Idea: New Event Categories

The event calendar could use a facelift to make both listing and finding events easier. One way to do this would be to add more categories and ask event planners to list their events in the appropriate category. For instance, games such as Tringo have become popular as of late and it may be a good idea to add a "Games of Chance" section to the list. Classes could break down to "Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced" in the category name, so as to clean up the events list.

What event categories would you add to the list? Would you take any away? How else would you improve the events listing?

For a long time, I've felt that more robust search & indexing capabilities is what the event calendar desperately needs..... not restrictions on what can be posted.

If event restrictions were policed evenly and consistantly, I might be OK with restrictions- but LL doesn't have the staff to do that, and even if they did, the rules are subjective enough to be interpreted differently by different Linden's on duty.

Until LL hires enough people to tightly monitor the event calendar, and put those folks through an intensive 2-week boot camp to get them all on the same page..... OR..... drops the restrictions alltogether, and let technology do the work.... I predict the event calendar will continue to be the mess it's been for a long time.

Just my 2 cents

Travis

Hiya T!

Great idea! Problem is, I think that 90% of all events these days fall into the categories of Games of Chance or Club Event. It might be cool, though, to have categories such as:

--Philosophical discussions
--Spiritual discussions
--Meet 'n' Greet
--Erotic party (to help weed out all of the XXX and nakie events)
--Special occasions (weddings, birthday parties, etc.)

I'm with ya, Paolo.... but that's the beauty of this solution. You drop restrictions, except for mandating that you post your event to the proper category.

Yes, a lot of the events out there are club events. So make a category that puts all the club events into a (or a couple) categories. If you don't want to see those kinds of events, lets have a way to filter them out. Let the club events overload a *category* rather than the whole calendar.

Imagine an event calendar where you could customize your view to see the events that *you* want to see. If all you want is tringo, fine - so be it. If you want Philosophical Discussions, Spiritual Discussions & Special Occasions - so be it too.

Travis

Thank you both for getting involved in the discussion!

I would like to see check boxes that you can check to see only the events you are interested in. Start everyone off with the Class checkbox checked, along with some others like Games of Chance, Social Event, Discussion, etc. Whittling down the list using these checkboxes would help greatly in not seeing what you do not want to see. I'd also like to see an event suggestion system, i.e., notify me when an event type that I've flagged is coming up. A lot of people just don't look at the Events calendar now, and "WooT my event is starting in 10 minutes be there WooT!!!" IM's are not very helpful. An active agent that sought out interesting events for you would be a great addition.

Ooooh! That's a fantastic idea, Taun God, I hope the Lindens are reading this

The Second part you posted about event notification - good idea too, but I thought that was already in place with the manual "notify" feature. If you mean something else, please, by all means, elaborate

Travis

Hi Travis, I'm suggesting a notification of events that fit the categories you selected using the check boxes. So say a building contest comes up and that's something I've flagged as an interest of mine (Contests: Building). As soon as I log on, I get a notification that this event will be happening and SL asks me if I would like a reminder for the event. It would take the work out of searching the Events calendar manually and sifting through the noise to find an event I'm genuinely interested in. This would also be a great way for LL to gauge what events attract more individuals. All one would need to do is look at the database and see what number of people are interested in Games: Chance, Contests: Building or Social: Dancing events. They could chart interests and get a better idea on what the public wants, and maybe offer ideas to the event planners on what might be the Next Big Thing (tm).

i agree with the ida of categorization

That's an excellent idea, Taun, to flag types of events you're interested in. I'd also like to see a more detailed breakdown of event types.