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I LOVE YOU GUYS - I love this idea.

I've been thinking that certain goods, such as pixel art which is sold in multiple quantities of the same image (like pets) could be handled by Gaia, too. Through a marketplace type system, Gaia could host images, add them to the market, and distribute code which displays the image.

Gaia could make image theft harder by using new code which "hides" the image underneath another object. If Gaia charged a few for hosting, anti-theft, and quantity limitation features, could this idea flesh out?


IMO, there's tons of problems. I don't think you consider it a problem only when it becomes an inconvenience, but the user content market isn't as convenient and feature-filled if it could be.

I always imagined a day when Gaia provided user-content services for small fees. Art hosting, art sharing and selling through the marketplace, businesses which can bundle employees together and distribute gold to the workers, contracts, and even portals where Gaia's World can not only be defined on the forum side by the users, but also on the artistic end by the users in many cases.

Ideally, the public bulletin board of requests could work like the Marketplace, where you browse content you wish to buy.... but without being strictly tied to specific types of content.

To your question, unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, we can't fully legitimize users selling content to other users. We can't stop image theft, we can't stop buyers and sellers from backing out. It is unfortunate. This really is the only reason for the paypal verification and feedback approach.

Heh. I see. Make it not worth the trouble, aye?

Well, maybe suggesting automated sales of common content is asking a little too much right now. I'm sure at one point or another, market patterns will begin to show up, and you'll be able to automate more of the process.


Now how far along is this idea of yours? Still an uphill battle to get it approved, or can I expect this to begin development eventually? I'm really interested in how Gaia can make revenue off of this, actually, because whether users like it or not, that usually means really cool stuff happening.

I think Gaia has an advantage places like Photobucket really don't. You have a user base which shares information with each other, whether it's supported by Gaia or not. And God Damnit, I'm editing my posts too much.

I don't get how this is going to make Gaia more fun. At the moment, I can only see a few uses for it:

--Artists can make a contract with customers, and "hold" gold until the art is completed, which will prevent scams on both sides.
--Users might make sale pacts, such as "will purchase 10 Thank You Letters on the 25th of the month for 12k each."

At the moment, that's really all I can think of. neutral Hopefully I will read more ideas in other comments! smile

One thing that I do NOT like is the thought of connecting it to a PayPal account. I do not have a PayPal account. I do not not want a PayPal account. But, I would like to have someone who will sell me sealed envelopes for a set price every month for a year. I don't see why real money needs to be involved in an interaction like that.

I see what you mean now. Perhaps something like tags could allow users to establish their own patterns?

I edited my post to point out that this doesn't yet have legs. I'm just brainstorming on a Sunday.

RP Guilds - for example a hangout bar, might also want to role play the job itself. Maybe the actual gold amount is very low - its just to enhance the simulation.

Banks - Banks giving loans to users, investing their gold, competing against other banks.

Trust funds hehe.

I'm not exactly sure what it will be used for, maybe you are right. It is an attempt to formalize the transfer of funds. In the absence of contracts in the real world, how prosperous would we be?

Sucks about paypal, I know. I'm not sure how else to solve the problem of abuse. Oh- but you can still use the system, its just that users will not trust you as easily because of the warnings about puppies.

i don't like the part of having to have a paypal account to be verified. many perfectly honest and trustworthy people don't have accounts for one reason or another and this is yet another way that those who are able to pay would be given an advantage (this alone wouldn't be bad, but on top of cash shop and DI's? that's a bit much). i'm not sure of a better way to protect against people scamming, but another would be preferable.
also, as captain of a guild, i don't want to be forced into having a paypal account if i want my guild to be able to be a party in a contract.

i like the idea of having contracts and jobs, just not the bias towards those with paypal accounts who are able to pay.

It's an interesting concept, to be honest though, I'm somewhat conflicted.

I can see this being a really good opportunity for Gaia itself to allow for offsite workers to be able to work for Gaia; artist, programmers, "bug fixers", it would help the take the strain from the staff itself and give users the opportunity to become more involved, especially the ones who are rather well known at helping with such issues. This would work, even if it were a 'one-time-deal'. I'm not entirely sure how one could go about differenciating between which system would work for certain "jobs", for example, the item contests would still be "gold" rewarded, but trying to decide if a user were commissioned to make said concept to a reality would it be gold or money paid? It's hard to decide, not to mention any legal issues that would come into play, but I'm sure that would be covered by a NDA.

On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about having money used in trade on Gaia between users. It would be nice to have a way to commission users for things with some form of contract involved, it would prevent a lot of scams and such. I just dont really understand the point when, if PayPal will be the primary trade holder, why not keep it within PayPal itself? Why bring Gaia into play when it can be handled just as easy without it? Personally, I don't understand it, it seems like a rather big risk to get involved with something like that, especially when there have been issues of fraud etc in the past with PayPal and some users, hence the e-cheques being disapproved on Gaia.

I can see the good and bad points to it so im rather conflicted and not really sure how I should feel about this. If one were to commission something from a user and want to pay real money, I don't understand why the money cant be exchanged for GaiaCash and used that way, if the users wanted to keep Gaia involved.

I can also see how it would be good for some users who are in need of money, and have skills that can provide them with it. Gaia being a somewhat level "playing field" and a known place where a trade of such can take place, which inturn would make both parties feel safer about information and funds transfer. I'm just not entirely sure it would be beneficial to the userbase to do so. I could understand if GaiaCash were transferrable, but as I say, and I feel as if I'm repeating myself, I'm not sure about money.

I apologise, this probably wasnt much help in regards to answering your question since it seems to raise more queries and general concerns than actually providing answers. It would be interesting to see how it would work, but getting it to work might be an issue.

[DarkDreams]: raising good questions now is exactly what I'm looking for. You have some good points, thank you.

I didn't mean to imply that users were going to be using real money and exchanging real goods, although that obviously becomes possible. There are other examples of community web sites supplementing a market - see etsy.

There are definite legal issues that come into play.

Wow, I really misread that if real money for goods wasnt your intention. I just went back and re-read it, I got confused in my wording when I was typing, my apologies. Having reread it and thought about it a little more, I can see it being successful, but the issues mentioned in my previous comment would still apply.

I really do love the contract idea when it comes to goods for services etc, it would make the users more accountable for their actions and would drasticly lower any issues that came from users "scamming" etc others out an agreement. It would also be a good way for users to run art auctions, so items/gold bid could stay 'pending' whilst art is being completed.

I do also think Gaia should consider offsite employees, and having payment deposited into PayPal accounts, but thats another concept.

The more i think about your suggestion, the more I like it, granted there will be some problems, but no system is perfect.

I don't see what the problem with being able to verify your account with a Paypal account. I mean, the only thing you're gaining is the trust of others, and the only thing you would lose without one is well... nothing. o.o

But I seriously thing this feature would be abused. Especially if the contracts aren't moderated, as stated.
"PAYING 100k per epic item in WoW"
"WTB Runescape accounts"
"nekkid pics 5k ea"

You get the idea. There has to be some way to ensure the ToS isn't broken through these contracts.

Besides that, I unfortunately can think of very few legitimate jobs.

I think there should be a punishment for canceling a contract once both parties have signed it. Because if someone signs a contract to receive art, and then the artist backs out, it's annoying to have to go through the process again. A punishment, such as a gold fee, would hopefully keep people away from doing that.

Other than that, I think Gaia Jobs is a really good idea. It's got a concept that people already use (pay you to bump my thread, I'll buy your art, etc), but with Gaia Jobs it would be track-able for moderators. It would make scams less likely, as well.

I really hate the idea of making people pay the 1$ and connecting it to their personal informatoin/ paypal account. It's completely unfair to people without paypal, or people who can't spend money on Gaia.

Overall I think it sounds like an interesting idea. I think it would be great for the artist community on Gaia. I don't know if I'd personally use it, honestly.

The PayPal part of it sounds like a decent idea of verifying who somebody is, and keeping things legit... but it would definitely need to be explained very well in plain language if it were used. At first, I thought you meant that either: you would pay a IRL money fee every time you used the Job System, you would be paying IRL money for services... or some other charge.

And I still think some kind of moderation would need to be set in place, because of aforementioned reasons... selling stuff against TOS (porn, other gaming accounts/currency/items, botted items/gold, etc.). Despite being tied to Paypal, I still think people would be sometimes stupid and try to pull stunts, or if they were hacked somebody might try to do something against TOS.

Also, something to strongly consider: what if a user had their Paypal account hooked up to this system and their Gaia account was hacked? Would there be safeguards to protect their IRL personal information and credit card information? (I've already heard a few nightmare stories of people being hacked and having stuff like their cell phone alerts and their personal information being abused with the existing systems on the site.)

I think that potentially people could be upset about the use of Paypal because I know many people don't or can't use it.

confused Umm, that was confusing as ********.

But it sounds like you're suggesting a way for users to trade REAL money between each other? Among other things.

If so, that is just... bad, pointless, bad, and bad.
Summary of why:
We already have a trading system
Abuse
Will severely skew the economy possibly?

I am pretty sure when Gaia users asked for a Job system they meant like.. Doctors, Sports star, Family, Digger, tree cutter, bar tender... that kind of stuff.

So how is this even a job system? It sounds more like a trading system.

1)If someone isn't already using paypal for Gaia it's probably because they don't have paypal/a credit card/money. So no, not really.
2)Gaia said it would NEVER have anything that was pay to play. What the hell is this about?
Let me give you a little insight. Increasing money geared features for this site does NOT mean that the users will just keep paying out.
You are forgetting the majority of your community probably just borrows 5 dollars from mommy and daddy if they need sealeds.
Look, I used to donate all the time. But now I don't donate at all. Why? Because you release too many cash items that it becomes pointless for me to buy, because even if I sent in the cash, I would still have to pay out a ton in Gaia gold to get EVERYTHING I want, because YOU have exhausted my cash funds. In fact I can't keep up the items with GOLD anymore, and this is coming from a person who usually keeps 1m pure on myself all the time.


So if we choose to not give over real money to gaia we get marked as potential scammers? Oh that's nice. rolleyes


Other people can spend OUR money? WHAT?

Unless this job system releases old donation items instead of gold, it will only make inflation and this bridge WORSE.
Because FYI, you can pump all the gold into the system you want, but that doesn't mean the economy is going to magically s**t halos. And in the end, items are what determine wealth, not gold. :)

THAT BEING SAID
I DO like the idea of a contract system. I think it would cut back scamming, and make art/service trades more efficient.
However, if you are going to do a contract that involves payment plans, you should consider that people do not earn gold consistently, so that probably would not work unless users could have negative amounts of gold.

Edit: If you do involve paypal account connections this would probably increase the amount of users selling items for real cash.

I love this idea, it gives users a sense of something to do or achieve on the site. Making Gaia not only just a forum/games/social website...but lean more towards a MMO-like site.

But the problem like you said is Moderation, there will always be people that abuse the system. Even though, this shouldnt mean that something this interesting and new for the site should be completely ignored. Using PayPal and a feedback system is a very good way of ensuring a less chance of people abusing the system.

Really hope this goes through, or at least something similar cause it'll probably the most interesting after the Battle System.

I had an idea a while back about a marketplace like feature for services, such as art.
This seems interesting though. There is a high potential for abuse. The payment system linking is interesting though, but it does require users to actually have a paypal account for it to work. Though, in the case of a household with two Gaia users who share a paypal account, (either their parents paypal, or because they simply share finances) then if one user begins to scam, the other user is negatively effected. At the very least, a warning should be posted, like "Make sure you are the only one who links accounts to this payment information!".

Very clever idea though. It would be interesting to link it to the trade system, having the trade only follow through when the contract is fulfilled. There also has to be an escape clause, where if both parties agree the contract can not be fulfilled, then they can cancel the contract. Feedback will be negatively affected of course.
The continuous payment scheme also has the strange side effect of leaving a user in debt, so to speak. Which poses a question, should payment be forced (as in, all gold earned goes to paying off the debt until the debt is cleared) or should payment be optional, with a penalty. (I.E. Feedback will drop continuously until debt is payed, or contract is mutually canceled. Or, a less harmful penalty of preventing the user from making other contracts until debt is payed.)

The possibilities... very interesting idea though, I applaud it.

I'm gonna start off by saying that I have never taken an economics course in my life, and I'm probably one of the younger people commenting. That being said, here's what I have to ask.

Stock Markets.

Okay, so that wasn't a question. But could they become a possibility? Stock Markets based on the prices of certain items? You pay someone to invest x amount of gold into y item and depending on the amount invested and how the item does in the MP, you either gain or lose gold.

Is this conceivable or am I just an ignorant Gaian?

For starters, maybe you could have the 1.00USD fee be reimbursed after a month or something. My bank will only allow paypal because they allow "testing waters" before full charges take place.

Or maybe have three levels of usability: No paypal; No charge to paypal (0.00$USD ) or 1.00$USD charge. Count the last as a trusted level, or as a donation status level.

Maybe have a quest or two integrate into the system?

my response:

i dont know what to say.

i can say however is that i dont have a paypal account, and that touching on things relating to money (even if it is a dollar) does not go well with my mom.

i wish you could do something like linking verification maybe to how long someone is on gaia. rather then paypal.

so while the idea interests me, it makes me more sad then glad.

- zakument

[[Edit: P.S. instantly labeling someone without a paypal account dealing with something like killing puppies and other bad things isn't nice. D : A warning maybe, but the idea you have is going to far. ]]

Maybe I'm just misreading it, because it was long and complicated, but wouldn't this have a bad effect in ToS terms? Isn't trading tangible and monetary assests in return for Gaian products/user-made products cosidered a bann-able offense, and people have been banned for it?

It seems like the added Paypal acct tied to your user acct + contracts seems like it would break the above mentioned rule AND make hackers that much more interested in getting ahold of specific accounts.

Not to mention Gaia is advertised as a PG-13 site, no one under 13 is allowd on the site without parental permission (and of course unless they lied through their teeth( but you're looking at pretty much your almost adult and adult users being able to use the whole Paypal idea.

I can see the contracts idea workable for the Artists and Breedables, etc. But other than that it seems kinda frivolous and pointless. I certainly wouldn't have a use for it and I've been here forever! rofl

Right now, without it being more specific and a legitimate use for ALL users, it seems kinda pointless.

Wow, that is some really thought out work there, about a feature I had never really thought of. Part of me twinges when reading it because it vaguely (but only a small bit) reminds me of Gaia Personals. But Gaia has such better moderation tools now that I doubt we'd see that kind of abuse. And by making it public it's not like people could be running secret brothels. I do kinda feel like it's a solution without a problem, but as a dev I think its best if you think of the future of Gaia. You've probably already spoken to Sagger about this, but I'd be curious to see his thoughts on how this would reflect gold-flow on Gaia. Personally I might be interested in using it to comission avatar art. Because then instead of having to track through possibly hundreds of pages of a long-standing art thread I could just read an artists former contracts and see how much they were paid, and probably what kind of product they delivered. I think this might all hinge on how much effort people put into feedback surveys though. I've read through ebay stuff like that and they're usually pretty short, 'seller shipped promptly, product in good condition' Then again I guess that works for avatar art too. Would there be a way to have a contract be time specific? Like if I contract an artist for a piece of avatar art and I want it sometime in the next two weeks. At the end of two weeks the contract will automatically close and I can pay if I've recieved, or cancel if I haven't leaving the proper feedback.

I actually really like the ideas you put forth- they sound a lot more secure than the current way of doing business for things you can't put in both ends of trades (like art), and I wouldn't mind using my PayPal account to become 'verified' since I used to use it to buy MCs and Cash anyway.

I can see how some people would be nervous about using their PayPal accounts, especially before the security had held up under constant use for awhile, so it's good that there's the possibility of using the contract system without it for individuals. Most people will only be using the individual contracts at first, I think, until they were comfortable enough with the idea to go ahead and jump into the "job market."

People have been asking for Gaia Jobs for a long time now, though, and I think that eventually, it would be a really popular feature. Many users really do have a lot of extra time on their hands (oh, to be 13 again), and it might prevent some of the "Gaia is boring to me now" bitching that crops up every so often.

I'd support this
Even though I do agree this seems more like a solution to a problem that's not there --yet.

I fear the warnings about puppies, though.
blaugh lol

Anyways. This seems like a good way of enhancing the Gaia experience and avoid scams or make some RPs more "real".

The question I regret to ask is... does Gaia really need that? I mean... noting that the user base is heading towards becoming younger and more mainstream. Maybe the newer users won't understand nor want to have such a "serious" or realistic system.

However, I think older audiences and more hard core fans might love this. Maybe you should evaluate if such a development will really benefit enough users to be worth the time and money.

This sounds like a good idea that would establish Gaia as a more serious website where individuals can function on their own freely without the need for constant moderation (like the forums and arenas).

I want to add the possibility of contracts being tied to the quest system. NPCs could have incomplete contracts posted in the bulletin board which would appear either on certain days, like a random event, on holidays, or due to a user's "quest experience".

Users might also be notified of the bulletin through a PM from the NPC... which would serve to introduce the user to where the bulletin board is located, how to sign a contract, and what contracts can be used for.

The first quest could be a new user quest something like "Rufus wants to sell a piece of art he made, would you be interested? You can buy it by completing a contract located on the bulletin board *link*here*link*." and the quest will take the new user through the whole contract system and in the end will introduce them to the survey and feedback feature at the end. It might serve to make people less nervous about using a feature that asks for personal information.

Other quest could be silly contracts like "collect a hundred pieces of blue paper and I'll give you this item" or whatnot.

I think it's a wonderful idea. It would enhance the experiences that Gaia already has in the forums. (Art purchases/selling, hiring bumpers, etc.) It would make those transactions easier to moderate and it would also fit to the RP roots of what Gaia used to be like. Which the RP users should enjoy.

As for the job system MMO wise, I haven't found one that isn't tedious. Typically they're just the same type of 'job' which is very annoying. 'Go get me this' 'Go find George and give him this letter' 'Collect 50 blah blahs and trade them for 'this' and come back to me' 'Kill this monster'. Uck...

This is a Good Idea.

And, i am very impressed by the commentors. Everyone brings up very good points, a lot of them that I share.

I agree that it would make Gaia more robust, and that's something Gaia needs.

I've just started playing EVE, and I have yet to hear a bad thing about its contract system. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about it to suggest any pitfalls that come up - but when I get home I shall ask some veterans of the game and see what they say.

Thank you for giving us the chance to partake in this discussion, by the way. I for one very appreciate it.

This is all great feedback guys. I hear some great enhancement ideas and also well thought out pitfalls to watch out for. Thanks again.

I edited the post to clarify about using real currency for contracts.

Can you ask Sagger to leave some thoughts, here, for us to ponder over?

If you weren't planning to already, I'd suggest tying the commenting system to contracts in some way, i.e. you can only comment if you have initiated (not necessarily completed) a contract with someone. Otherwise it's more likely to create problems of its own (bot-spam, meatpuppeting (when friends of someone dissatisfied come to lambast the other person), unrelated drama, and so on).

I think insufficient funds deducting points isn't really a good solution. Ideally I would like to say attach funds to contracts and make them immutable for the time being, but I can see where that falls down. Depending on the service provided, it might be possible for the provider to give an indication of having completed their end of the contract without actually providing it, and set the system to await payment before delivering the content. Perhaps requiring a preview window in the case of, for example, artwork or writing? Obviously this isn't such a great idea where, for example, guild moderation or other opaque services are being providing.

Generally, I'm pretty sure transparency of transactions would help in several ways. Firstly, you can check up on the quality of someone's work by looking at previous contracts, and secondly, it would be more difficult to spam up your rating if you had to provide real work each time you do so.

Thinking more about it, there's the possibility of contract bidding. Auctions are very popular in the art forum. Since, in some sense, this is an improvement on those fora, allowing bidding on contracts, either in the form of gold or evidence, might be a feature in demand. Of course, if such a system were to be implemented, there'd be the issue of designing a proper listing: one of the banes of art auctions is having to bump threads, and creating a system that removes that would probably be pretty popular. If you could sort through contracts by, say, expected quality of work and the amount paid, it'd be easier to filter for contracts that you could fulfil. That's just a general idea though.

Oh, and privacy. I imagine some people would prefer certain contracts remain private. Whether allowing this or not is a good idea probably depends on implementation. I probably wouldn't want others to see how much I pay guild moderators, for example. On the other hand, privacy could be used to hide the naughtier services. And there'd be the problem of whether a private contract would entail private comments/rating, and how it ties in with transparency as I mentioned earlier.

Another edit, now I think about it. If people were intent on 'griefing' someone (or people in general), the ability to add feedback when cancelling a contract could backfire. Start a contract with someone, then immediately cancel and leave negative feedback and/or rating. I see why you would want feedback on cancelling, just throwing that scenario out there.

I don't think tying Pay-pal to accounts is the -right- answer.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're trying to do is sort out the people who will try to scam others from the ones who want to do honest business. If all you're doing is tying them to Pay-pal, then you're saying that all honest people have Pay-pal and all people who have Pay-pal are honest.

What you really need to do is set up a really good system for handling situations that don't follow through.
Alright, say artist A wants to sell work to buyer B. Artist A gets really busy or otherwise cannot finish said work. A explains the reasons to B and they agree to cancel the contract. Both agree to cancel and buyer B leaves appropriate feedback.

OK, now same situation except A comes through and B refuses to pay. Since they have both signed the contract, (and the gold is contained in it) it will still proceed forcing B to pay. The trick here is, art is subjective, and while the work may have been finished, B may still not like it and not consider it a fair trade even though A has done actual work. B should be able to send a query for a third party to judge the fairness of the trade and make a compromise if necessary. This can make for some sticky situations, but we already have these types of problems anyways. Of course both can leave appropriate feedback. (Although if the buyer is causing problems you should have a system to not allow them to leave feedback or make a process to appeal the feedback for deletion.)

Thirdly, say person A is using false advertising. They advertise amazing artwork or whatever. Buyer B comes and sets up a contract. A tries to rip off B by sending some junk though instead of what was promised. Now B is refusing to pay. Notice this is the same technical situation as the one above. Again, B submits a query for the third party judge who then decides that A was at fault in not coming through, intentionally, and then also applies the appropriate warning/ system ban/ site ban.

The last general scenario I see is two people agreeing to an Illegal contract. I believe the example was: "nekkid pics 5k ea" There you're just going to have to mod them like anything else. I mean we have that now system or not.

So in general, I think it would be a great thing to incorporate into the site. I think it offers many more opportunities to expand the experience on site and, if done well, won't make many more problems then we already have. But in order for it to work well you will need a court of appeals so to speak. And, I would suggest charging a fee/deposit to do so so it doesn't get abused.
I think it needs to be explored more. heart

I think this sounds like a great idea!

I drew some avatar art for someone and then when I asked for the payment they just never responded to me. D': Yea I guess it's kind of my fault but this kind of thing would drastically lower that kind of thing happening.

I don't mind it being tied to paypal AS LONG as that information is able to be kept totaly secretive if someone ever gets into your account (lets not hope for that.. but just in case). I'd be upset enough if someone got into my Gaia account but EVEN MORE so if it was my paypal.

Also would it be possible to hook the paypal to two accounts? idk. I have two accounts I use a lot and might even want to say they are both "main" accounts. It might be helpful.

Overall I think this is a good idea.. but I don't know how it couldn't be moderated.. I mean.. since people would be posting stuff for selling on other games/sites like WoW and Neopets and stuff. D:

Two small brainstorms (Disclaimer: I know nothing about programming code or how the 'behind the scenes' aspect of websites work, so maybe this isn't possible) :

1. To eliminate or reduce the amount of TOS-breaking contracts, perhaps the types of contracts would be limited to a drop-down menu: Art, Bumper, RP, Guild Helper, Thread Mod, etc. To "verify" that it is what it is, a link to something would need to be provided (ex: link to the Guild, link to the art for sale, link to the thread, etc) -- that way, somebody couldn't label it as "Art" and then actually sell their WoW account instead. Likewise, if necessary, the "verifying" link could be checked out by a Mod if things start to look suspicious.

Naturally, as time goes by, suggestions could be made to add new contracts.

2. On payment plans, rather than points being deducted... couldn't it be that as soon as the last Period's payment was received, the new Period's payment would be immediately deducted and 'held' in the Contract (like a MP bid-gold is 'held')? If there wasn't enough money in the account, the user would receive a warning notice that their contract would expire if they didn't have the money within 24 hours (maybe this amount of time could vary, could be chosen when the Contract is made). Also, perhaps a warning would also come up before payment is due (this could also be set up to your own preference), and say like "Remember, in one week your Contract payment is due".

Some people might think it's harsh to make the Contract expire when no payment is available, but I think it might be good because it will get rid of Contracts with people who maybe Quit Gaia, or aren't around... etc. It would be an alternative way to find out "hey this person isn't active on the site (or maybe doesn't care about their contract anymore and won't tell me)".

That was slightly rambling. Hehe. xd

Also, would this Contract system be available to exchange only Gold, or could it be set up so items could be exchanged? For example, lots of people collect various Game items, like Cans or Fish or Flowers... could it be set up so I could have a contract with a User and it could be paid in Game items, rather than gold?

I had another thought; you're probably sick of me posting but i was wondering how users who share a PayPal account would go.

My brother and I both use the same PayPal account to order MC's and GC, however with this system, im not sure this would work since it would be hard to determine who would be allotted to a shared account, thus rendering "feedback" and "ratings" almost impossible to connect to a specific user, unless it were possible to share the verification, but im not sure how that would work.

I'll eventually have some feedback for you; this is a complicated proposition, and I'm still mulling it over.

Edit: K, now Sagger's weighed in, so my thoughts are coalescing into something like coherence. Here goes:

I think the concept of Gaia Jobs should be implemented. People on Gaia are already in all kinds of job-like relationships, and this would bring in the technology to make those relationships smoother.

I dislike the idea of bringing Paypal into it. I work a weird schedule and am on when it's mostly Gaians from outside the United States, many of whom cannot use Paypal. Paypal is not allowed for users in the Phillippines, for instance. So it seems unnecessarily prejudiced to me to choose for verification a system that is not accessible to all Gaians, across the board. Bringing Paypal in also seems to go against the spirit of Lanzer, L0cke, V0, and Ling's original vision, which was to create a site that everyone could play on with no required fees.

I am also wary of a reputation-based system. I fear that the best ratings will be awarded, not to the most deserving and hardworking members of our society, but to those who impress the most users with tons of mules. stare As I mentioned commenting in Sagger's journal, the ease of mule creation not only serves as a witness-protection program (He mentioned that in his journal) but also may prejudice the system in favor of those who are prominent in mule-saturated forums such as the Chatterbox. I believe this could create an unfair bias.

This looks really complicated, but I guess most of that would be on the back end of things? I agree with some of the people above that paypal might not be the best way to verify users, but I do like the idea of having some sort of verification system in place.

I just want to take a moment to say this: I love Gaians.

Is that said enough? Maybe this isn't the right place for anything sensational, but the feed Gaians give back to the community is just wonderful... Sometimes my head explodes from reading what you have to say.

"Holy crap. I never thought about it that way."

dorknrgy,

Two ways to alleviate some of the problems that would inevitably arise from this are: escrow, for holding funds necessary to pay for a job at the time of a contract being signed; and arbitration, for settling disputes on the "completeness" of a job. This would most likely apply to artwork and other subjective categories, where fulfillment of a contract is based on the quality of the work and not something objective.

Escrow's easy. We just hold the funds for the user until either the contract is satisfied or annulled. If an employer doesn't have enough for escrow, he either needs to negotiate a different contract or sell a few halos. Or perhaps we could consider items as some form of collateral... Hmm.

Arbitration is the tricky part though. Ideally, it wouldn't be necessary. If you're an employer requesting a piece of avatar art and you have several bidders for your contract, you're likely to pick the one with the best portfolio. Maybe we'll have a Gaia Contract Lawyers Guild that will handle these cases. biggrin

p.s. GJS&YS, but this is an interesting idea.

I think it's a bad idea to link user accounts to paypal accounts because 1) I don't have one and 2) I believe there are a lot of users of a young age and probably without a paypal account.
Kind of makes the ones already poor because they can't buy anything with cash even poorer.

I like escrow when implemented correctly. However, it would be a bad idea to implement it in a gold only system (which this seems to be at the moment?).

I believe most Gaian wealth is kept as assets, i.e. items. Liquidating those assets into money is generally easier than turning money back into items, especially in the case of the rarer items. Gold is almost always deflating and isn't desirable; thus, for most people, liquidating their items into gold isn't a good choice when there's no good reason for it.

The second part of this comes with the ability to cancel contracts. If you've liquidated items to get gold for the escrow party to hold for the contract, and the contract is cancelled, you've essentially caused yourself trouble for nothing.

As such, if escrow were to be used, I'd suggest making sure the system could accept items under escrow, perhaps for use when the contract is fulfilled, or perhaps only as a symbol of being 'good for the money'.

Another use for contracts - In-Character Marriages.

Another misuse for contracts - Jobs rated "M" for Mature. You know how crazy Gaians can be.

Just wanted to make sure those were being considered as well.

captcha: large Coxswain

I don't like the Unverified bit much, can that be changed as say their reputation is built up? I know most non-serious users will not take the time to investigate the reputation of a non verified member.

Other than that its a good concept.

I really like that idea. It kind of reminded me of a job-like system Neopets used to or still have. Although with their system, its more like a quest thing, where you and your Neopet would go and buy a certain amount of items, or earn a certain score from one of their games. It's kind of random though because sometimes some users couldn't get the job because another user took it. o_O I don't know if my memory is serving me right, but I think it's from Neopets. xD Anyways, it would be neat if there was something like this on Gaia, in my opinion.

I also agree with what you already mentioned. It WOULD be useful, and a good alternative to earn gold for questers like myself. What I'm trying to say is, I would love and appreciate a system like that that would make things easier. :]

I hope what I said made sense. o_o"

That sounds excellent, Dark! I would love to use this! The guild business sounds particularly interesting.

"Tying Gaia Jobs to paypal accounts has the added bonus that more users are exposed to our pay to play options and therefore are more likely to spend money."

This statement alone makes me livid because it sounds as if the site is going toward the pay to play system. If it is I know I'm not going to be sticking around for that.

A slightly more coherent argument about the issue, also posted in my journal...
It still does not address the important point of the nature of the feedback system itself (which is something I need more time to think about), but at least explains more clearly what I think is the right context to use a feedback/reputation system in:


Gaia Contracts

Gaia is different then the real world in many aspects, one of them being that mechanisms for enforcing contracts are very limited. There could be three ways to enforce a contract:
1. Technical means. A good example would be trading: two user agreeing on a transaction (goods + price), approve the “contract” (bank trade), and the items and gold are automatically delivered.
2. Moderation (similar to legal system and law enforcement in the real world). Example: user A promises user B to design a profile for them for some price, and when something goes wrong, the moderators either mediate or warn/punish the offenders (please, excuse me if I’m over simplifying or omitting something here).
3. Social enforcement. Example: user A and user B agree that user B will participate in a role playing activity at a certain time. User B doesn’t show up, and gives a lame excuse. Users C, D, E, F and G now think that user B is not dependable. Scorn will keep user B from repeating it, or doing it in the first place.

In general, technical means are the best: when there are no bugs or exploits, they guarantee a result. They also require no 3rd party human interaction (moderation), and therefore are scalable, and would allow Gaia to grow uninterruptedly.

A good example for a contract that can be perfected by technical means and has not yet been implemented on Gaia would be item loans or rentals. Right now, loans and rentals are very risky: user A gives user B an item, hoping that tomorrow user B will return it. But user B can go ahead and sell it in the market, or get themselves banned, or just never log back in, and user A will never see their item again. In the future (after the item norm project will be completed) we will be able to have item rentals: user A gives user B an item for a certain period, the item is untradeable and is returned automatically to user A’s inventory after some time. Other examples, such as a commitment to buy a certain amount of fish and tickets at a certain price at a certain date in the future, or a commitment to bump a thread 20 times within a week, are also possible (or so I think…).

But technical means are limited to standardized goods and services (on Gaia : items and activities). There are no technical means to guarantee that the art someone bought for 20K is actually worth 20K and is not an off-hand doodle (I know, some of these are actually worth 20K, but this is not the point). Technical means could guarantee that SOMETHING has been delivered, but not verify the quality of that something. That leaves us with the two other human options: moderation, and social enforcement.

Moderation is good and effective (some of my best friends are moderators xp ), but it is not scalable; the moderation team is doing a great job, and is growing as we speak, but we would like to avoid adding more tasks that moderators would have to do deal with. Look, for example, at police per capita ratios in the world… Gaia’s size (hundreds of thousands of users a day, several millions of users a month) is that of a large metropolitan area, or a small country. Gaia’s staff is nowhere near the comparable size, and we’d like to keep it this way smile

That brings us to social enforcement.

Social enforcement is great. In many aspects, real world legal enforcement is aided by social enforcement (think about living next door to a guy who was convicted for tax evasion, fraud, or any other crime…). This works better for small communities, where everyone knows everyone else. Some aspects of it are applicable to Gaia: the hardcore (artists/vendors/whatevers) know each other, and can have some kind of social enforcement mechanisms. But Gaia is unique: registering an account is free, and running away is almost costless (open a new account, transfer all your items and gold, and there you have it - the perfect witness protection program). And as Gaia grows, it’s harder to enforce contracts just by social means, simply because not enough people know each other, and you might ending up wanting to do “business” with someone that neither you nor any of your friends know in person. This is where DARKNRGY’s feedback system could come into play: you’d have a formal reputation for keeping your end of a contract.

TL; DR

A feedback/reputation system is a form of social enforcement of contracts, one of several possible mechanisms (technological, moderation, and informal reputation). Each has their own pros and cons, and things they are best for.

What do I think of it?

1. I think we should strive to have as large part of it as possible done through technological means, not moderation and reputation.
2. For the issues that can not be resolved by technological means, we could (and should!) have a reputation system.
3. I think that the reputation system that DARKNRGY suggested is a bit too restrictive, in the sense of requiring a paypal account, when so few Gaians buy items, and even fewer of them do it through paypal. BUT I spent too long on writing up everything here, and I’m too tried of thinking about it. MAyeb the restrictiveness is necessary.

Expanding technological means of contract enforcement

Right now, the only contracts available are instantaneous trade of Gaia items and gold. But the examples I gave earlier (item rentals, bumping in the forums) don’t sound impossible to implement. But is shouldn’t end there; we can conceivably condition payment (or item transfer) on any activity on the website, and thus allow users to create “user generated quests” (such as 10K to the first one to bring me 450 brown bugs, 333 spicy tunas, mini UFO and will bump my “staff bump” threat in CB 20 times in one week).

It could also go some distance in solving some of the problems that exist currently in art related trade: not all problems arise due to work quality: so of the problems happen because a buyer or seller just disappeared, don’t login (or are banned sad ). These problems could be resolved by having a new trading mechanism for art (and/or profile design, it’s the same thing). When an art contract is signed, the money is kept in escrow by Gaia, and a time frame is determined. By the predetermined time, a link to something should be sent to the buyer. If the seller has not sent the link by the deadline, the money goes back to the buyer if the buyer wishes so. If the link was sent to the buyer, the money is automatically given to the seller unless the buyer actively cancels the contract. This is a way to ensure that SOMETHING, regardless of quality, was sent. This can already solve many of the art trade problems, but can also be extended to other things.

Another example: I want a bartender for my bar in Towns (a role playing hangout). I am willing to pay 1K / 3 hours of roleplaying with my customers. Let’s say I hire Alien Invader 2 Percent to do that, and we sign a contract saying that she has to be in towns 5PM and 8PM tomorrow. The money goes to her if she was there, regardless of what exactly she did there; she could have been serving my customers, she could have been picking a fight them, she could have been cybering with the bouncer. But she was there, so she gets paid. According to what she did, I might decide to extend the contract and offer her employment in the future.

I think that any Gaia activity could be conditioned upon for contracting (excluding the content). This could be done in the form of drop down menus or a scripting language (like profiles), and should be searchable. But the main point is: do as much of it as possible in technological means. When this is the case, the role of the reputation system is limited to content disputes.


____________________________________________

Apologies for the big wall of text that ended up not even addressing some of the most important points... Stay tuned for another big wall-o-text soon xd

-S

A reputation system would be awesome! I think it would open up many possibilities for users and could really do wonders for Gaia in the future. :3

Paypal Account though? That's a bit much...
Maybe it works through gaia cash?
You'll need to have 1000 gaia cash to buy a Contract Pass(item) or something which is your only way to get rid of that "Potential Risky User" thing out of contracts? That way people could sell them as a marketplace item? At the end of each month, the gaia cash is returned to your account as long as there weren't any complications with someone's order.
Just a thought.
:3
I think either way, contracts should be able to be made by a PRU, just maybe the contract will note that it is a PRU and that the user buying will be warned that this is a possible scam
ow o

(The Contract Pass would most likely have to be held by the buyer and seller, that way if the person say... buying the art didn't get the art, they would receive that little bit of extra gaia cash when the end of the month comes.)

I like the idea. Its much different then what I thought jobs would be like.

But I don't like the paypal thing. I don't wanna pay a dollar for a small section of Gaia. Isn't there a way you could make it free?