Kitely Mentors Group Meeting, 7 March 2013: summary

[Anna Adamant]

The first order of business concerned the problem of Kitely users having to wait while worlds they wish to enter are started up for entry. Ilan stated that instead of having one transfer station per maturity rating as discussed in last week's meeting, we will have one transfer station per world, as was initially planned. The only missing piece for the full transfer station implementation will be allowing users to select between a variety of transfer station designs for use with each of their worlds. Until that capability is added, all worlds will use the default transfer station design. Transfer stations will exist in the same world but will be spaced far apart from each other. they will be in opaque bubbles where no local chat or voice may be heard by people outside the bubble. Flying, scripting, and building will be disabled and it will not be possible to teleport inside that transfer stations world. Users will have to wait inside the transfer station they enter until they are automatically teleported out of it,. Wait times are not expected to be very long. The default transfer station design currently includes a single sign in front of the landing point stating that this is a transfer station with a short explanation of why the user is here and what will happen next. Another sign may be added in time with updating information to occupy people as they wait. It was agreed to keep things simple for the time being, both for a quicker roll out and for the good of users as well. Plans to "personalize" the transfer station will be considered in the future as time allows.

A request for someone to take notes at the meeting and post them in the forums was made by Ilan and Anna agreed to do so.

The next topic of discussion was the change in the way the login process for Kitely will work. There have been problems reported in the forums for some users coming in from Second Life which have prompted changes to be made for a much more simple login process for first time logins. The addition of transfer stations will allow the assumption that there will always be somewhere the user can log into which enables Kitely to support login options that exist for always-on grids. Once this improvement is implemented, users will be able to log in directly from the viewer without having to start a world first. If the destination world is currently offline, the user will simply be redirected to that world through a transfer station while the world is being started up. When the user presses the "Enter World" button, the viewer will start loading immediately if the Kitely Plugin is used. If the plugin isn't used the user will be presented with login instruction for that username, an option to view the password, and a link to download a Kitely-compatible viewer. It was agreed on by meeting members that the current login process is confusing for newbies and needs this change.

Ilan also stated that under the new login process the default password for grid access will probably be the password people use to log into the Kitely site if they use the email/password option there. This last change is for new users and the passwords will still be changeable separately in the Settings page.

Ilan explained that the Kitely team has been listening to conversations and requests for changes for improvement in the forums.and are trying to accommodate where it will be possible. He reminded all that it takes time to sort priorities so that improvements can be made in a reasonable manner.

Anna voiced a concern over missing out on noticing IMs (and sometimes notices) in the upper right corner of the screen because it is just not being in a conspicuous position on her screen. She stated that she was used to the position for IM notification being in the lower left corner of the screen in other virtual worlds where she has been a member. Marstol agreed she has missed IMs to make responses to for the same reason and Anna asked if it would be possible to move IM notification on the screen to a different position for viewing. A discussion ensued concerning how both Firestorm and Imprudence handle notifications with the result that screen position for IMs and notices is a viewer issue that Kitely actually has no control over.

Next, Ilan brought up the question of whether to store group chat IMs or not when users are offline until they log back in. Opinions were asked on whether to store those IMs which can cause inboxes to become full and users to miss out on personal IMs if any come in while offline. The consensus was to discard the group IMs when users are offline, thus preserving personal IMs to the highest degree possible.

Ilan announced that Kitely Plaza will unofficially open to the public next week in the midst of great progress and some sections with some ongoing work to complete still. The Plaza will become the default home of new users and will be added as the first option in the welcome dialog for new users who sign up from the homepage rather than a world page. This action is expected to make Kitely Plaza the main landing point for many people. The world of Kitely Plaza will be a no build world, but it is possible that eventual plans could include tools that enable scripters to use images from world profiles so inworld destination guides can be built. It is being currently considered as to whether to add such images in the transfer stations to give users something to occupy them while they wait to go to the worlds they choose to enter. Ilan stated that Kitely plans to take into account a destination world's maturity rating when showing images from other worlds so that people won't see content which their account prohibits viewing.

It was also announced by Ilan that the Kitely Volunteers group has been formed. Anna Adamant will coordinate the activity for this group with Bladyblue Bommerang. The group will help organize instructors, mentors, and greeters.

Ilan shared that Kitely rolled out several fixes for mesh collision meshes this past week. It was mentioned that version 4.3.1 of Firestorm has several known problems and that it is recommended that version 4.2.2 of Firestorm be downloaded and used until the next Firestorm version is released. Firestorm 4.2.2 can currently be downloaded from: http://www.kitely.com/file?type=viewer

As all items of business had been thoroughly discussed, the meeting was then adjourned by Ilan and appreciation was expressed to all for their attendance.

Anna Adamant

[Ilan Tochner]

Thank you for the writeup Anna

[Ada Radius]

eep where was it announced that the meeting time changed? My RSS must be broken. Again.

[Ada Radius]

eep ignore that last post pleese, my mind is fuzzled. Sorry I missed it!

[Marstol Nitely]

eep ignore that last post pleese, my mind is fuzzled. Sorry I missed it!

So glad I'm not the only one who gets fuzzled.