[MUD-Dev] Criminalize Community Volunteers?

[Christopher Allen]

Zak Jarvis wrote:
> Actually, it's worth clarifying on this point a tiny bit.
> AOL's policies date back much further even than the early
> '90s era metered rates.  In fact, they go back to the
> original Quantumlink pricing which was $6/hour --
> a huge bargain at the time.
>
> Also (and Randy Farmer can answer this much better) I seem to
> recall that forum managers actually were paid then, but that's
> only a second-hand impression from talking to the graphics
> forum manager, Peter Hughes.

Yes, the Forum Leaders on AOL (I ran the Mac Developers Forum) did
recieve some compensation, as did their equivalents on GEnie at the time
(I ran the Art of Programming Round Table) and before that in the
mid-80's (I ran the computer consultants forum.)

The compensation was minimal, but was considered a royalty. I'm sure
there are many book writers whose actually compensation is less then
minimum wage. Where AOL messed up with the Forum Leaders was that they
never really could tell us what the revenues from our Forums were --
their accounting couldn't figure it out, so they were always
guesstimates.

Even after flat rate I think I made about $1K a month running the Mac
Developers Forum (I think when I started in '89 it was about $50 a
month), and had about 8 volunteer staffers under me. The reason why I
ultimately quit had less to do with the money then that they were trying
to dump liability as an outside contractor on me in '96. I checked and
the liability insurance that I would have to carry would cost more then
what I was making from the Forum.

One open question is how much can you pay less then minimum wage for a
contract. If hours are not specified, but service level is, I presume
that you can. I see it in many artistic fields, including writing, art,
movie making, etc.

-- Christopher Allen

------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen                                 Skotos Tech Inc. ..
..                           1512 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA 94709-1513 ..
.. <http://www.Skotos.net>               o510/647-2760  f510/647-2761 ..




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