Will elimination of dwell make SL ugly?

I'm a bit worried about the rumoured elimination of dwell. This seems like a major overreaction to the camping chairs phenomena. Not so much throwing out the baby with the bathwater as blowing up the creche with an RPG to get rid of a cockroach.

As far as I know, the only problem with dwell is the camping chairs and related unproductive means of screwing Linden Labs out of money for nothing. Aside from this, dwell is actually quite a good system.
Dwell allows people to create beautiful things and be rewarded for doing so. Without dwell, then anything that is not a business is losing money.
I can't imagine, for example, my favourite part of SL, the Lost Gardens Of Apollo, being ruined by tawdry malls because the developer has to find a way to pay his tier fees, just to break even. This would probably happen in RL. It is too much to expect the Lost Gardens guy to pay $200 a month, not to mention the cost of acquring the land and his probably considerable development time, for others to benefit from his creation.

When I entered SL I was underwhelmed by the procession of shops all selling the same sort of stuff. They look horrid, and sell nothing of any interest to me. How many shoes can you buy? Customizing your avatar is fun for five minutes, but I don't want to do it for months on end and actually spend money on it.
It wasn't easy for a newb to navigate SL and find interesting stuff. Now, the interface has improved and I know more, I'm amazed almost daily at the quality of some developer's work. This is a happy state of affairs and membership is growing exponentially as a result.

Can you we just not find a more directed solution to the camping chairs problem? Wouldn't just eliminating dwell for those places which encourage their visitors to do abslutely nothing be a much better solution? Surely that would be a solution easy to implement?

Each resident can have 100 points weekly to vote the places they like. Can change the votes they give in this week anytime, and new nice place points can be calculated like:
total points X the time the place holds these points(200 points X 5 hours+ 180 points X 3 hours ...)..

X -> No kaz this is the worst idea i ve ever heard
Kaz -> Why?
X -> They will build vote-chairs(?!) which pays for vote.
Kaz -> hide the names of the residents who give votes for places, Give no way to show your votes.
X -> Hmmm.. Ok maybe but nono this is the worst idea i ve ever heard.
Kaz -> Why?
X -> What about alt accounts? 20 alt accounts mean 2000 vote points.
Kaz -> Voting will be able to only premier accounts.
X -> Hmmm.. Ok maybe but nono this is the worst idea i ve ever heard.
Kaz -> Why?
X -> I dont know but i am sure this is the worst idea i ve ever heard.
Kaz -> ?!?!
X -> I dont know but one will reply to this post and will find a reason for sure.
Kaz -> LOL

Now are we talking DWELL or DEVOLPERS' INCENTIVES? Because they are not the same thing.

DI is paid in USD that is divided up once a month to the top 40 players that have the most traffic. Devolpers' Incentives I'm glad to see gone, it was a doomed project to begin with especially when private sims counting twoards it along with the mainland making high up land barons the only ones to profit from it who have NOTHING to do with the builds on their islands other then owning the property the builds are on.

Dwell on the other hand is small daily L$ payouts handed out to land owners regardless the amount of traffic (though the more you have the more you make). However if the land is grouped that daily payout is split amongst the group members. You can't live off of dwell. I doubt they're gonna outright ditch dwell.

Now as for the camping chair issue, they weren't the cause of the decline of DI they were just the straw that broke the camel's back. Like I said before, DI was a doomed project to begin with since the DI winners are almost always the same people (with exception of the small handful that circulate in and out at the bottom of the list). All it did was make the rich richer and was unfair at the start. 24/7 Moneyballs, 24/7 Raffleballs, Free Slots, you name it. They are ways to game the system by attracting people who are looking for hand outs to stick around on your land for an extended period of time. Now unlike camping chairs, they didn't game the system as badly and some do provide some entertainment, but they still gamed the system on a smaller level. You can hide money chairs, their kin, and their predacessors as ways of giving back to the community but face it. Does a business owner hand out anything for free if they don't exspect something in return? Nope, whether you know it or not you're paying for it in one way shape or form. In this case traffic to ensure they recieve that DI bonus at the end of the month.

Dwell is a horrible measure of "value" because it can be and has been gamed so easily since its inception. It has now matured into the equivalent of Linden Lab putting a table outside their offfice with a pile of cash and a sign saying "take me".

Better measures like having someone from LL actually observe what players were doing and why would actually make sense. Unfortunately, they've always lacked the intestinal fortitude to put the effort in or to make the judgement that "A" is better than "B" because we think so.

Dwelloper Incentives were just plain wrong before the coding even began.

You're all missing the point.
The real question is - Will elimination of dwell make more furries?

/me puts thread back on rails and slinks off apologising

Dwell will temporarily derail the economies of places that rely entirely on camping chairs.

That is -- people will find ways to stay in business, if they're smart.

Good clubs and bars and such get a decent amount of donations. Places that hold tringo tournaments, etc. probably can skim some of each "pot" to pay for their places.

I think eliminating dwell is a fairly wise decision, even if it hurts the lazier business owners.


Permitting businesses to reap in profit simply by convincing others to sit on their land is silly, and there really isn't any way to measure dwell/traffic properly.

However, in regards to voting -- there's already a precedent. Rating.
Perhaps allow people to rate land, like we do people. Rate its building, its content, etc. Charge 25 L$ per positive rating, or more, perhaps. Not sure what to use that number for exactly -- but it's the only precedent we have, and is a fairly solid system already.

One can only hope so.

Can you derail a thread that wasn't on the rails to start?

Is this another of Roo's "stupid question threads"?

There's already a built-in replacement to accomodate this. We can charge access fees, even minimal access fees, to visitors. Compared to real life, google some large scale gardens around the planet. You'll find that many of them charge visitors a small daily access fee to pay the bills.

X -> It simply boils down to there being no reason for LL to pay out-of-pocket for popularity ratings.

Thus why I imagine 'ratings' would work -- it pays LL their share, and pays the land owner their share, so everyone's happy.

And yes, the 'charge for hourly pass' thing is already in place and works nicely. If it were more widely used (which I think it will become), it will pay for places with no problem.

People don't really mind parting with 10L$ here and there, usually.

-> Roben Linden Wrote:
"Our goal will be to replace the Developer Incentives with new programs designed to support the full scope of Second Life creators, beginning with the Developer Directory. If you have ideas or comments for these programs, please send them to us at [email]proposal@lindenlab.com[/email]."

It is true that LL unreasonably believes that they can somehow support the full scope of Second Life creators like some sort of impartial and uninfluentiable protective mother hen. That's why I said "reason" implying "reasonable."

In fact, these new programs don't necessarily include any monetary distribution. A Developer Directory might be a nice yellow pages type reference tool, but it doesn't imply paying listed developers a stipend.

Developers of lovely areas can also put out 'donation boxes', where individual people who enjoy the site can voluntarily pay the developer whatever they feel appropriate as a 'thank-you' for creating it. Could be L$1, could be L$500. Up to the individual, as a voluntary contribution.

I know one individual who did just that. They put a donation box outside their home, which was very well designed and decorated, and which they offer free tours of to any who are interested in seeing it. They don't directly ask anyone for money, but the box is right there by the front door. They collected over L$600 in just a few weeks. So surely a site as attractive as these Gardens of Apollo are supposed to be (Haven't been there yet myself, so I can't say) could do better with one or more donation boxes, than they would with Dwell or Developer Incentives?

The problem with charging an 'admission fee' to an area, or to a whole sim, is that if you don't yet have at least some idea of what is there, you don't know if it's worth paying for.

to be dead honest, a lot of the most beautiful places don't make it on that list. Sure they get visitors, but not the constant full sim 24x7 presence you need to be a top 10 or 20. Beauty in SL is primarily rewarded by the feedback you get and your own satisfaction.

So my take is that currently people create beautiful things not because of DI, but because they want to, or because they want to create an attraction around something that does make money, like a store

Your all wrong!

Ratings will never work.

Not many people are going to *pay* to vote "positvely only" (the only kind allowed now) other peoples property. I live in an incredibly beautiful sim ful of natural beauty that took hundreds of hours of work in order to make it look like it was no work at all. The average idiot is not going to even notice. The best ratings would end up going to the most horrible trashy clubs etc. which is just where the dwell goes now.

Any money from users like that would be better off paid directly to the land owners like an access fee but...

Access fees wont work.

Not many people are going to pay a fee to access a chunk of land, I know I wont and havent ever despite my rather over the top curiosity at times. Most places will just end up with no access fees at all except perhaps places that can stir up enough interest as to what's "behind the door," ie - sex again. The most fees would be generated by horrible trashy clubs etc. which is just where the dwell goes now.

There is nothing wrong with dwell as it stands now.

It's basically tuppence in the pocket for most people and a thin living for a few idealists. What's wrong with supporting a few idealists? God knows the rest of our world is so relentlessly money driven it surely couldn't hurt for LL to throw a few coins in a hat!

If you are one of those that believes dwell is "broken" because of the camping chairs, (even though the situation is quite analagous to the money balls etc. of old), then the easiest solution is to go even more "socialist."

Eliminate dwell in "commercial" locations.

Dwell was concieved so Jane Average can have a chunk of land and build some amazing build that is so cool that she actually gets rewarded for it with a couple of shiny new dimes. It's an incentive for good building, good art and for contributing to our little world. There is no reason why a store (especially the kind of crappy store that has camping chairs), should get this benefit.

It should be like getting chucked off of welfare, when you finaly get a job.

What about us above-average idiots?

Uh, I guess I meant to say "normal wonderfull people that make up the backbone of our society," instead of "average idiot."

And when I say "idiot" I kinda mean it in a cuddly, friendly sort of way.
*tickles idiot under the chin*

I find the above-average idiots are actually pretty slick at figuring stuff like this out and very fast at noticing poor wording choices.