Pay by value scripting.

I feel the need to clarify my comment on "large groups" and the vote booths. When I mentioned it I had no specific large group in mind as there are several. Yes, wwiiol is one of the largest if not the largest but there ARE other large groups using their numbers and the vote booths to self support. Is this wrong? Is this "cheating"? I'm really not sure. All I know is that if you arent in a large group doing the same thing then you are at a disadvatage. The exisitance of this inequity IS something I question because the field should be level for all and not tilted towards groups.

Tracey, you say you don't care about fairness, but then you complain about not getting enough stipend money. Of course you care about fairness. We all do. Its not fair that they have added a lot more members and not any more resources. Its also not fair that some people are wasting some of these resources, causing a lot of lag, and ruining the game for some of us. (please don't take this offensively, i'm just trying to explain myself)

so, as Ama explained, if scripts are also taxed then the money pool will be adjusted. for you this could mean, depending on the scripts you use, that all of a sudden you won't be losing money, because you won't be gettin taxed hard on any scripts.

about Bob's mention of lights not affecting server resources. if it's true, then IMO this is the beginning of an argument against taxing light more. but maybe you're right. maybe the economy is not about just server resources. that would affect my overall argument only slightly, i think. haven't considered it though...

about the voting booth abuse. you're totally right Mis. this is one of the largest sources of inequity in the economy. its like free money. if only i could put a voting booth outside my RL house...

Jones, I think that supporting a group is not what the voting stations are suppost to do. They are suppost to get money to whoever build something cool or beautifull.
I have the strong felling (and I've seen it) that in large groups (specially the ones that claimed a whole SIM) they just push the voting station because they belong to the group or to a friend, or in hope that the vote will be returned.
Some of the buildings in those area's are great, but others are not. But still they get a lot of votes because they belong to the group. Other buildings that do not belong to the group but are really great get less...
that doesn't seem fair to me.

I like being able run scripts without restriction as we do now, but I do agree there should be some cost for running them. That way, everyone is responsible for deciding how they will use their share of the finite processor resources.

To be effective, the cost has to reflect the demands the script puts on the server. Otherwise, it would not encourage people to develop more efficient scripts. To me, it seems the only way to do this is to measure the resources when the script is executed.

I don't think an accurate cost could be determined by analysing a script before it is run. Just charging for having certain function calls in a script would not be a good idea because the actual resource use depends on how often those calls are executed. Many scripts are interactive so it would not be possible to predict how often, or even if, certain functions will be called. Also, people might avoid these high cost functions by writing code that uses even more resources. For example, if there was a charge for timer calls, someone might write a loop that executes continuously to avoid using the timer, even though the timer would actually be more efficient.

On the other hand, I don't want to leave a script running and have no idea how much it will cost me. I suggest that a person should be able to set a value on each object they own that would limit how much any scripts on that object will cost them. When the limit was reached, all scripts on that object would stop running. They would have the option making this a limit per day or an overall limit.

While I do think there should costs for scripts, I also think this cost should be very low. It should be low enough that people only need to be concerned about the cost if they have scripts that use a large amount of resources.

ooh i like that idea Tweke. kinda like a pre-pay cell phone. or filling up gas in your car. that's a great idea

This is a good point that I completely agree with.

I worry just that real-time calculations of script cost would add too much overhead to the scripts and make the situation worse than it is without it.

I also do agree that without real time evaluation then the cost is a very rough etimate.

And also that the Lindens are the only ones who know how much it would effect the server.

one thing i think should be mentioned is that objects and scripts affect a server differently. of course i don't know for sure but i would imagine that as the number of objects goes up the amount of resources being used goes up in proportion. and the important point is that when these objects stay on the server they continue to use that same amount of resources.

scripts are different. they can be sporadic. i mean a lot of scripts will use resources for a second and then stop, waiting for the next event. these types of scripts aren't really a big part of the problem. the ones that i'm more concerned with are the ones that use a lot of resources for relatively long periods of time or continuously all the time. they can really affect the server and everyone in it. leaving that random color script on all the time would definitely fall into this category.

we've mentioned that timer events and physics stuff are two things that bog down a server. i just thought it should be emphasized that it really only makes a difference if the timer events are too frequent and never stop and also if physics is not turned off when its not needed. maybe a simple way to get a rough measure for taxes would be to tax how long these things stay on for. it would emphasize people turning them off when not needed. just a thought.

I didn't mean for my post to be taken that I don't care about fairness. Your right, of course I care about fairness.. What I obviously very poorly tried to say, even if it is fair, I still don't want any new taxes. Even a small tax, is STILL a tax that a lot of people can not afford.

As things stand right now, you will only hurt the little guy. Ask any of the people who have joined in the last two or three weeks if they are making money. I'm sure the answer will be no. It is almost impossable for new people to make money, lets not take away more.

You have all been here quite a while now, you have homes, land, voting booths, your sellings items, your making money. Don't take the oportunity away from the new people to learn.

I don't care how high you make the tax, if someone wants to screw with his neighbor or crash a sim, they are gonna do it. Let the little guy write his sim to open his door without adding more burden to an already difficult existance.

-TK

P.S. And no Ope, I don't take personal offence and others stating their opinions.

Here is an interesting idea.....

Scripts in various forms really make SL a fun place.....

If there are more taxes added and it is harder to consider what you can make without going broke (especially for those who are new just trying to learn) then the world here could get to be more of a legal, tax, 1090, boring world...


Who the hell wants to figure taxes everytime they do things?

I personnally hate April 15th. Why would people want to play a game that reminds them of tax season everytime they do something.....

Rethink this b4 it turns ugly.


edit: Also what if a script has a benifit to the way the world runs? As mentioned before...Are we going to also suggest a tax relief for them???? 1090 1090 1090 MAN I hate the IRS
Don't turn this game into an IRS.

well, the goal is not to make things more complicated. again the whole idea of this was to limit people from killing a server with scripts. i'm not saying that script taxing is the only way to achieve this but i can't think of anything else.

Not sure about lights not creating server load. In order for the client to render a light, it needs to know it's there, and what the parameters are. The more people that walk into the area with lights, the more positional info needs to be updated. Clients get that info from the server.