pay for event listings?

AMEN!

Let's fix what's broken before trying to mess around with charging for events and whatnot.

1) I'll say it again Jesse - polling on the forums will always give you a skewed result. If you really want to know what the majority of the population thinks (a) Put your query on the login messages (b) hold a series of well-advertised (both ingame and forum) polling events/discussion ingame, (c) Utilize the announcement emails/system etc - TRY HARDER!

2) Speaking for the New Citizens Inc. Where right now we have classes running every day, our budget that consists of donations and out of pocket money, paying to list our classes would wipe us out in less than a month.

3) It is a fallacy that most people are bypassing the events list in lieu of group announcements. Look at the events list. Its almost three pages long each and every day. People AUGMENT that list with group message reminders.

This is not a solution to the "problem". How long ago was it that we were promised an overhaul of the events listing system? Something simple wasnt it? Filtering capabilities, A format that makes sense - how about a tab type system? Something!

Why is it that throwing money at a "problem" is always the first thing people think of?

First of all the only "problem" that exists is the lack of a system that makes sense for how events are actually going down in SL.

I might not want to go visit a ride your pony naked event, but I'm not gonna dis on the person who wants to post that, and I'm certainly not going to "outlaw" naked pony rides from being posted.

Do you understand?

Jesse you been on my List from day one when you came out trying to "fix" the educational events "problem" when simple research would a told ya, LL was responsible for the hash of that situation in the first place.

Yall just LOVE to see events and people and groups and individuals helping noobies and educating folks don't ya?

Well thats what I do. Thats what the New Citizens Inc (NCI) does. You implement this quick and easy non-fix and all of that goes out the window.

You might want to think that groups like the NCI don't "represent" a bulk of what's available out there to educate and help new comers - think again. There's a lot of groups out there and this idea of yours is going to be a huge setback.

I'm emailing philly to have him personally put on your BLOTTD something that isnt going to be easy and FUN. Something that takes more than a three second post on a forum that less than 10% of the Second Life population access daily.

Yer gonna have to get yer buns in gear darlin and get out there and oh I don't know - peruse the events list - contact the posters and invite them ALL to weigh in on whatever else you gonna cook up next for events.

Yer gonna have to contact the founders of groups that post daily and multiple events and ask them how paying for events are going to impact them.

Yay or Nay? How cute. Get out there and find out what's REALLY going on.

The problem is that this particular segment has paid for all of the money sink corrective
measures thus far. Every corrective measure has more strongly impacted the events making community than other areas of the community. ALSO as I said before, and as noone has sufficiently addressed, how will this help discourage commercial posters? it won't. it makes the entire events calender a commercial posting page. which is fine but have SOME place for free community postings for ACTUAL COMMUNITY EVENTS!!! or just bloody well monitor the thing and have commercial postings post in classifieds. We don't have to make a new system. We have a great system that would work if there was even a slight modicum of effort put into monitoring it. Let ResMods do the work there that they do in other area of the forums and it'd be working fine in no time at all.

Also, since the economy is just beginning a profound change with the end of DI, I'd wait before making any sweeping statements about the economy. I'd look at the connection between huge land sales at auction and the dropping Linden rather than hoping to nickel and dime events producers to death.

I honestly think people are kidding themselves if they think LL is going to police the event calendar much more than they do. It's not a solution, because it's not going to happen. I just don't think it's realistic to keep clammoring for it.

What else is going to discourage commercial posters but a built in cost? Why do you think we get so much email spam? Because it's virtually free for them to send it to you.

You have answered a question with a question. Commercial posters have the money to post. Because they ARE commercial posters. Nonprofit posters don't. Besides, what about ResMods? Who says Lindens would have to do it? They aren't, as far as I can tell, looking at or monitoring the events calendar at all, Lindens OR ResMods. I'd be all for giving the ResMods something more worthwhile to do than moving threads about.

Saying that charging commercial interests money for their advertising will discourage them from advertising is very flawed logic. Look at television. full of commercial interests advertising and they like doing it! they are happy to pay money. How many non-commercial postings do you see there? I'd bet a ratio of no more than one public service announcement to every thousand advertisements. Is that what you want the events listings to look like?

The logic of saying that people should pay to post and equating it with email spam would look like this if you follow it through: Spammers proliferate my email with their unwanted messages. Therefore I will charge everyone to email me and that will decrease my spam.

We obviously look at this differently.

Television isn't a good example because there is a limited space for ads/announcements. It has to be moderated in some way. If TV ad space was free, unlimited and nearly unmoderated like our event calendar is now, it would be a disaster. You wouldn't ever find anything you wanted to watch just endless crappy ads.

Allowing residents to moderate the events calendar is big mistake in my opinion. I don't think other residents would make good moderators since there is such a wide disparity between what people think are legitamate events.

1. Is Tringo an event?
   
2. Is a sale with a host an event?
   
3. What about a product demo?
   
4. What about a carnival or festival that lasts for a week, but is basically a build with no host and no specific event?

And that is exactly what some companies are trying to set up.

Anyway... sorry. When I posted in this thread originally, I told myself I wouldn't allow myself to get into this kind of pointless debate. I expressed my opinion and I'm out.

Ok, Keiki. Please understand that I am trying to hear what you're saying. I don't want to turn this into a personal issue at all, but we do clearly have a difference of opinion. Going back to the television model, you said "You wouldn't ever find anything you wanted to watch just endless crappy ads." I wonder, though, how this is different from what we DO have on TV? One way the internet is better than tv is in the access it provides and the ability to choose from many things: not just what big brother network wants to show you.

Another thing that could explain our difference of opinion is the frequency with which you would be paying for community notices as compared to the frequency with which I would be paying for community notices. You produce seasonal ball(s? I found one listed). I produce events that happen night after night and week after week. For me the cost is exponentially higher. It is understandable that we'd be seeing the issue from different vantages.

I had an estimate that it would cost around 500-1500 USD per month to have personnel doing event calendar policing OR have personnel using volunteers, too.

For a company that has 300 000 USD income per month or more, and seeing that the events list is such an important and cardinal part of the user experience, it seems foolish that they don't think the convenience of their users aren't worth these pennies

I don't think 'event policing' needs such an overqualified person, and surely not full time, so the cost estimate might just be correct.

I'm sure that plenty of us - myself included - would be more than happy to police the calendar as volunteers. It just needs us to report questionable events, and for a Linden to spend time actioning the reports if they are justified.

At the moment, there is no disincentive not to abuse the calendar. Problem events don't get removed, spammers don't lose posting rights, so people aren't going to be bothered. Let's get a few wrists slapped, some big names suddenly losing the privilege to post events (and the ban extends to both poster and location, which prevents alts being used) for a few weeks, and then we will see things clear up, guaranteed.

It takes me 10 minutes to browse through the calendar to see what's going on today. It wouldn't take any longer to flag problematic events for Linden review. Half a dozen of us doing it once a day each day wouldn't really infringe on our gameplay and enjoyment at all.

The events calendar is an essential part of the game, as it's the best way to find out what's going on. The minority that abuse it mean that everyone suffers. Again.

Lewis

yall are missing the point. The issue isnt about policing the events lists. The issue is about features that should and can be implemented so that you can FILTER and DESIGN the events that you want to see.

These things were promised to us a long time ago before Jesse was even hired on staff, and if he's and ex/current resident, he should have done his research, and IF his job is to now "fix" the list, he should be working with the techies on implementing those features.

And just so you know, there is a drop down list of categories. If you are looking for Educational events then just take 2 seconds and pop that category up, and all the rest of the stuff poofs. That's a good start, now lets continue on and build in other filtering mechanisms.

You do realize what you sound like when you say for example: "I hate such and such events and they just have to go."

Most people after trying a week or two to hold an event give up if its not successful. by successful I mean getting people to show up, have fun, participate, learn etc.

If the events list is crowded with things you personally find distasteful, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are tons more avies who are flocking to them and finding them perfectly to their liking.

There's a ton of RL events going on in my local paper's event lists that I wouldnt be interested in attending. Yet who am I to write into the editor and request that they not list them, or ban them simply to keep my precious eyeballs from being soiled?

Yall sound like you want a police state up in here, you really do.

What disgusts me, is Jesse made policy based on a small number of people's distate for one kind of event. How many residents do we have? over 100K right? Less than 100 chimed in on his last "polling" on the events issue and he created policy on that. Rediculous!

And here he is doing it again.

If LL staff is too busy or tied up or wearing too many hats to be able to handle the job that they are assigned, then spend some of them millions to either outsource or hire more people, so things can get done.

Why waste time policing a broken feature, when simply implementing a better method, and filtering features would solve all this?

No, I believe it is you who are missing the point. Or at least the general direction in which we're trying to post for.

If there were people to police the events list, they would not necessarily remove them, but sort them to go to an assigned category.

I'm saying we should do both. As in: Implementing a better tool system for browsing the events list, AND setting up resident policing system for helping sort the stuff out.

Let's pose a hypothetical situation, here:

I'm just a normal dude, trying to learn how to script a car.

I could *hypothetically* go into my find events tab to

Learning and Arts> Scripting>Vehicle Scripting.

HOWEVER, if these drop-down categories are not monitored in any way, we would still be looking at a list similar to what we have in the Find Events window...something like this:

NAKED XXX NUDE TOPLESS
MONEY RAFFLE BALL PRIZES
TRINGO 100L MARIJUANA POTS
COME GET BLAZED AT BLAZE NIGHTCLUB
XXX TRINGO COME NUDE
ALL YOUR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE
SEX BDSM SLINGO
THE EDGE: WE WILL CUT YOU.
ALL YOUR BASE

And at some point while the guy searches the list, say 5 minutes later after careful searching, he finds:

Car Scripting classes held at (Insert random sim here)

What we need is both. If we use the two in CONJUNCTION, it will make for a much better events experience, being able to find the events, and being assured that those events are not fake people getters.

Although, I can see with dwell (Traffic) out of the way, much less spamming might be going on anyway, but we'll see.

So, I vote NAY and NAY again for the proposal to put a fee on the events list. The result would be no education events, no poetry readings, no audio streamed live bands, unless those things were to get melded (somehow) into a deeppockets company. This proposal simply THROWS MONEY at the problem while not bothering to lift a finger to actually solve it. And with all that's going on already, (grid going down for undetermined periods of time, dwell being thrown out the window without a real vote put into it, man time of Lindens being used to fuel pet projects (seriously...camera updates? THAT was on the top of their BLOTTD?) The beauty of SL is flying out the window, and fast. At this rate, as soon as a competitor with another great idea comes into play, Sl is out the window.

So, in conclusion:
LL. If you have problems being motivated(the BLOTTD- Big list of things to do infers this.)
or not having enough man hours to do the work, Enlist the help of your residents! I, for one, AM WILLING to go through the events and sort them, provided the tools necessary. Yes, I know you would not trust me enough to give me the power to re-arange events planned, but you seem to busy to deal with such things. There are still people around in Sl who believe in this place and want to help. Give a few of those hats to us.

I'm going to have to go with NAY
Personally, I use the Events tab all the time to just browse around SL and find various things to do and see. If you start charging, it's going to end up being all of the people who have the money to advertise will be able to do so, and all the others won't. It will turn into a "who's who" type of thing.

What's the big deal if you get to advertise for free? And if you don't like certain ads that are posted, simply don't click on them for the information or don't tp there. Plain and Simple!

Everyone (no matter how much money they have in the game) is welcome to post ads, from people trying to make some cash with a yard sale, those trying to make a go of it with a new business, to those who have an amazing business going and want to get further ahead of the game. It's fair, it's good, and it's informative for people to really look around and see what's out there. If you only want to see certain things, type in a keyword and only look at those events. If you're posting events and you want a certain crowd, use those keywords to lure people to your ad.

Five posts a day is great, after the five, you could start charging if people want to run more. But the game has so much money circulating as it is, posting an event for free isn't going to break the bank considering all of the other things that money is being made off of.

Just my two cents!

I will NOT be paying to list events. Infact i'm irritated that it's even a suggestion. How much more money are we supposed to shell out - membership, purchase of land, land tier, classifieds - and now this ?

You've taken away DI, and now dwell payments are going, it's already been expressed that stipends will be next on the list.

Also I do NOT like the idea of someone telling me how many events i can post, or even determining whether my event is worthy of being posted - playing competative games or hosted dances are just as relevant as an educational session, and i quote :

"An event is defined as a special group activity that is led by a host on land owned either by the host or by a group the host belongs to. Examples include discussions, group meetings, hosted dances, classes, tours, and competitions."

However seeing someone blatently advertise their wedding chapel or beach towels (which were both in todays listings) are IMHO blatant abuse - if someone wants to promote their business - go to the classifieds and pay a fee like everyone else does!

Perhaps having a system where only registered locations can post might lessen the huge numbers of abusive posts. This would still mean it needs to be monitored by a Linden and perhaps the ability (such as forums) for users (of registered locations) to report posts that are blatantly abusive would be helpful in this cause. Abusive posters get one warning and then have their locations registration removed and therefore their ability to post gone.

The whole process of registering one's location might be a hassle for some people in the first place and only people with a serious interest might take the time, plus the monitoring by group founders of their officers to ensure that posts meet the posting rules otherwise they run the risk of not being able to post for their location at all would also mean that some of the "policing" is done by us - would also be nice for a group founders to be able to remove/edit any posts by officers.

So, if you have 20K to place your event on the top of the list like some of the established people seem to have floating around...sure. But for some of us, supporting our clubs with other ventures until we can (only in a dream) make a little money it's not good. I run 5 events a day and sometimes more. If I have to spend 1000L just to get my event seen (or more if your following the classifieds model) that's 5K a day just to post events...baaaaaad. And then another 3k-4k for event prizes... Can you say..ouch! You'll drive people off the events list and it will be all yardsales and other BS.

I could see a flat fee, perhaps 25L per 1.5 hour event (seems that's about the standard event length) but that's still going to discourage people who do not have some otehr kind of income. Face it, it's hard ot make money with a club, I frankly do not see how people who do not have the backing of sim rentals and other land related income can afford to do it and maintain any sort of traffic to be visible on the list (which is another issue in it's own).

Yay

But then the event should be measured (by voting system, measuring or something) and then the investment should return if its worth it. But only the ammount spent announcing would be back not any effective profit, just like some discount stores where you pay full price and then receive the discounted money back after a while. (profit by event planning to be discussed later)

I say nay, but if you wanna make the event list better you can kick off events that are really just advertisements and to make sure the people stay off, warn them that they will be banned from listing events if they do it again.

It might be a little too much work I understand, but its a thought

well, my vote is nay, but the usual trend is if theres a way to get a Linden out of ya, the Lindens will probably figure out a way to do it...lol

As i see it, once they take traffic away, most of the events will parish, sorry to say, but most land owners that are trying to make a few bucks to pay against these spendy teir payments, wont bother, or wont afford to have prizes and pay hosts. As far as lol omg what a nitemare, a resident vigilante commitee to oversee events...i can see em riding out each day...with T-shirts that say "GIT A ROPE" cause we all know how thats going to happen..im still laffin .. they are based on abuse reports now, i got suspended last weekend for not having a host on site..after a tradgedy called me out of town suddenly...and i thought i had it covered, but my partner didnt get my offline message in time..no questions asked...just bam i was out for 3 days, lol everyone else got a warning but not me, but then i say what i think..and dont pull any punches and will continue to do so...so i imagine i am not their favorite customer...even tho i send em $150 US cash each month..i have been treated better by my paperboy...
LL has a lot to learn about management and customer service, while they have an excellent product here, it seems to defy them as how to "serve" it. Yes i said serve it..the most amazing thing about the game is its people, its not the servers or what all SL can do, its what the customers do with it, keep it up and i can assure you (LL) the cream of your crop will migrate on..and thats the sad thing...

I say leave the last post of freedom alone, if ya have to weed thru a few things, so be it, think of all the things you would have missed and or will miss, if you dont peruse thru it and see what all exists out there...

I searched for your name on the event calendar so I could see what your event was that got you suspended. On the 13th you posted......



OK...... let me get this straight. Your buisness is "SKYE Condos Rentals & Sales". You posted a 3 hour "event" with no host to raffle off a free condo to advertise your buisness.

I don't care if a host was present or not. This is NOT an event. This is a classified ad that's been placed on the event calendar for free advertising.

You deserved what you got, and if the REAL events that I like to go to end up having to pay to post because you were too cheap to buy a classified ad I think people should hold you personally responsible.

If I see an "event" like this on the calendar again and you get reported again, expect one of those reports to be from ME!.

Here's a tip: L$50 will get you a classified ad, and you wont get a 3 day suspension out of it.

So just what is a Event? could be anything. depends on how you look at it really.

Is a tringo game a event?
Is a open house a event?
Is a Raffle an event?
Is a movie an event?
Is a Sale an event?

seems to me they all are.

Perhaps a bit of research on your part mite be in order...this was the listing i got busted on:

..................................................................................................

*MOVIES-FREE MONEY!*
Date: Friday, May 12, 2006
Time: 6:00AM - 9:00AM (180 minutes)
Location: Hazeltine (142,165)
Host: cinda Hoodoo
Category: Nightlife/Entertainment
Cover Charge? No

Event description: SHOWING RETRO HORROR FLICKS 24/7, COME AND RELAX IN OUR MONEY CHAIRS AND SEE THE BONE CHILLING FLICKS OF YEARS GONE PAST..THE REALLY CREEPY ONES !!!!

SKYE PLAZA, CONDO RENTALS, MALL, CASINO, TRAIN, POOL, ITS A FUN PLACE FOR YOUR PARTIES...ASK US ABOUT HAVING YOUR EVENTS HERE !!


.........................................................................................

In fact i run 3, count em, 3 classifieds a week, one for my store, one for the mall, one for the condos. We get about a 3% return on the condo traffic, and as any first year marketing student knows, that blows...

The only thing that really brings ppl by are the events, which we try ever so hard to comply with all the rules. i have even called a Linden on my lunch hour, to get clarification on the rules. We do not see what we are doing is any more wrong than a yard sale, tringo, bingo, slingo, escort clubs..and let me reinterate, theres many things i have gone to see out of shear curiousity that have been a highlight of my SL experience.

The raffle ball we had designed, runs itself, so even if we are up showing a condo, anyone can enter as often as they like. But are always an IM away, except this weekend when i was called out of town, and i still maintain that the Lindens need to get ALL sides of story, before they swing a punch..thats just blindsiding someone, the someones that pays them lots of money EVERY month..its not how i treat my customers, but then im in the customer service business, and i know what im doing

You exquisitly define the resident vigilante commitee i mentioned above, just from your unfounded statements..in fact come on over, ill give ya one of those "GIT A ROPE" T-shirts, and when you have ALL the facts, you'll feel better about filing an abuse report, at least it will be correct ...

If you are going to do that, scrap it all together.
It is just silly having classifieds and paid events, it amounts to the same thing.

In fact get rid of everything and allow only one spot and you can shove in a google type search instead. This would make far more sense. ALL of your problems would then be solved.