SL Parks & Rec Update!

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http://www.gabrielguyer.com/slparksandrec/
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I'm going to conserve threads and try to keep this one going for updates =)
So read on to get the latest update info! =)

*********************** LATEST UPDATE 12/18/04!!!

Higbee,

I would like to host a kiosk Ill contact you in game next time Im in.

Thank you

Rosa

Great stuff as always Higbee!!

Can I take this opportunity to extend an invite to people to come and see my Japanese Gardens. If you've not been there before, I hope you like it and use it to spend some quiet time. If you have been there before, I have expanded and there are a few more areas to sit in and contemplate.

I'm going to do a bit more building and planting, then I will have a garden party to declare it "open", Only took 9 months or so,

Wow Kei is back!!! Yeah!!! And if you haven't seen her gardens - get yer buns over there now!

Thanks Higbee for your contribution to SL!

Excellent!

I commend Higbee on his extensive work on this project which helps exploit (in a positive way) the benefits of SL recreational areas which are a boon to the community. The scope of this project grows increasingly vast as SL itself expands, and with the new NorthEast sims, this is even moreso true.

Here's to you, Higbee! (and don't forget, I'd like you to show me around your & Princess's place sometime please )

good job higbee and crew

hehe thanks Torley =) I haven't forgotten, but it's a busy weekend in SL!

Thank you everyone for the kind words, now get people to use it! lol That's what I want the most though honestly =D I am so glad to have Kei back the sneaky buggar. You should see all of her creations if you get the chance!

Just so everyone understands however I am not alone in this venture. They may be smaller contributions, but I couldn't do this job without the help of Anaraxis Romulus and Furious Tigereye =) The Park Service is always looking for help, if anyone is interested. The best thing the community can do for us is find places for us to check out! Give us the coordinates and region name, we'll see if it fits the registry. Check out the website for guidelines and such if interested =D The more people use the SLPRSR, the better it will become =D

Now all that aside...

I would like to take a moment and thank every person that has contributed to the growth of SL's natural habitat. Though I completely understand the world needs shops, and people need to understand the commerce of SL. However, the world has become littered with them of late In times like these I cannot appreciate your contributions enough =) Thank you for making SL beautiful. I hope I can make Kumori the place I dream of, so that you may have a place to escape to.

Oh, that looks very pretty, I will definately be visiting soon
btw, where is it located?

Good stuff! Thanks for the great review of Eucalyptus Grove in Gallinas!

-Ghoti

I was checking out your website and was curious as to what kinds of properties fit into the guidelines? There doesn't seem to be a listing of what those are anywhere (that I could find). =)

Sorry about the thread hijack, Higbee

I do appreciate the work you do so much. In fact, without you and Fur's help and encouragement early on, I can safely say that my gardens probably wouldn't even exist. I also remember talking with you and getting excited about a fully featured SLPR website, so I'm very happy that that has come about at last!

Keep up the good work!

The co-ordinates are in my sig, Ariel, or get a LM from my picks inworld.

Higbee - I won't be in world until tonight but I can host two of your SLPRSR kiosks one at my nursery and garden in Furu and another at my snow nursery. I'll IM you then, but I'm curious, do you need to place it or can you just drop it in my inventory?

Rose

Excellent job as always

great Job Higbee

Thanks, Hibgee, Anaraxia and Furious
I like checking out new parks and I think it's great that you've kept track of them.


Yes, thanks everyone! Lots of wonderfull parks and gardens out there. Keep up the good work!

hehe sure you're sorry Kei lol No Worries =D

There are Guidelines on the website, but they must not be prominent enough. I will change that today and stick a link on the front page =) Always glad to have feedback like this as well. Helps to make it better =) I am also removing the Brown outlines, just looks to cluttered to me :\

To clarify about kiosks, I do not need to place the kiosks myself. I will drop it into your inventory and it's up to you. This is all honor system based since it's just too big of a job to do otherwise =) The kiosks are full permissions when you get them, so it should be no problem to set out as many as you like =D I try to get everyone's calling card that has a kiosk so I can warn them about updates, and this way I also have a running list =D

Ok folks the website is updated with all of the changes above =)

I wanted to plop this in here so everyone could see as well...

The location of the in-world SLPRS Registry Map is: KUMORI (23,185)

I also snagged a pic which can also be accessed from our website:
(stuck myself in there for perspective of it's size lol)

Registry Map 11-15-04

Enjoy!

Bad husband! The link for the pic doesn't work.

OK, you got me. I'm not really sorry...

Hello Hello!

For thread conservation purposes, I'm going to try and continue to keep this thread as our UPDATE thread =D

We have made huge updates to the website! We've added several new places to the Registry! And most importantly, we have rethought our guidelines and created a series of Recreational Activities that can be applied to registrants!

Why would we do something like that? Well, it should make it even easier for the user to understand what recreation is available at the location, it will make it easier for us to define who should be in the registry, and it will hopefully help registrants explain their locations better to fellow SLers and for submission to the Registry =D

Please be sure to check out the new Guidelines and what each Recreational Activity means. For example: if the location has "camping" as a Recreation, then it could mean the place has temporary lodging for no expense, or it could mean a place for relaxing. It could also mean that the location has a gathering area for large or small groups. The current list of Recreational Activities is only a skeleton, and the new Guidelines rely on them. So, we expect to continue to refine both of them over time. We have made a huge step here, so we hope it will be more and more helpful as time goes on Your suggestions are welcome =) This is for you after all! Just email me: higbeeprotagonist@insight.rr.com

Lastly, I have not gotten to the Map in-world or the notecard kiosks, but we will have updates out tomorrow =) Just in time for Thanksgiving =D

Gobble Gobble everyone!

hehe lots of forum drama today so I'm giving this thread a little bumpski =D

I love the layout on the website, Highbee........ very nicely done

Thanks Toy! Getting lots of great response with new additions and people updating their information! Glad to see it is getting some real use now =D

We hope to get all of the pix and caretaker's up over the next couple of days =)

Thanks Higbee for adding Lonsdale Forest Park so quickly and I love the pic you took and the website is amazing

Huggerz,
MJ

I explored the site a bit. It looks like a lot of work, and the maintenance of the site isn't going to get any easier as SL grows.

Being a lazy developer I find myself wondering if there aren't ways to automate much of the updates of the site so that it can scale.

A few ideas I had were...

(1) Make it a wiki site so that many people can update the information. If it continues to be used by the community then the number of contributors will probably scale with the number of places listed.

(2) Higbee or someone provides each place in world with a scripted gadget that uses email or XMLRPC poll to occasionally provide automated updates to the site. If the gadget were modifiable by the owner of each place then they would be able to place a snapshot or two inside the gadget and if the LSL script were smart enough it could get the UUID of its inventory items and use that info to tell the website how to download the images from the SL asset server, and use them as the pictures for the place in the website. This method involves a lot of programming and scripting work, but would be automated.

(3) The website has similar functionality to the "Find Places" tools in SL, but focuses on a particular type of content that might be not one of the category choices (it has been a while since I've looked at the categories available), and is (I presume) free (no weekly L$ charge). However, if the residents of SL demanded it, I'm confident a new category could be added to the database table.

(4) If third party catalogs of SL places are a popular phenomena then perhaps LL should eventually provide a publicly available database of places in SL. The database could be synced and mirrored locally by SL residents, or there would be a way for people to make remote queries (some XMLRPC system of course).

As I wander toward more blue-sky ideas I should mention that in the long-term I expect SL to be able to browse 2D web content in-game. When this happens, the line between SL User Interface and web content will probably blur a bit. That is, it might eventually be possible to build a fully functional website (that is unaffiliated with LL) that could be viewed in SL with buttons and widgets that interact with SL's user interface... such as looking up a SL Park & Rec area could cause a land beacon to be automatically created on the SL world map.