[info] [croquet-dev] Croquet meeting place

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Janet Plato <techgrrl at gmail.com> -----

From: Janet Plato <techgrrl at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:55:19 -0600
To: croquet-dev at duke.edu, David Faught <dave.faught at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [croquet-dev] Croquet meeting place
Reply-To: croquet-dev at duke.edu, Janet Plato <techgrrl at gmail.com>

It has not been my experience that this world is stable or documented.
 I am not trying to sound negative, but I come into this without
understanding the paradigms and metaphors used in this space, and
being somewhat overwhelmed with where to get started.  I strongly
suspect many artists, engineers and world builders exist, but are in a
similiar state of ignorance.

I think that when a project is below a critical mass, having a stable
place to catch the attention of folks who pass by adds some value,
even if it's mostly unused.  I would have been incredibly thrilled to
attach to an empty world with a bill board covered in post-it notes
pointing me to other worlds and other folks current projects.  Think
of google, and then think "how could I make a google like service
using the croquet paradigms"  Think of all the getting started
documents, and then ask "how do I make the getting started documents
on the web point to "installation and connecting" documents, and
moving the rest of it into the world so people will go into the worlds
and get used to doing things there.

Use croquet to teach croquet.

Every time I see something on the web about croquet, there is a reason
I cannot participate, which leads me to conclude other folks are in
the same position.  I see the arts metaverse project and think,
WOW!!!! but then I cannot connect to it, cannot get the datasets used
to make it and cannot get a reply from the folks who did it.

I have a day job, and have been unable to attend the last two meetings
in qwak space. I suspect for most of the people doing this, it's just
a day job.  This whole thing kind of feels like it's mostly about
someone milking the concept for a job or research grant.  I know that
cannot be true because 20 people were in the IRC channel once I found
it....  but imagine if those 20 people were in a croquet world making
new avatars, or writing how-to and read-me articles.

A lot of people want to help, we just have to show them how.

Cheers,

Janet


On Dec 12, 2007 8:25 AM, David Faught <dave.faught at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/10/07, Matthew Fulmer <tapplek at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 02:50:49PM -0600, Janet Plato wrote:
> > > Mailing lists are relatively slow.  I think people need to be able to
> > > download the SDK and connect to a place to go and hang out with other
> > > users in order for a community support network to develop.  IMO, that
> > > support network and community will greatly accelerate world building.
> >
> > On irc.freenode.net, we of the #squeak channel get quite a few
> > questions about croquet, but are never able to answer them.
> > There is a #croquet channel, but there is not often anyone with
> > actual croquet experience in there to help newbies out. I think
> > you could have good discussions via IRC for now. Many projects
> > use IRC very successfully.
> >
> > It doesn't sound like there is a single place to go meet croquet
> > people, and so I often have nowhere to send croquet admirers who
> > come into #squeak (and nowhere to hang out myself) regarding
> > croquet.  IRC would be great until there is a better place to
> > meet croquet people (like the croquet consortium server or an SL
> > island)
>
> The Croquet Collaborative server was, I think, intended to be a place
> like this.  It is still available, and reasonably stable.  There are
> several Croquet-ers that have published their contact information on
> Second Life, although it might be nice to have such a directory
> somewhere (is there one in Second Life?)
>
> At one time, the UMN Croquet Team offered free accounts on its Jabber
> server (I believe this is no longer the case) in order to facilitate
> in-Croquet communication with other external channels.  As I recall,
> they had very few takers and little Croquet activity on the server.
> It seems that a lot of the Croquet community would rather work on
> their projects than talk about them, which seems a little odd for an
> environment whose main claim to fame is collaboration.
>
> Dave
>

----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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