Publicize the List of Those Who Receive Events Grants

Publicize the List of Those Who Receive Events Grants

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Just coming back from the events group with Robin Linden, I have to say, I've had a brilliant idea.

Everyone bitches about the lack of diversity of events. Of course, there are reasons for that lack -- food for another thread. I think it's because the Lindens cave to a minority of anti-business clamouring, and lose the opportunity to get significant in-game resident business support and sponsorship for events because they fail to see that businesses need to place ads or products during events to justify their subsidy of especially non-profit events. When the Lindens can get over that allergy to advertising, they'll see a lot more businesss development and sponsorship and a lot more diversity and quality of events.

But since that cultural tic is going to take awhile to change, we have to work with what there is.

One of the problems is that people just don't know how to really access this education support grant from the Social Engineers at Linden Labs. Many people haven't heard of it because they don't read the forums, and they don't even know where to find this info on the forums. (I think it's somewhere in the Linden announcements?)

I was admonished for claiming that this, like other things, is an "insiders' deal".

OK. Let's see the list made public then. Just like the dwellopers. Let's see the list of people who get the educational grants.

I think this would accomplish a number of good things.

1. End the phony mentor events by subjecting them to public scrutiny, as has been done only a few times by a few very brave (or stupid) newbies who took on some privileged types in questioning their use of this system to plump up their own businesses, clubs, malls, etc.

2. Show a good example of those authentic mentors who really do offer something useful, i.e. in knowledge transfer for this game, with its steep learning climb. We'd like to see who those good people are, because their good deeds are often lost in the sea of Tringo.

3. Make a visible list of people that would-be events organizers could consult for tips and ideas about how to do the same thing themselves -- people often don't even know how to list themselves in FIND PLACES (because there's no where to tell you per se), and now that being in FINDPLACES will be one of the possible criteria for friends to be able to list events, we need to be able to have this kind of knowledge network. Of course, if any event hosts don't want to be dinged by newbs and clueless asking them how to do stuff, well, they could just ignore them or be curt with them...but...aren't they supposed to be *mentors*???

4. When we see how short this list is, and I suspect, how insider-y it is, there will be a lot of momentum for others to get out there and get on the ball to get these same grants. You do not have to be a mentor per se to get them. You just have to be a teacher in a class. I'll bet we could double the event grant applications by this simple act of publicizing the list of those who receive them.
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This entire post exists because you have, once again, made an assumption without any evidence whatsoever and then got called on it. Rather than admit that you have no evidence, and admit that your insipid whining may have been inappropriate, you instead demand a complete disclosure of the mentor list in some bizarre attempt to prove your point. Ultimately, the list will be revealed and it will demonstrate that the teaching events are being hosted by people of all ages. Nonetheless, each of these people will miraculously become a FIC/FYH/TW/S against whom you can write mind-numbing screed after mind-numbing screed.

Amazingly, though, I agree that the list should be made public.

might be useful to ask them on the hotline forum.

Nope, I'm not interested in saying "I told you so". I'm confident that we'll see a list that will have a few fake mentors in it that will then be encouraged to skedaddle under the public scrutiny, but I'm willing to bet that quite a few are real mentors/educators who deserve more recognition than they get.

I spent some time looking .. and I couldn't find anything about how to get grants.

I remember hearing about them in other posts .. sort of back handed.

Now, I'm the first to admit Im not as swift as the next fellow with a search engine. But I would be hard pressed to say I knew anything at all about how this program works.

Maybe some additional information from the Lindens about that?

Well then, let us fumigate the grant-sucking cockroaches.

Just because I couldn't find it .. there was no need for you to be so snippy. Now I remember why I don't bother with stuff like this.

But hey, thanks for the link.

Sorry.

I thought about applying, but the application process scared me off. If I wrote on my application that I wanted to "educate those little bitches... to the MAXXXXX!" I probably wouldn't get selected.

Here's to the more altruistic (and capable) people who actually do teach.

Um, I think if they had a link called GRANTS it might get a little more hittage than a link called VOLUNTEERS.

Here's what it says:




Do you see what a KILLER this is? Do you see the PROBLEM?


THAT is the problem. I'm supposed to knock myself out, spend an hour of RL time in this game, struggle with newbie questions, and I cannot have a sign out about my mall? Or a notecard giver about my rentals? Or a sample of my product that helps people calculate their tier?

The hell with that. I don't apply for their silly grants. I hold my events anyway, and I hope that mean, grasping, clawing, hateful anti-business types don't abuse-report me merely because I held my event in my events space in a mall where it might have a NOW RENTING sign out in the background somewhere.

Honestly, when these robots can get out of the way, we might get an economy.

did you ask about this?

Not really.

I mean, should it be Linden Labs' responsibility to support your own business, however feebly (given L$500 is not, in the grand scheme of things, that much)?

Hold your own educational event with advertising for your products to offset the trouble, charge a nominal seminar fee, or (should the event host not have a business) apply for Linden sponsorship.

'course, this runs into the developer cash being a large-scale version of "supporting a business", but while eliminating both or holding both to the same yardstick would be consistent, I'm not going to open that can of worms.

I agree that making the matter a bit more public and accessible is a good thing, though!

Nope, don't want them to support my business, and don't want their $500.

What I want to be able to do is support my own choice of events, including non-profit events, and have the right to put out my own products, ads, buildings, and get posrates -- all things currently banned on the terms of event listings.



Yeah, I do that already. I never apply for Linden grants because I don't want to go by their strict rules and strain myself through their pablum. It's hard to charge admission, but I think we need more experimentation of it.



Well, open it, that's ok. I don't have a prayer of ever getting those awards, as much business and dwell as I might collect, because I'm running several land groups and don't have it arranged so that me, the largest tier contributor, can show up just in one place as having the right to get a cut of the dwell/dwelloper award. Well...the hell with it.

Just for clarification, Mentors and Instructors are seperate groups.

Mentors are not paid to put on any type of an event. They may use the Mentor "clout" to promote themselves, but they are not paid by the Lindens. I have seen some abuse of the position to promote themselves or services, but they are volunteering their time to help out and I dont see a real problem with them getting a little traffic or exposure in the process.

All of these positions are volunteers. The Instructors are the only ones that get any pay for the classes they host. I would guess that many spend way more preparing for these classes via uploads and whatnot and the pay is an offset to expense, not a motivating factor for wealth and fortune.

Im not opposed to a public list, but it will be a short one. It will be much less interesting than the list of the traffic makers getting paid US Dollar bonuses. I suppose you could search the few instructor events that are out there and attend them and make sure they are on the up and up.

I realize that, Loki, but the purpose of this exericse, they're the same thing. Why? Because in round one of this version of events restrictions, only mentors were going to get to be instructors, remember? Then because people screamed, including me, they broaded it a bit to make it any kind of instructor with a skill, regardless of whether he was annointed with the "mentor" title. But of course, mentors, already put through the door first, were positioned and savvy to get at the grants. They could work the system.

I know stuff and I could be an instructor -- but who has the time to fight through the application process?



I realize that Loki. That's not the claim in my post. I'm saying that initially, they were a shew-in and privileged category to automatically qualify for being instructors and getting money. Later, this was broaded out to mean any instructor, as I've just explained. But they are a pre-set group that a Linden can look at and process faster!



Um, they sure are paid to have events. If they are instructors, they get to apply for a grant -- read the instructions. Frankly, I know of at least one player with the vaunted title of mentor who has ruined my second life with impunity, though he really should have his ass kicked from here to breakfast for his blatant and repeated TOS violations. I have no respect for the mentoring title not only because of him, but other asswipes I've seen abuse this title, and sit on their laurels. Frankly, I find the whole mentoring thing a pretty fucked up system. I wish the Lindens would just pay some customer service people to do this job for pay, I think we'd get a lot better quality of service.



Loki, once again, a mentor who is an instructor can get paid for being an instructor, and a mentor is already on a fast-track to being an instructor by virtue of that status, by virtue of already being in the system and working the system, and by virtue of the ease with which the Lindens, upon recognizing their names, can process their applications without a second glance!!! What part of that isn't clear to you???

So they spend hours? So what. We all spend hours. Nobody gets a goddman credit from me for spending hours on this game. No fucking way.



Publishing this very short list -- I totally agree -- is the first baby step toward getting it to be longer.



Currently, you have to search through Tringo. But if you have a name of the people already getting the awards and approved by the Lindens, not only can you scrutinize any of the fake ones and cry foul, you now have a contact list to use to keep on the notification list, or join the spam list, or whatever, to get in on these classes.

So... a mentor could become an instructor, at which point he could begin earning cash. At what point does a mentor who is not an instructor earn cash?

Also, perhaps you'd get your goddamn credit if you spent your hours in game productively. As it is, you spend your time whining and demanding that the Lindens change everything and screw everyone else in order to make your business successful.

I agree that there are some people that are both Mentors and Instructors, but dont confuse the roles. You might see them as the same but I view them in totally seperate roles, more like I see someone in customer service and a teacher. As a mentor, I teach people how to do things, but its not in a structured class environment, its a casual one on one Qand A convo and I dont get paid.

In everything that happens, there are always going to be people that are first. The door is not closed to those that want to volunteer and the application process is not that big of a deal. In fact, I just applied for Instructor with a single click. I dont even want to do it I just wanted to see the application. They accept my click and review my in world profile for eligibility. People that volunteer do it because they want to help others, they dont plan on getting rich from doing it.

I've been to several events where the event itself is nonprofit, but there are often sponsoring ads. I.E., the Shelter's "Payment Podium" gameshow has an ad for Red Spot Productions. (Plus, of course, it drums up interest in the Shelter's own facilities.) Nor do I seriously consider that Travis and crew are in trouble because people might give them posrates when doing so.

Of course, you may have more experience in trying to have such events than I, but it seems to me the restrictions are there to prevent ficticious "events" that are free advertising (Which isn't all that successful) or some kind of "to attend, you MUST posrate the host!" scheme.

Throwing, say, a "how to find good land and not get snookered" class and pointing out "hey, I also rent plots, here's a notecard, but don't feel required to rent from me though I'd appreciate it" seems to be much the same vein to me. (EDIT: As the Shelter event, not the other two examples.) (happening to have a bulletin board setup at wherever the landmark on the card is detailing any commercial events you might be running is just a happy coincidence.)

There's a fine line between "This class sponsored by Ravenglass Rentals" and "Ravenglass Rentals infomercial", granted, but even if the event system was revamped I think most would find the latter annoying anyway, so that's not likely a problem, eh?

I wish I was able to attend that meeting today - but have not been able to get inWorld all day.

I was at one time both a Mentor and an Instructor - back last year at this time before the major changes to the way Events worked. I attended several instructor classes are immediately realized I did not have the commitment to develop a class that would be on par with those being held at the time. (Some very talented people were providing all kinds of Excellent! classes).

I have remained a Mentor and am always impressed when I see other Mentors at the welcome area - Loki for one is always very patient and knowledgeable and is Excellent! with people. There are others I just can't remember who at the moment. So one bad Mentor does not ruin all Mentors.

Anyway, I'm confused - what is the list that you want to have made public Prok?

Aliasi, the things that you suggest doing in those events -- that Travis does or that I might do -- are *exactly* the things that the Lindens could unilaterally decide to nail, but more to the point, they are *exactly* the things that vindictive players who love to use the flawed punishment systems to harass their opponents can whip up into an abuse report in a heart-beat.

Um, Merwan. I want them to publicize *the list of people who receive reducational grants*. I don't give a good goddman whether they are called instructors, mentors, or cream cheese. I just want to see *what* the Lindens are rewarding in their Social Engineering efforts, and I want to correlate what the events are with what the people are, what their reputations are, and so on -- I don't care about their meritorious titles in your rewards and reputations metagame, I want to see the *product*.

Loki, try to get outside of your blinders for a moment! The very fact that you keep hammering on this and keep talking about volunteering and the fact that Merwan talks about the wonders of selfless mentors like yourself is that you aren't seeing this as a *system*. It's a *system for getting events support, grants, Linden subsidies when no one else can*. In a world where only a few months ago, club owners, Tringo hosts, and many others got rewarded for their hard work, suddenly, the pool has shrunk and only those vaunted people *chosen by the Lindens* who can strain through their filter get the money.

I don't know what to hear about how $500 is $2 RL and chump change and all the rest. It's a source of support and I want to examine it.



What you're failing to see is that it DOES NOT MATTER when EITHER OR BOTH GET THE GRANTS. Try to see this is ABOUT THE GRANTS and trying to ENLARGE THAT POOL OF SPECIAL PEOPLE. That's all.



Well who CARES if you don't get paid??? And who cares it they seem different to you? We're talking about GRANTS here, not about selfless mentoring roles in the game.



Loki, I am not interesting in volunteering to be a mentor. Nor are other people trying to understand how they can get EVENTS SUPPORT which is what this thread is about!!!

You're trying to say -- "be selfless and alturistic and volunteer and then as a sidebar, as icing on the cake, get a $500 gift from the Lindens."

But that's not what most people look at. They want to know how to make money. This is one way they can.

We're interested in how the grants process works, not some volunteer mechanism. Could you read my initial post? The point is to separate out what the Lindens find "educational" *in practice* and see if that list couldn't be increased.

We all understand that point is not to have bogus workshops on things like "how to give a blow job*. Duh. We all get it. What we're trying to see here is the *mechanism*. Very little light has really been shed on the process. People didn't even know that first you have to figure out that you have to sign up to be a volunteer in the game, and then, and only then, can you be getting paid to run a class.

But that's not at all how I thought it worked, and in fact I believe, the way it DOES work. Anybody, even me, can write out an application, hold a class, say in Real Estate 101, and get a grant! I don't have to work for free for hours as a mentor or a live helper or anything of the sort. I just give the class!





There is NOTHING WRONG WITH WANTING TO GET RICH. NOTHING. It's OK. We're trying to examine the little remaining event support there is in this game, and how people get at it. We suspect not enough people who deserve it are getting it. It maybe is due to the fact that they've hidden it under a complex "volunteer scheme" instead of just writing EDUCATIONAL EVENTS GRANTS which actually help find in the game people who have something to offer.

"we"? you mean you right?

anyhow, any luck starting your witchhunt for people doing evil thing out of your sight?

you're not going to be anyone's heroine this way.

This is in the Reference and Policies Forum...
Educational Support Guidelines

This also might be helpful...
Event Posting Rules

And as for your assumptions, I am so not what you think I am. Just as your probably not what I think you are. We differ on views but just because I make a suggestion, it is not my desire that all follow my lead. I am pro-business and I dont see how educational support funding promotes a successful business model. I know DJ's, skin makers, land brokers that make L$15000 a day and would not be bothered with a L$500 payment, as it would hurt their profit margin doing real business.

And to get back on topic, I already agreed with you that posting the names of the people that make money via Linden Support is not a bad idea.

1) The Lindens could hire people from all over the globe to cover all time zones, pay them real US$ wages, train them in all the skills of scripting, building, texturing, etc.. then set them the task of hosting educational events to teach the daily influx of noobs how to build, script, texture, etc...

2) The Lindens could look at the existing user base, see a large number of users who are excelent! at scripting, building, texturing, etc... maybe say to them "Hey gals (and guys), Hold some noobie teaching classes for us and we'll pay you L$500 per class. While you're doing that we'll go fix a few bugs."



And guess what, the list of people who recieve the L$500 payments is already posted. It's called the events list. Just look for the events that satisfy the 'educational' requirements and you have your list...

"We" is the public, which has the right to know.
It isn't a witch hunt or a suspicion of "evil," it's an ordinary request for accountability. That's different.



This isn't the best system in the world. It's free or cheap labour, it's actual exploitative, and it creates an apprencticing-type guild world that doesn't make for a modern economy.




One of the questions I have for the Lindens, not clear from the instructions they give, is whether they automatically sign someone up forever and anon once they clear the first hurdle, and just automatically hand them the $500, or does the mentor actually have to submit proof of activity each week. It used to be also that under the old grants system, you had to show how many avatars you had attend your event. Of course, many probably lied about it, but it enabled the Lindens at least to spot check and hope people were honest and have a bit of a filter.



What I'm asking for is not $500 for my business or myself, on that score, I'm asking for the Lindens to get out of the way with their excessive rules about not having commercial aspects to events.

I'm not sure what your band of "pro-business" is, Loki. I do find among certain older players that when they claim to be "pro-business" they mean "I'm pro-my business but I don't want a level playing field for everybody else's business and I especially hate Tringo clutter in the list. They're pro-medieval guild."

And sure, your skin-making friends can reap the rewards of mass culture through their skin sales without having to think about mass culture as a form of income-generation for the masses -- like Tringo. That's the beauty of being a skin-dealer -- you can rake in money and also posture as a high-culture type opposed to Tringo and other low-brow events and make yourself seem like part of the aesthetic elite.

I'm thinking of not somebody's skin business, not your business, whatever it is, not my business, but new people especially who are looking at the game options and trying to figure out how they can generate income. They look at the events grants with dismay. How can they break into it? They may have a non-profit idea but can't get it going because they don't see how it works. Or they may have a business incubation idea that will need some start-up granting. Why not?

We already know the Lindens have their pocket scripterati to hand these events grants out to. What we're trying to determine is how much space is there in this system for new people to come in, and provide education and instruction not just on the typical knowledge bastions like scripting, particles, and building, but in other areas both in the game and IRL.