City Bank Account Explained

I can explain the way things work right now. No bill needed.

We use a system where one of my alts, Uma Bauhaus, acts as the city bank account (she was created for that purpose). When someone buys something from our vendor, the money is split between the city 10% (Uma) and multiple artisans 90%. This is the optimum way of implementing a shared bank account with current SL technology. It's exactly how GOM, SLEX, and SLBoutique collect and disperse money.

The only drawback to this system is that one person controls that bank account. Meaning, I could sell all money on GOM and leave the city penniless.

The solution would be for the Lindens to implement some sort of shared bank account, where several people would have to agree to allow funds to be transferred. Aside from that there is no way to permit theft. You all must trust the person who controls the "bank alt". (This goes for GOM, SLEX, and SLBoutique too!)

If there are other questions, I can answer them.

~Ulrika~

I keep up on the city happenings even though I'm not a member right now.

You can have shared bank accounts like you speak of, you just need trust.


Notice the TOS doesn't say it's wrong to share the passwords of those accounts, it just states that the owner of the account is responsible for that account and its actions.

We use a bank avatar for SLStream.com, Stream Shark. I own it, but am not the only one who can use it. In fact, I like opening it up to my business partner so we can both see what's going in an out.

So, it's not impossible, you just need to have trust. Does the city trust the elected officials to all have access to the treasury?

Personally, yes I do trust the officials. Professionally(I go into large IT Organsiations and create governance), no its not a very good idea.

Apart from the security aspect, it is a limiting solution. Any further usage we make of the system is limited by having to use a named an alt in any developement. If Ulrika ever left the game, or probably even worse kept her account but didnt log on for 6 months, the city could have to rewrite bits of its infrastructure and at worst lose access to any funds.

I do not think its a high risk (Its unlikely to happen), but it at least a medium impact (If it does happen, the effects could be large). Its something that may be easy to fix and could benifit others with similar problems.

I'll leave it to the RA to take further if they wish.

Thanks for the reply Aaron. Perhaps sharing the account is something we should think about doing.

Catfart, I omitted the part about controlling the infrastructure, thanks for brining it up. The other single point of failure is the fact that I have control of the infrastructure. Not just the vendors and the server but a large fraction of the city (walls, streets, small buildings, bridge, and museum). If I were to run away to Germany for a few months, nothing could be added to the vendors, we couldn't get to our money, and none of the structures could be moved.

I'm not really sure what to do about this though. The same problem exists with Kendra's huge section of town, Urusula's restaurant, and BladeDancer's church.

In the future we could always set structures to "share with group", although I'm not sure of all of the ramifications of doing that. Additionally, we could spread out to third-party banking institutions, vendors, and online services if you'd like.

Hmm. Something to think about.

~Ulrika~

You should join up again! I'm not in charge any more, so you could run wild like a crazy wolverine.

~Ulrika~

Hey, not SO wild

Actually, sharing "Uma Bauhaus" password sounds like a good idea to me. Since the Guild are technically in charge of the City Treasury, it could be a password shared by the Gildemeisterinn, Kendra. Whenever someone else gets appointed for that position, the next Gildemeister would get the password and change it, or something like that.

That sounds like a great idea. I actually have been wanting to reclaim Uma, so I'll talk to Kendra about creating a new player with the group name as the first name (or something like that). I'll discuss it before I make changes.

Finally, there is our vendor infrastructure. That is the one piece of technology that is not transferrable because it uses remote hardware. Additionally, as soon as the SLEX problem resolves itself and I've waited an appropriate amount of time, I have the code done to do online sales for us! I suggest we place our wares on several sites independently, so if I do leave, there will be back-up infrastructure.

That should cover us.

~Ulrika~