The Second Life Community Convention has been fraught with controversy in years gone by, although it has also been a roaring success, take a look at last year’s event here. Alas this year it looks like the drama, criticism and lack of support from Linden Lab and the wider Second Life Community has finally took its toll.
Fleep Tuque has a long and informative post about the hazaards of organising the Second Life Community Convention, this comes in light of the news that Avacon won’t be organising the event this year.
Fleep points out that the organisers were chewed out for not making the convention more like Blizzcon, well it looks like this SLCC 2012 will be exactly like Blizzcon 2012, because Blizzcon is cancelled this year, but will be back in 2013, will SLCC? I think something may have been lost in humour there, I doubt that anyone at Linden Lab seriously expected an event like Blizzcon, but maybe they hoped for an event that would involve musicians, meetings and fun? Blizzcon has a massive budget so I don’t really think that criticism was intended to come across as bluntly as it sounds.
Fleep also points out that organisers were left feeling jaded due to criticism, this will have been in many forms, there has been criticism over prices, venues, dates, choice of hotel etc. in the past. However this is part and parcel of organising an event, people will always be critical, the way to answer them is to organise a successful event and from what I’ve read of SLCC in the past, they were largely successful but there seems to have been a competiton in values too regarding whether it should be a convention or a conference.
However, even I, find some of the issues that arose shocking, quoting Fleep:
“We were forced to deal with people’s personal vendettas against each other (!), threats of harm against other attendees (!!), vandalizing of sponsors’ booths (!!!), and even threats of lawsuits (!!!!). At some point you have to ask yourself, is it really worth this much grief?”
2009 seems to be the year where things tipped the wrong way for SLCC, that was the year where Las Vegas was suggested as a location, which was popular, but the final choice was San Francisco, with hints afterwards that Las Vegas was never a serious contender. 2009 was also the year where some educators said they would be organising their own conference, as exemplified by this post over at SLUniverse:
“After many sweet and agonizing months working with you on SLCC 08 and turning to plan for 09, we’ve decided to host our own separate Second Life Education Conference. We’ll support educators to go to SLCC for social reasons, but after reviewing such feedback as found here, we underscore the felt impression that an academic peer-reviewed Second Life conference on so-called “serious” application of SL be best cultivated elsewhere.
The Education community and other SLCC conference goers have different and what appear by many to be incompatible reasons for attending the conference. While many educators in Second Life also really enjoy the social aspects inworld and the richness of the full community brought together (I love Flipper’s “family bar-b-que analogy), the need for scholars to have a conference that can be supported by their institution (by supporting academic outcomes) has seriously conflicted with others’ perception of SLCC as active fun and debauchery. While these strands are not necessarily mutually exclusive, I believe the challenges by the Future United Board to find clear leadership to frame how these constituents can co-exist and support one another has allowed acrimony and irritation to spread to a point that is potentially irreparable for all sides involved.
We don’t want to spoil SLCC! We don’t want to be the reason that the others can’t have fun. We also did NOT weigh in and say that Las Vegas was a bad idea!
We’ve decided to move ahead with planning for SLEDcc at another location at a time most appropriate to educators. We have enjoyed being a part of SLCC and working on the Future United and have deep affection for all parts of SL – the LIVED EXPERIENCE is as great in every way as is learning, teaching, and training. We understand that by moving SLEDcc away from SLCC that we are losing out on the greater SL Community and while sad about that, believe that you might understand the myriad reasons why this makes the most sense. We hope we have your support in this and will do everything we can to direct people to attend SLCC for celebrating the great community that is found in Second Life.
We wish you well and that SLCC and The Future United continue to flourish and bring the greater Second Life community together every year for a great social experience for years to come.
Best,
Wainbrave Bernal (aka Jonathon Richter)”
There you see in full glory the conflict of interests regarding SLCC, whether it should be a convention or a conference and SLCC hasn’t really recovered from the 2009 setbacks, Jade Lilly stepping down as an organiser in light of the criticism etc.
So what next? Linden Lab have lapsed in engaging with the community, I’ve said it many times before but their blog has gone AWOL when it comes to community relations, they seem to lack community spirit. This may well be working out for them, only they will know, but it leaves Second Life feeling neglected. Personally I feel the way forward is for virtual world conventions, not just Second Life specific and for Second Life to be part of that umbrella group and be involved with broadcasting it. One thing I found odd about SLCC is the lack of inworld promotion and participation, I fully appreciate that these events take place in a paid for environment, but Second Life and other virtual worlds can deliver things Blizzcon simply can’t when it come to virtual participation, and that’s something Linden Lab should have grasped.
Alternatively, broadcast Blizzcon 2013 in Second Life!
I admit to being one of the more vocal critics. (Which is why the word Crap is capitalized in Fleep’s post.) My biggest issue was the Lab treating the most loyal users like… well… utter crap for showing up.
Rod’s “I won’t talk about pricing” statement last year being the most obvious. M throwing Colossus at the “Music is the Killer App” Music folks just to say “I’ll get back to you” pissed me off at ’09, and I’ve have cancelled if I hadn’t have been taking my sister there and helping others with rooms.
Yes, Avacon and Futures United worked hard to put these on… Katydid’s post on SL Universe shows the passion and need they had for volunteers to keep these going, but Fleep’s post shows how the Lab has been working hard to suck the value and utility out of them, whether foot-dragging on licensing, demanding out-of-reach cities for the vast majority of the userbase, locking into a single stagnant platform in denial of the diverstity of VW social experience… (I include the Education splitoff as a way in which the Lab has been dragging these down, because the end of the education discount was a serious blow to that sub-community.)
Ultimately, they were volunteering effort and content for an increasingly ungrateful and hostile for-profit corporation (and userbase, guilty as charged), and as we’ve seen time and time again with the Lab, people get caught up in trying to keep it going, poured more into it, and were burned.
I wish she’d come to that conclusion sooner. She’s a good person, the Avacon folks all are, but it’s the good ones who get burned the worst.
SLCC may be gone, but for the social types, the Music Jams are growing in various cities and times: http://www.facebook.com/groups/SLlivemusicjams/
Education does its conferences elsewhere and through a multitude of platforms… some of which go well beyond the capability of SL or fit the tighter budgets of educators (Fleep herself is heavy into the open source grids these days, yes?)
Helpful and interesting panel discussions happened at SL9B and can be organized by many parties in various venues across the grid using the telepresence technology we’re all kinda using already, yes?
And, heck, it doesn’t stop folks from doing ad-hoc meetups in various cities like so many others do… I keep skipping the Houston Geeks one like a slacker, but hey – next month, right?
-ls/cm
Ah good, I’m glad you posted a link to the music jams, I saw a comment about that over at New World Notes and wanted to find out more.
LL seem to be missing a trick with their own platform when it comes to conferences, there are little conferences going on every day inworld with people from all over the world. Storytelling, listening to music, discussions. People organise these themselves, hardly realising how powerful a tool they are using and LL hardly seem to notice.
I’m sure there were critics of SL9B and its organisation, whatever you do, when it comes to event organising someone is going to feel they could do it better, some criticism is healthy and shouldn’t all be brushed off. However as you point out, there were keynote speeches, live entertainment, pretty much everything you’d find at a real life convention but without the hotel and travel costs!
How the Lab acts these days, there’s just no understanding. So much potential, so many mistakes, and so little done to truly correct them. It’s maddening, but even more bizarre that we still give a damn,
Yes, there’s critics of SL9B, but the feedback form is open to all, and EVERYBODY on Team Doc is listening to the feedback, every single one… heck, I agree with the one that thumbs-downed the Angel Of Death vids, it was a really odd choice of PR mascot, and not everybody got the irony of it (or the slam on Hamlet). But from that feedback, a lot has been put on the agenda on how to deal with future events, folks will be invited to be a part of it, etc.
That flexibility and ability to learn from successes and mistakes has to do with the character of the folks on that team, but also the fact that the Lab won’t be able to foot-drag a rotten compressed schedule on it, play games with one group against another anymore, dictate terms under which things are done, or cause problems by throwing company representatives with their own agendas at it.
AvaCon and its people are all good folks, meaning well, and tried really hard to make it work, but they were screwed by the Lab at every turn, didn’t want to admit it or give up, tried to deal with increasingly bizarre and decreasingly supportive behavior and terms, and in the end were doomed by their own enthusiasm or refusal to give up on the Lab… all in silence and no communication with the people they were wanting to serve while calling for volunteer.
If only we had known, would we have shouted at the Lab to put up or shut up?
I really, really hope that they retool, come up with a plan, and are in a position to dictate terms TO the Lab for their participation in a general metaverse convention in RL… and if they don’t, well, their users will see firsthand how the other companies/grids/platforms/networks respect and treat their communities.
I may not be welcome there after my calls to boycott the Lab-strangled SLCCs of late, but I damn well will respect the hell out of them when they roll up their sleeves and make an event that meets the needs, demands, and wishes of the residents first.
-ls/cm
I had the feeling that capital c was not there by chance…