This document was written prior to changes enacted by Linden Lab, and prior to my stepping down from an organisational role within SL5B. Do note that SL4B was planned 5 months before the launch, SL5B was planned 3 days before the end of SL5B, and though at the current time I am unsure as to my participation in SL6B, this document is an indication of a 13-month head start on organisational efforts (though over the last 11 months, events all the way up to SLXB (10th Birthday) had been discussed)
The ad-hoc process was chosen out of necessity last year, and mostly worked as the layout was already pre-defined (content sorted by year of origin).
The application process was chosen this year due to the “Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life” theme- e.g. we wouldn’t be able to say with any certainty how to arrange exhibits till after we received them. If we’d decided what cultures go where before we’d known the level of interest, we’d have problems with sims being rather empty, or needing to add another sim on the other side of the estate so one culture is in two completely different places on the map.
In theory, the application process works as it allows us to work on infrastructure, while still allowing some degree in flexibility with regards to layout. However, we are holding up any build work until *every* application is reviewed.
What I’m proposing for next year (assuming that the cultural theme works, but the application process doesn’t), is to combine the best of both worlds:
“Ad-hoc exhibit layout without being locked into a particular sim arrangement”
The premise: request X amount of sims early on (e.g. February/March) in a layout where they are close together, but none of the sim edges touch (e.g. in a diagonally adjacent layout)- except for perhaps any main 4-corner/ 2-edge sims which will need adjacent sims before hand.
Each sim is assigned 1 culture to it. As more cultures are requested, more sims can be added in the diagonal pattern.
With regards to infrastructure builds (e.g. roads), they’d be constructed so the terminating points (at sim edges) are placed in identical places on all sims, but the route they take throughout the sims is either identical or completely different- this will either give us a grid layout to the roads through the estate, or a seemingly random, organic route through the estate. Since all the terminating points of the roads are in the same place, no additional work on the roads would need to be done when it comes to the next step.
“Rearranging sims”
When it comes to around late May/early June, the layout will become “fixed”, based on the level of interest in each sim. If a sim is mostly empty, the builders will be asked to package up their builds and consolidate several cultures in a single sim (or spread them out further and have more interesting terrain/supplementary infrastructure content). We would then contact the land team, sending them the finalised sim layout (as well as any name changes).
Assuming that the final sim layout was sent off to the land team on June 1st, this would give them 1 or 2 weeks to re-arrange the sims and have all sub-systems (and 3rd party ones) catch up with the re-arrangement (in-world map, out of world map, generated map images etc).
“Final Note”
The application process was delayed this year due to 3rd party technical hitches (e.g. my computer being out of commission for most of Q1 2008). The hybrid technique of “ad-hoc per sim for each culture” + “estate re-arrangement” would seem to be the most effective solution for continuing the “Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life” theme if it’s decided the application process is too much of a hassle to re-use next year.
