[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Josh Olson]

-----Original Message-----
From: Madrona Tree <madronatree at hotmail.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?


>But the question is: Should someone be able to volunteer for a for-profit
>corporation?  Should for-profit corporations solicit volunteers?  I think
>the answer is no.

The practical question is one of viability.  I'm sure most large MMORPG
companies would love to pay their volunteers, but most do not for a number
of very good reasons.  Monetary cost is only one of them.

>...I really believe there are lots of college students
>out there who would *love* a job for $100/week being a guide.

There are.  There are also lots of high school students and junior high
school students...

>I really
>think that if nobody was volunteering to do the work, Verant/OSI/AOL would
>*have* to pay somebody to do that work.

That's a scenario they will never have to face.  *Someone* will always be
there wanting a position of involvement, responsibility, and power in
MMORPGs, guaranteed.  That's a big part of the reason the volunteer concept
works, so far.

>> Most of the people playing and volunteering have jobs and are
>> merely volunteering for the extra fun of being apart of
>> something cool.
>
>And $6.50/hour for having fun and being a part of something cool would be
>bad because...?

Because psychologically, a volunteer is willing and able to provide services
far above and beyond what someone who's punching a clock and being paid
minimum wage is.

I can't speak authoritatively about UO Counselors, but most EQ Guides are
not college students; they are experienced professionals.  Many have
real-world management experience and/or honed people skills.  To them, being
a Guide is about being part of something fun and helping people.  Install a
time clock and tell them their work is worth minimum wage, and suddenly it's
about a new job they neither need nor want.

A little background: I'm one of the three people who built the EverQuest
Guide program from five unempowered volunteers to nearly a thousand
organized, self-sufficient Guides.  The work I did for Verant was worth at
least the salary of my real job, yet I received no compensation save a free
subscription and a few plane tickets.  Had Verant posted a job opening
comprising the work I volunteered and put a $6.50/hr price tag on it, you
would have heard the laughter from where you are.

I had this conversation numerous times with other Guides, and in general we
agreed: minimum wage is just an insult considering the difficulty of the
job.  If we didn't want to be Guides, it would take a hell of a lot more
money than that to pay us to do it.  We often joked that they shouldn't try
to pay us because they couldn't afford us, but we were only somewhat joking.

>In my perfect Admin Program world, Admins would work from home, just as
they
>do now, and get a check every week for $100 for their effort, instead of a
>$10/month free account.

When I left the Guide program, there were 800 volunteers donating at least
10 hours a week to Verant.  Today there are probably at least 1000.  1000
people at 100 bucks a month is $100,000 a month or $1.2 million a year.
Sounds doable (if painful) for a large game.  But to employ 1000 people you
need managers and supervisors, and with the myriad liability issues that
come with real employees, you need real managers with real salaries.
Suddenly that figure has to be multiplied... a lot.

When I left, there were ~30 Senior Guides performing supervisory roles and
working full-time hours, plus 3 Elder Guides in upper management working way
too much.  Paying these people even modestly (by San Diego standards) puts
the number into multi-millions per year.  Even for Verant, that's not chump
change.

Gods help them if someone decides that she got carpal tunnel syndrome on the
job or that her female character's exposed buttocks constitute sexual
harassment.  I'm not a HR person but offhand I can think of half a dozen
expensive pitfalls of making 1000 offsite volunteers into paid employees.

>I think you're probably right about the turn-over rate -- but not because
of
>the reason that you state.  I think that if Origin had to pay counselors
for
>what they were doing, they'd get a higher quality program, because Origin
>(and their customers) would want their money's worth.

If you make it about money, then you get what you pay for.  If the job pays
minimum wage, you'll get minimum wage workers.  Naturally there are
exceptions, but the bell curve would swing wildly toward the unacceptable
end of the service scale.

-Josh Olson
Elder Guide, EverQuest (retired)






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