SLCC 2006 Feedback Survey (Even if you didn't attend)

I'd like to join the crowd thanking Lewis for his putting up the feed - without that I doubt I would have seen any of it at all. (I was unfortunately called away to talk about something entirely different but I did get to see the branding/marketing discussion and bits of other things.)

I have to say though - and don't take this the wrong way, Flipper, I recognise the effort that was put into organising the whole thing - that really, SLCC just drew a big shrug from me. I had no practical way of attending or participating and the only information that I got from it was the streaming video and a couple of blog posts. I get more from an episode of Secondcast and reading the forums.

I don't expect conferences to be put on for my benefit, but it just wasn't significant to me - and relatively speaking I'm quite plugged into the SL media streams that are around, I read loads of blogs, I talk to people, I read the forums... a lot of people don't do any of that, and they're the people who really make up SL, not dilettantes like that Ordinal person. It could really have benefitted from greater Grid presence.

If you didn't see it, I put some of my comments about the SLCC in this thread:

/108/bc/131461/1.html#post1240704

That is from the point of view from someone who was not there, but watched it in world, and how it looked to me, as a sort of audience member.

coco

ack! I didn't know it did that. The options are sort of vague and when i changed that one last night as I was trying to follow up on Lo's question about seeing the results of what you put in to the survey. So sorry about that. Its fixed now.

Apparently I didn't attend??? I was there all day saturday, from an hour before the stream went up, to right before the secondcast panel. You even asked one of my questions. "Instead we included the audio stream on the four sims" uh... no you didn't. One sim had the video stream setup with no screen to view it on so it acted like an audio stream, that's about it. Also I was there for almost the whole day saturday and none of the sims crashed, or had any lag issues.

Flip's response in case you missed that too <<On Saturday, the original intention was to video stream. Instead we included the audio stream on the four sims and encouraged people to use the external quicktime stream because of the bug with estate sims, causing sim performance to be pretty horrible and avoid the problem of trying to start up hundreds of streams each time a sim crashed and everyone relogged. We also encouraged people to have tons of external parties, and we had hosts for every minute of the in-world event on the SLCC sims (thanks folks!). We agree this wasn't an ideal situation, but given the estate performance bug, it was a call that had to be made.>>

Does that at least explain why the stream was not running?

I saw the responce. However like I said, I was there all day saturday, from about an hour before the stream went up to well into the afternoon session, and this simply wasn't even attempted. Flip came on and simply told us to tell people to put it on in quicktime.

Also "avoid the problem of trying to start up hundreds of streams each time a sim crashed and everyone relogged" isn't valid, since the stream acted fine when we all reconnected at the same time after the lunch session.

The way I see it is that the event itself having no inworld presence at the 4 sims designated for it was a huge dissapointment, to pretty much everyone who went to those sims. I was going blue in the face telling people to open quicktime hit file -> load url and copy paste in blah.breakfast whatever it was. If us in world had seen people even attempting to set up the stream it would have been a different situation, however not even the hosts could explain what was going on with the inworld streaming.

Ack, that is clearly an oversight on our part. Apologies, I'll get Jenn to change that!

Sera, I'm sorry you feel this way, but it's a simple fact - I changed the stream myself sans video on many if not all of the plots in the sims (it's possible I missed one or two - I was a tad busy), and tons of clients reconnecting at once IS a major tax on any streaming server, database server... any kind of server. Ever notice how when everyone tries to log into SL it goes to hell? When 1.7 launched, this caused the entire grid to be down for two days. It's a fact of any system: the connection process is typically a resource-intensive process as various processes have to happen at that point to optimize the experience (like seeing how much data can be pushed through a connection without having to rebuffer in the case of video / audio).

I went out of my way to ask questions from people in world, as you remember: sure, it wasn't an ideal situation, but the lesson we've learned is next year, we'll simply give out a stream, and leave it up to residents like Lewis (thank you, Lewis, by the way! seems everyone had a great time) to host SLCC parties. Perhaps we'll have a dedicated laptop on stage to receive IMs from people for asking questions during Q&A.

Regards,

-Flip

Sorry Jenn it's not fixed. Pick one of the questions, like 'Please provide feedback on the RL Businesses in SL resident panel.' and click the View button which lets you see the responses. Then click on one of the numbers in the list on the left. Voila.

Hmm. I'm not sure what is going on. I switched the option back to close and tried taking the survey twice and was unable to see the results. Let me try again. It may be cookied.

Ah OK, that's more than possible.

Flip i'm not sure if it was different on sunday, however on saturday 3/4 of the center stadium had no media set at all on it. (The stadium was set up at the corner of 4 sims, only 1 corner had audio streaming). Also like you said, yes alot of clients connecting simultaniously has a negative impact on the streaming server, however it handled it perfectly well when the stream was brought back up after lunch.

It should be fixed now. I disabled everything in Share Results option even though the box was unclicked and Flip and I both went through the survey from scratch and were unable to view any results. Sorry for the mix-up, I was tinkering around late last night trying to figure out if I could change it to show results (meaning what you filled out, not what everyone else filled out.)

We'll be releasing the results of the survey after we have allowed enough time for everyone to get their votes in and stuff and most likely will have a secondary survey for the location choice because its been neck and neck for three locations so far.

Thanks again for pointing this out. I am sorry that I didn't catch it sooner.

We were unable to videotape and broadcast any of Sunday's events because they were all running concurrently starting and ending at different times in different locations.

The "somewhere particular to message questions" is a great idea.

As for providing somewhere to show the stream... glad to help, what do you want me to do next year (assuming you pick a date and location I can't get to in person)?

Lewis

Argh.

It's not about video connectivity - that's great, that helps, groovy.

It's about in-world links, real-time blogging of events, ways for people not at all connected with the event to be connected to it - anything apart from having to chase other people's posts about it down. And, sorry, but if there aren't any, we're just going to say "meh", shrug our shoulders and get on with doing actual SL stuff, ignoring whatever happened at SLCC, which we weren't part of.

True... sure, it's great to be there at the real event, but for those whose circumstances or finances prevent it, it's good to be able to be involved more than just watching a video feed.

I'm sure many of us would love to contribute something or help in some way ... which would benefit everyone.

Lewis

Suggestion: If you didn't already do it this year, next year, videotape all those sessions (plenty of people have video cameras). Then, rather than trying to stream them all (you might stream one or two), have them available later for viewing on a web site.

If it is true, as people have said, that more of the nitty-gritty and less of the PR actually took place in these sessions, then it is important to tape them for everyone to see later. (Unless you have, and I'm misunderstanding.)

coco

I resent that you're trying to force me to use your western year standards.

Actually, the Sunday Education seminar/discussion was both video and audio streamed, and (from what I could tell) well connected to those in world. There were two hosts for the event, Jeremy Linden- RL moderator and (don't know her name) another Linden- SL moderator, both taking questions from their respective audiences. Personally, I felt it was one of the most interconnected moments of the entire weekend. And, of course, as Astrin pointed out, it was under 100 in attendance.

As for being in world and at SLCC at the same time, I want to give kudos to the live musicians Friday night who continued to reconnect, even with sim crashes, in order to interact with their audience in SL. With all that goes on during a musical performance, it's still a very high priority to them to share the experience with those in SL.
I think Lewis' solution is the best one for future conferences, and we definitely need more help with those in SL to handle hosting duties and question fielding for panels.

Well if you count the survey as part of the planning process for next year then I would say that the planning for 2007 is already in progress. We all need a little bit of time to decompress and relax a bit before we figure out what next year will entail. We're looking for ways to improve the SLCC overall and to bring some new organizers and volunteers into the fold. Some of the decisions for volunteers and organizers will depend upon where the convention will happen regionally. Plus we have to account for scalability issues as we faced with the in-world portion of the convention this time around.

I'm really sorry guys, I'm with Sera Cela.

I was astonished to see, by monitoring the SLCC sims, that on Saturday there was no attempt to stream the video to the build, and to the people, waiting to receive it. Not only has it now been admitted that no attempt was made, but that there was a cool and deliberate decision not even to try.

Why were the screens constructed if this was so ? Why were the inworld sponsors encouraged to pay, and to build there ? Why was there a four-screen video amphitheatre (superb, incidentally) ? Where and when came the sudden surprising advice that it was too technically impossible even to make the attempt ?

Sera is right. One sim finally got the stream set late on, but the media texture clearly didn't match the screen, and all we got was sound.

The only remnant of an excuse for the streams not being set (ie nobody even TRIED to see if it would work with us present) is this "server startup load" theory. And this depends on the idea that the sims were going to crash often. As far as I saw, this didn't actually happen.

Even if it had, all it needed was for everyone to click "play" at the bottom of their screens, and if the server struggled for the next few minutes - so what ?

Lets be clear. The streams were good, the servers coped just fine, lncluding lots of startups together after lunch. The number of people watching was probably about two thirds what the inworld build would have drawn.

For those who don't understand the technicalities, (and don't understand why those of us who know are unhappy with the explanations), let me explain that no amount of video watching in the SLCC sims could have lagged them, crashed them, or affected them at all.

Video comes direct to your computer, which writes it onto your computer screen in the right place to pretend it's happening in world. It isn't.

The only thing that needed doing in the SLCC sims to switch the screens on was setting one texture, and one url, in the "About Land" menu for each of the four sims. 60 seconds work at most. It wasn't done. We are told deliberately not done.

If it is true, that there would have been a few video glitches after a server crash, then why weren't we allowed to discover this. Why was the decision made not to even TRY ?

Why was the poor inworld host not informed of this decision, but left to field all the complaints alone and in ignorance ? "Diz" something claimed to know nothing. Why was a simple notice not erected in advance, explaining that it had been DECIDED not to turn the screens on ? Why did just one sim get video stream (only audio working and no notice put up) late on ? Why did it all work fine at Lewis's if it was so difficult/dangerous ? When was the decision to kill off the video arena event made? Was there not time to ask more of us to host screens - it's simple enough. Dozens of us could have done it, given 12 hours warning.

The problem was, by the time we realized the need for working screens elsewhere (to replace the dead official ones), the streams were underway, and I for one was too busy watching (and my home sim was running at dilation 0.37 with 34 people in it, most camping at a nearby brothel).

It worked elsewhere. I simply can't accept that it was right not to even TRY to get that wonderful build working as its builders intended, and to throw all their effort away.

Disrespectful to them, to the sponsors, and to us, the residents who faithfully turned up to watch. It was disrespectful not to even try. And certainly disrespectful not to clearly tell everyone you had decided not to try, until now, long afterwards.

Next year ? Absolutely no need to tone down the inworld quadrant. Do the opposite. Rev it up. Put a couple of people in charge who will not be attending the RL event, so they don't get distracted. Test the video screens the night before (dammit two nights before) using a disney trailer. Someone just posted elsewhere with about seven good ideas for next year, and volunteered to organise it. I'll see if I can dig it out and edit in the link.

Give up on dual-reality events as technically infeasible ? Never heard such astonishing defeatism. Bring on more of them. Make them a feature. What would the Linden's think of such an attitude ?

I'm sorry, I know I'm earning enemies by saying this, but I haven't heard anything technical here that can quite silence a little voice in my head, whispering unkindly the words "cock-up" and "whitewash".

As Flipper explained there was a bug with streaming video on estates - meaning islands - meaning the sims where the convention was held. There weren't as many problems mainland, hence why Lewis didn't have any trouble hosting it. A judgement call was made as best as anyone could do under pressue. It was not ideal and no one is denying that and it certainly wasn't some attempt to usurp the involvement of the community. If it was as easy as everyone seems to think it was then of course by all means it would have been done. I mean why would we deliberatly take the easy way out and just screw over the in-world community?

There are issues that need to be addressed with scalability and that is all that we are bringing up when it comes to doing an in-world SLCC next year. I brought up in another post that we had the same (if not lesser) in world resources we did for the 2005 SLCC and we did for the 2006 one. In Oct 2005 there were 80,000 residents and now there are close to if not more than 500,000. Of course, there will be more and more issues as the population continues to grow.

First off, please explain this estate streaming video bug, as it's not on the known issues and i've never heard of it, nor does it make sence due to the way that media is done in SL. Secondly there is no reason to worry about scalability. Each sim has it's own max amount of users. If too many people try to come to the event they simply won't beable to get on the sim.

I resent being forced to use the backwards american date system, and having to convert everything whenever I look up almost anything SL related, but I cope.

The time difference is not that bad, I just have to remember that the US is 5-8 hours behind me, and remember that the US is usually behind England in most things.

Lewis