Ideas for developer's awards distribution

There has been a lot of threads about the developer's awards and how them being based solely on dwell excludes many developers that have contributed a lot to the ever-growing SL community. In the Economic Town Hall Transcript it was mentioned and Philip Linden said: "We'd love more feedback on whether we should simply not have such incentives, or alternatively what sort of methods to fund big projects are maximally fair. Still an open topic for us."

Which brings me to the main topic of this thread... Ideas for developer's awards distribution.
What ideas would you like to see implemented?

Personally, I would like to see the developer's awards be divided into different categories (e.g. dwell-based, building marvels, best SL avatar/clothing designers, best scripted thingy, etc.).

What? Have people run out of ideas already?

Do away with them completely and lower tier fees a bit

I like that idea too...especially the lower tier fees part.

Put a gun on a table with one bullet in it... people take turns spinning and pulling the trigger while pressing the gun against their heads.

Whoever is the last person gets all the money.

I think they are fine how they are... occasionally LL does different things to recognize/award the creators in SL.

I do think we still need an incentive system of some sort although I'm far from being unbiased: I live on Montmartre Island as a member of that group where dwell and event money pay the monthly bill for the most part and I've been helping with the newly-formed Hidden Lakes National Park project which will be very difficult to pull off without Linden support of some kind.

I kinda wish we'd had an economy in the game I used to work/play in so we could have given out incentives and had more players do things. The profit motive is a powerfull tool...

A note on Hidden Lakes: according to Haney, if we manage to get it off the ground, it would likely end up supported in a way similar to the Nutralenburg (No offence to those people, but the German language drives me insane and I can't spell/pronounce it worth *explitive*) project: Lindens grant land to the group but the group has to come up with the tier each month. I don't have enough experience to say how well it will work yet, but it looks to be something LL wants to keep experimenting with.

Neverland is also a great thing but it's also meant to be temporary (although I'd love to see Olde London made perminant and used to host other things. Charles Dickens sim for the hollidays, anyone? No?). A few projects supported in such a way on a rotating basis generates good buzz and attracts players, but too many such projects start eating into the Linden's profits.

Awards-by-catigory is an interesting thought, but I have to ask how it would be implimented? How do you judge things like best scripted attractions, best building, etc, in a way that can easily be translated into awards? The only way that comes to mind that's feasable to inact would be player voting, which opens a can of worms about stuff like gaming the system with alts, rating parties, etc.

Original thoughts...don't have any yet on the subject, but might come with something given enough time.

See horse.

See horse dead.

Please stop beating dead horse.

Seriously Kats, all you have to do is reference the last three forum discussions for all the ideas that individuals presented.

But I noted in the Economic Town Hall when Jimmy asked Phillip if/how/when better payments were going to be made for those creating content within SL that the answer was brushed aside witih the fact that people *are* making money already in SL. (Jimmy/Foxy did Sim Horror).

So it's basically a dead horse when questions such as that are brushed aside.

Awww, that poor horse. Does anyone have a shovel? I'd like to give him the proper barial. Its just not fair for the poor horse.

I started this thread since many of the ideas that have been brought up in other threads have been either buried or the thread has been hijacked to the point that the main topic/idea of the thread has been lost. After reading the transcript of the Economic Town Hall, I realized that LL thinks that sales/service fees are enough to reward those that create content in the game, while there are many great content creators that offer their services for free and could use some sort of recognition for their work. Right now the "developer's" incentives are only awarded to those that generate dwell and it would be nice if owning a large amount of land wasn't the main factor to receive an award, especially an award that has the word "developer" in it's title.

The question was not brushed aside, it was clearly answered when Philip said creators ARE making money... and they ARE, if they aren't it is thier own fault.

Before private islands ever came about, I had my land in Leda, I was into designing clothes then... animations had just came out and I hopped right on that and learned what I could....
Every single Linden I have made in SL has been from my own creations... I don't charge people to use my land, vendor space and what have you... I provide that free to the community... but YET a little ole creator like myself has managed to make enough Lindens and exchange them for USD and was able to purchase and maintain 3 islands with out ever digging into my RL world savings... If I can do it anyone can. All it itakes is the right products, and the right advertisement.

The problem with this sort of statement is that not everyone has the means to own a lot of land and build a store to sell their goods, so it's not necessarily their fault that they aren't making money. I have met many creators that can only afford to have the basic membership, but they have displayed their creations on other people's lands. While I believe that land owners should receive some sort of reward for paying the monthly fee and generating dwell, this shouldn't be the main reason for receiving an award that is named "developer incentives awards". Maybe dividing the awards into categories and awarding the top 5 dwell-getters the awards could be a possibility and then giving out the other incentives to content creators based on what they have contributed to the SL community.

So you want SL to give money to someone that is not making them any? I am sorry but LL is a business and it doesnt work that way hun.

Just because a person is not selling goods or doesn't own any land doesn't mean that they are not contributing anything to the community. The creations that are created are one of the many factors of why people join SL (at least those that are not totally interested in making money). Many people join SL because of the creative aspect of it and seeing what many of these creators are capable of convinces them to actually join, therefore also making money for LL.

So then what would they be awarded for? Thier presense in SL? Sorry but you aren't making much sense to me.

Ok, let's put it this way... It's not their presence in SL that they should be awarded for, since this would mean that anybody should receive an award, even those that haven't contributed anything to the community. The developer incentives awards, which were intended to award those that create actual content, should also be awarded to those that actually create content and those that bring in users by other means, like generating dwell. The wonder of SL is that it has many possibilities and not all of them revolve around the idea of capitalism. Yes, there are many players that this is the reason of why they joined, but there are also many that joined to create and because of the creative possibilities of SL.

I understand that many of the people that have received the awards might feel a bit threatened by the idea of the awards being awarded to content creators, since this would mean that they would have to compete with other dwell-getters in order to receive an award, but this shouldn't be a reason to exclude those that have created content (and have contributed to the community) from receiving a small piece of the award pie.

I would like to see more development bonuses based on a persons creativity there are so many builds over shadowed by those 10 ten places that get the dwell. I have seen many many builds that are beyond fantastic, yet those ppl dont get the recognition they deserve.

Also I would like to see more development bonuses given to scriptors another group often over looked but they bring many creations to life. They too are often in the backgroud.

Its my opinion that a dwell based system is entirly flawed if I offer enough L$ I too could be on the list. So what it comes down to is those with enough L$ will always win on the current dwell system.

Example;
"money ball spits out L$xx ever 10 min."

We need a system that cannot be gamed. Until that time we should just do away with the development bonuses based on dwell, entirly.

Cat

Kats , I know what you are saying now, and being that I am a creator and a dwell getter, my points still stand... I have made far more from my creations then I ever could from dwell... and I make my creations recognized.. I dont see why other creators cant do the same... you say because they dont land? Sad excuse... there are lots of people , like myself, that offer vendor speace to those kind of people free of charge.

Run Kats, run!

It's not mainly because they don't own land, it could be because they just don't sell what they create, because they are not interested in selling their creations (they give them away to friends or donate them to charities or projects) or because they're creations are being overlooked. Many times these people create content for other land owners and the land owners are the ones that get the credit and the recognition. Like Catherine said:


Another idea of a way of distributing the awards could be by players nominating the players that they believe should receive an award (be it for building talents, for scripting, clothes designs, etc.) and then have LL be the final judges every month. And since the dwell-based category of the awards is handled by the system, there would be no need to have judges for that part of the awards.

Just for making me laugh, you have my support for your "Toes for the Toeless" campaign. I will be making some toes A.S.A.P.

ok... wow we can go on forever with this..

If I pay a builder 10k to build me a club... and I am either hosting events and/or hiring others to do so on a nightly/daily basis to get in on the dwell awards... I should then have to shar an award with a builder that I already paid for his work? and I am the one working for this reward daily, and the builder, made a build one time?

Just because the person built something, doesn't mean that they should receive an award or that you should share your award with them. If you receive an award for generating dwell and that person receives an award for having created that building that first time that he/she created it, then you both win. In this case, the creator might receive an award for creating a beautiful building that one time (for that one creation), while you can receive an award every month for generating dwell. Also, the person that created the build could have a chance of receiving an award only if their creation can compete with other people's creations. It's not about sharing your award, it's about awarding those that create, wether they sell their creations or not.

Example: One amazing builder that comes to mind is Starax (I am not sure how his last name is spelled, so I will not attempt it, but many of us know who I am referring to). He has made many wonderful sculptures which can be seen in many sims. I am not sure wether he was paid for his services or not, but they shouldn't affect the fact that he has a lot of talent. As a fellow player, I could nominate one of his builds for an award, and if he wins he would probably appreciate the monetary recognition (however small it might be) also he would receive recognition from the community for his awesome building talent. That one creation that was nominated would not be allowed to be nominated for an award another month and if the creator wants to receive another one, then he should keep creating more content and he might be nominated for it another month.

Ok, so far we have many ideas: leave them as is, split them into categories or just get rid of them. Does anyone else have any more ideas to contribute?