Towards an SL event calendar

[animats]

In another discussion, an SL event calendar was suggested. That could be done in world. Like this:

These display boards, run by the city, are all over Paris. It's a curated list of events in the near future.

Something similar already exists in-world.

These class schedules, which Caledon Oxbridge has posted in many locations, are all remotely updated.

Good project for some group with multiple locations, such as the people who build roadside rest areas, train stations, etc. Put it on Marketplace and let anyone install one in public places. Maybe a little one for homes.

 

[PheebyKatz]

Even if all a group has is a web page with an event calendar, they can display it on a prim board as a sign.

The only real work is getting all of the data on what's happening where in the first place. Like, getting everyone on board with sharing info on when they have stuff going on.

Edited November 10, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[animats]

26 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

Even if all a group has is a web page with an event calendar, they can display it on a prim board as a sign.

The only real work is getting all of the data on what's happening where in the first place. Like, getting everyone on board with sharing info on when they have stuff going on.

Right. It needs a web-based system behind it, where people submit events, and someone to curate the list.

[PheebyKatz]

1 hour ago, animats said:

Right. It needs a web-based system behind it, where people submit events, and someone to curate the list.

Ideally a team of people who could help to maintain it. It could take a small team to keep it up to date, if it caught on, but that's better than one person either way. Like having more than one server for redundancy on a web platform, it'd make sure the system wouldn't fail if a curator went offline for whatever reason.

[animats]

19 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

Ideally a team of people who could help to maintain it. It could take a small team to keep it up to date, if it caught on, but that's better than one person either way. Like having more than one server for redundancy on a web platform, it'd make sure the system wouldn't fail if a curator went offline for whatever reason.

Right.  My point is that there was a discussion elsewhere on giving SL more social-type features, one type being a calendar. This is a way to do that in-world. That's more in keeping with the spirit of SL, rather than outsourcing this to some external calendar. Although the same data could be echoed on a web site.

There could be multiple calendars, maintained by different people and displayed together or in different locations.

A set of those boards at new user locations would be useful, to help answer the eternal new user question, "What do I do now?"

 

[Bree Giffen]

These sound like a great idea. Reminds me of the seraphimsl website which serves up a list of shopping events. I wouldn't mind seeing an in-world calendar or billboard of current events. 

[archangel969]

Excellent idea! And as already stated: you must have all the data from comming events and a curator and/or someone who organizes the data.

There is one thing: how many events are there? I guess over whole SL there are a huge number of events. Just looking at the events of the groups I subscribe to, there are many a day. How do you regulate that? Do you make choices, and which ones? Or do you only see the events of the groups you are subscribed to? But then you might miss events outside those groups that you might find interesting.

Add: after reading the replies more carefully, I see that that calendar is meant and focused on the place in SL where you are and thus it only shows the events of that sim. That seems great to me!

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by archangel969

[Paulsian]

SL has the built in event calendar, I just pulled mine up and look like this for me. Not sure why so graphic. 

I think something like the event boards in new user area with educational directions would not hurt or editors picks for G rated events.

Something like the current events setup default is more likely to scare new users away than help in my opinion. 

Official event boards tied into current event system with some rating tweeks would with educational resources would have helped me my first day. I probably would not have been afraid to attach payment method if I had learned sooner that this is not a completely crazy place. 

[Sid Nagy]

Sounds like a great idea, but I see a few problems:

There are hundreds of events in SL every single day.
It must be huge billboards with a tiny lettertype to handle those numbers.
And who will have the authority to judge whether or not an event is accepted?  What are the quality standards?
Who is going to put up those billboards? People on their own land, LL on their roads?
How many billboards can be out there before people start to find them annoying and spam just like the rotating for sale signs of the early days?
There is already an event section in search, right?

Edited November 10, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[archangel969]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

Sounds like a great idea, but I see a few problems:

There are hundreds of events in SL every single day.
It must be huge billboards with a tiny lettertype to handle those numbers.
And who will have the authority to judge whether or not an event is accepted?  What are the quality standards?
Who is going to put up those billboards? People on their own land, LL on their roads?
How many billboards can be out there before people start to find them annoying and spam just like the rotating for sale signs of the early days?
There is already an event section in search, right?

Yes agree, but as I stated here earlier: 'after reading the replies more carefully, I see that that calendar is meant and focused on the place in SL where you are and thus it only shows the events of that sim.'

I guess the billboards are are focused on the events of the sim where you are at the moment.

I think the main problem is the moderator, also the one who controls the quality standards.

Billboards are not that ennoying, push calls from upcoming events are.

[archangel969]

7 minutes ago, archangel969 said:

Yes agree, but as I stated here earlier: 'after reading the replies more carefully, I see that that calendar is meant and focused on the place in SL where you are and thus it only shows the events of that sim.'

I guess the billboards are focused on the events of the sim where you are at the moment.

I think the main problem is the moderator, also the one who controls the quality standards.

Billboards are not that ennoying, push calls from upcoming events are.

@Sid Nagy, I get a slight feeling we are playing Statler and Waldorf here 😂

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by archangel969

[archangel969]

3 hours ago, Paulsian said:

SL has the built in event calendar, I just pulled mine up and look like this for me. Not sure why so graphic. 

I think something like the event boards in new user area with educational directions would not hurt or editors picks for G rated events.

Something like the current events setup default is more likely to scare new users away than help in my opinion. 

Official event boards tied into current event system with some rating tweeks would with educational resources would have helped me my first day. I probably would not have been afraid to attach payment method if I had learned sooner that this is not a completely crazy place. 

Well, if you can avoid adult material in all kinds of devices, with a simple tick you can also exclude these kinds of events from that billboard if that is desirable I guess.

Edited November 11, 2022 by archangel969

[animats]

Hm. How about this?

• Entries are tagged G/M, or A, based on the higher of the destination region rating and the requested rating of the event.
• Boards in-world in G and M regions don't show A events.
• The viewer event listing doesn't show A events unless you have A enabled. (Does it do that now? It should.)
• Board descriptions are very short and sorted by time  and avatars at destination parcel with fair queuing. That is, if you post two events, your first one goes live, but your second one will appear after events from everybody else. Events at the same parcel or from the same resident count as being from the same source. This reduces spamming.
• There's only one page of events visible at one time on in-world signs. For more than that, see the Events menu.

[Blaise Glendevon]

Why would everyone who cared to see the calendar go to a sim when they could just go to a social media site or a free-standing webpage?

[Qie Niangao]

On 11/10/2022 at 1:47 AM, animats said:

A set of those boards at new user locations would be useful, to help answer the eternal new user question, "What do I do now?"

The age-old problem in SL, to become the big problem in every metaverse that grows beyond a selection of one-off experiences.

I know this thread is trying to be practical, but I just read about Mem so I feel that after years in SL, throwing off signals about destinations and events in which I might have interest, there really should be a more advanced way to populate a calendar than manual curation.

And that the virtual world that gets this right will have a huge competitive advantage.

(On the other hand, I recently made a concerted effort to get TikTok to become uncannily clever, as promise/threatened, and utterly failed.)

Speaking of uncanny, one can imagine "privacy" spookiness when my metaversal calendar suggests just the wrong fetish event. (or worse, just the right one?) AI-assisted collaborative calendars may be just the ticket for designing the perfect perverted date night! Or dial back the sex to matchmake collegial experiences.

So anyway, yeah, where I am in-world at any time is certainly a big signal about what kind of events and destinations I might be interested in experiencing now and in the calendar-scale future.

[archangel969]

6 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

Why would everyone who cared to see the calendar go to a sim when they could just go to a social media site or a free-standing webpage?

I think it's the other way around. In RL I am a writer but also a web editor/communications officer and I know it doesn't work that way. People don't go to sims to see a calender. But you can construate a bulletin board that for each sim focuses on the events taking place there. So you go to a sim mostly because the sim itself interests you, and if you go there you can also pick up information about events happening at that very sim/land/region.

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by archangel969

[archangel969]

10 hours ago, archangel969 said:

Well, if you can avoid adult material in all kinds of devices, with a simple tick you can also exclude these kinds of events from that billboard if that is desirable I guess.

You could use a sorting programme to show not only information about the events of the sim you are in (excluding adult info), but if desired, events of the same theme from other sims. You can do that if you tag events with enough keywords and sort them by content. So for example, for a fantasy roleplaying sim you see info of not only the events of that particular sim but also from other fantasy roleplaying sims. That also enhances cooperation.

[archangel969]

The thing is, this is a "nice to know," not a "need to know. Of course, no disasters occur if there are no billboards. But I really like the idea. It's very SL. Toilets and dinner tables and showers etc. are also not 'needed' in SL. Avatars don't pass out from hunger or thirst if they don't eat and they don't get dirty if they don't wash themselves. In fact, all of SL is not 'needed' as much as those bulletin boards. But it's nice that it's there, for all sorts of reasons. Even so much that I am fairly addicted to this crazy second world ;-).

[archangel969]

And there is something else: billboards are not suitable for every sim.

Now I have land where not very many people come. Mostly residents coming off the Dutch theme or residents taking selfies with the windmill as a background or something.

But suppose enough people do come then I can imagine there will be info on there from events in SL with a Dutch theme (and there are). But then I still have an aesthetic objection. I can well imagine such a bulletin board in an urban setting, but I think I find such a thing at Dutch estate just primal ugly.

You can get info though: about Dutch estate itself and other Dutch sims. I placed those information neatly in a frame near the gate of the villa. If you click on them you get a notecard (I'm not keen on push notifications when you arrive somewhere, that's why I do it this way). And despite that, it took me days to get used to those frames at that gate. Here's a picture of me running with my jack russell Keesie. In the background the villa with the gate and you can see two frames hanging there. I can't imagine a billboard here.

 

[Paulsian]

6 hours ago, archangel969 said:

I think it's the other way around. In RL I am a writer but also a web editor/communications officer and I know it doesn't work that way. People don't go to sims to see a calender. But you can construate a bulletin board that for each sim focuses on the events taking place there. So you go to a sim mostly because the sim itself interests you, and if you go there you can also pick up information about events happening at that very sim/land/region.

 

Especially new users using the simplest rawest form of controls. It's like being amish and using photoshop for the first time. My theory is Lindens are aliens and they are looking for the most patient humans to take to their home planet. 

Sillyness aside, these would be great for new user areas. Like the portal park could be a educational portal to event boards. RSVP. Ticket sales for paid events. yah something like that application might help retain. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Paulsian

[Rowan Amore]

20 hours ago, Paulsian said:

SL has the built in event calendar, I just pulled mine up and look like this for me. Not sure why so graphic. 

I think something like the event boards in new user area with educational directions would not hurt or editors picks for G rated events.

Something like the current events setup default is more likely to scare new users away than help in my opinion. 

Official event boards tied into current event system with some rating tweeks would with educational resources would have helped me my first day. I probably would not have been afraid to attach payment method if I had learned sooner that this is not a completely crazy place. 

What's interesting is when you post an event, there are rules you must agree to before doing so.  One of them is as follows...

The event descriptions need to conform to General guidelines, consistent with the overall Second Life website policy - so no overt sex descriptions; sex for money, sex chat, simulated sex, strong violence, or anything else broadly offensive.

[Paulsian]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

What's interesting is when you post an event, there are rules you must agree to before doing so.  One of them is as follows...

The event descriptions need to conform to General guidelines, consistent with the overall Second Life website policy - so no overt sex descriptions; sex for money, sex chat, simulated sex, strong violence, or anything else broadly offensive.

I see what your saying, maybe worth looking into. That was how it looked at that time when I was replying to the conversation totally random.

[Paulsian]

I think events should have an adult section too but I don't think it should be defaulted to adult default to G and then have option to change ratings, most people I know would change ratings to peak at what was there be afraid and go back to G and never go back there, but sometimes I do get drunk and like to party lol. It's way safer than going out in real life and I don't have to dress my human avatar up. 

[Rowan Amore]

13 minutes ago, Paulsian said:

I see what your saying, maybe worth looking into. That was how it looked at that time when I was replying to the conversation totally random.

There are several Jiras related to this subject.  Apparently, it's a non issue for LL even though their very own rules prohibit Adult content on the events page.  

[Rowan Amore]

14 minutes ago, Paulsian said:

I think events should have an adult section too but I don't think it should be defaulted to adult default to G and then have option to change ratings, most people I know would change ratings to peak at what was there be afraid and go back to G and never go back there, but sometimes I do get drunk and like to party lol. It's way safer than going out in real life and I don't have to dress my human avatar up. 

If you settings are G,M and A, that's what you'll see on the website event page.  Try changing your preferences to only G and M and see if the adult pops up.  I don't think it does.  THAT was their explanation as to why those descriptions and pictures were allowed on the page.  

If anything, they might as well toss out their rule that event postings must be General in content.  WE have to follow those rules here in the forums.  Not sure why their very own website dismisses them.