New Citizens Inc

NCI freebies are currently available in the vendors at NCI sites.
Much of the shopping and especially searching for stuff happens now at the Marketplace web stores.

I was thinking of pros and cons for NCI Freebies shop at SLM

Cons

• SLM is now free, but "Linden Lab may add new services for additional fees and charges, or prospectively amend fees and charges for existing services." LL had a plan for flat fees for free items but they withdrew it, and as far as I know there's no such plans at the moment.
• Need to have the stuff for sale on two vendor systems. The in-world vendors do not have description texts, so minimum effort to have similar sales items at SLM would be to put the same image as in the NCI freebie system (rescaled to min 512 pixels) and the same text for every item. With the Quick Fill option it would basically need to set the category and image for each item.

Pros

• SLM reaches very large population, several orders of magnitude larger than the vendors at NCI sites
• NCI Freebies store could be a well known brand in SL
• It would be very easy to tell newbies to check NCI Freebies at SLM
• SLM stores have optional links to in-world stores, so we would get wider visibility for NCI and most likely increased traffic.
  Possibly we could promote the NCI sites for getting live help in the description text, too. Non-Item listings advertising events or places are disallowed, but I don't see that mentioning NCI help activity in the description would fall in that category.

My 0.05 L$ worth thoughts
ℒindα ℬ

One question I have offhand is whether or not our permission to distribute residents freebies would extend to the marketplace or if we would have to have them approved by each creator.

Krystal Devonshire wrote:One question I have offhand is whether or not our permission to distribute residents freebies would extend to the marketplace or if we would have to have them approved by each creator.

The suggested form for the permission notecard says like this:

================================================

Suggested Notecard in which permissions are given to distribute the object:

================================================

From: xxxxxxx (your name)

Date mm-dd-yyyy (today's date)

i give NCI permission to use the items listed below as a freebie.

- xxxxxx (item name)

I am authorized to distribute these items as Freebies because

- I made the items

- Other (please state the reason)


It uses the term 'freebie' but does not specify what vendor system is used to deliver the freebies.
I'm not a lawyer but I read that giving permission to deliver them at SLM as NCI Freebies also.

I think this is an interesting and somewhat complex idea.

If we have a volunteer to take this on, including the necessary admin work, I would say go for it. There are two concerns which I will discuss further below: Permission, and Purpose. Then I'll discuss how it might be done.

The necessary admin work includes:

• Sign an NCI Alt up for Marketplace and install the Magic Box;
• Select one or more freebies to be placed on Marketplace;
• Determine whether they can be placed on Marketplace; (see below)
• Create the Marketplace pages for each freebie;
• Load the Magic Box

This is a lot of work, but it could be done as incrementally as a volunteer wanted, so it need not be a huge investment of time on a weekly basis.

Permission: Can Freebies be Placed on Marketplace?

As Linda points out, the form does not say we will or will not put them on Marketplace. I expect that most providers will be happy to have their work distributed in any form, so long as their name and landmarks and such are preserved. If we have a mailing list of everyone, I'd suggest that the volunteer drop a notecard on them saying we plan to do this and asking that they get back to us if they do not want their contribution distributed in that way. Then we go ahead and if anyone complains after the fact we apologize and remove their freebie if that's what they want. I expect no hassle on that.

Purpose: Does This Idea Advance NCI's Purpose?

As Linda pointed out to me personally, if our purpose is to help new citizens, this idea does that. We could include whatever NCI info we wanted in the offerings and use them to bring people to our locations and whatever we wanted.

It is possible that we would like to say "No, they have to come to our location to be helped," but that seems off to me: probably we want to help in any way we reasonably can.

How Should We Do It?

So at this point, I am in favor of the idea. How might we proceed? Here's my suggestion:

• We post somewhere publicly, probably in this forum and perhaps via some signs, that there are ways people can volunteer to help NCI. We list this as one of the ways, and we ask for volunteers.
• When someone volunteers for a task, we decide quickly if they are suitable, and if so, we go ahead. To me, wanting to help is a big part of "suitable".
• We authorize them to do the project.
• We pick someone to guide them. Initially this would be someone from the SSL group. Later on, we might actually build up a group of experienced guides.
• We quickly determine any special guidelines for the project. These should be broad, not overly detailed.
• We might make a list of objectives to be met, perhaps with priorities.
• We set the person up with any special capabilities they might need, such as building or access to an alt.
• We set them free to do the work, keeping their guide informed and following the guide's occasional and limited advice.

The basic idea is: If someone wants to help, let them help. Give them a little guidance and let their creativity and energy be applied as freely as possible.

So, for me, this idea is a perfect example: If someone wants to volunteer to do it, I think we can quickly generate some guidance and let them go ahead.

Marketplace will have a direct delivery from merchant's inventory in about 2 months, so no fuss with Magic Box will be needed, and listing the items will be less work than now. Not that dropping the items in the Magic Box is much work

Brooke Linden: i just tweeted from @slmerchants: Marketplace Merchants: Apply to participate in the Direct Delivery Beta program. http://bit.ly/fEOexm

I tested the bulk edit on SLM and it takes way less than a minute per item to create and list them, so 100 most wanted NCI freebies would be quickly done. The textures need to be rescaled but it can be done by script easily.

We need to send a notice to the donors to let them know before we'd list the stuff, and let them tell if they dont want their donation on SLM; it needs list of names and we can send the NC by script.

The main task would be to choose the items, to drop them in the magic box, and to download the textures, and it needs someone from the freebie team with access to the material - the amount of work in that part is hard for me to estimate, but the rest would be some hours for 100 or so items, and i could well do it, if we decide it's good idea to pursue.

I like this idea and can help with drafting the notecard to the donors, and some text to be added to the Marketplace site. Can a purchase include multiple items, such as some NCI LMs and a notecard?

Linda, I'm wondering what form you'll need the materials in in order to put them up?

To the donors, I would say something to the effect that we are extending our freebies availability to the Marketplace, to help more people, to bring more people to our sites, and to those who have created our freebies. I would go on to say that if they have any objections to our putting their freebie up on Marketplace, just let us know and we'll remove it immediately. Thank you very much for supporting New Citizens Inc, etc.

Krystal? It seems getting the donor names might be difficult? And we should look to see how that can be combined with getting the items to Linda to ready for Marketplace.

Anyway, it seems this is good for us, for the new citizens, and for donors who still have stores in SL.

Can we go ahead with this? Thanks,

Janet Rossini wrote:Can a purchase include multiple items, such as some NCI LMs and a notecard?

Each item in the magic box can be listed on SLM and it delivers that item, as with the NCI freebie vendor, so no simple way to include extra LMs or NC's, other than dropping them in each item box.

Would the merchant be NCI Alter or a new account?
The store name can be set up independently as NCI Freebies.

The SLM store is associated to an SL account and there's no sharing or multiple owner stores (afaik), so that account must be the owner of the magic box.

Linda, I'm wondering what form you'll need the materials in in order to put them up?

The list of needed stuff is

• Freebie boxes in a folder or in a magic box
• The item textures in a box or in a folder, so i can download and rescale them. The image is optional but with NCI freebies the box texture is the main information
• A notecard listing the items, textures, creators and possibly hint of the category

Maybe the NCI vendor system can dump the list of item names and categories, preferably in popularity order to help selecting the items. Grandma would know.

Optimal NC would have this data for each item

• item_name
• item_texture_name
• creator_name OR creator_key
• category

Krystal? It seems getting the donor names might be difficult? And we should look to see how that can be combined with getting the items to Linda to ready for Marketplace.

Easy and automatic but not proof way is to scan the names from the freebie box creators, with llGetInventoryCreator.
I checked a few and some old big boxes are made by Carl and contain stuff from dozens of creators, and several are made by NCI Alter, so no idea how well this would work.

I've been thinking about it and have now come to the conclusion that I'm going to against this. While the freebie collection is a great way of distributing items, it's also our "magnet". (>_<)

So far, when I've built infonodes, the key visible item I place is the "Free Stuff" freebie wall in the most visible in-theme location possible. (-_-)

If we start turning people to the marketplace, we'll be distracting them from meeting us inworld so that we can provide the most direct help possible. (._.)

Give someone a fish and they'll eat for a day. Teach someone to fish and they'll eat for a lifetime. (^_^)

Though, if we are to use the marketplace. I'd strongly suggest arranging a means of encouraging/directing people to come to Kuula or Hamnida for help. (^_^)

I see two angles on this:

1. Helping people any way that we can is of value; freebies help people; therefore put freebies out everywhere.

2. However, the best way to help people is in person, face to face. Therefore, we should put freebies in the marketplace only if they will drive people to our locations, or at least not reduce traffic.

I'm not sure how to balance these. Random ideas:

• Make sure each blurb says good stuff about NCI: "Visit us, you also get ..."
• Place only a sample of freebies up: "For even more wonderful stuff, visit us ..."
• Don't do it at all.

Not doing it at all is easy but is guaranteed to add no value. I'd rather see us find a way to build on this idea of Linda's and make sure that it adds value.