Das Infohubbens!

If you have not recently stopped by and checked it out lately then I urge you too. I really really love it! Sal has done a fantastic job. Thanks for all of your hard work and time, Salazar.

Lordfly Digeridoo was spot on with his vision for a pedestrian crossover bridge connecting the four sim area. He laid out the design of the arch and has been a big inspiration for the overall look of the span.

I am in the process of getting the official Linden Nova Abion textures so I can apply them to the city InfoHub structures and walkways. I'm trying to get the light fixtures they used in the city as well.

Also, in the works are the official historical Linden items for display (Magellan's transit scrap and a piece of the original building ruins).

Thanks for the great feedback! The area is scheduled for completion this weekend. Stop by and see how it's shaping up.

Salazar

Looks great. : ) I particularly like the proportions of the subassembly that spans the sidewalk: a roman arch between piers.

Oh, I can't wait!

Eric Linden dropped off a box of the Nova Albion textures, and we're all allowed to have a copy of the set. Full perms too! If anybody didn't get one, you're welcome to copy the plywood cube sitting on the center wall table in the main level of my building.

I understand that the Lindens will be adding it to our Library folder soon too. Hopefully in the next client update!

looks like it's coming along very well!

i have a question though, is there still a call for any submissions to this? i meant to work with everyone as it progressed but got waylayed by RL and haven't been able to do anything.. so, like i say, any room for anything else?

also, is the current configuration where we're heading? the other day i visited the InfoHub and thought it was a bit.. odd. a little cramped and oriented slightly askew to easy access.

i'll go back and visit again though.. later. (it's always later with me.. lol)

Cybin, have you visited the one Sal has set up in Phobos? The current one is Not our design, but the Lindens.

Cybin:

Yes indeed, there is still time to contribute. Now that the full-size mockup is almost complete above the Phobos region, we need to determine all that we want to include, in addition to the standard Linden Infohub devices (2 kiosks, Lindex terminal, Give-The-Gift cylinder, etc.) Please visit the almost complete new city Infohub in it's construction location high above the Phobos region. The land is set to the City Slickers group so just wear your group tag when placing objects. Send me an IM, Cybin, and we can meet up to discuss.

I could also use some help finishing the Sistiana section of the Infohub area. We've talked about putting a little grafitti and a few trash cans in that section.. give it a little urban grit.

Last Friday and this Monday, the Linden content team has come through with quite a few items to help get the Nova Albion Infohub completed:

1) City objects, namely street lamps.
2) Nova Albion city textures that were used in Grignano, Sistiana, Barcola and Miramare for texturing the city infrastructure.
3) Xenon Linden is helping us procure the actual transit scrap found by Magellan Linden and the photos he took during the Lindens' prep of the city for the public before it was auctioned.

I think we can have the basic space locked down by the end of this week.

Let's talk some more about what things we want at the Nova Albion Hub. There is a thread in General right now discussing this very thing. Some great duscussion.

One idea:
People were talking about having the help stations repeated at some of the hubs. There is already one close by us in Dore at the asian-themed build. Perhaps we step it up and provide a few educational kiosks that tackle more complex subjects than the Basic Stations -- like how to manage a group or how to buy and sell land (the step-by-step process with the user interface).

Another idea:
A see-saw.

Another idea:
A horse shoes game.

Another idea:
A place folks can spray paint grafitti onto a brick wall.

Another idea:
A pay phone that you can dial a "Help Tip" and hear an audible tip.

We can utilize the InfoHub Resident Advertiser and upcoming Linden community message board kiosk to post local news about events and city info. Also we can submit press releases to the InfoNet for inclusion in it's network.

Sal, I'm getting a mental image of many items that are important to all four city sims, not just one specific sim. There are a LOT of these objects, and more of them may be coming down the pike. Right now they fit into two categories:

1. infohub objects like the Linden kiosks currently on the old telehub site in Miramare
   
2. amenities such as the display of historical artifacts and your suggestion of a see-saw
   

The amenities are appropriate anywhere in the area your mockup covers. People will walk around the completed build, discovering and enjoying them. Looking at your mockup I can see that working out great.

All of the infohub objects are likely to be installed at the old telehub location, because that's where visitors land at the 'official infohub symbol' on the main map. Problem is the land we've inherited for the 'official' location is tiny relative to the growing list of objects in the infohub category, so it might get a bit crowded. We could spread out those objects where there's room (you mentioned the Sistiana area as an underutilized location in the mockup). But visitors might get confused, wondering if a particular kiosk is important to all four sims or just Sistiana.

Here's a proposal: why not expand the overpass to include a central platform so we have a good sized central location for that set of help stations you mentioned, or any other special display that needs room, and is important for all four sims of Nova Albion.

There is already a forum post going on about adding More Linden content to the infohubs. Even more crowding.

I'm glad to see the discussion going on about what people want to see at the new Infohubs. Doesn't mean every hub will have to have everything or have to be set up the same way. We have a great opportunity to set up ours the way we want and, perhaps, continue to grow it so that it suits the needs of the residents in, and the visitors to, Nova Albion. We can make ours as crowded or as streamlined as we like. My feeling has always been that less is more.

Hopefully, once our hub is in place we can continue to evolve it and update it over time without too much need for Linden intervention. I'll start jotting my ideas down here on how we can accomplish that and we can all throw our ideas in.

I've roughed out two new content ideas for the hub and would appreciate some feedback on them.

1) Traxx suggested an expanded area at the central span of the pedestrian bridge that connects the Hub land. I've placed a mock-up of a city directory there where city residents might be able to place a prim for their property, maybe containing a notecard and landmark? Need to work out how that would be mananged. Alondria had some ideas regarding that a few posts back... I'll get in touch with her and find out what's possible.


2) An area in the Sistiana part of the Hub where folks can pick a graffiti texture to display on the support column of the bridge. The city residents could all submit some graffiti art and we could install them into this transparent display that folks could cycle through by clicking on a brick. Maybe have it make an aerosol noise when they switch graffiti art?


What do ya'll think?

The bridge looks very nice. Do you think the lindens will come over and let us update it when we need to?

Definitely ask Aces and Friday, and other Sistiana-ians if they would contribute graffiti since it represents their sim.

Thanks Caroline. I'm hoping we can come up with a process/solution for updating the Nova Albion Infohub that requires very little intervention from the Lindens. Perhaps some combination of a group(s), land settings on the Lidnens' land and specially scripted objects?

It would be nice to be able to make updates regularly to keep it fresh... monthly or quarterly at the very least.

Two thumbs up for the central directory on the bridge and for the Sistiana graffiti display. These are both community builder features. Both are specifically good for Nova Albion. : )

Right now lots of SLers are coming up with nifty cool ideas they'd like LL to implement as 'official' infohub objects for the main grid. I've heard that there are some bad ideas floating around too (like billboards). With our limited space we need the ability to pick and choose on the basis of what's good for Nova Albion. I agree with clutter reduction, less is more. Let's favor the ideas that could bring more green dots to the city sims, and limit the number of generic items that you'd be likely to see at any infohub.

Looking ahead we might need a way to handle the problem of updating the directory and any other display that could end up containing obsolete information like an address of a store or a gathering place that no longer exists. One way to do that would be to have coded-in wipes at say one month intervals. If a city resident values having a marker on the directory, renewing it every month is not a huge price to pay. Same for graphical displays -- periodic wipes should be the norm, and residents who value the resource can always resubmit their graphic. This takes care of obsolete submissions without burdening some individual with the task of being an administrator.

I'm chiming in here now because I haven't done so before, but I have been reading, and I'd just like to say I'm excited by what you guys are coming up with. Graffiti wall is a fun touch to "leave your mark on the city"!

Welcome, Torley. : ) Glad you like Sal's graffiti wall idea. Why not have a version of that on Help Island? Graffiti and cartoons get looked at more than dull lists of things to remember. But there are things newbies need to remember, like the magic of Ctrl H. A graffiti cartoon with maybe just one to three panels could illustrate that info better than having it in a list on a notecard.

There are artists in SL like Nylon and Toast Bard who could do a good job of making this sort of thing. You could have a call for submissions, and post them in Gallery, then choose the most suitable for a Help Island graffiti wall.

Yes! Why not have a version of that on Help Island? Graffiti and cartoons get looked at more than dull lists of things to remember. But there are things newbies need to remember, like the magic of Ctrl H. A graffiti cartoon with maybe just one to three panels could illustrate that info better than having it in a list on a notecard.

There are artists in SL like Nylon and Toast Bard who could do a good job of making this sort of thing. You could have a call for submissions, and post them in Gallery, then choose the most suitable for a Help Island graffiti wall.

This is true! I keep in mind that people learn in different ways--some prefer to see visuals instead of poring through a lot of text. I like how you adapted it to Help Island too, but I sure am looking forward to see how it might be realized in Nova Albion!

Hi All:

Our basic hub is complete. Just details to take care of now. And content-issues to work out regarding the City Slickers being able to add to/update content at the hub site. There is some prep that needs to happen on the Lindens' side of things before we can start setting up the hub in the city.

The land around the hub area will need to be reparceled. The Linden land in each region is currently one large parcel. The hub land will need to be separate from the remaining Linden land in each region. The Lindens will probably reparcel next week.

We'll need access to the land to place the hub. They can't allow any non-Lindens into the Maintenance group, the group all the Linden city land is set to. So I am going to see if Governor Linden can be made an officer or member of the City Slickers group so she can set the new parcels to our group for at least the duration of the hub install.

I need to find a way to be able to plant Linden trees and plants there too. That is normally only something the landowner can do, the Governor in this case. Your ideas would help here.

There are some City Slicker content elements getting installed that could benefit from us being able to update them in the future. Things like the city directory on the bridge and the graffiti wall and trash cans in Sistiana area. I've written up the graffiti wall idea already a few posts back... the trash cans are another idea. A place where a City Slicker could put an item they no longer need or want (or even a way to give away a free item). They could place the item in the trash can and a visitor can scrounge through the can for interesting items and take a copy (or original) if they want. I am going to propose that those content elements continue to be available for updating by City Slicker members.

Our content contributions to the Nova Albion Infohub should be non-commercial. No advertising. The exception perhaps being the 3D city directory. Each landowner should be able to have a marker there with some info (notecard, photos, etc.)

I am going to be submitting an installation plan to Jesse Linden on Monday to address these needs and any other ideas/issues that emerge. Please provide your input here so we can make this as flexible and interesting a place as we can.

Thanks!

Salazar

I think you have it all covered. Awesome work

Sounds terrific, Sal. I support the no advertising rule the way you have stated it. How is it enforced?

The obvious answer would be 'call a Linden', but they tend to want residents to work things out ourselves.

The resident advertisement kiosk will still be available for advertising (I'm assuming).

Are you talking about images for the grafitti? How about make images expire in 2 weeks just like the Linden kiosk does. Actually, I just realized that if people are allowed to add images then "mature" images might get placed there too. How will this be regulated?