Second Life Community Convention 2006: SAN FRANCISCO!

Where did this come from? The community wasn't involved in where to hold this SL event. That is a given. A wrong course of action according to some. The community members of SL do not need to worry if they are "allowed" to come to this shindig either! Ya'll are invited to this event. Let no one tell you that you aren't! To bring up another av's name was out of line.

(Skipping the empty personal attack claims, as they're off-topic and irrelevant to the issue at hand)



What I said was that both NYC and SanFran were both bad choices. That does not exclude that there are other bad choices, but that there's two in specific that are definitely bad choices. NYC was done last year, and SanFran has been done in other ways numerous times. What I am (and have been) saying is that there are many far better choices, and that the SanFran decision is short-sighted and completely devoid of community input.

That was my opinion, and that is still my opinion. I stick by it, no matter how much one disagrees with that opinion.


- Newfie

Well there's no chance of me coming over, even by ship, as I can't afford it. Flipper has suggested something very interesting and positive, however, which is for people to organise something in their own area with a video link to the main event. Organisers for such parallel events would just need some tech input to know what to have available.

I find this concept interesting, but I wouldn't begin to have the know-how to set up a video/sound link. I also wonder if it would be prohibitively expensive to foot the bill for a link like this if there weren't a whole bunch of people attending and sharing costs. Is there anybody else out there in western WA/western OR who might want to attend a concurrent regional event like this? A lot would depend on dates for me, of course. I hope some definite dates are set relatively soon.

Yes, but Flip said, "More than any other city", so stop putting words in other peoples' mouths, please.


Oooooh... maybe we should have considered holding the convention at "S".


Oh, even better. Let's hold it at "Rest of the world other than San Francisco".

If you're going to criticize Flip's comments, don't twist his words, and try proposing a better solution.

Perhaps I may suggest, "The most SLrs live within 200 miles of ____ city" - in which case we're back to New York. So San Fran and the San Jose area is an active area.

So what you are saying Hiro is everyone who plays SL is a broke loser who can't afford to fly even on Southwest to get to an event? So we have to base the event location on the Metro area with the most people because the attendance will be low otherwise? Huh?


Why in the hell would you base something on the most people who live near one city, and not on a city with good convention space, good pricing and is easily accessible for the MAJORITY of people? I used be on the committee for these things at my old job and we have several things we considered and we surveyed the entire sales team for opinions before making a choice. Any good event planning involves a survey of the potential participants.


It just does not seem like much of a community event without any input from the community. The last decision to have it in NYC made sense because Lindens would be there and there were other gaming events. This appears to be an SL only event for SL residents which are sanctioned by the Lindens called a community event and there is no input from the community that does not have the makings of a community event, it is just an event.


Flipper has said SF has the most SLers but has provided no stats and no supporting data. Until we get a little proof, I don't believe it. If it is being based on the number of SL Residents in an area, why not pick the top 4 metro areas and put it to a vote.

Check out this Kansas City Sport bar website!

Yooooooooweeee!

HOT KANSAS ACTION!



I can't tell from the 360 panorama if they serve Stella, so I might not see all you guys there....I'm picky like that.

As part of the community I input SanFran

Heres my 2.5 cents.

I honestly don't care where SLCC is this year. I'd prefer it to be somewhere nice that I would enjoy going. Would I enjoy going to Dallas because it is more "central" hells no. Would I enjoy going to San Fran again - "hells yes".

In all of my years of working corporate, non-profit and educational events/conferences/conventions it has been my experience that usually a small core group of people decide the location based on whatever factors they figure into the location. Trust me, when an odd location is picked that is seemingly more central it makes travel plans more crazy. One can pretty much get a direct flight from anywhere to San Fran. I've had to fly people from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to get them to Boston. Its a little better now that we have a Southwest hub here.

The problem with polling the community is that the results will be votes for whatever the closest location is to each persons geographical location. It still would come down to someone making the call for the final location. I'd personally love for it to be in Philadelphia, but I'm not making a big stink about it.

That being said, I don't even know if I will be going or not this year. I dont even know at this point whether or not I will take part in organizing. My heart just isn't in it.

If anything I have learned from my two years in SL - my real life comes first and reigns supreme. This is just something I do for fun -- well that is when I am not taking long hiatuses from in-world activity.

This is starting to sound like a broken record: my source was JESKA LINDEN. I don't have exact numbers, and I'm not sure I should have exact numbers. You can follow up with LL if you want exact numbers; there's not reason I should have to do that since you're the one who's curious about the exact numbers. Knowing there were more residents in the bay-area than anywhere else was all *I* needed to know. Sorry, but I'm not her to do research for your benefit. Of course I'm not privy to the LL database of RL information; would you prefer they allow non-employees access to it? No? Then please, get rational.

As Garnet said, anyone can organize their own localized meetup, any time they please, and even during this event! Its video streamed so you can easily view the happening in San Francisco from anywhere with an Internet connection and we'll even set up Skype so you can ask questions and participate if you wish. We took questions from in-world last year as well.

Regards,

-Flip

You haven't been watching neighbours have you?



Lets have it wherever there aren't ANY residents and then everyone will have an equally difficult trip to get there!!!

Come on guys, lighten up. It makes perfect sence to put it near LL so they can discuss things and be on panels and hold talks etc.

Good job guys! Good luck this year!

People will complain about anything if given the chance. No matter where SLCC 06 is held someone is going to be displeased. If its in a place you do not like or do not want to go to then deal with it - go or don't go. If it was in Houston per se it would be doubtful that I would go, but I wouldn't piss and moan about not having polls and it not being next door to my house. Polls are fricking useless most of the time. They are biased to begin with based on percentages. What is the total population of SL that reads the forums? 10% maybe -- so even if polled how would that accurately represent the whole of second life as a community. Would it make a difference if the community was polled and San Fran was still the answer? Between last SLCC and the current one numerous people have offered suggestions most come down to the same 4 or 5 places. Please remember it is hard to accurately appease the needs of 120,000+ residents. I trust that the organizers are doing the best that they can.

I vote for Antarctica!

Also, I hear Venus is lovely this time of year.

Good idea! Any players in Azerbaijan?!?

Screw Azerbajian! Long Live Siberia!

*looks for obscure countries on google*

Lets have it in Tuvalu, 9 square miles made up of 9 coral atolls along a 360 mile chain in Polynesia.

I suspect they don't have any SL residents, and very limited power supply I imagine.

ITS PERFECT!

What about Belize? They have goat powered internet and rum.

Two words.

Death Star

Hehehehe.. Are we hijacking the thread?

Now that it has been successfully hijacked what are our demands?

I want monkeys, 300,000 million dollars in quarters, scuba gear, a mouse named Pi, Bub Linden's nachos with butter....

so what do you want?

GOOD IDEA!

A laptop, 300,001 million dollars in dimes, a plane ticket to San Fran for the date of the SLCC with accomedation and entrance, a plasma TV, *someone stop me, this could go on for a while*, a decent MP3 player, a holiday house in all the major cities, that Hard-Fi CD I've been meaning to buy for ages, *really, stop me*, a new stereo..

I've been watching it. That Paul Robinson, eh? Not half the villain he used to be.

San Francisco is the perfect city to host SecondLife gatherings. I will do my best to attend!

I would have liked the SLCC to be in Austin this year, for totally self-serving reasons. Austin is an hour's drive for me, and I know where all of the clean yet inexpensive hotels are.

However; decisions have to be made based on certain criteria. Since Flipper and company are doing ALL of the work to plan this monster of an event, it's up to them to determine that criteria.

If you (this is a general you and not directed at any one person) want to be involved in the decision making, maybe you should help out with the planning too. Then next year, you can explain your decision to a bunch of forum posters intent on bashing your decision making skills.

I'm going to have to work my arse off to get the money to go, but I will be going, come hell or high water, because it will TOTALLY be worth it. I have planning to go since I heard about the last one. Thanks, Flipper (and company), for taking the time to plan this.

There are always geographical, logistical and personal concerns for possible attendees of a convention regardless of the locale picked. Whether it be getting a flight, saving the money or convenience, etc, These issues don't go away no matter where it ends up being held.

I can understand the San Francisco pick, even if it may not seem the 'perfect' choice, it will make it easier for the organizers to set up events by using the resources of Linden Labs.. meaning speakers, site visits, sponsoring and what not. Last year NYC was good because they could run off the events going on for the State of Play conference... which yet again meant easier access to speakers, sponsors, etc. If the population growth continues in it's current trend, the the SLCC convention will have to be rethought and either will end up going to some big convention city, i.e. somewhere like Las Vegas, and organized by a much bigger group or it will end up being several smaller, regional events. Either way, it is always good to appreciate all the work that goes into things like this.

Don't get me wrong, I am an east coast gal (near Cape Cod) and it will be a very different trip to go to this coming SLCC. Can't just get in the car and drive to get there. But irregardless of that, my reason's for wanting to attend will offset some of the extra logistics and I expect to take the cross-country journey to be there.

Truth is... I can't wait to indulge in group, geeky, graphics chat (say that 3 times fast.) Maxx, serve up some Dark Tree texture talk and the first round of Stella is on me!

Til then, to the organizers...always willing to lend a helping hand, and to all else...group hug time. I am sure it will be a great experience in the end no matter where it happens.