One Virtual Place For All
Project plan only for (aspirant) team members.
n
read and
quote—
After you quote send it to : [email protected]
If you are a company that
want to be a sponsor later on, or you are a someone that like to be a
beta-tester, you can send a mail also. But be specific, and use the subject
field well. Example: beta tester -
sponsor – more information – team member etc…
It started with a dream, a
place where everyone lives in harmony. Catholics, Protestants, Moslems,
Buddhists, Jehovah’s, Jodi’s, or black,
white, yellow, red, brown people. O.k. we all know this is impossible, everyone
has his own way of life, his own “views”, and his own culture. But then there
was internet. If you go to a chat room, you can meet people from all over the
world. You can talk with them like if they live next-door. And if you don’t ask
their believe or skin colour, you notice that they like the same things as you.
Different? I think not. Everyone is just like you and me, no matter what they
believe or where they come from.
So I though, if we cant live
in harmony in this world, why not create one by ourselves? We can talk, play
and have fun with each other. A Virtual place to be?
But I have so many ideas,
there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to create one by myself.
In fact I am not a programmer (only for hobby), I am not a web designer or
artists. I am a manager, a pr man, sales man and I love business (and
dreaming). But maybe I can use those skills to bring a team together? A team
with members from all over the world? Programmers, Designers, and other people
that fit in this team?
So I started to send e-mail
to people that I saw on websites, programmers, designers. And I got a lot of
responses. Also a lot of letters with: how much do you pay?
Note: I am good in many things, but not very good
with English, so if you can give me grammar corrections, please do J
How much do I pay?
I had two choices:
After stage 2, I go work to
get sponsors, and of course visitors (a lot). Then we start to earn money. I
use the money to hire the bandwidth (we need a lot). And to cover other
expenses: telephone, letters, our own domain and of course more advertising.
But I think we earn much more than that. And we all are part of the team. If
people entering the site, or open the “client” program, than all members of our
team are visible. They all get a job because the work is never done. In this
stage all members will receive salary in comparing with the hours they want to
spend. So we try to give all our members a good and fun job.
But what if I go out of the
team?
You go out of the team if you
want it by yourself. We cant give you money if you leave on free will. Nobody
can fire someone, or… 60% of the members want you to get out. That chance is
very low, because in the first stage (the project phase), you and we can see if
we can get along with each other. If you did a great job, but you lack on your
duty later on, we can decide to “buy”, you out. Again 60% votes is needed for
that. But I hope we keep our team together cost what cost.
Stages of the project.
The team so far:
Organizer
and team-coordinator and "Dreamer" (later on Marketing and pr).
William Maartens
Programmers
Peter Wilson
Nathan Moschkin
John Horton
Jason
Mahmoud Dananco
Samir Talwar
Graphical Designer:
We still need people here!
Webdesign:
We still need people here!
I also
send this “plan” to people from who I think they can be interested, and have
some skills for special jobs. If you are not on this list yet, than you can do
this:
Do not
response if you are not interested! You don’t get a message anymore!
Response Quick if you ARE interested! You can also place some
quotes already.
If you don’t like the plan anymore, please let me know and I scrap you from the
list, no hard feelings.
Fill in the form at the last page, that form will not be shared with other
members of the team but used for administration only.
Put a plan
on paper (this one).
You are reading it now J
Read the
plan, share ideas and make the plan final.
What language do we use to get the
project done? I was thinking about Visualbasic, it is not the most complicated
language (possibilities), but as far as I can see, every programmer (we have),
can code in Visualbasic. More complex controls and parts can be written in
another language, C, C++ but it must be compatible and usable with the other
parts. I am not a programmer, so I let the tech-stuff over to them. I hope they
react on this plan and write some technical specifications. But that is only
possible if they understand the whole project. They must see the end-results,
and work to it. Also very important: how do we divide the code? Who can do
witch part? And what are the specifications of a module or control? Someone
must write the “frame”, and ask others to help him with building controls and
modules.
Quoting: First read this plan a few times. Don’t say: no to
fast! If you say no now, and you see the result after some period, you can have
bad feelings that you are not part of the team anymore L, But first try to see the “big picture”, than start
with thinking. Where can you help, what part can you make? How much time do you
think it costs? Start to Quote like this: read a part, give a couple of Enters,
type your name and a few >> than start typing your remarks, your ideas
and explanations. Very important! Use always the last version! When I
get this plan back, I send it to all our members again. So everyone is
up-to-date. They can put their marks and return it. After a while we all can
“dream”, this plan and it gets more to the point and more complete, including the
technical details. Because we cannot discuss endlessly we must put some targets
in: The plan is final on 1-january 2003. After that we have
enough information, enough people and enough plans to make deadlines for all
stages of the project. Now its time to get to the real work done J
Building
the client-server application (text based, but with final layout) for testing.
I think Peter Wilson is doing that now, I awaits his response.
In the start, client and server are almost the same. Maybe later on we can keep
the server application small, and building tools for the other tasks.
* We can even build some tools in “special avatars”, they can mute
people and even ban people (destroying the whole account). This is a very serious
matter btw. But we are creating a zone for everyone and we cannot tolerate
stuff like, discrimination, very bad language, insults or commercial acts
without our permission. The receive a warning and at the end they are going to
be blocked. That way we can keep our world a fun place for everyone.
Maintaining that sort of
stuff is handy with a external program. It can be maintained by our data-base
expert for example. The one that makes the data-base.
Final Layout
Server app.
Because we don’t use the server app
for special tasks, but only for “delegating the data and traffic”, it doesn’t
matter how it looks like. Maybe a sort of debugging screen that can give us
status of traffic (we can come in action when the connection become slow), and
the server can help us with other problems (debugging screen can show errors
also).
Client app.
Because I try to keep this document as
small as possible (it will be big with only text), I avoid graphics. To get a
idea how the client must look like: You
are reading this in Word? If you see the big white area (where the text is, and
where you can type), that will be the graphical area. The buttons in the upper
screen can give people the main handlings : Connect/Disconnect, Friend lists,
Call Help, See status of account, Check bank account, Special Events (game,
meeting schedule), Turf list (all turf
names witch are visited comes here for easy remembering). Right under the buttons,
will be a text box with scroll function. Conversations are visible here.
At the bottom (under the graphical area), there is a smaller text box, where
you can put in your messages. Right under that is another button bar, for
moving your avatar. Turn left, turn right, go forward, go back, jump, bow,
kiss, laugh, cry, angry, wave, dance etc etc…..
Nathan Moschkin is doing that
now, also await his response
The first room is the
“building block” for the rest of the world. The first room will get just id 0,
and doesn’t contain anything yet. With a external program you can put the
background and items in it. For example: background is a park, items are some
trees, a trashcan, and a park bench. Those items are only removable by the
designer or…. Again a special avatar. People can place items, and paint walls
and floors in their turfs (later on), so why not give a “special avatar”
permissions to do that everywhere? This way we can create a empty town, and
design it at runtime? In stead of a pocked, this avatar can take items directly
from a special database and create the “décor”. If we need more or special
items we ask our graphical people to create them. When the avatar is leaving
the “screen”, he automatically walks to the next room. For example: you are in
room 100, go up and you end in room 98, go left and you end in room 101, etc.
If a room is full, the avatar goes into “ghost” modus and can still navigate.
So we must also look what is the acceptable maximum number of avatars in a
single room? To much traffic can give “lag”, or a slow connection.
What can you do with the
room? (movements). Right click on the graphical part and there comes a small
menu: go to, left click on that and the avatar will go to that location. Click
on a door (if the room is connected with another city!). Same popup menu: go
trough. And you go trough the door to another room in another city.
The room can have special
items: benches, buildings(room inside a room), ATM’s, Garbage’s and Vendors.
(see later on).
Design
the program to get some graphical work done.
Nathan Moschkin is doing that
now, also await his response
As I told earlier, we can use
special programs to do some work done:
Keep track on the accounts, keep track on the sponsors, keep track on the
“vendors” (later on), keep track of possessions, keep track on………. But also
programs to design rooms, build more rooms, give permissions, help other
avatars if they are lost, host internal games, write the schedule, handle the “idea
box”, etc. The best solution is that we can do some work with “special avatars”
to give them more options and permissions (open and close rooms, we don’t want
public when we are designing J. That way we can do stuff while the programs are running.
Create
the first “prototype” avatar.
Nathan Moschkin is doing that
now, also await his response.
What is an avatar? Its your
virtual look-alike J
Avatars in our world is
simply a body. Every member can choose for a male or female body when they sign
up. They start with a basic head, and a basic body. This is funny, because
every “new bee”, are look-alikes. A new avatar starts with 500 tokens, so he
can buy some paint (special items), and maybe a new head. He can buy the head
in a vendor. Because the world is BIG, he can ask help from a greeter, a
greeter is mostly in the room where new people are coming in. In this room
there will be also a big sign with: “CLICK HERE FOR HELP”, if the avatar clicks
on that, the greeter gets a message and explain the new bee the movements and
how he can find the way. What can the avatar with his body? If he clicks on his
body he sees a small popup menu. If he’s got something in his hand and less
than five items in his pocked he sees: Put in pocket, put on floor. If he has
nothing in his hand, but he’s got something in his pocket, he sees: get from
pocked (list of items). If he is holding a paintbrush in his hand he sees:
paint…. (see special items). If he’s got something in his hand, and click on
another avatar he sees: give to. (The other avatars hand must be empty). This
way they can trade, buy or sell items. If the avatar got something special in
his hands, the popup menu will be extended. For example, if he’s got a hat,
glasses or a necklace he sees also: put on. If he’s got nothing in his hand and
he clicks on the hat (he is wearing), glasses or necklace he sees: take off.
This is also possible with his head (yuck), because he can sell it, and buy
another one.
Assigned avatars
-Greeters
A greeter is someone who like to help other people (see new bees above this). Of course we give a greeter special thanks for his help, he/she gets a VIP status for free. If there comes a new bee in the special locale(s). The new-bee clicks on the help-sign (I hope). If he does that than the program looks for the first Greeter that is in the world at that time, and send him/her a message. The greeter can accept that message if he clicks “ok”, if he does than the greeter is “warped” instantly to the room where the new bee is. If the greeter refuses (he/she is already helping someone), than the message will be send to the next greeter available, and so on. If all Greeters are busy, than the message is going to a guide, if all guides are busy, than the message goes to a host. If all hosts are busy than the message goes to a moderator, and if all moderators are busy than it goes to …..me L. Of course we keep track on the steam of messages, if people (greeters, guides, hosts) are refusing to much, while they are not busy (we can see that if we check the last requests), than he gets a warning, and later on he loose his V.I.P. status if he/she is not having a paid avatar.
+ A greeter can warp to the
locale of newbees
-Host
A Host is someone who like to help new bees if others are to busy, but the main job of a host is to lead games. A Host status is received when someone host at least 1 game per week on a regular base. The Host receive a special program for hosting a game of choice. He also receive “bonus-items” from a moderator. The bonus-items are not buyable in regular vendor’s and are meant to give away as prize. A host gets also a free V.I.P. status, he must announce the games in the news, A host gets also a 1 room turf for his games for free. Of course we can keep track on the special movements of the host also (how many games?, how many times refusing to help a new bee?).
+ A host can warp to the locale of
newbees
-Guide
The most powerful avatar for normal members. A guide can be called when: Any avatar needs help. This can be when people fight with each other (insulting etc), when people want to steel stuff (yes like in real world). When people are behaving bad. Or when they need a third (trustful) person when they trade stuff. A guide receive a “Red book”, when the guide keeps this in his/here hand he is on duty automatically. Every one else can see now that he/she is a guide. The guide can warp to every locale where a avatar is calling for help (he can do that with the help option in the client application). But only to that locale!. The guide can mute people, even if they are ghost. (so he or she can do the talking). The guide can “record”, messages so he/she can send it to a moderator when it is going out of control. A guide gets two avatars for free! One V.I.P. avatar and one guide avatar. He/she can go incognito when he/she is off duty J. A guide has powerful options, so must be chosen wisely. Normally a guide is someone who has been a greeter or host already. Tracking a guide? Of course we do! J
+ A guide can warp to the locale of
a caller who needs him/her
+ A guide can mute people
+ A guide can record chat-sessions
(even private).
-Moderator
Members of our team, are going to get 2 avatars. 1 normal avatar for playing incognito, and 1 super-special avatar (isn’t that cool)?
A moderator has a special look, so
everyone can see you are part of the team, a god in this world!). A moderator
can: create rooms, delete rooms, create items (all what is in our database),
close rooms, open rooms, warp to any
locale (even private). Can draw unlimited tokens (it will be boring J). He can mute people, he can even disconnect people, he can “get
people”, (warping others to his place). He can move items (in every locale). He
can metamorphose his own avatar (when he needs to be incognito at once). He can
unghost people, ghost people, can come in rooms even if they are full! He can
do everything we wants, so we can do as much as possible to help and design in
play modus. Yes you are amazing, but you earn it!
Create
special items (they can
interact with avatars).
Most items are “static”, for example
a tree is a tree and Is only for decorating the rooms.
A bench however is a simple “special” item, avatars can sit on it. If
someone click on the bench he gets a small popup box: sit on it. If he sits, he can do the same handling and he will
see : stand up.
A door is very special, you can move trough it. In design mode we can
set the destination of a door.
Than we have a Vendor, a vendor is the most complex, but most fun item
in the world. You can buy items from it. We can give every vendor a unique name
or id (like everything else that is special), and put some items in it (10-15).
If the avatar is clicking on it he has three options: next item, previous item
and buy item. Of course he must see the item before he buys it. The items in a
vendor will be replaced from time to time. This way we keep the world thriving
and keep the economy alive. Old items are replaced so that they become “rare”,
the people who owns those items are lucky, because they actually own items now
that you cannot buy anymore in regular Vendors.
The ATM, a real money machine. If the avatar clicks on it he see this:
His actual balance, and the options: get money, put money.
The money (tokens), is
viewable as a coin. A coin in your hand are the tokens. If you click on it, you
see how many tokens it is actually: 100, 200, 300…. You can give those tokens
away, buy items in vendors, or put them in your pocket. If someone clicks on
his pocked he sees a list of items he keeps there (max 5). If he puts tokens in
his pocked, it will be represented as: 5000 Tokens, or 6000 Tokens or whatever.
Normally if the avatar click on his pocket he sees this: get item (item list),
or put item in pocket (if there are less than 5). But if one of the items are
tokens, than a input box is popping up, that ask for the amount. If he types in
100, and he has 300 in his pocked, than he has 100 Tokens in his hand, and 200
left in his pocket. Only if he buys from a vendor, the tokens are automatically
removed from his pocked. For example: he buys a stool for 150 tokens, he has
300 tokens in pocket, after he press on buy item, he has the stool in his hand,
and 150 tokens left in his pocket. If he don’t have enough in his pocket, he
cannot buy the item and must go to a ATM nearby to draw some more.
Trashcan Sometimes people don’t like the item anymore or he just has to
much. He can put them in a trashcan, the item will disappear and he gets 50% of
the original price back in his pocket.
Elevator We discuss private rooms (turfs) later. But the
private rooms are mostly in a skyscraper. Because we get a “big” audience, and
most people like to decorate, they will rent one or more turfs. Some people are
going to make shops, or hosting games in those turfs. If we give anyone a
“normal” room in the city it will be a mess. Avatars cannot move freely from
room to room if the connected room is marked as “private”, that is why I
thought about elevators. For example: you can go to a room that is called:
holiday inn. There you see a desk, and a elevator and a lounge. You can click
on the desk and see options: pay rent, hire 1 room turf (price), hire 2 room
turf (price) etc. Ok the avatar rents a turf, and goes to the elevator, now he
can go to his turf, gives it a unique name and move in. For us it is turf 1.1
or 1.2 for example, if the room had id 1….the number after the point represent
the turf. The avatar must know the name
of the turf to get there. If he invites friends he must give them the name!, it
is smart to force a avatar to give his turf a name right after he rents it. If
he must pay his rent, he receive a message 1 week before, every day. If he is 2
weeks to late, the turf will be reset (all items in it will be lost), and it
becomes available again for the next renter.
Paint In some vendors you can buy paint cans. You can choose
from a variety of colours. You can use the paint can 1 time. If you hold the
can in your hand, and you click on yourself (avatar), than you see a popup
menu, with the following choices: paint hair, paint face, paint body, paint
legs. This way you can get a new look easy. You can also go to your private
turf and click on a wall of floor, you can paint that also and you have a new carpet,
or painted wall J
As you can see in this plan,
the database will be the most complex part of this whole project. Every avatar
has his own possessions, his own account, his leaving point (where was he when
he left the game), that will be his starting point. All rooms id’s. All
permissions, all items, vendors, and so on and so on. The graphical parts will
be stored on the clients computer. Makes the game much faster!, but data will
be send and received from and to the main databases. This way people cannot
cheat on their own computer ;). We don’t want a new avatar to be millionaire
already isn’t?
Clone
the rooms, connect them and build cities.
If the first room is working, than
we can clone him and put items and a backgrounds in it. This way we have
another unique room. I think it is the easiest to first draw a grid. Let’s say
15 by 15. This will be the map of the town. Now we can start to design the rooms,
and most important, give them connection points. Room 1 is connected with room
2 and 16, and so on.
Turfs are “private” chat rooms, they can
be rented by the public. The difference with normal chat rooms, is that the
renter(s), can put items in it, and paint wall and floors. This way the can
make their virtual home or even virtual shop. Nobody can take items from the
floors, except the renter. Nobody can enter the private room without a
invitation. Avatars can hire different types of turfs, for example:
1 room turf (mostly just for putting stuff in it). 100 tokens per week.
2 room turf 250 tokens per week.
3 room turf 600 tokens per week.
etc, etc.
A turf can have more than one “renter”, this way couples can rent their own private turf. Or even a club of friends.
Normal room movements are possible (see first room). But extra’s like (if you right click on some space): invite guests, trow guests out, put item, get item.
Design a
website
In the pre-commercial phase it is
very important to have a website. A site where people can have some more
information, see special events, read announcements, and the in world
newspaper. Of course people can sign up here, and if they want to have a paid
membership, they can transform their membership to a V.I.P.-one. The web
designer, is getting the same proposal as the other members of the “crew”, no
payment in this stage, but a job afterwards. He can stay to keep control of the
website, to get it in shape and up to date and so on..
Try to find our first sponsors
O.k. Now we have our program
finished, our website is ready for the audience. And now we are going to get
our first expenses. Because nobody gets paid, and there is no money at all, we
must find our first sponsor for our project. This is my job J
Hire
a server and buy a domain name
I can hire a server very cheap, it’s
a fast server connected directly to the back-bone. 99.9% uptime. It will cost
about $ 250, for the first year and $ 80 for every full year afterwards. We can
host scripts, databases, virtual-shop and all other stuff on it. We also can
maintain about 10 email lists on it. And 999 real email boxes (smtp and pop),
so all members of our crew gets his own email address , with our domain
name. The best part of this
place is that you can “buy” bandwidth.
For example: basic is 5 gigs transfer a month, but you can buy 1 gig
extra transfer for $ 10. that means one time payment and your bandwidth is
bigger forever. This way we must buy a lot in the first place, but it will not
a monthly returning expense.
We have also 5 ftp accounts,
and password protected directories.
Submitting
the site, and do some advertising
Our site is on his place, we can
test the databases, and play a little in our world, to get some last work done.
(Debugging, testing, place the points on the I). Our webmaster is going to
submit the site in the major search engines, and keep that in shape (mostly
every month again). We can use also a software program for it, like submit wolf
pro or something, or our programmers can write a better one? I also use a bit
of our budget to do some advertising and attract beta-testers and companies.
Find
beta-testers (friends-family-collegian)
I think this will be a easy part. We need our first citizens for our
virtual world! It is not funny if you enter a empty world. So we write letters
to everyone who can be interested in our world. Beware! SPAM is hurting our
company bad, so write only letters to our friends, collages, study friends and
family. The membership is free so it cant be a problem J, and how
more people are joining, how easier to get sponsors.
The beta-testers will find bugs, no matter how good we organized the project, they will find bugs, believe me. Also beta-testers are our first public that using “regular-avatars”, they can put letters in the idea-box, and or write us email. We must listen to that, its very important that we have citizens that have fun. Remember! Those people can bring new friends to our world. And there is no more powerful method of advertising than mouth to mouth advertising.
In world games are very important! People are coming for chat, decorating, buy-sell stuff (economic play), but also want to get amused. That is why we must design in world games. Very simple ones are: bingo, word games, guessing games and so on. We can give people (normal avatars) that are hosting the games (they love to be in the audience), special “guide” items. Items that are not in regular vendors, and that way very “rare”. They can keep those prize or sell it for much tokens J. People can only get “sponsored prizes”, if they tell us when and where they host a game (for our schedule). We also keep track a bit, that they don’t keep those prizes for their own turf-decorating J.
Find
more sponsors, and pay tax L
Because I live in Holland, the company will settle there. Not just
because I live there, but I know the rules (tax-starting a company-chamber of
sales-manage employees). I always have the advance to get help from our
companies accountants and jurists. Its very complex sometimes. A starting
company can get money back for investments, and for a tax-free starting-off
period (6-12 months). This is the time where I come in real action, we need money
because we are going to be commercial. We all want money for our work. Because
we have a nice web-site, a completed program and real audience it’s the time to
attract more sponsors.
-There are two sort of sponsors
Member avatars (V.I.P.) If someone
wants to get a avatar than that is free. 1 free avatar per I.P.. address is
allowed. A free avatar starts with a basic avatar, 500 tokens, and gets 100
tokens a hour when he/she is online. If they want to be a V.I.P. only $ 5 a
month or $ 60 a year (minimum payment per 3 months). They receive a one time
extra amount of 2.500 tokens and there-after they earn 50 tokens a hour, if
they are not online, and 150 tokens a hour if they are online. Only a V.I.P.
can go trough a door to the next city. So V.I.P. can go anywhere. A free avatar
can choose the city when he sign up, but stays in that city for the rest of his
virtual life. If he clicks on a door (connection with next city), he gets a
“sign up for only…..” sign and he can choose to close that screen or actually
sign up, and transform his avatar to a V.I.P. one. He sees other people walking
trough that door, and wearing or carrying items that only can bought in “those’
other cities. Maybe that gives him enough reason to sign up. He also cant go to
any game, because some games are not organized in “his/her” town.
Companies The major income must come
from companies of course. But what is the advance for a company to give us
money? Simple: they reach audience, and not only as on websites (banners,
links, pop-ups), but with much more possibilities. The cheapest way to
advertise is to place a poster on a wall. If someone clicks on it then the
browser will be navigating to that website (in a separate screen). Next they
can rent a bot. A bot is a avatar that walks trough rooms with a board on his
body. If someone clicks on that avatar the same happens as with the poster. A
company can rent a shop! A room in a room (avatars can click on a door on the
background to go into the shop), where they can see items. The items are images
of the products the company sells for real. So the company can actually
demonstrate the products to the audience. The avatar can buy the item again
with tokens, but if they click on the item, the get a small popup menu (the
regular on), with the option: buy this for real!. If they click on that they go
to the website of the company (separate screen), and they can actually buy the
product. Of course the company must give extra payments for designing the items
and the store. A huge company can build a town for his own! For example, a
internet provider can rent (and let design) a city for his members, and give
them free access to that city. Nobody can enter that city without permission
from that company. Except V.I.P members and special avatars.
Now
we are commercial and all have a job if everything goes right J
If everything goes right, our team is filled up with the following
members:
Manager (1)
Programmers (5)
Student programmers (2)
Artists (graphics) (2)
Web designer (1)
Commercial people (3)
That is about 14 people total. It can be expanded if we grow to fast.
Payments are on a monthly bases, because the tax is different per
country we must decide how we pay it. Maybe we must “hire” you and you are not
really in “duty” but free-lance. Or we must sign a contract for long terms, or
we must employee you. We must calculate what you want to earn per month, you
can let me know that already. Then I calculate what is honest. (its not
good if someone else earns a lot more as you), because we all are equal in our
team. Of course I calculate the hours of work. If someone works 20 hours a
week, and another person works 60 hours a week, than the last person earns
three times more money. But the money “per hour”, is practical the same for
everyone in our team. How we set it up, is individual and your own choice. In
my country you pay “bruto” salary to your employees. That is what you must ask
me. If you get your money, you must pay tax and other social insurances. After that you have a “netto” salary. That
is what you really has left to spend, and pay your bills L. So try
to find our for yourself, how you keep the most money after pay those tax and
social insurances. If you get the most when you are free-lance than ask for a
free-lance contract, if you get the most when we hire you, than ask that.
Extras: Because we all work at a company that doesn’t have a building
(office), we need a workroom at home isn’t?. A company may give employees a
bonus (extra money), at regular base for buying: a new computer, a desk, a
deckchair, and so on. Of course I try
to take advance of all those possibilities.
Have fun, keep the world changing and running smooth.
The world is finished, we all are proud of this product! But still we have work to do!
We keep the world growing, we
try to make it better and more nicer. If we want to keep our job it is very
important not to stand still. Keep surfing the internet, integrate new ideas,
watch others and always try to be the first with something new J.
For me and our commercial
people: try to find new recourses for income, never force people. Don’t staring
blind on one or two BIG sponsors, because we don’t want to be in depended on
them. If they quit, we must move on like before.
Form
for members
I only share the part with other
members that you give permission for.
Your name (family name, first name)
……………………………..(may I share it?)……….
Your age …………..
Are you male or female?………………………………………….. (may I
share it?)……….
Are you married?……………………………………………………
Do you have children?…………………………..how much?
………………………………
What is your email address? ……………………………………..(may I
share it?)……….
Where do you live? ……………………………………………………….(country)
What are your main skills? …………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………(may I share it?)……….
Do you have a paid job right now? ……………………………………………………………
How much do you want to earn a hour
(bruto)?…………………………($ or €).
Are you prepared to open a pay-pall account for your
payments?………………….(cheaper and safer than regular cheques).
What languages do you speak/write?……………………………… (may
I share it?)……….
How much time you can spend on this project?
Unpaid phase? …………………….hours a week.
Paid phase?…………………………hours a week.
Is there any other important information we need to
know?…………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Important
notes: read this!
= Business rules=
These
business rules can be modified to if you have marks! Even this is a
democratically part.
Every module, object, or graphical piece
that is made for this project are property of “On Virtual Place for All”. You write code, you make graphics, you
design other parts (data-bases, WebPages etc, etc for the whole team and not
for yourself. You cannot sell, rent or distribute any part of it to others. You
can only have a copy from the source for your own use to work with it.
Nathan >>>>> Some of the code I may be using is already written, as I wrote standard modules for my own projects. Is this a problem? No doubt this project will consume all of my resources, but small code like sorting, basic windowing, etc. that is common to all platform components are easier when not needed to repeat. I guess I could copy and paste portions into new code, therein making it a code written for the project. I'm willing to work with you on this, of course.
William >>>>> No it is not wrong if you use your existing code for this project. IF you are the legal owner of it, (you can sell copyrights and code to other companies). But when the part of the code is integrated in our project, you may not use that part when it can harm our team. For example: if you write (own) some code and it is going to be used in another project that doesn’t look like our project in any way, than you are not harming our team. However if you use the code to write a chat program, than you are harming our team! This is only for your own code, because we work in a team you see other peoples code also. You cannot and may not use that code at all.
Democratic The team is
Democratic. The plan is formed with participation from all team members.
Everyone has a equal vote. The manager (myself), can only vote if there is a
result of 50%/50%. If we don’t like a “member’, he can only gets “fired”, if he
does that on free will, or if 60% of the people wants him/here to leave. The manager can only fire people if he
thinks that people are damaging the project, or harm other people of the team.
If he thinks that than he will send all people of the team a message and
explanation, only if 60% agrees than the person in question will be fired.
Fired without voting. The manager can and will fire people
without voting if: people are using discriminating language, or if they
“steel”, from the company. Steeling is: selling, distributing part of the code
and/or other designs that are property of the team. Fraud with payments from
and to the company, make tools that giving “regular” avatars powerful options.
Or let people use their own powerful avatar.
Payments. Payments are going to happen when the job is done, and sponsors are
sending money on regular basis. (see deadline). If the project fails, we can
discuss the future. Possibilities are: less salary and keep trying to get our
income up, sell the program and share the profit (equal over all team members).
Or just move to another project and using parts of the old project. Nobody can
claim money for their “past” work if there is no money. All income is “owned”,
by the team as a whole. If there is money left and we decide to quit than then
that money will be divided to all members. But of course we are going for the
successful results! All members get a payout on a monthly bases (when we are
commercial), salary is agreed before (see form for members). And maybe some discussion
after, to get everyone a fair income. Salary will be paid out for every
actually work hour. You work the hours agreed before “personal contract”, if
you need and have more time, you ask this before! And await a confirmation
email (we have budgets). If you want to work less hours, than you must notify
us also.
Holliday, illness, free off, Because we have 2 stages, paid and
unpaid there are two different rules for free-off. In the first stage (unpaid),
you can get as much free-off as you want of course. However, we have
deathliness! So if you think you cant make it done on time, talk to us about
this, maybe we can move the deadline, or maybe someone else can take your job
or a part of it over. In payment phase, you must work on regular times, and for
the hours you signed for. If you need free-off, or if you are ill, you must
send us a e-mail right away. Everyone has some free hours to spend without
loosing payment. In Holland we have 24 days a year and some holiday-days
(Christmas, new year). But because we are a international team we must settle
this down. So quote on this! We cannot pay the free hours when you are take
more hours than we agreed, we cannot pay when you are ill. But you must pay
insurance for illness. So your income is safe in this stage. If you don’t know
how, than I can help you with that.
Extra income. Money is very important, how more money how safer our project will be,
also how stabile our jobs are. Every member can get sponsors, sponsors bring
money in. So I think it is honest to give a member a % of the money that comes
in from the sponsor he brought in. I thought about a % scheme, if the sponsor
is small a bigger %, and how bigger the sponsor how smaller the %. For example:
A sponsor gives us 100 $ a month, we give the man/woman who brought in the
sponsor 25% of it. But if a sponsor gives us 50.000 $ a month, the percentage
is about 5%. Still a very good way to get extra income! How the definitive
scheme will be? Quote people, quote J