Griefing versus working

What follows is based on a few posits:
- Meaningful work in SL is a good thing
- SL is a social environment rather than simply an online mall
- Griefers are jerkholes

There are not yet enough opportunities for meaningful work in SL (i.e. work that actually creates value for others rather than just making you eye candy or traffic count). It seems to me that one area where many people could find meaningful employ is as salespeople. For example, my alt's inworld newspaper The Democrat aims to give people meaningful jobs as "newsies", selling the newspaper directly in populated places and keeping half the profits for themselves. An added advantage of this kind of job is the opportunity to explore the grid and meet lots of people, in addition to working well with an asynchronous work force. But it seems it's hard for people to accept what they're doing as legitimate. I believe they're confused as griefers sometimes, and I understand why to an extent. But my question is, how can we put systems in place and change our attitudes to allow more people to work outside the realm of object creation?
As somone said to me last night, "We're training everyone to have different levels of the same skills (building and scripting). There will never be enough work for everyone who wants it that way."
Can there be some kind of salesperson registration system? Can the guidelines for what methods of salesmanship are allowable be modified for public areas like the Sandbox and welcome areas? What do you think?

You're right, it would be good for SL's economy if we fostered skills other than scripting and building.

There is some market for jobs like :
* event managers/hosts
* security people
* DJs
* landscapers
and so on, but I do suspect that it would be good to encourage SL's economy to diversify away from being built on scripting/building.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to encourage it. Businesses won't hire salespeople unless it helps them make more profit, and if the salespeople get a 50% comission then they'd have to sell much more than twice the amount of items they would have otherwise to justify them being there. The reason it is more than twice is that having the salespeople on staff creates time/money expenses for the business owner beyond simply their comission - they have to deal with complaints about bad salespeople, they have to equip their salespeople, check that the salesperson understands their product, etc.
Plus, how do you make sure that the money goes to the salesperson? Have a vendor which pays 50% of the object sale price to the salesperson if they're around? What about if they're around and afk the whole time? How do you regulate it?

We can't force businesses to hire salespeople because they would walk away in disgust. We can only motivate them to do it by persuading them it'll help their bottom lines - and with SL the way it is, that is a hard argument to make.

... To be fair, some places DO have sales staff, including BareRose which hires newbies for 1 month as store greeters...

Neither of the previous posters said anything about my main question - how can we help traveling salesmen, who go to places where they don't own land and talk to others about their product or service, distinguish themselves from griefers?

My Thoughts:

If you were truly interested in selling in a different area - make it worth everyone's time. True value is to everyone in the chain of a product, from the creator to the consumer.

As your example goes: If you want your salespeople to be able to wander through places, and not be considered a greifer for soliciting, why not talk to the places you are going?

IE: Club Super-De-Duper-Traffic has a steady influx of traffic you'd like to attempt selling to. Talk with the owner about such a deal, as publishing a free ad in your newspaper, for 1 scheduled visit per day/week etc for the purpose of a quick message about buying your newspaper from your salesperson? Your salesperson gets a place they legitimately can use to sell, the club gets an advertisement that is seen by everyone who purchases your paper, you've the increased sales, you can start an "Ad Creation Agency" to make the ads - hire more people and help stimulate the economy the way you are intending.

As a land owner, I'd feel comfortable with something along that nature, knowing that I would also get something from it (The additional advertising exposure).

Does that help?

It does, thanks. But my paper (The Democrat) doesn't take ads, so I have nothing to offer people other than straight cash. If I do that, I might as well buy land for the newsies to stand on!
Your comments raise this question: seems the equivalent of a sidewalk newsie in SL is someone on public (Linden) land like roads, welcome areas, or sandboxes. What would be fair rules for salespeople there?

I think you're not allowed to sell in welcome areas or public sandboxes....

I could be wrong.

Honestly, I think anyone who considers a travelling salesman a griefer is just plain dumb, especially in a public place. Your people are always welcome at my place, so long as they mind their manners (no high-pressure sales techniques), and the same goes for anyone else looking to contribute like this.

Now, I do know that sandboxes and welcome areas are off-limits for any type of sales, as well as the Help Islands. However, there are plenty of Linden areas you could go (Busy Ben's, for example), and I'd imagine anything roadside would be fair game, though it's always a good idea to ask someone in charge first.

He he... yeah, everybody knows how everyloves those Wal Mart greeters.

he he.. j/k.

Just try selling your crap in my store... i'll boot ur azz. ha ha ha LOLZ

There are scripted ways to make a salesperson's vendor system essentially unbreakable. I'm pretty sure that Gwyneth Llewelyn had this exact system up and running several months ago and it's got easier since llHTTPRequest. You essentially need a system a bit like a networked vendor (JEVN, Kyrah's etc.) so you don't have to give the person full perms copies of your system and take it on trust (although there are other scripted options too, like make a box for the items that emails you on rezzing).

The vendors at ONE use a commission system that's hard scripted in as well, although they're set up for non-networked use to reduce lag and impact on the sim.

Attitudes to travelling salespeople will vary though. I wouldn't boot people from public land (although selling in sandboxes is against their rules), but wandering into my home will be met with a quick and probably rude response - just like cold callers IRL - and selling from a shop run by someone else, probably much the same to be honest from any shop owner. Renting a space to have salespeople in it would be different, in fact if you want to do that at ONE IM me in world and we'll see what we can do.

I consider traveling salesman who come to my home to be griefers IRL. If you are selling inside of another business you haven't been invited to do so in... doubly so

Travelling salesmen, or newsies are not going to work well in SL. you have 3 basic problems.
1: people in popular clubs are not there to buy things. either there to dance, win lindens in events, or meet and chat with people. anyone sending out even the most politely worded and discrete sales pitch is going to annoy someone.
2: most clubs have at least a tiny vendor area, where somone has paid money for the right to sell things in the club. walking in and plopping down a vendor or sales person without paying for the right to do so is going to annoy them.
3: if you find a copy of a clubs rules, likely you'll find a "no soliciting" clause in there somewhere. doubtfull they'll bend that for you.

that being said, vendor rental in most malls is pretty cheap, 100L or so a week in popular ones. far less then you'd pay a newsie.

Why do you assume they'd be selling in clubs? There are lots of other places to sell than clubs, plus the reasons you pointed out are clearly three strikes against trying to sell there.
Also, it is undoubtedly cheaper to have vendors than newsies, but having newsies accomplishes several things that having vendors doesn't accomplish:
1 - Provide meaningful work for more people. Elsewhere on the forums, alternatives to camping chairs and the need for people to have lindens to spend (particularly those who do not have a payment method to buy L$ directly) have been discussed. Providing meaningful employment addresses those issue.
2 - Advertising by word of mouth with a "personal touch" can be more effective and bring in more customers in the long run.
3 - They can move to crowds, rather than waiting for crowds to move to them.

Effective griefing is work, hard work. The results are useless at best and destructive at worst. But children don't accept being told to channel their energy into something productive rather than something FUN!

(No silly I'm not describing the office environment at LL again)

When a child decides that torturing others is FUN, they work, hard, at it.

How do you plan to make sure that..
A) The salesperson is actually selling anything
B) That they are giving you all the money
?

It would be pretty easy for someone to sell a few, keep the money for themselves and then tell you they didn't sell any.

Oh and most store owners and mall owners will frown on wandering salespeople in their places of business. I would be telling them to leave mine as I see it the same way I look at telephone solicitors. People want to be able to shop in peace and not be hit with sales pitches.