Second Life Developer Incentives

I'd be glad to hold your money.

Respect, eh? Consider the following:

1) joke
2) gaffe
3) bon-mot

I'm not making fun of anyone's plight, but I didn't change the system, the Lindens did. Direct your comments accordingly.

I find it amusing I have to defend my mile-high billboards shtick (sp?), just because people are touchy about what they have to delete (or better yet, put into inventory so it isn't totally gone).

Building is a zen experience, expecting something to last forever is just one step towards disappointment.

And I'm still wondering where that 'earn respect' shot came from, because I don't recall asking. You're just cracking up, I get it, psychological stress and all.

Congrats to you all!! Well done

Just dying to know - how many non US or Canada residents were on that list?

Sorry Maxx. That was a pretty cranky pre-coffee post. I understand where you're coming from. My opinion about the changes has evolved a bit since the announcement, but for those people that are upset about it, it irks me that people would give them a hard time about it instead of having a bit of empathy for their point of view. Ya know? Some people are being forced to show some selflessness, while others who preach it are reacting pretty selfishly. And I don't mean you necessarily.

Congrats Chip, Ama, Jellen, and Beryl .. Lets go party

Hmm. I think I'm in the wrong business. What do players have to do build/script to qualify for a developer bonus? Is it based only on dwell?

No sure about the others Cubey, but mine says dwell.

The first award of $1,000 will be distributed among 25 residents based on their dwell traffic over the past 31 days.

Weren't you one of the ones saying you're cancelling? roflmao...

I think the use of the word "developer" is potentially confusing. It obviously isn't being used in the sense of "programmer." More like "community developer." You may script like a god, but what matter is dwell.

Yes, but I have the flu, and was extremely grouchy. Between the coughing fits, freezing one minute, boiling hot the next and running out of TP at exactely the wrong moment, the 1.2 announcement did not sit well with me at all.

Hmm. I strongly disagree. Many excellent contributions to SL don't lead to people milling about in one spot. Like those free-flying birds, for example. Those are a brilliant contribution to SL, but they don't lead to dwell points. Vehicles too. You don't get dwell from people driving vehicles over Linden-owned land. So, let's not say that dwell is all that matters.

I read somewhere, the incentive bonus -at the moment- was based entirely on dwell.

I took that to mean they're tinkering with it still, and it won't always be just dwell that determines who gets the bonus.

Frankly, I hope I'm wrong. Dwell's all I have working for me.

At the moment, I feel very much like my little picture of the cat under my name.

Yep, this time was just dwell, but I asked Philip about it at the town hall meeting and was told that they're working on figuring out some objective measures of other things... just no details yet. I agree it shouldn't just be dwell that gets rewarded.

oh, and btw... congrats Beryl!

Congrats to Cori, Pendari, Chip, Jellin and Ama, too.

I wholeheartedly agree that there are many others in-game who deserve this sort of reward. It's unfortunate that dwell is about the only measurable thing upon which they can currently base rewards.

Eh, I still have really mixed feelings about all this. It's not like I'm going to change the way I play to chase this developer's bonus.

I got a great bonus...



...and it's 8 bucks short of paying for my tax.. now that's scary!

What's more i now have to, eventually, work out how many L$ i earn, take that off the total US$ tax (at the exchange rate soon annouced) then add on the US$ bonus and what is above my break even I split with Mark.

Headache!

Pirate

Well, I didn't win a prize but I did get an interesting email from the lindens.

Yesterday I got one saying that under the 1.2 billing system, I would be charged $15 a month for the land I owned, and was given a measurement of how much land I own.

Then, today, I got an email from them saying that they had goofed and that they had accidentally counted some of my land twice, and I actually don't have to pay anything this month.


Also the second email said, "Dear Bel," at the top, so I don't even know if it was for me LOL

Yes, while I did benefit from the dwell this time, I am *very* glad to know that dwell will not be all they are going to base the Developers bonus on in the future.

I'm not saying that I _like_ the dwell system. I've expressed my opposition to it from the moment it was first proposed. But it's what the Lindens gave us, and I'm not surprised that the Developer Incentives are determined using it.

i understand them giving these for dwell right now. they will have to award all of them based on something measurable. if they just start handing them out based on "we think this is nice" or "gee isn't that cool," everybody will start arguing that theirs is just as good.

on the other hand, if they use objective numbers, such as dwell, they can clearly award the top few. v1.2 probably has ways to accumulate ratings per item or something that will allow us to vote for the recipients of some of these awards.

My impression is that, over time, the Lindens will develop ways other than dwell to measure a person's contribution to the community. And if they do not, well, we *are* a community, and we can lobby for that. One thing this whole 1.2 experience has shown (if there was a doubt) is that the Lindens are reasonable people with good intentions. They can be talked to, they can be persuaded. What a concept!

The first awards that went out were based on dwell because, as Khamon says, it's an objective measure and we wanted to kick off the program. Congratulations to all the recipients, by the way!

However, we really want to reward content development in the broadest sense -- attractions, scripts, clothing, transportable objects, innovations like the birds.

Let's hijack this thread and brainstorm on objective ways to measure the contributions to Second Life that cut across all these different types of content, but can't be gamed.

Revenue to creator (works for merchants)?
Number of child copies in world (works for someone selling vehicles, but easy to game)?
Have a panel of expert judges (set up categories and have a vote)?
Have a panel of Resident judges (ditto)?

Any other ideas?

Hopefully there will be different criteria for the awards at different times, to reward mentors, scripters, clothing designers, vehicle builders et c. who will never be getting much dwell but contribute greatly nonetheless.

Revenue to creator (object sales) is a natural since it can't be gamed so it seems very objective off the bat... and getting people to part with their L will be more imprtant than ever since there'll be no taxes.

Number of copies in world would be great too, but what's to stop someone just giving the item to every av they see and dropping it on every calling card they have. Not sure how you'd get around that unless it only counted if the recipient initiated the transaction (by taking a free copy for example).

I think doing it sometimes based on a popular vote would be great too... maybe do some like "vote for the best X"

A panel of in-world judges strikes me as potentially problematic depending on the size and make-up of the panel. Huge potential for favoritism there so it wouldn't likely be at all objective and invites a lot of sour grapes and infighting. A vote open to everyone would be better. That'd be a lot of work for LL to tabulate so probably best for doing infrequently.

Number of people who hold a single person's calling card has potential but there's so much "fly-by carding" that goes on it's not really an indication that the person is well known and a great socializer.

Mentor value is nearly impossible to guage. I get a lot of personal reward from knowing I have helped someone enjoy the game a little bit better. But, now that there are RL stakes involved with US$, it is sort of tough to watch great builders be rewarded. Its really cool and all, and I am legitamately happy for them, but it makes me question my worth to the game since all I do is socialize basically. None of this mattered at all when we were dealing with play money.

I think mentors, and helpful players in general play a hugely important role Loki. When I look back to my first weeks in SL there are a few people who really stand out for making me feel welcome and helping me get started like Lyra Muse, Skeedalee Skidoo, and Alpha Electric. They had a lot to do with my early enthusiasm and my perceptions of the community and feeling inclueded and having a clue.

Maybe they could add something to the signup form for people who convert from trial to paying, or send out an email to people at the end of their first month asking them to name the people who helped them most or made them feel most welcome.