Point to Point Teleporting

The analogy between the web and SL with P2P teleporting (SLwP2P) is useful. Let's play a game to see how far we can push it:

The Web is to SLwP2P as...

1) bookmarks are to _____________.

2) Google is to _____________.

3) webpage hyperlinks are to _____________.

4) _________ is to land.


A couple other comments:

On the Web, the only way to "move around" is by following hyperlinks. In SL, you can do something analagous (teleport), but you can ALSO move around in the 3D Euclidean space (which is why I call the space of SL an augmented Euclidean space). In this sense:

SL = Web + RL

Even with P2P teleporting enabled, the neighbours will still matter. For example, if you have a house with windows, you may want the view to suit your tastes. Putting a picture in the window won't fool anyone: the scene won't change as you walk past it. An ocean view will remain valuable.

If SL implemented something like the portals in Croquet, that would all change...

Hi Robin-

I'm wildly in favor of p2p teleport so long as parcel owners have the option of setting a "Teleport-In" spot and have the ability to forbid teleport-in.

Folks have long been able to teleport AWAY any time from any place, I'm glad we'll finally be able to arrive in a somewhat similar fashion.

I'm strongly against the idea of *requiring* possession of Landmark for teleporting. Looking up landmarks is awkward and there's no way to recall landmarks to a specific spot if an owner wants to change where folks arrive on their parcel... or if the parcel changes hands. Sure, allow "teleport to landmark" but redirect the player to the destination parcel's "teleport-in" spot if set.

... it would be nice if we could restrict a parcel's Teleport-In to a specific Group without having to rely on a parcel's ban/allow lists.


So...


Q: Will P2P porting cause a loss of community?

A: I think not. There's no community at RL airports or interstate on/off ramps... just many fast moving strangers intent on their destination and a lot of minimum wage jobs providing the same generic coffee and fast food you can get anywhere else. Also, 'Urban Density' works well in RL... we don't need extra more bandwidth, rendering and processing power to manage more people, items, buildings, detail in a space. In SL, density just doesn't work out as well... and the hubs contribute to the problem rather than help alleviate it.


Q: Is it bad for some businesses and land investments?

A: Sure, while proprietors adjust to the change. But I think all of SL will benefit greatly in the long term. Folks should worry less about finding a better place for their attraction/shop/whatever... and put more effort into making a BETTER attraction/shop/whatever and better ways to promote it.


Q: We'll lose the 'happy discoveries' while flying from hub to destination?

A: No. I think folks will still joy-ride around anyway. I know for certain that I will be more inclined to explore if I can pop in some place and not be assaulted by the usual attention-getting spam that surrounds most hubs.


Q: What will I miss least when P2P arrives?

a) Smashing into the side of not-yet-rezzed towers built around hubs.

b) Explaining that there's no 'invisible wall' between my nearest telehub and my particle laboratory... (There just no sim there, please fly around it!)

c) Arriving in a 'shopping zone' and waiting... waiting... waiting... for *anything* to rez due to the absurd density of display items just because a hub is there. (okay, maybe nothing will fix this... but I can hope)

d) All of the above! Of course!

Gwyn, myself and others seem to be on similar threads. We've all presented identical oppinions using similar words and meaning. That has to count for something these days (although i fear our suggestions have been buried in pages and pages of conversation here)

we see the grid changing because of p2p
we understand there are limits to rez time and data communication.

i was trying to put some ideas out there but i'm struggling to find a way around the telehub rez time hurdle. it IS a bother. Do people notice a significantly greater rez time at hubs vs. a friend's tp? is it worth losing the telehub ring o fire? does this mean that vendos are reliant 100 percent on their textual listing and rating instead of planned location? I don't have answers for all of these.

~Lefty

Hi Lefty,

There is a reason about why a few have "identical opinions" on issues related to the kind of changes that point-to-point teleporting will bring to Second Life.

It's actually easilly explained. On one side, you have people saying emotional, passionate things like:

"I love the idea — I was always a big supporter of p2p tp!"
"I think this will benefit people overall"
"Perhaps new attractor points will naturally emerge on the grid, based on beautiful buildings"
"We could get residents in regions vote upon what they want for 'their' telehub; if they can't agree, LL has to do something about it"
"I really hate telehub malls, I'm glad they're going to disappear"
"I always lag around telehubs, when they disappear, SL will be a much better place to navigate around"
"People will now be able to go to where they want to go, as opposed to where others wish them to go"
"Newbies will benefit from the new system"
"This will enhance the SL experience"

Notice a pattern emerging?

1) Everybody is talking about personal taste
2) They support "personal taste" by saying how others "should think" about the issue
3) Opinions are based on what people think or love or have always dreamed about
4) The issue seems to be about destroying telehub malls and getting rid of land/content creators, not necessarily p2p teleporting — but all means justify the end
5) Vague assumptions are made about philosophical concepts that are thrown in without any quantifiable or verifiable means (ie. how many newbies complain per day about the lack of p2p? I meet an average of 3-4 newbies every day. After 500 days online, that's about 1500 to 2000 newbies. How many complained about the lack of p2p teleport to me? Zero. I guess I'm just unlucky, then, I only get the "clever" newbies for some reason...)

The ones leaning towards p2p teleport, but knowing that they have no sustainable data to support their opinion, are much more careful:

"Privacy is important — we need to set No Teleport areas somehow"
"Private islands/communities will not be affected — only the mainland will"
"We need some sort of attractors instead of telehubs, perhaps we could set them up as community centres instead?"
"I like p2p tp, but we really do need much better search facilities beyond what's provided by Find"

These are the rational promoters of p2p teleporting. While they don't have any data to back up the importance of re-implementing a system that failed in the past (but are optimistic that it might be successful in the future), they're (very reasonably) worried about the impact of p2p teleport and raise very important issues.

Fortunately for all of us, it looks like these are the ones that are currently be heard by LL, and implementation of p2p teleporting will take into account those issues that were raised.

On the extreme end of the spectrum are the ones backing up their claims with verifiable data:

"Land is valuable if it generates traffic. Higher-valued land is near telehubs, where people emerge, and these create routes of travel"
"Traffic has a smooth fallout curve in concentric circles around telehubs. 'Nice' buildings and popular places are 'traffic peaks' in an otherwise traffic-less mainland"
"Nobody wants to live across an 'interesting build' or a popular place — neighbourhoods try to avoid those if they're residential"
"There are almost no self-organized communities spontaneously appearing in SL —
the ones interested in them are moving into private islands (and to an extent to planned communities on the mainland) since these have urban planning as opposed to organic growth"
"In SL, people rely upon 'familiarity' of content (thus we see normal-looking houses, despite the possibility of creating completely different buildings, which are exceptions). They prefer to 'experience' SL in a familiar way, and are used to 'shopping districts' near to busy travel areas, and residential districts further away from the traffic."
"While established content producers have 'main shops', most of them have smaller shops at telehub malls. If they weren't making any money, why would they pay rent there?"
"Telehub malls appeal to the casual shopper. While many claim that this concept doesn't exist, why do telehub malls, until recently, have successfully attracted customers, while non-telehub malls that rely upon other attraction features (e.g. events) tend to have empty shops?"
"Linden Lab as a company needs income from tier and sim sales. Telehubs indirectly promoted assymetries in land value, which made land near to telehubs sell quite well — as can be seen on the auctions — thus fetching better prices above average. Thus, assymetric land prices push the economy forward (making people improve their land in order to make it more valuable), which in turn makes land more appealing, making more people invest in it, and rising LL's income. Land without a drive to make it more valuable will be worthless — thus reducing LL's overall income from tier and new sim auctions"
"Without aggregators/attractors and good search facilities, residents will only go to popular places, spread by word-of-mouth, and rarely spend their time on lesser known places. The 'casual shopper' will be replaced by the 'directed consumer' — the one that will roam popular places held by established content creators"

As you see, this last group seems to focus on two issues — the land (ie. urban development) and the economy. The data they use to support their claims is easily verifiable by anyone who cares to go out into the world and make measurements. You can argue about the conclusions — but not about the data.

So this is basically an ideologic contrast. On one side, you have a large group that don't care about land & economy, only about their passionate feelings about SL; in the middle, a group that doesn't give much importance about land & economy, but is rightfully worried about some issues like "privacy" and access to content, which they try to address in a rational manner; and a tiny group that is worried about what the mainland is going to turn into. It's no wonder that the ones from this tiny group express themselves in a similar way

I'm not against "change" (rather the contrary), I'm just worried about changes that are driven by emotions and passionate feelings, as opposed to deep thinking about what the change means. In the past, I have participated in several threads where deep thought was given to world-shattering changes. In almost all cases, they were backed up by data, thoughtfully compressed into information, and a decision made upon that information. This was all presented to us in a clear and concise manner. You could make your own conclusions. And disagree — providing you could present some data on your own.

This time, what I see is simply a "decision" which is presented as being "for the overall good" (however that is measured) without any data to back it up. I mean, a decision "for the overall good" would also be lowering tier fees. But we all have access to the economic data which would show how that would be a finantial ruin for LL — so, by just thinking a bit about it, we can understand why that would be a Bad Idea. But in the case of p2p teleporting, I haven't seen anyone presenting "hard data" to support the concept of why it will "enhance the user experience" (at the cost of locally destroying the land & economy).

After so many posts, discussions, events, meetings, blog articles, the same question still remains: why this decision? Sure, the answer can just be "because we WANT it". But since it's hardly plausible to base one's corporate success simply upon "feelings" and expect it to work each time, I guess that the real reason is not for us to know, only to speculate about.

BTW, I just remembered something from a discussion held in-world yesterday. Some telehub land owners and former telehub land owners have reported that recently telehub sims have dropped dramatically in performance, compared to a few months ago — although content has not substantially changed, and 1.7 cannot account for the difference (since other sims were unaffected). Of course, people are given to conspiracy theories, so this argument may be flawed. Only Linden Lab has a regular tracking of the performance of the sims. This site, sadly down for some months now, had an astonishing amount of data, from new users per day (correlating them with media coverage of SL) as well as the performance of several sims. That was the only way you were able to see if these claims of "reduced performance" at telehubs are real or not.

As someone who could theoretically be in both the 'middle' and 'tiny' groups, you've hit both of them rather square. Though I also (in my prior post here) brought up an idea to assist in cleaning up a few things on their backend and get LL more 'hands off,' which we need more of anyway if they intend to allow us to host our own servers.



Actually, Andrew I think posted a good back history on the TH and LL's use thereof; It matched somewhat the contents of your weblog post but of course has their own views on the matter. I felt both views are good ones, and anyone who's dealt with Conceirge due to a wayward TH will understand that the method in use now on the backend is archaic at best and needed *some* form of revamp.

The idea of it being needed or not is not for me to judge really, I island-hop 99% of my time these days. What I felt important is that they don't toss out all the good with the bad, on a rewrite/removal of the telehub system.

That's it ,

Ok this my first post so if it sux don't laugh, lol.

I had an idea to place P2P Teleporting and still keep some traffic in the Telehub lands.

What if LindenLabs restructurized the Welcome Area system and didvide the concept within all the existing Telehubs. Thus having all the newcomers appear among all the different Telehubs there are now and providing traffic to the lands nearby as traveling people used to.

The comunity center idea could be implemented but instead of being based on how appealing it is to SL citizens, they could be focused on helping all the newcomers that would pop within them. New players could even choose which comunity center to appear on when they subscribe to Second Life, just as they now pick theyre most compatible Greeter.

People who hang out at the Welcome Area will move to the variuos TeleHub comunity centers thus increasing the traffic generated. I understand that traffic is generated from people that actually are on the land, not near it, but newcomers who arrive at the different centers of theyr choice will usually feel atracted to exploring the surrounds. I know i did.

I can even predict that landowners will want to promote the fluorishing of theyr nearest center to increase the amount of newcomers that pop out. A healthy competition to try to appeal the most to newcomers will rise. Also to be noted is that some measures should be placed to disencourage taking advantage of newcomers.

Well Thank You if you read this and I hope it helps

Quasar - your idea to delete the current WA and transform the telehubs into mini welcome areas (MWA) is intriguing.

It would bring a certain amount of traffic to each former telehub.
Let's run some rough numbers to see how much traffic:

- Suppose P2P teleporting and your idea get implemented in December.

- Suppose the population is 105,000 on January 1, 2006.

- Suppose the population grows by 20% in January, that is, it grows by 21,000 Residents. (It might be quite a bit more - many people will get a new computer for Christmas.)

- Suppose that 21,000 new Residents return to their MWA (as their temporary home) 3 more times before moving their start point elsewhere. So there are 84,000 "arrivals" at the MWA's in January (by new or recently-new Residents).

Now, for the sake of simplicity, let's pretend that each MWA gets the same number of arrivals.

How many arrivals per MWA in January?

84,000 divided by the number of MWA.

How many telehubs are there? Suppose there are 300. Then there would be 280 arivals per MWA in January. Divide that by 31 days and you get about 9 arrivals per day.

I admit I've made many simplifying assumptions, but nine per day is probably the right order of magnitude, and it isn't much.

I was gonna write more on this, but I'm feeling lazy and I'm meant to be busy. Soz.

Changing the telehubs into welcome areas would mean that new users don't get the stuff at the current one when they arrive. The games, the building area, Gibson's towers, the city sims, etc. These are all, IMHO, useful or impressive. It would also require more greeters, are there enough to go 'round?

Plus, new users aren't what the mall owners and such that have gathered around the telehubs want as traffic - generally they have very little money.

Personally I like the welcome area being in one location too, it's like a 'home' page on a website.

I don't know about making them mini-welcome areas, but making them "anyone can set home here" areas, bind-point style, would be rather nice. Of course, a newbie may often get their own land soon enough, and with P2P it may seem moot, but it's an idea.

ah, but these are new arrivals and haven't seen anything like this before. 1 pair of fresh eyes is worth 10 old jaded and indifferent eyes. I certainly remember my first day or two better than almost anything since.

There are many newbes that do not get first land for some time, months. I have any in my group that have months in SL and haven't purchased their first land yet or waited a number of months to do so. Of course they all had the option of setting our house to "home port", but even than, most would travel around SL logging into their last location.

The biggest "problem" (issue) with p2p is, as Troy points out, the loss of the sense of space. I've spent some time in virtual worlds where p2p was the primary mode of travel and though it can be convienent for moving from distant points, it gave you no feeling of "space". The "bigness" of SL is in the fact that you do have to move around in this world. I, for one, would miss that feeling very much.

Currently, on the map window, you can type in the name of a sim and X,Y coords to teleport there. I assume when P2P goes in that will be the same, except that you go directly to the red line.

Suppose a little checkbox were added to the map window named 'go to nearest telehub instead'. Most people would leave it unchecked almost always. But it might be useful to people who are exploring, or who get hit with a ban script or other permission bug at their intended destination, or to newbies who want to see the actual telehub (perhaps to set their home point there).

I think that would be a very nice feature.

Speaking of data... I'd like to start seeing more of it. If LL would start a data share program where we could easily see all sort of sim and population information, I think they would have a very sellable product. Market information is valuable in any world.

~Lefty
funny that I was twice accused of not speaking fact, when all I want to do is find them...

Meeting Summary
Thursday we had a meeting in-world to talk about the telehubs and what will become of them.

One of the proposals we talked about was the possibility of having residents around each telehub design the space as a public area for that region. While some people were interested, it seemed that most are skeptical that we could get that much cooperation for all the mainland telehub areas. The consensus was to award the design of the new spaces to resident groups who compete for the job.

Some of the ideas people raised:

- having a regional or local flavor to the converted telehub regions may be too idealistic
- give resident groups contracts to build out the new spaces
- ideas to continue to attract traffic flow to the areas include: allowing people to make it a homepoint, maintain business and commercial support with directories and better advertising options, find new ways to use the space, a new collection of free items, collectibles, gathering spaces, route newbies there, offer money and/or ATMs, learning centers, up to date news

Plan
When 1.8 releases all the telehubs will be replaced by "Infohubs"

Initially these hubs will all be the same, and will include:
- a community bulletin board for local ads, job postings and messages
- an InfoNet terminal with Linden news channel
- information about land sales
- all new free content
- the ability to set events and home points
- location marked on map with a new Info icon

At the same time we'll open a request for bids to create 5 unique designs for placement throughout the mainland in lieu of these default plazas. Specifications will be made available at that point (given the short amount of time, we feel we're better off placing the default hubs rather than rushing the resident designs)

Additional ideas include: access to money (random payments made through money trees, ATMs to access LindeX), an art fair with collectibles, special events. Longer term we'll also look at using these areas as newbie spawn points, assuming they become viable community spaces.

Here's the meeting transcript, edited to make it easier to follow.

You: Point to Point teleporting will be implemented sometime in the next few weeks.
Kenny Strauss: Yay
Jase Byrne is online
Kenny Strauss: It'll be just like beta again
Aimee Weber: wow thats quick
Nathan Stewart: yay
You: What this means is that you'll be able to teleport directly to places where you have a landmark, or you'll be able to click on the map and go directly there
Bri Koolhaas: GRRRRRR
Nicole David: R.I.P. hubs :*(
FxyLdy Moonlight: Great
You: There will no longer be a stop at the telehub and flying to the red beacon
Kenny Strauss: LOL Well that sums it iup.. meeting ove?
bladyblue Bommerang: lol
You: In the long run we believe this is the best move for second life.
Bri Koolhaas: *jaw drops*
FxyLdy Moonlight: Yes, for sure
Kazanture Aleixandre: <- agrees
Kenny Strauss: I hate having to fly 800 meters
Bri Koolhaas: pfff
You: However, we know that for many, telehubs have been one of the most important organizing structures in SL
Kenny Strauss: Especially without a flight assist
Luke Somme: Why did you have that intermediary step in the first place?
You: So I don't want to debate P2P teleporting today.
Nicole David: i think we will lose the sense of SL being an actual world...itll just be like visiting websites now
Kurohyu Song: Don't you think you should have taken hubs off auctions weeks before so a lot of ppl didn't lose their money
You: I do want to talk about how we can repurpose the telehub land so that it continues to be land that helps to organize zoning
Nicole David: well a lil OT but i think u should start implimenting zoned sims to control the zoning issues. mature/pg isnt enough
You: Here's what we're planning to do, and where I think we can focus our discussion.
You: Each telehub space will be converted initially into a public space with information kiosks
You: There will be a place for residents to post ads and messages, an InfoNet terminal and free content
You: These spaces will still show up on the map, and will have an icon that looks like an "I" for information.
Kazanture Aleixandre: make all residents ressing on hub areas when they sign on
Nicole David: noo lol
Buxton Malaprop: no, I rez on my land. let the hub points be "home"-set though, please.
You: What I'm wondering is if you think that resident groups in each telehub region would be interested in having the option of designing the public space in their region
You: And if so, how we might work together to make that happen.
Lenin Camus: I think that's a great idea.
Nicole David: i think it would become messy...neighbors fight
Lenin Camus: It would allow each region to have an identity, like many cities do today.
You: Urban planners know that public gathering spaces help to strengthen a community. They can also act as hubs for commercial zoning.
Aimee Weber: Well the Lindens need only move on the plan when the neighbors work it out
Travis Lambert: I'd definately like a say in what my local telehub becomes
Kazanture Aleixandre: <- agrees lenin
Aimee Weber: I thinks it's a nice idea
FxyLdy Moonlight: I like the idea too.
Nicole David: what happens whern enighbors move - ppl in SL move so foten
Octal Khan: no offense, but the hubs are already commercial zones
Bri Koolhaas: Siona has one of the most awsome set up's in SL
Kazanture Aleixandre: all liked my idea
You: So what I'd love to see is each region creating their own public gathering space and finding ways to continue to bring people to that commercial area.
Kolya Seifert: perhaps some of the things thta used to be done thru the UI could be changed to only work at a telehub... like posting classifieds
Selador Cellardoor: Yes, good idea
Cristiano Midnight: Yes if the areas are as compelling as people claim they are, people will still want to go
Selador Cellardoor: But I think you will need more than that to attract people there
You: Octal - the goal would be to keep them that way so that folks like Bri aren't concerned that the commercial marketplace will dry up.
Aimee Weber: especially if the hubs represent the culture of the local area. it could be a nice way to solidify an area's identity
Octal Khan: thanks robin
You: OK. How about if we start using the soapbox.
Gus Plisskin: I'd like to hear LL's high-level plans first before hearing about special cases.
Boliver Oddfellow: aimee has a good point
Lenin Camus: A region working together to build the former hub would let people get to know each ther and create a neighborhood feel.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Do areas have identities today? (being mean here ? I'm sure we'll hear about 5 or 6 good examples of areas with identities)
Aimee Weber: yes lenin!
Octal Khan: would it create inter-hub rivalry?
Aimee Weber: I am seeing a coffee shop somewhere in here
Nicole David: well look at Lida - there is a huge shopping complex all around the hub, great for business with or with out a telehub. but after the announcement the prices were cut by 70% and are having a hard time even getting that price..
Cocoanut Koala: i don't get it - how do we know which hub area we are in?
Lenin Camus: Some areas have identity, but most hubs are just purely commercial - they have no regional feel or public meaning.
Aimee Weber: you can set your map to see your zone coco
Cristiano Midnight: The concept of open public shared space seems rather utopian - I think it will just continue the trend of it being turned into malls
Cocoanut Koala: very utopian
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hear hear Cristiano...
Lenin Camus: Regions could vote on who got to design the hub.
Nicole David: agreed
Selador Cellardoor: Yes, I tend to agree, Cristiano
Aimee Weber: YAY utopia
Octal Khan: unless there is an enforced no-build code
Selador Cellardoor: I think they need something special
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Who would vote, Lenin, landowners or rentees?
Bri Koolhaas: dayum...talk about killing the eco
Gus Plisskin: Sell off the telehub land. Let the buyers decide what to do with it.
Taeja Diaz: we need something more than just malls..they are getting pretty old..we need something trend setting, interesting at least.
Octal Khan: agreed taeja...
Nicole David: i think people will abuse the use of linden land easily...and linden swont be able to step in all the time for each hub....itll get messy
Aimee Weber: I suspect it would be the Landowners, gwyneth, and to preserve their own business they would likely have their renters in mind? maybe?
Jonquille Noir: If it's no build, but you want redisents of the zone to have a say in what it turns into, then what exactly are we talking about? How will we be communicating with others in our area?
Travis Lambert: What if Telehubs became a sort of "Buisness Directory" kiosk of local area buisnesses?
Kazanture Aleixandre: building for hubs never works, people can build better other areas always
Lenin Camus: THere could still be stores in the hub land. It might even be more valueable if your region's hub was a great attraction.
You: The land would continue to be Linden land, and we would work with a designated group to build it out
You: OK - let's take turns with the soapbox.
Taeja Diaz: travis..business directory = mall
Jet Control: YAY order order!
Taeja Diaz: lol
Jeska Linden: Click on it to be added to the speaker queue.
Boliver Oddfellow: does anyone really go to telehub malls anyway
Gus Plisskin: I don't, Boliver
Jonquille Noir: Designated by what? Contest? Popularity? How much land they own in the immediate area?
Crossing Tiger: How would access to a Telehub-Editing group be managed to avoid drama and excess Linden involvement?
Nathan Stewart: nope
Nicole David: howlong would the builds stay? what happens when all contributing neighbors move away
Boliver Oddfellow: I never have never will
Ravenous Dingo: no becuz telehub malls r teh suck
Bri Koolhaas: <===was buying hub land to keep it from becoming mall
Nathan Stewart: if there is a nicely designed mall thats where i go
Octal Khan: lol
You: Please keep your comments relatively short so everyone gets a turn
Gus Plisskin: Sell the land to residents. It's the only way to keep the Lindens from spending lots of time on this.

Travis Lambert: Like it or not, nearly all telehub areas are buisness zones today. I'd like to see something that would keep that
Travis Lambert: lol
Travis Lambert: ok
Travis Lambert: hehe not in the same region
Bri Koolhaas: with a lot of open space
Taeja Diaz: lol
The Soapbox: Travis Lambert is on the soapbox now!
Travis Lambert: lol ok
Travis Lambert: Most telehub zones are commercial zones today. I'd like to see that flavor retained - a Linden-sponsored local buisness directory might be a way to acheive that
Travis Lambert: Allow anyone within 300m of the former telehub to post advertisements to the kiosk, like you can with telehubs today
Travis Lambert: I guess that's all i've got to say - other than I personally prefer Linden building these structures, rather than residents

Nicole David: I just wanna add that telehubs currently have advertisemens, they arent useful,they dont attract anybody.
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
Travis Lambert: They could if they were done correctly - the current implementation is poor

The Soapbox: Cristiano Midnight is on the soapbox now!
Aimee Weber: whoa
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Cristiano Midnight: I think that the idea that telehubs are a beloved and important center of commerce and culture in SL are a complete fallacy perpetuated by those who were just trying to sell expensive land. Most people flee them as fast as they can to go where they were
Boliver Oddfellow: /claps
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Cristiano Midnight: trying to get to. As such, I think the new versions should be something more compelling, not something geared at keeping commerce centered there.
Sidra Stern: hiiiii
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Cristiano Midnight: What is more compelling, I am not exactly sure - but it certainly is not the crap that is at telehubs now.
Cristiano Midnight: done

The Soapbox: Crossing Tiger is on the soapbox now!
Jonquille Noir: We have a winner
The Soapbox: Shhh...
DogSpot Boxer: Woot!
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Crossing Tiger: For the hubs to be user created and Linen -owned, they will have to be grouped. I'm concerned as to how membership in such groups would be controled without drama or excessive Linden involvement.
Crossing Tiger: Also, if the building of them is completely up to the local residents, the quality will be the same as the surrounding builds. It won't stand out as anything special.
Crossing Tiger: I suggest using a single (or selection of coices) design that can be /customized/ but at least will be reccognizable.
Crossing Tiger: And that's it for me.

The Soapbox: The soapbox is now free
You: Thanks Crossing.
You: Gwyneth?
The Soapbox: Gwyneth Llewelyn is on the soapbox now!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: whew
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hard to navigate....
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, I won't take long, just trying to condensate about 4 pages into 2 or 3 sentences here
Gwyneth Llewelyn: basically, telehubs *were* attractors. They're history now
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So, they need to be replaces by *new* attractors IF - and only IF - we wish to keep a resemblance of a "virtual country" here
Gwyneth Llewelyn: thaat is for me the big issue
Gwyneth Llewelyn: If we don't "care" about anything silly like "zoning", "commercial districts", "communities", etc
Gwyneth Llewelyn: then well, telehubs are pointless
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and the "replacement information booths", while a very worthwhile idea, are really unimportant
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Much better would be to get better Find tools
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd be all for releasing the land in the public, and have the malls go to more lucrative places instead - their own private sims, here and there sc attered in the ocean. Bye bye mainland.
Zero Linden: do *you* think our land needs these attractors ?
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, but IF we wish to keep some sort of "order" 8even if artificial) in the mainland
Gwyneth Llewelyn: because we're humans
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and we are familiar with certain ways our environment looks
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and build from familiarity
Gwyneth Llewelyn: well then, I'm also concerned on "who" is going to decide
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd say, two possibilities...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 1) have the ones who have invested more in the land around it to get together and make what they want with th land
Gwyneth Llewelyn: alternative 2) make contests
Gwyneth Llewelyn: it worked well in the past for other interesting builds
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and it's a bit, well, "more neutral" (even if not "fairer"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I guess I still don't believe in that "region" thingy
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and "regions" will become less important with p2p
Gwyneth Llewelyn: you'll be connected to your friends and biz associates through p2p links
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and not "physical proximity"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and I've talked too much already ? thanks all
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Coco - look at the map
Cocoanut Koala: map?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: yep the Map shows telehub coverage, that's the "region"
Cocoanut Koala: ok

Kurohyu Song: i think that zoning is really the correct solution for keeping areas nice and cohensive
Kurohyu Song: i don't hink that it was right to impliment p2p without removing hub from the market first and allowing owner to sell out in a reasonable period of time
Kurohyu Song: and without zoning you will just have the same problems of unwanted buils popping up where they are not wanted
Kurohyu Song: that's all i have to say
Kurohyu Song: ty

Crossing Tiger imagines the hubs replaced with floor maps of the surrounding area where local land owners can stick teleport-ready ad pins in.
The Soapbox: Traven Sachs is on the soapbox now!
Traven Sachs: Some of you know me as the 'Taxi' guy
Kenny Strauss: How come ita ppears as if the other sims keep disapearing
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Katt Kongo: Tony Danza?
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Traven Sachs: I believe the removal of telehubs will debilatate the SL economy
Traven Sachs: I suggest rather than allowing people unlimited bookmarks they only be allowed to mark say, 50 locations. (You could use the current 'picks' list for that.)
Traven Sachs: I have only been in SL for just shy of 2.5 months
Traven Sachs: and I have seen some pretty amazing things.
Traven Sachs: I have been inspired by pioneers like Cubey Terra
Traven Sachs: I have also managed to learn a great deal in such a short time.
Traven Sachs: Some of my greatest discoveries have been made while flying from a telehub to a place I desired to go
Traven Sachs: and I think that while p2p is an EXCELLENT idea - it should not be a free for all
Octal Khan: here here
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Traven Sachs: If you don't have the desire to mark a place because you actually enjoy it
Traven Sachs: then you shouldn't just be able to mark any old place to be able to p2p teleport to it.
Frankie Roo claps
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Traven Sachs: Removal of the telehub system will hurt more than just the people who own telehub land
Traven Sachs: and although some have observed animosity between myself and certain telehub land owners
Traven Sachs: I think it will also eliminate the need for things like 'vehicles', 'transporters' and the nonce and make a great deal of creative thinking completely meaningless
Traven Sachs: Saying a complete 'no' to telehubs is a slap in the face to all of the people who were inovative enough to come up with these things, as well as a slap in the face to people who admire them and their creations.
Traven Sachs: that's it for me.
Traven Sachs: thank you all for your time.
Nicole David: I have to say the only positive aspect of removing telehubs is I won't have to see your taxis land in front of my land every 45 seconds. lol!

You: I know there are a lot of passionate feelings about changing the teleporting system
Nicole David:
Frankie Roo: Well said, Traven!
You: but rather than debate that here, let's talk about what we're going to do with the land
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ... as well as a few non-passionate, but fundamented ones
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe
You: do we want to sell off the land?
Kazanture Aleixandre: "OMG libraries will die!People will read everything from internet!"
Traven Sachs: How about keeping the telehubs
Turlo Bertone: im confused... are they "removing telehubs" or just enabling P2P which affects the importance of telehubs?
You: have regional community groups decide?
You: have LL decide?
Travis Lambert: Will there be an opportunity to debate this decision in a TH setting at any point?
You: We have about 10 more minutes, and there's a long list of people for the soapbox
Kae Fox: umm.. im #30.. and i still want to cover the telehub issues...
bladyblue Bommerang: Robin, why does anything have to be done with teh land? Leave the telehubs
You: We can either stay longer, or take a couple more and then just open the floor for discussion
You: thoughts?
Buxton Malaprop: longer (but I would say that, I'm in the queue)
Octal Khan: me too!
Adam Zaius: Open the floor?
Nicole David: i think u should only be able to P2P to landmarks :x
Gwyneth Llewelyn: longer.
Taeja Diaz: open
Taeja Diaz: the
Taeja Diaz: floor
Kazanture Aleixandre: i velonger
Octal Khan: longer
Anthora Sachs: Longer
Kazanture Aleixandre: longer
You: OK
Beau Perkins: longer
Grunion Shaftoe: I think the discussion needs to be extended in soap-box fashion for another hour or so
Chablis Kinsella: longer
Gwyneth Llewelyn:
Boliver Oddfellow: longer works for me
You: let's take 5 more then discuss
You: please let's focus on the telehub land, and not teleporting
Conway Jarrico: I'm willing to sit and stay, but I'm also interested in what will be done with the teleport hub land being that it appears the decision to enable P2P has been made.
Crossing Tiger: Open P2P TP *IS* going to happen, correct, Robin? THAT part isn't up for discussion, right?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Right, Crossing
You: Right Crossing
Lazarus Divine: Is there a written statement of direction, or some kind of detailed proposal?

The Soapbox: Anthora Sachs is on the soapbox now!
Anthora Sachs: We have a private island community, where the telehub works as a "customs point of entry".
Anthora Sachs: Visitors receive a notecard explaining our rules of conduct before they can wander around.
Anthora Sachs: How will we maintain that "point of entry" idea if people can bypass the hub?
Anthora Sachs: Will we be able to set specific "landing points" when this feature is released? I've seen it proposed, but never seen a Linden say "yes".
You: yes
The Soapbox: Shhh...
The Soapbox: Anthora Sachs is on the soapbox now, please hush!
Anthora Sachs: Bless you, Robin <grins>
Anthora Sachs: And, as for the effect on the economy, give me a usable world-wide product catalog, and I'll spend MUCH more than I do now.
Anthora Sachs: I find it so frustrating to find specific products I want, I seldom shop.
Anthora Sachs: Thank you.
Frankie Roo: thanks Anthora
Turlo Bertone: "seconded!"
Octal Khan: here

The Soapbox: Octal Khan is on the soapbox now!
Octal Khan: I have also discovered some nice things/places/people by accident because I had to fly from the hub to wherever. But Im equally frustrated when I get stuck in a "hub-trap" vendor after tp'ing. So if this goes forward i think you are gonna need a hook tha
Octal Khan: that will make new people *want* to visit every new ex-hub. A consistent architectural design theme of some kind with enough variation for all the hubs; art deco,modern,fantasy, animal themed etc...perhaps a new collection of free items?
Octal Khan: a different one at every hub, collect all 5000, trade em with your friends! etc etc. you get the idea...sponsor a design contest, free land for the winner? a lifetimes supply of prims? And of course I think (like many) that some
Octal Khan: codes or height restrictions should be enforced along with a healthy balance between commerce, residential, and open public space. Moderation is the key, but its gonna have to be LL regulated I think, or vendors and/or careless design will dominate again
Octal Khan: A benevolent dictatorship is one of the most effective forms of government. [/done]
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe Octal

The Soapbox: Buxton Malaprop is on the soapbox now!
Gus Plisskin: There are 37 people in the box. BUt there aren't 37 people here.
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Buxton Malaprop: first off, I stand to lose some of this "imaginary value" on my land (I'm within about 250m of my local hub)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 57 now.
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Buxton Malaprop: but I bought my land to build on, not resell, so I'm actually very happy overall
Buxton Malaprop: for me, the issue of what should be at the ex-hubs will depend a little on how "no direct-tp" land behaves
Buxton Malaprop: it might work well to have attempts to TP to a "no direct" parcel send you to a Hub the way it all currently behaves
Buxton Malaprop: and then go with the approach of having some general information points and value at the hub parcel itself
Buxton Malaprop: possibly some of the "getting started" info that's in the WA, too
Buxton Malaprop: I'm not sure about having the structures there directly resident-built just on the basis of a direct democracy as such
Buxton Malaprop: but a competition approach for each hub could (hopefully) produce some nice and interesting builds for these central points
Buxton Malaprop: I don't really thing PTP dooms vehicles - they're great for "going for an explore", when what you want is the journey, not the destination
Buxton Malaprop: I often skydive/skysurf to places just to see where I end up and I don't see that stopping.
Buxton Malaprop: erm, yep, that's it from me

Cocoanut Koala: trying to come
Cocoanut Koala: I will just start talking, ok?
Cocoanut Koala: I think P2P is a great idea
Cocoanut Koala: I think telehubs are a great idea too
Cocoanut Koala: and wish they could BOTH exist, with telehubs being
Cocoanut Koala: on a basis of non-pay , or else for basic members.
Cocoanut Koala: given that that is apparently history
Cocoanut Koala: seems to me the only way to go is trhough some sort of competition
Cocoanut Koala: also I would like to see the hubs have definite advertising possibilities
Cocoanut Koala: via somthing larger than what they have now, or more mnoticable
Cocoanut Koala: i didn't notice you could advertise there till 6 months into sl
Cocoanut Koala: and only cause someone told me about it.
Cocoanut Koala: I still view this as an opportunity lost for
Cocoanut Koala: (a) a money sink or
Cocoanut Koala: (b) a way to get basics to become premiums.
Cocoanut Koala: thank you.
Selador Cellardoor: /claps
Gwyneth Llewelyn: all right, Coco
Buxton Malaprop: Could "allow direct TP to this land" be a parcel fee like Find?

The Soapbox: Aimee Weber is on the soapbox now!
Aimee Weber: HI EVERYBODY!! :D
Aimee Weber: So, has anyone even briefly considered the advantages of having a *PREEN* store on the site of the former telehubs?
Aimee Weber: EH?
Aimee Weber: EH?
Kim Anubis: hehe
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Selador Cellardoor: :)
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Aimee Weber: SHHHH *I* HAVE THE SOAPBOX
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Beau Perkins: Yay Aimee
Gwyneth Llewelyn: pffft lol
Frans Charming: lol
Aimee Weber: :D
Aimee Weber: lol
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Aimee Weber: ok just kidding
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Buxton Malaprop: hehe
The Soapbox: Shhh...
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Aimee Weber: If *I* were Queen of the Metaverse, here is what I would do...
The Soapbox: Shhh...
Aimee Weber: I would use the former telehub locations for for all the aforementioned things... Ads, free goods, etc... but they would also be small social areas/venues for meetings.
Aimee Weber: When Lindens (or anybody) want to have meetings like this one (like this one, maybe smaller) they can hold them at these mini local cultural centers.
Aimee Weber: Lindens would choose each venue on a round-robin basis, so they eventually bring exposure and attention equally to every part of SL.
Aimee Weber: The locals would design their own culture centers based on who they are and what they believe, but with approval from Lindens to prevent abuse and problem builds.
Aimee Weber: Hopefully there won't be TOO MANY problems with infighting, that may prevent the completion of each community center.
Aimee Weber: If a community can't get their acts together well enough to produce their own venue then the lindes may have to do it for them, or they get the default telehubs.
Aimee Weber: And then Philip would come to my house and rub my feet. That's what I would do if I were Queen of the Metaverse. The End. :D
Selador Cellardoor: :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: lol
Octal Khan: great! except the last bit ;)
You: LOL aimee
Pathfinder Linden: wow
You: I'll talk to Philip about it
Gwyneth Llewelyn: haha
Aimee Weber: yay
Frans Charming: hehe
Jesse Linden: oy vey
Chablis Kinsella: lol

Nicole David: id like to speak
Selador Cellardoor: We all would, Nicole
Jet Control: sorry lagged out
Kazanture Aleixandre: 15 names passed i was #15 and couldnt talk?
You: Kazanture I called you 45 minutes ago! :)
Buxton Malaprop: kaz, you were AWOL when your name ws called
Kazanture Aleixandre: ?
Lola Marquez: Nicole can take my place if she is allowed to
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Kazanture Aleixandre: how
Kazanture Aleixandre: i read all
Kazanture Aleixandre: lol
Gwyneth Llewelyn: chat lag...
Kazanture Aleixandre: i was preparing notecard
Kazanture Aleixandre: to copy&paste here
Jet Control: am I up?
You: Jet's up
Gus Plisskin: I'll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a spot on the box today. :-)
You: Then Kazanture can take a turn
Kazanture Aleixandre: ty:)
Kim Anubis: hehe

The Soapbox: Jet Control is on the soapbox now!
Jet Control: The telehubs arnt just a place where people used to pop. in and fly away from
Jet Control: Im a bit new to Second Life... and I've met most of my freinds popping in to Telehubs
Jet Control: Asking directions and figuring things out happens with new folks as they pop in...
Jet Control: The stream of interactions will change drastically becasue of this
Jet Control: Theres no Compelling reason for new people to go to community centers when they arnt routed to them
Jet Control: Thanks for your time... this meeting is fabulous

Kazanture Aleixandre: ty:)
You: take your turn, and then let's discuss for a few more minutes and wrap up
Kazanture Aleixandre: My english is bad i will try to tell my opinions. I know the purpose of this meeting,because of this i will not say much thing about removing hub logic is good or bad.
Frans Charming: Just start Kaz
Kazanture Aleixandre: In my opinion it is the best idea i saw in SL, should be done much more before. Discussing it looks like discussing "internet": "OMG libraries will die!People will read everything from internet!" I have no taboos, removing hubs is a good idea.
Kazanture Aleixandre: I dont have any hub land but i agree we must save hub land owners' rights. I care for them only at this situation. And for them, traffic is important. I saw only 4 choices to save traffic on hubs.
Kazanture Aleixandre: Worst one is: giving free money to people at hubs, like contests or free money trees. In my opinion this is the worst idea. I am against to every idea which includes giving extra $L owned by lindens to people. I am against to every idea which includes
Kazanture Aleixandre: outside effects to SL.
Kazanture Aleixandre: The second choice is better: Ressing residents on hub areas. They can go wherever they like with a one click. It will create no problem. And the traffic on hubs will be saved.
Kazanture Aleixandre: I dont see any good on building super nice things on hubs. It solves nothing. Or information centers, i never used any in the game information thing in this game.
Kazanture Aleixandre: Building super good nice structures never helps traffic on hubs, People always will be able to build better things on other areas. You can never reach same traffic on hubs.
Kazanture Aleixandre: My third choice is: do p2p teleporting but at 2 steps. 1-> tp to hub. 2-> tp to the place from hub. I mean let P2P teleporting works only hub areas.
Kazanture Aleixandre: The last choice is: doing nothing to save the traffic on hubs. And give other goods to hub owners extra prims or more dwell bonus etc.
Kazanture Aleixandre: For me i dont really like any of these ideas. If you choose building nice things on hubs or info centers etc,a small time later, telehubs will be forgotten and hub owners will lose.
Kazanture Aleixandre: tyvm only copy&paste to save time u can read or not:)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Frans Charming: ty
Lola Marquez: can nicole take my place?

Selador Cellardoor: Oops - has Robin crashed? lol
You: not crashed but almost
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe Sel :)
Selador Cellardoor: lol
You: there are a lot of people who haven't had their turn yet
Lola Marquez: i missed my turn can nicole take it?
You: I'm not sure I can summarize completely what's been said, but it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot of support for
You: resident groups building out the telehub land.
You: does that sound right to you?
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
Travis Lambert: agree
Gus Plisskin: yes, Robin
Chablis Kinsella: agreed
Buxton Malaprop nods
Boliver Oddfellow: yes
Grunion Shaftoe: correct
Lenin Camus: I like the group building idea.
Pandora Jensen: agreed
You: so when P2P goes into effect, the Linden land will convert to plazas that will take the place of telehubs
You: they'll still show up on the map
bladyblue Bommerang: residents within an area around the hub
Grunion Shaftoe: I think they need to be able to be a shared resource point in the future
Adam Zaius: Plaza's sound dull --
Nicole David: I just wanna say that if we are going with community builds I think they should serve purpose similar to Town Halls.
You: I guess at that point if the residents in a region want to gt together they can contact us and work with us
Nicole David shouts: Gathering place for events, advertising spots, I think ATMs where we can pick up stipend, buy L$, etc. But then we have the possibility of people complaining they hate going places to pick up L$ down the road unfortunatley - but ATMs for buying L$ seems
Nicole David: woops
You: Nicole
Nicole David: Both Lindens and Groups need to be involved so the community can have some control over how the build is used, but not too much control.
Jonquille Noir: I would like to see the hub areas become educational/info areas. Links to LSL and Wiki, How Tos, getting started info.. etc.. and also have some organized Freebie Vendors to cut down on new residents getting screwed
Grunion Shaftoe: Taxi/mass transit pickup, etc.
You: I agree Nicole
Gus Plisskin: Sell the land to residents. Let us decide. Why build plazas only to eventually do away with them?
Adam Zaius: If I may interject; has anyone here played ActiveWorlds, and seen the Teleport-Center's people set up?
Nicole David: I also think we can't give to much creative control to the groups due to when all the neighbors move away, the new neighbors will be stuck with a build that may not have anything to do with how the community is currently set up. So the culteral center id
Grunion Shaftoe: Gus - Because Ownership precludes sharing.
You: gathering places, local ads, community messages, news
Nicole David: We also need to focus on attracting EVERYONE and not just NEWBIES - Very Important.
Nicole David: thats all
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Agreed, Nicole.
Pandora Jensen: yeah Adam
Grunion Shaftoe: Agreed
Kolya Seifert: please let all the plazas use all the same textures, so people can P2P from one plaze to another and have things rez fast. People might be more likely to go to them.
Adam Zaius: P2P means 'landmarks' are like bookmarks, instant teleports to various destinations.
You: that's a good idea Kolya
Buxton Malaprop: a "social habit" of hanging out at these Regional Plazas would be good to foster somehow
Adam Zaius: Telehubs could be converted over into a inworld teleport-central place.
Lenin Camus: People wouldn't hang out in the plazas if they were all in one mold
bladyblue Bommerang: I think that a solution should have been found BEFORE implementing the P2P - what is th erush all of a sudden?
Jonquille Noir: Honestly, there are enough gathering places, run by residents. Hubs should become places where people can learn, in my opinion.
Adam Zaius: Have residents drop links, and have them show up on billboards at the telehub. Give preference to nearby locations (this can be all done via script with current LSL)
Lenin Camus: if egions could decide for themselves what the design was, it would encourage people to explore and meet new people.
Kolya Seifert: the shapes can be different if the textures are the same
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Lenin: the regions don't "exist"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: They're just coloured bits on a map.
Pandora Jensen: i think the whole info center thing will make them mostly useless.. i tnklk in order for them to be used it need to be necessity not choice lol
Lenin Camus: hypothetically
Cocoanut Koala: I hate to think about trying to get together with everyone in my region to cooperate on something like this
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Agreed, Pandora.
bladyblue Bommerang: The folks that created this economy are going to suffer.
Jesse Linden: Adam, we are thinking of including somethign like that
Gus Plisskin: Please give us a way to opt out of any telehub labd compensation programs.
Conway Jarrico: I just think it would be interesting to distribute different kinds of objects from ex-hubs at different locations. Homes from one, shirts from another, jackets from one, vehicles, clothes in general, a jetpack, amusing toys
Gus Plisskin: *land
Cocoanut Koala: the region idea might work well for people in one already developed place, like neuraltenberg o r something
Chablis Kinsella: Agreed Cocoanut that will be nearly impossible
Nicole David: i really wanna see some L$ attraction like buying L$ atms ... i think itd be great
Travis Lambert: Robin - when will you be abile to clarify the particulars of exactly how this change will play out?
Conway Jarrico: Give out a different kind of object or clothing at each different location, to encourage exploring.
bladyblue Bommerang: Years to establish a business and buy expensive Hub land for nothing.
Lenin Camus: The "region"/ could vote for a group of the best builders in the area to design the plaza.
You: Early next week Travis
Grunion Shaftoe: Telehub land compensation is ABSOLUTELY WRONG and should be killed as a potential option.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Planned communities will not suffer ? they'll have their own rules for urban development ;)
Travis Lambert: awesome :)
Kae Fox: If SL takes the stance of 'pay or deal with our spam', i think you will lose alot of intrest. kinda how Google took over, SL is become the reinactment of Popup Ads
Cocoanut Koala: well, it will be a hoot to see everybody in rosieri tryihng to agree on something
Garnet Psaltery: hehe
Nicole David: P.S. For my own greedy reasons I want surrounding hub land to have 2x prims :P
Nathan Stewart: would it be possible to save a landmark from the finder again please
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Precisely, Coco.
Buxton Malaprop: telehub land owners HAVE been compensated "for ever" by the increased dwell earnt by the traffic...
Cocoanut Koala: that is why i favor a contest
Jonquille Noir: Agreed, Buxton
Cocoanut Koala: with the same thing going in each hub
Grunion Shaftoe: Great point buxton
bladyblue Bommerang: And Buxton - they paid for that compensation. That land was not cheap
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Not "compensated" ? they bought land in high-traffic zones. Small difference there!
Travis Lambert: Disagree completely Buxton.
Adam Zaius: Personally, I suggest LL takes on a RL contractor to do some nice functional designs. The new Ahern welcome area is a good example of why using proffessional designers can be a good idea.
Boliver Oddfellow: hub owners have already made a profit sometimes in land speculation you eventually loose, deal with it
Beau Perkins: that would be a huge waste to have the same thing built every 3 sims
Lenin Camus: What if the different hub areas competed with eachother, and the traffic L$ was shared amongst the population. THat would be incentive to build a great hub.
You: I think it might be hard to get agreement Coco, but I know there are a few areas where people want to do their own design
You: What if we have residents bid to assign the default plaza?
Buxton Malaprop: bladyblue, I know full well how much hub-proximate land costs. I own some. I'd rather it depreciate, if it means I never get stuck in a hub mall again
Garnet Psaltery: More building contests please. I need a job :o)
Pituca Chang is offline
Cocoanut Koala: well, robin, I wouldhate to see this whole decision based on making those few areas happy
Beau Perkins: with the many talented artist and game developers this is the perfect opportunity to make things for people to do
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Lenin, you're hypothetically assuming that all of the sudden the anarchic mainland will "cooperate" and suddenly feel a "sense of community" ? while it never did before, even with telehubs, why should it do so now?
Usagi Musashi: arnt you scraied that if they out source builds that they will raise cost to us the members?
Gus Plisskin: Even tho I own land near a telehub, I'd prefer to receive no compensation. Please increase everyone's stipend a little bit instead.
Adam Zaius: Gus: that wouldnt have any effect.
Lenin Camus: Some areas could take the standard plaza, others could customize their own.
bladyblue Bommerang: Buxton thats wonderful for you - but most of us bought hub land at a high price to keep our business' growing
Adam Zaius: If you raise everyone's stipend, then people will raise prices.
You: Yes Lenin
Usagi Musashi: adam good point
Cocoanut Koala: even getting the "area" to agree on that much wou,d be difficult, Lenin
Gus Plisskin: not immedately, Adam
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd say "impossible".
You: also true Coco
Adam Zaius: Gus: Yes, but the devaluation will be immediete.
Cocoanut Koala: I like the standardization that the hubs provide
Grunion Shaftoe: BladyBlue- INeither Linden Labs nor ayone eslse is responsible for paying for your foolish, simple-minded bnusiness plan.
Cocoanut Koala: they are glue that holds the world together
stampshady Grimm: i bought at high price lest than a week ago and havent even opened a stroe yet
Lenin Camus: If an area couldn't agree, they would eventually just choose not to build a custom center.
Lola Marquez: I like the idea of more prims to land touching TH, it will be like the city areas and attract more people
Sable Sunset: not glue - the telehubs provide the world with structure
Travis Lambert: Its not just the land touching the hub that's losing value, Lola
Cocoanut Koala: It would be a huge job just to get the "area" to realize this is going on!
Conway Jarrico: I'm just all for the idea of putting different free objects in different hubs. Like I said, just to promote traveling, and give new residents a chance to be a little different without dropping a lot of L$.
Gus Plisskin: Adam, the same devaluation will occur if land owners receive extra L$
Travis Lambert: I paid $12/sqm for my property, 120m away from the hub
Adam Zaius: Gus: Yes, I'm in favour of no new L$.
Jonquille Noir: I can't remember the last time I did anything at a telehub, except for telling some yahoo to put some pants on.
You: ok - thanks everyone for all the great ideas
Cocoanut Koala: I would like the builds to be put out to all residents, in contest form
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Hmm sort of spreading Stillman's Bazaar to all over the place....?
Lenin Camus: Will people really gather in a standard hub? Even if they are standard there should be something there that is nowhere else in SL
You: I'll edit out the soapbox bits and post a transcript
bladyblue Bommerang: Well Grunion - They supplied the hubs and made it a central place - making it important to business. Then they remove it with no notice
Beau Perkins: I think those in IRC should decide
Gwyneth Llewelyn seconds Coco
Adam Zaius: A 1.1 prim multiplier on land directly bordering hubs might be doable?
Gus Plisskin: thanks, Robin
You: and try to summarize ideas on the feature feedback forum
Boliver Oddfellow: telehubs are the Sl equivalant of urban blight
Lola Marquez: we paid 30/sm for 9000sq, touching nhub - big mistake
Conway Jarrico: And with the incentive to travel for free stuff, you'll still have high traffic in hub areas. End problem #2. =)
Grunion Shaftoe: Beau : I totally agree
You: then you can throw in any last minute ideas
Jeska Linden: Thanks for coming out everyone :)
Pathfinder Linden: thanks Robin
You: I don't think this can be done by vote, but we'll try to come up with a plan that addresses the concerns that you've all raised
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe I agree, Robin :) Thanks :)
Aimee Weber: yay
You: Those of you who didn't get a chance to speak, if you could IM me or drop me a notecard I'll include your thoughts
Boliver Oddfellow: thank you lindens

Frans Charming
If we want to keep TH land as a attractive place that people will visit then imho the following needs to happen.

1. Have a content bid for a couple of standard plaza's.
2. Set them up as a meeting place.
3. Put in every plaza something for new Resis to learn
4. Have every plaza only do one Subject.(preferences, building, etc)
5. A region map where people can drop a landmark on.
6. Maybe some way to advertise, but shouldn't be free.
7. New Linden Freebies.
8. Maybe a little game at every plaza to solve.

I'm not sure how p2p will work, but i would propose that when you try to tp to a area that doesn't allow it, you will rez in the telehub/plaza.

Where i think the focus should be on in those plaza's is teaching. Every little plaza is a tiny learning center about one subject. This way it can be more focused. And people skilled in one subject can focus in helping in what they are best at. Also this makes a nice Distributed way of teaching, wich will be able to serve much more residents then a island could do. This will force people to go to different Telehubs/plaza's and hopefully explore the different areas.


Conway "Connie" Jarrico
I have a simple idea for the telehubs, however they may be reconstructed. As is they currently distribute free Linden gear to all users. Why not add more content to them? Perhaps hold constests within the user base to create the content. Give away free shirts at one hub, free pants at another, houses at one, boats at another, trinkets, toys, little fun gadgets, things of that nature. But give away only objects of one specific type at each telehub.
By doing this you'll not only be able to give new residents a way to further individualize themselves without unloading all of the L$ just to get a decent teeshirt, but you'll be able to bring traffic to each hub. This will generate the traffic to all the people who are griping about losing traffic, and it will also encourage new users to explore for reasons of getting free stuff at the primary. I know that if I teleport somewhere to shop, I'll wander around in search of what I /really/ want instead of buying at the shop I teleported into. Then I'll end up just wandering around and seeing what /else/ is around the area.
I see it as a win-win situation on all fronts. People who don't want to shop will simply not shop anyway. Nothing that can be done about that. People who want free stuff will get free stuff, and people who want traffic will get their traffic.

Jonquille Noir
Make them educational and informational centers. Central nodes where people can all go to learn about scripting, building, design and texture, all via notecards, tutorials and web links. (Especially once we get HTML on a prim)

Along with those educational features, have kiosks where we can click to get notecards regarding the latest LL announcements that others get from the Announcements forum, since we know not everyone checks the web page. This would also be a prime place to list news articles about SL, contest winners, and let people know when something needs their input. Scripted voting boxes could also be used for various purposes to get resident input.

Organized Freebie vendors that accept donations once a week or a month would also be ideal, and help stop residents unknowingly paying money for items that are intended to be freely given.

Sable Sunset
I still don't agree that P2P should be entirely embraced and become the only way for anyone to TP to anywhere - there are some elements of SL that add to the general in-world atmosphere and the telehubs are one of them.

I'd like to propose a slightly different suggestion to most I've seen here - I'd like to see both both solutions implemented - Telehubs and P2P.

The P2P solution should, IMHO, be set out so that if you TP to a destination (whether through map-clicking or landmark), you are by default dropped off at the nearest telehub UNLESS the parcel you are TPing to has a 'TP Landing point' set - the same way you set Home now. Only the land owner, or member of the officers of the owning group can set/move/remove this. Additionally, if you don't have security access to the land (on the ban list, or not part of the right group) you should also be dropped at the nearest telehub.

If you TP by map-clicking I'd suggest that you should always be dropped at the nearest telehub, with the destination highlighted by the pillar of red. My reasoning behind this suggestion is that you are going to be using this kind of TP for exploration mainly - if you know where you're going you would probably already have an LM for the destination. Besides, it very neatly steps around the problem with TPing onto someone's neighbour's land because they have a TP Dropoff point set - but there person you're going to see doesn't want people TPing ont their land so they leave it turned off.

Additionally (and this is the significant difference) - this feature should only be open to Premium members. LL are looking for ways to encourage the conversion from Basic accounts to Premium - this would be another attractive feature.

This would leave the Telehub infrastructure in place - the Telehubs would remain commerce hotspots to an extent, but would also carry a slight reduction easing the pain of such a dramatic change to telehub area economy.

I feel that this solution is the one that caters for the widest range of tastes - and may actually provide LL with an added advantage too.

Oh! Two other things:
1: Neighbours that want to share a TP Dropoff for their neighbourhood would only need to split off a small parcel of land and set the TP Dropoff point there - then leave off the TP Dropoff on their own parcels.

2: LL - Please, please, please, please, please don't forget the associated LSL additions that would make this an integrated and useful tool:

llSetTPDropoff() - to set the TP Dropoff location to the current position of the container prim - should spark a nice market in 'TP Receiver objects'
llSetTP(integer onoff) - Turn TP Dropoff on or off without changing the location.

Just want to add that the main reason I don't agree with the free-for-all of being able to TP wherever you want is a question of choice. Everyone has a right to wander around and look at everything in SL - but they also have a right to not have people appearing in their lab during product development, bedroom at a private moment, or living room during a gossip-fest

Look on it as having your phone ex-directory in an attempt to stop people cold-calling

Gwyneth Llewelyn
First to discuss is if the planned "telehub morphing" is meant as what residents want, or what residents need.

In the former case, I'll probably won't be of much use in the discussion anyway What they want is usually clear - some nice and cool-looking place to hang around, with a few chairs and tables, some games, ie. a small-scale WA, eventually with a public area to host events, etc.

The question is if this serves some purpose. There are *lots* of similar places spread around SL; some have already some traffic, others have none. These are the kinds of places that people need to be "attracted" to; "oh, let's meet at a former telehub" must *drive* people towards it.

The second possibility - what residents *need* - is a different issue. Let me try to explain.

Eggy Lippmann told me that this is an old issue - large amounts of people wishing SL not to be shaped as a country, but as the Web. In their minds, SL should not have topology aggregated to topography - they should be separate.

The Web certainly works that way. One site can be located next to the other physically, but never be visited as much as the other one; whereas two sites on different continents can refer each other directly and get lots of page hits.

Formerly, the Web worked in a similar way than SL. You had thousands of sites; but to find content, you went to "catalogue sites" - well-known websites which listed others. Navigation was hierarchical - from "top-level" websites to the less-known lists. In a sense, the Web was "hanging together", you rarely got "unconnected sites" - whenever you wished to set up a new site, your first worry was to "get listed" somewhere.

In a sense, this is similar to SL-with-telehubs - the "catalogue sites", or "top level sites", were "traffic directors": attractors.

Then the Web evolved, and the "traffic directors" became the search engines. From now on, every site was on "equal standing". Things like "proximity" or "geography" did not made any sense. Not even the concept of a "homepage" makes sense any more. People simply navigate *directly* to the content they wish - through searching for keywords.

Sites like Amazon or eBay caught this very early on. Their sites don't really have proper homepages; they know people only wish to get to what interests them. So, what they give them is better, more specialized search tools (more than Google can provide them).

So, on the Web, you got rid of the topology. And what became the new attractors, the "traffic directors"? Getting listed at the search engines.

That's what I suggest for SL as well. After getting rid of the ties to topography, the new topology should be based upon new, better, improved search tools. Hopefully in-world, but things like ROAM and SL Web Search are trying to do the same off-world (which is a pity).

Thus, the current spots for telehubs are actually absolutely worthless under this model - unless they have some kind of content that attracts people. They could become mini-malls, of course

While new and improved search tools are *not* developed, well, telehubs *could* provide similar tools. Imagine a system where people would go to former telehubs to search for keywords and get landmarks in return. Or watch ads to know where they can get to content. In a sense, that would be partially replacing the "Find" tool with a 3D environment providing information for seeking content. So, the new telehubs would be a sort of "information retrieval mechanism" in 3D. They would have infoNet nodes, ATMs, your keyword search facility, and eventually ads with llTeleport() functionality.

I still think that most people would scorn them and simply rely upon Find (or external sites) but at least that new use of telehubs under the new system would make *sense*. Still, I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough in the long term - with much better search tools, people would simply be to lazy to walk to the nearest spot to get info. Even the current batch of ATMs, for instance, are being slowly changed to "personal ATMs" - the most important reason for not doing that is attracting people to certain spots and making sure they get extra traffic points for that

I like this idea. I am one of the many people that when i rez from a telehub, i fly directly up into the clouds and head to my destination not looking at anything. I only look at things i wish to look at. Malls surrounding a hub never get my attention cuz im a direct shopper who only buys what she wants. Pinpoint teleportation will get me there faster, plus i wont get stuck in those people scoopers (buildings with 1 side open to catch people like a net). My only consern about this is that the griefers will now be able to pop right into your living room. With this feature i ask that you also make it easier to freeze/ban/eject people from your land. Rather then trying to right click on them as their flying around shooting at you. Maybee a list of whoes in the parcel on the about land panel you can select their name and press buttons?


EDIT: Question: I'm not sure how the current teleport system works. How does it determin the Z axis? The way it is now each hub probably has it's own prerecorded coordinates. But with pinpoint TP wouldnt it either drop you from 100M in the air or get you stuck under the terrian? Or does the system automaticly know where ground level is? Would it be a problem with the new system?

I'm pretty sure it places you at the "landing point" designated by a parcel, so if a land owner somehow manages to get below the terrain while setting this then sure, they might be a problem, otherwise I wouldn't worry. Land owners will choose exactly where someone direct TPs to. So you could have them TPed to a box full of horrible things which you can only get out of if you're on the pass list