Partial Solution to the Events Problem

I've just visited five events; none of which had active hosts. Here's what I recommend.

15 minutes prior to an event, a host receives a dialog, "Is your event still happening?" It the host isn't online (if you can't be bothered to be setting up 15 minutes in advance of your event, tough), the event is deleted.

When the event starts, the system checks to see if the event host is on the plot with the event. If they are not, the event is deleted.

Every 10 minutes once the event starts, the host is sent a message, "Is the event still going on?" If, at any time, the host leaves the plot or doesn't answer the query within 5 minutes, the event is over and removed from the listing.

Its not perfect, but it would be a damn good start to the "absentee host" problem.

Regards,

-Flip

Yes it would be

An interesting idea, but I can see two problems.

1) People will complain that it is 'intrusive'.

2) If you are hosting something that requires concentration, like Tringo for example, then it might disrupt your ability to run.


I'm still in favour of a selection of 'resident calendar mods' who can go round checking out events, and if they do violate the rules, the duty Linden is notified, who can then confirm things and issue slaps as necessary. However, it should be noted that not all events stay at the start point (such as the mystery tours I have run in the past) but as long as the person who posted the event is online, and if they are not running the event can tell you who is, that shouldn't be a problem.

One easy way to abuse this is a variety of alts used to post events. May I gracefully suggest that flags are placed against the parcel and/or group owning, rather than the individual name, and if there are more than a fixed set (such as 3 flagged events in a week) the place loses the ability to post events for one month? As it's quite clear to correlate the most calendar spam with the 'most popular' places, perhaps the larger culprits may think twice if they will risk losing the ability to post.

Lewis

Interesting, but

Other problems:

- If you hire someone to host it for you
- If RL / SL crash / etc takes you away for 2 minutes you then lose your event

I think a better idea would be a third party having a better event scheme.

I like this idea too. People were willing to mod the forums so hopefully people would be willing to do the same in-game.

I think that would certainly help, BUT that doesn't help much with the existing problem, the problem is the events list are cluttered and people either avoid them or get frustrated finding a legit event... most people plan to go to events ahead of time so the 15 minutes before hand isnt much help either...

I think the best route to take may be a 3 strikes your out deal...

Strikes for:
- Not following the event listing rules
- Host not being present
- Spam on the events calendar

and whatever else I am not thinking of...

I think I"m with Hiro on this one. Good idea, but hosts can be legitmately late (or crashed), sims can go down, and as Lewis said the event might be happening somewhere else.

But that would require, like, ya know, programming, and.... stuff.

True, but the bans would work retroactively, ie if you're caught 3 times cheating the calendar then you can't post any more fake events to pollute the calendar in the future.

I think one month of not posting events will hurt the major spammers enough to make them think twice about doing it in the future.

At the end of the day, the rules about events are NOT difficult to read or follow, and if people are told what part of the rules they broke, they're more likely to read them again to avoid being hit in the future, so by the time you are on "3rd strike and out" you really do not have any excuse.

Lewis

Here's a complete solution: Kill the List; Stop Coddling Us; Be the Host.

Hiro's point is valid. For example, the Shelter hosts Payment Podium 3x per week. The "hosting" is split between two other individuals in addition to me.

I post everything, however. This would mean that if I wasn't online - even though there was genuinely a host, the event would be cancelled.

Here's some potential solutions, however - because I still think Flip's idea is a good one:

-When we post an event, allow us to designate different avatar as the "Host" (besides the event submitter)

-As a measure against crashes, popup a dialog to the *designated* host at 10minutes and 1 minutes before the event. If both are missed... even if the host did indeed crash, it sounds like the event is starting without a host anyway.

Not to rain on your parade Flip but I see some problems.

As a pretty active event host, sometimes I am so bogged down in IM's AND i'm trying to talk and keep the conversation going and lively AND i'm giving away prizes AND i might also be trying to DJ which means my DJ software at any given moment might be covering up the screen as I search for a request....

There's a good chance I wouldn't see the IM request. There's a good chance, given RL events, that I might show up five minutes before my event rather than 15. After all, I'm an experiened host and event manager. If I have all my ducks in a row, I might not need to be here all that early and events don't start filling until 15 minutes after they start anyway. I've been known to cut it awfully close.

The crashing issue has already been noted but let me add my voice to those saying its a real problem.

Sensual I disagree that most people plan to go to events ahead of time. I think most people don't plan that much. I think most people get online, look at their flist to see whats going on, if nothing is going on and they have no building etc to do, then they might look at the events list to see if there's anything they might like. Or they might get a spam. I know a lot of people aren't even bothering to list on the events list anymore and just rely on spamming their flist. So sometimes planning isn't even possible.

It will take a lot of work and a better tool to make the events calendar viable again.

First, the thing needs to be policed. If LL is going to charge for events listings, then maybe they will consider using that money for a full time list cop and thats really what is needed. Its sad that people abuse it but it is what it is and if I'm going to pay to list an event I'd like to see the damn list policed and policed well.

The tool needs to be better. We need to be able to list recurring events, events that reoccur every week, every other week and once a month. We need to be able to unlist one of those reoccurances if we need to cancel one week because of RL issues. We need the ability to post more than 5 events in a 24 hour period if we are doing a fair or something. I know why that rule was put in but, for instance, during the dreams community fair, I had 10 hours of entertainment for the fair in one day plus an event running at the spa the night before, the night of, and 2 the day after. All legitimate hosted events.

Last but not least people need to be able to set reminders and bookmarks. It needs to be searchable by key word. The host needs to be able to be changed if the person posting is not the person hosting (often the case).

But more than anything people need to regain trust in it as a useful tool.

Opinion:

Although this is some interesting thinking, I have a year's experience of presenting the Game Show Channel in TSO that clues me in to some of the inherent problems.

First, it is not true that you will most likely have to be there 15 minutes early to set up the event.

I usually tried to get on early, because I'm just a really reliable individual that way. But often I whisked in at the last minute. And there were a few times when something really nutty happened in my private life and/or on the computer, and I arrived late - once I think even 20 minutes late - and I arrived to find people there WAITING for me! They knew it wasn't like me to just not be there, and they really wanted to play the games.

Secondly, if I'd had to put up with constant automated messages about, "Are you still there?" I think I would have blown a gasket. It is a very involving thing to be "on stage" for an event like that, and difficult enough to do well without having to deal with some suspicious automated system.

CC

So, we're building a virtual world, implemented through computer technology, and we're creating virtual personnae, and objects with computer-driven behaviours ...

... and some Neanderthals insist on *humans* being at a real-world keyboard?

WTF?

I think some people have completely lost the concept of virtual worlds here ...

The problem with this solution is that the person posting the event is not always the person hosting the event. I post all classes and events for New Citizens Incorporated. I only host two of them. I'm not even online during half of the classes.



If the event host is a bit late, you just delete the event? People have Real Lives. Not everyone is always going to be on time (or fifteen minutes early).



Can you imagine how annoying that would be for someone trying to teach a class or run a trivia show? I can--I do both. Oh--and hosts frequently leave plots during events for very good reason. Their computer might crash. The sim might crash. They might get ejected from a sim by a griefer with a push gun. All of the above have happened to me during my classes in the last six weeks.

Was your post supposed to be satrical? Or am I missing something?

Coercive oppressors don't usually understand the concept of satire, except as an attempt to counter their "so very reasonable" attempt to impose their worldview on others.

Cool idea.

But last I checked LL cannot or willnot implement anything automated in regards to events.
Or at least thats what they told me in answer to my automated toggle-able events notification idea.

yer the Flipparz so mebbe they'll actually try it out - Good Luck!

I do all the posting for the events for both sims I help run. We agreed that it would be more organized to have just one person handling. But I do not and could not host all the events.

I really like the idea of being able to insert someone elses name as host while I'm doing the posting. I usually already write that person's name in the event description.

As for a means of ensuring that an event really does have a host, while I see the value in it, I see too many potential problems with any sort of automated check. There have been occasions when a scheduled host could not be there, got sick at the last minute or couldn't log on, etc. In those situations if the event isn't cancelled we simply assign a new last minute host.

If two minutes before an event is about to start, everyone realizes the host is not going to make it and no one knows why so someone else is nice enough to step up and take his/her place, how fair would it be to have that event suddenly drop from the events listings when we've already handled the situation?

look events up at eventful.com

use a minus sign in front of search terms to weed out what you consider to be the dross

Do you still have to pay a fee to list an event? Honestly, I probably haven't listed an event over a year so I have no idea. The events listing is pointless, until they can webbify the Find menu so you can filter out all the crap, which is about 99% of it.

Nope no fee is required to post an event.

You don't even need to webbify it. If LL had implemented what they said they were going to over a year ago (allegedly in 1.6), namely XML'ifying the client interface, then we could apply local filters within our clients quite trivially. And the never-ending torrent of UI features requests would largely disappear too.

But that's just not going to happen now though: they have no manpower and won't go open-source until it's too late. What's more, a whole pile of open-source developers seem to have left SL (or at least gone silent on forums), perhaps because nothing was happening on that front. Oh well.

Don`t forget the over sized egos with their stuff shirts..

A better search engine it the answer. Not having them all listed together. When you post an "event" it asks "what type". If all events were only listed by type, problem would be solved. IE, if I wanted to know, what yard sales were out there, I would go to the drop down pick, Sale events and then only get a list of those. Want to learn something. Drop down of education; get the list of only those. Get the idea?

OR

Have the area of your plot designate a specific color for what type of plot/ business ect. Like the yellow plots are for sale the purple are auction. Check the map, lots of ppl at that spot, there is an ongoing "event". Most are held at the same time same place every week.

Besides if it has an Ingo (tringo, bingo, slingo) or a best of (any club competition) in it, then it really doesn’t need to be posted. All the INGOS are everywhere along with clubs. Times and event types can be posted at the event site for these.

As far as loosing ppl that attend the events, if it sucks ppl aren’t going to stay. Clubs do better with live Dj's that play specific music. Not a DJ that plays anything that can be streamed in to SL. Don’t have an "event" then only play radio music, that’s not an event that’s come listen to my radio.