Are YOU indirectly rewarding people for hassling you? Or: how can help be scaled?

I have just been through the following piece of drama:

* Persons A and B are established content creators in a particular field.
* Persons C and D are relatively new and interested in getting involved.
* Person C hassles person A repeatedly with question about how to script, design, and build tha type of item. Person D figures they will not want to be annoyed by this, and tries to learn by other means.
* Person A, annoyed by being hassled by person C, refers them to person B.
* Person C, encouraged and aided by persons A and B, becomes a leader in the field. (And, incidentally, puts a snarky comment in their profile telling people not to hassle them with questions.)
* Person D still has no community links, reasons that they have apparantly been rejected, and abandons the field.

I know how painful this was because I was person D. (I'm allowed to name my own name, right?)

So:
* Since most content creators appeared to be bothered by being hassled, how can we prevent people who hassle others from being rewarded for it?
* How can we improve scalable help systems without undue effort on the helper's part? (In the above case, if person A or B were willing to help anyone who asked, they could have taught a public class on the topic which would have scaled and avoided the hassle - but would have also been a lot of extra work for them. The problem with being "willing to help anyone who asks" but not giving any indication of this, is that it means that people who do need help will ask everyone at random because they can't identify you. Is there any way to get the same advantages with less work for them?)

I would think not. Problem is human nature. People who are successful are often more than willing to help others who show interest. The quiet, shy or otherwise less than outgoing seem to be left behind..............but that's not really the truth. It's those quiet, shy ones than more often come out way ahead in the long run. Work does pay off.

And my bet is that when you become the "successful" one, you will help those askers too

I think you just have to be choosy on when and how you help.

I'm kinda a person "D" too, except I continue to work and do my own thing - I don't feel "abandoned" at all. Customers find me all the time, and they make up their own minds, and lately, so do others who have recently found my work and written about it. Without my prompting whatsoever!

People will recognise quality, once they see it.

However, there's a sort of person who I will define as a "sucker" - someone who tries to suck down and get you to do their work for them, rather than a tip here and there. I learned the hard way, in another world, to just ignore them, because 99 percent of the time they bite the hand that fed them.

I prefer to help people who are capable of helping themselves. A word of advice here and there, and then they are more than capable of running with it on their own, is a person I like seeing succeed.

When I ask for help it is more of a "I want to do this and this, and I am thinking doing it this way might works, am I on the right track or is this not possible?" That way I figure it out for myself, and dont let the person I am asking think I want them to do my work. I notice this is giving a better response.

Second more working and tinkering lets your learn new things, things that might help even more and let you leave A,B, and C in the dust.. While if you quit at best you can cry yourself to sleep.

I have been struggling with content for 10 years.
It has been incredibly difficult for me due to personal reasons.
A long the way I have met some really nice people. I have met some pretty nasty or just unfriendly people. There are people who only want to help to certain extent, then others who are more then willing and do understand, some of those have become my friends.
Somethings I do well but somethings I don't. It nice having people I can trust who help me with things but its not for business we are helping each but for friendship.
I have friends who are very skilled builders who ask me for design ideas,etc.
There great with allignment but I am not. I can do very creative things, like my new cave I made with my alt that looks like a face. I didn't intend that. We help each other.
Yet there are some people its all about something else not friendship. I usually avoid those people.
With my true friends there no strings if they aren't able to do something I don't have to worry about them getting mad they just tell me they are busy without making me feel like I shouldn't bother them.
I have friends who are designers who are very busy, they are there when they have time. I appreciate time when they have it for me.
I don't expect more then that.
I have a friend who started same time as me who is quite successfull clothing maker.
While its been struggle for me and I haven't had same luck.
I pretty much have given up trying to sell anything I make for now.
Yeah I need the money but I decided I didn't want the hassle so I have reduced tier without losing land I own because of a friend's help.
I create content to be creative, yes its nice to be appreciated and rewarded for good job but if I am not and I never do well that is okay too.
Sometimes it bothers me, I feel like I have never done anything extremely well, everything a struggle, there always going to be others who are smarter, more talented then me and yes sometimes it bothers me.
What bothers me most is someone who doesn't even put half of the effort in a creation but is better at marketing themselves or perhaps can afford better advertising or does things I think are unethical.
I rather be unique, creative and do my own thing and never make a single dime then do mediocre similar things every one else is doing but package in such away every sucker gives them money for mediocre product or stress myself out about selling that my product doesn't fit my high standards.
I hate making things for people who don't really appreciate the effort so I just rather make things for myself and those who do personally.

Hmm, a little uneasy with your terminology there.

I'd interpret the 'sucker' as being the content creator who answers all the questions, fully aware that they are nurturing the future competition .... not my attitude I stress .. just my interpretation!

Yes, I'm being pedantic ... but I'm allowed to be .. it's lunchtime!

Hi FD! <wave>
Funny you should use the term 'sucker' in your post too. Looks like we use the same interpretation

Sucker?
Hmm didn't see it but I was editing.
There are people who literally will drain every ounce of whatever from you and then get mad you're not giving up more but I wasn't referring to that.
There are people who are unable to have unique thought when they find one promptly steal it too. LOL
Would those be suckers?
Let me edit.

I suppose its point of view.

I have long time friends who are "competitors" in your sense of the word - but we trade tips and help back and forth all the time - and all our products are enriched for it.

I'm saying help is a two way street. Nobody is good at EVERYthing - everyone has something to bring to the table. If someone is just interested in taking, asking you to actually do it for them (yes I get people like this from time to time - I ignore them!) and not interested in giving - this is a "sucker" (as in they suck you dry like a vacuum cleaner) abusing your sense of altruism and they deserve rightly to be ignored.

The term for what I described as favourable is reciprocal altruism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism

Sharing job and working together is great with friend but having stranger to ask you to make him or her something that you don't know with full permissions for almost nothing is bit annoying.

Some of us "D"s have done ok

Sometimes I give a demonstration of how something works, like a week or so ago I showed a couple of people how I make spiral stairs, but I gently deflect most technical questions (or "hi, cna I hav ur scrips pls" to the forums and stuff.

Hypatia, I repeat .. and stress .. I was merely puting my interpretation of the word 'sucker' and not a contrary opinion of your attitude.
I've always thought the word 'sucker' in the most general term, was giver rather than taker. Ironic I know but the Hustler's favourite slogan is "there's a sucker born every minute"?

FD used the term for a peron spending good money on mediochre goods. Fourth line from bottom FD and please don't edit; it's correct!

Two-way street Hypatia yes .. it's got to be

I know the contrary definition, but when I think of a sucker in the way I'm talking about - I'm thinking of something like suckers on an octopus tentacle.

and that's how it feels - slimy, sucked... blech.

the other kind of sucker -

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/how_do_octopus_suckers_work/

you could interchange "leeching" if you prefer... same thing

Sucker - one definition from dictionary -

Zoology - An organ or other structure adapted for sucking nourishment or for clinging to objects by suction.

This is the meaning to which I refer.

One of my best friends is brillant she is better then any copybot because she can see something and can figure out almost anything how its made in SL
I won't ever be able to do scripts or things like she does but there are other things I can do and thats ok. I am more creative while she is more logical.
She absolutely no interest in become a business woman.
I made her tree, she gave me some tips. I told her something I stumbled upon with scupted option even though the actually using blender or another 3d program right now I find overwhelming.
She gave me demo example of how she thought the tree should be be tapered.
I probably do that tommorow. The creation as is pretty good but she gives me ideals in how to improve the creation.
She can do allignment better then but I was able to make a entire hill side of a face on other side of cave without realizing what I was doing. My lines are uneven, I don't understand the math or often perspective but I am definitely a D and sometimes probably to some people I have been annoying here but over time my skills have improved.
Here is example: /53/19/186027/1.html#post1522406

You don't want to hassle people when asking for help, but going to the other extreme of never talking to anyone is bad too. Thing is, not many people realize the "correct" way to ask for help, or that there's a difference between hassling creators and asking for tips. The key is not to expect information to be spoon fed to you; you're committed to putting in the work to figure stuff out, but you are wanting a nudge in the right direction.

Ultimately, I don't think there's any problem here that needs solving, it just sounds a bit like sour grapes because someone you don't like has become successful. What you have to realize is that life isn't fair, sometimes jerks do win, and that's just how it goes.

I know what the OP means about this sort of thing. I am still learning to build and have sold a few things in my time on SL. I learned by going to ivory tower and doing the courses, and taking courses with NCI and other organised events. I also watched Torley's vidoes. I sometimes ask questions but mostly i just give something "a good coat of 'looking at'" as my grandpa used to say. I belong to some groups of builders.

I reckon i did it the hard way, but also, the best way, because i learned as i went along, and the lessons sank deep.

So when someone comes along and wants me to teach them, i usually give them the LM to Ivory Tower, and direct them to the courses at NCI. I dont pretend to be a teacher. If i was, i would be teaching at NCI. I have a lot of interests in SL, as well as buiding.

I am always ready to give assistance if someone is stuck, i give away textures, scripts, things i have made, and have a Newbie Info Pack in my inventory that i give to every newbie I meet, but I am not here to make it easy for other people. Besides not having the time or skill to teach, i dont think its the best way to learn, to piggyback on others.

I hope that doesnt come across as unfriendly, but thats the way i operate. I am grateful for the help i got along the way, but i never would have 'latched on' to one person to give me all their expertise. Thats what teachers volunteer to do, for the duration of a lesson only.

What I have witnessed is lot of New people come in world and want to start making high quality items right off the bat, or want to open a hit club their first week. While I'm not involved in any business ventures myself, I tell them it takes time, and to head over to NCI and take in some of the information available there.

Johan - I understand it might sound a bit like that, but I don't actually dislike C.

Imogen, the Ivory Tower is a great example, and what I'm wondering is if we can encourage or somehow make it easier for there to be more "ivory towers" for the other information and tricks that are going around in order to encourage them to be made more scalable. Of course building a tower is a lot of work and Lumiere originally had to pay for the land (I believe it's Linden hosted now), but both of those might be things that could be worked on or alleviated somehow.

As an example, people who make shoes very commonly use invisiprims but at the moment there is no standard place for a new shoe maker to pick up a prototype invisiprim when they need one. I know that many people have them and will give them to people who ask, but the problem with doing that is that it's easy to wind up missing someone or a whole group of people and that one person then loses out doubly.

What I mean by that is that early on in my own SL, I was visiting a sim that was very friendly to new people. A new person arrived and someone waiting by the landing zone greeted them, helped them with some setup, and then flew off with them to show them around. Which was fantastic.. except for the 2 other new people who arrived 5 seconds after they had left. It was doubly bad for them because they still had the standard newbie avatars (there was only one newbie avatar at that time) in a sim where all the other residents believed there were helpers who would help people create their own, and therefore if these people hadn't done so, they must have either ignored the helpers or annoyed them somehow. To the sim owners' credit, that same sim actually did notice that this was going on and is - I am told - now arranging to build a help station near the landing zone so that this problem won't arise.

Now you probably think I am a bit weird, railing against people who are just doing what comes naturally in the social process, but if we want to encourage a fast developing, vibrant and involved SL then we need to ensure that as few people as possible get stuck in the random sieve that is "wasn't at the right place at the right time". Obviously I am not suggesting that we ban people from making friends, just that we make it as easy as possible - or try to work out ways to make it as easy as possible - for people who are willing to help all cooperative newcomers (ie, not the leeches) to make that clear and do so in a scalable fashion.

Go to classes, build in a regulated sandbox(so there is no spongebob boxs or singing particle willys) Just hang out I think, Ask reasonable questions, realize that some people are busy and will help you most of the time at that moment they are trying to finish something. Dont take it personally if they say they are busy. Dont be pushy. Just be yourself and I think people will help others.

While I am new here and just learning to build, I have experiance with 3d outside of sl so it is coming natural. I was building in a sandbox when a guy came up and was amazed by my platform floating in the air, wondering why it floats. SO i explained to him it does it naturally then showed him a sphere with phys enabled. Which doubly amazed him , He thought that was cool and tried to make his own, but didnt really get it, but he was trying and learning, he made an interesting display of sculpture while I uploaded a pict I took of the bject editing window with the phys box circled I just made in PSP. Which amazed him further that I could project pictures, so my build forgotten I just showed him things, he learned and 1/2 hour later he had an interesting bunch of textured prims put together. and was amusing himself by droping phys spheres into a bowl he made.

Example 2, I am texturing a complex object a little frustrated at the time, when someone comes up demanding I show them how to make one too like I am running a school or something. I politely told him to go perform something anatomically impossible.

If D is unable to consult A and B nothing prevents D from finding another source for the information. The information does not have to be "verbal" and come directly from A or B but simply has to reside outside their bodies somewhere else. D's motivation to find the information is going to vary based on the potential reward value that D feels they can derive from exploiting the information.

However, let's say the information does not reside somewhere else. The only way to get it is to sharpen a melonballer and scoop it directly from A and B's heads. A and B don't have a monopoly on the information (they both know all or most of it) and they're under no obligation to share the information with anyone beyond C. They're not even obligated to share it with C. The potential reward value of getting C out of the hair of A and B by giving C the information is only important to A and B. Though C walks away with the yummy yummy information (and can confirm from both sets of information what portions of the information are the yummiest) without being able to look inside the heads of A, B, and C we don't know if C walked away with only a portion of the information, not all the information.

At this point a new source of the information has appeared: C. D can now approach C and attempt to gain the information. C has better information in that portions of it come from two sources (A and B) that have exploited the knowledge. However, for whatever reasons, D cannot consult C. (Remember... D was unable to consult A and B and was unable to find the information anywhere else.)

The problem is that C still has to execute exploiting the information and has to have the resources to do so. The information has to be applied or C derives no rewards (though the information itself still has value). Even if D gains the knowledge we can't assume that D can exploit the knowledge and derive the rewards as they may be unable to execute it or may lack the resources to apply the knowledge.

You are tacitly assuming that "information" is the _only_ possible form of help a person can receive.

This isn't the case. Knowing that they are involved in the "network" around that product can also be valuable, especially in SL, where business partnerships and word-of-mouth marketing are important.

Even if D didn't need the information, they may well be put off entering the market by the lack of _integration_ - reasoning it is not worthwhile for them to enter a market where the community has apparantly rejected them (by integrating C and not them).

You are perfectly right that nobody can be _required_ to help other people, but I'm not talking about insisting on that. In this case, and in the general ones I was talking about, A and B are perfectly willing to help (and integrate) many people - including both C and D - but D and possibly others still miss out because of what are basically random factors.

As a relatively old user I've seen this happen a great deal, to myself and to others, and can't help but wonder how many potentially innovative creators we've lost out on because A happened to turn left instead of right while walking around the public sandbox and as a result bumped into C and not D. This doesn't mean that A should be forced to talk to D, of course - the problem is A's choice of "walking around the sandbox" as a strategy is supported by the mechanics of SL which tend to mean that any more scalable strategy costs him a lot more in terms of money or effort. The question is how we can reduce that extra cost. (This of course does not mean that we can ban A from walking around sandboxes if that's his/her choice, just that we can make the other choices more palatable.)

I believe the word 'leech' might be what we're looking for here. 'Parasite' is also acceptable.

Yumi - there is. Spread it around!
http://avatartoolbox.googlepages.com/Invisiprims.html

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I like giving people tools - my freebies are all over the place. When I run into friendly newbies, I've got a package of landmarks I pass out. The Ivory Tower, NCI, Robin Wood's textures tutorial, the Particle Lab, etc...

The leeches (the term I use) are a pain. Asking me "how'd you make that shape?" or what lsl call I'd use to do X is fine, expecting me to debug your script or demanding I build you an Eiffel Tower is not.

I am a type "D" personality. Usually when I want to do something I jump right in myself even if I have no clue what I am doing. I still remember when I started working on my "Elf Age Calculator" for "The Santharian Dream" world developement forum. The problem there was 12+ different tribes of elves with varying life spans who age differently from humans and no reliable way or guide to referance their age. A tool was needed to adiquitly convert human ages to elves, so I dove right into JavaScript and started writing code. At first is was horid and simple as I could make it, but I kept doing and reading, eventually I got to the point where it needed to do more and I was lost so I asked around for help. When it came I finally learned how to use switch/case instead of insane stacks of IF's and ELSE IF's among other things. Some times I needed little pieces of example code to understand what I was being told, but I certainly did not ask for the one helping to do it for me. In the end I took what I learned and applied that to a Measures Converter for the same forum.

Long story short, when I finally get into content creation I will likely start something and then when I reach the limit of my skills and still not satisfied the result ask for help taking what I have and reaching the result I want. For me "Start with the basics" means I get bored and give up, I start with something I have my heart set on reguardless of not knowing what I am doing and learn what I need to accomplish my goal.

As for sculpties, I will likely try to make and actual "Rounded" belt, as the hexagonal ones vex me to no good end. They never seem to fit just right and no wonder as most Avies I have seen are rounded not hexagonal. That being said I will likely scan my RL belt buckle and use that for my first personal belt. I likely will not sell reproductions of my first belt, if it works out I guess I could sell some less personal ones.