Call for Entries -- Museum of Robots "Build a Robot" Competition

Build-A Robot Competition Call for Entries!
Museum of Robots Build-a-Robot Competition

Museum of Robots, Kubrick 98/161/26
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kubrick/98/161/26

Museum of Robots in Second Life announces the 'Build-a-Robot' Competition, and invites all residents to participate. All entrants receive a merchandise prize, with an additional 30,000 L$ cash prize pool awarded to the top 10 winners.

Our definition of 'robot' is unlimited: any design that you think can be called a robot is acceptable.

Entry Classes are: Standalone, Wearable, and Homage to Classic Robots.

There is a maximum limit of 100 prims per entry and entries may be scripted or unscripted. All residents are eligible to enter, including established designers and new robot builders. The emphasis is on original creations for the Standalone and Wearable classes. Homage to Classic Robots is for work that replicates existing robots or characters from film, television, or media.

The full set of rules can be found at the Museum of Robots Website Rules Page.

Feel free to ping me (Vivianne Draper) either here or in world with any questions you have.

Squeee!

My event (and all of the St. Patricks Day events -- I only did the hunt) got written up in the BBC! Squee!

Dublin St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt -- Take 2

The Dublin Treasure Hunt has proved to be so successful that we are extending it. Here are the extension rules.

1. We are extending the contest until Friday, March 21 at Midnight SLT. So you have until then to mail your answers to DublinTreasureHunt@gmail.com.

2. Those that won the cash prize this weekend still get that 20k pot to split -- in other words there is still ample incentive to get all 30 answers in by midnight SLT tonight.

3. We are adding another, smaller pot for people to try for until Friday. More details will come as we figure them out.

4. If you already mailed in your answers and you didn't get thirty right, you were mailed an opportunity to continue looking.

If you have questions please email me at viviannedraper at gmail.

Good luck!

TAKE OFF YOUR ATTACHMENTS!!!!

Geesh people have a heart. Its the Relay for Life. Take off your attachments so we can move and buy stuff huh?

Ookami Ningen St. Patrick's Day Freebies!

Ookami Ningen has some nifty stuff free or dollarbie for St. Patrick's Day!


First is the Harajuku Punk in vibrant green. This is free until 12:00 a.m. tonight and at that time it will go to that great big place in the sky where all green things go to live after St. Patty's day is over. This is a never released FREE limited edition set. You can find it inside the Ookami Ningen store.


Next is the Parasol. Also created for the St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt in Dublin, this snazzy little number is a gift you get for joining the Ookami Ningen group. The group is subscribomatic so it won't take a separate group spot.

Last but not least is this cute little shamrock pillow dollarbie. I don't have a picture but its a little pillow in the shape of a shamrock and it is, of course, green. You can find it and the Harajuku inside the Ookami Ningen main store.

The Dublin St. Patrick's Treasure Hunt has begun!

Hey folks, I was up till 3am putting out clue signs but it is finished and the Dublin St. Patrick's Day Hunt has begun. Its pretty easy, you hunt for clues (which are easy to find), you answer the clues, you email the answers, you get a prize. All you have to do to get a prize is get ONE answer right. If you want a larger prize, you have to answer more right. If you want cash, you have to get them all right. A L$20,000 pot will be split among all those who get all 30 clues right. You have until Tuesday morning at 12:01 a.m. SLT to find the answers to the clues. I'm going to post the official rules right after this nifty graphic to break up the big wall o' text.



!!RULES!!

1. Thirty clues have been placed around the three Dublin Sims. Look for the special "Dublin in SL" signs around the three Dublin Sims. They could be anywhere but they are not hidden. They will be large and should be easy to spot. It is not our intent to hide these signs in any way. And just to be nice and give you all extra help, they are usually near a place where you can find the answer to a different clue. The clue signs look like this:



2. Figure out the clues and write down the answers.

3. Email the answers to DublinTreasureHunt@gmail.com.
. Include your **Avatar Name** in your email so that we can award your prizes.
. **Number** your answers to match the number of the clues you are solving.
. All emails will be kept confidential and deleted after prizes are awarded.

4. Prizes:
There are three tiers of prizes depending on how many questions you get right:

1-10 answers right -- The Wee Prize
11-29 answers right -- The Wee Prize and The Big Box of Cool Stuff
30 answers right -- The Wee Prize, The Big Box of Cool Stuff, and a Cash (Lindens) Bonus (the amount of the cash bonus will be determined by how many win)
(in addition there is a separate wee prize hidden somewhere in one of the Dublin Sims -- as a matter of fact, finding that prize is the answer to one of the clues.

5. Our administrators will log in several times over the weekend to send prizes out. They will not be online 24-7 or even close to that nor is there a schedule for when they are online. Prizes will be sent to your avatar name by or before midnight SLT Wednesday, March 19.

6. You may only enter once so please check your answers before mailing them in.

7. All the answers can be found in in Second Life (in search in the parcel description, or inside the structure, on the sim... but in SL somewhere) or on the Dublin in SL website. There may be other places where you can find the answers (i.e. google, wikipedia, personal knowledge, books, etc), however, the Dublin Sims and website contain the final answer. If your answer doesn't match the answer we have -- no matter if we are wrong or right -- then your answer will not be counted as a correct answer.

8. The prize packages are all the same within their respective tiers. If you can't use an item (for instance if you are male and there are women's shoes in the package) just throw them out. We will not make subsitutions. The prize we give you is all there is.

9. The Hunt begins Saturday, March 15 at 12:01am somewhere between CST and SLT and ends Monday, March 17 at midnight SLT. Submissions mailed after 12:01am, Tuesday, March 18 will not be accepted (even if we have gone to bed and left the clues out -- you have to mail it before Tuesday, March 18, at 12:01 a.m.)

10. It could take up to 24 hours for you to receive your prize if your entry is received late at night on preceeding a weekday (in otherwords Sunday or Monday late). Please be patient.

That is the end of the rules. We hope you have fun finding the clues and the answers and exploring the Dublin Sims.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh! (A Saint Patrick's Day Blessing upon you!)

St. Patrick's Day in Dublin

So you didn't think there would be nothing going on in Dublin this weekend did you? You didn't think Ham and Sitearm would sit idly by, leaving you to celebrate this most Irish of all holidays completely on your own? I certainly hope you didn't think that because there is SO much going on this weekend in Dublin that I scarcely know where to begin.

First off... there are two new Dublin Sims opening. And the reason I tell you this is first is because secondly, I have been contracted to design and run a treasure hunt over all three sims. The hunt starts this Saturday morning at 12:01 a.m. and runs until Tuesday morning at 12:00 a.m. And we have prizes -- OMG do we have prizes.




In seeking prizes for this event, I not only went to clothing designers but tried to put some varied items in the prize package as well. So there is all kinds of nifty stuff for you should you get a prize and just about everyone will. The rules will be posted Friday evening and will be on selected signs around Dublin at the start of the hunt.

But wait! That's not all! There is the possibility of a cash (lindens) prize! The amount of lindens is not set yet as it depends on how many people get every clue correct. We'll be splitting an as-yet-undetermined pot of lindens donated by Ham Rambler amongst all the winners. AND I'll be reprising my Celtic Muse DJ show at the Art Park in Dublin 3 on Saturday, from 8-10 a.m. SLT to kick off the hunt.

But wait! That's still not all! Because a hunt is not all that's happening.

The complete list of events (and OMG there are a lot of them) happening in and around the Dublin sims can be found here. So check it out and mark your schedule accordingly! I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of you there.

New from DMMDI: Soda Pop Candy Shoes

Oh dear gods save me. I'm really happy Chari is my friend and just lays these shoes on me or I'd have to go buy them all. Every time she showed me a new color I was like "GIMMIE!" Yeah Yeah I'll be getting review copies out real soon now. In the meantime, check this out:


Black Licorice


Bubblegum Soda


Red Licorice


Root Beer


St. Patty's Day (part of the prize package for the St. Patty's day hunt this weekend in all three Dublin sims)

I'm waiting for Chari to mail me on how much these are but knowing Chari, the price will be pretty good and if you are like me, and hate to wait go NOW to The Devil Made Me Do It store in Brithys. Once you get there I dare you to decide on just one color.

Ookami Ningen Harajuku Punk

I wanted to wait a while to blog about these so all the "newness" had gone away and I could talk about the awesomeness that is the Harajuku Punk outfit from Ookami Ningen. First, as you can see from the pictures, they are ever so stylish.




But what may not be immediately apparent about these is that the fur textures, aside from being completely 100% hand drawn, are not recolored in Second Life. Zorena makes a different texture for each color, usually highlighted a bit differently and drops it on only certain faces of each prim. This is why you get a full, natural look with the fur from Ookami Ningen and it doesn't look like someone took a spray paint can to the fur. Each color has been individually retextured and re-assembled. This is very difficult and time consuming and therefore you don't see it often.




Another thing I wanted to draw your attention to is the velvet belt, again hand drawn textured and colored in photoshop and not recolored in Second Life. Its why, if you look closely, you can almost see yourself reaching out to touch the velvet and feel its texture (natch!) under your skin.



Each set includes a soft flexible fur prim jacket that comes in 5 parts, the anti-glitch jacket that comes on two different layers, a cute plaid belted mini, anti-glitch skirt shorts and finally a pair of soft fuzzy leg warmers with an anti-glitch pair of socks. The leg warmers are a great way to dress up a pair of chunky shoes or the foot part of most boots to make them look like fur topped boots. You can find them only at the main store of Ookami Ningen. Just hit the SLURL here or the one on the right hand navigation bar OR just use search in-world. Each set is modify, copy and no transfer and sells for 300L.

All Fairchang Items are now FREE!

I got this note from Garth and Pituca:

Throughout our many years of selling FairChang products in Second Life, from the very first helicopter in the summer of 2003 to the latest birds and scripted gift boxes, you have supported our product range …….

We have arrived at the decision that we would like to return that loyalty by giving everyone in sl the chance to enjoy our products free of charge.

So from now on you can tport/fly/jog/sail over to our Lighthouse Store on FairChang Calypso SW to pick up a FairChang Freebie.

Don't think for a minute we have stopped making new products! From time to time we will still add something new. And Pituca still offers Customer Support where possible. Just IM

Garth and Pituca FairChang
http://www.fairchang.com

I've known about this for some time and have been lame about getting some pics up for you. And when they say their products are free, they mean ALL of their products -- the prefabs, the plants, the vehicles, the aircraft, the boats -- everything. So here's some pics of this cool Italian Villa. I set this up just for the purposes of taking these pics so I can't say its been decorated exactly as I would like and its on a tropical-zone isle so I need to pull it up and quit spending time on it. But still its a cool and cute little villa. And its free!


This is the villa. Most (uh maybe all) of the plants came from Heart Garden Center so those are not free.


This is the top of the villa. The lounge chairs, plants and birds up here are all part of the free stuff that can be found at Fairchang Calypso.


This is a close up of Pituca's birds. She has a whole bunch of these birds. They make bird sounds so I only have two cause I didn't want my neighbors to shoot me.

The easiest way to get to the freebie store is to search for Fairchang Store in search or you can follow this SLURL.

Cute!

So I put this outfit together almost by accident and then decided it was really cute and needed to be immortalized but to do that I needed a studio so I bought a photosphere and, well, Vivi takes some pictures. At least one.



I had meant for this blog to feature old stuff -- because you know new stuff gets blogged all the time. However I think I've been around long enough now to have truly spectacular stuff that really doesn't get noticed much anymore and it should -- because it still rocks. BUT! that didn't happen with this post. I'm afraid its all pretty much new releases except for the jewelry, tights, and boots.

This is a true mashup. I think each piece came from somewhere different. I'll start at the top and work down.

Hat: Illusions Sweetheart Cloche. I recommend buying the white/white copyable so you can copy it and recolor -- which is what I did here -- I recolored it to match the sweater and the rest of the outfit.

Hair: Analog Dog Chii -- and while I'm at it can I just say how much I love love love the hair at Analog Dog. I haven't seen it really blogged anywhere and I'm surprised at that because the textures are truly wonderful and the flexi settings make it move like real hair moves. The hair there isn't cheap but I think its worth it. You get a color pack for L$350. I wish you could just buy one for like L$100 but alas... I shall be broke and in the poor house and it will be all Analog Dog's fault because I keep going back to buy more hair.

Skin: Chai Vedette Cream Freckled -- This is the freebie that came with the Second Style skin issue. I generally like the ginger tone better but alas that has that texture bug where it takes on the texture of my house and nothing I can do (yes I've cleared my cache and deleted and got a new copy and all that jazz) can fix it. But, in general, I am now Launa Fauna's skin bitch. Seriously I cannot tell you how much I love the Chai skins. I used to be Starley and Gala's bitch when it came to skins but I'm afraid Launa has stolen me away. My only regret is that my pocketbook is not large enough to buy each and every makeup because I would. In a New York Minute. Or faster. Ahhh well.

Jewelry: Elka:Random - Cameo & Sautoir set. This is an old set that has really stood the test of time. It fits nicely with very little modification needed and it looks good next to, say, the nifty stuff that Earthtones and Muse put out today. It sits in my inventory forgotten for months but I end up returning to it time and time again. Its a really nice accessory when you want to put a funky/boho/secondhand store look together like the one I have here. [Edit: Elka writes: "Cute look! Thank you for using my necklace. It is old indeed, especially with the elka:random name, which I had for only a few weeks back almost 3 years ago, haha! Just thought I would let you know that this piece was revamped, retextured (now has silver version included too, and now attaches to different points) and all that jazz for the Jewelry Fair we had a few months ago. This one is not for sale anymore :)"] So if you want the new one look for Elka Lehane's profile and then the second tab under her picks will take you to her current store and you can get the new one.

Sweater: !_Ce_Cubic effect Cardigan_cream. This is where we get into the new. I adore CE's textures. Not everything there works as well I would like -- I had originally hoped that this sweater would work with their tiered skirt and it really didn't. (For that matter, the tiered skirt which was pretty expensive (L$290 for one skirt ouchies) didn't fit all that well at all -- however I think I can make it work with a little playing around but for that price I shouldn't and I wish there was a demo.) But their sweaters -- OMG their sweaters. And their blouses -- OMG their blouses. The texturing, the fit, and the way it works with so much other stuff.. well lets just say that even though I consider them to be on the pricier side I still picked up three or four items there today. I encourage you to check them out -- really nice newish store with quality stuffs.

Camisole: Its not really a camisole. Its the bodice from *LAST CALL: Gillian* -- which is a sexy black dress that I wore to Misty's birthday party last night and it looked mahvelos dahling -- but I didn't get a shot of it. Maybe someone else did and I'll post it later because really it is one of Ginny's best efforts (IMNSHO). However I was trying on my Cubic purchases and this looked so good under the cardigan I kept it.

Skirt: :bijou: *FREE* DIVA. Do y'all know about bijou? You should if you don't. Really nice texturing work, really nice clothing, decent prices and OMG the freebies there are amazing. I mean a lot of places have tshirts for freebies or stuff that you will take because its free but you wouldn't ordinarily buy. bijou has free stuff that you would buy if it were not free, but its free so you don't have to. This is actually a part of a very dressy satin dress outfit with a capelet and gloves. Wonderful on its own. As I was looking through my inventory for a replacement for the tiered skirt I kind of stumbled on this as it was still in my NEW folder and it didn't look right at first but it really grew on me. The Diva outfit comes in 5 colors and the whole pack is free at the Bijou store in Takaraduka.

Stockings: Another oldie but goodie. D3volution! Raggedy Ass Raggy Ass Stockings & Belt with 8 Garters: Stockings, Ripped, Run, & Torn, Sooty. They come with garters on the underwear layer and stockings on the sock layer which is nice because most skirts these days have the skirt base on the pant layer. I love these stockings but don't get the opportunity to wear them often.

Boots: Last but not least we come to the boots. (Shiny Things) Old Laceup Boots - black. Fallingwater was my first love when it came to boots and I own damn near every style in every color she's ever made. I still have her old sleek laceup boots before she fixed them because I love her boots too much to ever throw them away -- even if they are broke and I have a fixed copy and I never wear the broke ones. I'm a sentimental fool I know. But I treasure those old broke boots and I won't throw them out! Anyways these are not that old (even if they say old) and they go with everything (ok maybe not the latest formal wear) and I love any opportunity I get to wear them out.

Also I think I might love my new photosphere. But I've rattled on enough for one post.

New from Ookami Ningen: Dancing and Dying Swans

Ok not literally. But Zorena made this ultra cool outfit and one of them is named Dancing Swan and the other is named Dying Swan -- but no actual swans were coerced into dancing or were heinously or otherwise put to death during the creation of this outfit. Well not by Zorena anyway.




These are the new outfits. Two versions of a dress and one of them with a bit of a twist. Both are based from a famous ballet but Dying Swan also has it's roots in a painting she once saw. Shiny satin corset, soft feathery fur and satin skirt and a hint of lace on the pants. Graceful arm wings and furred and feathered stole help give it a fantasy look.




Each set is modify, copy and no transfer. Find this flight of fancy at Ookami Ningen for 250 L per set. To complete the look in the ads, Zorena used "Pearl Ballet Flats" from Shiny Things. To get to Ookami Ningen, just type that into search or follow this SLURL.

Then I did a little mashup with it:



To get this look:

Skirt and corset: Dancing Swan Nocturne from Ookami Ningen
Boots: (Shiny Things) Old Boots - black
Belt: Pixel Dolls - Red (PD) Belts; Empress Jacket
Stockings: Szentasha part of ~J~ Nightsong Minidress - Crimson
Necklace: Random Calliope "But I'm Not The Only One - For Peace"
Earrings: /artilleri/ teardrop earrings
Skin: LF CHAI Skin -- Ginger -- Celebrity Freckles
Hair: Analog Dog Emma Black
Tats: *EtchD* Sleeves
Eyes: SS eyes series 2-27
Shape: custom

Relay for Life Design Contest

This year, there is a design contest for the 2008-American-Cancer-Society-Relay-For-Life-in-SL donation kiosk and ANYONE can enter (well, except the judges and the ACS RFL tech crew).

To enter, visit ACS Island or the PaperModels in Second Life store at Pinastri and touch the registration cube; you'll immediately be registered for the contest and receive the instruction note card.

Why Enter the Contest? Fame and Fortune, of course! The winner will receive a prize award of $5,000L and a $50 credit to the PaperModelsOnline.com / Paper Models in Second Life store. The really cool part is that the winning design will be developed into a real life 3D model that can be downloaded in real life by Paper Models in Second Life!

This is the first ever build event anywhere in the metaverse which the winning design will become a real life 3D model using the Paper Models, Inc. patented process! The winner could be you!

Participants will be contacted by the contest coordinators, David Jacobs or Estaban Graves and the official textures and logos provided - we're using the new MediaMaster Syndication tool so there is no group to join!

Come get involved and help us with the most awesome, donation-inspiring design ever and get memorialized as the first ever 3D download-able ACS RFL design in metaverse history!

Folks the above is a press release. I am not one of the organizers of the RFL and I can't answer any questions about this. I'll try and update later when I find out who to contact about this if you have questions.

Only 59 days to the Relay for Life Clothing Fair!

The countdown is on for this year's Relay for Life Clothing Fair....

Hard to imagine that it's just 59 days until the BIGGEST CLOTHING EVENT of the year. The Relay Raiders have been working hard dotting their i's and crossing their t's to ensure you a versatile offering of SL's finest.

Have you heard ... Dark Eden , Moonshine Clothing, DeFleur Fashions, Passionate Neko Dreams, Solange, Annalise, IEVL, Immortelle, Milady Fashion, Barerose, Casa del Shai & Digit Darkes (just to name a few) have all signed on to join us ?

Really, how can we top 84 of SL premier designers sitting down to the drawing board to create the best of the best for this year's event? Fold in live music, multiple fashion shows, treasure hunts and let simmer for 59... soon to be 58 days! We'll serve up an "Awesome" stew.

Save your Linden's, watch for events.. and listen around the grid. You don't want to miss this one!

See you there!
The Relay Raiders

Oh... did I forget to mention St. Patrick's day. I guess I did. Until next time guys, ;)!

SLNewspaper.com, Second Style, The M2, Fashion Angels and Homme Magazine are sponsoring this year's event!

The above was a press release but let me add that I will also be DJing part of the Clothing Fair -- I don't know just when yet. The Relay for Life Clothing Fair blog is located here and I have a permanent link on the nav bar on the left.

p.s. Hey folks I am not one of the organizers -- just a participant through the auspices of being a part of Dark Eden and also a DJ. If you have questions about the Relay for Life, please contact Nevar Lobo in world. Thanks!

Curses

I would like to take this opportunity, whilst I am lagging so much that it takes five minutes to move one step or for one outfit to rez, to curse every person who does not strip themselves of scripted items and attachments of any sort while shopping at the ETD and Last Call sales.

Could you be any friggin ruder? I mean really. Is there anyone out there that doesn't know to do this? If there is, the innocent/uninformed are excused from this curse. May the rest of you who are willfully ignoring pleas from everyone who wants a less lagging shopping experience be afflicted with debilitating lag for the rest of your days. May your attachments be missing, may your resses be slow, and may you be cursed with missing image till the end of your days.

That is all.

Relay for Life

Oh yes folks it is that time again and I have a press release for you that should have gone out earlier this week but is only going out now. As you may or may not know, every year the Relay for Life (RFL) comes to Second Life. The RFL is the American Cancer Society's premier annual fundraising event and Second Life residents have raised oogobs of money for them for the last two years and we hope to raise mega-oogobs this year. (Do I get points for using oogobs not once, not twice, but three times in a post?) I digress -- on with the Press Release!

Announcing the Relay for Life, Clothing Fair 2008
The much anticipated Relay for Life, Clothing Fair will be opening it’s doors March 17, and run thru March 23, 2008. Jam packed with live music, treasure hunts… and fashion shows this year’s fair features 80 of SL’s premier designers! Kicking off this years Relay for Life Fundraiser will be a multi-sim St. Patrick’s Day celebration and running 24/7 until the doors close on the 23rd.

Did I say Multi-Sim? I did, didn’t I. With names like Dark Eden, BeWitched, Armidi, Callie Cline, Rebel Hope, Nicky Ree, Awesome Designs, Aitui, Sherona DeGroot, Rfrye, Nocturnal Threads, Barefoot Designs, RPD, DE Designs, Night & Day, Mischief, Goth1c0..., way too many to list… what choice did we have! This year’s concept, spearheaded by Pips Fetid and Nevar Lobo spans five sims to ensure a low lag, positive shopping experience.

So mark your calanders, check events, and save your Lindens. Come stroll the seasons and help us “Celebrate, Remember, Fight Back”. We can make a difference! Until there's a cure, there's Relay for Life.

Also there is a Clothing Fair blog. I know Nevar emailed Tao last night to add it to the feed but as we don't know when that will happen, here is the direct link to it and I will also be putting it over on the left hand navigation pane.

I will be posting news about the Relay for Life as I get it and there will be a lot of great things to come. So stay tuned!

Then and now

How much has SL changed from when you started?

Here's how much it has changed for me. When I started, Canimal used to be the place you went for vinyl, fishnets, funky clothing and tattoos.

Today I'm cruising FashionPlanet and I see this:

I went to Canimal which is another fine maternity store and was pleased to discover the new selection of conservative, classy dresses. They are perfect for executive meetings, and for any job interview. I highly recommend them to any mother to be.

I showed that to a few friends and their reaction was similar to mine. Canimal? Interview and maternity clothing? We are thinking maybe its a spoof because the pics surrounding the quote aren't conservative by any stretch of the imagination.


But if it isn't a spoof -- How things change.

How many is enough? A time for a new system.

So right now there's a huge outcry for more groups -- as there should be. In a social game like Second Life, and without a viable events calendar, the crux of any social gathering must be the ability to easily group. So the outcry is understandable. But really I have to ask, how many is enough? Beyond that, how many is actually manageable?

When I started SL, we were limited to 10 groups and when it was expanded to the current 25 I thought I'd never use all the slots and for a while I actually had open group space. It was awesome for all of about 2 months. It quickly filled as I had the ability to join this favorite shop's group and this other favorite shop's group and before long I still had favorites I wanted to join but was out of groups. As I started getting involved in things like the SLCC and the Relay for Life, those favorite shops groups gave way to the work I was doing.

Of course that leaves me out of the things being given away to the group only. And these are shops, generally, where I drop a fairly sizeable wad of cash on a semi-regular basis. Like Queenie, I feel a bit guilty joining and then leaving but I've spoken to a couple of designers who say they completely understand and they have the same problem too.

Which got me thinking -- if I joined every group I wanted, how many groups would I be in? The list came to well over 100. So then I imagined this completely out of control group list -- akin to my friends list -- a thing crucial to my Second Life experience that I have the ability to fill as large as I wanted but with no way to organize or manipulate it. ugh.

Folks we don't need just need more groups -- they can raise it to 50 and it won't be enough and in 2 years you'll be back here filing JIRAs to get it to 100. And 2 years after that new folks will come along and wonder why its limited to that low number. And I dare you to belong to 100 groups and be able to control the traffic chatter and not crash on login when after a mere 24 hours of not logging in you have something like 50 notices. Its not viable.

What we need is a new group system. We need ways to organize groups like we can organize our inventories. We need ways to control notices and chatter. We need to be able to link it to our email so we can read AND DELETE off line. And we need to be able to join unlimited amounts of groups.

Until the entire group system is revamped or thrown away in favor of something better -- you can cry for more groups all you want but it won't be the solution you are looking for.