what DI should really be about.......

Thank you Miss Torley

MJ

Yes and no. I wouldn't go quite as far as saying there shouldn't be any DI because that leaves open a fairly big hole: people who provide services that are useful and valuable to SL but that either a) wouldn't be useful if they weren't free or b) are targeted at people who don't have much money to spend. Things that help new players get integrated, for example, can't really ask for much money in world because newbies don't have that much to spend and they probably aren't going to do the work to make something, or buy L$, until they're already "over the hump" of having made the decision to stay in SL.

I don't see anything wrong with DI as it is now, except that some people are not happy that others are getting money for free. (In a conservative society thats a massive sin. Thats why Conservatives are against the lottery)

I totally disagree with your conservative view here. Many many people come here not to earn money but to have fun.

If you force people to have to buy lindens or earn money, they will go elsewhere.

WHY ARE YOU CONSTANTLY SMOKING CRACK

Magnum is the only poster on this forum who could give me a pulminary embolism AT A MOMENTS NOTICE.

I agree with you totally and the Star Chamber needs to sit back and think... Do they want Second Life becoming another Active Worlds???

Well, I agree with Magnum. That makes two posters who could be unwittingly responsible for your sudden demise!

coco

Thank You Cocoanut.

We may not disagree that much. I was talking about dwell-based incentives in particular. I personally do not want the free market to totally guide content creation. For example, I would like to see Linden Lab provide scholarships to newbies, and for others, for various types of projects - in building, scripting, performance, art, whatever. You could apply for a scholarship to build a wildlife park, for example, which contains giraffes among many other animals. LL might own the wildlife park and hire conservationists to arrange stuff. The world would be a better place. This is a socialist idea, of course, and I am actually a socialist, at least in RL. You'd need a judging committee of some sort, presumably made up of residents, and I'd think it critical that there be scholarships earmarked specifically for newbies (less than X months in world).

But LL takes a pretty small role in actively shaping society. In that way, LL is very conservative, relying mainly on free market forces (modified by DI and dwell, which skews things towards silly stuff like camping chairs and money balls).

Live performance is something that languishes terribly in SL. I would LOVE to see, for example, LL underwrite a performance of a play, typed out, with actors and sets, rehearsed, etc. It could be public domain works, like Shakespeare, perhaps performed in a public multi-sim arena (think of that!). There's been talk of such things from various groups, but the lack of any institutional support (for costumes, direction, etc.) gives that sort of thing a huge disadvantage compared to 24/7 establishments like dance clubs. The one example of LL support that I know of is for the wonderful Bedazzled projects, and I'm sure there are others, but they don't really make a gigantic impact on day-to-day life that an ongoing public funding system would engender.

I think LL is very aware of this sort of need, and prefer to keep things simple with a hands-off policy, apart from dwell-based incentives which they've now realized have gone awry.

I think this would be a horrible idea. If LL gave "scholarships" to anyone who asked, they'd wind up having to create huge amounts of free land and messing up their own tier model. If they picked and chose who could have them, they'd be creating a favored class of newbies. Things already get perturbed enough with private businesses doing this without LL doing it too.

If you're lucky you may catch Starax Statovsky out building something neat sometime.

Watched him build some orcas in the Morris sandbox one time. Was great to watch.

Just don't get too close. He's been known to breathe fire and start speaking in tongues when cornered*.

* - May not be 100% accurate.

Well, Active Worlds died because the developer refused to update their platform - I was in AW from the beggining until I found SL two years ago.

I think LL's goal here isnt to eliminate that which can be gamed; but to remove subsidies which get in the way of legitimate events that are not designed to keep someone on your plot for as long as possible.

One of the big problems with the DI is that for LL it's a lose-lose proposition; They can have it automated, and watch it be used for things it's not intended for (camping chairs, etc), or they can award based on personal judgement, and get accused of FIC action.

I think what LL needs to do, is improve how land passes work; make it more intuitive and seamless, prehaps automate the event's cover fee - one idea I had a few months back was this:

If you 'teleport to' from the events tab directly; you are charged the admission fee, otherwise you have to find the plot through some other method and fly to it. Those who cant afford it still have an option, and those who want to support the event, get added convenience. (This was more relevant when telehubs existed, but I think some solution like this could work.)

-Adam

When my new island is done in a couple months I am going to sell land passes, someone's gotta break the ice