Vote: How do you feel about the new stipend cuts?

Voice Your Opinion!

It's all your fault.

Thats a given. I'm just asking how you feel about it

Stipends weren't cut.

Cubey's right. The ratings bonus was.

I don't care about ratings nor the ratings bonus. So if it helps curb inflation, let it roll.

Me too. I say cut away!

I personally don't give a rip as far as it effects me but I am concerned about how it will effect new people who may not be able to start a huge money making business their first month in SL. When the first cuts took place I saw my weekly stipend drop by nearly 50% so I started a business, made a bundle and then closed the business as I hated every minute of it. My skills are clogdancing and creating natural landscapes which don't pay the bills but I made enough moola in 6 months to last me many years.

When the first cuts were made Phillip Linden himself told me that they were expecting the prices of things to go down also. Guess what? As far as I can see the prices of most things have gone up.

Oh and by the way someone go ahead and ask me who I am. I haven't been asked that in awhile.

I don't care either way.

Who the hell are you?

Why I am Susie Boffin, glad to meetcha!

I'm frankly going to take it hard for awhile because I got used to it... but I'll find a way to MacGyver outta it and adapt—I have before when the last cut hit, so I'll just get addressed. I will feel uncomfortable for awhile but that's part of the change hitting me, and as long as I know others are dealing with it, I feel part of a much bigger support net so it isn't that bad.

As an additional note I'm focused on the longterm so if this hit comes because much greater things are on the way, I say BRING IT ON!

I thought the ratings were being faded down anyway, and therefore the bonus with them. I felt that the moment the cost of rating was increased so new people got almost none, the ratings bonus should have gone because of this injustice to newbies.

In earlier times, I rmember as a newbie being taken to a club, and shown how everyone triple-rated everyone else on no basis whatever, simply as a scratch-my-back-and-Ill-scratch-yours way everyone could increase their stipend. This reduced ratings to a nonsense, but on the other hand it provided some people with a laboriously earned income. I couldn't be bothered with it, but I knew people who slaved away at it tirelesly, and for whom it was almost the entire motivation in going to clubs and parties.

Maybe there is another aspect to ratings I'm not aware of ? How come so many of you are still getting big money from it ?

Hi Susie!

Being upstanding members of the community who contribute for the better good and who help others with selfless devotion.

Or maybe it's cyber-ho etiquette to demand posrates from your eTricks...

I had the same club experiences, but you know, it was really funny, this encouraged me to be friendlier and helped me open up. Getting a rating was like getting a free drink and schmoozing in a club, so this is what I would do, go from club to club and make new friends. I'd be like in IM, "Thanks for rating me! Hey what do you like about Second Life?" and hit it off from there. I was pretty fast-paced and brisk and it was largely a joy for me (aside from the lag).

As for your question, Ellie, I'm on a Basic Account but my main ratings bonus comes from the total ratings I've acculumated, which are a lot and which date back before the cuts. That hasn't been faded away (although it should have been with announced changed, but ratings decay didn't work progressively as it could have) but it will in due time.

Weekly ratings change I was expectedly doing well at too, but I don't go out of my way to look for 'em. Just rippleshock and wherever good vibes take me.

I am not sure how aggressive the cuts are going to be ( or if it is just rate cuts )

But if stipends go below a certain level i shall give up land ownership and revert to my $9.95 membership for life level and eek my living from selling my wears.

The only reason i pay $9.95 a month is that i get a regular 500 a week come rain or shine as far as my sales go. ( Also 2k Lindo is sorta roughly $9 so i dont feel that i am paying $9.95 a week for a 512 plot of land with 117 prims)

Without the stipend and the 9.95 cost per month i could rent a place much bigger than 512 and have a lot more prims just by buying 10dollars worth of linden a month and paying rent.
Then i would be free to live on my earnings when times are goods and buy lindens when sales are low.

( And if everybody took that approach Linden would be very short of capital very quickly )

So my bottom line is $9.95 a month is justified by getting in-world play money and having a plot of land. $9.95 for just a plot of land and a ridiculously small amount of prims is basically just a rip off and I shant pay it.

I love the bonus cut. Less money = less shopping.

I'm going from 600+ a week to 50. Cut away, bring it on !

As someone who came in after the apparent increase in ratings costs, until this issue came up, I didn't even know people got stipends for their ratings (I always viewed it as a broken system and didn't bother to research it as a result). And having received a triple-neg recently from someone I've never even met and having read about such things at clubs, they certainly didn't seem to be worth a damn.

However, I do think there are ways to replace this income with other, more sensible options. Take these forum Polls for example. There are some worthwhile polls that could be very helpful to all parties - everything from opinions on features to what kind of video settings people use (I'd very much like to know how many turn on advanced graphics options as it can impact how someone textures an object for sale).

Since there's talk of changing the telehub's function, why not make polling stations at these locations? Questions could be submitted to the Lindens who could place an object that recorded a av's vote, paid them a small amount for participating, and graphically displayed the results. Residents could conduct their own polls and entice voters in similar fashion and perhaps keep their results private (market research). This would get people who may not normally concern themselves with technical issues interested in providing worthwhile information for all to use. It would also help telehub land maintain it's value such that a mixed system (telehub tp's + a fee-based Pt2Pt system) maintains the value of the telehub land. Solutions like these certainly look more palatable imo then the kinds of lobbying efforts we've seen crop up.

Hey Csven. I really like that idea. I'd suggest you put into the feature voting system except I now regard it as a huge squalid farce, squatting on our ability to make suggestions like a huge toad. Try a simple post on the Hotline. I know its naughty, but what can we do? Or does the "feature suggestions" forum ever get anything but an injunction to slip it under the haunches of the slimey one, never to re-emerge ?

Hi Suezanne! A non-MJB thread! Yay!

I don't necessarly think that cutting the rating bonuses is bad because of the rating decay most of us won't have any bonuses to speak of soon. However I hate the fact that when that went into effect I dropped from over $1000 a week to just over $600 a week. This will drop me down to the $500. I like buying the big expensive gadgets to play with and have had to start saving up. Too much like RL for me. If they start to cut into stipends I think I will be through with SL. I'm tired of people telling me to get off my lazy butt and get a SL job, or create content, or whatever....that is not why I play. SL is a place for me to relax, socialize, and enjoy buying the fun gadgets that those with much more talent than I make. I do not feel I should be forced to turn my free time into yet another job. People choose to create content but I'm sure they even get tired once in a while of dealing with unhappy customers, people telling them how to do things better, etc. That's just not a fun way for me to spend my free time.

Now LL says they are doing this to stabilize the "economy" and stop inflation. However I have not noticed any lowering of prices since the first big stipend cut, if anything prices have increased. They say there is too much $L in world...well that is because people are buying $L. The ammount of $L in world will not go down as long as people keep buying the difference that they need. Eventually our stipends will be gone and because of the new feature LL will be making even more money off us because we'll be buying all the $L we need from them. Well I for one refuse to spend even more of my hard earned $US for virtual $$ that buys virtual stuff which I will never see any type of RL profit or return. I hope that as these cuts take place and the new features are put into place that people will not help LL do this to us and will decide to boycott the purchase of any new $L.

Amen!

The Money Exchangers must be very happy, a forced customer source... Sort of like when states force people to buy Insurance for their car's.