I am ready to give up on events.

Perhaps the events categories could be more granular? Like, "Party Event" versus "Educational" or "Roleplaying" etc? It would be nice to be able to filter out the casino game events from the educational ones.

Glad to hear it's being discussed though, thanks for letting everyone know.

Pym

I'd like to see two new icons beside each event listing.

A tiny thumbsup and a tiny thumbsdown.

Clicking either of these would improve or degrade the ranking of the poster and location for my view only.

Let's say I click thumbsup on Primtionary and Serious Discussion at Withnail Academy. Forever after, events posted by Aliasi Stonebender and William Withnail would go to the top of my own personal list. If I then click thumbsdown on Tall Tales at Withnail Academy, William Withnail's events lose their privilege.

To recoup on development effort, charge L$25 per click, just as you did with personal ratings.

For bonus points, allow a gestalt listing, which compiles the ratings of all individuals. The most popular events go to the top of the list. (Understand that the Gestalt rating can be gamed, so personal views should still be available)

Quite simple... add a 'report button' to each entry in the listing, so that people can report 'non events' which someone in an official capacity - be it a newly hired Linden or a team of people can check anything reported and, if it's so obviously not an event (such as "24 hour yard sale" then the entry is removed... more than 5 entries a week removed, and you lose event posting privileges for a month? Shouldn't be too hard to keep track of with a simple database field.

I for one would be more than happy to volunteer for such a position. No doubt there are others.

Out of 187 events in the calendar today, I can see 21 that would qualify for 'actual' events. Something *has* to be done.

Lewis

Susie,

For me, at least, the event calendar (the mechanism, not the content) has just become something I don't use anymore.

Right now I just have a few groups that I listen for announcements on.

When they get rid of dwell we'll have a nice event page again.

Has anyone figured out how much each avi would have to give in tips to equal what a person gets from dwell?

I'm afraid you're mistaken. We discussed Project Management in SL. It was announced to your group. There's a transcript available in the library at Withnail Academy. My apologies if you didn't get the message.

Yes, this is pretty much the plan in development. I'll keep you posted when I have a timeline for release.

Great news

Dearest Inari if all you got out of my post was a simularity in names the please go backand read it as there is good and usefull informaion in there re ways to make in the new economy. I am happy to report that both Blarney Stone and Ruins are doing so well there owners have decided to expand and move them to sim sof there own

William, there seems to be some confusion here. Please IM Katherine, myself, or another RL Work in SL group officer so we can make sure we're all on the same page. Thanks!

Thank you, William, for editing your original post to remove the suggestion that the "RL Work in SL" group hosted or sponsored an event at your location.

Hey, how about that collaboration! Is "RL Work in SL" a trademark?

Just kidding, I read the original posts and got confused, as to me, RL work in SL is a phrase and I had absolutely no idea it was an actual group. Hopefully I can also do RL work in SL without any problems like this...

Pym

Response to George Flan, end of page 3

Every other Thursday, the Phoenix Spa does ballroom dancing with DJ Cirga who also DJs and hosts the "Name that Game" game on Tuesday nights. Check us out on some thursday or IM me to join our group if you are interested.

It will be a question for many clubs how they can sustain paying djs, staff, and teir without some means of support in the camping-chair-inflated and then post-DI second life. I think it will depend in large part on how willing the community is to support clubs and other event venues when their foot traffic will be no real incentive to venue owners. (Other than the pleasure of bringing other people pleasure of course.)

I wonder if clubs will finally start charging admission? and if people will be willing to pay it?

(shameless plug) we've also done storytelling events on wednesdays and fridays, taught marketing and avatar customization classes, held art exhibits (one for original mosaic art coming soon), held scening competitions, best screenpic competitions, captions, agrophobia, diving competitions and mud wrestling competitions. (well and more things I'm probably just not remembering at the moment such as our groovy poetry night.) We'll have some things coming up for sure, so keep your eyes peeled on events (just use the arts and culture filter maybe if you can't find anything without sex or sales) or join our VIP group to get event notices.

It is, as far as I know, the Developer Incentive, and not Dwell per se, that is going to be axed (and has already been lost for genuine event venues due to the traffic inflation of camping chair sites). This provided a small amount of USD that could be applied to one's teir or, in rare cases, a check in the mail. I do not personally know anyone who had their DI exceed their teir payments, but I imagine it could be done if one ran events a lot in a small space (simpler with camping chairs to be sure). For me the teir relief provided by DI added up to about $10,000L per month more or less (more some months, less others) until the camping chair places knocked us off the list alltogether. We had run from January to November an average of 5 events each and every week, costing the equivalent of $56,000L per month (including streaming costs, teir and staff). In order to replace the amount earned by D.I., I would need $334L in donations per day or $2500 per week.

The idea of dwell being eliminated is also being kicked around, I hear. If dwell also goes, the total amount of losses for the spa (DI already effectively canned for us, and dwell added also) would be around $484L per day.

For a place in Most Popular Places consistently, the DI replacement requirement would be more along the lines of $1,500L per day and maybe as much as $2,250L per day if dwell also goes.

Due to this, patrons may soon be asked to subsidize their favourite hangs with more than just their feet in the coming months. One may consider to help out your favourite spots in many ways: tip staff, donate to the locale through donate boxes or direct gifts, donate teir to your favourite land owning groups, rent apartments at the site of your favourite clubs or rent vendors there, and finally, shop at your favourite places to support the events they also house. Sometimes, the club may recoup costs through vendor rental and your shopping gives merchants reasons to 1) rent vendor space and/or 2) donate prizes to the venue.

Cheers. Hope that answers your question.

I too am in favor of better entertainment in SL, most of its getting pretty old, i have to agree. George i have a club gathering dust if youd like to have parties there have at it, Skye Club in Hazeltine, i for one wont be throwing money at traffic anymore, what a dog-chasing its tail problematic situation that was. We decided to keep our camping chairs, for one reason only, the newbs need a way to make a few bucks, and we have a newbie free center too, and we love having them, helping them with SL stuff, and we've had a ball meeting them. Money trees we all know that problem, one person rapes it dry in about 3 seconds, and my partner and i cant be on 24/7 to replenish it.
Cant wait to see what everyone here with these fantastic imaginations come up with i can barely wait to start having some fun again!

Hmm....if your speculations are right, then the ordinary user who is not a land owner or script writer or designer who earns L$'s in some way, will have to shell our his US$ to do anything or be entertained in SL in the very near future. I don't see the incentive to do that myself. Others might find it worth their $'s to pay real money to buy L$'s for tipping or to enter a club to chat or have their av dance etc...but that can get old very fast if one is paying real money for it.

The SL experience is slowly taking a turn that I am not so sure I will be part of. I can socialize in many places on the Internet for "free". I can play games and enter contest in many places online for "free". I love the the concept of SL but I think they are distroying all the incentives for the ordinary person.

So, the ordinary resident user of SL who is like me and only signs on to SL to explore, chat, play a few games etc....will be a dying breed.

Personally, I don't think you should be able to list more than 5 events per week. Since 90% of the spam on the events calender is 24/7 "yardsales" and whatnot, wouldn't that get rid of the most blatent offenders? An event should take planning and prepration and shouldn't be something you can put on every hour every day.

On that note, I wonder if a "places of interest" system couldn't go in where stuff like round the clock dance parties and slingo halls could list themselves. Perhaps even with user ratings (-1 to +1) that would eventually flilter the wheat from the chaff?

Fist let me say that I am fairly new on SL and yes, I made good use of those dreaded "camping chairs" to make money so I can shop etc. That being said and out of the way...

I have to mention an experience I had at one of the sites I camped at on SL and how I believe it's how camping chairs are set up that makes the difference People are soooo against "camping" and I understand all the reasons for it. However, it can be a good thing in some respects if it's implimented right. For instance...

This "very small island" was entirely an open shopping area with stone walls surounding 3 sides of it. Water surrounded this open shopping area. In the middle of the shopping area there were 6 camping chairs that payed out "more" then most other camping chairs anywhere else and within "plain site" of all the merchandise that was for sale

I spent quite a bit of time trying to get a chair there, as did many many other people. Sometimes you got lucky and there would be an open chair as soon as you arrived...but most of the time you had to wait till someone timed out (3 hours), and quickly grab one. I found myself either waiting or coming back many times through out the day and yes, I shopped.

While people were waiting they were shopping. The traffic was never ending. Some came just to shop, but most came first to get a camping chair and because there were "only 6" chairs it was hard to get one so they either waited or came back over and over again.


Well...during my times camping, I have to tell you that the six of us who might be camping got entertained almost every evening. So many different people came flying in to wait for a chair and while they waited they either shopped or sat around chatting and or putting on a show...some very silly but funny people people would show up. It started to become the place to go if you wanted to do more than just sit idle in a chair.

This site had a" high popularity and traffic score" up till a few days ago...

A rotten apple can spoil the bunch"...and so it goes. Someone started abusing the chairs by sitting in one and placing a box over himself that could not be remove except by him or someone who had authority over the land. Ultimately it saved the chair for him if he had to leave, for no one else could sit in it. The owner of the site got mad and took all 6 chairs away...end of traffic, popularity, and our fun time every night.

The merchants will suffer lack of sales and what owner wants to put up with that..this owner was not around much to monitor what was going on and I don't think he wanted to babysit the place. ... but the concept of placing 6 high paying 3 hour limit chairs ....just enough that the owner could afford to pay the campers, was a good one from the stand point of one camper who saw what was going on first hand.

The same concept could be used with "night clubs", and other venues. Give people a reason to "bookmark" your site and go there frequently and you will get a following of regulars who might originally have making money on their mind, but can be easily side tracked with entertainment, chatting, dancing, playing games, shopping etc. The idea is that the "6 chairs" have to be within everyone's view so that people can feel like they have a shot at getting one while they spend an hour or so hanging out.

Let's face it! Money is the biggest incentive for most people.






"

I pay my monthly bills for my club with vendor fees.

We have ten DJs that play live in our club each week. Allowing only half of them to list their events would not be fair.



And this will be gamed immediately.

Creating events that create a sense of community is perhaps one of the most important challenges in SL. They are so needed to keep people involved and wanting to return to this amazing place.

It surprises me how excluding some folks are. I was at Dragon Moon last night and there were some very interesting people there, showing off their skills. Did they include the visitors? not especially.

At Slate parties, we always try to make people feel welcome. I find it important to greet noobies and answer questions and say hello to as many people as possible. Sometimes this takes RL social skills that not everyone has.

Ask yourself this: How many days have gone by since you met somebody new? Maybe you don't want to, but aren't you boxing yourself in if you don't make the effort?

Creating events that develop community--and dealing with lag issues--is a two-fold thing. Lindens need to be aware that COMMUNITY is what keeps people coming and staying, and they should create more places and opportunities for this to occur. Blumfield is a marketing failure because building community wasn't a factor, and there was no place for people to meet.

Maybe we need also need more social directors in SL, people can create events. This is as important as building, scripting and designing skills.

Sorry to go on, but this really concerns me.

I think what it comes down to is there are different people looking for different things on Second Life due to their interests. Me, for example, I go to most discussions because 1) they're so rare and 2) because the idea of watching my avatar dance for two hours as I chat with people is boring. Though that being said, I frequent every jeans and t-shirt night as I am planning to get into the t-shirt business and like to see what "the competition" is designing.

My guess is, and as a newbie I don't want to speak to this as a scientific study, that people who are looking for club nights are doing so for the very reasons that most of them include the word "naked" or "money." People go to clubs to talk, right? But, while there, they're missing out on money they could be making in the future by designing things. So they only go to nights where a) their friends are and it doesn't matter if there's money given away or b) go to nights where they can meet people with similar tastes to talk to and there's money given away.

Any event planning requires something unique if you're going to lure people away from their usual hangouts. Or, money or sex.

For example, the SPSL (which I'm a member of) held a discussion group yesterday and we drew almost 15 people (we were expecting about 5) because political discussion groups are so rare that people who are interested in politics flocked to it. And all we gave away was a free t-shirt (and that wasn't even in the event listing) - designed by me, a newbie, so it wasn't even that great (I mean, it's funny but no work of art). And we're in a PG sim so there's no sex.

Ok I just read Susie's post on this soooo forgive me

Don't give up, I'm in the same boat. I've noticed in my own sim we started out GREAT with attendance in december then into january as we moved into ***INGO games we started to lose attendance. I do believe that camp chairs MAYBE a POSSIBLE effect but I don't think its total. But if theres 3 slingo games and one is offerin free money at the same time, realisitically where are the people gonna go? lol! Sometimes you can't compete with people who have 2k pots and camp chairs and junk. I noticed when we got back away from ***INGO games this month, attendance has been on the rise. My best suggestion? Think up cool original events, and check the calendar BEFORE you schedule so your not doin the same thing at the same time! Don't worry camp chairs will end... some day