Complaints About Dwell/Money Chairs

No, no nap needed Enabran. I'm still waiting to hear from you other than your ego speaking as to what you do back for the SL community other than alienate newcomers.

Maybe someone needs a reality check? Weren't you whining on the forums awhile back about having a creator's block -- didn't you get some help and some assistance from individuals?

Please take your insults elsewhere -- where they will affect someone.

Again Chip -- after taking your monthly Lindens to the Lindex, how many of those do you personally put back into the economy? Hired a model lately?

Oh, I'm sorry. You're too busy insulting the social users of SL.

Carry on.

You tried Sensual. For whatever reason, your dancers, entertainers, etc., as you said no longer want to work any longer.

I don't know, maybe it could be the working conditions. Maybe it could be the lack of individuals at the events (see your other post).

You've tried.

But there are many others here of the "me first" generation who feel that everyone has to work in SL or they are of absolutely no benefit to this community/society.

Like I said, if SL is only filled with creators, who's going to buy their products when the social ones leave?

Then why do those same people feel that they should be given money every week for nothing then? If you consciously make a decision that you're just here for fun and don't want to work to make a little L$ then the responsibility of funding your Second Life should not rest with LL, it should rest with you.

OK, there are a few points I'd like to make after reading this thread more fully:

1. Lynn, money isn't "sucked out" of the game by content creators who sell it for US$. It circulates and meets a demand for those who wish to use their RL cash to supplement their Second Life, or which there appear to be many. If the demand wasn't there, it wouldn't happen like that. Nothing is being taken out of the economy by doing this, that just isn't the way it works.

2. Having employed people in real life it kind of puts me off doing it in SL - it's more hassle than it's worth to me with the limited time I have in-world. Plus, the concept of employing people in SL in any normal way, is kind of redundant. I don't need anybody to run my store and plus, in many cases, permissions are such in SL that it's fairly impossible to do some of the things you suggest.

3. The person who said that texture uploads etc. feed back into the pot is absolutely spot on. For instance, with my ice skates I must have spent a good L$2000 on animation uploads alone.

4. I wouldn't be overly concerned by a new business tax if that is what LL wanted to do. However I would suggest that texture uploads etc. already act as a type of business tax and go to fund the weekly payouts. After all, those who spend the most on such uploads will be the content creators. Actually there's a few taxes already. The L$30 a week for showing your parcel in Find and the new classifieds are two other examples.

5. Most people haven't been insulting the individuals with money chairs, they've actually been insulting the money chair owners. Why? Because by their use, the content that is compelling and has a lot to offer is getting pushed further and further from view. That's not healthy for anybody and certainly doesn't paint a great image of SL for new arrivals. However, from what I've seen the people who sit in these chairs aren't being social for the large part - they're generally AFK, so your social argument is largely moot also.

6. We all have limited time to spend in SL. I pay for my right to spend that how I want to. To enjoy SL the way I want to enjoy it.

7. I don't think any of the content creators that I know believes that everybody has to work or they're of no benefit - content creators with that attitude completely miss the point of who's buying their products. However, personally speaking, I feel that if they don't wish to work and wish to be just social, it should not be my responsibility as a content creator to bulge their bank balances for them and I also don't think it should be LL's responsibility.

As for what I've done to meet your criteria, well, here's a brief list:

1. I bankrolled the Numbakulla game for over 6 months. A game that was free to play and took an entire sim. Entertainment for everybody for free, no less!
2. I produce a number of free items.
3. I produce highly commented scripts available for cheap for those that want to learn scripting or do things for themselves.
4. Whenever I'm asked I always give my time to help people.
5. I go out of my way to give good support on the things that I sell. As support is generally asked for by new players, this is very relevant to their experience of SL.
6. I help whenever I can by giving advice or tips on the forum.

Oh and I've created some pretty compelling content as far as I can see it, that I've spent a lot of time and effort in creating. None of which could really be called expensive, or out of reach of the normal player. But you seem to expect the content creators to be responsible for everybody else's bank balance. Why should that be? We help to retain players by providing compelling content in any number of disparate ways.

Oh, and by the way, what have you done to meet your criteria recently?

I manage to do both.

I've created a store (The Nerd Emporium), where I sell a few objects I've created, I think the most expensive is L$75. I've wandered round and made friends, and they've seen my work. Then, when they invite me over to see their new creations, they ask if I can make a few things for me - one friend has built a basic space station but wanted me to make some 'Trek' style consoles and things to make it look more realistic; been working on those the last few days, and I'll sell those at a little above what it cost me to upload the textures to put them together... why so cheap? Well, I enjoy it, and it gives me a thrill to see other people enjoying what I created, even if it is so simple and just to save them the trouble of having to do it.

I've never sat in a camping chair, I don't have a lot of money, but I don't care. I'm still having fun.

Lewis

What is it you are seconding Usagi?

Moopf, the comments I made weren't directed to those of the community who have tried to create content -- content being defined as "something I sell and make a profit from." I am well aware of what you have tried to create for the community. Yes it takes a lot of hard work, organization and dedication; not to mention upfront USD. You're a different breed because you tried to "give something back" other than just selling your product. That's exactly the point that I'm trying to get across to many of these individuals who think otherwise.

SL won't succeed unless more players invest more into SL and create "content" and not just products.

My comments are directed to those within SL who seem to think that because they have the skill to "create a product and sell it" that they are somehow content creators.

The comments made by some in the above threads take a "kiss my ass" attitude towards content creation. It's empathy, "I'm doing my part, I'm selling my products and making a profit, why can't everyone else?"

My question to them is simply this. Out of the $1K USD profit that is seen monthly from SL, how much of that is put back into SL to help stimulate the economy? The TOS was pointed out that SL is "user-based content" -- and while using that against those who use the money chairs for their income - they have forgotten that they, themselves, have not created content that is compelling to keep end-users here. Sorry, but selling a blouse and a script is not "content" -- allowing those things to be combined with other environment offerings "is" content.

SL has recognized that and changed their marketing techiniques so that SL is free, hoping that something will attract and keep individuals here instead of requiring the $9.95 initial account creation. Now you will have more and more social individuals here who are here for fun only -- and that's fine. I support them in their entirety of simply logging into SL and enjoying what it has to offer. What I don't support and never will support are those who thing that because they are skilled and can create content that the "social" players are less and not required within this game.

SL needs diversity to succeed. Once the internet was filled with geeks. And it was only geeks. Until some smart geek decided to make software that was easy for non-geeks to use, and thus, people went flooding to the internet and cybersex was born.

I asked a question to those who call themselves "content creators" about what have they done to help establish a solid economy that was based on players versus SL stipends. After all, these are self-proclaimed "experts" as far as what needs to be done for SL and it's community. So far all I've received is snide comments -- indicating to me that they have no answer, because they really don't care. "It's not their responsibility."

While much of the blame can be placed on SL for not stopping the dwelloper awards years ago, we all know that in order to "have nice 3D things" that people need an income, an income that's more than what the weekly stipend offers. Don't criticize the welfare movement and availability of those chairs when the "government" has declared it to be a worthwhile way to earn money.

Like I said Moopf, you're different. You attempted to create an environment that wasn't based on moneyballs, sex chat, dancing, etc. My comments are directed to those who constantly complain about people not working within SL, then not doing one damn thing to help stimulate a business-related economy from their profits. Unfortunately, 95% of their income earned within SL is being sold on the Lindex monthly -- and the 5% that is used for doing business goes back to LL, not back to the end-users in the form of events, sponsorships, hiring players to advertise, model, script, etc.

My criteria? I left SL some time go when I saw the greed within the player base, when I saw the land market being manipulated, when I watched personally LL having the wool pulled over their eyes again and again by the playerbase, and when I simply saw USD flashing in too many player's eyes. I've just now repurchased a small plot of land, relearning the skills it takes to create; and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll try to stick around to do some edukashion to some people who think they know the definition of content. Oh yeah, and between naps I'll stick up for the right of the people to be social and non-working within the game without being treated or spoken to like they are second-class citizens.

I give the SL community great products. The community rewards me for my time. The arrangement has benefited both sides. I'm not here for charity -- neither to practice it nor to receive it.

But yet by your own words and quoting of the TOS -- where end-user content was the requirement of using this software, where you personally wanted to show individuals the door for not following it; you're not giving back to the community in any sense except for items that make you a personal profit. That's not creating end-user content. That's creating a personal business for profit.

End-user content is not defined as "profit from selling items."

To whom are you addressing this? What fictional post are you refuting? I'm not sure anything of what you've said has even transpired. Quotes, please.

I'm not comfortable with this view at all. I'm not sure how you can dismiss items made for profit as not being end-user content, I just cannot work that out. End-user content takes many forms from products to environments to events to tutorials to textures etc. etc. etc. You can't start dismissing anything sold for a profit as not being content, that just doesn't make any sense at all. You also can't start saying a blouse or script isn't content, when it quite plainly is.

End-user content can be free, exchanged for something else or purchased, either at cost or profit. But it's all still end-user content at the end of the day.

I guess my slow brain needs an explanation of exactly what you consider content to be. Anything that's not sold for a profit?

well ill have to bring back sensual's point! we have tried to hire people,We try to pay well...least i belive we do....but people want something for nothing(cant even say hello to people when they come in). hell, I tried bringing the raffle back like Misty used to host b4 event incentives dropped. Gave away an adverage of 5k an event plus a gang of items(during the time i was being hijacked even!. You know what happened? I went into the hospital and couldnt host for 2 days. I came back to SL to being cussed out in messages by 5 or 6 people! (events not event posted). Im sorry,I can only be taken advantage of so much!(and the rudeness wasn't just while I was offline either!

It would be easier to create jobs for people and put money back it the system made it easier to do so. The current permissions system and a slew of other bullshit make it almost impossible to give back. Employ them? SL does not facilitate employment; groups are a joke since you can't assign roles to people. If groups we worth anything you could assign people better roles. Example you may want someone to be able to eject members from your land, but you don't wan tot give that event host the rights to return every prim. Maybe you want some officers to be able to return prims, and others can only return a max 100 prims a day. Maybe people could create items, set them to group and via group rights you can have sales people who can make returns and exchanges etc. The largest industry in SL besides sex is shopping, tons of stores would like to employ sales people but the current system makes that difficult to impossible to take them above the Wal*Mart greeter level.


Also, I don’t know one person that creates things SL that doesn’t give free shit to newbies, donate money to newbies etc. Charity is optional not required. A company that relies on the charity of others to maintain and attract new residents is a company doomed to fail. If they want to shift SL from some experiment to the strong commercial venue they want it to be they can no longer leave everything to the residents (like GOM).


Again all of this comes back to LL and their lack of vision and a community that has grown out of their control. Stop badgering the community and ask LL some questions.

End-user content -- doesn't mean individual's creating their items and selling them. Clothing for example, or your skates -- they are best enjoyed in the presence of company, of more than one indivdual.

Thus, you need the SL community and business leaders to create the environment, i.e., end-user content, where all of these things collide into a wonderful experience. You put on your newly purchased outfit, you trot down to the sim that has the skating rink, you meet up with your friends, you purchase a hot chocolate while talking to a friendly group of people you just happen to have bumped into...

Creating content isn't creating items to sell.

It's putting the puzzle together of people, locations, discussions, products, etc. to create "end-user content" -- and it doesn't necessarily need to be a sex club, a skating rink, a dance hall... It's the combination of items that created end-user content. Some people simply need a beach -- some people need the entire 3d visual experience of a dungeon, dance floor, etc. People make end-user content by using those items that are sold within SL.

If SL remains simply a product-producer's dream, i.e., making and only selling products without having those successful individuals invest back into the community -- then SL will never flourish.

People have posted above, SL is not easy. It was once a creative online environment for creative individuals and still is -- but now the doors have been opened for those creative-types to showcase their end-user content. It's not there. Not yet, and not until "selling my stuff and making a profit" turns into end-user content supported by selling said products.

But many individuals still have the mentality of "I create, I sell; thus I am a content creator."

That's a false statement on their part. All they simply do is create 3d items to sell. There is no content.

Taking the attitude of "I walked 19 miles to school in my barefeet so you can as well..." sure isn't going to help us retain new individuals within SL. Relying and bitching at the Linden's for the dwell awards, allowing money chairs, etc., without offering ONE paid position of your own from your business is simply wrong.

Many say they owe people in SL nothing, many say it's a give and take (I make, you buy) environment. What I'm saying is that if people don't start stepping up and helping to take control of the economy by offering jobs (from simple to complex) -- that SL will not flourish. I'm not buying the argument of "walk over to the Lindex and buy some money." I'm not buying the concept of "Learn to make it yourself..." There needs to be a balance of consumer and producers to make this economy work. Right now, it's in a rut of "I make, I sell, thus I create content." That's a fallasy. That's the thinking that will help SL fail when it comes to retaining new individuals.

But I still make a profit, so how does that fit in? You're defining content here as "something I sell and make a profit from" yet your next post (that I've already replied to) excludes end-user content from being something you sell and make a profit on. I'm really confused as I can't see how your posts could possibly exclude what I do.



Content is many different things as I've already said. However, some of the content you wish to push becomes even less likely if the most popular places as filled up with any old rubbish simply because they have camping chairs. Which is the situation we currently have. If you want people to invest it has to be worth their while and with the limited, effective promotion tools available, when one of the main ones is simply swamped, not due to the compelling content a location has, but because of the money chairs, that's hardly an incentive to invest, is it.



They are, as are many other people who provide content in other ways. By the same token I couldn't really say that I'm a content creator and yet, here I am with a product that in 2 weeks has sold over 1,000 copies. Yet that doesn't make me a content creator? I'm confused by that. What have I created and sold, if it's not content?



I'm not really seeing much of this "why can't everyone else?" attitude you're talking about. Each person has their own contribution to make - for some that is rightly that they're selling their products, making a profit and doing their part. The world would be very boring without such people.



Look I'm not going to see the money chairs as anything other than a way of getting your place false popularity and hiding the truly worth-while content. Sure, some new players get a little bit of change but really, it's hardly philanthropic is it. These places have their own dwell, developer bonus, popularity etc. interests at heart.



I'm really not seeing many people discount the importance of the social users. After all these are our customers. But there's a difference between discounting their importance and suggesting that if they're after a totally free ride then that's not a mentality that's viable. And, on the flip side, without the content creators, there really would be nothing for them here apart from a vast empty world with decaying builds made by the Lindens. So, in a way, the content creators are more important - it is what they do that dictates, to quite a large extend, how sticky Second Life is.



I think you're really building content creators up to be something that they are not. The majority build because they like building, sell because they like selling and exchange their Lindens to pay their tier. I could count on one hand the quantity of content creators that I know that think they're experts on what needs to be done for SL and it's community and I feel you're building this up to support your argument and it's unjustified.



I'll critisise the money chairs for the reasons I've already mentioned. It really bugs me that these places offer very little that's attractive yet dominate one of the main publicity mechanisms we have. As for the welfare movement, people are coming and paying nothing to play. Somebody has to pay for it, so those who are creating the content and paying for their tier for their stores, or just paying for their 512m plot where they can build a home are already subsidising them. Without people like us paying, there would be no free option at all. To request that we give more, when we're already paying for them to play with what we pay to LL, thus offsetting the free players, seems a little short sighted.



You keep saying I'm different but I really don't see how. Most of my things I sell for profit, a few things I give away. The only thing that I have done differently is a one-off project with Numbakulla. I had my own reasons for doing that but, at the end of the day, the vast majority of what I've done is create products for a profit.



LL never had the wool pulled over their eyes, they knew exactly what was going on and where they wanted it to go. It's just that sometimes they framed it as experiments as it's easier to get the community on-side by doing that. Have you not noticed how all their experiments have pretty much led to another monetary angle for them?

Good points as usual, Eboni, though there's something a little more.

Not everyone wants to hire others because they have a good time making stuff on their own. SL is my hobby and I definitely bring an aspect of the auteur to all of my work. I sometimes buy pre-existing assets from others, but I mostly like to make all of my stuff myself because it's fun.

Now, about charity. You're absolutely right about that, but I think of it more as general decency and generosity than charity. I know of no one who doesn't slip the some goodies or coin or an hour or two of time to new folks who need a hand if any of these can be spared. But this is all a very personal matter. Such generosity isn't an obligation, nor is an accounting of such generosity an obligation. Demanding people give an itemization of their acts of generosity is in bad taste.

As for Linden Lab being in trouble by relying on the kindness of strangers, as it were... Yeah, I don't think that's going to be sustainable for much longer.

I agree Eboni.

It's all the Linden's fault.

No one is responsible for anything in SL but the Linden's.

If and when value exists in such jobs, they will happen. Until then, they won't. Even the simplest jobs, it has already been mentioned, aren't performed with the best of energies and enthusiasm. And God, why should they be? They sound painfully boring. You should only come to SL to have a good time, not to do tedious crap for little money. Spend four bucks on the exchange -- that's really preferable to being paid a few cents an hour for a job you're only doing to buy some hoochie hair anyway.

Linden Lab is responsible for their product. Eboni has a point. We're not here to be social workers. We're here to enjoy the product. Bring up your disappointments with the proprietors.

And to tag onto this chip,

SL also depends on us for there idea pool, If left on there own for ideas of what needs to be done they come up with winners like 1.7

Moopf, because you make and sell skates, you do not create content.

Plain and simple.

You create an object that you sell that individuals use together to create "content."

Selling your products is not creating content.

It's simply selling.

Putting your skates into a skating rink, offering an event, hiring a rink manager, giving people an opportunity to get together to chat, laugh... that's end-user content.

All I was simply saying is that you put your profits back into a Sim -- wherein there are many here in SL who do not. You tried to create a community, you tried to create "content" with the combination of people, land, and objects -- and your used the profits of your sales to do that.

You don't want to hire people, that's fine.
You don't want to hire a builder to create a skating rink, that's fine.
You don't want to offer events for skating that would attract people to your sim, that's fine.
You want to sell your skates, that's fine.

But the combination of all of the above constitutes "end-user content". Simply selling your skates is not end-user content.

SL is becoming filled with individuals who are not trying to create end-user content. They simply want to sell a product, walk to the Lindex and take all their profit out of the game, without putting any Linden's back into the economy -- many of these individuals are the ones who complain loudly about dwell, money chairs and the individuals who do those "dispicable" things -- without giving an alternative to anyone entering the game of other ways to "earn Linden's".

I'm also bringing up my disappointment with those successful within SL for not creating new economic opportunities for individuals within the game. It's not just LL's fault. Maybe the mechanics of the game (or lack of mechanics of the game) are helping to cause this, but somehow, I don't think so.

You understand that the LindeX can neither create nor destroy L$, yes? Using LindeX does not cause any L$ to exit the economy.