Caledon Oxbridge Q&A for 2014-05-11

14:59 Steadman Kondor hallo all :)
15:00 Sauce Sorrowman ahoy
15:01 Sauce Sorrowman we seem to be low on deans :)
15:01 Red Quixote Word just arrived
15:01 Carl Metropolitan `There were two hiding outside.
15:02 Sauce Sorrowman ah, the famous ninja-trained deans of Oxbridge are sneaking in.
15:02 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) We are popular tonight....
15:03 Tali Rosca We will start this session with a little gymnastic exercise.
15:03 Meora (menchor) uhoh
15:03 Tali Rosca So I'll ask everybody to stand up.
15:04 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) :-)
15:04 Tali Rosca And now try to sit on the back of the bench in front of you.
15:04 Jules Doghouse trixy
15:04 Carl Metropolitan It is fixed!
15:04 Karin (karinkoudelka) Yay
15:04 Steadman Kondor smiles. Not the deans too?
15:04 Tali Rosca That seemed to work well enough.
15:04 Karin (karinkoudelka) 2 seaters
15:04 Sauce Sorrowman sih
15:04 Sauce Sorrowman ish
15:04 Sauce Sorrowman ;)
15:04 Red Quixote was there a point to that?
15:04 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Test to see if scripts work
15:04 Sauce Sorrowman it was my request to see if I fixed the bug
15:04 Tali Rosca Look at Sauce :-)
15:04 Red Quixote ah
15:04 Carl Metropolitan No. I spoke too soon. Some people still have sat on the edge.
15:05 Jules Doghouse hahahah@ Mr zsun
15:05 Sauce Sorrowman I have not :)
15:05 Red Quixote we have edge sitters
15:05 Steadman Kondor we always knew he liked to live on the edge
15:05 Tali Rosca So, working better, but still not quite there.
15:05 Sauce Sorrowman nods
15:05 Meora (menchor) it still fights my AO
15:05 Camden McAndrews It took a moment, but we jumped onto the seats
15:05 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) ... it's living in the fridge.....
15:05 Red Quixote you should turn your AO off when sitting anyway
15:06 Sauce Sorrowman it shouldn't do anything to the AO - there are no animations unless you turn them on
15:06 Red Quixote that is not a valid complaint
15:06 Wordsmith Jarvinen Living on the back, rather .... the edge would be more to the front.
15:06 Sauce Sorrowman also - I think the issue is that you're wearing an alpha that hides your thighs
15:06 Teal Farlight ooh is that available in RL?
15:06 Tali Rosca Many people have their own sitting animations; that's fairly common. I think the point is that bench overrides that?
15:07 Sauce Sorrowman the bench will only set a different sit animation if you ask it to, otherwise it just uses whatever your AO says.
15:07 Camden McAndrews It probably depends on the programming of the AO, and the priority setting of each individual animation.
15:08 Tali Rosca Could there be an issue with the AO not recognizing the sit because it is not an explicit sit target?
15:08 Tali Rosca Meora, you're using a client built-in AO?
15:08 Red Quixote I doubt it
15:08 Sauce Sorrowman nope, don't think that makes sense. your animation is playing from wherever the avatar is.
15:08 Meora (menchor) the problem is I stand up, then sit again
15:09 Tali Rosca Anyway, this is specific debugging we should probably not do in this forum.
15:09 Sauce Sorrowman grins
15:09 Sauce Sorrowman thank you all for helping with the load test though.
15:09 Tali Rosca The sit test was just now we had a crowd to provoke the error.
15:09 Tali Rosca Let us get on with the QA proper. Do anybody have a question?
15:11 Karin (karinkoudelka) Is Oxbridge or Caledon doing anything for SLB?
15:11 Jules Doghouse fidgits
15:11 Tali Rosca I'll forward that to Carl.
15:11 Steadman Kondor Yes, I believe Mr Carl has made an application
15:12 Tali Rosca I don't think there are any specific plans yet,m beyond securing a spot.
15:12 Steadman Kondor nods.
15:12 Steadman Kondor Perhaps the community might drop suggestions into the faculty mailbox?
15:13 Tali Rosca What was the theme this year? Looking to the future?
15:13 Carl Metropolitan Sorry.
15:13 Carl Metropolitan I was afk
15:13 Carl Metropolitan We have applied
15:14 Carl Metropolitan The theme is "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
15:14 Steadman Kondor I believe we can look to the future, even with our tailcoats, corsets and steam powered engines...
15:14 Carl Metropolitan Since that's sort of what Caledon is about, there's not much BSing to fit :)
15:15 Carl Metropolitan We proudly look towards the 20th century!
15:15 Jules Doghouse The best predictor of future behavior is … past behavior
15:15 Tali Rosca Am I the only one who gets unfortunate Ozymandias allusions by that theme?
15:15 Steadman Kondor I got the star wars allusion...
15:15 Sauce Sorrowman Look on my works ye mighty, and despair?
15:16 Tali Rosca The idea of building an empire (which only lasts in your mind).
15:16 Jules Doghouse sometimes
15:16 Teal Farlight 20th century lol
15:16 Steadman Kondor True but minds combined is powerful. Can build mountains and traverse seas
15:17 Sauce Sorrowman and probably some kind of mushy soup.
15:17 Tali Rosca Carl, are there any plans for how to proceed with that spot?
15:17 Jules Doghouse mmmmm soup
15:17 Sauce Sorrowman that'd be brains combined rather than minds though.
15:17 Tali Rosca Who will build what?
15:17 Wordsmith Jarvinen And create dangers at the bottom of seas....
15:17 Carl Metropolitan Yes. I am going to reuse the VWBPE display
15:17 Carl Metropolitan Though I will replace the sculpty pillars with Mesh ones if I can.
15:17 Carl Metropolitan This is an Oxbridge display; not a Caledon one.
15:18 Red Quixote The Empires?? that's a dodgey theme.. it invokes the Star wars trilogy
15:18 Carl Metropolitan I will have four panes that feature Caledon in general, but it will be mostly Oxbridge.
15:18 Sauce Sorrowman fits a mesh pillar into Carl's postbox
15:18 Carl Metropolitan I don't know if someone has done Caledon as an estate
15:18 Carl Metropolitan Thank you Sauce
15:18 Tali Rosca I was about to ask that. Has anybody heard anything about that?
15:18 Tali Rosca (Whether Caledon has a spot as well)
15:19 Sauce Sorrowman (I should probably do a normal map for that - pre-materials build)
15:19 Carl Metropolitan I would assume Desmond would know.
15:19 Carl Metropolitan That should work pretty well.
15:20 Steadman Kondor How is the land impact limit Mr Carl?
15:20 Steadman Kondor Do we have room for any new artifacts?
15:20 Carl Metropolitan I need to check. Just a moment.
15:20 Tali Rosca So, no rumors about a Caledon spot. Let us catch Des and hear.
15:21 Tali Rosca Any other questions?
15:21 Carl Metropolitan 269
15:21 Steadman Kondor That is generous :)
15:21 Carl Metropolitan I need to check the VWBPE display and see how many that was
15:21 Steadman Kondor So we may offer some suggestions if there is room?
15:22 Steadman Kondor I'd love to see something that comes from the Oxbridge community
15:22 Steadman Kondor Since it represents all of you
15:23 Steadman Kondor On another note, I and other members of the faculty are working on starting up the Oxbridge Gazette
15:24 Carl Metropolitan It is 188 LI right now.
15:24 Steadman Kondor There will be announcements soon about staffing, call for volunteers.
15:24 Carl Metropolitan I have rezzed it on the roof of the lecture hall
15:24 Wordsmith Jarvinen So, still some some to wiggle.
15:24 Sauce Sorrowman starts salivating over the engine again
15:24 Steadman Kondor That's great, Mr Carl!
15:24 Tali Rosca What does the "Gazette" entail?
15:25 Karin (karinkoudelka) used to be a star gazzette
15:25 Steadman Kondor It is a publication for the community in the COU, covering special events announcements and reportage
15:25 Steadman Kondor interviews of scholars and faculty
15:25 Carl Metropolitan (On the exhibit--please cam out and look at it and see if you all have any suggestions)
15:26 Steadman Kondor special events means building competitions and other activities we have here in addition to the classes.
15:26 Teal Farlight oh i love the building model
15:26 Steadman Kondor There will be room for some appropriate fiction and informative articles of used to the Oxbridge Scholar.
15:26 Steadman Kondor We'd love to publish some of the PHoto Salon's works too
15:27 Sauce Sorrowman what format would it be in? website/pdf/inworld?
15:27 Steadman Kondor can hear the steam engines.
15:27 Larkylouz Oh, excellent. I'll post that as soon as you are up and ready for submissions!
15:27 Tali Rosca The idea is to create something for the regular community, too, and not just the newbies zooming through.
15:27 Steadman Kondor It will be in website form, linked to our COU. There willb e various tools and gadgets to link to it.
15:27 Carl Metropolitan Let me turn that off so people are not distracted.
15:28 Steadman Kondor So, stay tuned :) and if you already know you would like to be more actively part of the gazette, please drop me a line.
15:29 Tali Rosca How soon can we expect to see anything? I assume there is some ground-work which need to be laid first=
15:30 Sauce Sorrowman would you see it as a "periodical" (i.e. an issue every month/week) or more of a regularly-updating website (an article per day or some such schedule)?
15:30 Steadman Kondor Yes, as part of this new developments, the Guv Desmond Shang has offered new space in the Village
15:30 Steadman Kondor To house the Gazette headquarters. Dean Martini
15:30 Carl Metropolitan The latter I would suggest.
15:30 Steadman Kondor is working on an adjuct cafe that will be used for socials
15:30 Steadman Kondor and some events - that will break the 20 avatar limit
15:30 Steadman Kondor otherwise here.
15:31 Steadman Kondor We are looking at getting the gazette up after a few of these things are completed. Perhaps 3-4 week timeframe. I'd like to get the staff team built up in the meantime.
15:31 Karin (karinkoudelka) What is the planned location?
15:31 Steadman Kondor The location is the s/w corner of village.
15:31 Tali Rosca In the village, under the sandbox.
15:32 Steadman Kondor nods.
15:32 Steadman Kondor We are not looking at a gazette that is a massive thing to read every month, but a regular stream of small and medium sized articles each week
15:33 Sauce Sorrowman nods - I think that works best too.
15:33 Steadman Kondor That reflects the community, informs the community, and celebrates the works, and creations of the community.
15:33 Steadman Kondor As we all learn and improve our abilities here at COU
15:34 Steadman Kondor We decided against a social media presence so far, and perhaps will count on loyal followers of the publications here to share interesting articles in FB , G+ , Twitter, etc.
15:34 Tali Rosca Steadman has been quite the whirlwind of activity after we got him on the team as Dean of Development.
15:34 Steadman Kondor smiles.
15:34 Wordsmith Jarvinen plurk....
15:35 Steadman Kondor Thank you I am inspired by the community at COU. That powers me on
15:35 Karin (karinkoudelka) That brings to mind an arcadia Asylum whilrwind.
15:35 Tali Rosca Plurk is strangely big in the SL community, though as far as I have heard, it has tapered off a little?
15:36 Carl Metropolitan Most people I know in SL use twitter.
15:36 Carl Metropolitan I think Plurk failed to overcome twitters network effect.
15:36 Sauce Sorrowman ...what's Plurk?
15:37 Carl Metropolitan Plurk was a would-be twitter competitor with a very different interface. Some people found it much easier to use.
15:37 Carl Metropolitan Others like me, found it confusing.
15:37 Wordsmith Jarvinen I've noted SL people who announce on Twitter but point to Plurk, although I've not set it up myself.
15:37 Tali Rosca As Steadman mentioned, though, we'll not commit to any social media presence, largely to avoid fragmenting the information too much.
15:37 Steadman Kondor Plurk is noted for it's 'timelines' before FB started theirs
15:39 Tali Rosca So, that was some news from Oxbridge.
15:39 Tali Rosca Let us move on to other questions or topics.
15:39 Camden McAndrews <-- has never really used any of those social media things.
15:39 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) avoids twitter
15:39 Red Quixote Is the campus doing better these day?.. are we more solvent?
15:39 Red Quixote *days
15:40 Steadman Kondor Our generous class sponsors support the outgoings for the regular weekly classes.
15:41 Tali Rosca I think Steadman's sponsor push brought us a very long way, but I haven't run the numbers recently.
15:41 Red Quixote aye,.. but that does not answer my question
15:41 Steadman Kondor We need to be solvent for the land tier too.
15:41 Wordsmith Jarvinen We have not been close to insolvent for a long while.
15:41 Steadman Kondor We have plans for that.
15:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen But, we do have to be consistent with our sponsors to stay in good shape.
15:42 Tali Rosca So essentially, our current sponsors cover half the expenses, and the other half come from "random" donations?
15:42 Steadman Kondor It will require a continued support from the community and the believers for us to continue to be strongly solvent into the future. So the right time to plan is now.
15:43 Wordsmith Jarvinen And, we do have to think with foresight to have our yearly tier on hand when due it comes.
15:43 Josain Zsun What is the due date?
15:43 Red Quixote I aks because a few years ago , after Carl and a few others left us, Oxbridge was in pretty rough shape for a while,. Professors were asked to take a 50% cut in the stipend for teaching classes,... it has been a number of years now,. and I am wondering if there is any plan to restore them to their former amount
15:44 Steadman Kondor No there is no plans. I worked on the class sponsor program to cover the monthly outgoings at that point in April
15:44 Steadman Kondor And to cover that for 3 months solid.
15:44 Steadman Kondor Now, if the class outgoings vary up or down - there is the general donation to cover that.
15:45 Steadman Kondor So, our position has strengthened from April
15:45 Tali Rosca I am merely dean of Engines, so I don't run the treasury, but it seems very unlikely to me that we can raise the stipend.
15:46 Steadman Kondor So Professor's Red query, I would take as a request to reconsider the stipend?
15:46 Red Quixote I think it is time, yes
15:46 Wordsmith Jarvinen I'd have to check on the due date, which I'm not on my usual computer for today..... but offhand, I think we have something like 8 months to go this years.
15:46 Steadman Kondor I can't answer at this time, but will confer with the faculty
15:47 Steadman Kondor It is a significant impact with the planned finances at present.
15:47 Wordsmith Jarvinen We so far are not in great surplus, when tier is also considered. At the time we had a larger stipend, Oxbridge was not paying tier from contributions but from specific benefactors.
15:48 Steadman Kondor Foremost, our concern is to keep funds to keep the sim (land tier) going so we have an assured location
15:48 Carl Metropolitan Actually, at that time we were not paying tier at all. Caledon was covering all the tier costs.
15:48 Red Quixote well that is closer to answering my original question,. thank you Word
15:48 Tali Rosca Our expenses are currently split roughly 50-50 between stipend and tier.
15:49 Wordsmith Jarvinen Tali, do you remember the total tier per year, offhand?
15:50 Tali Rosca And we cover that. But no more.
15:50 Tali Rosca I can find the number.
15:50 Wordsmith Jarvinen I want to say 220 k $L / year.
15:51 Tali Rosca Close. You misplaced some numbers. It's 202K
15:51 Steadman Kondor The raw cost of the homestead, with some adjustments for cross usage - between Caledon and here
15:51 Wordsmith Jarvinen kk Thanks
15:51 Tali Rosca And stipends amount to a bit more than that.
15:51 Wordsmith Jarvinen And our resources right now as of doing payroll last night are about 140 k $L
15:52 Tali Rosca Payment is due in November
15:53 Wordsmith Jarvinen So, we need net proceeds of about $10 k per month.
15:53 Carl Metropolitan I have a suggestion for making some more money. We have a group of 12000 or so in size. I believe it is regularly trimmed of people who have not logged on in x months. We could sell three sponsored group messages with an "AD:" preface in the title and an explanation that selling this helps us cover tier and expenses. I think you could get 500-1000L$ for each sponsored group message.
15:53 Wordsmith Jarvinen 10 k $L / month
15:53 Camden McAndrews FWIW: 202,000 L$/year for a homestead is a fantastically good price.
15:54 Tali Rosca It is, yes. We are grandfathered.
15:54 Steadman Kondor probably close to the raw cost - yes and grandfathered...
15:54 Wordsmith Jarvinen The library parcel is independent funded.
15:54 Camden McAndrews That would 'slain it. :)
15:54 Carl Metropolitan We are using a grandfathered in 95US/month minus the tier paid by the library in the center (we don't own or control that land) and minus the money Desmond makes off the three ad posters in the social area behind the lecture hall.
15:55 Carl Metropolitan And with all that, we are getting it at close to cost.
15:55 Steadman Kondor If the tutor stipend is to be increased, i would like to see classes with smaller numbers revived to make effort to increase class sizes.
15:55 Tali Rosca As for selling advertising in the group, I am *very* wary of that.
15:55 Steadman Kondor Introducing new and advanced material, like Professor Red, can be seen as a meritous activity.
15:56 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) IMO there is not much we can do to increase attendance if potential students are not interested.
15:56 Carl Metropolitan Why?
15:56 Tali Rosca I think it would cause a dramatic drop in group membership.
15:56 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Ad invite spamming
15:56 Carl Metropolitan I think it would be your best way of raising money.
15:56 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) "You do it, why not me?"
15:56 Tali Rosca And, as Elfbiter says, open it up for other people using it for advertising.
15:56 Carl Metropolitan Because there is a clear price for it.
15:57 Carl Metropolitan And if you spam, you are ejected.
15:57 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) And spammer gets a new throwaway account and continues.
15:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen Into high orbit...
15:57 Tali Rosca When we have the group ban tools, that could be an option.
15:57 Tali Rosca We can't do anything about hit-and-run spammers anyway.
15:57 Sauce Sorrowman nothing is stopping spammers from doing it now anyway
15:57 Sauce Sorrowman but I agree - I think ads would encourage them
15:58 Sauce Sorrowman people would think they were "oxbridge-sanctioned" ads
15:58 Camden McAndrews Is Oxbridge looking for new classes?
15:58 Steadman Kondor We will take Mr Carl's suggestion on board though, and review with the faculty
15:58 Tali Rosca Always.
15:58 Wordsmith Jarvinen However, our sponsors do not get a place on our web pages.
15:58 Wordsmith Jarvinen do get
15:58 Carl Metropolitan I think a well managed group notice ad sales campaign could bring in 2000-3000 a week.
15:59 Carl Metropolitan This would be seperate from the regular sponsors. This would be something people could use to promote events, sales, new businesses, etc.
15:59 Tali Rosca Personally, I think it would lead to the impression that Oxbridge has sold out, and people leaving the group.
15:59 Steadman Kondor We want classes that reflect the community needs, and fit within our General guidelines...
15:59 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Iäm inclined to agree with lady Rosca
15:59 Steadman Kondor Well attended classes :-)
16:00 Carl Metropolitan Then the people leaving the group can bloody well pay for Oxbridge.
16:00 Camden McAndrews A class will be well attended if it has a reputation for being fun and rewarding, and if people know about it in time to attend.
16:00 Carl Metropolitan Wordsmith is in charge of classes. If you have one to propose talk to him, and he can help you.
16:01 Larkylouz I have had luck advertising Photo Salon lectures a few days ahead, which seems to increase attendance. I haven't done it often enough to swear by it, however.
16:01 Camden McAndrews .. at least, within my experience from teaching in SL
16:01 Carl Metropolitan He's quite good at it :)
16:01 Carl Metropolitan And has several new ones in the works.
16:01 Steadman Kondor Whatever you are doing, it is working well, Miss Larkylouz :)
16:02 Larkylouz :^)
16:02 Tali Rosca It seems time is up, so let us stop for now.
16:03 Friends of Caledon Oxbridge Donation Medallion KarinKoudelka Resident gave a generous donation to Friends of Caledon Oxbridge to help support classes, tutorials, & tier at Caledon's Oxbridge
16:03 Larkylouz Thank you, everyone. Thanks to Deans for all their hard work.
16:03 Tali Rosca Thanks for attending tonight, and bringing up some ideas.
16:03 Wordsmith Jarvinen A goodly batch of discussion. Thank you all.
16:03 Steadman Kondor If anything today's session is testament to how we are quite transparent as to our organisation of COU and funding.
16:03 Steadman Kondor and active debate :)
16:03 Steadman Kondor Thank you all!
16:03 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) BEdtime for me.
16:03 Red Quixote adieu
16:03 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Be seeing you
16:03 Sauce Sorrowman gnight all
16:03 Tali Rosca There aren't any *secrets* about it. It's more a question of who cares to listen to it :-)