Let's discuss VOTE BOOTHS

What would happen if we got rid of the voting booth completly? Then you can't earn money with a building unless it has some money making business... is that fair?

YES! Exactly! Players are given enough money to start, enough stipend to cover basic builds and a small land plot. That is how it should be. If you want to actually build something big though, a big project, a big house, then you need to do something. You need to earn it. You need to convince others to give you money or help.

I do not think that the inability to build any and everything you want upon first entering the world is a bad thing. It leaves things to strive for, things to work toward. And thats part of the game, part of the experience, part of the challenge.

Thats what makes this unique, anyone that wants to do 3d modeling or scripting can go mod half life. This is a 3d virtual world. You get to carve your piece out of it. Your given a small piece to get started, anything more you gotta carve out for yourself.

Keep this in mind: There is not enough money or resources in the world now for the number of people. Just want that to be clear. The system needs more money in it for the amount of people.

Also if you are looking for money, keep your eye on the project boards, I will have a money making opportunity for _anyone_ on there pretty soon.

What was the intended reasons of the voting booth?


I think the voting booth was designed for use in whatever way you would use it wether it was supporting your friends build, voting for a nice build, or voting at a party.As long as it was not abusive...... multiple booths owned by the same person on one build etc.

Use them if you like them, dont use them if you dont.

The amount of $ is capped so its not the only way to make money in SL.

I think if I were to suggest any change perhaps a cap on how much one single voting booth can make per nite. Usually an event is limited by how many can fit on a sim so perhaps a number to match that, 10-15 votes per nite cap maybe?

I enjoy voting for my friends, voting at events, voting for someone I am just meeting, voting for an awesome build I fly by and want to give it some recognition. I like the freedom of giving a little cash here and there and yes I do like the "bonus" I get from my booths as well. Thank you to those vote for me.

I wouldnt mind voting booths being replaced by some other type of system but I do think there needs to be some type of rewards system for people who are logging in and active.


....just thought I would add that I dont think its a bad idea also cap'in # of votes one person can do per nite too. I know thats also been previously suggested.

*SIGH*

Ope Rand		12	113	$145 	Varney		98, 120
Bob Brightwillow	12	80	$145 	Varney		101, 133
Nate007 Groshomme	12	72	$145 	Varney		106, 128
Xavier VonLenard	12	40	$145 	Varney		105, 126
Mickey Roark		12	18	$145 	Varney		107, 130
Sturm Valen		11	485	$133 	Federal		211, 177
feniks Stone		11	85	$133 	Varney		104, 126
Christopher Omega	11	80	$133 	Varney		105, 133
Aurelie Starseeker	11	72	$133 	Varney		103, 122
Hikaru Yamamoto		11	66	$133 	Varney		100, 129
Derek Jones		11	63	$133 	Varney		104, 137
Leonardoe Murray	11	59	$133 	Da Boom		198, 156
William Wu		11	57	$133 	Varney		103, 130
Mikiloo Murphy		11	40	$133 	Varney		105, 120

I count 12 people in extremely close proximity with 11 or 12 votes each, what do you see? 12 booths within a 9m * 17m block?

I went to see for myself. Here is a screen shot for ya all.

I am -sickened- by this.

Here is the SS.

I would lend an ear to hear what these people had in mind. Anyone?

Group project?club? or?

Visit the spot. Its just random trash thrown around for the most part. Its not even cleared land or anything.

Actually my last post was pointed at someone(anyone) in the cluster. I know what it looks like from the picture. BUT I would still like to hear what someone participating says about it. If noone cares to answer here in a public forum I will ask in-world, I would like to know what their reasoning is and at least hear them out.

Thanks ~Stell

Sorry, I know what you meant. The whole thing just irks me.

This booth farm is a sign of an ailing economy.

If the original reason the booths were introduced inworld was to reward people for what they have created inworld, this seems to have been lost. I believe this loss is the exact reason this voting booth farm exists.

I do sometimes vote for impressive structures, but my major voting goes to supporting my friends and neighbors. Why? Because I want them to be successful and booths are often the only way one makes money in SL. I am sure I am not alone. And I believe that people don’t vote freely so that the total $ per vote is not completely diluted away.

The economy still does not seem to be working for a large number of residents. If you don’t script or sell guns, you are at a disadvantage. I am seeing the numbers rising of people working on themed communities who are losing money. This is extremely unfair.

In an economy which is not working, people take measures to continue to earn money and not lose money. People work off the books, people do side work. What good is losing money in SL? What fun is that? I would like to believe that SL was created for users to enjoy, not to be burdened by the inability to make $ which equates to the inability to create and then the inability to enjoy SL. So then one way in world to work around the failing economy seems to be this voting booth farm.

If you come into SL as an advanced scripter should you have one hand tied behind your back because you have that advantage? If you are a talented builder, should you have a hand tied too? But if someone/group finds a loop hole, this is labeled as wrong, when in fact it is their advantage.

If the booths were designed to reward creativity, they do not.

If these booths were taken down, would that change anything about the booths? I doubt it. Would people start voting for the most creative build as opposed to supporting their friends and neighbors? I doubt that too.

I don’t think the fault lies with the people. When the booth farm was put into place I don’t think anyone realized the all the implications. What is at fault is the economy. Instead of focusing on the symptoms, the broader picture needs to be addressed.

Maybe the booths should go completely. I don’t like the idea of one group both. I know very well that there is always some who work um, less hard than others, why should they be rewarded at the same rate.

I do like the idea of being rewarded for time spent in world. I like the barter idea too. I find myself giving away much more than I sell. I hate selling. I would rather have a booth in a farm like scenario than try to sell. Not because I don’t want to work at selling, more because I don’t like asking someone to part with their money.

These booths are like a dead end job in a bad economy. You need to do something to make money.

fen-

A large part of the problem with the economy is the players attitude towards it, namely the "I deserve as many resources as my project needs as soon as I get in world without working at all for it". The resources in the world need to be divided up. They need to be split up in a fair manner, whether that is currently being done is not what I'm talking about. If everyone were allowed all the resources they wanted then the game would be unplayable - lag would be horrendous and if you think land is hard to find now ....

My understanding of the game economy is that it is setup to destribute the resources available to the people who other residents feel contribute the most to the world. That I believe is the goal. However any system that doesn't allow X newbie to build whatever their mind can think of because of limited resources, or gives Y veteran more resources than Z newbie, is cursed and claimed to be broken.

Some people will have more money than others. Newbies absolutely should not be able to use all the resources their little hearts desire. Because they are still learning and earning the respect and resources required to build big projects. Also limits on funds force people to be more creative in conserving resources which makes the world a better, less laggy place.

I get a lot of opposition any time I say that you shouldn't have access to all the resources you want just cuz you play the game. That you should have to earn them. "That makes it like a job. Who wants that?" and the answer is no it doesn't. It makes it like a game. It makes it like RL, true but it makes it a game. There are always goals, things to strive for. You can't kill gods in EQ durring your first week of the game (EBay etc aside), you can't build 3 heros in warcraft as soon as the game starts, you can't kill Baal with a level 1 warrior in Diablo2e, you can't become a millionare in Monopoly the first time around the board. None of those games would remain fun for more than 10 minutes if you could.

If you want unlimited building, unrestricted imagination and scripting - get 3D studio max or Maya or something, program something. If you just want chat - then resources aren't your problem . This isn't an open development environment. It is a game with limited resources that are divided among the players based on their value to the world. You want more money/resources, create more value for the world.

That is how it should work. That is how I believe the Lindens want it to work.

Is the system working? No, I don't think so. Is it broken, yes. Does it need to be completely replaced? No I don't think so. It needs some tweaking for sure. One of the major catalysts for the problem is the large influx of people without any influx of available land or resources added to the economy. It has been stated that the goal is 1 sim per 100 people, the board says over 7,200 people and if half of them are gone then there should still be at least 36 open sims, along with the added $$ that would come with em. The theme communities aren't helping the situation either.

I hear word of a plan to replace the voting booths with a system that rewards based on the time people are on your land. This I think will solve most of the remaining problem, and is a good idea (as far as I can work out in my head). It has some possible exploits, but I don't think they are near as bad as the current vote booths.

Sorry for the rant, being off topic, and anyone I offended. This is my evaluation and opinion only. Any use of the word must or anything similar is used entirely for emphasis and demonstration of a strong belief that it should be so.

well, i just finished talking to you guys in-world.

i guess i can be called the ring leader if you like. why did we do this? because we could. there was money to be made and we made it. don't treat us as though we are the only ones or even the first ones to exploit vote booths. i've heard stories of when vote booths started, how they paid more, and how they were used to get rich.

we knew if anything that this would send a clear message that this was not a good system, and that there should be a change. it can obviously be easily exploited and it has been exploited for some time and it seemed to us that nothing was being done about it. we knew quite well that this would be discovered.

we didn't exploit any bugs. we didn't lie. we didn't hide anything. we used the system in full view, exactly as it was designed.

this was not done primarily for the money. personally, i mess with scripts. i don't build. i don't need money. This was done because of the unfairness of the system. it seems to me that in some way what we did worked. there didn't seem to be much attention to vote booths before, and in the last couple of days there has been a lot. it seems we exploited them better and more blatantly than anyone else.

now, at the time we were not aware of the upcoming change. if i had known of it i wouldn't have cared much about vote booths and we wouldn't have gotten to the conclusion of creating a farm. the new system is very good news. it is IMO waaaay better, relatively impossible to exploit and logically tries to achieve what vote booths seem to be meant for.

we are beta testers. we are meant to find and expose these types of imbalances, as well as bugs, wanted features and so on. if you want to change your feelings about me and the rest of us who participated, go ahead, i can't do anything about that.

remember that vote booths don't exist in real life.

You are entirely right Ope. My official opology to any and everyone involved. The game becomes very important sometimes and I forgot to remember that it is a beta and that these are the types of things are we as beta testers need to bring out to the open before the game goes live.

Although I would prefer more quiet discovery and discussion of any exploit, and I still don't believe everyone involved did it to show off the exploit, exposing of and fixing of exploits is necessary. And maybe in this case your over use of it was needed to draw enough attention to it. In which case don't get mad at me either, for I was part of the attention it brought. And as the 604 under my name shows, I'm a very vocal attention.

I hate to say "I told you so"...

Oh wait...I LOVE to say "I told you so"...

Anyway, in the discussion on the economy weeks and weeks ago I pointed out that this "group voting" thing could be used to subvert the intended use of the voting booths. The same applies to the rating system for appearance etc.

Unfortunately, like a lot of people who say "I told you so" I don't have an easy solution at my fingertips.

Much easier to complain than to fix things!

In the economy thread, one of the Lindens said that they want to keep parts of the voting/stipend system a secret. To me that is an open invitation to find holes (exploits, bugs, whatever). If we insist on calling it a game (which I do not) and there is an objective which is to "win" then at some point people are going to find all the ins and out of scoring in the game, even if some of them were not intended as part of the design.

In computer games, the COMPUTER must enforce the rules. If you and I play chess in person and I make two moves while you go for coffee thats cheating. If we play chess on a computer and I CAN make two moves its a bug.

As a few others have said, the voting booths, as well as the ratings are MOSTLY used to reward our friends. Part of the way you "win" at SL is to be popular. With my sparkling personality I have to work very hard to accumulate as few points as I do, but I do it for the good of the game (snicker). The question is, how many people (especially new users) are going to be totally turned off by their inability to do much without first kissing up to all the old timers?

As in real life, we often vote for the candidate with the most winning smile, rather than the one with the best ideas. We suffer the consequences. While it is the job of the Lindens to have the COMPUTER keep people from cheating, it is also the responsibility of "citizens" to vote in ways that make sense. If you vote for a builder without regard to how they build, you will get what you pay for with an ugly and cluttered landscape.

I'll always vote for my friends, and if they are at least trying, their builds won't be an eyesore. On the other hand, if I have to build sincere friendships with everyone in SL in order to put indoor plumbing in my cabin, I'll probably just keep using the stream out back.

I have a suggestion, but I don't know if it will work any better than the current system. No voting booths. Rate builds by rating the builder(s) just like you do now for appearance etc. Have those rating *expire* after some period of time too (a month maybe...or less). You could vote for someone as often as you wanted, but it would only count once. If you didn't vote for them for a whole month (or whatever the expiration period is) your rating on them would automatically go back to neutral (for all voting categories).

Make it easy to vote for people without actually going to their builds... same way you vote now on the other categories. But also allow me to vote by clicking on their build (IE without having to have their calling card etc) so that you can easily vote for talented strangers as well as your friends.

I THINK it would work better, and would certainly be easier to deal with, and less subject to abuse.

OK, will probably be beaten, shot, and have objects with physics on dropped onto my head by the other Valens (not really) but....

When we all first arrived, yup you guessed it, we voted for each other every day, also on my first day, one of the other Valens introduced me to some of the non-Valen neighbors...and I voted for them too along with the Valen crowd.

Now for awhile it was just us Valens and the nearby neighbors that got my votes....I was trying to see what I could build for myself at the time and wasn't very interested in sight seeing.

As a couple weeks went by I shortened my votes on just the Valens and locals...I still voted for the Valens, except I started not voting on Valen structures that hadn't been worked on recently..but looked like they shoulda been

Also started spreading my wings more and venturing out further and to different area to "spread the wealth"...not everyone got a vote..but the places I liked the looks of did, while the guys in my own group that neglected their buildings got nothing (this was also during the period of when the Valens were the top 6 or 7 vote getters including myself every night...still not sure how that happened).

Anyway, I've recently torn down my bunker in Federal and started a more modest building...however while under construction I don't even have a voting booth up..and yes we have a corner with if I remember right 4-6 booths, and as far as I know all those guys live right near to each other and also have been working together on a single large project, so they simply choose to put their booths there instead of by their house.

When a large group first comes in, yes, they're gonna be making each other some money...after awhile however they build what they want, have more free time and eventually go sightseeing and casting votes outside the group. The voting styles will ebb and flow, it just takes time....once the next new large group arrives, the current one with the votes will be pushed under just as it has been happening since Valenville sprouted.

I only wish this were so, but the numbers don't bear this hypothesis out.

More people -> more building -> more voting booths -> more distributed 'esthetic' votes (less concentration of votes) -> the greater the disportionate effect of 'clan' vote farms.

It will only get worse if something significant doesn't change.

Oracle Omega

I've been thinking about an alternative for vote booths. I can't really think of anything good. Perhaps it would be an idea to calculate how many people spend how many time on your ground, and give money for that....

This (time on your ground) has been previously mentioned.
I think it has the potential of turning SL into a giant chat room. Which to me, does not seem then like SL would be answering its highest calling.

Believe me, I can chat with the best of them, bring people on my property and have them stay to chat. But is that really what we want to be the reward system? How would this even begin to reward creativity? Is rewarding creativity even a concern in SL?

Some are not that chatty, for what ever reason. Should they then be penalized for not being the socialite that someone else is? I think that the booths are better that this.

Let’s see how this can be exploited. Ok today I land on your land. I turn the TV on and every few minutes I type something or dance around. Five hours later, I log off. Tomorrow, you land on my land, turn the tv on....


fen-

I'm glad for the official attention that voting booths have finally received. Although I maintain that all voting booths in the world should be removed immediately, that a new system for distributing funds is on the way makes me glad to have helped to initiate and to have participated in this attention seeking event. And, since the point has been made, I have removed my voting booth from the farm in Varney. I encourage everyone else with booths there to remove them as well as a show of good faith to the Lindens and to our fellow residents.

a time on land system is what is being developed. sure it has some potential for abuse but what system doesn't? we had a good discussion with Lee yesterday about this. he backs it up very well the point of it is to encourage creating attractions for people to go to. and i think this way is far better than vote booths.



and Ama, no apology necessary. your opinion is highly valued. you're right we didn't necessarily do it to show off the exploit. there was no greater scheme or plan or anything. me and a friend were chatting, expressing our dislike of the vote system, he suggested we should just start our own vote farm, i liked the idea, ran with it, messaged the group, and within i'd say 20 minutes of the beginning of the conversation we had a vote farm. it was totally spur-of-the-moment. we knew what we were doing. we were all pretty sure that it would get attention. i'm glad at how much it got. it proved a point.

though, now that i know of the new system coming, i guess it was not necessary. *shrugs*

Fen, I think the design for the vote booths has always been to encourage the social aspect of SL, rather than reward for good buildings etc. They were put in place to provide incentive for hosting events, parties, etc where you live. For some, they worked correctly - Kerstin and Bel got lots of money, because they had places where people would go to hang out. Over-all, however, they have been a failure. Now you fly from vote booth to votebooth, not really even stopping as you make your "vote rounds." Vote booths are not really something for rewarding creativity - thats what the building and appearance ratings are for (which also don't work, but thats for another thread).

Yes, you can abuse the "time on land" system - but it seems to me that the abuse of it is outweighed by the inconvienience. Yes - you can inhabit your friends land for 5 hours, doing what you need to in order not to get logged off...or you and your friend can get 10 buddies together for 1/2 hour and just hang out, with the same effect, less inconvinience, you don't need to be a social butterfly. The reason we are seeing the vote booths being abused is that its sooooo easy to abuse them, certainly easier than using them for thier intended purpose.

I think the point of this all is to encourage social interaction - you are right that SL's highest calling is not a giant chat room, but its not meant to be a stripped down 3Ds Max either. The strength of SL is the ability to interact with others while being able to create whatever you want to. If your not a chatty type, why do you need multiple giant homes that you need the extra income to maintain? Your not going to be hosting parties there, or using it for other income-generating means, why do you feel you are entitled to be allotted more than your fair share of server resources?

The economy is not hurting right now. I know this because I have lots of land, and I am keeping my head above the water. If you can't afford to build house #6, delete house #1. The limits are there for a reason. Or find a market for goods you can make, or host parties.

i removed my voting booth from the farm

Just curious, am I the ONLY person in SL building on land that they DON'T own??

Obviously this new system, in my opinion, will suck!

So now I have to buy more land, thereby increasing my taxes even more, ultimately decreasing my stipend even further. Yes, this new plan makes perfect sense to me!

I don't care for the proposed time-on-land system either -- I'm one of those people who isn't a social butterfly for "whatever reason," and I'd like to say that getting ten friends together to "just hang out" is a pretty daunting task for someone who dislikes crowds. And what about the users whose computers can't handle a crowd like that, period? Having ten users on your plot of land isn't much fun if you keep crashing to the desktop because of it.

Most of my time spent "hanging out" is via IM, while my friend and I are working in our own separate plots. I like to keep busy, and if I finish a project, I start a new one. With the time-on-land system, I'd earn even less than the few linden$ that (infrequently) come in via the voting booth.

So the time spent creating things that eat up money is punished; the users who need it the most, to create nice things for the community to admire and/or use, will earn the least.

I would, however, like to point out that it's not as urgent as some of the posts have implied -- as a bare newbie, I did have enough for a good-sized plot, and as I started to put together my house, there was never a point where I absolutely could not go any further until my next stipend. After about a month I started putting items up for sale, and I usually bring in close to a thousand dollars a week through those few items. I don't think of myself as "established," and while I'm currently hurtin' for money because of a particularly complicated structure of mine, I know it's my own darn fault for building something I couldn't afford to upkeep. There's no reason to be desperate for linden$ if you take your time.

Vote farms are a problem -- voting booths aren't. If someone builds up a network of friends who come by and vote daily, that's fine. For those, like me, who don't have a network like that, it's occasionally a pleasant surprise to find a hundred or so linden$ that I wouldn't have unless people thought my building was pretty neat. I still want to be able to support places like the Secret Ninja Laundromat, even though it's not where I hang out.

Unfortunately, I think the only way to deal with vote farms is through human intervention -- there's no easy system that can discern between a legitimate cooperative project and a farm, but perhaps if a means of reporting the farms were implemented, and then a policy against farms were enforced, we'd see fewer of them.

First Tracey. I agree that is something I hadn't thought of. I would hope there would be some thing for this, since renting has been suggested by lindens.

I also do not know how the new system will work, will it be a replacement booth or built into the system? I agree something needs to be considered for people who don't own the land they are on. I will 'bend my will' towards finding that solution. I am sure it is there, and my mamma always tells me "Look with faith" (usually when I tell her that whatever she thinks is in the fridge isn't, but hey, it applies. ).

As for Gail.... quote time.


To my understanding, vote booths are the way to reward social interaction. Ratings are to reward building, apparence and behavior. Vote booths are to reward social interaction. If you think non-social activities need to be funded more then your problem is with the Ratings system and not with vote booths.

Yay! Someone who gets it! That is how I did it, that is how many people do it, that is how it should be done. Build small til you earn the respect and the resources you need to build large. Sure you can overextend but lack of resources is the result.

With the exception of tracey's concern, which I still feel there is a solution to!, I think that time on land is a much, much better way to implement 'vote booths'.

====================
Now see if it was a replacement booth that gave you $$ for time people spent in its radius (please make the actual booth really small if this is the case!) then you wouldn't have to own the land..... but then you would get farms again. But the farms may not be as effective .... or would they? If you could convince 20 people to put theirs right on top of each other and all cram in to do your daily work.......

If it is built into the land then the contract system needs to be upped a few (hundred) notches in priority and tied closely to this system and land ownership.

In the meantime ... an arrangment with whomevers land you are building on may be possible - agree on a split of the money (hey, they should deserve some too right? they are paying taxes on the land you own....). It takes trust, but you are already trusting them not to delete your stuff. Or maybe since you own so much land you could arrange some land swapping .... buy the land under your most visited (and thus highest $$ making) site, to sell them some land to rent you instead under some of your less profitable places. Essentially find some way to have your most visited places on land you own, and 'rent' etc for your less profitable ventures.