Can anyone please explain how the group money works?

Being relative new to SL, and new to having a group, I was wondering how group money works... I see credits, debits and the total. When you look at details, I see the group dividend (they are never the same and always negative), traffic bonus and the total. So how does this group dividend get computed? Why is it always different? What happens with this money in the group account (automatically distributed?)?

Thank you for your time,
Bounder

Group money gets paid out in a daily dividend equal to the group's balance divided by the number of group members, rounded down. Groups cannot accumulate or otherwise use funds, making group money basically worthless for most things that you'd think it could be useful for.

Whenever the money coming in from the traffic bonus reaches a number divisible by the number of members in the group, it is paid out to those members as a dividend.

So, let's say there are 7 members in your group.

First day, your traffic bonus gives you L$5. This is less than 7, so stays in the group account.

Next day, your traffic bonus gives you L$8. Your total is now L$13.

That night, L$1 is paid out to each of your 7 members, leaving L$6 in the account.

Next day, your traffic bonus gives you L$20 - you held an event! Your total is now L$26.

That night, L$3 is paid out to each of your 7 members, leaving L$5 in the account.

Does that help?

Forgot to add, income includes any sale of group land too.

So beware if not all members of your group contributed towards buying the group's land.

There's nothing like joining a group, and then suddenly finding a nice group dividend of L$1000 in your account one fine morning because an officer sold a piece of group land without thinking where the money would go!

It's usually better for an officer to transfer the group land to himself (buy for L$0), and then sell it, distributing the proceeds by hand to the right people after the sale.

Of course, implicit in this is that all group officers must be totally, absoutely trustworthy.

All of the above information is true and translates roughly into "it doesn't work."

For me, it translates into "This is confusing!"

Thanx for the explanations given the current framework, Solar and Lisse.

Thanks for the responses. Does this information exist somewhere in written documentation or is this one more thing that you just have to figure out what happens or accept what someone says?

Thanks,
Bounder

I would have thot it'd be somewhere in this Second Life Wiki... I can't seem to find it tho. Post again if searches turn up nothing—this should be documented for easier reference in the future!

That is the one of the things of Second Life. It flows quickly, like a river, some stones stay, others gets hurled down, like tales told, and quickly float by. They are referenced in occasion through SL Forums searches but difficult to dig up, and firmly embed otherwise.

I bet you in the future, more new Resis are gonna be told to "Search the forums!" and end up looking here. I'm glad you asked, Bounder.

What is the downside to having it set up for money distribution based on the percentage of land contribution of the individual group member? This seems simple enough, so I'm wondering what type of group situations exist where this would not be advantageous. Perhaps the ability to designate a group type with affiliated rules is long overdue. Group projects would be better fostered if the system was not set up to require totally, absolutely trustworthy individuals.

The tier contributions may have no relation to who actually paid for the land in the first place.

That said, yes - there have been many discussions which propose a redo of how money from group land sales is distributed. I think changing anything about groups is probably waaaaaay down the priority list, though, compared to what else needs fixing.

This has been true for two years now. The only group change we've seen since is the elimination of Officer Recal per Prokofy's request. The rest of us have been patently ignored all this time.

And is there a place where all this arcana about groups is laid out in one place?

Or is the knowledge all just based on experience?

Frank