Tiered bonus stipends

Hi,

Another potential change to the economy that I'd like to get feedback on:

Currently the weekly 'bonus' that you can get in addition to your basic stipend is an amount that changes (and can change dramatically) from week to week. The reason for this is that it is depedent on your relative lifetime and last-week's ranking relative to other users. Since these rankings change fairly fast, your bonus can also change fast.

This seems to be something everyone dislikes, especially since the bonus is generally used to offset taxes, meaning that you build stuff, and then your bonus drops, so you are faced with deleting things which is no fun.

So while the system very accurately rewards exact ranking, it is highly unpredictable.

One solution (on which I'd like feedback) is to make the bonus 'tiered' and slowly moving, so that is is much more predictable. So imagine something like:

If you are in the top 50% ratings, you get a $500 maximum 'tax break'. Similarly...

Top 25% = $1000
Top 10% = $2000
Top 5% = $3000
Top 1% = $5000

Additionally, we could average the change in these 'tierings', so that you would move from one to the next fairly slowly - if you dropped a level, you'd get warning, etc.

These wouldn't be the exact numbers, but this would be the general idea. A 'leveled' system that gave a fixed 'tax break' depending on your overall reputation. So you would be able to accurately predict how much stuff you could build or land you could own without having to pay for it.

I like this idea. However, what if someone move very rapidly through the boards again?

Wouldn't it still effect the tax break? Sorry thats just how I am reading it....

It would, but we could also slow things, so that for example, you would always know the amount for next week ahead of time. So no change faster than 1 week in future.

YES!! Exact prediction! That would be a great feature even without the tax break!

I like that idea. I wish the reward was higher of course, but I like it.

Ok, here are my thoughts on the topic.

I like this idea as well, but I think in order to implement it effectively there would have to be a very close look at the that would be implemented.

Some possible negatives that I can think of (some of these are just to open discussion points):

-If the tiers are spaced too far apart (such as the suggested 50/25/10/5/1) it could lock you into a specific tier with little potential for growth from week to week.

-This does not address the problems of RL stresses on the system. Is it right to penalize a user who goes on a RL vacation by placing him/her in the lowest 1% for that week?

-Since everyone will always be attempting to get into the next higher tier, this could trigger a bad round of rate mining.

-This does not address the fact that noobs that DO rate mine have the potential to be higher on the tiers that deserving members who contribute to the community but do not go around begging for ratings.



Again, I do like the idea, but in some ways it's just another version of a system with some basic underlying flaws.

-Bone

OK, I'm seeing a pattern here that has been cleverly (or coincidentally) split up into several threads/features.

1) Removing the account floor
2) Newbies restricted to welcome area
3) Paying mentors based on their popularity with newbies
4) Killing the voting stations (dwell system)
5) Tiered bonuses

I'm sure there are more ongoing dicussions and issues that are directly or indirectly related, but these are the hot ones.

Basically, what I see here is a trend: reward socialites, kill hermits.

There are those of us who like building and scripting. (This came up in the whole dwell thread.) I am not a socialite. Never been accused of it in my life. It's just not in my personality.

It seems to me that someone at LL that's driving these changes considers SL to be a giant popularity contest, and is oblivious to the fact that not everyone in SL wants to be popular.

As a scripter, with no voting booths, high taxes, reduced stipends (mentioned by Philip in another thread), tiered bonuses (based on popularity), new people not being allowed near my builds, etc, I could build and script the most absolutely astounding build in the world, and never see a dime from it.

If I'm not a socialite (I'm not), and I'm not on the leaderboards (too new), then I basically get no bonus from that. Since I can't afford a whole lot of anything, I'll have to make my build small. Say I put it on a 16x16 plot somewhere.

I could have 50 people gathered around ooh-ing and ahh-ing and generally gawking at this wonderful creation I've made for hours. But since the plot's so small, and they have to stand back a bit to really see it, I won't get any dwell points out of it (but my neighbors will get rich off of it.) With no voting booth, I can't even get that (questionable, unstable, fickle, wildly dynamic) bonus.

Since I've spent all/most of my time outside of the welcome area, working on my build and its scripts, I have no newbie mentor votes at all.

Since I've spent all/most of my time locked in my "cave", working on my build and its scripts, I'm probably not going to have high ratings, either. The build rating _might_ be a solution to this, except it's not used as intended, for most people it's another popularity vote. Not to mention that it's so difficult to rate someone when you're looking at their build and they're not present, that even those who are impressed enough to spend the 1L$ probably don't know how or won't want to bother going through all the hoops to provide me with that all-so-important rating point.

So basically, what you have here is the potential to have a fantastic builder and/or scripter, with the most amazing build ever, that owns one 16x16 plot of land, is thousands of L$ in debt, doesn't really _want_ to stand around and chit-chat, and has basically exhausted all of their in-world opportunities within, potentially, a matter of weeks.

I'm going to bring up a phrase now that generally starts small-scale a flame war, "tragedy of the commons."

Basically, all of these things, when combined, will allow the "haves", especially the popular ones, to keep what they have, and forever prevent the "have-nots" from ever getting there.

I signed up for an immersive, 3d world where I could build (within reason) what I wanted, and script my creations to make them interactive, intelligent, and generally (hopefully) impressive.

I'm now at a point where my taxes are higher than my base stipend. If I lose what bonuses I _do_ get, I'll start going in the hole. My first real build isn't even near complete. I may never be able to finish it, either. And I already have plans for other things to create, from vehicles to war gear and beyond. I may not be able to do these, either. Some of these were even specifically intended to attract certain groups of individuals into SL. (Although, the target group's interest would also be somewhat chilled by the fact that there is no real "combat zone" in SL, as advertised.)

I didn't sign up to teach.
I didn't sign up because I needed another job that pays Monopoly money.
I didn't sign up for the sole purpose of being an intelligent, on-line user's manual, begging for recognition from newbies.

And I certainly didn't sign up for the Mr/Mrs Secondlife pageant.

If you want to make the world so that it's only enjoyable to a certain calibre/cast/social circle of people, that's fine. It's your sandbox, after all. But you should at least let people know that up front.

I thought I was signing up for a Metaverse that had real potential for pretty much anyone that wanted to participate.

I'll ride these changes out for awhile to see how they shake out (I'm not fond of knee-jerk reactions), but it's looking more and more like I'm the red-headed stepchild, and somebody in charge doesn't want "my kind" around.

Grim - I am 100% in your boat. I signed up to create 3d things and script them up to do whatever I want. I don't socialize a lot because I'm not all that social, though I do enjoy going to an even now and then. The nature of my RL forces me to go AFK at anytime unexpectedly, so this means I can never host an event, or teach or welcome newbies, and all that stuff that gets me cash.

But, that all said, I don't have a money problem like you seem to have. I'll have to come see what giant build is using all your money

I have a huge piece of land (for me), I'd guess is like 24x60, with a large building and I'm usually getting the stipend cap. (I usually give away money so that I dont get capped, and help add money into the economy)

Anyhow, just wanted to say I have the exact same concerns as you, but so far I dont see a reason to get concerned.

I'm with Grim on this one. All his points are valid.

I came to this game because of the creative enviroment. It looks like most of that is going to be stripped away over the next little while.

What's your average weekly bonus? mine as of last night was estimated at about $500. Some of the changes that are being discussed will automatically cause that to drop or disappear altogether, as soon as they're implemented. This is my concern. If my bonuses go away because I'm not "popular", then the base stipend won't even cover my taxes, and I start going in the hole, pretty much immediately.

And if the stipend gets reduced, things get even worse.

I don't know it offhand and I'm at work.
Generally I know what you mean though. There is a lot of people here making fun of TSO cause you had to make pizza a lot, so I think LL should be careful of repeating that. SL might end up with its own 'making pizza' in the form of going out and being popular.

Its hard to imagine a excellent scripter not ending up being popular though, unless you are talking hardcore hermitry

I'm not excellent yet. I'm only 2-1/2 weeks old.

Still trying to get a good feel for what I can and can't do in LSL. Just hope I don't go broke before I get there.

i would see no problem with this system if only our ratings actually reflected what they are supposed to.

i would rather the ratings system be fixed ahead of implementing this tier system.

I agree with Grim. His points are pretty much what I was trying to get at in my posts on the "killing the voting stations" thread.

Is the design goal of SL to privilege social interaction above other activities? If so, please say that right now.

Yes say it now and I can go find something else to do with my time because that is not what I thought I was paying for.

No one had a lot of money or a high bonus or any other influx of money after only two weeks. It takes a while to accumulate ratings. Be patient.

The reputation system rewards:

Behavior
Building
Appearance

We are adding "Scripting" as a 4th.

So no, SL is NOT designed to be a social environment with some very complex side streets - it is a collaborative environment where the focus is on creativity, collaboration, and self-expression.

Of these ratings, behavior is certainly related to socializing, and appearance can I suppose require the social context of 'being there to be seen', but the system is designed to broadly reward contribution to the community.

grim...very well put.

i dont agree much with the rating system, although i will admit i cant think of a better way to do it.

i believe the ratings are angled much more to the social butterfly types... not that i have anything against them. i enjoy meeting new people but i rarely get out of blue anymore and dont make many events.

if i was a complete herit type, how would anyone be able to even rate my builds? they would never see me to rate me
i believe grim has very good points. but sorry guys...im not giving up my sl...no way

Thanks for the response. Please know that all of this criticism is intended as constructive.

Are the traits you listed given in order of importance? If so, socializing is indeed intended to be at least slightly privileged over other activities, and judging from the posts in the forum, in practice it is being rewarded more than was anticipated. (If the traits weren't listed in order, then the system is turning out even more skewed than was planned.)

Many of the proposed revisions to the economy seem like they will skew the importance of the listed traits more than they currently are. I think what are needed are revisions that reduce the disparity, not exacerbate it.

Something I realized with this system I would like to know what my percentage was, so I could know how close I was to that next teir.

Good point Ama. One reason I was thinking tiering would be good would be for that reason - we could easily show that.

On the subject of build/socialize balance, I think that the higher weight on 'social' stuff is due to the fact that in these early days of SL, much money/etc is created by the systems which reward 'collective value' which inevitably involved socialization.

Remember that soon as real business/stores/services kick in, there will be much more diversity. Like imagine being an architect in SL... you charge to build houses for folks... many have done this already a bit.

Chip Midnight previously posted about his experience designing Skee's new building. Chip got paid, while Skee got votes and ratings. The proposed dwell system will not change that.

Is this the intended effect?

There's been a lot of well-earned negative feedback on what the Lindens are thinking about doing with the economy. For the record, I think Grim's post is spot on. It's what a lot of us have been saying for a long time. The way things are now, and the way they're heading, is just not right.

That said, the only thing I want to add is this: Lindens, thanks for your willingness to try to make things better, and to get feedback before making changes. A lot of other multiplayer systems have broken economies, and most of them either ignore the problem or just add band-aid solutions that make things worse, and do it all in complete ignorance of what the user base wants. The amount of interaction between users and developers here is leaps and bounds better than for any other system, and for this I toast you.

I'm also with Grim. I can't believe ANYONE would make $5000 LD for being popular, I don't feel like I'm hiding in SL, yet I can barely pay for my builds (about $1500 in taxes a week) so I'm confused. I had no idea anyone was making that kind of money. I think that's pretty stinky, sorry, but geez, I though I was doing OK, until today. I shouldn't read these threads, they make me bummed


BTW I've actually gone out visiting in this place quite a few times, which is amazing for me, 'cause I'm a #1 hermit. That just goes to show you how wonderful SL is!!! Brings me out of my shell every once in a while, hee hee hee.

I'm also about to demolish my house, as soon as I can finish it, 'cause it costs way too much.

I've been here since December