It seems like, every time there's a camp.. at least every time that I've been going, there's a few people who take to a marginally popular, anonymous, public venue to air their personal grievances and conspiracy accusations against the organizers of the camp.
Based on the highly successful internet sensation "Post Secret", where people struggling with depression and difficult life situations could anonymously mail in their 'secrets' to share and air to someone.. without having to air it in their own lives. Post Secret was a huge success in terms of turning many people away from drugs and suicide, able to finally share secrets like "I'm married, but I'm gay, and no one knows".
The Second Life version is perhaps the polar opposite. Where Post Secret freed people from the shackles of isolation and depression, the SL version only ever seems to serve as a platform for anonymous smearing, targeted bullying, and wild, often unsubstantiated accusations.
This will be my third camp... and yes, I did get in.
Camp Registration at camp Hardknock is a zoo. They set up a sim with a handful of registration kiosks, then they send out a group message that tells where the sim is. From that moment on, there is a massive race, where hundreds of SL kids, their friends, and family members all bombard the teleport system in a mad dash to get into the sim.
For about 120 slots.
Competition is fierce, to the point that we very often run up against SL's internal teleport throttle that detects we're 'spamming' their servers, and puts us in a tp time out.
There are usually about 100 slots available for girls, and only 20 slots available for the boys. This is due in part to the number of applicants vying for space (there are vastly more girls in SL than boys)... and partly due to the camp organizer's desire to not allow mixed gender cabins. Meaning if there's not statistically 33% boys applying and jumping on the waiting list.. then there's not enough to justify making a second boy's cabin and dumping one of the girls' cabins.
Personally, I'm in favour of a mixed gender cabin, and as a girl, would be willing to be placed in one, but that's an issue for another time.
The thing about registration tho.. is that ANY AVATAR that can get in, can register one person... and it doesn't have to be them. So if one kid had 10 family members trying to get in and register them.. then that one kid would have an advantage over someone like me.. who just has themselves trying to get them in.
It's not fair.
But that's life.
Many kids will use an alt with an empty inventory.. allowing them to teleport faster than their 8 year old account with a 120,000 item inventory. It's an advantage, the same as an olympic swimmer shaving all their body hair, or wearing a super slick swimsuit in every effort to try and reduce water resistance.
But in a world where accounts are free and unlimited.. if people who got in were only allowed to register themselves.. then the kids who were willing to have friends and family log in using 20 anonymous alts could take whichever one got in, and log into that account for camp.
Random selection from a list, also, would favour the alt cheaters.. whoever can put the most alt names on the list gets the most chances in the random lottery.
There seems to be no system, sadly, that is 100% fair.
But what is fair, is that everyone has a chance with the current system. If you hammer the system, if you prepare for it, keep your chat to a minimum, and keep trying.. if you can get into the sim before the slots fill up.. you have an opportunity to sign up.
And beyond that, there's a waiting list. Every time.. every single camp.. someone decides they don't want to go because their friend or sister or whatever didn't get in.. they find themselves scheduled for more hours at work than planned, can't get the days off they hoped for.. RL plans that can't be changed.. something.
This year, they started using a randomizer to pick from the waiting list.. soas to give people who "missed registration time" an even chance of getting in as the people who were trying at the last minute.
But with that mad rush of friends and family, it's actually quite easy to sit there in the morning, becrying the fact that you can't get into camp because you won't be home/online in time for the big rush.. only to find out several hours later that a family member got in for you, and signed you up.
I know that when my friends apply for camp, we all rush in as ourselves.. and as soon as we get in, if we do, we turn around and log into alts and keep trying to get in.. to try to get the others in too.
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Camp costs money.. quite a bit by average standards. 2000L$ per child, for 8 days of RP camp.
That's $8.07 USD. Less than a cup of coffee per day.
Yes, there are auctions, and donation appeals, and there's merchandising too. People can buy their inworld camp-branded goodies.. and even real-world ones as well through Cafepress.
And yes, they do take in a bunch of money.
Money that gets used to do things like pay for 2-3 regions for the month. Money that gets spent on decorations.. buildings, vehicles, equipment, clothing developer's kits, texture uploads.. and yes, some of that money does go to compensate the staff for their expenses.
How much? It doesn't matter.
No seriously. The cost out of pocket per camper is $1.01 per day. What experience.. real or virtual, can you seriously have for 8 bucks that compares to this?
If you're sitting there right now, listing things off.. you should be doing those things. Seriously.
When I go to camp in SL.. I take off the whole week. I put in about 12 hours a day online.. each day. Let's call that 96 hours. So that means I'm paying about 8 cents per hour... for fishing, boating, snowball fights, exploring, playing games..
If the organizers of the camp have managed to make a profit by doing this, they've earned my money.. because I for one, give it quite eagerly (and even paid for another camper to attend too).
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But as I said, every camp, we get the same crying voices from the anonymous detractors, decrying how the system is unfair, gender biased, run for profit, etc.. with accusations flying of nepotism, and any other scandal that these people hope will stick.
The thing is.. after a year and a half of watching this play out.. it's ceased to be interesting. The complainers have bypassed "obvious troll is obvious" and have gone deep into the realm of "Troll Fail".. to the point that the endless complaints from the anons have begun to meld together into so much unintelligible noise that it brings to mind the following.
Frankly, it's starting to look like a small handful of people with an axe to grind.. trying to smear Camp Hardknock. A group who will never be satisfied, because they've made it their mission to be professionally unsatisfied.
It's reached the point where we need to stop reacting.. stop answering their accusations.. and just ignore it. Responding only feeds their agenda, which is to cast aspersions, and ruin people's fun.
