Stopping Developers Incentive?

real nice? did you wake withthe wrong person in your bed again? sorry i did not know :/

I'm referring to your tendency to make disruptive disparaging comments in threads you're not interested in, such as this one.

As to the 'other personalities' thing, not sure what you're implying, but I'm very sure you're wrong. Anyone who knows me or has even read a few of my posts will know I don't need to use an alt to come say what I want to say here. Especially to fucktards who deserve it.

you know......maybe you should start pointing out why your troll people and flame them instead. your breaking TOS as it is now. you should know better..........CASE IN POINT

Oh right. So I shouldn't troll threads but it's ok for you to? you really are a hypocrite, huh? Or are you too dumb to realise that too?

Anyhoo, don't bother replying, you're an extremely worth addition to the ignore list - you have never made a post worth reading anyway.

Its the holiday season give it a rest ok...........gesh you hate life that much :/

Please take personal disagreements in world. or whatever. I don't want this thread closed coz of nonsense. It is important to actually consider what alternatives people who make community events have atm, k?

So, folks are talking about "fear of buying Linden." I think a few things are happening here: there is the issue of identity, there is the issue of cost recovery when one is already contributing in other valuable ways to the community, and there is also the issue of displacement and perhaps even a sense of betrayal for some.

Some folks like feeling that they contribute to the community (not just individual business people's pocket books). For those folks, having something to do in world, some endeavour with a payoff of less than, oh, 8 months would be good. Without that sense of place in the community, why would they feel that this is a good place for them?

Also there is the issue of cost recovery. While people might pay to get something that will pay off to them (gambling) or for something that is way way way beyond their skill levels (live music) I seriously doubt that people will pay to attend discussions, group story writing, show and tells, scener's competitions and the like. Should all interaction in SL dry up and go away unless it happens at Infohubs or giant concert halls? Are infohubs meant to replace social venues in SL? Will it become suburbia with busstops and strip malls?

I don't think it is fear of buying Linden here as much as feeling that grass roots folks were told hey, we value community built content (in this instance, places for community to gather, structured activities or rich content builds, etc). Then folks saw the opportunity as a way to compete and win a game at all costs (literally). So, there goes events funding *snip* with nothing ever put in its place to aid events. Events, as predicted become mostly commercial. The folks still out there trying to do what the developer awards seemed designed to encourage are left holding the bag and have a genuine reason to feel betrayed. Are these folks now supposed to pay for the entertainment of the masses out of pocket just to be nice? Most of them were paying out of pocket and only recouped costs partially from dwell to begin with. Because of the gaming of the system or change in LL priorities or whatever, these folks are left holding the bag: not only tons of teir they now may not be able to support, but also land that will soon be worth substantially less than they paid for it as everyone rushes out to teir down.

Does anyone have any REAL ideas about what to do to save community-building places in SL? (please no more smart-ass comments about sucky clubs and how each other suck ok?) This is an important issue and deserves to be discussed civilly without forcing the thread to close with nonsense. Cheers. I am very very open to hearing people's ideas because atm, the situation seems pretty hopeless to me, and personal sniping isn't helping.

Persephone,
i want to see these issues with Dev Incentive dealt with me a matter that helps both us the players and that of owners of clubs. We need somethign to stimute sl in a matter that helps both that of users and owners.

the players are already getting a pretty good deal, from my perspective. If someone comes in with a basic account and is content to drift, and invests nothing in land or teir or building staff, or making newsletters, or building vip lists, or training staff, etc etc etc, one gets all kinds of good stuff. The folks who are there as visitors or tourists or whatnot already get paid to be entertained! pretty kewl eh? most get free gifts if not money (we don't give money, but pay at the spa for your entertainment out of pocket! how nice!)

Our events manager has secured gifts for giveaway at events and I have paid thousands and thousands of L every month for the last year to help entertain people. I've put in a minimum of 8 hours every week making events and helping people FIND the events in the clutter of commercialism that resulted from events funding cuts. What isn't working for the residents? Well, other than the residents who will lose jobs as a result of venue owners not having any means of paying them... but I hear there are linden work houses coming? I'm sure staring at an infonet terminal will be tons of fun!

I agree with Christiano that gaming the system ruined it for everyone, which, in my opinion, may have been the strategy from the start, at least in the instance of camping chairs.

btw, I blow my own horn because it just needed blowing!

I absolutely believe it was right to stop Developer Incentives. Not a popular opinion, but then a lot of mine aren't.

I don't think there should be anything by Linden Lab to replace it. At all.

I think the main problem is this whole mentality that hosts should bribe and cajole and beg and plead for people to come to their events. But it's probably way too late now to start making cover charges for the entertainment you're providing, sadly.

SL'ers just have a very fucked up mindset about this kinda thing, and I don't think you'll ever sway popular opinion to make it right. But the inevitable demise of these awards will at least hopefully stop SL being full of shit non-events designed only to boost dwell and acres of idiots in camping chairs, and that can only be a good thing.

I do, however, sympathise for those genuine and rare few who were relying on the incentives and actually doing something worthwhile to earn them.

I don't go to events much, but the past few events I did attend - none of them was hosted by someone who gets DI (I've just checked the november list). So I assume those people will go on? Why the "skybox is falling" cries about the end of SL as we know it?

Also, I find it funny that the new website still mentions DI in the marketing hype section

Morning Persephone.

I wonder if the problem is the combination of LL/SL getting away from the 'not like There' mentality (because to compete appropriately with future markets, they likely have to adopt policies that will make them like There), and/or too many not understanding TANSTAAFL either.

A couple off-the-cuff ideas instead of phasing out DI altogether, or working towards additional reform (warning, they may not be good ones, I'm just brainstorming since no one else is):

- Dwell/Traffic only generated from Premium accounts.

- Once you're on the DI list, you're disqualified for N months (at least 6).

- Basic account may have a larger stipend if they pay a fee smaller than Premium (say US$2/month for 200L$/week, or a one-time charge at creation via LindeX).

Again, these are off-the-cuff. By all means shoot holes in them or whatever, they've not been very well thought out; Just don't flame me please - suggest other, better alternatives.

that's why it is brainstorming. Thanks for actually participating in the thread and not just bashing events venues. I really would like to invite all the folks who talk about how the horrible black box clubs deserved to die long ago to come and see some venues that put on events. Our wednesday night storytelling event is still on this week (though some events are on holiday hiatus) come by at 9pm SL time and check it out. See if this was in fact gaming the system with your own two eye pixels.

I think eliminating DI winners for however many months would undermine the thing trying to be accomplished in that a one-time check for $30 doesn't go far toward a $2,340 annual teir payment. Otherwise great ideas. I don't think dwell in any form is going to be brought back. Heck the email for taking proposals isn't even working, so I seriously doubt that people affected by the change are going to be heard other than, in a few instances, by concierges who are relatively powerless to change policy.

Also, Candide, your assumption may have some flaws: the spa wasn't on the november list for the first time ever due to camping chair places pushing out genuine event venues so your favourite event venue may have been affected similarly. Additionally your favourite venue may benefit from dwell payments but just not receive developers incentives.

Am I misreading the announcement by taking it to mean that all dwell payments and not only developer incentives, are being eliminated? or is it only the developer awards? If the daily dwell payments continue, someone running events out of his or her 512 sq M, not paying for streaming, animations, moneyballs, or anything else, may break even in the new system.

When the event funding cuts came, people seemed to be critical of my posts by thinking that I was exaggerating about the effects to come. In fact, we have seen a decline in real events and an increase in commercialism as predicted. Also, we have seen the number of escort agencies and freelance escorts dramatically increase to the point that malls are selling escort service coupons. I dunno about the skyboxes falling, but I do know that without something to encourage community-building events, they may well cease to happen. maybe that suits some folks to a T. I think it would be sad though.

I don't think this will have any noticable effect on the widespread of money ball/chairs whatsoever. Not as long as they keep the dwell system and popular places as it is.

When I was running flat out for #1 in pop places this summer (just to have done that too), DI covered less than 8% of my total expenses. It covered tier and then some. But it was fun having LL pay me, instead of me paying them.

I imagine other popular places also has expenses way over what the DI covers. With the current dwell system still in place, I predict we will only see minor adjustments to the payouts with the money balls/chairs. Getting into the pop places list is still extremely valuable for businesses that has something to sell.

I think dwell payments are staying, it doesn't cost LL anything to print money. However, I was always under the impression the biggest problem for people running "normal" and "interesting" events wasn't the cost for land etc, but lack of attendees. Few days ago I was at a picture gallery event - there were about 10 people there, including the hosts and presenting artists. I'm sure you could find another 10-50 people who would enjoy the event among the 3000 online during that time.

How to reach people is the problem you need to solve. With enough people, you can get donation money - I'm always happy to donate at an event I like - and possibly a commercial sponsor (which, when done with taste, has no negative impact on event experience).

So, by eliminating DI it seems LL is saying - get more people to attend your events/attractions. Which is all nice and right, except SL provides no tools and help to do that.

Solve that by creating a group for the event topic and work hard over a longer period to get interested members in the group.

Group IMs can do wonders for the attendance. Especially if the group is dedicated to just that; telling the members when events they are interested in starts.

This is your opinion only. and no I am neutral on the Camping Chairs. I know it cost lots of money to run a Sim and if the chairs bring in the dwell to help pay for the sim so be it.

But one thing is for sure, its not gaming the system... Thats just your opinion.

And I have never used the camping chairs.

Because it cost money that some people, (Me for example right now till the first of the month) cannot afford to spend on a Gaming money system.

There's a difference between DI and dwell, that seems to have gone and come back again in this thread. I'm not sure that camping chairs really make a significant difference to dwell either. Don't you get L$1/day to share in dwell - it's shared between the places you spend 5+ minutes in IIRC?

So if you get 10 people in chairs for all their time in world in a day you get $10. If you get 20 people at a popular event for half their time in world (and over 5 minutes) you get the same $10. Sure it can be gamed for little bits of money and equally certainly someone's doing it, but I suspect it's a tiny amount.

I do know that dwell is the metric used for calculating the DI too, so gaming the chairs certainly helps. I don't have a huge problem with killing the DI and although it wouldn't really affect me much (on a good week I get L$150 in dwell) I'd be far, far unhappier if dwell went altogether.

I'm going to mention Anshe by name, but it's not an attack, she's just one of the obvious people that gains through the current system. Whilst I don't have any problems with Anshe's business model and there are certainly beautiful sims that she runs, in my personal opinion she and her sims are rarely in the most beautiful and interesting places in SL. They're rental or similar places for residency, which is certainly valid and essential, but all too rarely actually interesting unless you live there.

A system to reward people for interesting builds and activities has, if you use a simple count metric, to compete with the Anshe's of this world who get wonderful numbers simply because they own so much land. The system isn't doing what it was expected to do, just like many others (telehubs, ratings etc.) and someone, somewhere has to make some decisions. One is to leave it as is, one is to repair it (or replace it with something that might do what was desired), and the last is to kill it off.

They've essentially killed ratings. They're trying to repair telehubs to be gathering and information dispersal points. The announcement makes it clear they're not going to leave DI as is, but whether it's a clean kill or a fix we'll have to see as time goes by. Whether it also leads to a slower death of dwell, we'll have to see...

The problem with just printing money is that the Money Exchangers hate it. Thats why they and the FIC and the Star Chamber pushed to end dwell and DI and thats why the world will probably become a very sad place now.......

But then, Group IM'S are broken, just one of the many bugs that needs to be fixed.

Wait... the FIC and the Star Chamber are different entities? It's not the same people? Dang. Where can I get subscription info on the Star Chamber? And who's in it? I've got a fairly good idea who is FIC, but I didn't realise there was this whole other group conspiracy thing running in parallel. I want in!

Fear my awesome power! If I had to guess, Magnum, I'd say they played the exact same part you did... none at all. LL obviously decided that their incentive program wasn't serving as an incentive for the type of development they were hoping for so they're ending the program.

As it stands now, land owners subsidize SL for everyone else. If free accounts are unwilling to spend any money to offset the costs of those who are spending a lot of money, people are going to get tired of running charities. In the long run that's simply not sustainable and I think LL is smart enough to know that. Camping chairs are symptoms of a larger problem and one that the DI program ended up making worse instead of better.

People have to start depending on their patrons to offset their costs, not Linden Lab. The idea of popular social venues paying their patrons to be entertained is absurd. It always has been. If we as a culture don't start to demand that everyone carry their share of the financial burden then SL will eventually fold up like a house of cards. Free accounts have to become participants in the economy or else they're of no benefit to LL or to the minority of users who are currently paying the majority of the cost of keeping the grid alive. It's as simple as that.

I already stated what I thought. My opinion is just as qualified as anyones. I have no idea what you are getting at.

This is the typical ultra right wing conservative view... Do not depend on the government in other words...

Sorry, only the FIC and Star Chamber subscribe to that twisted and evil point of view.

Free account holders are part of the economy, but not in a way that benefits events makers. Free Account holders give their money to stuff makers so that they can go to the events made by events makers. well in part. i know that is super oversimplified. people do other things too like hang out with friends and learn to build or whatever. But particularly when someone has no advanced friend networks yet in world, they must meet people somewhere. When I was new, working at a club caused me to buy at least two whole avatars and one formal that I couldn't afford in $L so I bought $L in order to fit into that environment. That benefitted the maker of stuff from whom I bought said items. It didn't, however, benefit the places I hung out in in order to meet people and develop an SL network of friends.

In short, free account holders benefit the stuff makers. It makes sense that the stuff makers would want to see Joe Free Account do things in world that makes him more likely to buy more of their stuff.