FYI, in General Discussion there's a really great thread re: voting stations. I chimed in with a post which i wanted to share here because it includes a change to the voting station process.
"...we’ll be evolving the voting station design by limiting payouts to one voting station per parcel. If multiple voting stations exist on a parcel only the top vote getter will be paid."
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I’ve been reading the conversation about Second Life Voting Stations and wanted to comment regarding their original intent and how they are currently being used by residents. Also, I’ll share some design thoughts on the evolution of measuring and rewarding residents for maintaining popular destinations.
The original voting stations were introduced into Second Life with three primary goals:
* Recognize and reward residents who maintain popular and well-trafficked locations
* Provide residents with the chance to give a boost to places they enjoy visiting
* Aggregate daily votes into a dynamic snapshot of interesting locations in the world
These goals roll up into something I’ll call “location-based contribution to the SL community,” the definition of which depends upon your play style. Broad social interaction, creative building, compelling events – all of these are meant to be rewarded by the voting stations, for there is no singular definition of community contribution.
Each day Linden dollars are awarded from a pool based upon the percentage of votes a particular station receives out of the total votes cast in the previous 24 hours. Over time, the voting stations have been updated on several occasions but the goals and mechanics have remained largely the same.
Based upon the feedback in the SL Forums and my observation of current voting station usage it seems that the original goals are not being fully met. Namely, there is concern about “vote farms” or other practices which increase reward to a small group without increasing contribution to the broader community.
Furthermore, this behavior is exacerbated by the fact that it takes little time and effort to use the voting stations this way. The perception exists that you can game the system and game it easily.
I’ll also commend the community on what is a very thoughtful and respectful thread – there are lots of good ideas proposed and discussed. It’s an especially complex balance because as many of you point out, the voting stations don’t just exist in a vacuum, they are part of the larger economy and reputation system which run parallel.
So let me say that we hear you and are working on some designs to help resolve these questions. A component of this design will allow us to better measure resident behaviors and activity as opposed to forcing in-world actions (such as clicking a voting station).
We will use this information to help create a reward system which meets the three goals listed above. Additionally we’ll work to balance the reputation system and other aspects of the economy to ensure that different play styles have opportunities to prosper. Trust me, it won’t come down to trapping other residents in cages just to increase their dwell time on your property. Well, maybe if you’re in the Outlands but everywhere else it’ll be civil .
In the meantime we’ll be evolving the voting station design by limiting payouts to one voting station per parcel. If multiple voting stations exist on a parcel only the top vote getter will be paid.
I would also suggest that “vote farms” comprised of a series of small parcels full of voting stations are bad form since they force all residents to either join a vote farm or be swamped by the existing groups. If “vote farms” are discovered we’ll encourage the residents involved to remove their stations.
Thanks for your time and enthusiasm – let’s continue the discussion.