drawing content (and content creators) into SL (II)

Hi again. I posted here asking what LL is doing to draw content into SL given that:
* land for many residents is prohibitively expensive
* there is no dwell bonus anymore and new basic accounts don't get a stipend, so it is hard for premises which don't generate money to fund their existence.
* it costs money to upload textures/etc and this charge discourages the creation of new content in SL by being effectively a tax on content creation.

What I'm looking for is *not* specific solutions for specific locations. I appreciate that it may help quite a bit to direct people to a place they can learn to build, for example.

What I *am* looking for is broader, system-wide plans that you are implementing to make SL overall attract content creators.

I don't know what your plans are, but I would urge LL to think seriously about it. The reason is simple - ultimately, people play SL for two reasons : friends and content. Friends are also drawn by content. So, overall, the world of SL revolves around digital content. I know I'm playing very fast and loose with generalisations here, but bear with me.

Assume that people fundamentally play SL (as opposed to chatting with friends over MSN/Y!M/ICQ/IRC/etc) to experience digital content. What follows?
Well, then increasing content draws more residents and thus draws more customers for LL and makes LL more money.

Ok, assuming this is true, how do we draw content into SL?

I'll suggest 3 things :

1) Make content creation easy and as free as possible
* As to making content creation free, LL should sponsor serious building classes/help for residents inworld. Try to expand the instructor system, and make people more aware that they can be trained in how to create content. Advertise it well - say, as "create content for fun or money", or "want something? learn how to make it!".
* Give serious discounts to builds that dramatically enhance SL. By this I mean LL should do things like give serious (say, 50%) discounts for sims or parcels which host amazing builds. That build that has a whole working ecosystem with biofeedback, for example, would be a candidate for getting, say, free tier as long as its build remains amazing. This system should *not* be automatic. It should require several Lindens to approve the build as amazing before it gets this status.
* Reduce the L$10 charge for uploading textures. For newbies with little/no money, $10 is, despite being the SL equivilant of 30 cents, serious money.

2) Provide protection for content
* I mean go beyond simply abiding by the laws of the DCMA. ALL complaints of copyright violation or piracy should be seriously investigated. There should be a forum, in fact, where people can post a new topic, similar to SL answers, for the LL copyright team or whatever you call them to investigate people who steal/illegally copy content created in SL. It needs to be a public forum that residents can start new topics in so the issue is publicised, so that people can hold LL to account when they fail to take adequate action, and so residents can *see* that LL take the issues seriously.
* A more serious technical effort must be made to protect created works such as notecards, to force people to take the permissions system seriously, on, for example, notecards.
* You might want to look into copyright violations across the teen/adult grids. I frequently hear that items are being seen on one grid and duplicates created on the other. I realise that it's illegal for someone to be on both grids, but that doesn't seem to stop them either.
* You're on the right track with implementation of the copyleft/CC licence option. The creative commons website is an excellent example of how you can very simply, by a series of simple pictures, show people what rights they have over an object. Just as parcels have 'no fly' flags, objects should have in their toolbar a row reserved for icons which indicate what you can do with them.
* Provide tools, like the ones here, which stop popular places from being such easy griefer targets. The current system of "set the land no build, no script" is inadequate for builds which rez objects or which use scripts.

4) Make it a ToS violation to do certain things which damage content in SL
For example :
* punish people for advertising that their items are sold with one set of permissions, when they are in fact sold with a different set. This will protect consumers from unethical content makers, and strengthen the market for content by increasing consumer confidence. Require that several people verify this is the case - but, once verified, DO take action.
* the minimum penalty for copying the work of another SL object creator when the work displays a DO NOT COPY notice, should be a 7 day suspension from SL. Twice should result in a 14 day suspension. 14 days should result in a permenant ban. These penalties should be applied to ALL accounts owned by the person who does the violating.


5) Encourage content creation/use
* The web browser in your SL client should be able to surf detailed pages on things like content creation, as F1 is a very helpful resource.
* You should better publicise the 'products/services wanted' forum - many people aren't aware that they can comission others to build products they want.
* I know you already do this, and it's helpful : provide a way to request building and LSL-specific features for SL - because these features enable content creation and content creation brings users. I know there is a sea of requests for features, but a short to-do list of the most useful features for building would be really nice. I'm not a scripter, so I don't know so much about this, but there are plenty of unimplemented ideas that would benefit scripters in SL.


At some point I'll go back to my feature proposals thread and start recategorising them all... for example, I might group them by goal (e.g. top 5 code improvements to draw content into SL, top 5 code improvements to stop griefring, top 5 code improvements to help new residents, etc) - I wouldn't be able to handle some goals (I don't really understand scripting well enough to judge what is the best idea there, for example) but I might well have a look at doing some of the other categories. Or SL could restructure the feature requests forum into sub-forums. For example, there could be a sub forum for :
* building/scripting/LSL requests
* security/landowner tools
* LL policy requests
* economic requests
* .... or just use the same categories as the SL voting system, with links between them!


I know you guys realise that things such as security are important in SL.
I'm just saying - it helps to have a multi-pronged approach to drawing users into SL.
You've already managed one of those things - by opening up registrations.
Now you just need to :
1) boost your existing tools for encouraging the creation of new content
2) boost your security tools using things like better push controls, so that the boost to content makes SL more fun, without the enhanced griefing caused by open regs taking the enhanced fun away again.

I'll have a deeper think about these issues, and possibly revise my feature list in favour of these two aims - drawing content into SL and preventing griefing.... because with the introduction of open registration, that seems to be what LL's goals are - expanding SL, drawing more people into it. To do that, you need the content to draw them in and the security/comfort to make them feel comfortable staying.

Ah, in short--what I was mentioning, Angel, was a specific example of something broader, with connections and tangents leading further on. In that, it's perfectly consistent with some of what you mentioned.

That being said, you keep doing the talking, we'll do the listening--you've got a lot of ideas and they are appreciated. And as always, let us know who else is interested in what you're suggesting.