Charge for Commerical Event Listings

I proposed the idea of charging L$50 per commercial event listing at last weeks (04-22-05) meeting with Robin & Daniel Linden as a means of allowing fully commercial events to be listed. I proposed this idea to mollify the anti-commercial element within SL, while still allowing commercial events to be shown as such.

By commercial, I mean anything to do with tours, vendor open houses, mall openings, store opening, even tringo and slingo.

I would like your input as well as your vote in the poll.

Personally, I'm supportive of the idea. The one concerning side-effect of such a policy, however - is the potentiality of making it tougher for newbies to post events, since they have less cash.

So - maybe a compromise solution:

$50 to post an event on non-linden owned land
Free to post an event on linden owned land
Free to post any Linden-approved Class on any land

If you did it that way, Newbies & Instructors wouldn't be prevented by funds from posting an event if they chose, and the $50 posting fee could go to help subsidize better dwell awards, and potentially weed out frivolous postings.

This could also have an accidential benefit of encouraging more classes on the calendar, since they would become free to post.

Trav

Travis,

I agree and thank you for your compromise. I would like to see more legitimate classes as well and your compromise might have that added benefit.

What if a $50 charge could apply to all Commercial events not currently allowed on the events slate at all and for events that are in excess of a venue's event posting limit. This could make for three effective tabs for events: one would be community events (up to 3 per posting); one would be commercial events, and a third would be Venue repeater events, let's say (or however one might name that category that would be acceptable to the folks using it).

Great idea! Its the tabs that seem to be an issue that the Linden's can't get around, but I like the idea! Let us see how else has some ideas to expand on this. I have yet to hear from any naysayers and I know that they are out there.

This is not anti-business as I see this actually helping my commercial property.

bump

I am against a fee. Looking fowards, I can see how it would simply commercialize the calendar even more. And, I am NOT against commercial events. I just want it to be fair for all.. and I don't see a fee as being fair. While 50L is a drop in the bucket to some, it is a LOT to others.

What if we had the soon to be raised 5 events per day... and any listed OVER that limit required a fee?

As stated, this fee would only apply to commercial events, such as contests, Tringo, Slingo, mall openings, property tours and such. The fee would not apply to educational events such as learning to build or script.

I think that it's becoming clear that the events listing is a scarce resource. There are several ways to control access to a scarce resource - you can leave it as a commons free-for-all, you can allocate quotas, or you can let an open market distribute the market (there may be more, but lets go with that).

Up until recently the events listing was a commons free-for-all. We see what happened there - people were spamming the listing with advertising and dupe events to the point where you couldn't find the rare event that interested you. Typical tragic outcome.

Currently we are operating under a restricted quota system. As usual, people don't like quotas or restrictions.

Letting a market allocate the resources has advantages, but you have to be careful you don't set it up in a way that lets the rich get richer while keeping the poor folk poor, or is just useless for everyone.

I'd say we need a separate way to advertise goods and services in-world, and it makes sense to ask people to pay for advertising. That would remove some pressure from the events listing to be something it wasn't intended to be. Charging for events listings sounds bad to me, as it's already hard enough to put on events since LL took away support. But if everyone got a freebie each day, that might be a good start. Beyond that, there could be some sort of fee, perhaps scaling up in a non-linear fashion. I suggested this to Jeff Linden a few weeks ago and got a good chuckle when I suggested it go by powers of ten. On a given day your first event is free, your 2nd costs $1, 3rd is $10, 4th is $100, 5th is $1000, 6th is 10,000... OK, I'm a nut, but you can see how that would regulate event postings while still letting the little guy participate. And little guys probably won't be having 5 events a day anyway.

Thinking outside the box, maybe we need to look at other ways of advertising events than one central list.

This is what I like. Lots of ideas. Keep it up guys.

What if there were just two tabs .. or a check box like that for mature content ..


To distinguish between commercial and non commercial events.

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The Business who need more event freedom should probably get some relief. Since they are very vocal about how things have changed.

Question here... who decides if an event is commercial or not?

Tringo is being suggested as being commercial. Sure it is for some. For others it isn't. What if I decide to pull out my personal set.. and list an event just for fun? I'm not adding to the pot.. I have no shops/etc to promote on the same plot.. I just wish to play a few games at my place and have opened it up in case others wish to join me. Why should I pay to list it?

Then there could be discussions, dances, whatever with no money involved.. no prizes.. nothing.. yet they are held right in the middle of a mall or casino. The event itself may not be commercial in nature, yet it could clearly be considered advertising in nature.

Then, there are those that will consider ALL events not held on public Linden land commercial due to the dwell issue.

*shrug* I'm just fine here with having no distinction being made between the two other than in our own minds. (Mature events are another thing.. I am personally tired of seeing adult events being listed as non-mature.. or events being held in bsdm places and you don't find out until you fly there and go OMGGGGG whoaaaa)

The ONLY way I would say "well ok" to a fee to list an event is if we received a set number of FREE listings per day. I see the fee as limiting events. Frankly, I feel we need MORE events.. not less.

What we need is a much better calendar system with filtering where we can customize it to our individual desires instead of creating more rules and limits.

What I have attempted to do is to make a compromise with those who see 95% of the events listed as nothing more than "spam" and to get them off our backs. And yes, they consider Tringo and Slingo events as nothing more than "spam" as well and they are very vocal minority.

Personally, I feel that the word "spam" is over and mis-used in many cases, including here. I feel that all events on private land, especially those on land that hold a commercial enterprise, to be some sort of advertisement for the property itself. Some have disagreed with this point, though I feel they are mistaken, which of course, is my right.

Unlike the U.S. Senate, where reasonable compromise seems to be out of the question, I think we can come to a compromise. I suggested the fee for commercial events listings as a way of suggesting just a compromise.

I have never felt that a minority of citizens, no matter how vocal they are, should not dictate what should be done by the majority. However, this does not mean that the majority should trample the rights of the minority. In the events listings though, the minority is not having any of their rights violated. They can either choose to attend or not attend an event. Hell, they can even choose not to look at the event listing.

Again, I offered a compromise in the hopes of firing up discussion. I am hoping that the discussion will continue until we can find a happy medium that even the Lindens would accept, though however unlikely.

I have never experienced this. Perhaps it was the event posters simple error, forgetting to click the box. It is certainly possible, however, to have an event that is not mature at a mature area. I have held several classes at the spa or rose house without complaint, and with Lindens in conspicuous attendance. We also have a grotto at the spa, but it is well-hidden. One would have to have a tour to find it. or be a really good explorer.

How about this idea? Host an actual education event, you get to list a commercial event for free. If you fail in your duties to host an educational event, you are fined by the Lindens a sum of L$750.

This sounds more like a "TAX" well if this is the case. It will lead to more taxes down the line, I am not really sold of this idea or even Travis idea. Then what is next? club events?! OUCH! i see a trend going down hill.

Usagi,

We already have to pay a "tax" of L$30 just to list our land in the Find/Places. I haven't exactly seen a snowball effect of taxes from that, not to say it couldn't happen.

You are right, what is to stop the anti-business crowd from getting business owners to pay for even more essential services provided to others for free?

Though I am for paying a fee to list commercial events, I am basically trying to get people to discuss the issue here, since only a limited number of people are allowed to be on the Linden approved commission. (I asked to be on it, but haven't heard word one from Robin).

If it means that say club support of event to come back I say yes........Otherwise like the posting of 30l the find. Why? Back in Jan there was talk about a TAX to help the game generate more money to support such issues. I think Tringo and slings and other such game should be "TAXED" because they are all over the event boards. Just like the 30L for "FIND" Games should be taxed to help reduced the abusive posting ways of some club owners are doing nowadays. OMG 8 Games in a roll at times! We need some to control abuses of any such event happening. Maybe flat tax across the board will solve the abusing of such events.
Thank you for reading

bump