Second Life Meeting Organisation Tools

Arena Rezzer and Moderation Tool Tools for Organising Groups of Avatars Mobius Ryba

Introduction
I am Mobius Ryba – a student at the University of Reading.
I spend some time using a virtual world known as Second Life.
I happened to come across a project called MUVEnation.
As part of this – I identified a few key areas that were lacking available tools allowing organisers to run an organised talk or discussion.
Mobius Ryba – Second Life Arena Rezzer and Moderation Tool Slide of 11

Methodology of Designing the Tools
The observations were found through inworld discussion with educators and content providers inworld.
The main problems were identified as beinng large group organisation – arranging the avatars, and organising the discussion, over both voice and text chat.
Other tools are available for the chat moderation
But can be expensive.

Tools Designed
The 2 areas were:
Chat moderation
Seating
Although these sound like simple problems – when a large number of avatars gather, it becomes difficult for a leader to organise them and keep log of who is talking and at what time.
After my experiences inworld – I created the following tools:
Arena Seat Rezzer
Moderation Tool

Moderation Tool
This is a low prim, low lag object, designed to ease moderation of a chat or discussion by allowing participants to join a queue of speakers.
The tool allows a visual display of who should be talking at what time – lessening confusion and giving people their time to talk.

Moderation Tool (continued)
The tool is in 3 sections:
A central display and control prim which displays the information.
A green, add button – participants can click this to be added to the queue of speakers.
A red, remove button – participants may click this to be removed from the list. The owner of the tool may also use this to remove a speaker from the list.

Arena Rezzer
When groups gather – there can very often me a group huddled together in a chaotic mix that makes individuals hard to pick out.
Customisable, configurable seating is needed.
The Arena Seat Rezzer is placed down at the center of the area where seating is needed.
Commands are given by the owner to setup the seating required.
The tool then builds and ajusts seating blocks to the given parameters.
The command list is long – however you only need to change what you want – seating can be rezzed with just 1 command – all others enable powerful cusomisation of the pattern

Arena Rezzer Commands
sides x
Set the number of sides of the whole circle. Default is 20.
arcsides x
Set the number of sides to actually make benches for. For example, if you want a semicircle with 8 sides, set sides to 16 and arcsides to 8. Default is 10.
aislew x
Set the width of the aisles. Default is 0.6.
radius x
Set the radius of the inner stage area. The first benches will start just outside this radius, touching it. Default is 4.
rows x
Set the number of rows to generate. Default is 4.
width x
Set the width of the benches from front edge to back edge. Default is 1.

Arena Rezzer Commands
thickness x
Set the height of the benches from top to bottom. Default is 0.6.
colour r g b
Set the color of the benches using values of 0-255. Default is white (0 0 0 ).
report
Display the current settings.
reset
Reset settings to defaults.
generate
Rez out the blocks with the specified settings.
die
Clear all the blocks
All commands are given on a private channel and the rezzer does not speak in open chat.
The block texture is customisable.

Arena Rezzer Examples
Total Sides: 20, Rows: 4, Aisle Width: 0.600, Radius: 4.000, Thickness: 0.600, Width: 1.000, Z Offset: 0.000, Rezzed Sides: 10
Total Sides: 20, Rows: 7, Aisle Width: 0.000, Radius: 6.000, Thickness: 0.600, Width: 1.000, Z Offset: 2.400, Rezzed Sides: 20
The Rezzer is capable of may shapes of seating, from small to large numbers, full or partial rings, aisles or not, colours, block shapes etc. all within 1 tool. Mobius Ryba – Second Life Arena Rezzer and Moderation Tool Slide of 11

Conclusion
Designing tools for Virtual Worlds it is a useful activity because the tools can help us to achieve our objectives in a easier way.
One of the advantages of creating tools in Second Life is that you can identify needs and test with the help of others.
All the tools contain update scripts, so will automaticly update to the latest version.
To gain a copy of the tools for educational use or for a live demo: contact “Mobius Ryba” inworld.
I work mainly on custom work, so if you have an idea for a tool – please get in touch.
You can find a small selection of my work available: http://is.gd/2KXim
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Second Life Meeting Organisation Tools

by MobiusRyba on Sep 01, 2009

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Second Life Meeting Organisation Tools — Presentation Transcript