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December 11, 2004 at 4:19 am #15285Jeff HesterKeymaster
I’m going to post the plans and ideas here, and just update this topic so you won’t have to scroll through page after page of ideas.
December 30 – Forums are closed to new registrations and new posts.
December 31, GMT -14 – LAUNCH PARTY BEGINS! The new forums are opened, the new site design is unveiled, and the fun begins. The party continues for 24 hours, with something special happening on the stroke of 12.
Ideas for the party:
- Hosted IRC Chat – Recruit volunteers to man the IRC channel (rather than just park their nick their) and actually converse with people. They would be responsible for keeping the conversation lively and moving for their block of time (at least one hour, but could be longer if they wanted).
- IRC Trivia Channel – this channel would host an IM trivia bot, perhaps with an hourly reset on high scores. Is there a way we could capture the high scores for each of 24 hours?
- New Years “Guestbook” forum topic. Let people at our virtual launch party sign the guest book, share their New Year’s Eve party experiences and wishes for the next year.
- Unveil DJHyperbytes Lyrics game
- Publish the BBB in Retrospect article – a look back at the past years of BBB.
- Forum Arcade – There is a really cool arcade mod for the new forums that tracks high scores, allows challenge matches, etc. You can see it in action at GetGamer: http://www.getgamer.com Go to the Arcade (you’ll have to register to see it, but it’s worth seeing). I know people would enjoy this, and maybe we would only “open” the arcade for special occasions… or maybe weekends only?
- Webcams – I would like to have several volunteers from around the world share their webcams, especially if you’re having a party yourself. Get your guests involved, and we can set things up so that your webcam images are automatically uploaded to the BBB server at a specified interval.
- A/V chat – it would be cool if we could also host some audio and/or video chats. Probably not practical to do every hour, but maybe for the key timezones (GMT-1, GMT, GMT+6, GMT+7, GMT+8). I’m not sure what software we would use, but ideally it would support multipoint a/v. I’m open to suggestions.
- Pictures! Post your New Year’s eve pictures. Since the new forum software will allow us to easily attach images, this becomes much easier for people who don’t have their own website or other web storage of images.
- Prizes and Giveaways – I’m not sure what this could include, but I was thinking of contacting Cerulean Studios for a few Trillian Pro licenses. Maybe a few other commercial software companies would be willing to donate some prizes? Of course, there are always the famous BBB t-shirts. 😉
I’m probably going to be hosting a physical party at my house in Murrieta, and inviting a number of friends to join in. My thought was to include them in the launch. To get into the party, they have to bring a blue ball (any size or type… could be a gumball, a raquetball, a soccer ball or ????). We’ll have food, drink and music… maybe even some dancing. And we’ll have computers setup in three rooms. One connected to the IRC channel, another to the forums, and the third with the video chat/webcam. Of course, you’re all invited. 😎
That’s what I’m thinking of so far. I’ll add to this list as ideas continue to roll in, so please share your thoughts.
December 11, 2004 at 9:56 pm #108330Jeff HesterKeymasterOreo said she could hook up a webcam. Any other moderators willing or interested?
There are three options:
- Publish stills that update every minute or so, as currently done on https://bigblueball.com/webcams/
- Streaming video
- Video chat
Any suggestions or recommendations on software for any or all of these?
December 17, 2004 at 9:00 pm #108331Jeff HesterKeymasterI need some feedback on this idea or it won’t be happening.
First, is anyone interested in participating? If so, please reply to this topic and let me know when and how you would like to participate.
Shifter, do you think that we could dust off the IRC trivia bot and use that? Would it be possible to capture and reset the high scores on an hourly basis? I’d like to recognize the winners from each hour (if we do it that way). We could just choose to run the bot during select hours or periods.
Has anyone checked out the arcade that I mentioned in my first post? Comments?
December 17, 2004 at 10:11 pm #108336OreoMemberThe arcade is pretty cool. I’ll help in any way I can…just let me know. I’m trying to get a party organized or at least attend one where I’m allowed to set up the webcam. I’m working on it. 😀 I’ll let you know what comes about ASAP. 🙂
December 18, 2004 at 2:12 am #108337DavidParticipantI’ll be at a LAN party (damn… geeky) on NYE, but I can probably be on for most of the 24hrs. No webcam of course (I’d do something stupid) But about the IRC channel, are we going to keep it super-clean? Meaning, no tolerance for crap? I’m in there 24/7 (Thanks to DJ) so I figure I’ll stay connected all the time, and I’d like to know how strict to be.
December 18, 2004 at 3:47 am #108332Jeff HesterKeymasterA LAN party? WAY cool!! I wish my wife would let ME have one. :p
As for the IRC channel, could you elaborate a bit on your concerns? Tell me how you would like to see it run (at least, for this launch thing).
December 18, 2004 at 3:55 am #108338DavidParticipantQuote:quote:Originally posted by JeffA LAN party? WAY cool!! I wish my wife would let ME have one. :p
As for the IRC channel, could you elaborate a bit on your concerns? Tell me how you would like to see it run (at least, for this launch thing).
Yeah man, it’s kickass, and I just got a new gigabit switch, more bandwidth=more fun!
I’m just thinking that we are going to get A LOT more traffic during those 24hrs, and since the channel represents BigBlueBall, I’d be afraid of heavy swearing, and all the other weird crap that happens on IRC (read bash.org…). I’m just not sure how strict we should be to protect the BBB image.
December 18, 2004 at 4:42 pm #108333Jeff HesterKeymasterWe’ve held 3 or 4 LAN parties here over the past few years (my son’s, not me). They are a lot of fun. Where I used to work we had impromptu LAN parties every night… mostly playing Quake CTF (the origin of my Yahoo nickname).
I agree generally with you. I’d like to keep the channel “clean” during the launch party. At the same time, I don’t want to rule with an iron fist. I like a lighter touch.
Here’s a possibility —
What if we setup several channels?
- #BigBlueBall would be a family-friendly channel. To me, this means PG-13. Some foul language is ok, but not to the point that it could be considered illicit or vulgar.
- #BigBlueBallTrivia (if we do that) should also be PG-13, in my opinion
- #BigBlueBallParty could be more Rated R. Lighter moderation… let people go… but make it clear going in that things are going to be a little more loose in there, so don’t be shocked.
As for the web interface to our main IRC channel, I’m considering implementing a vBulletin mod that does a really nice job of integrating with the forums. You can see it in action here: http://www.vbulletin.nl/community/chat.php
For moderating the PG-13 IRC, we may need to share some info on how to admin the channel so we can kick, ignore, silence, etc. as appropriate. Again, I don’t want to get heavy-handed, but I would like to keep it reasonably clean. There will probably be a lot of people who are IRC and maybe even chat newbies, so some of the “normal” humor might need to be toned down. It will depend somewhat on who is in the room. Mainly I want anyone who pops in to feel welcome.
December 18, 2004 at 7:42 pm #108339DavidParticipantYeah, I like that idea. I think 2 or 3 channels will work well.
December 30, 2004 at 6:42 pm #108334Jeff HesterKeymasterI’ve posted this announcement: BigBlueBall New Year’s Eve Launch Party.
The retrospective will be written separately, and linked to the virtual guestbook (which will be a forum topic). The virtual guestbook will give people a chance to say happy new year, share their own BBB memories, AND post pics from their own New Year’s celebrations (I’ve rolled those three items into one).
As for the webcams, I’ll have two webcams running here. If anyone else wants to setup a webcam, let me know and we’ll get an FTP account setup with how-to instructions.
As for the A/V chat, I’m not announcing anything about that since I didn’t get much feedback on it. Maybe at our next party. 😉 If it happens this year, it will be purely spontaneous.
December 30, 2004 at 11:55 pm #108335Jeff HesterKeymasterThis press release is scheduled to go out on the 31st:
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