Post questions for Philip Linden about Event/rating/sponsorship changes here!

Since the new policy announcements seem to have generated enormous controversy, I've approached Philip and he's agreed to be interviewed about them, for an upcoming NWN article. I'll be talking with him about the recent price change in rating/rating payouts, the delinking of Linden support from all events except educational ones, and the sale of Top Picks on EBay. If you have a question regarding any of these subjects, please post it here, or IM Hamlet Linden or e-mail me at [email]hamlet@secondlife.com[/email], and I'll do my best to include it in the interview.

Philip,

With regard to Sponsored Links, is there going to be any RL advertising allowed, or will it be striclty for SL businesses?

Question:

Although I see the new implemented changes and every is quite excited about them - I wonder what will be put in place to balance things out (if any so to speak). Not nessesarily new sources of income, but what type of programs, initiatives, and other particular emphasis are you (meaning the Lindens as a whole) are going to push in reaction to these major changes?

Can you give us a timeline of planned future economic changes (understanding that anything you say now MAY change in the future)?

(Things like, "When 1.6 comes out, the rating bonus will be elminated."

Given the fact that in-game numbers themselves indicate that Second Life clubs pull in a consistent majority of Second Life's total social community, and given the fact that SL clubs lack the same options (drink/food sales, for example) for becoming financially self-sustaining that real-life clubs do, aren't you at all concerned that mass club closures may spell the death of most of SL's social community and ultimately lead to many of your players quitting the game? And given the dependence of SL's economy on consumers, aren't you concerned that if this happens, it might create a ripple effect that becomes the beginning of serious in-game economic problems across the board?

(Okay, I know I'm being VERY ambitious with such a confrontational question, but if you go there at all, I'm sure you'll edit the question to suit yourself anyway. No sense in self-censoring. )

Please give a clear 'Linden' definition of educational in regards to future Linden sponsored events.

I've noticed the sponsored Links idea with using Ebay. Well instead of using RL money how about the Linden Dollars? This way like u all want, get some of the money out of SL. I think this would be a better approach. And for the idea of raising the Rating pay out, a 2500% increase in the payout to give ratings is a lil steep, how about if it was lowered to $L5 per, I think that would be a faster way to do this. And if 5 is a still too lil I think ppl would be still willing to rate if it was $L10. What Do u all think?

It's nice to see some progress on getting rid of events and the rating system. What is the outlook on finally getting rid of dwell and the land auctions?

*nihilism baby!*

Hamlet!

Please ask,

"Philip, given the huge effect that these changes can have on the SL economy, why was only 2 days notice given for a patch?"
"Didn't Linden Lab's development team promise, following the series of buggy patches for 1.5, that it would give plenty of time to debug and review changes before they were put into effect?"
"Further, how come the community was not given time to discuss this with Linden Lab?"
"Further, what happened to all the suggestions posted in the Feature Feedback forum about the rating system?"

Thanks!

Hamlet,

Are the town meetings a feel-good exercise? All of the changes announced and implemented this week appear not to have any real advance notice or lead-time. To be sure, there have been some discussions here and there in the past, but we really had no warning that all of these changes would be made all at once with no lead time.

For example, if everyone knew a month in advance that they had to start paying $25 for ratings, they might have had some time to go back and re-think negrates, make posrates they'd been meaning to make, etc. Instead, we had about 24 hours notice.

In order to understand how these changes affect the economy, it would be helpful to get these figures from Philip:

-- total amount of event stipends given out in the year or quarter, average and median;
-- number of individuals or groups who received stipend
-- typical example of event content and percentages -- i.e. was it 90 percent sexay avatar and 10 percent educational before the change?
-- amount given out for ratings stipends
-- percentage of players likely to be affected (rather than giving a figure like L$37 as the median amount, which reduces the problem and makes it trivial, let's get the hard numbers of how many players were at the $75 level, how many above that, and what percentage of the player population has taken a hard hit.

Why can only officially-approved mentors or instructors be allowed to apply for event stipends?

i think ican understand why there wasnt any warning, this would prevent a massive use of rating before the increase, GOM currency stockage and many other things that peoples could do to prepare themselve to exploit the situation as quick as possible and that will really hurt the market.
what if people suddently stopped buying stuffs to stock as much as they can? wouldn(t this hurt the market more than the suddent change?

i think so

Not if ratings are zeroed, as they are considering.

As for GOM, it'd give people a more equal chance to cash in on the increase, rather than just people who happened to see the announcement in the last 48 hours.

Do all educational events have to be related to second life? For example, could someone start a series of lectures on art or philosophy and be conpensated?

1 - Why are they afraid to go all they way and just reset the ratings - why is it only under consideration? The ratings are now really meaningless - new ones are worth more than the old ones, since people will be a bit more considered in giving them out. Having them mix and match doesn't really work.

2 - Isn't Phillips stat from the Town Hall a bit misleading about the effect on Basic users stipends? He quotes the median as his example
"Philip Linden: There are about 2400 basic users affected by this change.
Philip Linden: The median ratings stipend they get is $75.
Philip Linden: So we are talking about a L$37 weekly change."
but median isn't a particularly good indicator.
How many of the Basics used to calculate that value are actually active users versus abandoned basic accounts? Also median just refers to the middle number in a range of numbers. [quote: The MEDIAN is the number in the middle. In order to find the median,
you have to put the values in order from lowest to highest, then find
the number that is exactly in the middle]
I know in my case, i see a cut of a few hundred (which is fine - whatever), and I don't rate whore. I just think his stat is a bit misleading.

Thanks
Max

In extension to Barbarra's question, what out someone who held a chess event that was about learning rather than a tournament?

-BlueMan

Honestly, I can't say that I am deeply affected with the new policy changes but I do have a few questions and suggestions regarding the new rating system and linden support thingy.

First of all, rating system. When I first joined the game not long ago, I found it surprising that you only pay 1 linden to rate someone and rating was like some sort of a spam to some peeps or a way to exploit the game in order to boost up their stipends. As for me, I do feel that it is good to raise the price a little when it comes to rating someone but why go as far as 25 lindens? 25 lindens is not too much in terms of real money but it is indeed a big leap from 1 linden. I have never really rated anyone negatively yet but I do suggest what we can do is, change the rate pricing just a little bit such as maybe 10 lindens to rate someone positively and maybe around 50 lindens to rate someone negatively. I do feel that when you wanna rate someone negatively, it has to be too much to take that you have to take the trouble to fork out 50 lindens just to rate someone negatively, which means that it gives a person more to think about before judging someone.

Most peeps in SL have a habit of returning ratings which I find unnecessary unless you REALLY want to rate that someone. My point is, a little raise for positive ratings and more raise for negative ratings would be a good change for the system. As for the stipend, I find it pretty funny that, already you're raising the price for ratings (which means people will get less ratings) and you're also lowering the stipends by 50% which doesn't make sense to me. Why?

Secondly, events. I do get really annoyed with certain clubs having too many repeated events in one day or even come to a point where they copy or plagiarise other people's events and it has been going on for too long. Too many same events and too many bingo games. I do agree that there's too much of those "sexy thong, bare chests, best goth, best red and black" and all that jazz but I really do not think that LL should just cut off linden support once and for all. I really do feel bad for those who're only good at hosting events. Not all of us are blessed with the talent of photoshop or paintshop or even designing but they're good with event organizing. I think what LL can do is limit the events every club can have in a week so at least, they can think twice and think right what events they want to have in those few precious times they are allowed to have events, and at the same time give other "small-time-clubs" a chance to have their own little events and have people attend them.

I really do think that by doing that, (which is limiting amount of events a club can have in a week) it will definitely help curb the habit of abusing linden support. Please do not take off linden support once and for all for the exception of educational events. I am not a hardcore club owner myself but I really do think that it is unfair for those who just started to build a club. I mean, the amount of time spent to built one nice and decent looking club and end up getting to know that there's never gonna be anymore linden support unless they hold educational events... too sad too sad. Please consider my suggestions and think about them. Thanks.

Lot of good stuff here. Let me set the deadline for questions to THIS MIDNIGHT PST. I'll cull the best questions posted before then-- after that, I'll try, but it gets dicier...

Phillip,

Before I pose my question, I'd like to quote you on a couple things you said at the town hall meeting. I'm including a lot here, so that (hopefully) I'm not taking your comments out of context:







Now that we have that background, onto my question....

You stated multiple times in the TH that you don't wish to pass judgement on what people should or shouldn't do with their time in SL.

In regards to event hosting - Your comments make sense to me that the policy to (or not to) subsidize events is not a judgement on worth or value of a particular event. So the fact that LL has chosen to stop Linden Support for non-educational events is not troubling to me.

However, LL has made somewhat strict event restrictions on what can be posted to the event calendar, regardless of whether or not the event qualifies for support. I understand that the community as a whole has mixed feelings about the event calendar... some of the comments made in other town halls leads me to believe that there is a general feeling among Linden's that "...some events are more creative than others...".

But isn't the definition of whether an event is creative or not a subjective one - and if you're making the statement that you don't wish to pass judgement, shouldn't this definition be left as an open one?

The other issue I see in having restrictive event posting guidelines is that LL does not have the staffing to police all events. The event calendar is policed randomly.... For me to run a buisness under that kind of uneven enforcement creates a challenge in itself. If I choose to abide by the rules strictly, and my competitors don't have to up until they get caught, they only run the risk of their event being cancelled occasionally. I end up putting myself at a disadvantage just by following the existing rules. If the rules were open, and it was left to the community to decide which events they wanted to attend, the onus would fall upon me to make sure I post something people are actually interested in.

When comments have been made in the past regarding the loosening of the restrictions on the event calendar, the response made in the past is something along the lines of "You can always post your event to the appropriate area in the forums." Unfortunately, if you look at the last comment I quoted you on from the Town Hall, I think its common knowledge that only a fraction of SL residents actually read the forums. Expecting me, as a buisness to post to the forums as a viable alternative to the event calendar seems illogical.

So, my question:

Now that linden support for events has been restricted to educational events only, will you be loosening the restrictions currently placed upon the event calendar for non-supported events so that residents can have more flexibility in posting the events that they are now funding out of their own pocket?

Will changes be forthcoming to the event calendar structure that will make both the Social and Content-Creating camps in Second Life happy simultaneously.... anotherwords, what is the status on creating better filters for event types, and better in-world search tools so that we all can get what we want...... allow residents to find the event that *they* are interested in quickly and easily, and allow buisnesses to get the word out about their event to those who would be interested effectively?

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to seeing your responses!

Travis

SIMPLICITY.............

When America went broke they printed more dollars,when they went broke again....they printed MORE dollars - result...The Great Depression.

When your broke in second life....you go print(buy) more dollars then you spend that and you go print(buy) more dollars.......result....The Great Depression.

People go buy 100's of 1000's of $L to just give away in clubs,5k raffles etc etc none of this money is generated in SL NONE of it.

And your supposed to be building an economy based on this.......HOW?

Taking away event support was a bull$hit cop-out that means ZERO to the economy - all it means is that the single most fun passtime in SL has been pi$$ed away for no reason at all.I've seen 20'000000 posts on 'the economy' in SL and every single one of the is a crock - STABLE ECONOMY my ar$e!!Yo cant have an 'economy or any other kind of system when the people in your country can get money for nothing - so do us all a favour and stop talking twaddle.

Hamlet - sorry for my gargantuan post & for allowing me the opportunity to be less verbose Boiling down my original post to a few sentences & reposting here:


Phillip,

With non-educational events no longer being supported, would you consider allowing residents to post multiple (two or three) events of a similar type per day for the purpose of reaching residents in disparate timezones - such as allowing similar events as long as they are 8 hours apart?

Thanks!

Travis

Good question, Travis! Would you like to post it in Part II of the NWN interview with PL, and I'll ask him to answer it there? Here:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/01/greenspanning_t_1.html

Of if I have your permission, I can repost it for you. Lemme know here or IM/e-mail me!