Caledon Oxbridge Q&A for 2021-08-08

14:38 Wordsmith Jarvinen Hello, Lovejoy.
14:39 lovejoy2199 Hello Chancellor
14:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen Hi Andrea
14:42 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) hi
14:42 lovejoy2199 Hello Andrea
14:43 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) lovejoy hi
14:44 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) ember hi
14:45 Ember (emberell) Hello, dean Jones, Chancellor Wordsmith. And Mr, Lovejoy, of course
14:45 lovejoy2199 Not really noticing Andrea avatart, 'Foxy Lady. *smile*
14:45 lovejoy2199 Hello Dean.
14:53 Ember (emberell) Welcome, Casdetra, Elfbiter!
14:54 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome, Elf and Casdetra.
14:54 lovejoy2199 Hello Herr Skysmith
14:54 Casdetra Hi Wordsmith
14:54 Casdetra Hi Lovejoy
14:54 lovejoy2199 Hello Casdetra
14:54 Casdetra Hello again Ember
14:54 Casdetra Hiii Andrea
14:55 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome, Sandy
14:55 Ember (emberell) Sandy, welcome!
14:55 Sandy Burgess Good evening Word, Andreas, Ember
14:56 Casdetra Hi Tom
14:56 Casdetra Hi Katie
14:56 Casdetra Hi Gronk
14:56 Katie (katie.canningham) Hi!
14:56 Ember (emberell) Tom, Gronk, welcome!
14:56 Gronk Seriman Good evening, everybody!
14:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome, Tom
14:56 lovejoy2199 Hello Gronk
14:56 Casdetra hi Josain
14:56 Casdetra Hiii Larky
14:56 TomSTomson hello
14:57 Ember (emberell) Larky, welcome!
14:57 Larky (larkylouz) Hi Casdetra, Ember. Hello everyone
14:57 Ember (emberell) Josain, welcome to you as well!
14:57 lovejoy2199 has a 'bad' sighting. And will leave it at that.
14:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome, Gronk, Larky, and Josain.
14:58 Josain Zsun Hello My lag sees no benches
14:58 Casdetra HI Carl
14:58 Wordsmith Jarvinen welcome, Katie
14:58 Katie (katie.canningham) thanks! hi!
14:58 lovejoy2199 Hello Carl
14:58 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome, Carl
14:59 Carl Metropolitan Hello
15:00 lovejoy2199 Peer Gynt *smile*
15:00 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome to this week's Caledon Oxbridge Deans' Q&A. This is an open meeting;
15:00 Wordsmith Jarvinen all are welcome apart from those who intend to misbehave in a disruptive manner.
15:00 Wordsmith Jarvinen Non-disruptive misbehavior is at your discretion.
15:00 Wordsmith Jarvinen Transcripts will be posted after the meeting.
15:00 Wordsmith Jarvinen at http://www.caledonoxbridge.org/qna/qna_index.php
15:00 Ember (emberell) Lyn, welcome.
15:01 Wordsmith Jarvinen Ember, have anything common or uncommon from Commons?
15:02 Ember (emberell) Well, commons is always looking for new folk interested in helping out on campus. And in general, there's always place for new freebie suggestions, or interesting places to go.
15:02 Ember (emberell) I've been updating landmarks this week, making sure notecards still lead where they should go.
15:02 Ember (emberell) Anyone interested in helping out should, as ever, reach out to me, I'll be happy to work with you.
15:03 Ember (emberell) That's all from me :-)
15:03 Carl Metropolitan Are these the notecards in the "Explore" posters? If so, let me know if the textures on the posters need to be updated.
15:03 Wordsmith Jarvinen Any particular kind of places your links are to?
15:04 Ember (emberell) Oh, I actually have some updates for those cards, Carl. I'll pass those along a little later
15:04 Ember (emberell) We link to places that are good for newcomers to explore - so places that teach something, or offer a particularly interesting facet of SL
15:05 Ember (emberell) Like we have in the freebies card and the places to explore notecard both a link to Grendel's Children, which fits both of those very well
15:05 Wordsmith Jarvinen And if Europa is on those recommendations, please remove it. I don't get any respect from them.
15:05 Ember (emberell) Having those lists helps keep staff informed of new places they may be interested in as well
15:05 Ember (emberell) I'll double check that, we've removed quite a few for similar reasons
15:06 Ember (emberell) WE want to ensure the links lead to safe places for people of all potential ages to explore
15:06 Ember (emberell) (si if someone has a recommendation, it may help to note on a LM the rating and such)
15:06 Lyn (lyn.navarita) Careful with London City
15:06 Ember (emberell) nods
15:07 Wordsmith Jarvinen The Cellar Jazz club is good -- G-rated and friendly to all. Just requires bits to be covered.
15:07 Wordsmith Jarvinen Andrea, what do you have for today?
15:07 Ember (emberell) Do send me the LM when you can, I'll check the cards and see what's there. I really like having those spaces though, it helps present a picture more complete of what SL can offer. No adult places, however
15:08 Wordsmith Jarvinen Oh, and if you visit someplace and can wear an Oxbridge or Caledon name-tag, it helps our name recognition on the grid.
15:09 Carl Metropolitan When I created the "Explore" notecards, I put the location rating on the top line next to the title like "Paris 1900 [Moderate]". That might be helpful.
15:10 Ember (emberell) Yeah. We have something similar - little taglines on theme, what to expect, and to encourage people to go in theme (if they are able)
15:10 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) hi Phrynne
15:10 Phrynne waves
15:11 Agatha Macbeth hello Phrynne
15:11 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome Phrynne, and Agatha
15:11 Wordsmith Jarvinen Andrea? what's ya got for today?
15:11 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) a few things.
15:12 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) I understand the theme for next Sunday's bi-weekly fundraiser will be carnival. So I have been looking for components for the build. I assumed Sasha meant New Orleans style carnival. So I'll be working on that this week for Sunday. Land mark to be announced. Caledonian Nights has installed a game center across from the scholars chat circle inthe Neighboring Oxbridge village region. This is to go along with the add ons for the games at the train station. This build is next to the HG Wells Memorial Library. Look in the group notices for more info. I will resend that tonight
15:12 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Other wise not much this week
15:12 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Back to you Word
15:14 Wordsmith Jarvinen I might have a clothesline with Carnival dance outfits drying, from when SLB had a Carnival theme a few years back.
15:14 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) nods
15:14 Wordsmith Jarvinen Maybe also a texture or two.
15:14 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Excellent
15:17 Wordsmith Jarvinen I got caught up on paying instructor stipends this morning, leaving a balance of 417472 $L in Mint's account. We are 32 days into the current tier quarter, which amounts to 26,286 $L of accrued tier liability to date.
15:19 Wordsmith Jarvinen The balance minus the tier liability leaves us with my normal base reserve of 225k $L plus 166k $L surplus. With our current run of about 6 classes per week (I want to raise that), we could run for about 4 quarters on our reserves.
15:20 Wordsmith Jarvinen But still no idea how the year will play out in terms of the current COVID surge and overall economics (ability to donate).
15:20 Ember (emberell) Brb one moment
15:21 Wordsmith Jarvinen Was it a good sheep, Ember?
15:21 Ember (emberell) Quite. :-)
15:21 lovejoy2199 lol
15:21 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Oooh what misbehaving avatar did you go eat?
15:23 Ember (emberell) Just a bit of bookkeeping, never fear. ❤
15:23 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) hi Jan welcome
15:23 Carl Metropolitan Just a note. If a sheep avatar named Wellington Beam should visit, please don't eat him. He runs NCI.
15:23 Wordsmith Jarvinen That's it for what I have to report today. Doing the stipends also processes the class statistics, so I'll shoot for a graph for next time. And to repeat on last week, the visitor statistics are up on our website with a numbers versus time graph on the wall behind me.
15:23 Jan Stroikavskoi Hi Andrea, thanks
15:23 Ember (emberell) Oh course. We never eat students who are here to learn. Avatars of all shapes are safe at Oxbridge
15:24 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) hi Elo
15:24 Wordsmith Jarvinen And open for general questions, comments, announcements, comas, ...
15:24 Wordsmith Jarvinen And welcome, Jan
15:25 ELO (eloelephant) ;o)
15:25 Jan Stroikavskoi Thanks Word!
15:25 Ember (emberell) And welcome to you too, Elo ❤
15:25 TomSTomson raises hand
15:26 Wordsmith Jarvinen Tom?
15:26 TomSTomson Just a personal announcement. I've finished the first draft of a one minute mechanima
15:26 TomSTomson https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/584643065
15:27 Wordsmith Jarvinen Nice!
15:27 TomSTomson if you'd care to take a look at it, here's the link
15:27 Carl Metropolitan I take it you managed to make your way through the legalese on the SL Wiki FAQ page on it :)
15:27 Jan Stroikavskoi Oh very cool!
15:27 Sandy Burgess Thats cool. Are you going to show it in a cinema?
15:27 TomSTomson It's filmed at a site that allows mechanima
15:28 Wordsmith Jarvinen Oh, and you remind me. I corrected it in the transcript post, but the 3 language kiosks are on LI 1. Only the two vertical kiosks in the entry building are LI 2.
15:28 Wordsmith Jarvinen (which was less than the originals with prims legs)
15:28 TomSTomson I'm still waiting on one Caledon II resident for a location release for my Steampunk Noir film
15:29 Wordsmith Jarvinen Hopefully that comes soon.
15:29 Ember (emberell) Oh, I do have one thing, if I may?
15:29 Wordsmith Jarvinen ummm ponders .... decides teasing dragons is perilous .... of course.
15:29 Ember (emberell) Hehe.
15:30 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) offers ketchup to Ember
15:30 Ember (emberell) I took some time to sift through all the comments of the recent policy change regarding removing gachas from SL and found a few from Patch Linden. He offered some good additional points and insight - I made that into a notecard, if anyone wants a copy
15:30 Wordsmith Jarvinen Elf, are you suggesting that I'm ... crunchy?
15:31 Ember (emberell) (though I haven't gotten past page 98 of the comments, there are a LOT of them, haha)
15:31 Gronk Seriman I didn't know gachas were a problem.
15:31 Lyn (lyn.navarita) I don't gacha, but am interested.
15:31 Ember (emberell) It's too much like gambling. They weren't' a problem, until recently anyways
15:32 Ember (emberell) https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/8586-policy-change-regarding-gacha/ for the announcement
15:32 Gronk Seriman Ah.
15:32 Wordsmith Jarvinen As of September all sales must be for a specific item at a specific price. No randomness whether uniform or mapped to ranges.
15:33 Lyn (lyn.navarita) I'm told the hackers are looking into changing gachas to pay group memberships or some such.
15:33 Katie (katie.canningham) gacha resales are still okay, though.
15:33 Ember (emberell) Yeah
15:33 Ember (emberell) It's not illegal to own gacha items, but anything where you're paying to receive an unknown item, is not.
15:33 Ember (emberell) Including group gifts at 'random' unless -everyone- has a chance of entering without cost
15:33 Wordsmith Jarvinen Yes, Katie, as long as the price and item are both specific.
15:34 ELO (eloelephant) What's "Gatha", please?
15:34 ELO (eloelephant) *Gatcha
15:34 Casdetra So those "Midnight Mania's" are still a go?
15:34 Wordsmith Jarvinen It's not about items but about having uncertainty or chance involved in what you get.
15:34 Lyn (lyn.navarita) Slot machines
15:34 Ember (emberell) Gacha was a style of selling objects from a vendor you could pay, to obtain one of many possible products.
15:34 Phrynne not slot machines.
15:34 Lyn (lyn.navarita) effectively the same
15:34 Ember (emberell) Most included concepts like "common" "Rare" and "Very Rare" items, at different chances. Which made some worth much more than the cost
15:34 Sandy Burgess The Midnight Manias are no problem because you don't pay for them
15:34 ELO (eloelephant) got it - thanks Ember
15:35 Phrynne Like an old-fashioned gumball machine.
15:35 Wordsmith Jarvinen Similar in concept to a slot machine, except you always got something for what you paid.
15:35 Ember (emberell) Except in this case, the rewards are different value
15:35 Wordsmith Jarvinen And hence the randomness or uncertainty which is no longer allowed.
15:36 Ember (emberell) nods
15:36 Carl Metropolitan I am confident that SL's dedicated merchants of chance will come up with some sort of "skill game" type loophole.
15:36 Gronk Seriman Yes, Phrynne! Gumball machine. They had the coolest prizes on the card in front, but you only ever got a cheap plastic ring, or something.
15:37 Wordsmith Jarvinen And it's not about fairness or percentages, simply the involvement of chance.
15:37 Agatha Macbeth I always like the ones with the cranes
15:37 Ember (emberell) nods
15:38 Casdetra So these Gachas can't even be placed in countries that allow gambling or adult sims?
15:38 Carl Metropolitan should look into trivia based Gachas :)
15:38 Ember (emberell) There has been some talk of potentially moving them to skill gaming regions, but at the current time, no.
15:38 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) LL is in CAlifornia, so...
15:38 Wordsmith Jarvinen So Elf still has his Thursday Writers meeting and Casdetra her Friday guided meditation, both at 11 am SLT
15:38 Carl Metropolitan And LL's servers are on the Amazon Cloud now.
15:39 Phrynne do they have kids' gumball machines in California?
15:39 Ember (emberell) I'm not certain, but I know they've been introducing legalization against things like lootboxes
15:39 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) MGB has the drama radio hour on Monday nights
15:39 Casdetra California has Gambling
15:39 Lyn (lyn.navarita) If interested, All the stores with gacha are dropping prices rapidly.
15:39 Ember (emberell) Though I'm not certain, I don't follow law very closely.
15:39 Carl Metropolitan Highly regulated and licensed gambling.
15:40 Casdetra ah, yes, its the license thing again
15:40 Carl Metropolitan LL would fall under the federal laws on internet gambling though.
15:40 Katie (katie.canningham) and taxed
15:40 Casdetra if they got that license, they would have more traffic :D (just saying)
15:40 Carl Metropolitan The Gacha ban is probably mostly based on EU bans of "Lootcrate" mechanics in MMOs.
15:41 Wordsmith Jarvinen Patch did mention the EU laws in his addendum post.
15:41 Katie (katie.canningham) What is a lootcrate?
15:41 Carl Metropolitan Lootcrates are things you can buy for RL money in MMO games where you get a random piece of treasure (or pieces)
15:42 Carl Metropolitan Or crafting materials.
15:42 Katie (katie.canningham) ah.
15:42 Carl Metropolitan It's random though. Sometimes great; usually average
15:42 Carl Metropolitan Just like gachas
15:42 Carl Metropolitan As for Gachas, the clue is in the name. It's pronounced "got cha!" :)
15:43 Casdetra Didn't got me, I never played them :D
15:43 Sandy Burgess Which reminds me of a movie in the late 90s
15:43 Ember (emberell) Are there any other questions or announcements?
15:44 Ember (emberell) Or anyone else that wants a copy of the card I didn't send it to
15:44 lovejoy2199 Card, Elf?
15:44 Gronk Seriman raises a hand for the notecard.
15:45 lovejoy2199 Is that from Thursday?
15:46 Wordsmith Jarvinen Oh, one other mention, on why I work to maintain the good. This last week, Bray's place closed and the sim(s) will be gone by 11 Aug. Chicago's Place, long closed but always had a stream up and a nice dance floor is also totally gone. Things in SL are ephemeral.
15:47 Ember (emberell) Yes. It's a reminder to go, explore, take pictures when you can
15:47 Ember (emberell) They are a way to capture an SL that may change
15:47 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Nods the Star trek museum closed some months back
15:47 Wordsmith Jarvinen And support what you are able to.
15:47 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) sadly
15:48 Casdetra Is SL shrinking?
15:48 Ember (emberell) And remember sometimes support isn't just donating. It's stopping by, telling people you like what theyr'e doing. You've seen their builds, avatars, etc.
15:48 Ember (emberell) I don't actually have the numbers on SL usage lately
15:48 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Things come and go
15:49 Carl Metropolitan Things have always come and gone since SL started. Just like RL.
15:49 Sandy Burgess Do you have a LM to that Chicago place?
15:49 Ember (emberell) There's also an ease to rebuilding things that makes it easy for a venue to shift locations entirely, or themes overnight
15:49 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) And sometimes founders of places leave both worlds
15:49 Casdetra Yes, I get the peach orchard is now a coscos, but in SL, this shouldn't be a concern unless its large shrinkage
15:49 Ember (emberell) Chicago's has been long closed, sadly
15:49 Wordsmith Jarvinen It's not there at all anymore Sandy.
15:50 Josain Zsun SL is change...just like the rocks...to paraphrase Grace Slcik.
15:50 Josain Zsun *Slick
15:50 Sandy Burgess pouts
15:50 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) all forms are impermanent.
15:50 lovejoy2199 This too shall past away.
15:50 Sandy Burgess The Jambo sim will close on 13th for the next round of remake. So seeing Africa will only be a few days
15:51 Wordsmith Jarvinen Bray's place until the 11th (Bray Preston was quite ill with a long recovery ahead from what I was told).
15:51 Ember (emberell) And many events in SL are there only a few days, weeks
15:51 Sandy Burgess What is a Bray's place?
15:52 Wordsmith Jarvinen Enjoy the people and the places while you can.
15:52 Josain Zsun Along this topic, we are dealing with passings in Chilbo. LL grabbed over hslf of our community when Gem Blue passed.
15:52 Wordsmith Jarvinen Bray's has been A multi-venue performance place plus rentals.
15:52 Casdetra Should I carry a sign "The End is NEAR"
15:52 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) no
15:53 Agatha Macbeth used to live in Chilbo long ago
15:53 Josain Zsun We are trying to learn how group donations are made to support the increased tier.
15:53 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) we will be here for a long time
15:53 Wordsmith Jarvinen Some ends are near.
15:53 TomSTomson the proper term is 'the end is nigh'
15:53 Josain Zsun Any links on how, would be appreciated.
15:53 Casdetra potato/potawto
15:53 Gronk Seriman still misses Caledon's Iron Cloud, the Cavorite mine, and the older, much larger Steam Sky City.
15:54 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) We have been seeing shrinkage everywhere in SL and expansions so.
15:54 Wordsmith Jarvinen On how, Josain?
15:54 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Them ore things change, the more they stay the same
15:54 Josain Zsun How to make donations to a group. To explain to the Chilbo residents.
15:54 Casdetra I dunno, I didn't stay the same :D
15:55 Ember (emberell) You can open the group profile, and navigate to the Land and L$ tab to adjust how much tier you are giving to a group
15:55 Wordsmith Jarvinen A rose will bloom, it then will fade, so does a youth, so does the fairest maid.
15:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen And anything else?
15:56 Ember (emberell) AS long as the group owns the land, Tier should come out of the donated tier there
15:56 Lyn (lyn.navarita) Is that in L$ or SQM?
15:56 Casdetra Its Gloom and Doom week Obviously, even on TV
15:56 Ember (emberell) square meters, Lyn
15:56 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) King nor villain , lad or lass, all answer to the hourglass
15:56 Lyn (lyn.navarita) ok
15:56 Ember (emberell) Though it will tell you what the maximum you can donate is
15:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen And so we are
15:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen adjourned
15:57 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) a quick question for those that can stay a min
15:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen Thank you all for coming and participating.
15:57 Gronk Seriman Thank you, Deans!
15:57 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) thank you for coming
15:57 Casdetra Thank you for a Good Q&A
15:57 Ember (emberell) What's up, Andrea?
15:57 Katie (katie.canningham) yay deans!
15:57 Lyn (lyn.navarita) One more question
15:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen I'll get the transcript posted.
15:57 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) The patio set to my right? Is it too gatrrish?
15:57 Ember (emberell) Oh no
15:57 Ember (emberell) I like it. TIt's bright.
15:57 Lyn (lyn.navarita) Do you have to be a group member to donate? [ed. note: No]
15:57 Katie (katie.canningham) looks fine to me
15:57 Ember (emberell) The texture around the table may be too bright, but it goes well
15:58 Carl Metropolitan Yes you do, Katie
15:58 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) ok will e on sale later in the shop by the train station
15:58 Katie (katie.canningham) I like the pillows