Issues with new evet posting system

Okay my two cents. I tried to post and event this morning and was surprised to see preselected locations. I contacted live help and was contacted back by mick linden. His explanation to me was that it was new policy, that it would be further clarified in the forums today, that no group would be able to host more than 3 events a day on a special deeded parcel, and if you were not a member of a land deeded group, you could not post for that group. That is how I understood what he said to me. I have yet to see a clarification on the forums.

I am annoyed that so many changes like this were not described in the 1.6 pre-release, and were not beta tested. If these changes had been raised while the preview was open, maybe some event hosts would have gone into the preview and tried them out.

The description of the 1.6 preview was all about video and building tools. No details about changes to event listing that I recall (or sell objects with group owned land, for that matter).

It is understandable that Linden must sometimes make unpopular changes in order to make the game viable. So I would not have expected them to "seek comment" for things like ending event payments when they know in advance that the changes will be unpopular. But changes to the mechanics of how things work are a different matter.

Consider the membership growth curve for other games (like SIMS online). Rapid growth in membership, followed by rapid decline and level off. SL should take heed -- many users will join because of word-of-mouth or press coverage, but then get bored and go away if it isn't "interesting" enough to be worth the price. Phillip talks about the "games within the game", but then LL keeps pulling the proverbial rug out from under the people who try it by constantly changing things around, and by introducing bugs that break things.

(membership growth curve graph appears in this thread /120/cb/32190/1.html)

Buster

Yes, it would be such a shame is the 1.2 Billion Tringo events a day were slashed. Such a shame.


I hope that this makes people consider what events they are hosting and limit the events to "quality" events. There are some kinks to be worked out but I think it is an overall improvement.


Flame away.

(I am not among the end-of-event-support complainers. I am unhappy with surprise changes, bugs, and ongoing painful troubleshooting.)

Are you are saying you think it should be hard to host events because that way only really motivated event hosts would do it, thus eliminating half-hearted event hosts?

I think the result will be no events except money-making ones like Tringo. Even fewer giant snail races and how-to lessons than there are now.

Problem: too much tringo, too little else.

Solution: make it harder to host events.

Result: only tringo.

Indeed Buster, well stated. I run 6 to 7 events a week. I am a DJ and provide prizes and entertainment for the community. I have *regulars* that attend my events. As do many others that I work with.

So, the only viable alternative that I can see is if a member would make up an events calendar for all of us to post our events on. We wouldn't have the TP option on this calendar. But, we could give the coordinates and offer to TP people into our events.

The problem would be getting the events callendar's URL out to the masses.

when the LL took away support for events everyone were saying oh yeah less thong events more teaching events? i dont see any do you? thers still contests and major increase in Tringo and bingo.... but what can you do .. thers no SUPPORT for it they are paying from their pocket or getting payed for hosting the event... then why not let it be...

making this change with out ASKING US... or atleast some kind of WARNING was just wrong... why not have the owner decided who they want to let host on their land... if LL doesnt want to see 100 tringo games a day and 50 contests on one event list, then they might want to break it up into categories.... games,contests,classes... what do they care about all this event anyways ... they are not hosting them, they are not paying for them, they are not attending them, they are not paying for the land the events are being held....so if people want to have events they should be able to do so with no questions asked...and maybe instead of worrying about events they should be fixing lag and bugs... ghosting promised gone? err try again i seen ghosted objects, alpha texture bug promised gone? uhm not really... ban list bug? i think thers MUCH more important things to be taken care of first then adding some dumb-ass rules who no1 likes... they are not making the game fun they are just slowly ruining it for everyone...

Now THAT is an EXCELLENT idea. Let the user filter the events.

i agree, if this was done from the begining, instead of that search>>category thing it would of been much easier and cleaner... they must be thinking with the wrong head

This goes beyond Tringo. Yes many were tired of all the Tringo posts but lets face it Linden left many no other optoin. As I told Hamlet people will take the path of least resistance and that is what works. Tringo is a way to pay little to hosts, have fun, and win something based on skill. If it wasnt for kermit for giving us Tringo I wonder what the game would be like. Like my Horse Track many love it but it can only run once a day cause thats all it is. Many felt it was unfair their venue couldnt post more then 1 social contest that were simlar and here we have over 20 Tringo posts up a day.

When my club posted a best in red and then a best in white event Lindens were quick to remove the post and issue me and many other venue owners a notice that events had to vary. So I took the time to plan out theme events that all differed, still sometimes when I have a new manager a few simlar events might pop-up.

Linden need to realize they took our funding away. I support my own events now because I restructured. Then they said we had to have our events vary so I re-wrote my events plan and posts. All going well and now this, which just adds to my oringal thought... too fast ,too drastic., and not thought out...

I have other venue owners asking for my help and I have been trying but I can only do so much. Linden in their efforts to fix their economy ended up hurting more players in the long run. Who is hurting the new players and social players. There is no real form of income but crappy weekly stipens, so they work events noooo not classes you got to be 30 days old to host a class. They cant host their own events cause again no support. So they work for a venue or try to make something sellable. Some will find their place and grow, some wont care cause they buy their linden and play for the social fun, but many will get bored and yea I wont say the q word but *sigh*

Quality events? I am going to assume you are referring to your perception of quality and not others.

I log on every night to play a game..whatever way I want to play it. Some days, I want to play tringo, some days I want to build, or some days I just might want to shake my ass at a club trying to win a Best in some hoochie mama outfit.

In my RL, I work 40+ hours a week. I don't log in to go to a class or have some meaningful discussion about life. Its not how I have fun. If its the way some one else has fun...more power to them.

That was the beauty of the Events calendar...it had a variety of whatever was going on. People said it was overrun by the contests and tringo. Well, its not like anyone was prevented from posting a class or discussion. They were there as well.

So what was the problem...people didnt want to come to the classes or discussions? Instead of making them interesting, people whine about the quality of events on the forums.

I guess your definition of quality is kinda like one man's trash is another man's treasure.

* Ara puts on her red hat.
It's hardly an improvement.

It discourages users such as myself from going out and finding some kind land owner - one with a huge abundance of prims - and asking, "Hi. I'd like to host a Settlers of Second Life event, but I don't have enough prims on my land. May I use your land to set up this event?"

Why?

Because now, that owner has to go set up my event, when I could have set it up for myself. This is called a nuisance.

Instead of hacking the event-calendar... how about we dispose of Quicktime, fix the issues with streaming audio (Default the bloody player to STOP, and require a player to click PLAY to invoke the stream?!@#12$!!), and beat the everloving hell out of these graphical glitches?


Actually, I counted plenty of Tringo, Plenty of "Best * Contest at *!", and possibly one or two classes in a given day.

Part of the issue is that events are scheduled at terrible times for some users - A lot of my play time is during the early evening, or early morning (UTC -0500). When I'm up in the early morning, playing SL, there's about two events per hour. One's usually Tringo.

I don't consider myself skilled enough to run a building or scripting class;
Perhaps I could hold a discussion about video games - best and worst of, but there's a part of me that doesn't seem to see a demand for it.

Guess I'll break out the skydiving gear again, and send the newbies allllll the way from Solway over to Abbotts to pick up gear, and then make them fly ALLLLLLL the way back (ctrl-alt-SARCASM).

At least it'd be a change - I'd have an event to sponsor out of my own pocket (since "Introduction to Skydiving" is probably not good enough to be an 'Educational' event).



The problem is, there are still far too few classes.
As an exaggeration:
For every twenty-five "Introduction to Building" or "Intro to Scripting" classes, there's one "Intermediate Scripting/Building" OR "Advanced Scripting/Building" class.
I don't consider myself in need of Intro to Building - I can rez and torture prims quite fine by myself. Hell, I even know the little trick that lets you get a box's thickness in one dimension down to about that of a sheet of paper (Make sphere; Dimple it - 0.49 and 0.51; Turn Sphere into Box, adjust thickness thusly. uNF, a sheet of paper, excellent for making a spiral-bound notebook in-world, if you can script it to turn the sheets).

I could use an intermediate scripting class, because I'm beyond "hello world", but not ready for llSetUpUsTheBomb(We_Get_Signal);.




...

Then again, this, as are many of my posts, is just another way to express "JM¢¢", and may be disregarded or noticed as such.

Thats my point...just because there is a lack of classes there was nothing in the system preventing anyone from posting them or conducting them.

Hell, LL even made it BETTER for people to do classes by giving them the funding for the classes. The problem..very very few were doing them.

So is the problem the way the events are set up or the fact that there are so many here that can't/won't share their knowledge with the masses?

Event hosting was a good way to make money. A good way to meet people and a good way to network with others to learn more. The club, bling hoochie mamma events, tringo whatever apparently were popular, otherwise they would have died down.

I agree with Chloe...just put a filter on it so you can see what you want.

Actually... people want classes, but they cannot find them. Why? The 40,000 tringo events a day, mixed in with the club contests and advertisements disguised as events.

No one shows up to these classes, preventing anyone from teaching.



Because no one can find them.



It's the way events are set up. If I want a class, I don't want to see Tringo listings. If I want a building contest, I don't want to see classes or tringo listings. We need categories.



They're popular because they hemorrage money. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but it might be a telling sign of the state of the community that 95% of all events are money-related. Maybe the lindens are trying to steer folks away from the free money balls ?

LF

if this is true, ll should clarify that the event calander should be used only to post educational events and police the postings invoking a violation penalty that will get out attention. word will quickly spread that they've resumed control of the feature and reverted it to its original purpose.

trying to sway public use of a feature by making it harder to use is silly. it's not even silly; it's okay we'll just stick with silly. this kind of backward social manipulation via technological engineering is good plot material for episodes of dr. who. but it doesn't wash in the virtual world. ll have proven this to themselves time and again. when will they learn?

Can't or won't? They can be found IF they are in there, some will not take the time to look for them.

Yes I agree. We need categories. I did state that I agree with Chloe.

Money could be the reason they are popular. It could be that is what people want to do, is go to clubs, contests, socialize. So thats my point, why penalize the people/the clubs/the venues that host these events when LL is not even supporting them any longer.

Just give the categories and it will make everyone happy. *insert sarcasm here*

Apparantly I can host events in only 3 spots now.

Neverland - Huh? Ok...
Lovely thoughts - Huh? Ok...
Old London - Huh??

Maybe those are Spellbound Event areas. Not sure, but I have no idea why I can host events there.

I can't host events on Spittoonie anymore. Which is lame lame lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag


HOW DO YOU LIKE IT LINDENS
lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag lag

How about a nice cup of TIGER WHAT THE BOAT UPPERCUT LIVE IN BRAZIL for filling my inbox with quite inane post content?

I can understand your frustration, but repeating "lag" that many times is only going to draw anger in your general direction.

Perhaps we should return to the topic - What can be done to fix the issues with the new event posting system?
And, in the meantime, just as important: What ways are there for us to get around said system (3, 2, 1, LOOPHOLE!)?

Whether or not the Lindens will actually adopt any propositions that get approved, I urge all of you to support Prop 45. This would require the Lindens to make actual announcements to ALL members at least 72 hours in advance, but no more than 120 hours in advance.

One of the reasons the new event rules have been met with such a horrid backlash is due to the Lindens unexplained lack of prior communication. The postings to the forums by the Lindens came AFTER THE FACT of the implementation of the rules.

Maybe, just maybe, if the Lindens had explained in proper advance what they had planned to change in the way events are posted and by whom, we could have had a better understanding.

In short, support Prop 45 and force the Lindens to actually start communicating us.

They couldn't tell us before hand. People would have just went and prescheduled events for the next three months. God, the Linden's aren't required to tell us everything they do before they do it. Your little 9.95 a month ain't THAT important.

not evenyone pays 9.95 a month and even if they do its not NOTHING its still SOMETHING it adds up... if you pay 100$ GOOD FOR YOU thers people who pay 10X more and thers people who might have hard time paying the 9.95

and the lack of the LL telling everyone got everyone pissed even more then the actualy changes, just like they announce everything else from log in problems to new lindens to some articles. they should have STILL said something... they should tell us everything they change before hand to warn, prepare us coz if they dont next thing you know u wont have your house or land or store ... oops the lindens forgot to tell you they were retiring that sim.... anywayssssssss and they are LL, if people did post events for the next 3 month, THEY can just Reset the whole event list... so dont say if LL said something ppl would do that im sure they COULD of said something and they WOULDNT have to worry about the events being posted because they can EASILY DELETE them....

No, but that's one of the problems, to be honest.
Very little 'real' communication between Linden Lab and its users.

Not every user reads the forum, which we know is true.
Conversely, not every user reads the newsletter that we get about once a month.

I can't help but think that there would be a better way to get the word out.

How often do they host those little talker-events, to let users sound off on issues?

How often do they respond to valid bugs in bugzilla (or whatever bug management ware they use)?

If there's a bug that could cost a user extra cash for some reason, are they working to prevent the situation?


I don't remember the last time I paid only USD$9.95 a month for SL.
You're right, however: My monthly payments aren't that important.
But what happens when you have ten, twenty, fifty, or even one hundred paying users, all leave for the same reason?
Users that own 2048m2 of land, and pay quarterly to avoid feeling obligated to burn out a year's worth of premium?
($22.50 + ($15 * 3)) adds up pretty well, last I checked.
$67.50 per quarter per user gone...
$675.00 per quarter for 10 users gone...
$1687.50 per quarter for 25 users...

Sure, it might be small change when you look at it like this, but here's the kicker: It's income. Income that ends up going to some random MMORPG instead of their pockets.



Guild Wars needs to hurry up and get a concrete release date...

I don't even get the newsletter in question, I opted out. Mostly because its PR, and if I want that I can peruse my way over to the appropriate URL.

What may be a good idea is for them to send announcements by email. They do this already to some degree (like the 1.6 announcement and such), but notice that policy is about to change would be nice. I get these from Paypal and eBay all the time (when they're real anyway ) - they do not even say what the change is, just give you the URL so you can look at your leisure.

I think sending a global announcement from time to time referencing a forum post could 1) get people more informed and 2) get people to peruse the forums more. I could be wrong, but it would be a step in the right direction.

I pay $385.00 a month, and logged on yesterday to find my staff totally frustrated. they were unable to post events, one tried to reschedule an event and could not. Could not even delete it. My staff hosts events to compensate for the loss of funding from the Lindens. I fork out $3000 - $4000 Lindens a day to others. Many of them do not have the technical skills to make sex balls, so they host and provide entertainment to make a living.

As for quality of events, who determines what is quality and what is not? I should think that attendance shoud be one factor. If 90% of the players pay $9.95 a month to shake there ass at a beach party, then let them! If they want to go to educational events, no one is stopping them. As for finding them, the solution is not to do away with the rest, but to improve the tools for ategorizing and searching events.

1. I LOVE TRINGO

2. The event list will ALWAYS be "cluttered" to someone. I do not remember a time when the masses have not whined about something being listed on it too often. The population is growing and can support multiple events. Every event is different. Regulars can tell you.. every Tringo Game/Location/Host is different.. every Club is different.. etc.

3. Due to the factors of sims filling up and lag issues, we NEED multiple events of the same genre to accomodate the interest of the population. Trust me, if the events were being left without attendance, the host wouldn't continue hosting them. This is especially true where hosts and/or land owners are putting up their own L$ for prizes.

4. If someone wants to find something in the events list, they can. Period. No one is stopping them from finding an event they want to find! Cluttered or not, the events ARE (or at least were prior to this) listed. Tidbit.. There IS a SEARCH feature for the events list. Serious.. I'm not joking.. go look! *grin* Pull up the Events tab and take a peek. There is a lil pulldown list of categories: All, Contest, General Fun, Discussion, Sports/Battle, Class and Mentor Event. We can limit our list to one of these. We can also leave it set to All (the default) and type a word into the Name/Desc box. While we can not filter OUT certain listings entirely, we CAN find what we want.

THE ONLY WAY WE CAN NOT FIND AN EVENT IS IF IT IS NOT LISTED.

5. The events system we had in place was not perfect. But, it worked well if WE took it upon ourselves to work with it. Now it limits us. I see this as a negative. The events list should not limit us.. we should have the power to limit it. We all have different interests. What one person loves, another hates.. and visa versa. We should be able to filter out those events we, personally, found undesireable.

6. Everyone's opinion and interests are equally important. Tringo is no more important or less important than a class. A dance is no more imporant or less important than a discussion. A costume contest is no more important or less important than a modeling event. They ALL serve a purpose. They ALL cater to someone's individual desires and interests in this world. The opinions of a 9.95er is just as valuable as a land owner. It bothers me to see people made to feel their opinions and enjoyment are not as imporant as someone else's simply because they enjoy a certain activity or do not pay as much as someone else. We are all in this world together. And, yes, I am a land owner.

I hope LL sees this and takes it to heart. We are a growing community. We are growing rapidly. I feel we should be thankful for this growth and encourage it to continue. Without it, we wouldn't be getting upgrades and the support we do have. Instead, we would flatline and eventually be left to fend for ourselves with nothing.. a dying world.. Growth is needed to continue. And, thankfully, we HAVE growth! LL needs to find a way to encourage it and work with it, not limit it. We need a new calender system in place to allow for personal preferences and filters.. not limits.. not restrictions to keep us from enjoying our world.

The changes put in place are already having a severely negative impact on several people.. land owners, groups, hosts, attendees. I understand a few are happy with the change. But, honestly, I see the negative as outweighing the positive. I sincerely hope LL will go back to the old system and work on creating us a new and improved calender instead. I would hope those that are happy with this change can see how it is negative for others and be willing to step up and say "GO FOR IT.. FIX IT FOR US.. We can continue as it was for awhile longer as long as we know you are working on something wonderful for us to replace it."

LL, I challenge you to open a discussion on what we want in a new calendar and events system. I challenge you to ask US what WE need and want. Ask us what would help us with our events and enjoyment. I'm sure you can find a mature group of individuals to work with you on this. Lets do this... I DARE YOU.

*claps* whooo hooo Anjelle!!!!!! *claps more*

I TRIPPLE DARE YOU TOO LOL ( the Lindens that is lol)