[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Willowreed at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/5/2000 11:53:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
daklozar at home.com writes:

> 
>  > If I were on the jury, I'd find for the plantiffs.  I do not believe a
>  > service such as AOL (or EQ or UO or any other such for-profit
>  > corporation) should use volunteer labor.  They are taking away a job
>  > from a person who really needs one.  If they need help running their
>  > service, that's fine -- just hire somebody to do it.  That's the way the
>  > world works.  And what better employee to have than the people who have
>  > already shown that they'd do their job for free!
>  
>  I have to disagree with your decission to side for the plantiffs. If a
>  person chooses
>  to volunteer... then they are just a volunteer. They know up front that 
they
>  will not
>  be compensated in the normal sense (money). I have a close personal friend
>  who is a guide
>  for EQ. He receives a free account for his activities and he loves it. He
>  talks about it non-stop!
>  Now as for taking jobs away from someone who really needs it... Do you
>  really believe that? Get real.
>  This sounds like some left wing extreme talk to me. Most of the people
>  playing and volunteering have jobs and are merely volunteering for the 
extra
>  fun of being apart of something cool. I would think that if you paid people
>  to take the place of these volunteers you would have a substantially higher
>  turn-over rate than you currently have, due to the sheer fact that to hire
>  someone to do this job (which would be a minimum wage or just above wage)
>  you would have to train them and as soon as they had some "computer"
>  training, they would be out the door.
>  
>  Look at it for what it is. These people know up front what they are doing,
>  they know they will not be compensated for their deeds (other than free
>  accounts). So why is it anyone elses concern? Just another instance of a
>  group like the ACLU butting their noses in the wrong place :)


my own take on this...
(And I agree with you, David.)

I was a TechLive Advisor with aol for 2.5 years.  I went on to other 
"positions" within the volunteer community at AOL.  I *LIKE* doing what I do 
and doing what I did :)  It has nothing to do with pay at all.  For the most 
part, aol has taken away everything that could make a volunteer position 
lucrative.  Most of the time volunteers don't even get the tools they need to 
do their 'jobs.'

BUT the fun of being part of the 'online experience' and helping others (in 
my case) won out.  Yeah money is nice.  That is why I work full-time. I do 
volunteer stuff for fun.  Plain and simple fun.  (I volunteer in town also, 
but online is what we are talking about here.)

I found with the various MOO's I have been on, that volunteers that do their 
'jobs' for the fun of it, because they like the media, they like the 
environment, and they just plain old have fun with it, are what make the 
online experience great for the rest of us. 

Personally, its people like me and others on various services, muds, moos and 
other games that make it fun for the other members.

Money doesn't enter into it and shouldn't.  

My advice to whiny volunteers:  If you don't like what you are doing, quit.  
Someone else will come along and have fun with it.

Wils



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