the problem with the filtering of events

what's going to prevent people from miscategorizing?

people already skirt the current rules... what makes you think people will put things in the right category?

Have a button on the event to be able to mute event poster. This only applies to the events, not a mute that applies to anything else. If you see an obvious abuse of category use, you can simply mute the poster so that you wont see future events posted by them.

It's odd to me that people keep coming at the problem of the events listings with a punitive approach, thinking how to repress event posting, or how to mute people perceived as spamming.

We could have a simple five categories

ARTS
BUSINESS
EDUCATION
ENTERTAINMENT
GAMES

The rule is you have to stay in the category. If you don't stay in the category and spam up several at once or go in one of the more sparsely attended ones (my bet is that will be "arts," the Linden moderators will call you on that and you'll be suspended from events for a week or whatever the appropriate measure would. I'd be for taking a non-punitive approach, giving people unofficial, official, etc. warnings.

I have confidence the good will drive out the bad once this punitive and restrictive approach is taken away.

the point is that moderation isn't working now.

The mute method I am speaking of would only effect the single user that chooses to mute the event. It would still be viewable to those that wish to see it.

You could have moderators police the event list, and that is a good idea actually. But, no reason why I cant have the option to mute things I dont wish to see.

the problem with that is the same as the spammers... use a new alt. though alt are probably more finite in sl.

an ignore feature is nice.

but it sill means the fundamental problem of people miscategorizing isn't resolved, and that's the better target to fix.

i think the goal is to not have a moderator. i could be wrong about the goal.

and the current event system is supposed to be moderated, but it's not moderated very well.

A rigid system of categories will likely serve no one well. Many events will fall under multiple categories - for example, a build contest is something of a game but it can also be educational. What about a discussion group about land sales - does that go under discussions or land? Is a 24/7 tringo game an event at all, or is it more like a casino?

I think we could take a tip from internet search engines and let users create their own categories based on a full text search of the event listing. If I can set up a few rules that use words like "tringo" or "primtionary", and have the result be hide or show, that goes a long way toward helping me see the information I'm interested in. (Of course, starting your event description with the words "Bored with Tringo?" might then be counterproductive...)

I'm also in favor of having in-world advertising separate from the event listings. I think that would help things a lot. If there were a place for people to advertise their stores, they wouldn't need to have yard sale "events".

i wonder if not having a categorization system would be better.

just let people post events however they want, and let them search on what they want.

let the find tab be blank until someone searches (or else someone will complain about the top searches being biased or some such).

a problem with allowing people to post what ever would be that some people might do something likd googlebombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebomb

StoneSelf, Robin said they are actually not moderating now, and apparently haven't been for some time.

I think not having categories would be just sort of overlooking something obviously useful to players looking for events - AND a good selling point for new players - for really very little good reason.

I think for the most part, most of us understand categories and find them helpful. Consider TSO, where one categorized one's house under various things: Skills, Money, Entertainment, Games, Residences, Services, Offbeat, and probably one or two I'm missing. (The Seven Dwarfs Syndrome - you never can remember all of them, lol.)

Now naturally some people abused this system, by offering money on a skills lot, etc.
But overall, it did work as a differentiating tool. The person coming on the game could get a grasp of what all was on it and where they might like to visit by viewing these categories. That several or even a whole bunch of people might be misrepresenting their lot is of consequence mainly to old-time players, who know the differences, and are more inclined to get excited about people gaming the system.

To the new player, it looks like just more stuff to do.

Not considering the obvious solution of categories would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

You know what, I don't really CARE if someone is gaming the system by listing their same game five times a day. It just gives me the information again if I log on later in the day. If I long on at six, I'm not necessary going to read everything that was on at two, on the off chance that some of them might be still going on.

If somebody advertises a yard sale that turns out to be sucky and misleading, I can discover that when I get there. I don't need a bunch of net nannies preventing me from seeing the yard sales - and the different ad copy for each - just because a few of them might be worthless.

If I'm a Bingo player, I'm gonna be happier the more Bingo games are publicized throughout the day.

Think about the utility of classified ads in the newspapers. Would we be better off if they were NOT classified into categories? And if one is looking for something, say a job, would one prefer a paper with a lot of classified entries, such as the major city newspaper, or would one prefer a smaller, suburban newspaper, with far fewer entries to consider? And we all know that not all these classifieds are kosher - some of them are just come-ons, and the newspaper staff isn't going to conduct private investigation on each and every one of them. Big deal.

I think not only can we handle categories, even if some people aren't quite kosher with them, we need them and will be better off with them, and the game will be better, too. The more fun things we have to choose from, the richer, more diverse, and more fun the game is.

People should not have to hunt and play "guess at" what all might be in there in order to put the words in the search engine themselves. All the events should be easily accessible and organized into fairly reasonable categories, so that the player can easily find something of interest.

coco

I agree with you Stone - no matter WHAT filters are put in place moderation will still be needed.

I could take you to a place right NOW that advertise one thing on the events board but when you actually land there they want to tie you up and turn you into a slave - it's out of hand at the moment.

But as Coco correctly points out the events board has not been moderated for quite some time now.

We need filters, so we need events to have a catagory much better than the ones we have now so we can use filters in the same way we use the 'mature' option.

You dont want to see events where lots pf people are dancing around dressed in red? simply remove the check from 'social' and you wont.

The trap we must NOT fall into is arguing over the content of these filters because we'll be here from now until doomsday - Linden Labs have to be the ones to do that.

Thank you, thank you.

What I used to like about the TSO events categories and lot categories is you could log on, and on the map, the top 10 or 20 houses were all lit up, so that you could see that like, the top money-making lot was open, had 12 sims on it so there was still room for 6, etc. At a glance, you could tell what was happening, where your options were for game play, and whether you could fit on a lot, i.e. if it were too crowded.

The SL map has little stars to show events, but they are coded for category.

I think LL will end up creating some kind of categories and they could then help solidify and establish their use by having them show up coded on the map.

But then again - thats because you know the ins & outs and your not a new player. You need to look at this from every perspective.

This was exactly what I was thinking.

As SL grows, this will likely be the only practical way. The list will soon get too large to browse under any categorization.

It also opens the possibility of advertising, if you had some kind of Google-styled interface.

One category people seem to be overlooking is "Quizzes". I really don't want Strip Trivia being filtered out by people who don't want to see the hordes of "best in lingere(sic)" type club events but who might be up for some top quality quizzing if they saw it...

Not every event held in a club is a crappy, laggy, traffic-fest. I think the categrories should be:

Games
Themed Contests
Quizzes
Discussions
Art
Show n' Tells
Parties
Sales
Other...

No, I have only been playing since February. What ins and outs I do know, I haven't known for that long. I do look at it from the perspective of a new player. I don't consider myself an older player, and it has been scarcely any time at all since I was BRAND new, and I have no trouble remembering that.

A new player especially wants to have a lot to choose from. It makes the game look more exciting, and seem like it has more limitless possibilities.

I want to determine for my own that I don't like clubs and I like Bingo. I don't want older players deciding that for me. And to me, yard sales ARE events, and I enjoy them.

I don't like the limitation on the number of events that can be listed, either. That also takes away my possibilities of being entertained at any given time.

I don't need artificial limitations taking away my right to see what yard sales are going on, or whatever.

coco

Honest! or they can be. I know you have a thing against Beckett, Prokofy, but even Beckett might be fun if done right. ok. maybe not Beckett, but Holly Hughes, definitely.

I suggest

Arts & Entertainment
Sports & Gaming
Educational
Promotional