Economic changes

Quoted from the new economic changes:

"Stipend maximum is limited to $L3500, if you have more than this, your stipend will only be as large as is necessary to pay your taxes."

Peter, I don't understand this -- could you please clarify?

Thanks -
Kerstin

Seconded. Please clarify.

Because the way it sounds (and has worked up through now) <whiney voice> isn't fair </wv>

I have more than $3500 cash.

My taxes are much less than $3500.

My taxes are nowhere near completely covered by stipend+ratings. Not even half-way covered.

The $3500 limit is something we've had for a while - it simply means that stipends will not increase your balance beyond $3500. If you already have more than this amount, you'll still get enough stipend to cover your taxes, but that's it.

Of course, that assumes that your stipend is more than your taxes to begin with. If it isn't, you'll lose money. However, stipends will be going up in the next cycle, so Shebang, wait until your next payday and see what happens. You'll probably find that your stipend is now enough to cover your taxes.

An addendum here, I've just uncovered a bug which is causing the L$3500 limit to not work correctly in some cases. The bug's been with us for a while so I'm not going to try to fix it tonight, but look for this to become more predictable in the near future when we do get it fixed.

Lindens...

New Stipend/Rating system - Yah (bowing) you have done the impossible. You have made the system work.

New Voting Booth payouts - Boo (get a rope, I feel a lynchin itch).

Dont get me wrong. I understand the need to adjust the voting booth payout. It's not perfect. But the result - far far too drastic.

Now I'll only speak for myself (and maybe Sas at this point).. I dont sell anything, I dont really have a desire to sell anything. Oh if someone sees something I have and wants to buy it - cool, but open a shop? no thanks - seems too much like work - that thing I go to SL to avoid. Events? Sure I want to host some events, but that's waiting on the club to finish - because all the events I have planned will fit into that theme - and not, say, the amp or some other place. So while I will get into events, right now I'm not.

I mentioned this in 2ndlife chat... I have *alot* of people come by to visit the club. Some old friends, some new, some brand new to SL. We talk, sometimes do a tour, sometimes do a lil chase about the place (a sorta impromtu bump and run). I also give out help to those who need it there - building, textures, SL usage advice or just plain common sense (yes and I get alot of help as well - it's a two way street). Now I can do this to as many as 10-12 people a day. Not including the people Zoli or Sas talk to and interact with.

Now do I come up to the Lindens and say "Hey I just had an impromptu event, give me money!" ? Of course not.

Friends may vote because they are friends, but others vote because we are nice people to visit, who always have time for stragglers. So they vote - and in voting they say "thanks for making the day a lil more fun".

*Thats* the reward. That they did have fun is the payoff - the money just keeps allowing us to build and make it better. (and to make sure we have the funds to do what we are doing, without having to spend all our time trying to make money so that we can do it).

So, now we have larger stipends and larger ratings - to cover more taxes... but (you wouldnt believe what the taxes on a club that size are) it doesnt mean it will cover everything. So we have to pay out..

No worries. Dont mind covering the excess at all - Since the votes give us enough to do that *and* still (slowly) keep adding.

but wait - no more votes (or at least drastically reduced) hmm now we have a problem spock.

Vote benefits are the means that people who dont want/dont have the skills to make sellable merchandise use to get ahead. Yes it's open to exploitation (which I covered in another thread), but that doesnt invalidate the niche that it services. Namely me, the (*koff koff lazy arse koff koff*) person who doesnt want to be a merchant.

I understand adjusting the voting booth payouts - but couldnt it be done gradually, small decreases until a happy medium is met - rather than a strict aggressive decrease that leaves one feeling like the they didnt go to a vet for a grooming?

just a thought.

btw - I know that one of the points that can be made is

"well if you cant afford the place, maybe it's too fargin big!"

good point

but you know... It's a club. not a home. it's built for the whole community. What's the point of a club without visitors, without guests? It was built big - so that there is room for everyone, something to see for everyone.

I build a home, I build smaller (lol well not me - but most people)
I build a public gathering place, I build large.

It's as large as it needs to be.

simple

Jax: I agree with your first post but not your second.

I do not think booth money should be trivialized. I think booth money should be as large or larger than Ratings bonus money.

Booths are generally more dynamic, a way to say that someone made a difference to your experience today. You get to reward them today for today.

Where as the rating system doesn't change as much. I think in my total time in SL, since mid December, I have changed 2 ratings votes I have given. A rating is a way of saying you think that person is cool, that they add to SL in general. All that is cool and good, but I know I have given positive rankings to people I havn't seen in weeks, they havn't effected or improved my SL experience in weeks.

Does that make sense?

"Problems" with booths / how they can be abused:
- Multiple booths for the same place - addressed by lindens, with lots of ideas for other solutions elsewhere on the boards.
- People just voting for their friends every night - same thing happens with Ratings
- Booth Farms (Lindenberg etc where lots of booths close together that all get lots of votes) - I think the people that go and vote for all the booths they pass are the same ones who rate all the people they pass.


So really I think that voting booths offer a more dynamic reward that is overall truer to the theme of paying people for improving the SL experience. I think that the advantages people can take of voting booths are also taken with ratings. It is for these reasons that I think voting booth payout should match or exceed ratings payout on a weekly basis. So if Ratings are paying out $140,000 a week, then $20,000 should be doled out to voting booths each day.

Someone mentioned that voting booths were meant more to reward events rather than buildings, places or people. If this is the case then payout for ratings should be more for higher vote counts. The person who gets 15 votes should get 10 times the money of the person who gets 5 votes, not 3 times.

Yeah it drifted into rambling.

The thing that I find interesting is that the VB cannot be moved, not even the smallest amount without losing votes and being reset. If the VB were for the building that would make sense to me.

That it is being said it is really for events not buildings makes less sense. If you have a large place and a small event, shouldnt you be able to scoot it around with no foul? I can see that it should reset if taken in & out of inventory, that makes sense. Why cant you change its placement on your property tho??

Also if it is for an event and not a bldg Im surprised everyone attending an event doesnt whip em out. Not that I would want to see that... maybe it'll be the next abuse (?)

I have a feeling that the votes are all kept in a script, and if the object gets moved then the script gets reset. That's probably the skinny of it right now.

Now if we can start doing read/write to notecards (I think we can but I don't know how) that problem may be solvable.

Bino: the issue with moving moving vote booths is new to the new voting booths. Previous voting booths didn't care, meaning that the reset on move is both intentional and not part of a limitation of the system. My guess is someone was somehow exploiting this to get more votes?

We can't write to notecards via script. Scripts can only read the Name(s) of notecards stored within the object.

The reason you can't move voting booths is to keep people from attaching a booth to their av and wandering around the world wearing it.

LOL Were people doing that?