I am about to have a nervous breakdown

Agreed. People may leave because of spamming but people in SL have very short attention spans. The regulars appreciate the announcements and are frustrated when they don't receive them and miss the events.

No not you alone, but generically about people who can't stand the idea that others see things differently. I LIKE camping - so there.

I will also point out that the phrase I used was "unspecified agenda" not "hidden agenda". In fact I don't think most of the "anti-camping crowd" has a clue just what they ARE promoting. Just that they don't like someone else's business "cheating" and getting more customers.

As an investor I listen to that kind of whining every day and really have zero sympathy for it. Go on a crusade with your own money - not mine!



As good a definition of "self-righteous" as I have ever seen! Thank you!



No I will say what I tell real life wannabe business owners - I am not out to improve the world, just make a profit. If you can improve the world with your invention then that is great, but *I* insist that you make money doing it!

That being said, 60% of my fundings in 2006 were medical inventions, including a really neat blood test for MS.

Actually right now I am making posts on this forum LOL.

At the same time I am answering the phone and keeping track of some Stock Option positions on the stock market.

This morning I harassed my process server who is supposed to serve a deadbeat with my lawsuit before the County Sheriff arrests her for fraud and traded about a dozen emails with people who want me to fund their business.

Every few minutes I bring up Karen's Av and check that all is well too.

A pretty typical day all in all.

Me too, if they do it like Calla's does. See my new thread on "Bot-Free Camping".



I don't like the cheating. More importantly, I don't like to see people wasting their time and SL's resources being unproductive and having so little of the fun that SL offers.



Not at all. You have your opinion, I have mine. Mine happens to think yours is wrong, and vice versa. So either we are both self righteous, or neither of us is, and we simply disagree. Calling me names won't help your case, I learned all about the ad hominem fallacy in high school debating class.



Why not both? People out JUST to make a profit include drug dealers, pimps, and con men. People who set out to make the world a better place often make scads of money for themselves, while doing good at the same time.



Wonderful! And I mean that sincerely. Now, please come up with a CURE for MS! My aunt suffers from it.

Off Topic, but worth an explanation:

MS has been notoriously hard to diagnose, but can be "managed" much like diabetes if it can be detected early enough.

Until now the diagnosis has taken years and includes things like multiple spinal taps and MRIs. Expensive, time consuming, painful and risky.

The hope is to make this blood test a standard screening as part of a checkup in a doctor's office. The cost (hopefully) will be under $1 in huge quantities. This is not a cure, but goes a long way to relieving much of the suffering!

Sadly being just in the "start-up" phase there are a whole lot of things that can go wrong both medically and as a business, but it sure looks good so far!

One of the basic principles of law enforcement is that crime cannot be allowed to pay!

It is not possible to catch every criminal as they commit every crime, but it IS possible to make sure that the proceeds of the crime get used to help the victims.

The problem is that most criminals do thousands of dollars worth of damage just to make a few hundred dollars. With "crimes against people" - i.e. violent crimes - the equation is even worse.

Criminals don't call themselves "losers" for nothing!

Best idea... gives us enough warning but doesn't interrupt too much. My problem was with this sort of thing:

11:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
12:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
13:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
14:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
15:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
16:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
17:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
18:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
19:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
20:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
21:00 Come to <place> for <event> at 22:00
21:30 <event> is starting at <place> in just half an hour
22:00 <event> has started at <place> Where are you guys. Anyone needing a TP, let me know
22:01 to 22:30 IMs for TP and responses, lols, w00ts, hugz and people shouting don't spam the channel ad nauseum
22:30 We are about to start judging <event> at <place> in half an hour, come down or you won't be included
22:45 We are about to start judging <event> at <place> in 15 mins, come down or you won't be included

I kid you not, I've had this sort of thing, but only noticed it when I've come back from a long afk. If I'd been in front of the PC, it would have ended about 2 messages in

We are quickly in danger of having this thread locked...derailment not withstanding. I think what is being said here is... (And I am speaking from firsthand experience) for all of us who used to camp out for a living (and for social reasons) have found out, we are having SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more fun doing other things now...nothing self righteous or sanctimonious about that, just a FACT OF second LIFE! I don’t know if I could ever go back to camping out...speaking on a personal level here.
But for those (like yourself) who enjoy camping, who in their right mind would ever try to take that away from you? After all its a semi-free world. This thread is really about helping Tracy get rid of the migraine and ideas on how to, and how not to start a SL business... both from a business owner's and consumer’s perspectives, NOT about name calling on this forum...cool your jets a little, ease up, relax, have a little fun in here, have a beer on me, don’t take it too serious...we are all family in here.

Sadly we all have.

What is worse some halfwits actually think this has something to do with marketing and running a business. Especially the halfwits who do this!

I really like the company that sent my avatar Karen Palen a credit card! No kidding.

I cut it up (actually using it would have been fraud), but I should have framed it!

Point taken.

However there are quite a few people who do want to shut down all camping and say so regularly. There are many more who have all kinds of strange ideas about the "noble (or ignoble) purpose of camping".

Thankyou all for all of the great advice. I am now relaxing more about the whole thing. I have rented land so the overheads translate into pennies really. So I'm gonna just enjoy the fact I have a lil project. The club is in my profile picks and you are all more than welcome to take a look and make any suggestions.

I agree. Let's make some money and let the next generation deal with this silly "improve the world" business. After all, the world is doing just fine these days and needs none of our attention.

The Hamster Has Spoken!

BTW, Ray, have you seen my crab, Sideways XXXVII? I think maybe he ran off to mate with one of yours.

Or maybe he was caught and eaten by Nazis.

(Hey, I finally managed to Godwin a thread!)

The problem is that you need to do both.

Another example from my personal experience is slash and burn farming in Borneo being used to grow "bio-diesel". The resultant pollution is so bad it creates smog in Singapore almost 700Km away! Worse yet, without all kinds of "green" subsides the resultant fuel would cost over US$10/gal

"Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, elegant and totally wrong!" - Kelvin Throop

Making something work as a business is one of the best ways we have of sorting out workable solutions from merely elegant wishful thinking.

I observe that camping - "bots and all" does seem to work for many second life businesses. Perhaps it would be well to understand why this is so before you simply accuse the owners of immorality or whatever.

It's so because the rules of the game permit the system to be gamed. But just because the system allows it, doesn't make it right.

Obviously I disagree.

There are many much easier ways to "game the system".

In addition the fact that it is common tends to "wash out" any such effects.

All I can say for sure is my own experience in which I retain a lot of goodwill towards the places where I camp and I also observe that they also tend to run things in a professional manner.

Camping is only part of the equation, but it does seem to be a key part.

reverse conversions aplenty

Good news! Bradley has genetically engineered a crab that won't run away. Look for it to be coming to his beach store sometime soon!

BTW, if you Godwin a thread and no ResMod is there to read it, does it make a sound?

Boiling it will do the same thing.......

Yes, but after that they are not as much fun to cuddle with.

but they're still warm

and tasty too.

random thoughts:

A club with hundreds of members before it opens was probably already existing as something else previously, or stemmed from a well-known project within or outside SL.

How original is your place? Are you offering something that others arent, that people want?

Think exponentially as well, 1 becomes 2 becomes 4 becomes 8 etc.... so as you get the word out, i bet you'll see spurts of growth.

Get out more. Don't promote your place at others' (that can get you banned) but the more interesting and popular you get, the more often people will check your Picks in your profile.

Take Lias' advice. I was a skinless noob DJ and a bit of clear training went a long way. While most avatars wont keep their positions that long, thats the nature of SL, but the ones who work, have a good time while theyre at it, then leave on good terms will be a valuable asset to have to keep your place growing.

Classifieds and groups are like a website is to a company. Its expected to have, but wont make the company. In a nutshell, you need to build a promotion engine that runs specifically to your niche. That takes a lot of work to get it right.

But you do create stuff, Raymond! You create beautiful environments on mainland, no less.

purrs & headbonks!

Karen I think the point some people are trying to get across is that the need for campers is a shortcoming of the current SL client and search system and the "right" thing to do would be to not participate. You know, the ol' "part of the solution and not part of the problem" line of thinking.

You are free to do what you want in SL but dont be suprised if the locals grumble if all you do is take up space all day by exploiting the shortcomings of current software... in short if you wouldnt be on SL if there was no camping then people are not happy to see you on SL.