SLashup Space registration system

The SLashup Space on Eduserv Island is a semi-public sandbox where people can experiment with building SLashups - Second Life mashups. The space is divided into 45 10m square areas.

To manage access to these areas I've built a simple registration system. Each square has a black cube in it. Clicking on the cube either:

• gives you the option to reserve the square for your own use, or
• tells you who has already got it reserved.

The system uses a combination of an LSL script running in the in-world cubes and several Perl scripts running on artfossett.net to manage the back-end database. The system uses the object identifier of each cube as a unique key into the back-end database. A minimal set of information is gathered for each used square - avatar name, organisation, email address and description of the activity being carried out in the area.

As an experiment to prevent spamming (yes, I know this wasn't really needed but I wanted to try it anyway), each cube generates a one-time key (a random number) which is sent directly to the back-end database before being encoded into the URL to which the end-user is sent to fill-in or update their details. This makes it pretty much impossible to guess the URLs needed to update the information about each square.

There's one minor hitch, which is that building rights in the SLashup Space are limited to avatars in the 'Eduserv SLashers' group. There's no automated way of adding someone to a group (as far as I can tell). Instead, the scripted cube sends me an IM each time a new avatar reserves a square - reminding me that I need to add them to the group.

Eduserv Island update

I've been developing Eduserv Island over the weekend, working on various things including our SLashup Space, a game called the SLeakest Wink, a new exhibit in the Avon Gallery and an array of new offices that I don't know what to do with yet. Oh, and a secret (well, kind of secret) cave.

I'll post about each of these things separately in due course...

I note that Pete has posted recently about SLashing it up on our main eFoundations blog, and that he now appears to be writing to a blog called Peregrinations. Nice!

SLashup

In thinking about the uses we could make of the new Eduserv Island, I coined the term 'SLashup' - a Web 2.0 mashup delivered in Second Life. One of the areas of the new island will be a 'SLashup area'.

A quick search of Google indicates that the term hasn't been used in this way before (though it has been used for a Slashdot mashup).

I quite like it as a term?