etc etc.

The way it works for me (IMHO) is to relate it to the real world. In the real world when I put the stuff I think of as junk out on my lawn in the hopes that someone else will see it as treasure... I dont mind sitting there greeting people and haggling... I dont mind having to pay a few bucks (emphasis on FEW) to do a little advertising in the local paper. So to do these things in second life is no skin off my back either.

Here's where the problems come in for me:

1) In the real world there is no law that says I HAVE to sit out on my lawn with my stuff and greet every shopper, it's simply standard practice and avoids problems with shoplifters. But if I choose to not be out there I'm not going to have some government official knocking on my door and ordering me to pick up my things.

2) When I open up my newspaper to look for a yard sale on a saturday morning I'm not REQUIRED to read every other classified add until I find one. I can choose to just skip straight to the page that says "yard sales".

3) Again in the real world there is no law that says my yard sale can't last three straight days if I want it to. No one is telling me "NO, you can only sell your stuff for three hours and then you have to put it away".

As it is right now, while I have no interest in best breast contests and slingo games, It really doesn't bother me at all to have to scan through them to find the things that do interest me (yes I do have other interests besides sales lol). But since it does clearly bother quite a few other people, I still see the solution as simply that we need a seperate page.

I understand why people say we should use the classifieds section but to try to understand my argument against it, please take a look at the classified page for a moment and notice something..... it clearly shows how much people are paying to post their classified adds and some are paying as much as 12 and 20 thousand linden! For a one week advertisement! The minimum payment allowed is 50L and that is guaranteed to get your ad placed at the very bottom where no one will ever see it. How on earth is the average person who only wants to make a few extra bucks supposed to compete with a situation like that? I am not going to pay even 1000L to post an ad for a sale at which I might make 2 or 3 hundred at the most.

I fully believe that if there were a seperate page for strictly one day special sales and yard sales it would solve the entire problem.

As for the other rules... It must have a host the entire time and it must last only 3 hours... again I point to the rules of first life and ask.... why? Does that really matter? While I personally enjoy hosting my yard sales as much as I can, I dont believe everyone should have to and I have never actually gone to a yard sale and wondered where the host was.

Its simple in my mind, a seperate page and real world guidelines.

PS.. If I've sounded a bit cranky in this post, chalk it up to sleepiness and forgive.
PPS... seperate message to Ms Kitty.... thanks for the invite.

I have to respectfully disagree here, I buy all my classified ads for 50L$ and get good returns on that.

Agreed there is rampant abuse of the events list on 'all' counts -- maybe this should mean that perhaps less stipulations on holding an event are needed. Why does an event need a host? In regards to yard sales and host....I don't go to yard sales to chat and make friends....lol I go to shop and when this woman is in shopping mode you better not get in her way

For anyone interested I started a new group called 'Yard Salers Unite' and welcome anyone who is pro-yard sales to join. If you join to create havoc I will sic my pet panther on you

In regards to Allana's post on classified charges: Well personally I think the people paying thousands of Lindens to post a classified are just showing off.....throwing away $ for no reason, because a simple click of the button and you can alphabetize (which I do mostly) or even reverse the amount paid so all the 50$L payees show first (which I do second most). So if I am looking for yard sales in the alphabetized mode I can find them easily as long as they call themselves yard sales and not put fancy little dodads in their text.

Personally I think each person (including alts) should be allowed just one event listing per day - one for a day on yard sales, one for camping chairs, one for tringo and they can list the different times they will have games etc 'in' that one event posting. Would certainly trim down the events listing, make life easier and less for the Lindens to watch over. My two cents

Kitty>^.^<

Jackal, I'll admit I've only bought one classified ad myself and when I did the numbers shocked me.... I will try buying more at the 50L amount and hope others do what Ms Kitty does and really look.

Well Lewis, in my dictionary “event” means something that takes place. A happening can be long as well as short and if it involves picking magic mushrooms, fishing, gambling or selling certain goods, it matters not to me. If I don’t the look of it, I can pass right on by.

I see no contradiction between a libertarian aversion to unnecessary regulation and an acceptance that some regulation is desirable in order to curb the worst anti-social excesses. I can think of more baleful things than yard sales to preoccupy the authorities on SL.

I for one would rather not discover Mr. Blair’s dismal new labour Britain recreated here on SL!

I'll join the minute I get in the game!

coco <----- wonders which group to quit

Boo Hoo!

You broke the rules for events listings and got called on it. What's the big deal?

Just because someone else gets away with doing something against the rules doesn't mean you should get to do it as well.

If you want the rules changed, then change them, don't just ignore them.

giggles how I wish we could get back to global economics - politics whether they be British or United States is abit stodgey for a fun place like SL

Dearest Neehai,

I AM trying to change it and please don't whimper and whine like a baby

That would be correct.... however LL have put certain restrictions in what counts as a valid event - and if you can't abide by those rules, either don't post, or don't whine when your event is pulled from the calendar. Quite simple really.



I haven't got a clue what that means in relation to curbing crap on the events calendar.

Lewis (WWID)

As LL defines an "event", it is time-limited -- commercial shop owners who simply rotate stock between the inside of their shop and the rest of their property seem not to understand this definition.

In RL, someone cleans out their attic and basement and puts the stuff they don't want/need out for others to buy at very low prices. It's a limited-time event, at which the sellers preside IN PERSON in order to deal with the public.

Now, a FLEA MARKET is a place where real commercial dealers rent space and sell items which they have acquired from other sources, not from their own attics/garages, also usually for fairly low prices. It may operate like any other business at a permanent location (one rather large warehouse building in Northern Virginia, on Rte 1 south of Alexandria, was a well-known flea market for over 20 years, where many of the small collectibles/antique dealers in NoVA had business spaces), or may just operate in a local parking lot one day a week. But it is a commercial business, not a time-limited EVENT run by an individual/family.

If I PERSONALLY clean out all the freebies and cheap junk I've collected and set up a yard sale of things I've used personally, that's a YARD SALE; if a commercial dealer (who sells the same KIND of stuff in a shop every single day) moves his/her stock outside the front door of his shop, that is _NOT_ a "yard sale" -- it's simply business as usual, COMMERCIAL business, and is not a time-limited EVENT.

Now, if you decide to lower prices dramatically to $5L per item for an extremely limited time period, that's an event -- so is a CLEARANCE SALE, if it is time-limited. If you run the "clearance sale" for 3 months running, it's not an event, but BAU (business as usual).

A yard sale is not the same thing as a flea market -- and is not simply a open-air continuation of a commercial business's BUSINESS AS USUAL. What's so difficult about that? You just want free advertising for your commercial biz, want to advertise it as a FAKE yard sale, and are PO'd that LL put a stop to this dealer's scam. I think it's unfair for commercial dealers to scam LL and everyone everyone else in SL by this BS. Quit whining.

Excuse me but at least one person in this thread does not have yard sales -- they are 24 hour a day 5 day a week sales that are always going on and that have the same stuff for sale that can be found in that person's adjoining shop.

I still don't understand how anyone can consider a Yard Sale an Event, especially the ones that are basically stores...

Yep, yard sales in SL are ridiculous. Events should require some sort of HOST to be present at the posted time of the event.

By the way... who (other than other yard sale merchants) actually goes to yard sales?

OK, I'll try. First, let's assume it's not actually just a store. Let's say that it also has a host present and a beginning and end time. (I think that is a good definition of an event, though I myself don't personally mind of yard sales people leave their stuff out afterwards, heh.)

Why is it an event? Because it is something for me to do on the game, just like it would be if I were a yard-sale goer irl. I don't get to do much shopping besides texture shopping (and don't have the money for it), so it is highly entertaining for me to go to a yard sale, look through someone else's junk, and once in a while find something I really like that is a bargain.

It's like irl. You can go to the movies on Saturday afternoon, or you can go to a friend's party on Saturday afternoon, or you can work around the house on Saturday afternoon, or you can run errands on Saturday afternoon. Or you can go to a yard sale. It is an event - like the movies and the party - because someone else has gone to the trouble to hold it and has invited you to it. It is an event because you have gone out and done it. It isn't like shopping, because it is not going to be there next Saturday, and it's not like errands, because you don't have to do it. You do it for fun.

In an environment where almost everything revolves around making things and buying things and selling things, it is kind of crazy to then not allow people to hold yard sales to recycle some of what they've bought.

And in my case, without yard sales, there would be that much less for me to do. Every so often, I'll take the night off from creating and treat myself to yard sales.

coco