Unskilled jobs? Pay volunteers first.

The "entitlement mentality" is a natural consequence of it being a choice to play SL or not. Given that it is a choice, there is no reason to choose it unless it gets you something good.

And I think that an achievement checklist of the type described would be an excellent thing for newbies, especially ones used to the traditional MMO model.

How about letting the newbies themselves decide who's doing a good job.

Give them 10 "tips" they can dole out in the first week. Some kind of green-stamps that enhance your next stipend (bringing back the reputation bonus with some kind of moderate cap, and giving them 10 free reps, would do the trick). The greeters are going to be in a better position to benefit from this, but other people can try and keep up.

Unused tips would just vanish.

There would be some modest limit on the number of tips that you could redeem a week.

I tend to agree with this sentiment. I wouldn't want to be paid to be a volunteer, although if it was forced on me, I'd probably try to roll that cash back into something else (more trivia - yay! <G>

The hidden jewel of volunteering is that its impossible to place a dollar value on the satisfaction of helping others, or making someone feel good. There are other measures of wealth than just cash.

Of course, this is coming from a white dog that hates shopping, rarely wears clothes - and prefers to make things himself rather than buy from others.

1. I agree, it would be nice if volunteers were rewarded in some more concrete way than just the recognition, perhaps, or a bit of prestige. Just the satisfaction of being able to help someone isn't really quite enough, considering the hours devoted to it. But then there is the AOL-type problem. Maybe they would then be more of liasons, rather than volunteers, and liasons may be more like paid employees, I don't know.

But getting something would be nice. If not Lindens, maybe at least special parties (if you don't already get those), or various plaques for various hours of service (done on the honor system) that you could display with pride - or SOMETHING. I'm sure more rewards could be thought up that would not run afoul of the AOL pitfall.

2. About the two weeks thing, though, that would seem to me not enough time at ALL. I would have felt more comfortable at it, were I doing it officially, at maybe 2-3 months.

3. The policy for rewarding people for doing "nothing of value" is this, as I see it:

. People immediately find, when they log onto SL, that there IS something productive they can do until they learn something else. And rather than aimlessly ambling around trying to make "contacts" in the vast landscape, they can do this job with others, and in a more immersive way, find people to chat with.

. Once they have made $5 or $50 or whatever, they look forward to coming back the next day, and doing their little job and seeing how much more they can get. So they do.

. So we get retention, instead of rapid drop-outs, once the person asks somebody, "how do you make money here," and gets answers that might not be quite as comprehensive or enthusiastic as they would get from me. I looked around, figured out what the "jobs" were, and set about flying to money trees, free slots, etc. If I were new now, I'd be camping in money chairs.

You tend to think of these little jobs as someone getting money by "not working." But believe me, that sort of thing IS work. I was willing to do that work - even knowing it was for peanuts - until I could do something else. Plus, those peanuts added up, and with diligence, I was able to rent a room from Auk, then, later, "buy" my own land from Nexus Nash, even as a basic, without yet selling anything. Where I've lived ever since. Then I became a premium and bought my own land for a shop, too.

That's retention. This plan, if I'm understanding it correctly, would just make it very much easier for people to find those sorts of "jobs" off the bat, and they would presumably be more engaging and less stupid-looking than money chairs. (And less likely to accumulate dwell for the chair owners, and the attendant imbalances that causes.)

The chairs have been NOTHING OTHER than the residents themselves going ahead and supplying this need. Which is something people on the forums are always saying we should do. That they have been so overwhelmingly popular indicates that there IS a need. And from what Robin said, it looks like SL is addressing this need, in the hopes of retaining more members, and thus ultimately getting more premiums. Premiums are the holy grail.

coco

P.S. Thinking about this further, these jobs Robin alluded to would also be a VERY handy answer for all those volunteers on Help Island, who are surely asked by virtually every single new resident, "How do I make money?"

One thing...

Was it actually said anywhere that Lindens were brainstorming unskilled jobs with the intention of paying the people doing said jobs themselves? I'd assume it's for them to make suggestions to land owners, possibly build and provide equipment for it, at a stretch maybe implement new features to make things possible.

I agree that if LL is going to directly pay people to do unskilled jobs then they should pay the volunteers, but I really don't think that's their intention.

Aren't you being anticapitalistic?

What Travis said.

I agree with Enabran as well, and the others that think this entitlement mentality has got to go. SL is entertainment for most, and I'm sorry, but entertainment does cost money. You take your hard earned bucks from working, and use it to entertain yourself during your free time.

Consider:

A trip to visit the Philadelphia Eagles football team costs $100 for a ticket, $20 for parking, and let's say another $30 for beer / food / etc. That's $150 for 3 hours of entertainment. The same amount of cash converted into L$ would be about L$40000. Do you have to go to the game? No, its a choice.

A trip to the movie theater for 2 hours of entertainment typically costs about $20, when you consider ticket, gas, a soda and popcorn. That $20 would be L$5200. Do you have to go to the movie? No, its a choice.

A vacattion to Europe would typically cost about $3000. Same amount of cash in SL? L$780,000. Do you have to go to Europe? No, its a choice.

You can be completely entertained in SL without L$ - creation is free, chatting with friends is free, attending events is free, even griefing Lindens is free! There is also a ton of free content out there, from open-source AOs to CrystalShard's FreeView to hundreds of other items. This is why it amazes me that people are so resistant to pay US$ for L$ and expect EVERYTHING to be free. Its nonsense!

Even the most coveted, expensive, difficult-to-create items in SL typically cost less than a trip to Starbucks. Chew on that for a little while, and support your content creators; it probably takes less to support content creators than your weekly soda budget!

Regards,

-Flip

The problem is that the bulk of unique "entertainment" offered by SL is either in making money or avoiding needing it (ie, because you're building things yourself). Without that it's just a 3D talker with a few relatively weak subgames bolted on. And if it's judged in those terms, it can't compete with other things that cost US$ on entertainment value.



I saw a dream-based build the other day and spoke to its owner. Based just on the aspects they told me about, it would have cost L$ 500000 so far. All of that money, that person recieved for free. Is it surprising that others would feel a little bit entitled too?

I'm with Flip. SL is entertainment. There are more than enough freebies available to occupy those who don't want to spend any money. If you want the stuff that is not available for free then you have 2 options 1) Make something that someone else wants to buy 2) cough up some $US to either upgrade to premium or go buy $1000L for a whopping $4 US.

You want HBO, you pay for HBO...it doesn't come for free over network broadcast. You want free, you take what network broadcast wants to offer you, which is determined by what their advertisers will pony up the money to support based on being able to drown you in commercials to get you to go buy things.


The math is pretty darn simple:

Premium Membership paid yearly = $72 US, or $6 monthly

$500L a week stipend = $2000L a month

$2000L on LindenX will cost you $8 US, so you get the same amount of Lindens for $2 less by upgrading.

The entitlement mentality is a natural consequence of targeting the MMO gaming market to obtain a larger customer base. I agree that a significant segment does not find SL's content to be worth paying for but but disagree that pay to participate is the best resolution to the retention issue. Effectively supporting the development of content as well as instructional and entertainment services enables the existence of something good worth playing and paying for. Enabling the pay me to play here mentality would be a questionable choice for a company with goals of evolving a game into a platform. It would be an understandable choice, however, if it's goal is to compete with other MMOG's. Since the company is neither yours or mine, I guess it is up to LL to make the choice to play SL or not.

Margaret and Islaban make very good points /stamp
I would however like to see event subsidy come back with some sort of event idea vetting as certification. I for one made no profit from it and enjoyed passing out the money prizes for building events surrounded with the camraderie of the drumbeaters.

That's still not the main point. Among the people I've talked to, which I acknowledge is a limited number, many object to buying L$ - or even, in some cases, going Premium - not because they want everything for free, but because they consider that doing so would show that they were "unable" to earn the money within SL; and if they were unable to do that, then they'd also be unable to achieve the things they wanted, because the skill sets needed are basically the same.

I've seen at least three times on these very forums, someone saying "people with no talent go here" and posted a link to the Lindex buy page. But the problem is, if you really have "no talent" - and especially, if you don't want to be reminded of that fact - then there really isn't that much entertainment in SL as compared to any messenger service.

It's just the back end of all the hype. "Anshe built her empire up from a basic, so going Premium won't help me succeed." "Some skilled builders get given land for free, so if I have to buy land that means I'm not skilled." (Or, "I shouldn't buy land to build a public area, because if I was good enough at marketing to get folks to show up I could have used those same skills to get the land for free." I know folks will say I'm just being neurotic, but these attitudes are real and out there. I've seen real-life students actually say "many big business folks succeed without going to Uni, so since we needed to go to Uni that shows we can't succeed" - and some have said that right in front of me which nearly made me cry.

Seems like providing mentors with funds would be an effective way of supporting events.

I'm still up in the air over that. I think vetted events, not just educational, but with some sort of LL approval process is the way to go. Then we don't get the almighty bellowing of FIC going on.

I agree that there can be culture issues at work, which I think is what you are describing (if I am not mistaken.) The honor of earning your way impacts different cultures in different ways, US culture tends to refer to that as "work ethic", which is sadly lacking in a large number of people - hence the entitlement mentality. I will go out on a limb and suggest that the honor of earning your way applies to a fairly small number of people and probably none of them American, the rest are just cheap and want "Money for Nothing."

Which brings me to a point I should have made in my post above. The "what about the poor people" arguement holds no water. Anyone who has a computer powerful enough to run SL and can pay for a DSL connection is far from "poor". $4 is lunch at the drive through.

I must say! I do think people are entirely misinterpreting the work ethic and its application here.

People DO want to work! They want to be able to make money. Flying around to money trees IS work. Constantly moving the lever at Free Slots IS work. (As well an invitation to carpel tunnel syndrome.)

That stuff is boring, for the most part, and much less fun than creating and selling. That's what makes it even HARDER work than creating. But at least you stay busy. Studies have shown that even in the most routine jobs, the greatest boredom and dissatisfaction occurs not when you run out of papers in the in-box, but when you are sitting around for hours with nothing to do but watch the clock and try to look busy somehow.

I'm grateful that I now have enough skills to partake of some of the creative fun offered by SL, and by SL alone, as far as I can tell. But it takes quite a while to even get to that point. So what do you do in the meantime? You want to be productive at SOMETHING.

Nobody is asking for a handout. People are asking for something they can DO to MAKE money.

Something other than building, scripting, or selling land.

That IS the work ethic. That is not the entitlement mentality. People are asking for JOBS. Not welfare. And people are willing to put in the work.

To me, it's kind of as if we had a rl society that offered only three occupations: Artist, mathemetician, and real estate magnate.

Now, people would still want to live in that society - and want to use the services provided by the three above professions. Some of them may dream of someday achieving those professions.

But meanwhile, they want to be able to do some work, TOO (that doesn't involve selling their virtual bodies).

That is the work ethic.

They may look at buying money as (a) cheating and/or (b) paying content creators twice, in a sense. Now you can argue with that all you like, as being not the case, or bad thinking, or whatever, but that IS the thinking. You may not like it that they look at it that way, but they do, and that affects SL's bottom line, which is more important than of our idealistic notions, really.

When people realize they can either buy money or be one of three professions, many of them leave, unless one of the professions is attractive to them (as one was to me), or they are willing to buy money. And that's IF they are already ok with putting up with the lag and slow-rezzing textures. They need to have some point for staying here.

All in all, I think the numbers of members who might be retained (and some of them ultimately turned into premium members, and some of them ultimately deciding to buy money, once they get used to the idea) far outweighs any philosophical notion that we all should provide all this stuff ourselves.

Plus, whenever anyone DOES provide it, they get roundly trounced on the forums for doing so. Money balls, free slots, money chairs - ALL these sorts of things meet with extraordinary amounts of condesension on these forums.

People working within a system to succeed is not "gaming the system." It's working within the system you are given, for survival and enjoyment, completely within the rules and the structure.

At the Lindens bottom line is the need for premium accounts. Something like this, I think, would ultimately increase that, allowing people to get at least a foot-hold on their long-term goals in SL. Or spend enough time here to find a long-term goal that is attractive to them.

That's not easy to do now. Very few people would be as persistant about plodding through the drudge of money trees, etc., as I was. And among them, those who don't have a long-term goal in mind shortly after they get here, as I did, don't even have the motivation to do it.

Let's have something for players to do to earn a few measly bucks, if it means more and longer retention of players, and ultimately more conversions to premiums, as I believe it will.

coco

Nice post Enabram. I live help when I can, the odd weekend and one or two nights during the week. But there are some hardcore volunteers who seem to always have the live help tag on and are answering questions. Those people are worth their weight in gold.

I don't think any of the volunteers would say no to a few bucks but I don't think it would matter to them if they never saw a cent either.

A few probably worthless points.

1. Volunteers are by-defintion, unpaid.
2. Mentors and instructors, even (especially?) in SL have some skills sets which may or may not be of value to others.
3. LL has repeatedly shown, through its policies, statements and economic actions that these skillsets are of limited value to them despite any rhetoric to the contrary. Stipends and compensation have been cut or reduced and empty statements have been substituted in place of even the minimal $L pittance of compensation they once offered such volunteers.

Given these minimalist points, this entire thread is pointless as it seeks to rework the linguistic meanings of the words involved.

Likewise, the original post smacks of self-pity and resentment at one's recognition that he/she finally figured out that he/she was being "had"/taken advantage of by the corporate entity that is LL ---- and has no one to blame but him/herself. No one forced anyone to volunteer. There was never any indication or suggestion that volunteers would be paid. The entire basis of the TOS is that LL can change its policies on the fly, on its least whim - and volunteers should certainly be aware of this already.

The last statement is why I do NOT volunteer given the evidence of a year's plus relationship with LL, it's history of TOS amendments and its policy of doing wha it believes is best for is own financial bottom line - not that which would benefit those residents who have invested the most or the longest in SL. LL has repeatedly used the skillsets of its paying membeship for its own purposes, self-aggrandizement, and financial benefit without intending to "personally" compensate those skillsets and actions or to ensure that unaware, paying customers did the compensation. The onus has always been placed on the residents. Paralleling the recent "ponzi" scheme thread, I am sure that at least some of those in the SF office daily sit back, arms behind their heads and laugh out loud as they mutter "suckers" to themselves.

Volunteers have nothing to bitch about. You chose this status and self-abuse.

BAH HUMBUG!

Volunteering does not mean you do not get paid.

Volunteer means to enter into a service at one's free will.

An example would be a volunteer firefighter. They get paid a stipend for attending fires and training sessions and are not expected to buy fire trucks out of their pockets.

Smooth talking hustlers duping people into going premium for pay - what a wonderful idea.

And blaze's idea of monitoring the conversations - that's a winner too.

"Welcome to Second Life, we are monitoring all your chat because for some reason we are afraid the guy we semi-hired to smooth talk you into paying more might be looking to make a semi-ethical quick buck."

Except that SL is not cometing dollar for dollar in a market with these events. I blow a few hundred bucks every year on on seeing the canucks play hokey in so cal. I am not going to give that up to play SL. If it came to that it would be bye bye SL. Thus to price SL in a position with hockey game in terms of cost, is silly.

SL cometes with WoW, SWG and other online games for its player base. Which means interms of time and attention in my case, SL has got to be comptitive with say NWN2 when it comes out or DND online. If there were a good science fiction MMPORG out there, SL would probably not be my first choice.

LL made a decsion to market SL in such away that it competes for computer gaming dollars. That means people expect to be able to do other things, like get an X-box360 and play SL. All of this cost compariosn takes SL out of its market nich and expects that people will devote all thier entertainment dollars to SL. This is not the way to analyze it.
part of capitalism is understanding your market, and what your market's expectations are. In this regard SL struggles.

The problem right now is the only "roads to glory" in second life right now are riches and high dwell, and you can get either just by plunking down dollars.

I know the "rating" system never really worked, but I wish that there were more direct rewords for making second life a friendlier place or for creating something unique, entertaining, beautiful, functional, or simply cool; and I wish there were some way that people could be rewarded for being all around contributors to the virtual world.

I know self-satisfaction is one reward, but it doesn't pay the land tiers, does it? We need the eqivalents of the Nobel prizes.

Again, I'm going to have to be Hank Reardon and encourage such people to pick those jobs from the bushes where they think the jobs grow.

If a job isn't actually creating or providing value, you're not actually doing a job. You're jumping through a hoop to get a handout. You've opined constantly for the need to give people jobs to do without actually coming up with anything that preserves a two-way value proposition.

We already have very real jobs in Second Life that are assigned by Linden Lab. They're just not paid positions. To start giving money to anyone but these people would be criminal, since they're probably doing the most essential work to customer retention Linden Lab could ask for.

I don't even know what to make of this. Because people have personal hang-ups about using $10 to get a foothold in SL or for their personal entertainment without getting a virtual job, then what? We should make it easy for them to get money in world so they feel like they earned it? In the equivalent of "go work at [insert fast food joint here]", go get a club job, they are widely available. If you can't hack it via "talent" as people define it, there are other ways to find $Ls.