Should There Be Disincentives for Free Accounts?

[Tari Landar]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom Janus said:

Such as ???

Non-premium residents outnumber premium residents by...quite a lot. If one were only to look at numbers, and nothing else, it would stand to reason that non-premium members spend more, as a whole, than premium members do.

You don't have to be premium to buy lindens-ie, spend money.  Countless non-premium members are creators too, they not only spend money, but they also create content. Without that content, a lot of sl would be pretty damn empty(ok, for the pessimists, I don't mean just parcels being used, I mean, content-wise). 

 

[Phil Deakins]

On 16/12/2017 at 2:14 AM, NevaehHeartstrings said:

Really it was not a insult at all..See Prok has helped Second Life more then most people here ever has including myself.. but the majority of it was done in the early years of mainland so that credit faded with old lindens leaving, the mainland losing priority by the lab..everything she says becomes unsung with most not really have been residents at the time to know...She really did a lot of help back then in regards to new residents.. when most land barons were only in it for the get rich/get out business and still are.. most do not like her for being overly vocal..its not that she talks too much.. most  people hate to hear the truth.        

[...]

I must admit my comments might have been a little tough but she is a tough lady .. most times she is right on in most issues.. outside how she deals with griefers .

I am genuinely curious - how has Prok helped SL? I'm not suggesting that she didn't. She may have done. I'm not aware of it though, and I'm curious as to what she did to help.

If she always wrote the truth, it would be fine but, alas, she doesn't always do that. Worse, though, is when she's shown to be wrong or mistaken, she never admits it. She just disappears instead.

She may be right on many issues but, unfortuanely, she has a tendancy to make loud noises when she's wrong as well.

[NevaehHeartstrings]

12 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I am genuinely curious - how has Prok helped SL? I'm not suggesting that she didn't. She may have done. I'm not aware of it though, and I'm curious as to what she did to help.

If she always wrote the truth, it would be fine but, alas, she doesn't always do that. Worse, though, is when she's shown to be wrong or mistaken, she never admits it. She just disappears instead.

She may be right on many issues but, unfortunately, she has a tendency to make loud noises when she's wrong as well.

 

Maybe she does tell the truth but you cannot remember?..perhaps its just not you but many are suffering from the Mandela Effect ..but are completely unaware.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2017 by NevaehHeartstrings

[Qie Niangao]

Not sure I made it through every post, so I'll just throw this out there:

It took me years to realize that the main point of Premium accounts is that it is the main way the Lab monetizes the L$. Most of the Premium fee is reimbursed in the form of stipend, which I used to consider just a "spacebux" incentive to get people to pay for a service subscription. Now I realize that the "subscription" is really a recurring charge for those weekly stipends, with all the other Premium "perks" -- including Mainland ownership -- just enticement for folks to keep paying in advance for a steady supply of fresh L$s.

Thing is, printing too many stipend L$s would debase the game currency, where "too many" would be exceeding the L$ amounts consumed in sinks such as Marketplace commissions, upload charges, etc.

I guess, then, if there were many more Premium members, they could flood the market with their stipend L$s, and then the Lab would need to expand the sinks somehow. (One potential sink could be L$ tier payment, an idea that was kicked-around way back in the days of Jack Linden office hours. Back then I understood it to be nothing more than a nice convenience for customers, but I now realize that in fact it would fundamentally change the currency market.)

[Phil Deakins]

15 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

Maybe she does tell the truth but you cannot remember?..perhaps its just not you but many are suffering from the Mandela Effect ..but are completely unaware.

That doesn't exactly answer my question, does it? I'll ask you again...

I am genuinely curious - how has Prok helped SL? I'm not suggesting that she didn't. She may have done. I'm not aware of it though, and I'm curious as to what she did to help.

You made a bold statement as though it were fact. Would you like to answer the question this time?

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/20/2017 at 7:23 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I hangout in a furry community,  we get the trolls, we get the griefers,  but MOST of us that have been at the place for years just know, ignoring them, they move on, so they might spout their bs, but if nobody responds, they tend to go away.  so IGNORE them prok, ffs you've been in sl maybe a few years longer then I have.    but you are still falling for it?  come on proky you are smarter then them and smarter then their bs.

I realize many people want to bluster and swagger that they are better than me because they "just know" that you "can't feed the trolls" and you should "ignore griefers" blah blah. Most people have no idea what they're talking about because they haven't experienced what I have, nor do they realize that their convictions about what methods to use actually don't work.

So bigmoe, call me when you have had a succession of 50 alts invade all your groups -- and many other people's groups -- or made conference calls out of your friends or customers or random people -- and spouted racist, bigoted nonsense pretending to be you.

Call me after you've had hundreds of people spew hate at you and even spam because they think you're behind this alt.

Ignore that -- go ahead, I do. Abuse report it till the cows come home. Do that for months on end. Then tell me about it.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't think you realize what is involved in concerted griefing, including with a state behind it.

[Tari Landar]

But you're going to get even less people willing to help you with your problem...bravo, your methods worked.

I sure as hell won't be AR-ing them anymore, or the countless folks that spam pretending to be you.

That's what happens when you continue to treat everyone around you like they're dog poo under your shoe. If you didn't, you'd probably have a LOT more help(like many others do when it happens to them). While I don't think you deserve all the griefing you get(I really don't). I do think you have a massive hand in why no one is willing to actually aid you in dealing with it anymore.  I'm just one lil peon, but I'm probably one of the very few still willing to AR on your behalf, lol....well...was...

 

[NevaehHeartstrings]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

That doesn't exactly answer my question, does it? I'll ask you again...

I am genuinely curious - how has Prok helped SL? I'm not suggesting that she didn't. She may have done. I'm not aware of it though, and I'm curious as to what she did to help.

You made a bold statement as though it were fact. Would you like to answer the question this time?

 

I am entitled to my thoughts of what I know and I'm under no obligation to educate you in any facts regarding them...If you weren't their then you should have woke up sooner or slept faster

 

 

Edited December 22, 2017 by NevaehHeartstrings

[Paul Hexem]

... Now I kind of want to make a few throwaway accounts just so I can troll Prokofy's groups a bit.

[Phil Deakins]

3 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

I am entitled to my thoughts of what I know and I'm under no obligation to educate you in any facts regarding them...If you weren't their then you should have woke up sooner or slept faster

You are perfectly entitled to your thoughts etc., and you not obliged to educate me or anyone else, but you are quite new to SL, so it's highly unlikely that you would know things from way back that I don't know. In any case, you brought it up, not me. Since you brought it up, surely you want people to know. If not, why did you even say it? It's ok though. You seem to want to distance yourself from what you wrote. I don't mind.

To the best of my knowledge, Prokofy has never helped Second Life in any way different to thousands of people.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Alwin Alcott]

57 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

You are perfectly entitled to your thoughts etc., and you not obliged to educate me or anyone else, but you are quite new to

don't spend to much energy Phil... this person also is convinced about this....:

Quote

Basically by not support Sansar then your not supporting Second Life!

think it's Prok's nephew/niece... or in any other way related somehow....

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I realize many people want to bluster and swagger that they are better than me because they "just know" that you "can't feed the trolls" and you should "ignore griefers" blah blah. Most people have no idea what they're talking about because they haven't experienced what I have, nor do they realize that their convictions about what methods to use actually don't work.

So bigmoe, call me when you have had a succession of 50 alts invade all your groups -- and many other people's groups -- or made conference calls out of your friends or customers or random people -- and spouted racist, bigoted nonsense pretending to be you.

Call me after you've had hundreds of people spew hate at you and even spam because they think you're behind this alt.

Ignore that -- go ahead, I do. Abuse report it till the cows come home. Do that for months on end. Then tell me about it.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't think you realize what is involved in concerted griefing, including with a state behind it.

There can be no doubt that this is horrible and wrong and it should not happen.  I know you will call me a 'concern troll' again, which is fine, sticks and stones etc.  But why, if you know, and you surely do know, the responses you will get here, why do you regularly bring this problem here?  It's not as if there's ever going to be any different advice, and I don't think it's advice you want.  So do you want sympathy for those times when you suffer more from griefers?  People have expressed sympathy; I did myself, until I asked why you remained in sl and you called me a troll and attacked me!  Yet I do still sympathise, because it IS awful, (and must be nearly as bad for your tenants) and it doesn't seem that you get any fun from sl, hence my question.  (Which, incidentally you've never answered, and I am genuinely curious, but of course, you don't have to answer).

Perhaps you are addressing your posts here to the Lindens in charge of dealing with griefers?  In which case I think there are other better channels, but it's your choice, and they do pop in from time to time.

This part of your post ' including with a state behind it.' - what's that about?

[Phil Deakins]

I won't Alwin - spend too much energy, that is.

And we are supporting Sansar, of course. A great deal of the users' money that flows into SL is used to finance Sansar. Without SL users' support, Sansar wouldn't even have got started.

Dunno about Nevaeh being connected to Prokofy though. She's (Nevaeh turned out to be a she in her SL profile) written some very negative stuff to Prok, and vice versa. Could be just a cover though lol.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

10 minutes ago, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

This part of your post ' including with a state behind it.' - what's that about?

If you hadn't asked that, I would have. I hadn't seen it until you quoted it, because Prok tends to write long posts, most of which I skip.

It certainly sounds like she thinks there's a U.S. state's authorities behind her being griefed so much - similar to Russian national authorities being behind the systematic performance-enhancing drug abuse of their sports people. To be honest, if that's what she thinks, it would surprise me, but not massively.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Klytyna]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

To the best of my knowledge, Prokofy has never helped Second Life in any way different to thousands of people

I disagree... She's helped thousands realise the Madlands are a cesspit filled with self important, self entitled asshats, who are best avoided by moving to the Islands in search of a better SLife...  
 

[Alwin Alcott]

15 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

A great deal of the users' money that flows into SL is used to finance Sansar. Without SL users' support, Sansar wouldn't even have got started.

totally true, but she meant ( also in a later post, Sansar and BLockworld are the financial fundament FOR SL)

[Klytyna]

1 minute ago, Alwin Alcott said:

totally true, but she meant ( also in a later post, Sansar and BLockworld are the financial fundament FOR SL)

Ahhhhhh! So that's the purpose of Project Stupid... See Project Stupid twice, vomit in disgust, and immediately migrate to SL..

Sneaky...  
 

[Phil Deakins]

OH! That's different. When she joined SL not long ago, Sansar was already in the works, so she may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

And speaking of getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, I'm going to risk writing too much information - but I find such stuff to be interesting. The expression 'getting hold of the wrong end of the stick' refers to how people, such as the Romans, used to wipe themselves after a dump. They used a stick with moss or similar on one end, and the stick wasn't personal to each individual. Naturally, getting hold of the wrong end of the stick when it was your turn wasn't desirable. They did dispose of the moss when they'd used it though.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Klytyna]

31 minutes ago, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

This part of your post ' including with a state behind it.' - what's that about?

 Well... OBVIOUSLY...

The whole Global Commie Techno-Conspiracy to Destroy Prok and Western Capitalist Civilisation, is all organised by the "gawd danged gubment" of one of those Demopublican Commie Loving Liberal Voting Obama Worshiping States that are a Stain on the Honour of Murica!

OBVIOUSLY...
 

[Aethelwine]

Perhaps limiting the number of non-premium accounts that can be made in a 24 hour period would be a proportionate restriction and would help in some cases deal with  those occasions where a grief is persistently creating accounts. They could also look at numbers of accounts held, to investigate cases where people have tens or even hundreds of accounts

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I realize many people want to bluster and swagger that they are better than me because they "just know" that you "can't feed the trolls" and you should "ignore griefers" blah blah. Most people have no idea what they're talking about because they haven't experienced what I have, nor do they realize that their convictions about what methods to use actually don't work.

So bigmoe, call me when you have had a succession of 50 alts invade all your groups -- and many other people's groups -- or made conference calls out of your friends or customers or random people -- and spouted racist, bigoted nonsense pretending to be you.

Call me after you've had hundreds of people spew hate at you and even spam because they think you're behind this alt.

Ignore that -- go ahead, I do. Abuse report it till the cows come home. Do that for months on end. Then tell me about it.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't think you realize what is involved in concerted griefing, including with a state behind it.

Perhaps there's a reason for that.

There's a reason that pilots need special "instrument" training to fly through heavy clouds when they can't see the ground. Our senses aren't designed for us to fly - they can't tell us how we're moving, only when we change how we're moving.

If you're flying, it's very easy to have one wing drop, making you bank. Our inner ears can't tell us when this is happening. If we can see the horizon you can quickly - even by reflex - adjust things so that you're flying level again. However, when you're in a cloud and one of your wings drops, a chain of events starts happening.

1) You start to turn.

1) You lose some of your lift, so your nose starts to drop and you start a shallow dive.

2) The dive increases your speed.

2) The increase in speed tightens your turn, meaning you bank more, dive more steeply and go faster, all without your moving the controls of your airplane.

This will keep feeding itself until you enter what's known as a "graveyard spiral" and drill yourself into the ground. However, all through this your inner ear still tells you that you're flying straight and level, because the changes in forces all balance each other. Without some sort of outside reference like a natural or artificial horizon you won't even realize this is happening until it's too late.

This is all so counter-intuitive that some pilots don't believe it and they fly through clouds without training.

Not for long, though.

 

Few others have gone through what you've been through.

Few others have been banned from as many official channels as you, too.

Things feed themselves without your even realizing it.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Fine prok, what ever.   good luck to you and your fight.

[KanryDrago]

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I realize many people want to bluster and swagger that they are better than me because they "just know" that you "can't feed the trolls" and you should "ignore griefers" blah blah. Most people have no idea what they're talking about because they haven't experienced what I have, nor do they realize that their convictions about what methods to use actually don't work.

So bigmoe, call me when you have had a succession of 50 alts invade all your groups -- and many other people's groups -- or made conference calls out of your friends or customers or random people -- and spouted racist, bigoted nonsense pretending to be you.

Call me after you've had hundreds of people spew hate at you and even spam because they think you're behind this alt.

Ignore that -- go ahead, I do. Abuse report it till the cows come home. Do that for months on end. Then tell me about it.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't think you realize what is involved in concerted griefing, including with a state behind it.

The reason people grief and spew hate at you so much compared to everyone else is because of how you interact  with people. You bring it on yourself. Is griefing wrong yes it is. Should people do it no they shouldnt. However if you interacted with people better you wouldn't start those of the troll and griefer persuasion on your trail. You often come across frankly as both a troll and griefer yourself

[Drake1 Nightfire]

On 12/9/2017 at 4:36 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

This is a question that for years I've said "no" to.

There is a decided contingent in SL that hates free accounts because they are used for griefing, copybotting, spying and cheating on spouses or SL partners more than they are used for anything else.

But in my experience, the one reason I keep endorsing them is that they also enable people from poor European, Latin American and Asian countries to come on to SL, pursue a design or service idea and make money, and that's all a good thing.

Over the years, I've seen tenants from say, Poland or Italy or China or Russia or Brazil able to come in, start a business, and make money that they use at least to pay rent. Now, then the question comes as to how they will cash this out if they don't have a form of payment on file, but eventually some of them achieve this.

It can be very, very hard for countries like Russia or some Latin American countries to get a card that is recognized by the rest of the world or that isn't confiscated the minute some foreign transaction comes in on it. This has gotten better over the years as PayPal, for example, works from Russia -- when it works, which isn't always -- and certain other things work as well. But it can be hard. It would be good to survey this landscape and pronounce on it.

But the ability to use day-old accounts for griefing that the Lindens are slow in removing, and which can be replaced instantly when they do -- because of their unwillingness to block proxies which I really wish they'd get over -- means these free accounts are always going to be a nuisance.

I've thought about what could be done in terms of disincentives, as the incentives for going premium and providing forms of payment, which generally deters griefing, aren't enough.

1. Make it so that people can't put items to sale on free accounts. Plus -- immediate end to copybotting exploitation since trying to force people one-by-one through DMCA takedowns doesn't work. But then this offsets the good I've described of poor people being able to use SL to become entrepreneurs. In my view, this still outweighs griefing.

Ah yes, punish those that follow the rules because you think this will stop griefers. 

2. Make it so that people with free accounts cannot buy more than X amount of cash -- because "form of payment on file" can be an anonymous pre-paid credit card. Or can't cash out unless they provide a dedicated form of ID and payment.

As has been stated, pre-paid card will only work with your full info attached to it. Again though, you want to punish those that follow the rule because of a small few. 

3. In that vein, don't allow pre-paid debit cards to be used -- many sites simply reject them. I don't know if this is enough of a deterrent. Plenty of free accounts make money from hooking or money trees and spend it on clothes and never come out of the system.

And plenty of "free" (the word you are looking for is Non-Premium, btw. I am non-premium and pay LL plenty..) accounts buy L$ from the Lindex and never cash out either. 

4. Don't allow free accounts to access adult land. Now there's a thought! What that will mean is merely more abuses on mature though that won't be policed, making "mature" meaningless.

How would this stop griefers? They would just go to G or M lands... 

I can't really think of something that would be a good disincentive that wouldn't have a down side (in keeping with my original values outlined above).

Your whole idea is simply to punish the majority of non-premium users because you think it will keep griefers from griefing YOU. Perhaps if you weren't so abrasive, you wouldn't attract them like bees to honey.. 

[NevaehHeartstrings]

11 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

don't spend to much energy Phil... this person also is convinced about this....:

think it's Prok's nephew/niece... or in any other way related somehow....