A little event tip for you owners

If this had happened to me only once in the last week, I wouldn't worry about it. I wouldn't be posting this. But in one week, I've had it happen twice. It's not yet a trend, but it's annoying and I think deserves comment.

On two occasions last week, I attended club openings in SL. These are usually pretty fun events, as the owners stock the raffle balls with cash and bring in a good live DJ to keep the party rolling. I invariably meet new friends this way, expanding my SL network and having fun every time I go.

So I like grand openings. This isn't about that. It's about club owners who added me to their club group and to their friends lists and then, several times a day, send personal IMs to everyone on their 'friends' list -- usually in ***ALL CAPS*** with abundant asterisks, spamming me to come to their club.

It's bad enough we can't mute club groups if we want to stay in the group but not get their spam. Now they've figured out how to use the Notecard trick to mass-IM everyone even if you leave their group.

Is that not enough? In one of the two cases this last week, the club owner kept hitting me with TP offers without being asked. All it would take would be for me to be clicking in that area of the screen, and suddenly I'm where I don't want to be.

Thank you for the offer, Club Owner, but if I wanted to come to your club I have the landmark. I know how to get there, or I can ASK in your club channel for a TP. I haven't had any problems yet getting the less pushy club owners to TP me when I ask.

As a result of this over-aggressive new business approach, I've removed 2 people from my Friends list for the first time since I came to SL, and I've left those club groups. Too bad, too - they might have been fun options on those nights my friends and I want to club-hop. Now I don't think I'll be returning because I don't want on your spam list. Your loss, not mine.

Those of you building new clubs, PLEASE take note? The success of your business relies on how you treat your customers, and arbitrarily TPing everyone on your group list to your event will only work against you. Lure us in. Don't force us.

Just a suggestion, Cindy...

1) If you get spam from a Group you're a member of, contact one of the officers of the group - tell them why you're leaving - and politely leave the group. Hopefully, they'll learn from your comments.

2) If you get spam from a "Confrence IM" - publicly heckle the person spamming you in their Confrence IM. More often than not, you'll get a chorus of others heckling with you - equally upset as you are for being rudely interrupted. Typically, you don't get another IM from them after you do that


Hope this helps!

This is why clubs are evil.

Cindy,

Also note the behavior you are describing would probably also be a TOS violation, under spam. It would not hurt to abuse report it when it is repeatedly done to you. Perhaps if these club owners got a stronger message of a TOS warning, they would stop the practice. I am not even in any club groups and don't go to clubs, and I get spammed periodically myself. If it were more frequent, I would definitely AR them.

No clubs are evil because they steal your soul and make you play tringo while dancing naked in a cage.

Generalizations are the true evil

Hey I was drunk that day.

I've heard about you, Travis. You have line dancing and play 80s music. THAT IS THE TRUE EVIL

Lol

*wants an Electric Slide Dance anim*

And Cris ain't lying, there's pictures of him doing that

*grin* sorry, couldn't resist.

Travis, I appreciate your comments, and that's exactly what I did (option 1 anyway). But I still belong to a couple of club groups that I truly *do* enjoy going to, and on occasion their reminders jog my memory and get me to their event. So if I want to keep those open and not others, I'm willing to accept my own responsibility -- put up with the spam from those clubs I want to remain with and try to stem it from the others.

All of which renews the need in SL for a "group mute" option. More options = more freedom.

I completely agree - a 'group mute' function that you could toggle on/off would be a godsend. Even better if you could selectively mute some groups & not others

I try to keep my usage of group IMs to a minimum, as I hate getting that kind of spam myself. I cringe sometimes when I send out a "Payment Podium in 20 minutes everyone!" to the Shelter group - and I end up with 5 minutes of friendly banter between group members that could have been in private IM.

IMHO - the responsibility is on the Group Officers to make sure they only invite members to the group that actually *want* to be in the group, shown either by request - or becoming a regular.

Spamming group invites is counterproductive, and is only asking for trouble.

I thought club and casino groups existed for the purpose of receiving IMs and port offers everytime the facility hosted an event. What other purpose do these groups have? Or, more to the point, what other reasons do people have for belonging to them?

I, too, wish there were a way to mute my groups. I was in a bunch of bingo and slingo ones, but recently I dropped out of all but one of them, because I was concentrating very hard on finishing my build and it was a pain in the b-u-t-t.

I didn't WANT to have to drop out of them, but it was just driving me crazy, so that's why I would like a mute button

Yes, they do exist to tell you about events, and most of the ones I got did that. But there was also an endless stream of, "any slingo going on anywhere?" etc. from members, every night, incessantly, so that drove up the interruptions quite a bit.

The one I'm still in, I get a message before the games, and that's basically it.

coco

This is my thinking as well. I've opened and closed a dozen mall location simply because the groups kept spamming me with odd chitchat and useless announcements. I don't begrudge those groups their communication device; but damned if I'm gonna belong to it just to have merchandise in a couple of shops. I may be wrong but I believe I'd feel the same way about clubs and games as well. If the IMs were out of hand, the group would be dropped. If it prevented me from accessing the club or game, my heartbreak would be healed by joining one of a thousand similar groups that didn't spam me to death.

That's what they're for, yes. And many of them do observe courtesy in keeping their reminders and spam to a minimum. Asking for a TP in that group channel is the best way of quickly getting to the club.

However, all the other annoyances noted here come with the territory. As Coco notes, if you're busy with something else or just chatting with a friend, the constant "ding" and spam in your chat window can mean you lose the thread of a conversation, and if you don't keep up with shutting down the channels you end up having to scroll to the right just to find that IM from a friend you really wanted to visit with.

I'm gradually dropping out of many of the club groups I once had for this very reason. If I don't attend their event more than once a month, I'm not part of their group anyhow. Some of them require that you wear their tag in the event in order to be eligible for the prize, which is another way to force participation.

In my mind, the general trend of over-aggressive marketing here is similar to the advent of internet spam. On the net as a whole, email spam and popups have gone 'way past the boundary of passive advertising and are now into the realm of "shove it into your face and scream until you buy it". I'm one of those stubborn people who will only be put off and refuse to listen anymore once you get to that level.

Stop spam. Quit a group today.

Is there some benefit to the group of having a large number of members? I met a newbie the other day; noticed his group tag and was curious. He said he didn't know where the club was, or why he had been invited to join, just that someone had sent him the invite.

So are some groups out there just randomly inviting people to pump up their numbers? Is there a benefit to them for that? Is it like a mailing lists and some club has decided to pay "recruiters" so much per head for membership?

I'm curious

I don't know about recruiting practices; but it's always been true, and generally a problem for their patrons, that a typical newbie treats group invites like email attachements.

Our typical lab patron uses a computer to check their email accounts and click click click click click click click click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click clickclick click click click click click until the computer is locked up and loaded down with every conceivable plugin and porn browsing virus. They always display the calmest demeanor when they come to inform me that my computer is broken.

Two years ago, when there was only one large club group in second life, I must've gotten six-hundred invitations to join groups during my first two weeks. I turned them all down because I was new and had no idea what belonging to a group entailed. How do we educate incoming people to do the same until they're joinging the group for a reason? Reason, that's a funny word eh.

Coco, this is a tool I found about and don't know if you know it or not, but I set my avie to busy when I am working on something new like building or setting up a store. It mutes "room" chat as well as IM chat from showing on your screen so that way you can concentrate on what you want to get done. To me, its probably one of the best features out there.

I am with you on this, Cindy. I have left a bunch of groups because of the annoying spam for EVERY event. Even worse is when everyone in the group feels the need to reply to those messages in the group IM and carry on 500 conversations.

Excellent to know, Blayze! Thanks for telling me.

coco

Oooooh. A new toy to play with! Thanks Blayze!

Yw both of you...I love using busy. Its under world, I think..lol

But you can also put a custom message using the preferences, under chat/im. I change mine depeneding on what I am doing.

I may be wrong but I don't think the number of members in a group is a direct benefit to a club. However, by inviting anyone who attends their club, they are effectively creating a mailing list just as paper mailing lists have worked for years and email lists work now. It gives them a convenient way to generate a large amount of dwell with one simple IM. In that respect, it's an advantage for the club owner when he wants to put on a successful event and bump his dwell numbers.

The problem, of course, isn't using the IM tool that way. The problem is that some clubs put on 2 or 3 events per day and spam multiple announcement IMs (in all caps, no less) before and during each event. The one who was randomly sending TP offers to anyone on the list was taking the practice to the next level, and ended up costing himself some members.

For those that are actually interested in this....

The comments above are mostly right. The primary purpose of a group for a Club/Casino (or any business for that matter) is for communication - whether its a group officer communicating to the membership about something, or a group member asking for a TP.

Even in my own group - that is its primary function.

As far as the question "Is there some benefit to the group for having a large number of members?" - the answer to that depends on your goals. There is a leaderboard section for "Group Size" - I suppose those with the largest groups out there are somewhat competitive about it. And from a purely business perspective, you could make the argument that having a larger group allows one to "communicate" (read: spam) to more people simutaneously.

It's all in what you're after. Personally, I'm going for quality over quantity - so inviting everyone with a virtual pulse to my group is counterproductive. Because I try to foster a 'Cheers-type' family environment - it works out better for me personally to keep group communications to a minimum, and the membership low enough for people to still know each other.

I suppose if you're a Tringo hall, your goals are different - and so will be your strategy. It just doesn't work in my case. My hunch is also, that membership turnover in groups like this is *huge*. If they're constantly spamming invites, however - this is probably of little consequence to them.