Keeping Your Events Calendar Clean…
Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 4:12 PM by: Jesse Linden[Update 05/07/07] I will be holding an informal office hour this Thursday, May 10th at 4PM PDT to discuss this topic. Attendence is open to all interested Residents. The location is Grasmere 154, 59, 27.
One of the coolest things about Second Life is the variety of events happening in-world 24/7. One of the best ways to find out what’s going on at any given moment is to check the Events listings tab under ‘Search’. Unfortunately, some Residents are treating this community space as a venue for free advertising and spam. We have made it very clear in the events posting rules that this is misuse of the system and may result in disciplinary action against your account. Please be mindful when posting an event to the in-world calendar system that it conforms to our stated guidelines. Mostly, just don’t spam the calendar with listings that clearly belong in the Classifieds section. We remove bad listings when we see them but appreciate your cooperation in making the in-world calendar a valuable resource for all.
As a reminder, here are the relevant sections from the events posting rules related to advertising:
PLEASE NOTE: Advertisements for commercial products or services will be deleted from the events calendar. Repeated misuse of the event posting system for this purpose may lead to disciplinary action against the poster’s account.
An event is defined as a special group activity that is led by a host on land owned either by the host or by a group the host belongs to. Examples include discussions, group meetings, hosted dances, classes, tours, and competitions. An event is framed by a beginning and an end time. Thus ‘24hr Sales’ are not events.
The ‘Commercial’ category was created for the purpose of grand openings, demonstrations, product launches etc. Each of these types of events should have a clear beginning and end time attached. Otherwise, they belong in the Second Life Classifieds, not the Events calendar. Posting events that are simply advertisements will not be acceptable.
Spam (multiple events posted in a single day that do not comply with the rules above) will not be tolerated and will be subject to disciplinary action. Please do not use the Events calendar in any way which would inhibit its usefulness to the community at large. Failure to follow these guidelines may result in a suspension of your account.
Otherwise, party on 
May 4th, 2007 at 4:22 PM
you just cant say it enough. the excessive spam has driven out all the original events there used to be in SL and dumbed it down to brain dead “best in black” and “YARD SALE!” events.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:23 PM
Whoo! ^.^ Though the teen grid has NO spammy events! xD
May 4th, 2007 at 4:42 PM
This is all well and good but the classifieds system sucks something awful. This is why people resort to spamming the events. The entire layout for the classifieds is pretty lame for something that has to be paid for.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
Actually you will find most of the spammers spam in everyplace they can…………
And enjoy wasting their money as I just ignore anything with spaces or AAAAAA, because it’s always shown to be cheap & crappy quality and never what I was actually searching for.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
The events calendar? Is that thing still around?
May 4th, 2007 at 5:01 PM
I am sick of adverts in the educational listings for a book on Second Life, they are repeated multiple times per day and often by about 3 avatar names, Sometimes there have been 3 listings in a row for one of these non existent events.
All the adverts seem to promote a 3 hour event but in reality it’s a come to our bookshop and buy a book.
I search the Educational Listings every day and it is so annoying to see this blatant spam even after I complained to the person doing it.
It still goes on now though
……
May 4th, 2007 at 5:14 PM
[...] rules that this is misuse of the system and may result in disciplinary action against your account. (more…) [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 5:25 PM
hey now, even RL furniture stores are perpetually having “going out of business” sales 24/7/365, should SL be any different?
May 4th, 2007 at 5:27 PM
…if these policies are actually enforced, i’d love to see the events calendar become usable again - maybe the rich content providers might find it worth their while to come back to using it…
May 4th, 2007 at 5:28 PM
…might linden lab add a ‘do not include commercial events’ checkbox to the search events tab?..
May 4th, 2007 at 5:29 PM
There is still no way to contact anyone if you are haviing an inworld sim stability problem and need a response in a reasonable time frame (ie..less than a week). The methods listed in the blog do not work. Anyone who says they do is ….well…I won’t say. Want proof? Just try and report an unstable sim through their support system. They ducked a response to this at the town hall saying it’s in the blog…but pointing to a non functional system is not an answer…except…maybe…yes!! that’s it….all support functions have now been outsourced to Dogbert tech support!!! That explains everything…..(including the increasingly pointy hair on those rarely sighted in world lindens…..).
May 4th, 2007 at 5:32 PM
And please Lindens, ban for life those posting events under ‘live music’ where the only live element is an ego-ridden DJ.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:35 PM
thank you jesse. i’m sorry a service as important as the events calendar must be monitored against abuse. you do see what happens in the broader arena when our freedom is left wide open. who was it that said, with great freedom comes great responsibility? here’s hoping the policing of linden policy will ensure the listing will return to its intended purpose. for the benefit of all we do need a heavy hand every now and then. thanks for keeping an eye on the kids for us.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Does this mean that LL will actively be monitoring the events calendar for spam and removing it? Or is this just a bop on the nose and a “don’t do it again!” kind of thing?
May 4th, 2007 at 6:04 PM
I hate to disagree, but I like the current events calendar. I learn about a lot of things I would not see otherwise.
May 4th, 2007 at 6:22 PM
Please do not use the Events calendar in any way which would inhibit its usefulness to the community at large.
(1) Boy, that’s real vague…
(2) It all depends on what you find useful…
Don’t assume that they’re not useful, please. To some people, they ARE useful.
May 4th, 2007 at 6:51 PM
G’day Jesse
As many expressed above, I would love to see this followed up and actioned on.
We run a “music only” not for profit club. (This means no dancers, no escorts, no campers and no advertising/shops). We only have two events a week. One on Wed and one on Fri. While we have a dj playing music we post this under Nightlife/entertainment (I agree totally with you Toad Mougin - it’s not live music).
We do offer a different kind of place that plays music that you don’t hear in any other club I have come across in SL yet (since Nov 05) but unfortunately our listing gets lost sometimes amongst the “yard sales” due to the spamming.
It’s no biggie, ’cause I wear the land tier cost and so we don’t need to have high numbers to remain functional (in fact that’s part of it’s appeal). But I think cutting out the junk from the events would open it up to be a more useful area for people to explore SL and places like our club.
So a fix on the spam in the events would be excellent!
Cheers
Alex
May 4th, 2007 at 7:23 PM
And you’ve said this HOW MANY TIMES BEFORE?
I’m sorry, but if you have failed to punish the offenders after the NUMEROUS times you told them of the violations, then I put the blame on both the USER and the WATCHERS.
I myself complained about this at least THREE different times early on when the EVENT calendar was introduced, only to be told in no uncertain terms, “thanks, but don’t call us, we’ll call you”.
The attitude of CUSTOMER SUPPORT when reporting violations has led me to NOT report any violations, and if you want that to change, the best way to handle the CALENDAR SPAM problem, is to go through the calendar, delete off everything that falls under the SPAM/COMMERCIAL rules, and when someone complains point them to the TOS and the number of warnings you already gave them.
I have a funny feeling, that in 3 months time, we can all look thru the calendar again and find the same SPAM and COMMERCIALIZATION that there is today. I for one am tired of simple warnings and then do-nothing fixes.
Bob Bunderfeld
May 4th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
You will give disciplinary action against someone who posts an ad in the events calendar, but will not discipline someone who uses a land bot to steal land from a resident in the middle of a transaction, then forces the resident to buy their own land back? I am still waiting for my 21,811 Linden refund from the account of the avatar I had to pay who owned the land bot.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:04 PM
Yeah … and event is HOSTED.
Side grumble - why do so many places these days seem to think that the DJ is the host? The host - or most likely hostess - appears to be a dying art.
~Proud Hostess and Chat Facilitator!~
May 4th, 2007 at 8:24 PM
Speaking of posting to improper locations, I WISH I could post to the age verification entry, but for some reason it got locked at 100 replies. A lot of entries have been doing that lately…
I very much agree with 83’s evaluation of the age verification. If you request information about my credit card from my bank they can verify my age, and that should be enough for you. I also refuse to go through with this verification beyond my credit card for the multitude of reasons stated. No one but government offices and the guy who will mug me in the street will see my SIN card. As that’s my only valid piece of ID for verifying my age (I have no other means of ID, beyond a student ID for two colleges), it invalidates me from the process.
As well, I agree that denying access to individual parcels is laughable, as adjacent parcels can still see this “inappropriate” material, and the ToS DOES state that minors found to be in the main grid will be removed entirely. Total exclusion from the main grid is the logical way to go about this.
I do appreciate that you’re listening to the public about requests for age verification, but you’re going about it the wrong way. Verification through possession of a credit card (usually only obtainable for people at or above the age of majority), or through a PayPal account (as PayPal is available to just about everyone, and as far as I know requires you to have a credit card or bank account and be at an age of majority within your country) should be enough to go by.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:31 PM
But this time WILL it stay clean. Without missunderstand this people posting events with in the guildlines. Nothing is worse then Linden staff telling people that fall within the guildlines of event posting they are breaking the event posting rules. PLEASE CHECK and make sure before warning the host the are breaking the rules.
Usagi
May 4th, 2007 at 10:19 PM
Craigslist has an option whereby a given listing can be flagged by individuals as spam. If enough people flag (and it takes more than just a few people), the ad goes down. Could a similar mechanism be used in the Events calendar?
May 4th, 2007 at 10:45 PM
Exactly CyFishy! Lindens add a ‘report this ad’ button, it is ‘our world’, let us help! I will happily (maybe even tooo happily) spend a good bit of time each day reporting the sammers until they are driven out of Dodge.
A drawback of ‘enough flags and the ad goes down’ is competing events having all their patrons report another event and getting it taken down for funnsies. Sad, but we all know when a rule comes out, some people decide to follow it and others decide to figure out how to get around and abuse it.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:58 PM
An Event should be something more than your normal day to day business. Having a Yard Sale very day is not an event. It should be a specially organised one off. Just getting people to visit your casino with:
“Be Rich now!!!! Dont waist your time.Win a lot of money with your bets in my machines.Excelent Payout!! Come here and do your first Linden Million Dolars.You can have some fun and win some money here. Welcomeeeee!! This is your place.!!!”
Their spelling errors not mine.
I picked that one at random and it is repeated every day. It is NOT an EVENT.
Thanks you Lindens for taking note of the Town Hall forum comments. But, it needs more than a “please don’t do this it’s naughty”. It does need a change to the way events are listed and policed. Remove the non-Events, or ask a volunteer help group to police and have power to remove offenders, they are so obvious.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:03 AM
THANK YOU. I would also suggest make a really easy ‘report this listing’ button as part of the event viewer, offending entries will attract many complaints very quickly
May 5th, 2007 at 12:07 AM
The reason they post in events is that it is free. If they had to pay to list commercial ads in classified, they wouldn’t do it. I take on board someones very valid comments that some events are educational / charity events and it wouldn’t be fair to charge for an events listing, but what about this suggestion. Charge 30L$ for each event ad or submit your charity event copy to Lindens in advance to get a free entry.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:50 AM
I think Chris’s suggestion is an excellent one. I was looking through Education events the other day and came across a Gambling ad! I toyed with the idea of reporting it but felt there was little point as I wasn’t even sure where such a complaint should be made.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:51 AM
I love the events calendar, but i am growing tired of screening it for actual events. Please go ahead with enforcing stricter rules. Also, just as a thought (maybe it already exists and I haven’t copped it, in that case forgive me for asking) is there any chance to come up with a reminder system. Something like Outlook were you can set a reminder for upcoming events you are interested in. I am working with bits of paper right now.
Eliza
May 5th, 2007 at 1:57 AM
I’m taking a leaf out of Feynt Mistral’s book.
I can’t see why comments on age-verification were closed so soon. Remove this as off-topic if you will, but please take notice of what I say.
I live in the UK. We do not have ID cards. My passport has expired and since I’m disabled and largley housebound I see little point in renewing it. I can’t drive because of my disability so have no driving license. My National Insurance number gives no indication of my age (I believe that more recent numbers may give some idea but mine was issued something BC (before computers LOL).
I don’t give a toss about “mature-content” but I sometimes shop for other things at shops that include mature content in their range, and I like to fly all over SL.
Any ideas?
May 5th, 2007 at 1:59 AM
Take this as an example - If you own a private island and you are selling plots, your land will appear in the Land Sales section. Great, but not everyone wants to search for land based on size or price. Sometimes they just want to know where the sales are so they can look around. Also, there is no keyword search in Land Sales to filter the results further.
So what can the island owner do? They can post to classifieds…but oh dear, no Land Sales category. Also, let’s say this is your first island and you’re seeing how the business model works. You can’t afford to pay L$195,000 per week (yes I just did a search for “land”) to advertise so your listing is probably going to be 11+ pages in as you only want to pay the minimum to avoid unnecessary cost at this stage (you’re making no money yet, after all).
So what do you do? You post in to events because it’s the only other place left for you to post….and it gets results.
My suggestion would be that LL canvass the opinions of various residents to see how they use these systems. It seems to me that the Classifieds and Events systems could be merged in such a way to meet everyone’s needs. Yes, you’ll always get spammers, but their activity can be designed-out to a minimum.
May 5th, 2007 at 2:37 AM
Its not just the events calender its people genearally advertising things that don’t exist just to get you to TP to them and keep there traffic up. I am very willing to set up a group to minitor this and the main culprits if SL will help us do something about these people.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:10 AM
I think a “Report this listing” button should be on all resident posted listings. The whole system of classifieds, all, events and land sales has become so spam laden as to be useless. Keyword abuse should be halted as well.
* Events should be as spoken about above
* Classified ads should be accuratet about what is for sale or what the listing is for.
* Land Sales should be Sales, NOT DISGUISED RENTALS
And there should be a way we as residents and the audience for these listings should be able to flag those which are do not meet the guidlines.
DRD
May 5th, 2007 at 3:39 AM
If a report this listing button was used, there could be an automatic unique avatar name counter and when the tally reached say 10 clicks, the event was deleted and ALL other events listed from that resident. This would prevent malicious users from clicking the button 10 times
May 5th, 2007 at 4:58 AM
+1 for the abuse report button in the event listing. As a SL mentor i was used to check events and report them. but the usual abuse report take days to be processed so it’s totally useless.
@30 : Land Sales are *always* DISGUISED RENTALS. Even when you buy a private island you have to pay monthly fee, when you buy on mainland you have to pay monthly fee. In some way, we’re all renting land from LL. Paying a rento-o-matic, or paying our premium account + tier fee.
May 5th, 2007 at 5:02 AM
Over on Stratics, all entries on the events calendar are fully moderated, ie have to be approved by a staff member before they appear.
Granted, our events traffic is very limited, but there is no reason why a similar system, with a couple of people responsible (amongst their other duties) couldn’t handle the ‘yay or nay’ approval process.
It isn’t rocket science by any stretch of the imagination.
Broccoli
May 5th, 2007 at 5:36 AM
Just wanted you to know that the mess that Linden allows the Calendar of Events to remain in is one of the primary reasons that my group will no longer be hosting big events and contests. No one can find them.
Maybe no big loss to the Lindens, but a big loss to the people who enjoy them and the people who work to put them on.
I am so saddened and angry with how SL is evolving.
If there was a way that I could assist in cleaning up that Events Schedule, I surely would.. It is a disgrace.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:30 AM
CyFishy and others, I think the “Report as Spam” button is a great idea!
So, I went and checked JIRA, and didn’t see that anyone had entered this as a feature request, so I created one.
Everyone who’s commented here and thinks this is a good idea, please go to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-184 and vote on this issue. Make comments, too, if you think there is a better way to handle this than as I entered it in JIRA.
Because the Events calendar is difficult to use as it is, I’ve been working on a web-based calendar for a large group I’m part of. I’ll be adding “Report as Spam” to our calendar as well, because I do believe this is an excellent idea.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:39 AM
I rent plots but the way I do it means it automatically shows up in the land for sale. (as I put hte land up fpr sale). I do however have for rent in the title. Why isn ‘t there a for rent botton as well as a for sale.
I know I am not the only one who works there rentals this way.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:55 AM
How many DJs are spamming Events–>Live Music claiming they’re running a live event when it’s just someone spinning CDs. This is bogus and it’s happening more and more often.
May 5th, 2007 at 7:30 AM
OK, how about a tab for Ads? Let them list them for free and choose how often to run? And auto list in alpha order with characters at the bottom of the list rather then top and give the searcher a sort option?
Just a thought, then they won’t place ad’s under events and the people who want to look at ad’s and sales have that option.
May 5th, 2007 at 7:39 AM
Policing events is not good for anybody in my opinion. It clearly sucks resources and attention from more pertinent fields. What you may need there Jesse is a price tag so that big spammers who’ll ever be able to afford such practices get visibility which turns into the ability for residents to recognize spam. Spamming and camping are not to get killed, to an extent a battle lost before the start, these practices and how they evolve are defining of a business and here we are to tag them.
There is an element, Jesse and everybody, that I see growing in this and other posts: trying to identify and qualify QUALITY of an event as a criteria versus traffic. Do I need to say here this is a naive illusion?
Feet on the ground my friend.
May 5th, 2007 at 7:43 AM
I put my two cents in on the JIRA–thanks for posting that, Simon!
I know the DJ-as-live-music thing is a sore point for a lot of people. But I know some SL DJs and while the tracks are prerecorded, they are ‘there’ and responding to the environment, taking requests and even giving shoutouts to the avis on the dance floor. Perhaps there needs to be a new category for DJ events?
May 5th, 2007 at 7:55 AM
Live music: the DJ is live and he plays music. I witnessed one performance where the ‘live’ artist admitted to using older recordings. How many do not admit to that and are in efect DJ’ing their own music? There’s no way to separate the two, therefore there’s no way of separating DJs from live performers.
May 5th, 2007 at 8:15 AM
What I’m concerned about is the lack of definition as to what constitutes “commercial services.” After all, most of the adult clubs in SL advertise events in order to get their brand out and they do hold events, even if its a “best in black” variety. And all the other requirements are there, a hostess and a beginning and end point. Does this mean that if I’m holding a promotional event that this now falls out of the rules because I’m using the event to promote the services as opposed to focusing on the event itself?
May 5th, 2007 at 8:15 AM
I agree I think it’s time that they think in the near future of overhauling the classifieds, why not get the folks from Craigslist to give them some pointers? They do it for FREE and seem to be doing a GREAT job and in the BLACK. The community at large does most of the policing of the events listed.
May 5th, 2007 at 8:18 AM
(bad english spotted, sorry for the convenience)
Well, well,
I logged in today, and saw that my events were deleted. An IM from Jesse Linden explained why. Ok. Thanks for your email, Jesse.
I surfed the event listing to see what looks like a “clean” one and … Yard Sales … 1$L skins …. freebies …. free stuff …. win money …
It seems that there is something I didn’t really understand.
Are these events valid ones ? I just need to copy this to have a valid event ?
Just a remark …. could you please traduct your important rules in foreign languages (not american) ? It is sometimes a little hard to respect something that i don’t FULLY understand.
Thanks for your answer.
May 5th, 2007 at 8:22 AM
CyFishy,
the hair you are trying to split is steel-made and I mean it literally. The need to qualify, categorize and implement that I see running here is not just scary, it’s childish. I remember doing that myself when I was 12. So I apologize again if I’m having a bit more spare time and thus commenting along more.
Content is never a given, never without a recipient. As some may say, content generation not only and always is targeter to audience in a direct manner and often prefiltered on the performer. This has huge cascading effects that we all can see in arts, lits, music, behavious. Take a look at content creation in music and production practices, invariably correlated.
You want to fix that back to Nostalgia with a new category?
May 5th, 2007 at 8:41 AM
Starcomber–
You lost me at your appalling misuse of the word “literally”.
How’s about nudging DJs toward the existing “Nightlife/Entertainment” category?
May 5th, 2007 at 9:09 AM
Help me out here. Our event was eliminated. We offer Newbies a free “in-world” book experience using the HUD feature. We offer a free chapter on building in SL. We offer FREE samples of fiction and non-fiction books to browse and experience. We offer Free tips for writers on getting published. All FREE. Yes, we sell books too (unless Linden doesn’t like that).
Our notices of events were ALL cancelled, yet when I checked I see Hare Krishna events listing all day exhibits advertised 2-3 times everyday, Casinos offering slots all day everyday, products on “sale” all day everyday. Why were we singled out, threatended, and removed?
Could it be because we have a book that is instructional about second Life? Could it be that Wiley doesn’t like that since they publish “The Official Guide”? We are very much promoters for SL and trying to honestly help Newbies who are frustrated. We have been working with educational institutions pushing using SL as an instructional tool. Our property was set up for an educational experience (ArcheBooks Bookstore @ Taesot 169, 47, 117).
Could a Linden please respond.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:27 AM
CyFishy,
I see your obsession only intensifies.
Enjoy it.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:34 AM
In reaction to this very incorrect thing wat Toad Mougin some posts Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 5:32 PM PDT
And please Lindens, ban for life those posting events under ‘live music’ where the only live element is an ego-ridden DJ.
Toad, totaly disagree with you! you are not in the position to tell other people what good music is, that’s what you are doing here. I post my own dj events in the live music events, i would like to see you use secondlife, make a great mix on 2 or 3 turntables and in the meantime (i dont think you could manage it without some years of training like every musical instrument) also talk live to the avatars. More live action aint possible i think!
I think if you are realy a musician you would have respect for everybody who is interessted and making in music. And tell other people that this modern form of making music not belongs in the live section. It should be commercial?? DJ’s produce music, i’m not shore what your profession in the music is, but if you make music, in what kind of way, you belong in that catagorie! Please respect all the different kind of musicians! I know that a lot of people come especialy for the total show, live dj, performing and realy creating music at the moment, a talking voice in sl (without the to come VOIP option) and also inworl animation. Come check it out sometimes and i know that you’ll correct your opinion
Wildebeast
May 5th, 2007 at 10:25 AM
If you give people a way, they will abuse the system.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:13 AM
starcomber–
I’m sorry, I don’t speak your crazy moon language.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:16 AM
I know this may be off-topic for this blog but I agree with 18 and 27 that the subject of Proof Of ID really needs more discussion. I liave in Australia where (like UK) ID is not compulsory. I don’t have a passport or drivers licence either. Surely my bank a/c details and PayPal verification are sufficient? I’ve lived 49 years rallying against red-tape and bureaucracy only to find I have to prove my age and identity to some anonymous organisation just to play a goddam computer game! Give us an opportunity to talk more on this issue - it obviously needs a lot more discussion before it can be resolved satisfactorily.
(Sorry to use up space here on this burning issue!)
May 5th, 2007 at 12:02 PM
Laetizia Coronet: Live music: the DJ is live and he plays music. I witnessed one performance where the ‘live’ artist admitted to using older recordings. How many do not admit to that and are in efect DJ’ing their own music?
Almost 100% of my SL experience has been live music, either performing it or listening to it. In this time, though there have been artists who use additional backing tracks due to their lack of extra arms, I have found ZERO musicians who just DJ their own music and do nothing live when a live show is expected. When an artist uses their old recordings in a show, they are also singing and usually playing an instrument over top of those tracks.
Just because a DJ is live and he plays recordings of music does not mean a DJ is live music. The “live” in “live music” indicates that the music is being performed live, not that there is some dime-a-dozen DJ spinning someone else’s CDs.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:10 PM
It’s hard to believe that SL is boldly attempting to implement a scheme where a 3rd party will have our personal information, only as ‘verification’ of our age. I’ll be damn if I’m going to give up something like my SS# to some mysterious 3rd party considering SL’s continuing problems.
Had to post here, as SL limits the blog comments to 100 now. As if removing the forums wasn’t enough of a slap in the face.
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/04/age-and-indentity-verification-in-second-life/#comments
May 5th, 2007 at 12:11 PM
@ Shinyukie Takakura…
You’ve SPAMMED the last three blog response threads with IDENTICAL, OFF TOPIC posts. PLEASE STOP and let the comments be used for the topics under discussion!
May 5th, 2007 at 12:17 PM
No. You did NOT have to post here, it’s off topic - and you have brought up no new ideas or offered anything constructive.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:29 PM
If you don’t want to trust Linden Labs to be dealing with a reputable company, then don’t give your details, but don’t expect to stay in SL in the way it is now. Please do not hijack this thread.
Back to the topic:
Starcomber thinks”There is an element of trying to identify and qualify QUALITY of an event as a criteria versus traffic. Do I need to say here this is a naive illusion?”
They are NOT EVENTS they are adverts. Adverts for selling something. That is the difference.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:36 PM
come on guys, no $L love, mucho lag. And you’re moving forward with this new release, please don’t until you get the database/network problems resolved ASAP.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:37 PM
By Spring-Break low-prim language is game. FFFFFFine
So I’ll repeat myself for CyFishy in order to make clear to him that I am not having fun (of him) in any particular way and to do so I’ll proceed low-prim, like this:
- Policing events make no sense.
- Removing SPAM by force is a lost battle and a waste of resources.
- Make ppl pay for their events and, eventually, for their SPAM.
- Let ppl tag these events.
- Remove categories.
- Let customers have their own judgement on what practices a business employs, how tolerable and ethical such practices are is upon customer.
- Forget about trying to narrow down quality, you’ll need a VERY POWERFUL JIRA for that job.
Peace.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:41 PM
Since there is no way to otherwise react to the age verification post
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS OTHER SECONDLIFE VISITORS ->
The new age verification thing => Why does second life impy such a big rule without even asking us?
At least in europe, 90% of the people who are new to secondlife, will not want to verificate using their passport… euopeans do not do so for porn sites, so why will they do so for a game? (and probably visitors from other countries as well)
Most people who enter SL do so for a big part because they are curious about the sex.. if they have to send in their personal information I guess 90% will hook off from the game.. and not try to play it anymore
Why would we even want to be on a game that will not grow anymore?.. i was planning on buying an island for my shop, but Im not planning on doing so anymore. Why pay for a shop that will lose 90% of its visitors? It wont be worth much anymore in a few months?
I guess land wont be worth much in Sl anymore without any growth..
I guess when a clone of secondlife pops up which has a no age verification system like that most people will move to there and leave second life
I dont think second life cares any about it… since they do not seem to care about any we write..or even about ruining their own game
but well heres my 2 cents about this.. second life please consider well before you do something that might be the end of second life!!
May 5th, 2007 at 12:43 PM
THANK YOU!!!!
I run 2 actual -real live- 1.5 hour hosted events/parties a week at my “Skate and Date” ice skate park but they get lost in all the spam and yard sale type things. I mean how can “$50L shoes” be considered an event? Or some of the other places that “host” 5 three hour events, three hours apart every day of the week? Someone at LL needs to monitor this event list if you expect people to continue to work to provide fun events and things for people to do in second life!
Stephe Ehrler
May 5th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Stephe,
I expect you to work by either providing events that fall in a business plan of yours, for your own interest, development, cash, or even for simple fun. If LL has to provide resources to monitor a list full of spam I expect to pay LL for such monitoring. But once you pay LL (to post events) a mechanism is in place that limits spam and make paying spammers a very much visible entity. At which point I’d accept a few bigger elephants than a myriad of little ones.
Get it?
May 5th, 2007 at 1:37 PM
Okay, starcomber, since English doesn’t appear to be your first language, I’ll try to use simple words here.
Paying for Event listings is one possible way to handle the problem, yes. But it could also make things worse, by making Events only available to people with money to advertise.
The method I am proposing has already been used, and quite effectively, on a service called Craigslist, which provides free classified ads for various cities. Every ad has the option to flag for spam. If you see an ad for a dating website in the personal ads, for example, you flag it. If enough people flag the ad, the ad is removed. Simple.
Now, granted, the way things are NOW, if we were given the chance tomorrow, people would be awfully busy flagging so much spam! But once the word got out and enough spam got canned, then there would be less of it to flag because the spammers would know it wasn’t worth it. Especially if chronic spammers were barred from posting Events after a certain number of violations.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:47 PM
So you’d like to extend voting to events?
May 5th, 2007 at 1:55 PM
Tara Anna posted a comment 4 hours ago challenging the Linden’s to respond to why our bookstore events were all cancelled while other events like Hare Krishne, Flexi Hair sale, and casino slots were allowed to remain.
Her posting is waiting “review”. It does make all of us wonder if these blogs are censored when we bring up the facts she brought up. My writing now is a test to see if this blog comment gets posted. Our group is an active supporter of life in SL and we are working with RL clients and educational institution programs in SL. This is an important issue for us to have clarified with LL.
Issue: our events target Newbies; we offer a Bookstore experience complete with (free) “in-world” books that are HUD enabled. We have a wide range of samples (fiction and non-fiction), we offer free tips and hints on building in second life, and writing and publishing hints for writers. The only thing Tara questioned in her post was whether the Lindens felt that our book “A Beginner’s Guide to Second Life” was competing in the market with theirs and whether that is why we were singled out. If not, then why pull our events and leave Hare Krishna posting 3x’s a day (everyday) their war exhibit and “GOLDEN SANDS - EKATERINA’S just posting their stuff as available to buy.
May 5th, 2007 at 2:13 PM
I hope u djs get intirely paid in full!lmaaaao
May 5th, 2007 at 2:13 PM
Chronic Skronski & Captain Gemini-
When SL brings back the forums, there won’t be a need to hijack a blog comment thread simply to express my utter frustration at some of their ludicrous policies, especially now since they’ve refused to allow comments to mozy past 100.
May 5th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
Ok so there are live music events that are live singers. I have been to a few and good events. Why is there a commercial box for the events then? just for grand openings? and lets see if no one went to the commercial events then they really would not place them in there because it would no be worth the time to place it. So maybe Mr. Linden we should have a cleaner events page and another spot just for comercial events? And FYI the classifieds does not work as well for the little guy as the big stores spendinga huge amount for them. This is fine like real advertising but not sure what but something has to be done to get the word out for legit sales and events in stores. We all do look for them time to time. just my thoughts and yes events need to be changed and streemlined. and a yard sale should really be a yard sale with resale items from someone.
May 5th, 2007 at 2:27 PM
“Until LL has stabilised the existing feature set and got the support channels actually responding to queries, there should be a freeze on introducing new features on the main grid - this is what over 5000 customers have signed up for. Only then should the new features be rolled out.”
so why the hell are they steam rolling ahead with a new update with sculpties and voice? does anyone at LL give a shit about it’s paying users?
well i’ve had enough, my account is cancelled. i’ll be keeping my$40 tier a month and $9.99 full account money too. if anyone wants 8192m land on the cheap just IM me in world
May 5th, 2007 at 2:56 PM
THe threads are stopped at 100 to stop the repetitive moaning that you all come out with. You cry for age verification to get the young griefers off the grid and when they give you a chance to do it (for their own adult content safety… you moan about that. Starcomber, what do you not understand about the meaning of the word EVENTS. These are not events but merely people USING events list and they are too mean, or don’t adhere to the community principles to part with a few lindens to advertise their sales in the proper way.
If you want to cary on the topic that has been closed and hijack someone elses topic, start your own blog or forum…
I advertise in classified for my business, I pay in directory for my club listing, and this event i am paying for out of my own pocket as a fun event. Why must it be lost in the spam.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:56 PM
Maybe the event people can get together and start an independent listing. Maybe the best way to fight is to leave the event spammers on a worhtless list full of spam of their own making. I’d run it in my blogroll and link to it in my shop, and I bet many others would as well.
Instead of complaining it makes much more sense sometimes to take matters in your own hands.
May 5th, 2007 at 4:13 PM
Ok here is my view and point on this great idea lets take the last thing in this game left away that allows new people to get a new property some traffic because we all know you sex feind loosers need that much more room to post you’re pathettic sex club events slam the little guy for posting a yardsale WHAT is wrong with you people we were all new once and a yardsale is great to help a newbie whats next take slingo off events too why not it isnt sex either I spit on this new system and will continue to post rememebr they can only ban so many Paying accts before they bankrupt themselfs its disgusting i pay well over 400 usd a month for my islands and now cant post anything gambling any sales / yardsales and we all know what everyone thinks about them poor newbs that camp for money so dont dare meantion that too many mongers with 1 bilion lindens kicking to care about new playuers
May 5th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
Well, you said something about getting rid of punctuation and spaces in ads and events in December, and still nothing…. Oh and Star we pay for that, and it’s still spammed with irrelevant key words, as are Places
May 5th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
1. Paying to post an event.
~~~ 10-30 L$ per event is not a hardship for most. If it is, ask some friends to help you out so you can post.
~~~ The nominal (10-30) per event would cut down on the non-event events that get posted.
2. Sales are not events. Period. Yard Sales, pay 10 L$ to do an ad. If you’re having stuff for a buck or a little more, you get your money back quickly.
3. I would be more than happy to help with policing events.
4. The “Report as Spam” option sounds like a good idea as presented. Craigslist is a successful service, so it makes the idea rate much higher for me!
5. Using non-alphanumeric characters for titles in Events or Classifieds is a blight. Period. I avoid businesses that feel they must use that method.
6. Off-topic posting because another topic’s comments are capped and full.
~~~ Amazing that those who do that say the precise same things as have been posted already.
7. People unhappy with any possible solution to the Events Calendar (or any other solution mentioned in the blog)
~~~ I’m *this close* to opening a cheese shop. I would be scrolling through the blog entries and giving free cheese to the biggest whiners. Dare I say I’d get some amused customers willing to support this little venture? My blood alcohol level would get to toxic levels if I read all the comments posted to the blogs. At least the cheese would help ease the headache…
8. Usefulness of posting in Events, even at current status of chaos
~~~ I’ve noticed that if I do NOT post classes in Events, people don’t show up at all. Okay, maybe 2 people have showed in spite of the lack of posting of the classes (not even going to admit to how many!!!) I meant to post.
~~~ I do get results from Events as is. However, that doesn’t mean that results wouldn’t improve drastically for those of us posting true events that fit the spirit and letter of the law, if the Events Calendar was effectively policed.
Signed,
Dorie Bernstein
May 5th, 2007 at 6:38 PM
Sorry, as it often happens I don’t get the point here.
I use the events category at least once a day, often more, and I find it quite useful, only limited by quality / selection of available events. I know how to select valid entries from spam, it’s quite easy. Yeah it’s time consuming somehow, but overall better than any filter managed from someone else in their own terms. Any of you isn’t using emails anymore due to spam? I don’t think so. Personal selection will work the best for it, too. Try applying “advanced” filtering processes…
Quality / selection of real events is poor. The excuse of not using the events list due to spam is sad and pitiful. If you got good ideas, put them into, you’ve got nothing to loose. If you really care about the list being good, best thing to do is adding to this many good things residents can really enjoy, so much that they will put spam into minority. The excuse is so poor and socially irresponsible it makes me cry. The real issue is, good ideas are missing from inworld events, and this obsession for freedom limitation and spread between “good” and “evil” events will make them increasingly uninteresting. You want to prove me wrong? Put your very good, new ideas in the events list, it’s free…!
Flag is a good idea? You kidding. I’d certainly wouldn’t encourage, in principle, people to flag away entries for uncontrollable reasons. Further to that, what would prevent anyone to flag n times an entry for private reasons until it gets cancelled? Maybe a system controlling how many flags each resident would apply to a single entry… Well try to estimate what the impact of it would be in terms of bandwith vs utility!
Lindens are doing right, recalling us the events list *should* be ruled by responibility, and this is clearly stated by inworld rules. To be loyal to these rules is in everyone’s will and respect. They also rightly recall us that breaking the rules “may” result in disciplinary action. That’s all we need, I don’t get this increasing request of legalisation for every step one have to take over SL land.
CyFishy, I hope you will excuse my English.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:58 PM
My opinion is that there perhaps later on there should be an intergration into calendar pages where the community can help decide what is spam by clicking on something within the event info and tag it as spam to be reviewed by staff..
Hopefully we can all help curtail that spam , too..
Jaydee Unknown, if we are looking for a place to buy things we go to classifieds, if we are looking for events , we go to the events pages.
You are ABUSING the system doing what you’re doing. ’nuff said.
May 5th, 2007 at 8:02 PM
So starcomber, you think that LL should not enforce rules of their own making? It CLEARLY states what an event should consist of, yet you feel they should ignore enforcing this set of rules and let the spammers continue to use this list like they have? I already spend hundreds of $L putting on events yet you guys want to add yet another cost into doing these? At some point the people like me who are doing to this for fun will say “forget it” and stop doing these. I guess you could make it a “pay a lot to post event” deal and it will be full of the big malls and sex club ads? Sound familar? What is obvious from your postings is you aren’t running events and aren’t having to deal with your events getting lost in the spam so no, you will never “Get it”. All I need is yet one more expense to running my Skate and Date park to bring me closer to just shutting it down for good. Maybe SL is going to just end up being a place for sex clubs and shopping malls as the “events”?
All these other people are sugesting is being able to tag “events” like $50L shoes for sale! to help the LL staff review what is spam and what are actual hosted events. In essense helping the do this job and could be done on the web site rather than inworld easily. And you think the better solution is for people like me to pay to post events instead? Thanks a lot!
Stephe Ehrler
May 5th, 2007 at 9:34 PM
SO…. since reaching an inworld liason is not a very likely accourrence, do we just list the flagrant offenders posts here? (I ask as I stare at 5 duplicate posts of an event during the same time frame, multiple $$$LAND SALE$$$ *events* Advertisements for clothing and other content… GUCCI BAGS??? Quick somebody, call the dmca:P Hair, Second Hand Store ads, SALES(events do not usually include this descriptor) oh and the old favorite preceeded with the word YARD… SALE…., HUGE SALE… SHOP TILL YOU DROP….FOR SALE SALE SALE SALE, how about we just automatically prune posts with the word sale in it?ROFL… seriously though… can you say rediculous? I knew you could:) And all that is only a single time frame page, on which the actual events that qualify to carry the description “event”, under the guidelines, (less than half on this page) are so overwhelmed and squelched by these blatant CLASSIFIED ADS and other FREE ADVERTISEMENTS that it makes me wonder what it means to make guidelines that are so flagrantly ignored. Is it just to appease the upset ethical business men and women who PAY for their classified ads like they’re supposed to, or are they sposed to make the club and contest event hosts feel better about being completely lost among a huge and di(po?)luted list of xcuse mah lingo CR@* ???
What use are guidelines if they are not enforced?
May 5th, 2007 at 10:21 PM
Why do you limit the comments to 100 on some posts?
I would think an intelligent debate on some of your recent decisions would be a healthy thing.
Shame.
Will you never learn to listen to your customers?
May 5th, 2007 at 10:21 PM
I guess your value on free expression has its limits!
May 6th, 2007 at 4:35 AM
how about an entertainments tab with time index
perhaps with a compulsary field for advertisers to fill in - drop down for type of entertainment that can be used as a filter when searching eg
live jam session music
live music gig
DJ music event
contests - topic specified
tutorial - topic specified
product demonstration - topic specified
education - topic specified
meetings - topic specified
etc
You may still get casinos advertising but
- this is less likely to be associated with sales events and would cut some traffic
May 6th, 2007 at 6:53 AM
Why can`t we have this going ALL YEAR AROUND! Instead of say once a year jesse linen?
May 6th, 2007 at 8:52 AM
I totally understand re-moving events that just advertise products and services and mine were. But, as I search events I see countless listings of all day sales and advertising of products and services. If your going to pick and choose who’s events get re-moved that is highly un-fair. It’s very easy for you to open events thumb down the list and see the many many events that are not really events.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:30 AM
ummmmmmm……Kinda hard to even have events when SL isnt working half the time anymore
May 6th, 2007 at 10:46 AM
“Jennyfur Peregrine Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 4:53 PM PDT
The events calendar? Is that thing still around?”
Yes darlin the events list is “still around” and is in active use every day.
I take a sampling each week, at both my NCI classes that I teach and the events that I host, when I see an unfamiliar face.
Q:
“So how did you find this activity?”
A:
“I found your class/event in on the events list”
I’m not even gonna START in on people who are having issues with “best in black” or even yard sales type of events.
IF there is a host and IF there is a beginning and and ending time for an activity its good to go, wether you like “that kind of event” or not.
The day I decide to sell the rest of the crap left in my inventory, I’m gonna HAVE and HOST a YARD SALE from whatever o’clock to whatever o’clock and make some bux.
If you don’t like it, don’t show up.
What needs “cleaning up” is the search PLACES system and the CLASSIFIEDS listings system. Fix that up and people won’t have any reason to be tempted to try and list their products for sale as a fake event.
So Jesse, while yer “cleaning up” be sure to add fix search/places and /classifieds to yer BLOTTD, will ya?
Everything in SL is connected, and if you fix the connections that are broken or breaking down, fixing the symptom of the problem will actually bear fruit.
Jenny - get with the damn program.
drop down list much? There are people using the events list and its categories each and every day to find the events they like and wish to attend.
geez how out of touch ARE you?
May 6th, 2007 at 11:54 AM
AS ALL THESE BLOGS ARE LIMITED, PREVENTING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, AND ALL THE METHODS OF GETTING ANY REAL HELP IN SL HAVE BEEN WITHDRAWN, I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT I AM SICK OF LINDEN LABS AND ITS ATTITUDE TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE PAYING THEIR SALARIES. HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY LL…….. YOU MAY BE IN FOR A BIG SURPRIZE ……. OH, AND BY THE WAY, PLEASE STOP PATRONIZING US ……… ARROGANT PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE.
May 6th, 2007 at 12:13 PM