Types of stipend

I've looked through some of the stipend threads but haven't found the answer to my very newbie question.
Basic stipend I udnerstand: L$500 per week for a Premium member.
But where does the Delta stipend come from and, how is it generated?
I'm guessing that the Rating stipend relates to the ratings that you get when people give you rating points (paying L$25 a time for the kindness they do you) but how does the stipend you get relate to the actual number of rating points?
Sorry if this is basic, but I haven't been able to get a straight answer on SL: people go all coy when I ask them about it!

Yo Anima what's up in the virtual hood... warm welcome to SL... and glad yar asked!

STIPEND DELTA is the positive ratings change in a week. So WEEKLY CHANGE. There is like a formula here but it won't make much sense soon since ratings are being phased out.

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If you want the L$, I suggest referring friends, it's a lot more effective.

Oh! Why are they phasing out the ratings? I quite enjoyed making a few extra crumbs every week on my Premium stipend. So will the stipend rise to compensate? And what about all the people who have triple-figure ratings rather than my own single-figure ones? They must be livid!

Kind regards,
Devi

The ratings sytems were being abused. People were giving triple positive ratings just so people's income would increase. People were also griefing by randomly giving out negative ratings.


No.



Some are. Most realize that the system has been gamed and has lost the intent for which it was created.

To reduce the number of new $L flowing into the economy by 6.8 Million L$ a month (or about 19% of new L$). A portion of the community (less they 20%) think it's a good idea to stablize the value of the L$ so they can make money off SL by selling L$. They complain very lowdly (and own most of the land in SL).

Abuse is just a cover story to get people to stand behind the reforms.

Do you believe the ratings system should be used to supplement stipends?

Interesting thought there. Reduce the incoming L$ flow, and those who already have the L$ will enjoy the raise in values. *sigh* Takes money to make money.

Runaway inflation helps nobody, though. Even in non-SL contexts, you can see this in the various online games out there - since the in-game money, gold coins or whatever, is continually created by bashing monsters but most of them have even fewer money sinks than Second Life, you get to the point that a casual player can't afford the ten million platinum other players are charging for goodies from the newest expansion. This gets counteracted somewhat by "mudflation", the tendency in these games for newer items to be more powerful, so last years shiny uber-elite item is today's newbie giveaway trash.

Since Second Life doesn't really have that as an option, "printing" less money through stipends will help reduce that inflation, thus while you might get less L$ in a numerical sense, each one will be worth more.

Inflation isn't the problem, it's a symptom. The problem is the economy is unbalanced. Over the last 6 months the value of the linden has dropped, because supply far out stepped demand (in the exchanges). Over this same period the average (median) user has had less and less money to spend. In the majority of accounts the number of L$ available to spend at any given time has dropped. The system is unbalanced because on one side we have too many lindens and on the other too few. The people causing it are those selling L$ for US$ plain and simple. It's not the number of L$ flowing into the market that are causing this. The seer quantity of L$ flowing into SL accounts via stipends & bonuses are the only saving grace for users. The long term effect of removing these sources will be a greater percentage of L$ in the exchanges, a very low US$ value and very few L$ available in the SL economy (SL economy being money that isn't trapped in the exchanges).

Any solution to balance the economy needs to be a sink built into the exchanges. As much as i don't like the idea of taxing capitalism; it seems the only way to maintain the user base and economic atmosphere of SL that keeps so many users playing. For the vast majority of users SL isn't about making money.