MISSING December Developer Incentive Award Winners

The following is an e-mail to Phil Linden, I doubt he will ever see.

Can anyone out there answer this:
You own 1 island, no other land, you run a club that avereages 50-60 av's there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at times there are as many as 80-90 av's on the single island, on the POPULAR PLACES listing your are in the number 2 & 1 slot, your traffic is public knowledge, your daily dwell reflects this, never going any lower. Simply stated "Your busy as all HECK!"

The December Developer Incentive Award is posted, your name is NO where to be found, nothing, zilch, nada, not there! How can this be? Can anyone tell me?

(note: This is not about "FREE MONEY", CAMPING CHAIRS OR ANY OTHER GIMIC TO GET AV'S TO VISIT. This is about the truth and valadation of the Developer Incentive Award Program!)


Please Forward this to Phillip Linden.

Please send verification of receipt by Phillip Linden, due to I was hung up upon by Lee Linden of the Concierge Help Line. (Note: If the conversations are recorded, please review my conversation of today at 2:30 EST. Not once did I raise my voice, not once was I more then polite, yes I disagreed with Lee's statements and noted this, so he took it upon himself to hang up on me. I would say very poor business relations to your paying customers, to treat them with such disrespect!)

Dear Phil,

In game I am Sammmy Stewart, I have been part of your wonderful world for almost a year now, I am not new, I am also not dumb nor ignorant. I am an adult, who has worked in the business world many years, as well as educated. (note: this is to verify, as per Lee Linden, I am a fool!)

For reference, I had partnered with Erelas Night into a business venture in Second Life, it was The Golgotha Gun Club. We worked hard, to please our guests and to achieve the goals within the game scope to succeed. We originally owned the mainland sim of Slosser together 50-50, but with the mainland lag, and the aspirations of going further we made the jump to an island. I purchased the island, and Cyn Linden is wonderful by the way, a very gracious assistant, who made the transition very smooth. On Golgotha Isle, we decided to make the Estate Tools available to Erelas Night, as well as the monthly billing.

Now for the reason of this note, in the months of September, October & November, the Incentive Award program, we were listed, and very proud of this fact. We decided now with the Island, and the scope we wanted to achieve, we worked very hard to maintain a pleasant place to come, and get the traffic to place us higher on the Popular Places list for within Second Life, so we may also place higher on the Incentive Award.

In the month of December, the one I am questioning, the island was in the ownership of Erelas Night from December 1st to the 31st, we placed on the Popular Places list in the number 1 and 2 spots, with traffic as high as 80k for a day. Our group dwell payment reflected this, with them ranging from 2k a day to over 8k in a single day. The last few days in December we were number 1, with well over 80k traffic, 5 days to be precise. During this time frame of December, I was personally in contact with Cyn Linden, to verify and confirm the needed requirements to attain a high rating in the incentive award program. She confirmed to me it is automated, and closes midnight December 31st, and that this was the last month of the full payment amounts as it will be decreasing over the next few months, and phased out. So as partners we decided to make December a great month, and then after that go into a private life of making and selling items, much less stress and work.

Now the list is published, neither I Sammmy Stewart nor Erelas Night's names appear anywhere on the list, no where, puzzled. So we verify the stated calculations that are used to make this list up of the top 10% dwell getter. (with at time 80 av's within our sim, and the average amount of 60 av's 24 hours a day 7 days a week, how can this be?) I read it , re-read it, and read it again, the Incentive award is based on dwell, well we had dwell, we had fantastic dwell, and not to be even mentioned once, no where, how can this be? Many friend did place upon the list, and compared to them we had more dwell per sq. m. then they did, we had a fantastic month.

So I asked, I asked Cyn, who very politely agreed to look into, stating she was surprised as well. I spoke to Micheal Linden, who said an answer would be available on Monday, today. I received no notice so I called the Concierge help line, Lee Linden answered my call, (Note: I have been a Concierge level customer since I started playing this game. I have paid to your company, the funds for enjoying this world, and I regretfully admit the treatment given to me by Lee Linden is a disgrace. With today's abruptly hanging up on me, with his rude behavior, with his total disrespect for others opinions, it disgraces your fine company, and at the level of play I am at I expected better treatment.) I plainly asked. I inquired for a reason as to why both our names were not mentioned once, as to how this can be? I am not the only one questioning this, many of my customers, and friends are outraged and in total disbelief of not even an mention. I have not argued any points, since I do not even Know Why, we were not even mentioned, I did ask this of Lee, and was abruptly informed you were not in top 10%. ("PERIOD! DEAL WITH IT!"

I am only questioning, I am baffled, how can we have placed in the past with a mainland sim, as one parcel, with just barley getting enough traffic to make the popular list. When we upgrade to an Island, better ourselves, make the investment into your creation, work hard break all previous records. Have traffic in the 80,000's, get dwell bonuses, be number 1 in all Second Life, and not even appearing on the list. I need someone to explain to me why? Let me know, did we do something wrong? Did we not follow the rules? Did we screw up? (saying this plainly)

Phil, all I did was ask, and from all the daily stats showed us we were well onto our way do a nice incentive award placement. The answer I just received, which did not shed too much light onto the facts, was not satisfactory. Along with the rude behavior.

I can send you my daily dwell payments, I can send pictures of the popular listing showing us as number one and two, I will do anything you may need. But alas you also can do this, just look at the standings of Golgotha Gun Club, on Golgotha Isle, from December 1st to the 31st. Please why were we not even mentioned once, anywhere within the list? Can anyone explain this to me? Without getting annoyed at me preferably. I just would like any assistance in this matter you may be able to give me.

Thank you for your time,
Sammmy Stewart

Dwell for popularity is divided among the group that owns the land, this is why you probably haven't won.

If you don't mind me asking, what statements/explanations did Lee Linden give you that you disagreed with?

I've always known Lee to be helpful and polite..

I guess it's their monthly dwell query gone haywire again. This started happening back in Feb last year, and it took some hard complaining to get them to even consider the fact that their query was borked. A lot of up-and-coming land owners were missing from the lists, after having premium listings month after month.

I had a long conversation with Lee on the matter, but the answer was pretty much the same: "You are not on the list, not even close". We were able to keep the conversation civil, but I got nowhere. "They were right, I was wrong."

Turned out their query WAS borked, and when they finally found out (April or something), they were forced to add 20-30 land owners to the list of DIA winners.

Just hang in there, and keep on bugging them about it.

LL really need to phase out dwell as quickly as possible to avoid these kinds of headaches.

Just a possible reason that is not clear to me in your description of the situation. Does the group that owns the Island also own the old mainland sim?

Also did you sell the mainland sim before the end of the month?

It is possible either or both of these situations may have knocked you off the list depending on LL's rules for dealing with such things.

The US$ developer incentives are calculated differently to the popular places and L$ dev incentives.

US$ one is based on total number of unique qualifying avatars.
L$ one is based on total dwell points.

Plus, if the land is group owned; the points towards you winning the dev incentive will be split among the members. (So it's possible it may be diluted to the point where you dont qualify)

Lee does have a bit of a temper at times.

to verify we as a group Golgotha Estates owned Golgotha Isle, called Golgotha Gun Club before dec 1st and were in full business pryor to the begining of the month. we won in october with 3/4 of the month in slosser and 1/4 on the island. I totaly understand the differance between most popular and traffic, dwell needed for this program, i am asking how, just how can one group owning an island and nothing else, and all the dwell reflect back to the island owner, as one parcel, with traffic of over 80,000 a day not get one mention on this award program. Not asking for the placement, just not on it at all? then what is this incentive award program, if you read the link to the rules of how it is calculated, it is all on dwell. DWELL well can you have more the 100 av's in a sim, no, and having at one point over 90 for hours too, is not dwell, then tell me what is.

On anyones behavior, or the content of it, is no concern to the bottom question of: one group, owning only one island, have the traffic 24 hours a day 7 days a week, to place them on the popular list in 1st and 2nd place, with the average of 50-60 av's there and as high as 93, not get a mention anywhere on this list?

You follow the rules, you read the directions, you give the effort, you go beyond what you thought you could do, and for what? NOTHING. And when you ask why? no reply, makes no sence, I am not the only one questioning this, at this time i know of 2 other high dwell locations that also were not included on this list. Just looking for a reasonable answer.

Here's as reasonable as it gets for me. Every week that we paid taxes on prims and land, people complained that their bills were wrong. We tried hard to calculate and participate like good citizens; but the calculations just didn't pan out properly. Basic dwell and dev incentives have worked the same way. They've never been predictable beyond this lot having way more than that lot. Look back through the Linden Announcement forum and count the number of threads that talk about dwell being not calculating or not crediting properly. Those explanations always just end with a simple "There, we fixed it. Have a nice day!"

At the risk of sounding heartless Sammmy, you've been here long enough to realize that dwell and dev incentives are not reliable. They never have been and never will be.

As for service, don't expect much. You won't be compensated even if they do discover a mistake. That would open a floodgate of requests for recalculations and compensation. Plus, even if an error is discovered, time isn't going to be devoted to repairing a program that will be phased out in two months. The best you can hope for is a bit of explanative apology from Customer Service.

All this said, kick and scream, you've earned it and we understand that you're infuriated. It's time to decide if you enjoy paying money to play Second Life for the sheer fun of it. To expect any return on that investment has become a foolish venture.

And popular places. Or else people will still compete for the number 1 spot using all sorts of dirty tricks instead of stopping to think about what would make an attractive user experience that would keep people on a parcel because they are ENTERTAINED rather than being paid for it. Also, alts should not count, and the minimum time should be increased to half an hour or so.

Lee polite?? Helpful yes..but polite?

Yeah when I say "dwell" I mean dwell as a published measurement. Ergo anything based on dwell will disappear with it. OMGZOR111 Am I suggesting that we eliminate a feature from the software. How cold hearted must I be.

It all really doesn't matter to me having never competed for dwell numbers, monies or DI and not really caring if people want to sit around in camping chairs all day or if others want to spend their money being number one on a list. My original statement was made in the interest of saving the employees at Linden Lab the constant headache of dealing with people who are unhappy about faulty calculations.

The published numbers have seemed consistently faulty in process or record since I joined. Taxes didn't seem worth the trouble for them to continue that program, particularly dealing with us being unhappy about it all the damn time. Dwell seems to have fallen into the same category.

Ive always found Lee polite and Ive had to talk to him many times.

We're reviewing the numbers for December now to check for any irregularities...we'll let any potentially affected residents know if there are any problems.

Is that GENERAL LEE I am Sorry.............. I wanted to lighten up the stress alittle....

I agree Sammy ,

This message is short and just to the point , I beleive that Linden Labs are cutting and pasting alot of the Developers incentive list , believe me i recieved the same i`ve recieved in past months but got tons more traffic , usually over 100k daily keeping the #1 spot all month till the sim was down on the 31st . Not complaining cause i was down but thats sl for ya . I do wish they would do another comb over of the DI list and list traffic totals for the month each person on the list recieved so we all can see how well we did and by the way we are not group land

Unfortunatly after reading this thread I'm going to have to agree. Sadly it does seem to have hit rock bottom.

As for Lee he was always kind and helpful with me. Even when I'm sure he was pulling his hair out because I deleted the tp one too many times lol.

Cat

It'll be just peachy keen lollipops and dancing bunnies wonderful if you discover a couple of irregularities in a defunct program and pay a couple of people a couple of dollars.

I can't help thinking that the SL population is suffering several serious problems that affect hundreds and thousands of users meaning that there are much more productive things y'all could be doing with the time.

You?!? You can't possibly prompt hair pullin'. No not youuu!?! You're still taking me with you right? I keep a small bag of dirt packed.

Absolutly Khamon! I got seeds

I met Sammmy on my 3rd or 4th day in SL and was immediately impressed with her honesty and integrity.

I was so impressed with her, in fact, that Golgotha quickly became my favorite place to hang out in SL - everybody there seemed like family to me and Sammmy's friendliness and generosity inspired me to seek employment with her - not because I enjoy working, but because I knew in my heart that Sammmy had a sincere desire to make life in SL a more enjoyable experience for as many people as she could. In time, I grew to know Sammmy more and more, and I've come to know her as a sterling example of how to live and act, and maybe even succeed in SL.

Linden$ from Sammmy's own pocket made it possible for many people to afford to do things in SL that they wouldn't have been able to do normally. Especially newcomers with limited means for making any extra money above their weekly stipend. Countless times, I've seen Sammmy take a newcomer by the hand and guide them through the confusing aspects of SL.

Many of us regular visitors to her island have banded together as a group and vowed to support her in any way we could, in order to somehow keep the dream of Golgotha alive. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a lot we can do except to lend her our moral support and hope that we can help her find a way to somehow regain that dream in the future.

Unlike many areas with "zombies in camping chairs", Golgotha was, more often than not, lively and exciting, and still managed to maintain a friendly conversationally motivated environment of shared experiences. These are just some of the many reasons that Golgotha was one of the most popular and outstanding places in all of SL.

The loss of this incentive is deeply disturbing to many of us who worked hard to make sure that she was awarded it, and I assume Sammmy was practically counting on it to help cover some of her own serious monetary contributions to SL (over and above her normal expenses here). I feel helpless for now, in that all we can do at the moment is to stand as character witnesses for her and hope that this problem is soon resolved, and that we won't lose a great friend and a superlative contributor to what makes SL an enjoyable experience for so many people.

Good luck Sammmy. I know I speak for all of us in your "extended SL family" when I say that we stand beside you and hope for this matter to be resolved in your favor as soon as possible.

Am I the only one struck by the irony involved with accusations of zombies in a place called Golgotha? (Google "Golgotha" if you don't know what I mean)

ROFLMAO irl

reading that just made me spit out my coffee all over my monitor

Evr notice that the popular places list looks very similar to the search results for "Camping Chairs"?