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Miriel Enfield · 09-29-2008, 01:18 PM

So, normally I avoid this kind of post, 'cause it's just trouble and I have a reptuation. And I'll probably regret this later. But hey, I'm exhausted and stressed and you only live once and what's social capital if you can't spend it occasionally, right?

Anyway, I'm organizing the second annual Jewelry Exposition (plug, plug, go visit when we open and buy lots, kthxbye). There is, I swear, something in the water this year. Maybe a month ago a few people made an unpleasant attempt to turn the expo into Hair Fair, and a week or so after that I had Ann Otoole yelling at me out of the blue. And then today, I got this. This is not the best piece of Jewelry Expo drama, but the Hair Fair business ventures far into tl;dr territory. So you're getting this, with the name redacted.

Some background information:

1. We auctioned off ten special sponsor booths. These were quite expensive: they went from L$10K to L$30K. Redacted won a kind I'd dubbed a type C booth. Compared to a regular booth, a type C has over four times the prim and texture limits, over three times the square footage, is in a much better location (it's a freestanding booth in the middle of the expo), and allows the owner the buy twice as many extra prims and textures.

2. So that people could put their stalls together early, I sent out copies of all the booths to the group. I made them full perm for convenience -- you know, in case people wanted to rename them or they had one too many prims for the land or whatever. It didn't even occur to me to send out a note saying that you wouldn't actually be able to modify the build.

3. Yeah, the expo build looked pretty bad last year. This year, too.

(Name Redacted's partner sent me an IM with questions, saying to contact her with the answers.)
[2008/09/28 13:57] Miriel Enfield: You cannot build your own booth. However, you can add walls, a floor, and a ceiling to the existing booth if you want, and you can build higher than the 9m walls. Since you have a freestanding booth, you can also place signs with your business name on the outside walls.
[2008/09/28 13:57] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[2008/09/29 7:00] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 04:42:36 2008) Hi Miriel, thanks for your replies. I think we may have a minor problem if I'm not allowed to rexture the inside of the booth. My build relies upon the walls being glass, at least from the inside. I'm not so fussed if the outside walls are glass or not, but the inside needs to be to be in keeping with the themes of my jewellery, and the expo. I have a very low pixel glass texture which I was going to line the inner walls of the booth with. Perhaps you'd like to come over and see the build - I've not finished all the textures yet, but the majority are done. If I can't retexture the booth walls we have a problem as the build just won't work - there was nothing in any of the many lists of rules and FAQ's that informed us that we couldn't, and as you sent out booths full perm, I presumed we'd be able to. I am away from ... midday GMT on Wednesday (4am SLT) so I think we need to resolve this as a matter of some urgency. Many thanks again for your help
[2008/09/29 7:07] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry you thought that (it's not included in the rules because nobody ever assumed it before) and that it interferes with your plans for your booth, but I can't grant you the ability to modify the build itself. If I do it for you, I have to do it for everyone, and there's a massive potential for trouble there. Even if nobody acts maliciously and everyone perfectly understands and follows the rules, there's a possibility of things getting accidentally moved, deleted, retextured, etc.
-- Instant message logging enabled --
[7:30] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 07:22:47 2008) Miriel - you sent out modifyable booths. I have spoken to some of the other sponsored booth creators and they all assumed, like me, that we could modify the build, otherwise you'd have sent them no mod. I know at least one other person had intended the walls of her booth to be glass. I appreciate that allowing everyone the ability to mod their booths would be fraught with potential problems, but those of us who have basically paid for the expo should be afforded at least some privelidges surely? It would be entirely reasonable to allow us modify rights for a few hours, and then revoke them.
[7:30] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 07:25:25 2008) I very much appreciate the amount of work you have done for the expo, and have not complained about the restrictions - I understand the reason for limiting texture size and have happily worked around that. However, there is no *good* reason to not allow C booth sponsors the ability to mod at least the interior of their booths. it would be minimal work for yourself - granting and then revoking rights.
[7:41] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry that you and some others misunderstood. I made the booths mod for convenience, and I honestly hadn't thought that people would get that impression. I should have been clearer, and it's a mistake I won't repeat next year. :/ However, like I said, if I grant modify rights to you, I have to give them to everyone. People who were unaware that this was allowed (because it wasn't) could feel cheated. A bigger issue is the fact that granting everyone rights just isn't feasible for me. We have a lot of vendors and not everyone can be on at the same time. Modify permissions would have to be enabled for far longer than a few hours. As for privileges, that's what your extra prims, pixels, and space are, as well as your better location. Again, I'm sorry this was unclear, but the answer is and will remain no.
[7:52] Name Redacted: I am trying to carefully word my reply as I have no desire to offend you. I have utmost respect for you as a designer and for organising the expo. However, you don't *have* to give modify rights to everyone - those who have paid large amounts of money, and are basically funding the expo, have BOUGHT the right to some priviledges others that have paid only 100L do not have. I appreciate that last years expo was apparently a success, and why change a working formula - but with all things, there is always something that can be improved upon. I'd not started making jewellery last year, and I'll be frank, I thought the expo was visually very poor. I didn't buy anything there. I am asking for 4 people to be allowed rights to modify the interior walls of their excruciatingly expensive booths. In the grand scheme of things it's a small ask. Remember, if our booths look good, you look good.
[8:01] Name Redacted: In fact, it had been my intention, in my build, to prove to the others who have been complaining, that it's easily possible to make an outstanding display within your restrictions....
[8:09] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry, I had to AFK.
[8:11] Miriel Enfield: It wouldn't be just four booths. There are ten sponsor booths, in fact; the people in the other six also paid a lot of money. Again, though, you already have bought privileges. Your extra prims, pixels, and space, and better locations, are your privileges.
[8:12] Name Redacted: Has anyone ever told you in RL that your inflexibility is not one of your best features?
[8:12] Name Redacted: :-)
[8:13] Name Redacted: 10 people is still not very many.
[8:14] Name Redacted: And, whilst I'm sure it feels like it, I very much doubt that the whole expo will fall apart if you stop controlling every single minute detail of it
[8:22] Miriel Enfield: I said no and I gave my reasons. I can't just go making new benefits for sponsor booths at this point; that's not fair to people who may have bid, had they known they'd get mod rights. I can talk about build modification in the meetings for next year, but I'm not going to go changing the rules for this year's expo at this point in time. If you're that upset about it, I can refund you your booth bid (but not your L$100, that's nonrefundable) and give your slot to someone else. Otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you dropped the subject.

(This came later: not the timestamp.)

[9:20] Name Redacted: May I just check, before I do anything else - are there any other "rules" you have forgotton to tell us? If I build within what you have said so far am i safe?
[9:25] Miriel Enfield: For the record, I didn't forget; it just didn't occur to me. And you should be fine.

Serious question: was I being unreasonable? I've considered it and I don't think I was, but I trust you guys.

09-29-2008, 01:18 PM	#1 (permalink)
Miriel Enfield Senior Member Behold, the power of flopsy ears. Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,469 My Mood: SLShopper Ads: 3	Jewelry Expo Argh So, normally I avoid this kind of post, 'cause it's just trouble and I have a reptuation. And I'll probably regret this later. But hey, I'm exhausted and stressed and you only live once and what's social capital if you can't spend it occasionally, right? Anyway, I'm organizing the second annual Jewelry Exposition (plug, plug, go visit when we open and buy lots, kthxbye). There is, I swear, something in the water this year. Maybe a month ago a few people made an unpleasant attempt to turn the expo into Hair Fair, and a week or so after that I had Ann Otoole yelling at me out of the blue. And then today, I got this. This is not the best piece of Jewelry Expo drama, but the Hair Fair business ventures far into tl;dr territory. So you're getting this, with the name redacted. Some background information: 1. We auctioned off ten special sponsor booths. These were quite expensive: they went from L$10K to L$30K. Redacted won a kind I'd dubbed a type C booth. Compared to a regular booth, a type C has over four times the prim and texture limits, over three times the square footage, is in a much better location (it's a freestanding booth in the middle of the expo), and allows the owner the buy twice as many extra prims and textures. 2. So that people could put their stalls together early, I sent out copies of all the booths to the group. I made them full perm for convenience -- you know, in case people wanted to rename them or they had one too many prims for the land or whatever. It didn't even occur to me to send out a note saying that you wouldn't actually be able to modify the build. 3. Yeah, the expo build looked pretty bad last year. This year, too. (Name Redacted's partner sent me an IM with questions, saying to contact her with the answers.) [2008/09/28 13:57] Miriel Enfield: You cannot build your own booth. However, you can add walls, a floor, and a ceiling to the existing booth if you want, and you can build higher than the 9m walls. Since you have a freestanding booth, you can also place signs with your business name on the outside walls. [2008/09/28 13:57] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later. [2008/09/29 7:00] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 04:42:36 2008) Hi Miriel, thanks for your replies. I think we may have a minor problem if I'm not allowed to rexture the inside of the booth. My build relies upon the walls being glass, at least from the inside. I'm not so fussed if the outside walls are glass or not, but the inside needs to be to be in keeping with the themes of my jewellery, and the expo. I have a very low pixel glass texture which I was going to line the inner walls of the booth with. Perhaps you'd like to come over and see the build - I've not finished all the textures yet, but the majority are done. If I can't retexture the booth walls we have a problem as the build just won't work - there was nothing in any of the many lists of rules and FAQ's that informed us that we couldn't, and as you sent out booths full perm, I presumed we'd be able to. I am away from ... midday GMT on Wednesday (4am SLT) so I think we need to resolve this as a matter of some urgency. Many thanks again for your help [2008/09/29 7:07] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry you thought that (it's not included in the rules because nobody ever assumed it before) and that it interferes with your plans for your booth, but I can't grant you the ability to modify the build itself. If I do it for you, I have to do it for everyone, and there's a massive potential for trouble there. Even if nobody acts maliciously and everyone perfectly understands and follows the rules, there's a possibility of things getting accidentally moved, deleted, retextured, etc. -- Instant message logging enabled -- [7:30] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 07:22:47 2008) Miriel - you sent out modifyable booths. I have spoken to some of the other sponsored booth creators and they all assumed, like me, that we could modify the build, otherwise you'd have sent them no mod. I know at least one other person had intended the walls of her booth to be glass. I appreciate that allowing everyone the ability to mod their booths would be fraught with potential problems, but those of us who have basically paid for the expo should be afforded at least some privelidges surely? It would be entirely reasonable to allow us modify rights for a few hours, and then revoke them. [7:30] Name Redacted: (Saved Mon Sep 29 07:25:25 2008) I very much appreciate the amount of work you have done for the expo, and have not complained about the restrictions - I understand the reason for limiting texture size and have happily worked around that. However, there is no good reason to not allow C booth sponsors the ability to mod at least the interior of their booths. it would be minimal work for yourself - granting and then revoking rights. [7:41] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry that you and some others misunderstood. I made the booths mod for convenience, and I honestly hadn't thought that people would get that impression. I should have been clearer, and it's a mistake I won't repeat next year. :/ However, like I said, if I grant modify rights to you, I have to give them to everyone. People who were unaware that this was allowed (because it wasn't) could feel cheated. A bigger issue is the fact that granting everyone rights just isn't feasible for me. We have a lot of vendors and not everyone can be on at the same time. Modify permissions would have to be enabled for far longer than a few hours. As for privileges, that's what your extra prims, pixels, and space are, as well as your better location. Again, I'm sorry this was unclear, but the answer is and will remain no. [7:52] Name Redacted: I am trying to carefully word my reply as I have no desire to offend you. I have utmost respect for you as a designer and for organising the expo. However, you don't have to give modify rights to everyone - those who have paid large amounts of money, and are basically funding the expo, have BOUGHT the right to some priviledges others that have paid only 100L do not have. I appreciate that last years expo was apparently a success, and why change a working formula - but with all things, there is always something that can be improved upon. I'd not started making jewellery last year, and I'll be frank, I thought the expo was visually very poor. I didn't buy anything there. I am asking for 4 people to be allowed rights to modify the interior walls of their excruciatingly expensive booths. In the grand scheme of things it's a small ask. Remember, if our booths look good, you look good. [8:01] Name Redacted: In fact, it had been my intention, in my build, to prove to the others who have been complaining, that it's easily possible to make an outstanding display within your restrictions.... [8:09] Miriel Enfield: I'm sorry, I had to AFK. [8:11] Miriel Enfield: It wouldn't be just four booths. There are ten sponsor booths, in fact; the people in the other six also paid a lot of money. Again, though, you already have bought privileges. Your extra prims, pixels, and space, and better locations, are your privileges. [8:12] Name Redacted: Has anyone ever told you in RL that your inflexibility is not one of your best features? [8:12] Name Redacted: :-) [8:13] Name Redacted: 10 people is still not very many. [8:14] Name Redacted: And, whilst I'm sure it feels like it, I very much doubt that the whole expo will fall apart if you stop controlling every single minute detail of it [8:22] Miriel Enfield: I said no and I gave my reasons. I can't just go making new benefits for sponsor booths at this point; that's not fair to people who may have bid, had they known they'd get mod rights. I can talk about build modification in the meetings for next year, but I'm not going to go changing the rules for this year's expo at this point in time. If you're that upset about it, I can refund you your booth bid (but not your L$100, that's nonrefundable) and give your slot to someone else. Otherwise, I'd appreciate it if you dropped the subject. (This came later: not the timestamp.) [9:20] Name Redacted: May I just check, before I do anything else - are there any other "rules" you have forgotton to tell us? If I build within what you have said so far am i safe? [9:25] Miriel Enfield: For the record, I didn't forget; it just didn't occur to me. And you should be fine. Serious question: was I being unreasonable? I've considered it and I don't think I was, but I trust you guys.