A proposal for a strike: changing the way people think about events

I agree that tier fees are quite high and that they should, perhaps, be reconsidered (particularly the addition of a 3/4 sim teir) Since anyone can provide content, I'm not sure what you mean by unofficial partners you refer to. I provide content, but I am in no way partnered with LL.



We are in agreement here, except that I recognize that to some folks, standing in a sandbox is entertainment. I wouldn't expect that to be the majority, though.



I didn't think it made money enough to pay teir, but if it makes money enough to compensate the host that's a start at least. Art events and many cultural events have no mechanism whatsoever to recoup funds from those who attend. I believe events funding should be reinstated. I see no reason whatsoever for LL to be paying for moneyballs and camping chairs, though. Also let me be clear, this is me responding just as a person and not as the FFRC. I wouldn't presume to. The FFRC is an organization of many people and that organization works collectively. It is also open to the public and free to join.



I agree with you. I believe there should be private and public partnerships with LL continuing to incent events, but I don't agree that they should be endlessly funding the rising costs and traffic of camping chairs and moneyballs.



I'm worried that you are confusing the goals of the FFRC and the reason that it was started. Actually, I shouldn't speak to why Rye founded it, but I joined it because I have been saying since events funding was cut in Jan of last year that there needed to be some mechanism other than dwell and tips to help pay for events content. It has never been "just fine with me" that LL doesn't support events. A brief look at the multitude of posts I have made on the subject should clarify that as (to be kind) a misunderstanding. The FFRC is not about censorship. Anyone can join the FFRC and vote for what he or she feels is rich content. The org is funded from private residents at this point, though, and may have to make decisions at some date about what it can and can't support.

Again, I am speaking as a member of the FFRC, and not AS the FFRC. The FFRC is comprised of many individuals united in the common goal of trying to support rich content. So far, it has sponsored sporting events, a show and tell event, a poetry event and other great stuff. We have, so far, funded EVERY application we have received because we have been able to and because (unanimously) all of the voting members believed the applications to be worthwhile. Interestingly, I think the majority of members of the org never even knew one another before joining. It isn't a clique. It is an extremely diverse group united in a common cause. The FFRC isn't some anonymous group bent on getting rid of some events in favour of others. We have been super clear in stating in our meetings (from several different people) that the group is about being FOR rich content and not about being AGAINST any other kind of content. If you are interested in joining this group, you are certainly welcome to. If you are interested in knowing what we are about, please read the chatlogs which are posted in the FFRC thread in events. We are trying the best we can to be transparent in order to avoid accusations that we are promoting favoritism or whatnot. There may come a time when we have to choose among the applications we receive due to limited funds.



What about the 'regular gal'with 'high brows' Just to set the record straight, my venue (which the FFRC doesn't fund, btw) has a wide range of events content. I don't think there has to be a high brow or low brow division. I put on dance parties, produce Cirga's Name-That-Game-Contest, storytelling, art shows, mud wrestling, truth or dare games, and lots of other stuff. I've been hosting events for more than a year in SL on a weekly basis. Please trust that I would not be a member of ANY organization that attacked events on any level. The FFRC has not ever said or done anything to attack events, nor would it if I had anything to say about the matter. The FFRC has been about trying to help sponsor events and that's it. Also, the FFRC was trying to do this long before the camping chairs forced the DI cuts. There HAVE been folks who have been against DI since the beginning, but you are pointing a finger at the wrong people. I have my suspicions (again these are personal and not representing any organizational theory or belief system) that it is those very folks who have been against DI who made the camping chairs. What better way to bring down the system? Works as well as a self-replicating scripted object does to bring down a grid.



I agree with you here. But, to be fair, this is harder than it sounds. What would YOU suggest they do? What kind of system do you envision? How would it work? These are questions I struggle with, and I'm sure the Lindens do also. If you are really interested in seeing this happen, put on your thinking cap and help me out! (me as Persephone, not an organization). Then maybe we can add it to feature suggestions. I had allocated every vote I could muster to reinstating events funding when that was suggested by Jenna Fairplay. I even begged patrons to do the same. That isn't an option now as the suggestion was taken off altogether. I personally believe that there SHOULD be a system for the company to incent rich content as it benefits them. I ALSO believe that the folks who come to Second Life expecting that they should reap the rewards of everyone else's labour and expenditures indefinitely without giving anything back should pony up and pay admissions to events. I disagree with free memberships. I personally think that $10 a month is not too much to pay for a great, immersive, inworld experience.



I expect that you are right and many people will be selling off their land, and said the same thing in another thread. I think, further, that LL does those folks a disservice by releasing a whole lot more land at this time in terms of massive auctioning of sims. It almost seems intended to put these folks between a rock and a hard place: if you keep your land you do so at your own expense; if you sell your land, you do so at a loss.

I also agree with your last statement. If you look at my signature, which has been the same for many, many months, this should be clear. In fact, bladyblue, I imagine that we are more in agreement than in disagreement. I have a clear record on supporting events and noting the (obvious) link between experiential content and the health of the SL world.



This is one step of several that LL has taken to try to 'monetize' their business. They are not a non-profit charity but a business, so they need to make smart decisions about how to grow the community without just throwing money away. I agree that they need to compensate or at least incent people who make the world more "sticky" for the new users who come in (those who help those folks stick around by providing venues for them to meet other players and have fun). I also believe that people who attend events should be paying a few cents to cover costs of the person hosting and the owner of the land. That said, this will take a very large paradigm shift on the part of users who are used to getting paid to attend events.

I know I sound like I'm bragging when I keep pointing to my record on these issues, but I'm honestly just trying to respond to what feels like criticism that I am somehow (me and the org I belong to) 'attacking' events. Nothing could be further from the truth. I invite you to chat me up in-world sometime and see what we can do together to think of a proposal for giving incentment to the makers of events and other experiential content. The FFRC is working on a box office contest to that end already. (This is another thing that disproves the idea that the group is about censorship: the box office would be open source and available to ALL events holders.) I don't think (personally) that the group would be unified in terms of political actions or pressuring Linden decisions. This is just a guess. What I think, though, is that if we could come up with a workable plan for Lindens to benefit those who benefit the community, then maybe some committee members would sponsor it and maybe the community division of LL would too. I'd love to chat with you about this. Please look me up when you are in world sometime for us to talk about it if you want to.

Cheers and best wishes for success in any and all of your events,
Perse

Once LL began to compensate folks to encourage them to provide Content for SL - LL went into a limited partnership with these folks. Now LL is saying the want for free what they wre paying for. LL threw money at the telehub debacle. I'm not sure that after the content providers start walking away if LL can pull it together in time to get content back in SL and re-create the economy that supported players that worked for Content Providers.


Then LL can set a price they compensate content providers for each event. Just as they do for those who provide content in the form of educational events.


If this organization becomes the only source for event funding these small group of individuals will impact what events we all can attend - by withholding funds from events that arent 'rich' in content according to them. This is censorship.


So no appliactions for nude volleyball on the beach has come in for consideration? Of course not. Your group has made it very clear what they deem acceptable content. And I guess you all have the right to do so. But no one should suggest that the FFRC is a substitute for financial incentives from LL for Content Providers. The FFRC is a special interest group using money as leverage to get what they want. This group just so happened to come along at a time when their voice can really be heard. The end of DI has made FFRC's funds look appealing to Content Providers. I dont see the FFRC making a large financial impact on SL or being a viable substitue to DI for vendor owners.




In Rye's first post when he was recruiting members for his group he says: And
So the FFRC definitely has a 'anti' agenda. It's quite obvious. But that is to be expected of special interest groups.


Not all content needs to be rich. college students finishing up mid-terms, armed forces personell who have been on excercises all week, business people who come home after a a hard day's work, mothers who finally have some time alone - these folks may want to attend one of the FFRC's poetry readings. But I suspect (and the event listings support my assumption) that many of these people just want to log on and go where the people are having fun and where they have the opportunity to earn a few Lindens so they can go shopping. Do we need to form a Foundation For Non-Rich Content just to get enough Lindens to arrange a game of strip Tringo? Will only FFRC events be free of charge while the rest of us with huge overhead are forced to charge fees?



And I dont think LL should expect their customers to spend hard-earned cash to attract new customers to SL while LL keeps all of the financial gain. LL believed this also. That is why DI was put in place. If DI is broke - it should be fixed. You don't throw out the baby with the bath water. To me it looks like LL offered free accounts and to cover the $50L a week stipend for these accounts they removed DI payments. From free accounts LL recieves customers that tier up. With the end of DI Content Providers receive nothing.


Severing their relationship with Content Providers is not a smart decision.


Venue owners that do not agree with LL's desicion to end DI for Content Providers should definitely come together and make their voices heard. The end of DI is a outrage and a insult to those of us that use money, time and energy to bring content (whatever that content may be) to Second Life.

What do you propose to do to compensate people who run events but never got L$1 out of anyone for doing so?

I've run 'mystery tours' that start at my place, then we travel round for about an hour looking at a variety of interesting places that don't appear on the 'popular' lists because they offer anything expect *ingo, sex and camping chairs. They've always been enjoyed - if not overly well attended - so apart from the perhaps first 10 minutes we're out travelling rather than staying at my place. It means I get hardly any 'traffic' - and subsequent reward - for doing so.

I have never benefitted from DI ... yet I'm sure that many of my tours take more work to organise than yet another *ingo contest. Is it fair that I get nothing for what I do, yet someone who sits on their plot pressing a few buttons whilst a *ingo machine runs gets something? I don't think so.

But maybe it's just because I want to have fun.

Lewis

I suggested a DI program that rewarded the event and not the traffic generated from the event. Landowners can apply to be apart of the DI Program and must report on their events to LL to recieve payment(the details of such a program I have not considered as of yet). We know this is plausible because this is how Content Providers that are apart of the Instructors Group are paid.


Instead of attacking the Tringo and dance party crowd - the'rich' content people who are obviously bitter about never being low-brow enough to receive DI payments should meet with the Popular list venue owners and reach a common ground. A program can be developed that can benefit all content providers. For us to sit here and attack one another while LL continues to 'monetize' themselves while picking our brains and picking our pockets is silly. Pull it together people - before it's too late.

Bladyblue, In fact the very thing you discuss...and the way you discuss it happening...is what used to happen when LL did events funding, only it was cut (before MY time) back to being only funding for contests. Of course this had an impact on what events were produced and of course people then, as now, came up with the easiest way to get that funding, but there were still loads of people doing other stuff with their events funds. One applied to do an event, turned in one's sheet for the event having occured, told who they gave prizes to, and then one got one's Linden to cover the costs (hopefully) of putting on the event with a quite small amount available to the host for hosting ($200 for hosts and $500 for contest winners). This is what they took away a year ago. Perhaps it is time for it to come back, but honestly, there is no reason whatsoever for LL to fund camping chairs. You think it has to do with free accounts and the $50L/week stipend, but people were making several times that weekly stipend on a nightly basis in camping chairs. (They could make that in 5 hours of leaving their avie to dance at your club, for example, as they stand on dance pads.) If the camping chairs were entirely funded through dwell and DI payments, clearly, the greater cost to LL was the exponential increase in DI payments. Also, prior to the invention of the camping chairs (and dance pads), Robin had stated publicly (this is after the free accounts were made also) that there were no plans that she was aware of to do anything about dwell or DI. This, again, ties the loss of the fund to abuse of the system.

The events funding that I have been talking about all along is what you want back. I invited you to discuss things in world. I tried to be on the same team with you because in fact our goals are similar (so long as you don't want to see LL just endlessly funding camping chairs and moneyballs). This is apparently not what you want. It feels to me like you are trying to blame, not the people who broke the system via abuse, but the people trying to HELP by giving assistance to those hardest hit by LAST year's cuts. You certainly have a right to voice your opinions. But Why on earth point fingers at people who have tried to get you what you want and alienate them? What good does that do?

Censorship is preventing someone from having voice. It is removing statements or eliminating someone's ability to express him or herself. If I begin to say or do something that you don't like, it isn't censorship if you fail to give me money to do it. It is not censorship if you say you don't like what I am saying, even. It is censorship if I am actually censored, i.e. not allowed expression.

People who are having naked tringo games are free to do so. There is nothing stopping them. I am not sure that the FFRC has, as you claim, made it absolutely clear what it considers rich content other than to say content that is diverse and provides variety on the landscape. Should there come a day when there isn't a naked tringo game to be found, and someone put forward an application for it, maybe it would be considered rich content then. I simply do not have the authority to say or not since I am not the whole organization. ALSO this isn't a small organization, it is a growing organization and, again, free to the public. ANYONE who wants can join. Don't like poetry? FINE! FFRC can fund other stuff too. In fact, we have funded all kinds of events from Travis's podium event at the shelter to sailing classes to rollerball. I have been clear (though you have ignored me) that I personally don't believe in a high-brow versus low-brow paradigm and have actively supported what you would call low brow events. I also have not seen elitism as a driving force in the FFRC. I have seen absolutely no evidence of this. And, in fact, I have been on the record for nearly 12 months asking for support for ALL events. So, how it is that you think that I am about censorship is beyond me. Did you bother to read any of my past posts? I'm feeling pretty irate I must admit because I have tried to be reasonable with you, even welcoming to you, and yet what I am still hearing is that you see me as some big bad jerk trying to rob you of your fun. This is ridiculous.

I don't know if you were around when the events funding was cut, but what happened then is that we went from a pretty diverse slate (granted largely full of naked avie contests, etc, but also with LOTS of other fun stuff to do) to having an events slate where 90% of the event slate ended in "ingo." It is true that there were some individuals across ALL of SL who were tired of it. I can also affirm that when I was at two or three consecutive FFRC meetings (about 5 months ago) we discussed the need to be FOR diversity and not AGAINST other programming. This is, therefore, the official stance of the FFRC as far as I am aware.

You titled your earlier post "Divide and Conquer." In my last post, directed toward answering your often hostile comments, my tone, in keeping with what I perceived as your desire to see events hosts and venues work together, was conciliatory. I had hoped we could try to actually make strides together instead of just argue. Apparently you want none of it. With this fingerpointing at people who are in fact on your side, what is it you are doing? Is this togetherness??? Coz I am feeling like you are pretty much labelling me (quite unfairly I might add) as the enemy of events. This is beyond silly to the point of being ludicrous.

You say for us to sit here and attack one another is silly, but I have not attacked you. I have, however, felt extremely attacked by you. ALSO I DID receive DI payments for nearly a year. AGAIN a simple matter of doing your homework would have revealed that. What is your beef? You have something against other events on the events slate than naked dance parties and tringo? You would like to see those events come to an end? I really don't get it. But you aren't making any friends to work toward your cause by calling names and pointing fingers at the very people who might be interested in working toward an events funding program.

I received DI payments from the first month my spa was open until November (coinciding with the time that camping chair places knocked a lot of other venues off the list). I did it without ONCE putting out a moneyball. I never had a camping chair, tringo game, slot machine, dance pad or yard sale. I did it by having events that people liked to come to because they were actually fun. AS I said earlier, and have been on the record as saying, I have nothing against camping chairs and moneyballs even, except for the fact that they broke the system. (well camping chairs and dance pads and the like. moneyballs just strained it.) If people want to fund moneyballs and camping chairs out of pocket, then great! I just don't feel LL should go down the drain to do that. I also happen to think that lots of events with lots of different kinds of offerings (tringo games and naked dance parties included) should be around in SL. AND I have put both my money and my effort (hundreds of hours and thousands of linden) where my mouth is. My events were not all high-brow. In fact, I arduously defended the value of low brow events at an events work group meeting so I am quite well established as both a champion of and provider of low brow and high brow events if you want to continue to see things in this polarized way. I hate these terms really because they are classist. You think mud wrestling is high brow? lol. It's funny that I should have to take heat from some people in SL for offering these "low-brow"events at the spa and to take heat from you, now, for offering the "high brow" ones.

I have hosted and funded events (not as the FFRC, but as me) solely on the basis of whether they were creative and fun. Not because they were 'high' brow. I personally have hosted and attended all kinds of events (not tringo, and not because I am against tringo, but because I suck at bingo and assumed I'd be bad at tringo also. My attention wanders.) My venue has run mud wrestling, truth or dare, strip hang man, happy hours, bdsm socials, shoppers' meet and greets, and mature scener's contests. It has also run art shows, PG scener's contests, poetry events, group bedtime storytelling, fashion shows, dance parties, videogame theme music recognition contests, movie quote contests, live music, trivia contests, captions, photo contests, a fountain build contest, a high dive competition, agrophobia games, theme storytelling, and classes. THIS is how we were on the DI list for 10 consecutive months. How long were you there? (NVM. I did the homework. Two is the answer. You were there for two months. And you worked hard for it with many DJ'd dance events and lots of giveaways. I feel your pain. That still doesn't give you the right to call me down.)

Should you decide to actually do something positive toward your goal, I am still interested, despite the way you have fingerpointed at me, in discussing what we might have in common there. I am STILL interested in coming together with those actually involved in making events and helping them, however I can, to keep those events. I have a long record of doing this. In your case, you have found lots of ways to generate income, so you won't be as hard hit as some. Your club has gambling machines and tons of vendors set up all over the place. You may have to quit giving away money though. If you want, as you say, to 'pull it together' (by which, I assume you mean unite in a common goal) then you may want to start off by being friendly, rather than rude, to those with whom you wish to unite (and in this case, to one who has done you personally a kindness in the past, though you didn't know it was me. Moral? Don't assume).

Lowbow and highbrow mean different things to certian people. At the lslingo game I frequent there ar emany sexual remarks, mostly joking, some not.. does that make us lowbrow? No, it makes us our own people.

DI should be based on traffic and traffic alone, as if your event isn't popular why should you get the special bonus the popular ones get? Why should a less desirable event get the same bonus as the most desirable?

I think LL has it right by doing only traffic and not judging what the content is - after all, even the Lindens can disagree on whats tasteful and whats highbrow.

Hey Jonas, I am hearing you here but the thing is, Lindens aren't doing that anymore. They can't afford to. Well, as far as I know, for the time being, dwell is still being paid out to the venue owner, but that's like, maybe 70-300L per day. It isn't nearly enough to pay for DJs, tier, and other stuff that makes your favourite places what they are.

The problem has been that the rewards (which are being phased out, like it or not, at the end of March) were based only on traffic no matter what and that the way people got traffic no matter what was to give away a portion of that money. In the past, this was done through moneyballs which were kinda random. You may or may not get money from sitting under one, so people didn't camp out all night to do that. Dwell, as I have said is only $70 - 300L a day for most places, but the Developer's Incentive pays (for a couple of months more) a whole lot more in USD. This is what led people to invest a whole lot of money to build up giant clubs or to buy more land (you get someone to land on your land even if nothing is there at all and you get a little bit toward dwell if the person stays for 5 minutes). All this may not have made for lots of fun stuff to do or anything, but it gave people a sense of purpose. Mission: get dwell so I can get a Developer's Incentive. Well there was a problem with that. See, first off the people who might call themselves, as job titles (and rightfully) Developers, got kinda cheesed that joe blow over there is just putting up a lot of my slot machines that I made or buying my building I made or whatnot and then reaping this big reward. where's my glory? (I can imagine it would be irksome.) So first off, the name didn't really sit well with everyone. The second thing that happened was camping chairs, dance pads and the like. Folks found a sure fire way to make money, even if they were afk (not just possible like a moneyball, but guaranteed). So folks would, in order to make that $L, camp out for 5 hours to make the equivalent of 5 cents USD. That wasn't so bad in some ways except that it taxed the server. The real problem is that if you look in the posts about the developer's incentive in announcements, you can see that the total amount of awards each month has gone up, and up, and up, and up. This is why the first two months after the announcement it was announced that the total traffic handouts would be capped at where they were, so they couldn't go up and up anymore.

When someone starts a company, it makes sense to give giveaways until people know your product and want to use it. For example, you get a freebie chicken mcnugget in the hopes that you'll come in and buy 6 of 'em when you find out how delicious they are. Linden Labs had some funds from investors to get this thing off the ground, so they had the funds to do stuff like give out developers awards to grow the community. I still think there is a place for non-profits, just like in 1st life, don't get me wrong. The thing is, if they continue to pay that ever increasing amount of money to people who aren't really doing lots more than just giving away parts of the money to the folks who are showing up a few things happen. One is that the company goes broke. Another thing is that people are seeing landowners as people who owe them stuff. a third thing is that the places who are hosting events that don't give away money have sometimes had a hard time getting good turnout, not because the event was not fun, but because it is hard to beat free and even harder to beat lemme give you money to hang out and watch a movie at my house.

Linden Labs has to make a pivotal transition at this point. If you care about second life and want it to continue, you should know that we all must make it happen too. It isn't just Linden Labs. We are in this together and we can all reap the rewards: in a very cheap entertainment for one that is infinitely accessible (how much did you pay for the last movie you rented? lots more than most people pay to play second life for hours and hours and hours a week.) Another reward we can reap is to potentially, with a bit of practice, even become content providers and see that translate into other kinds of rewards, such as fiscal or career rewards. That's pretty amazing for something that costs $10 once ever, with the first account free. Almost too good to be true, right? Free??? who gives away good stuff for free?? (does it get your suspicion up?) well rightfully so. Businesses don't tend to give away stuff for free unless it is to get the attention of the customer. Otherwise they wouldn't stay in business very long. I believe that event venues are important and places that give us things to do should be compensated. I think there is a place for private and public partnerships. Maybe some real charities can come to SL, or we can form one ourselves and apply for rl world grant monies. that is a long time i the future though. What we can do now is look for ways (you, I and all residents) to help out the folks who entertain us when the primary source of their income is gone. We can do that by tipping tip jars, by sponsoring Venue owners with our prizes and with our feet through the end of March, but then we will be at a standstill (or would have been). This is because sponsoring those event owners with your feet is effectively ending. You can show up allright, but the impact made by your presence wont't translate to money to support your farourite spot. The only way you can now sponsor thos events or places is by showing up and giving money toward that venue's expenses (well now as in after March). Because once the Developer's Incentive is gone, this is the primary way one can keep our favourite hangouts around: contributing to teir or supporting those venues in other ways (like giving them stuff for prizes, or buying raffle tickets, buying tickets to shows, renting land, etc). In other words, it is on each of us to pitch in. LL has a stake in seeing the world of community builders succeed, but it will go broke if it just lets people stand out and give away its money endlessly.

Cheers. Perhaps we'll meet in world sometime. ~Perse.

And the Developers are still growing the community and need Linden Labs to continue to compensate them to do so. A Program sponsored by Linden Labs continues to be the only solution. Daily Content Providers should not have to foot the entire bill for supplying SL with content. If Linden Labs wants to pay for the Content Provider program through corporate sponsorship they should definitely move forward with that. I'm sure the Linden Lab Marketing Department won't have much trouble in getting McDonalds or Pillsbury to fork over a few hundred thousand dollars for ad space in SL. But in the here and now - A newly structured DI Program must be funded by LL and put in place for a March 1st launch.

1. SL daily Content Providers do not have to put money, time and effort into providing content for Linden Labs and not receive any form of compensation from Linden Labs.

2. Relying on Content from those with enough disposable income to foot the whole bill for tier, salaries and supplies turns SL into a society with very little public content. Folks with very little income can also develop innovative 'rich' daily content. And since LL benefits from this content they should be involved in funding it.


I suppose you have some information about LL's finances that makes you so sure that LL has to make a 'pivotal transition'. But as a SL Content Provider I see LL making a bad business move that will adversly effect the entire SL economy and community.



If Content Providers just paid $10 once we would'nt be having this conversation.


Nobody should be expected to give anything away for free - including Content Providers. And LL should not expect to recieve Content for free. If LL goes ahead and ignores the Conetnt Provider's outraged cries LL will become a vast wasteland and they will have to bring back another incentive program to bring back venues.


There are no private and/or public partnerships in SL to pay for LL's content and there won't be for many years to come. If LL wanted corporate sponsorship they would have put it in place. What LL did put in place was a Developer's Incentive Program - It was the cheapest way for LL to grow it's business. I have no idea why Linden Labs thinks they can survive without off-setting costs for Content Providers.


SO then LL needs to recognize their stake and gather up a few of their salaried employees and work out a program to compensate daily Content Providers.

Good to see you doing something about your ideas, bladyblue. When you meet, I'd look at the following issues:

1. What are the goals of the group in terms of level of support. Are they just hoping to meet costs? Or are there those among the group that are looking for professionalization (to make a living doing events in SL)?

2. Is the group willing to restructure their individual venues so that they don't need money giveaways to attract residents? What kinds of events content can be provided that is rich enough (as in immersive, fun, not hoity-toity) to bring people in without cash giveaways?

3. Would the group be interested in other kinds of incentives such as tier reduction benefits (like 10% more land for the tier you pay) for running a venue? If so, what kinds of benefits would work?

4. If the traffic-at-all-costs model is the problem, what is the solution? Would event venues be willing to apply for events funding for each event? If the program is not based on traffic (traffic-based models led to the problem) what would it be based on?

These are, in my opinion, important things to consider if you are looking to regear.
Best of luck.
~ Perse

I made contact with as many recent DI recipients as I possibly could. I visited over 30 venues and gave a notecard about the new group I wanted to create to each venue owner. I got great feedback. Two well-known content providers presented us with notecards that outlined their solutions for the DI issue. Others made verbal presentations before the group. As planned, we held two meetings in attempt to accommodate schedules. Ideas were exchanged and feedback was obtained concerning the 4 questions that Persephone Phoenix posted in this forum for Content Providers. We discussed the issues of venue staff salaries, tier costs and the impact of free basic accounts. After this first-time meeting of diverse Content Providers (In attendance were owners of dance clubs, sex clubs, private islands and game and retail areas) we felt assured that we could successfully develop a new program that the Lindens can adopt to subsidize and encourage Content Providers without encouraging abuses.

Today we are fleshing out the details of a program that the group can agree upon. Once that is done we will meet with the Lindens and present our replacement program for the current Content Provider Support Program. Anyone that would like to become a member of the SI Content Provider Association can contact me to be sent a group invite. I am planning our next meeting for Wednesday, February 1st. One meeting will take place (SL time) at 6AM. The Second meeting will take place at 6PM. Location: Rose Cafe Pavillion at Bear(153,182) Thank you.

What do you propose to offer the 99% of land owners who provide content but never make it to the DI list?

After all, we all have our bills to pay, and just because we don't buy our way to the top through camping chairs or whatever doesn't make us any less important.

Lewis

As I stated in my post above, the venue owners that attended the planning session are developing a Content Provider Support Program that can't so easily be gamed. We are going to need to meet a few more times Lewis before we have a complete plan in place.

And how refreshing it was to have SL Content Providers come together and not waste time and divide our efforts by making statements like yours.

Actually you left yourself open to Lewis' comment by stating you contacted as many of the DI winners earlier as you could about it. I walso ould be interested in knowing why this is going forward with just winners of DI, how is it any difference then from the past?
Perhaps just DI with another name?

As you can see from my quote from a earlier post I extended a invitation to every resident of SL with emphasis on CONTENT PROVIDERS. I made contact with these Content Providers by contacting everyone on the December Developer's Incentive list and by going to each venue on the Most Popular list and doing a land edit.

The DI winners aren't developing a program that willl benefit themselves only. The program being designed benefits Content Providers. The person in the group who has a island with a shopping plaza on it and rental property is very well aware that they received DI because of a loophole in the DI system and not because they supplied entertainment to SL. With a new Content Providers system in place many of the December DI recipients will never be on the DI list again. They are still coming together to help save content in SL and not serve their personal agendas. I applaud them for that.

Hmmm so they pay, invite their friend to join them and poof the Sim is full...Kinda putting the cart before the horse aren't you?

Our Sim crashes constantly with less then 15 people and at 40 people it is full...and other land owners can't get on, it is bad enough I am paying for it with Tier but to expect our guests to?.....don't think so...

I seem to not understand what your defenition of 'content' is. All I see mentioned is Clubs, Malls and property rentals. I have none of those yet I do add content by my landscaping and water effects. Narrowing the content to a select few will get no support from me.

All content isn't only 'visible' such as art or water effects. providing a service is also content, increasing the range of experiences.

One particular group, Sexcapades, provides content in this way. Equal content IN EVERY WAY as a piece of original art to put on a wall.

If you openly invite residents to view your 'landscaping and water effects' then you are a Content Provider and will recieve support from the SL Content Provider Association even if you don't want it.

My land is open (until someone starts dropping crap) for public view (the house doors aren't locked either..all I ask is dont my land as a sex pad). Hoping to get public criticism to improve my design and layout skills.

Can I be listed under content provider? (not looking for a handout, just want listing)

Pierterson Estate, Lebeau (117, 104, 31)

its part of my 'family' compound, the chalet at the back corner

I believe all you have to do is right click on your land and choose Land Edit. Change your land information to a Gathering Place. The plot has to be a minimum of 512M. Then log onto www.secondlife.com and go to the events page and list your event. At the bottom of your listing the drop down box should have your plot's name in the choices.

No, Im sorry, I do not need some association speaking for me and want no part of it. Please leave me out of this. All it now appears to me is group hoping to get attention since LL caved once about Telehub land. I own a lrge amt of land and I can afford my tier, its like my gramps always tol me, if you cant afford it, dont buy it.

Toy, no one is speaking for you - you responded to my post and I responded to yours. Your 'me, myself and I' attitude isn't one that builds community. Do enjoy your lrge amt of land.

hrm this oughta be good.

/settles in

thanks bladyblue

see you on the group IM