More (creative) thoughts about stipends

In other words, if you're not using SL to cash out, you CAN'T make quality merchandise? I have to call bullshit on this one. Some of the neatest items I have seen have been from so-called non-professionals, and some of the biggest steaming piles of crap (including two expensive outfits I have with textures that don't f-ing line up and were carefully concealed in the picture on the vendor by the pose) came from 'professionals' (We're not allowed to name names according to TOS, but I would dearly love to ) who according to you are so superior to the hobbiest builder.

A big name ingame and flashy vendors do not guarantee quality. Quite often, the reverse.

Mechmind? Great shop. I own 2 of their avs.

they probably aren't professionals. professional quality textures are not sold directly in SL. they are sold in applied form in objects and clothing. most textures i've seen in texture stores are pretty limited in quality and potential application in SL, although i have found good use for some libraries outside of SL by purchasing the original jpgs fromt eh vendor.

Yep! You got it! I have the wolf (bought) and the tiger (given to me). Fenrir helps me with my coding and I give him copies of what I make and help him test his stuff when needed. Known him on and offline for years now.

Only other mechs of that type I know of are these huge, hulking behemoths (they look like musclebound pro body builders...ick) with LITTLE TINY PINHEADS! Would be OK, if he enlarged the head to match the body....and cut the price from 2500 each. A bit pricey to look like a furry version of Zippy the Pinhead.

professionals enter service contracts. professionals don't pander to the mass market.

Then we can hope LL are professionals and don't cater to all this whining about stipends causing devaluation.

Tiger and Ravenmechs here

You have a very twisted definition of professional there. Or perhaps I should say flexible. First they were those concetrating on their work to make money, now they are folks that ONLY take commissions instead of vending things to the mass market. Sounds like you are using professional to mean whatever you want it to mean to prove your poiint instead of sticking to one definition.

Love the tiger when you arm the shoulder gun. A very satisfyingly menacing sound as it swings around into place.

my experience is, entering into a service agreement, choosing the cheapest option usually means getting the worst service and product. people who offer good service and products are in demand and thus their price reflects the demand for their time. yeah imagine your charity bake sale ladies breaks her ankle. you think she'll deliver you those donuts? but i bet you someone with their business name on the line will.


it is a corrolation, not a direct relationship. even a ceo with a limo can be enticed with a private jet to be reliable. sometimes glory has currency too. and protestant work ethic values do too. points with god are money in the bank.

[/i]
artists are not generally professional. they are a bunch of flakes. usually they are professional once they sell out and keep farting out reiterations of the same tired old grid of white yellow and red. but when they do sell out, you can count on them to deliver and not come up with some excuse about muses and feeling it or some nonsense.



no. this is an additional requirement unrelated to money. artists share this requirement and are generally much more immersed, but unfortunately they are unreliable flakes. i personally wouldn't give an important project to some artist type regardless of how insightful they are. it would come in 2 months late and they would have redefined all of the project objectives to match their latest pot induced revelations.

I hope I personally never win the stippend arguments here against Jonas, Ranma, and the like, for if I do, I'll feel like the winner of the special olympics.

that's nonsense! we are exploring the meaning of this word together in this very thread!

Trust me, yer already in the top of the class on the short bus.

Sorry, I have trouble hitting a moving target like your definiton of professional.

In one post it was anyone that made a living off of their work because the money made them focused and professional.
THEN they were only professionals if they did commissions/contracts ONLY and do not pander to the masses
NOW They are professionals if they are hacks and sellouts that crank out the same variation of a work to the masses.

Please pick one of your mutually-exclusive and contradictory definitions and stick with it for more than one post! The way you keep redefining it, it now holds next to no meaning other than (to paraphrase the Mad Hatter) 'Words mean what Jauni Wu wants them to mean'..

And unfortunately, communication does NOT occur with random redefinitions of words.

I really can't quite tell what professionals you are referring to. But it seems to be a very limited subset of some already limited class.

Of course professionals do pander to the mass market, as you put it; there are even professions built entirely around how to best do that.

coco

Boy, you must have absolutely no experience with volunteers, or with being one.


I don't think you know much about art, either, or really much of anything about the creative professions, or about what it takes (and doesn't take) to be professional and successful at them.

Jauni, there are motivations that go way beyond money; passions that make the paycheck seem almost secondary. In fact, it is that sort of passion which almost guarantees you will make more and more money, just as a side effect of doing something you love, with passion.


No, artists aren't a bunch of unreliable flakes (nor are they sell-outs). Neither are professional writers, designers, actors, or dancers.

Reliability, talent, drive, acquired skill, and motivation toward excellence are personal traits which have little to do with (a) the creativity of the profession itself or (b) whether or not a person is paid for the job or how much, but more to do with the person who turns his hand to whatever the activity he is interested in.

A teacher, for instance, can be very immersed, and very passionate about the job, raising teaching to its greatest possible heights and to an art form itself - even though teaching is not considered art. Volunteer teachers and other volunteers can also be just that good. (And reliable.) A good teacher is a good teacher, whether he's getting paid for it or not.

coco

they are not at all mutually exclusive. a professional is a composite of a variety of qualities.

making prim cottages for friends for fun between dinner and grays anatomy isn't one of them.

You don't really have a definition for professional, do you. It's like the other poster said - your definition is flexible, depending on what you want it to be, and, I would add, depending on who you want to exalt and who you want to insult.

And since you are so determined to make this personal, I will speak to that in a minute, once I've cleared up what "professional" means.

It means: You make money from it. That is the I.R.S. definition. If you make more than something like $400 a year profit from something (I'm not sure of the exact figure, as I haven't cashed out Lindens yet), you are no longer engaged in a hobby.

There are other connotations, too, such as (1) someone in a learned profession (doctor, lawyer), or (2) whether or not a person lives up to his professional obligations ("He's not a very professional doctor". But basically, if you make a profit, you are a professional, as opposed to having a hobby, and are expected to declare your income on your tax return.

Technically, if any money is coming into your hands from SL, even if you are just using it to pay your tier, you are expected to fill out a Schedule C, declare your income and your expenses (such as tier), and then report the net income, even if it falls under the requirement for paying taxes on.

Now, to deal with your disparaging remarks about me personally.

Firstly, I don't "make prim cottages for friends." I'm not sure where you get that idea. I don't think any of my friends have any of my cottages. My customers are the same regular players your customers are.

Secondly, I am professional in whatever I do, whether it is for money or not. I wouldn't dream of not being reliable and giving something my utmost effort. This is why I limit the commitments I take on, both for pay and volunteer. It's also why I don't do custom work in SL. I want to do SL on my own timetable.

But on SL occasions where I do wish to take on a commitment with a deadline (or any specific time commitment where I'm expected to show up), it takes priority over all else, whether there is money in it or not.

For example, for the two LL contests I entered and won with my houses, I carved out the time I would need to do that, and nothing, short of a life-and-death emergency, would get in the way of it. I ended up staying up all night on one, so short were the deadlines.

There's more: We were allowed to enter houses we had already made. That wasn't good enough for my personal standards. I felt they should receive unique, brand-new houses, made to order, and that I delivered, even though it wasn't a requirement.

It's that sort of attitude that has led me to excel in everything I have chosen to do in life, both academic and professional, as well as in volunteer work. And it is that sort of attitude which exemplifies professionalism, young son, not whether you cash out your Lindens, or whether you take your pay in U.S. dollars.

Gratuitously dissing other people's work and reputations is, by the way, the antithesis of professionalism.

coco

i haven't dissed anything, but i think now it's time to diss your reconstructive vocabulary.

here's what the IRS says to your make believe definition.
P for professional

meanwhile, web resources seem to indicate professional status incorporates (not just making some money but) making a livelihood from the work, being highly skilled, conforming to standards etc. it says nothing about what the irs has to say.

wikipedia
dictionary.com

there is a difference between professionals and amateurs and there is a reason why there is no guild for professional volunteers.

so many bright minds and not a one of you has touched the real crux of the issue. Stipends are not the problem. Wanting to cash out isnt the problem, even short selling though henious is NOT the problem.

The problem is the Lindex is flawed, say it with me boys and girls, furrys and humans alike- flawed! It is not a true currency exchange, in a true currency exchange the supervising bank ie LL sets the rate of exchange. What we have is a flawed joke of an exchange. So's here and idea- stop beating the fking hell out of each other, and get together and protest and demand that LL step to the plate and do the job of the supervising bank they are.

Do what how now?

simple you all need to stop bickering amongst each other and lobby LL to act like the supervising bank of a RL currency exchange and set the minimum market rate. In other words if LL wants to own the exchange and it sems they do they need to act as market makers

Tell it to the I.R.S., Jauani.

I was at dictionary.com before I wrote my last post, to make sure I covered all the connotations.

You aren't very good at research. Either that or you haven't ever paid taxes on a sole proprietorship. I suggest you spend a bit more time on the I.R.S. web site, particularly if you are earning a profit on your SL activities.

I was remembering one thing wrong, though. The $400 I was thinking of has to do only with whether or not you must also pay social security taxes on this income.

Because not only do they expect you to pay taxes on this income, you also have to pay twice as much social security on it than you do if you are working for someone else. This is because you are having to put in the social security that your employer would, as well as yourself.

As for organizations for professional volunteers (since you seem to think a professional must belong to something like that, which is ridiculous), there are plenty. Google it.

coco

quoted for lots and lots of emphasis

(i still think the lindex should be thrown out since i dont think LL would ever do the work to run it properly)

you also pay taxes for winning the lottery. playing the lottery isn't a profession. taxation laws don't actually determine social terms like professional vs amateur. basically my research is fine, your comments on taxation are irrelevant to the the topic -

my point was basically that professionals raising prices for their content or service would not open the door to competition from amateurs. people seek the two for different reasons and with different values. they are not part of the same market.

these differences are very much the reason why people who approach sl as professional don't care about basic account stipends or even premium account stipends in terms of how it affects their client base. people who rely solely on stipends do not benefit the professional class in SL at all. hobbiests on the other hand, might, if their hobby includes a making L$ aspect.