Problem solving …
Katharine – if you are now back from your trip to LL then I will email you personally to see if we can resolve the issues that led you to want to leave Schome Park – cos as I said elsewhere, anyone leaving the Schome community for negative reasons feels like a failure to me.

I sincerely believe that any problem can be resolved if people can:
a) agree that there is a problem
b) agree what the problem(s) is/are
c) recognise other people’s perspectives and concerns (which may well be different to their own)
d) genuinely work together to try to solve the problem(s)

Where things go wrong is where we focus on the people or personalities involved rather than on the problem itself.

Publicity …
The issue of publicity is a red herring IMHO – the thread that kicked this all off was one that I started in the forum in which I suggested that it might be a good idea if we explored the possibility of folk in Schome Park developing scripts for folk on the Main Grid – the stimulus for this was a scrip that someone developed that I thought lots of folk on the Main Grid would find useful – and a desire to provide a focus for scripting talent within the community which met real needs of other people in the wider world. The element of publicity would have been a welcome side effect – but certainly not a driving motivation. Authentic contexts for engaging in real purposeful activity which might enhance learning and collaboration was the key driver. As I am sure everyone would agree there was a need to up the level of focussed educational activities on Schome Park towards the end of the summer recess!

Censorship …
On the issue of censorship – the guidance that I give to moderators of the wiki and forum is to take action in relation to messages/content that are in breach of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). The AUP, which you can read at http://schome.open.ac.uk/wikiworks/index.php/Schome_Park_Acceptable_Use_Policy, does not say anything about criticism not being allowed – indeed one of the things we actively encourage people to do in the schome community is to constructively criticise things and behaviours. We do discourage folk from criticising people – though again I would prefer us to respond to this by explaining why it is inappropriate and ineffective, and by modelling alternative and more productive ways of making criticisms rather than by deleting material. Now I cannot claim that we don’t sometime overstep the mark and/or are not sometimes a little too paranoid when it comes to child protection – we all make mistakes. I think that making mistakes is unavoidable, and is a good thing so long as you learn from them …
(Ok so I know that we haven’t learnt not to be paranoid about child protection – I guess the consequences of something going wrong on that front are too serious to ignore).

Blimey – I have rabbited on a bit haven’t I. I’ll be in touch with you via email K. – very much hope we can move forward positively together to sort out this mess.

PeterT

We might find it necessary to censor things as they may be breaking the AUP and could create negative publicity if they were left on view.

Congratulations for actually admitting that you censor criticism. Removing negative statements will simply hide the bad publicity until it’s placed somewhere you can’t control it. I could, for instance, lock comments on these posts and delete everything any of you said (not that I would).

I never said it was an “honour” to have me there looking around. I did say that I suspect that the only reason I was invited was so that I would retract previous statements that I had made. Although the experience just reinforced them.

If you want people to not be critical when pointing out flaws, I advise that you all be a touch less sensitive to criticism.

And you posted this on the wrong post. If comments are closed, it’s because they aren’t wanted any more. Not because I want them in the wrong place.

Additionally the Machinima group encourages ALL Schomers/SParkers to work and to be involved in film making. There is plenty of creative work to do, e.g. making of props, sets and even acting. So, we do not hang about as we are busy

Pigment is always there between 17.00 – 19.00 to teach photography and machinima.

It would be nice to have more students

Come September we will be having a recruitment drive – wanting to increase the number of registered users of Schome Park to around 400 (we think that will give us a sufficient core of users to provide the sort of buzz that is necessary for an island – nothing worse than an island with one or two people on it). As the recruitment drive kicks in we will be increasing the level of staffing and of focussed activities. Staff are using the time during the recess to plan activities and prepare resources.

As for me (PeterT) “wondering off and only popping in once per fortnight” – Schome Park (ie going in-world) is one part of working on the Schome Park Project. The wiki and forum are equally important elements in the project – as discussed in the schome-NAGTY Teen Second Life Pilot Final Report. On any large project it is quite normal for staff to take responsibility for specific aspects of the work. As the director of the project my main jobs are to do with the project’s direction and coordination, ethics and child protection, staffing issues, fund raising, and research. Day to day in-world support is not part of my remit – nor is moderation of the wiki or forum (there are other staff with responsibility for these aspects of the project). However, I do think it is important that I keep in touch with what is happening which is why I spend as much time as I do in the forum – and using the wiki and coming in-world when I can.

So – you can expect to see a major increase in activity both in terms of numbers of participants and ‘organised events’ come the end of the summer recess. However, being realistic I don’t expect that I will be spending more time in-world (much as I would like to).

See http://www.schome.ac.uk/ for more info on Schome and the Schome Park Project.

though, I must admit, we have moved away somewhat from the topics of archology, phyiscs and philosophy, and moved onto more ‘vague’ elements; the A.I. Emporium, Bright SParks.

but, alas, PeterT wonders off and only pops up once a fortnight, until he hides again, looking for funding or more ways to promote Schome.

so, I concur with Faz; there is no reason to promote Schome if it’s going to be little more then a hang-out.

by the by, however, I must thank you for your excellent work on the bots!

Ta de ta

-Hapno

Who knows – maybe we could find a way to give you access to Schome Park itself if you wanted to find out what we are really getting up to…

Surely you would just have to add me to the access list, seeing as I’m on the same grid as the sims (if not the people on the sims… depends how recently it was all set up there.). Although I suppose there’s probably a legal mess involved that says “No.”

As for joining your forums… fine. :p