The Chilbo Road Press

New video about joining Chilbo posted on YouTube and playing in the Town Hall Annex! If you have friends who are curious about how to join Chilbo, point them to this resource! If they’re still interested, they can click the “Join the Community” link on our website to complete the Membership Application.

Thanks to all the residents of Chilbo who appeared in the video (in order of appearance): Rachel Corleone, Babel Ballinger, Fumon Kubo, GrandmasterFoo Woodget, Wainbrave Bernal, Scalar Tardis, Taffy Taliagferro, Ra Deemster, Tara Yeats, Zanthany Tuppakaka, Cosimo Urbanowicz, Emru Rau, Lizzette Zenovka, Telmea Story, Alleara Snoodle, Monarchy Republic, Malburns Writer, Tommy Brouwer, and Corcosman Voom!

(If I missed someone, let me know!)

Violetta Leshelle and Olando7 Decosta are building a living&meeting space in the far away Noru sim. The land is part of Greater Chilbo.

Right now you will find at Noru a box with the invitation for a French language virtual law seminar in Second Life, and if that is not weird enough, also a plane wreck.

The plane crashed nearby the main building without causing fatalities. No bodies were found and it remains a mystery who the pilots were.

Maybe you can find out? Visit the crash scene and tell the true story of what happened! More pictures are available on Flickr…

a plane wreck nearby the main building of the noru meeting place

In attendance: Fleep Tuque, Ryan Snook, Alleara Snoodle, Rachel Corleone, Lizette Zenovka, Corcosman Voom, Gann McGann, Margarette Fouroux, Tara Yeats, Skyeranger Pinion, Olando7 Decosta, Emru Rau, Tommy Brouwer, Valentino Tendaze, Gem Blue, Ra Deemster, and Jeff Kurka

New attendees: Johnfx Falta, Andabata Mandelbrot, Zil Lutrova, Rubaiyat Shatner, Celestiall Nightfire, Vrider Dancer, Violetta LeShelle

Welcome new members!

Please send a friend request and introduce yourself to some of Chilbo’s newest residents:  Johnfx Falta, Andabata Mandelbrot, Zil Lutrova, Rubaiyat Shatner, Celestiall Nightfire, Vrider Dancer, Violetta LeShelle, Peter Rojyo, Annie Pond, and Bud Budan.  (Whew, lots of new folks!)

Great Twitter Experiment

The Twitter experiment continues with much success, many folks are now using the Chilbo Public Twitter stations to report on news from around the sim.  To use, it’s very simple!  Just type “/285 <your message>” when you’re near a Twitter station in Chilbo, and your message gets automatically posted to the Chilbo Road Press and to the Chilbo Twitter account!  If you want a station installed near your location, please let Fleep know and she’ll set one up for you.

New Resident Welcome – Celestiall Nightfire

Please welcome Celestiall Nightfire, who recently won an auction on a plot down in Madhupak, just south of the laboratories.  Celestiall already has a gorgeous home up and is interested in learning more about OpenSim and other projects in the community.

Education Village Officially Opens

Education chair Gann McGann is now ready to open up the newly revamped Education Village in the south of Madhupak (replaces the Connectivism Village/old fair grounds).  The intent is to cluster people and projects involved in education to help folks get to know each other better and collaborate where possible.  Homes, offices, and project space is available, please contact Gann McGann for  more info or complete the Chilbo Land Use Application if you’ve found  spot you want!

Chilbo Has a Bot!  Meet Chilbo Sweetwater

If you’ve visited the Town Hall Plaza lately, you might have noticed our town mascot, Chilbo Sweetwater, hopping around waving a Chilbo flag.   (Thanks for the flag Tara!)   Fleep is attempting to learn more about how bots work and invites anyone who is interested in playing with the bot to let her know.  We have a first test use-case planned – an exhibit of Ryan Snook‘s amazing avatar work!    Douglas Story will be working with Ryan to coordinate an exhibit planned for the future (spring?  summer?) and resident Wainbrave Bernal is interested in teaming up with the group to do some sort of cryptid-zoology hunt.  What’s that?  Ask Wainbrave for more info!  It will tie in with the opening of his new Lab & Grill down in the Education Village.

Chilbo OpenSim Project

Fleep Tuque and several other residents are interested in learning more about the OpenSim software and emerging grids.  There is a workshop/class being offered about OpenSim on January 22nd, anyone who is interested in OpenSim is invited to attend!  Rubaiyat Shatner already has an OpenSim installation going with Ars Virtua, and you can fill out an application to check out their sim.  More info to come on the Chilbo OpenSim initiative as we get this ball rolling…

Chilbo Expands to Noru Sim

Residents Olando7 Decosta and Violetta LeShelle have recently purchased a large plot of land on the north end of the Noru sim – two sims north of Chilbo!   This effectively expands the borders of the Chilbo Community by quite a lot!  Congrats to Olando and Violetta, we’ll all look forward to visiting your new space when it’s ready.

SL HIV Education & Prevention Center Continues to Draw Traffic

Resident Lizzette Zenovka reports that the SL HIV Center continues to draw good traffic down in the Madhupak sim.  She’s also continuing to work on her recent expansion into other sims to help spread the word and good public health information about HIV prevention to Second Life residents.  Great job Liz!

Chilbo Community Home Opens

Resident Alleara Snoodle reports on the creation of the new Chilbo Community Home.  This new residence will be available for any member of the Chilbo group to set their home location, and is envisioned to be a great place for new residents to start out in Chilbo until they decide where to settle longer-term.  In addition, folks who have claimed a newbie home but seem to log in rarely will be offered the opportunity to relocate their home location to the new Community Home so they can continue to have a Chilbo home base.  Alleara will be organizing a party to deck the place out and decorate, so stay tuned!

The Crash House Jazz/Indie/Live Music Venue To Open in Chilbo

New resident Johnfx Falta is bringing live music to Chilbo!  He’s been searching for a good place to locate his new music venture, and after searching Second Life for a new home, he discovered Chilbo and felt like it had a good vibe for the kinds of music he hopes to bring to SL residents.  The Crash House will feature an eclectic mix of modern jazz, latin, bossa nova, DJs, vocals, pop, folk, and more!  John hopes it will become a comfortable place for musicians to hang out, noodle around, and for Second Life residents to hear great tunes.  Welcome to Chilbo, John!  Looking forward to the opening!

Policy Question:  Height Zoning Regulations?

Neighbor Peter Rojyo brought up the topic of regulating the height of buildings in the community, and a brief discussion was held.  There seemed to be a general consensus that two stories fit well into the community aesthetic, but taller buildings might need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  This topic was tabled for more discussion at the next Town Hall, if anyone has thoughts or concerns, we hope to hear them at the next meeting!

New Art Gallery Comes to Chilbo – Louisiana Style!

Resident Margarette Fouroux recently expanded her project space on the west side of Chilbo and has opened a new art gallery and studio featuring artists from Louisiana and the surrounding area.   Artistes de la Louisiane dans Chilbo! is now open to the public, the current exhibit features the work of by Dan Johnston from Covington, LA.  Please stop by to visit and congratulations to Margarette on the opening!

…

Following a visit to the new locations, the meeting was adjourned at 12:30PM SLT.  Full transcript of the meeting is available in the Chilbo Town Hall.

Next Town Hall meeting:  Saturday, February 14th at 11AM SLT

The results are in! Check out the slideshow to see aggregate information about the Chilbo Community, including:

• What’s the population of Chilbo?
• What’s our Second Life use/experience profile?
• How active in the community are Chilbo residents?
• What types of activities and spaces do we want to see MORE of in Chilbo?
• How do we feel about Chilbo?

The survey results were the main topic of conversation at the December Town Hall.  More notes on the Town Hall to be posted soon!

Visitors to Chilbo can now view a quick two-minute video that gives a nice overview of the Chillbo Community. Many thanks to Douglas Story and SkyeRanger Pinion for their assistance creating the video! The movie plays in the new Town Hall Annex in-world. Next up, a video about joining the community!

On Saturday, November 15, 2008, Fleep made a presentation about “The Women of Chilbo” at the Virtual Praxis: Women’s Community in Second Life conference. You can hear a pre-recorded audio of the presentation or view/download the slides at Slideshare.net.

Many thanks to everyone who came to the talk, and to all the women (and men!) of Chilbo, who make the community what it is.

Screaming 3D Bootstrapper Fleep Tuque reports from the Chilbo Community Garden about efforts in the metaverse to address the Ravenous Superthreat.

Responding to a request from young farmers who needed a 3D space for teaching farming and food production skills, the Chilbo Community created a virtual location for farmers anywhere to share their knowledge.   Of special note, the Chilbo Community Garden is open to all, especially those in ReDS quarantined areas.

Chilbo Town Hall – November 2008

In Attendance: Monarchy Republic, Gem Blue, Fleep Tuque, Leslie Forager, Malburns Writer, Alleara Snoodle, Tara Yeats, Tommy Brouwer, Margarette Fouroux, Economic Mip, Sine Rennahan, Corcosman Voom, Lizzette Zenovka, Emru Rau, Rachel Corleone, Kim Link, Dno Vale, Ra Deemster, Telmea Story

1.  Welcome new members! Please friend new residents and first time Town Hall attendees:  Telmea Story, Sine Rennahan, and Leslie Forager

2.  Reminder – All Chilbo residents should complete the annual Chilbo Resident Census Survey 2008 located at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxfHtk1IccQ5Jg&hl=en

We will be reclaiming community property currently in use by residents who do not complete the census by December 13, 2008.

3.  Community Resource Management – Committee System

Folks were a little overwhelmed with the graphics from the last meeting, so Fleep broke things down into smaller bite size chunks for easier digestion. 

Chilbo Executive Committee posters in the Chilbo Town Hall
It was determined that the best way to begin implementing the new committee system for managing community resources is to have members of the community volunteer for the committees they are interested in, and then each committee will meet prior to the December 13, 2008 Town Hall to determine the Committee Chair for that group.   The Committee Chairs will serve a term of 6 months, at which point we will revisit the issue and determine how to proceed.

To volunteer for a committee, visit:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxeW73gUwPzwUw&hl=en

More information will be forthcoming about when the committees will meet for the first time, but the committees should meet and determine who will chair the committee prior to the December 13, 2008 Town Hall meeting.

Also, three other executive positions have been filled to assist with the overall management of the community.  These positions were appointed by Fleep Tuque, and will serve an indefinite term.

- Rachel Corleone, Director of Prim Management & Public Safety
- Malburns Writer, Director of Communications
- Tara Yeats, Director of Technology

These folks are available to assist the committees with planning, publicizing, and organizing their work.  Thank you to Rachel, Malburns, and Tara for volunteering!

Tommy Brouwer will also continue to serve as the European Ambassador for Chilbo, and if anyone is interested in serving as an Asian, South American, or African Ambassador, please contact Fleep Tuque.   The Ambassadors are simply good will agents to help welcome new Chilbo residents from these Real Life geographical areas.  Due to language, time, and cultural differences, we want to ensure that everyone feels welcome in Chilbo.  Please consider volunteering if you live in one of these places!

4.  Announcements/Other Business

- Fleep Tuque will be giving a talk about the “Women of Chilbo” at an upcoming conference on Saturday, November 15, 2008.  Anyone is invited to attend, and more information about the “Virtual Praxis: A Conference on Women’s Community in Second Life” can be found at:  http://events.jvwresearch.org/?p=49

- Gem Blue continues her experiment with the Time Wall in the Soyeonpyeongdo sim.  She has identified a bug in her time graphing tool and is continuing to debug it, and invites anyone who is willing to be a guinea pig for her testing to let her know.  (The Time Wall simply tracks the hours you spend in Second Life, it’s quite interesting to see how often you are logged in!)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soyeonpyeongdo/13/240/121

Corcosman Voom curates a new exhibit in the Chilbo Museum Center

- Corcosman Voom invites the community to check out current exhibit in the Chilbo Museum Center.  There are several new artists represented in the exhibit, with a number of gorgeous new pieces.  Check it out!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Chilbo/128/19/96

- Tara Yeats is about to have several rentals available in the Mangyeong sim, these could be either residential or commercial spaces.  If you know anyone looking for a rental, please contact Tara for more information.

- Lizzette Zenovka announced that she has had over 100 visitors to the SL HIV Education & Prevention Center in the past two months!  Rachel believes the Center might be one of the most active installations in Chilbo.  Congrats to Liz on this terrific milestone!   Liz has also opened a new Annex to the center in another sim, you can find more information about that at the main center in Chilbo (Madhupak sim).  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Madhupak/44/201/90

5.  Additions, Expansions, & New Developments in Chilbo

Following the meeting, we visited two new developments in Chilbo.

Visiting Tommy Brouwer’s new Industrial Area in the Mindulle Sim

- Tommy Brouwer is in the process of creating a new Industrial Area in the Mindulle sim, including a new theatre and bar area, and a new store.   The decor is quite gorgeous and we look forward to hanging out in the new theatre and bar!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mindulle/102/24/113

Residents visiting Sine Rennahan’s new Nature Preserve area in Mujigae
- Sine Rennahan has purchased a largish plot in the NE corner of the Mujigae sim to develop a presence for the Arc of Appalachia Nature Preserve – http://www.highlandssanctuary.org/.   They are building a new museum for the center in Real Life and hope to model the facility in Second Life, as well as provide information and resources for those interested in nature and wildlife education, preserving the last temperate broadleaf forrest in North America, and living an ecologically sustainable life.  Congratulations to Sine for this exciting purchase!  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mujigae/221/185/139

Meeting adjourned.

NEXT TOWN HALL:  Saturday, December 13, 2008 @ 11AM SLT

(A complete transcript of the meeting is available in the Town Hall.)

Meeting Summary for October 18, 2008

In Attendance:  Fleep Tuque, Foxnsane Ceawlin, Tara Yeats, Gem Blue, Malburns Writer, Babel Ballinger, Corcosman Voom, Alleara Snoodle, Economic Mip, Rachel Corleone, Oronoque Westland, Jez Braveheart, Birdie Newcomb, Tommy Brouwer, Krystale Bailey, Emru Rau, Gann McGann, Dno Vale, Valentino Tendaze, Lizzette Zenovka

Fleep Tuque gave a speech on the 2nd Anniversary of the beginning of Chilbo. In the speech, she discussed the tremendous progress Chilbo has made in the last year, nearly doubling the land holdings of the CCBP group, doubling the number of members, added a large public meeting space and a number of public resources and infrastructure projects like the sidewalk megaprims, increased tier contributions,  increased the number of community events and synchronous meetings, and held more Town Halls this year than we did in the first year.

Given this tremendous growth, Fleep laid out a vision for the community and suggests that in 2009, growth should not be the top priority, but rather we should focus on capitalizing on the resources Chilbo already has – great people, generous land and prim resources, and the capacity to work together to do good things, for ourselves, for the people who visit us, for Second Life, and for the real world.

To that end, she shared the results of the Chilbo Community Building Project 2008 Annual Land Census. The total square meters of land owned by the group nearly doubled to 80,448.  In terms of prim use, 23% is Residential, 19% is educational, 16% is Community Service, 13% is Art, Music, or Entertainment, 11% is Parkland or Unused, 9% is Commercial, and 9% is Public Infrastructure.  She also shared comparison charts with 2007 data showing the growth and allocation of prims and land.

In addition, the rapid growth of the community – both in terms of land and people – has resulted in an increasingly complex workload to manage all of the resources of the community.  Fleep proposed a committee structure to help engage more residents in the decision making processes and resource management tasks associated with running the Chilbo community. She provided a proposed organization structure and a workflow process diagram to delineate areas of responsibility and tasks associated with several key components of running Chilbo.

These documents are all available on the Chilbo wiki at http://chilbo.wikispaces.com and the community is asked to provide comments and suggestions prior to the next Town Hall Meeting scheduled for November 8, 2008 @ 11AM SLT.

Fleep has a draft prepared for the Chilbo Community Building Project 2008 Resident Census located at http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pHSojRbSnGxfHtk1IccQ5Jg&hl=en – please review and send any suggestions or comments to Fleep.  Survey will go out in a few weeks, anyone who doesn’t respond in a reasonable time period will be removed from any community property they are using.  Exceptions for folks on vacation, having health issues, etc. will of course be considered.

Gem Blue announced the creation of her Time Wall beta project, in which she has created boards that track a person’s time spent in Second Life in a visual form.  Anyone interested in participating in the beta should contact her, and you can visit the Time Wall at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soyeonpyeongdo/20/244/86

Full transcript and meeting notes have been sent to the group and are archived in the Chilbo Town Hall.

Following the end of the very successful Chilbo Summer Fair, we said goodbye to the Ferris Wheel and fabulous rides, artworks, and projects and made way for a new three month project in Chilbo.

Connectivism Village in Chilbo

The Main Gate of the Connectivism Village down in the south Madhupak area of Chilbo.

This month marks the start of the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course, a Massively Online Open Course.  From the course info:

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens (SL: Whatever Russel) and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge – will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course. The course will run from September 7, 2008 to November 29, 2008 and will be fully delivered online.

Over 2000 participants from around the world have signed on to take part, and several members of the Chilbo community are fellow students, including Gann McGann,  Olando7 Decosta, Samuel Sputnik, Sine Rennahan, Tara Yeats, and Wainbrave Bernal.  The Chilbo Community is hosting the Second Life cohort of the class, and Cosimo Urbanowicz has also joined some of the early discussions and helped with the construction of the Connectivism Village down in Madhupak.

SL Cohort Wiki: http://chilbo.wikispaces.com/Connectivism+Course+in+Chilbo
SL Cohort Googlegroup: http://groups.google.com/group/connectivismSL
SL Cohort Tag: CCK08SL

Second Life Cohort Weekly Meeting Times:
Tuesdays at 11AM SLT (-7GMT)
Thursdays at 6PM SLT (-7GMT)
Sundays at 5PM SLT (-7GMT)

Purpose of the Connectivism Village

Initially, the impulse was simply to see if other students in the course who also had Second Life accounts were interested in meeting weekly in-world to discuss the Connectivism course.  Though there are many communications tools used as part of the course structure, I’ve begun to feel I haven’t really “met” someone until I’ve “seen” them – even if that meeting and seeing takes place in avatar form.  Psychologically, it seems as if I don’t feel the same level of engagement with another person through their blogs, tweets, or discussion board posts unless I’ve “met” them first, and I was interested in meeting other students in the class.

Thursday is ladies night?  Members of the Connectivism course discuss the first week in Chilbo’s Shrubbery Amphitheatre.

But as I began to read more about Connectivism, I started to think that it might contain concepts that could be better visualized in 3D, and for SL building, the Second Life cohort would need land and prims.  After talking with folks in the community, we cleared up the Fairgrounds area and made room for a temporary Connectivism Village project that would last three months and house members of the course who needed a home base in Second Life.

Small mini-homes and offices are available for members of the Second Life Cohort of the Connectivism course for the duration of the class time.  Some students are interested in finding roomates!

The Fairgrounds area is also large enough to host some central facilities and resources for the course, to help make sense of the plethora of web based feeds, tools, readings, and course media.  The Connectivism Second Life Cohort Office will simplify the process of folks joining the cohort, and the Connectivism Reading Room contains all of the assigned weekly readings and some introductory materials for the course.

The Connectivism Reading Room can help students visualize course readings and discussion archives, as well as provide a place to discuss readings ad hoc through the week.

The Connectivism Course Tools Sundae Shop is a whimsical take on the somewhat overwhelming nature of the course structure.  With several websites, communication mediums, RSS feeds, and course emails, Moodle forums, Facebook, and on and on, it’s a little rough trying to figure out which tools will work for your particular needs.  The Sundae Shop is a metaphor for taking the flavors you like and sampling some of the others, not putting every choice on the sundae!

The “Menu” of various course tools in the Connectivism Sundae Shop.

Beyond the few buildings near the plaza, however, I think it will be the Connectivism Sandbox that will hold the most interesting content of the course.  Here we can play with models, particles, sets, artwork, media.. whatever strikes our fancy as we play with the concepts of the course and learn more about Connectivism.  For those who are new to building in Second Life, visit the Ivory Tower of Primitives for a walk through, self-paced building tutorial.  The Ivory Tower is a cultural institution of Second Life and shouldn’t be missed even if you’ve learned on your own!

An overhead view of the Connectivism Village in the Chilbo Community (Madhupak sim).

I look forward to seeing how the Second Life cohort of the course progresses, and I encourage anyone from Chilbo to participate or check it out!   If you have time to wander down, please say hi to any students you see too!   They are members of the Chilbo Community Building Project group and have the group tag “Chilbo Connect!”   ~  Fleep