Thursday, October 2, 2008

An idea for any SL property owners at loose ends.

I don't own any land in SL, a fact that is unlikely to change barring a massive influx of cash in my near future. So every once in a while I get these ideas that I'm entirely unable to capitalize upon due to the fact of my holding a free SL account.

So, rather than piss and moan, I thought I'd throw it out there in the hopes that someone with the necessary resources will read it and be inspired. If they want to erect a statue in my honor as well, I'll not object.

Buuuut seriously folks, my idea is modelled upon the concept of the gentlmens' club. No, not the modern use of the term, as abused by many a strip joint in both Second Life and reality, but rather the sort of place one would find in Victorian London, like the Diogenes Club in Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The concept is of a place of comfort and sociability, where creativity and intelligent discussion are encouraged.

Of course, changes to the original idea would have to be made. For starters, the idea of an exclusive "gentlemens' club" fails entirely on its own merits in the 21st Century, and becomes entirely ludicrous in SL, where gender can be switched with the click of a check box in the appearance menu. I'll leave the concepts of dress codes and appropriate club dues as an exercise for prospective builders.

The club would have several rooms or sections, each providing for the specific needs of members and their guests. The following are what I would consider the "must-have" areas if I were building the place:

Sandbox: Well, it wouldn't be much of a place for encouraging creativity if it didn't have a sandbox for member builders. Members that abuse priveliges here (use of weapons, harassment, malicious scripts, you know the drill) would find themselves barred from the club and its grounds. As members are responsible for the behavior of guests, ejection of the former may apply for the misbehavior of the latter. I bring it up here because if there's trouble in any part of a sim, it's most likely to happen in that sim's sandbox.

Gardens: A place for a casual stroll to admire the virtual foliage and hopefully the artworks of contributing members. Perhaps a contribution of art to the gardens could be presented in lieu of dues for an established period.

Library: You know that I was going to get around to this one. There's a decent template for SL books available in the Kowloon sim (I'll post the slurl for it when I get home), and the public domain is full of interesting reading material. The library would have a number of these books available upon touching a bookshelf (and probably bringing up a menu so that one doesn't find one's inventory stuffed with unwanted reading material). Given the expense implied in the uploading of an entire novel (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, for example, would cost 2870 lindens to upload page-by-page), as with the gardens, perhaps a break could be given in dues for the contribution of a book.

Salon: The club's social hub. Here would members meet and greet both informally and as part of pre-planned events (coordinate a book club along with contributions to the library?).

Lounge: The club's anti-social hub. Taking a cue once again from Mycroft Holmes' Diogenes Club, members ensconced in here are forbidden by club rules to communicate in chat. Individuals would then be free to deal with IMs, or other pursuits that require a moment's peace and lack of disturbance, such as cleaning out one's inventory.

Well, those are the barest bones of the idea. Hopefully somebody can take and run with it, assuming somebody hasn't done so already and I just haven't had the privelige of stumbling across it yet when I've ventured out into the metaverse.

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