But How Long Must You Dwell?

The Linden explanation says this:

"The total dwell generated by an avatar is the same whether they spend 5 minutes or 24 hours in SL on a particular day."

OK, but here are my questions about this (to see if it works like TSO or not)

1. If my own avatar visits my own land, or land where I'm a group member, does that register as a dwell point for that land, or not?

2. You say "whether they spend 5 minutes or 24 hours in SL" That makes it seem that a) you must spend at least 5 minutes on a property for dwell to register and b) that if you sit 10 hours on the same property, you aren't adding to the dwell at all. But I think it could also mean that each avatar only has so many dwell points to give out every day to everybody else, let's say 3, and it then gets divided fractionally depending on where he visits, and possibly for how long.

3. Yet this following statement seems to imply that if you spend longer time on a property, not going anywhere else, your dwell credits for the day will be signed over to that property: "The dwell that any one avatar triggers in a day is divided up proportionally to the time spent on any given parcel." Therefore if I only have 3 points of dwell, all 3 go over to that one lot where I parked all day -- but how does time factor in?

4. What if you leave a lot, then come back? Do you register twice in the dwell system?

5. Let's try to translate this now into optimal operational behavior! So I should go to someone's lot and park my av there for 10 hours to give that person my maximum points for the day? Or to my own lot to give myself at least something? Or it doesn't matter if I stay for more than 5 minutes?

The moral of the story is, this will generate more AFK behavior a la TSO, where people parked sims endlessly to jack up their hours on the top 100 list, and get higher payouts. That tendency then makes the rating part of the dwell system meaningless. The dwell points aren't reflecting what is really popular and really most visited, but reflecting which people have enough time on their hands to park their characters in SL all day on a lot.

Please enlighten!

Prokofy
TSO Refugee

from all i've seen and heard you have to be in a place about 5 minutes for your dwell to count. after that it doesn't matter how long you stay or if you come back, they got your vote. at the end of the day every place you stayed at least five minutes gets an equal fraction of your total dwell for the day. that's why the TSO afk crap doesn't fly. after 5 minutes you're wasting your own time. and yeah, you dwell your own land too.

so you want optimal operational behavior? do what ya want, go where ya want, don't worry about it. all the jumping through hoops isn't going to get you more than a couple extra L$ a day so just have fun.

Dwellnor demands that you dwell as long as you can, dancing as long as you are able. For those that refuse these demands are met with the horrific fate of being plunged into Dwellnor's domain, that of smoldering plywood prims and the cries of avs permanently lagged, dancing and dwelling forever for their master.

Heed the great Dwellnor, for he will smite your enemies, and all those that oppose him. Never forsake your dancing bracelet, as these please him mightily.

Lag to lag, sim to sim, dwell with no end, amen.

Basically, if you stay in place a for 5 minutes and log out, then place a gets all your dwell...

If however you log in again later and go to place b for 5 minutes, then it's split 50/50 between them.

If you then spend 4 hours at Club Club or wherever, then the club gets about 99% of it, and placea a and b get a tiny fraction of it...

So, you only need to be 5 minutes to register, but its allocated by the percentage of your time that day spent at each place.

Oh, and you don't earn dwell for land you own... only other people do... so staying parked on your own land all day earns not a single point, though of course it means you don't give to anyone else either. If the land is group-owned (i.e. you deeded it) then dwell from all group members counts, including the original owner.

If you wanted to manually track where your dwell is going, make a list of every plot you spend more than 5 minutes on in a 24 hour period and how much time you spent on each. At the end of the 24 hours, total up all the minutes (this total will be less than the actual total time you were connected to SL, since visits of less than 5 minutes aren't counted). Then divide each plot's time by the total to get a percentage for each. Each plot gets that much added to its daily dwell.

ok here is a question!!

i understand that dwell decreases over time, what is the most that dwell should decrease each day? how many ppeole would it take ot counter this?

also another question, if dwell is sposta register once a day in the morning, and it dosent, what can you do? there isnt much support, you just get refered to the [email]suport@secondlife.com[/email] (something i dont seem to get responces from nor my proper credit)

to the first question i asked, i have been holding events and my dwell on one day was at about 9k then the next it was at 6k that was a 3k drop in dwell even when there were at least 2 events with decent turnout held at the party (which shoulda mad the dwell go up) also even if no parties are held isnt a 3k drop excessive, or has anyone else experienced this?

to the second question i asked, once day when logging in there wasent any dwell registered (it was at 0) till about 4-5PM PST and at that time it was only up marginally, something that didnt seem to reflect the amount of parting that went on, i dont see how, even with the way the system is setup, that my dwell is being translated (dosent seem to fillow the guidlines i am told)

sorry for the (SP) errors!

OK, Siobhan, your profile shows you are a long-time player and your title says you are a Good Witch of the North so I guess you can be trusted LOL, however, youth wants to know -- on what authority do you say this? Have you tested this and discovered it yourself? Or did you have developer's notes from somewhere? Or do you "just know"? I mean, I'm willing to take your word for it that sitting on my own property is not going to give myself dwell, but since I haven't seen this factoid anywhere else, I'm just wondering.

I thank all who have answered and especially for giving the suggestion of how to manually track where the percentage is going.

And I appreciate that a few points are negligible and you should just not think about it too much and go where you're going to go. However, old TSO AFK habits die very hard. I'd like to think I could park my av in the game and work in the other window, and have some kind of game benefits accrue. Sorry, I know it's stupid.

TSO Refugee

We were told once... that's all... and yes, it's sort of been tested... Unfortunately, the Lindens are a little cagey about the exact correspondance, as they say (or said) that if it was public, it would be gamed... like it isn't now... lol

Personally, I think there are other reasons they don't tell, that being that certain places seem to get into the top 10 even when nobody's there all day... but I digress...

As to trusting me? Well, that's your choice... I wouldn't...

Three words - Chaos Theory Gaming

Siobhan is right. That's how I teach it at my Money 101 events, too. There's a lot of sketchiness involving Dwell because all of the numbers are based on % rather than fixed digits; please, by all means, come to a Money 101 event sometime for a detailed explanation.. I'm on my way out so I can't explain it in detail here. The formula IS complex, though, and it's the last thing I explain at my event as a result!