Proposal for using guild treasure-WE HAVE AN UPDATE!!!!

[mamarita]

I have contacted Panagrammic, the lead developer and person that is now responsible for working with us on guild improvements.

One of the main things we have been begging for since day 1 is the use of the treasury for something other than the purchasing of forums and sending announcements.

Panagrammic Wrote:
Yeah, it seems like this would be ripe with potential for abuse. It you work up a proposal I'll take a look at it -- but it needs to take into account the fact that it would be abused. ~pan

SO HERE IT IS EVERYONE, WE HAVE TO COME UP WITH A VIABLE PROPOSAL AND IF WE DO, HE WILL SERIOUSLY CONSIDER IT AND WE WILL FINALLY, AFTER 6 YEARS BE ABLE TO USE THE TREASURY.

I don't think this is insurmountable. I think it is quite doable.
TIME TO FORMULATE THE PROPOSAL AND SEND IT TO PANAGRAMMIC SO I WANT PROPOSALS FOR THE WORDING AND THE FINAL IDEAS.. LISTS ONLY PLEASE.

Time to work up the proposal and get it to Panagrammic. Thanks for all your ideas and the hard work you put into this thread. I will post the actual proposal here after the crew and I go over the most viable options. We will try to incorporate as many ideas as we can to give the broadest appeal to the programmers to do this for us.

1ST OF THE THINGS WE ACTUALLY ASKED FOR WE GOTl
1. Guild Hall- it's not exactly a hall but we can now purchase a permanent chatroom. Not one for just 3-7 days, but we can purchase one that is permanent and that's really good. We can actually have interactive parties now! So- let's plan one- like for Halloween! Anyone want to try and put that together?  

[Ebania]

Among many of the problems that riddle the Gaia Guild Network, there are two that stand out in my mind and that could be solved with a single improvement:

1. We don't have many uses for our guild treasuries.
2. We cannot delete subforums.

We pay a fee to create subforums. Why can't we use guild funds to delete subforums, too?  

[Shanna66]

some organized way to do contests and give some of the money as a prize. alot of guilds im in do that by using a guild mule that you send money to instead of donating to the guild

and i agree with the deleting subforums

maybe even pay some money to change some colors?  

[x_Silver_Starlight_x]

What if there was a cap on how much could be sent to someone each month, like 2.5k or something? And that gold can only be sent by the Captain and Vice Captain, and can't be sent to crew members? This would allow guilds that run contests to have small prizes, but would avoid abusing the system to send to themselves or to send mass amounts to friends.  

[Ebania]

I guess that developers are afraid that, if a system is implemented to send treasury funds straight to users, it might be abused by some greedy Gaians.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't see the post above mine! sweatdrop

I like that -- a cap on the amount of gold that someone can take out from the system. The NSTG Mule would benefit greatly from that, I think. Maybe 2.5k/month is too little; maybe 10,000g per month?  

[Tantooden]

I'm afraid, I do disagree about using the funds to erase sub-forums. Though would mean a good gold sink, but think that we can use it in better ways as example:

Sponsor contest gifts:

My original idea was that there were a special guild's shop from were the captain and vice captain could buy special items, that are not found in shops or MP. To avoid abuse, these will be locked to the guild till the winner is announced by the said command.

"Winner is"

Too complicated system for being granted but also here is another option could be granted by the votes of the members, this somehow will make the members to come often.

EXAMPLE:



Will be a combination of tip with arenas all placed in a subforum designed specifically for that and which will have a different price from the common ones.
After the time for voting has end the price will be sent to the winner automatically.

Cinema special place:

The treasury could be also use to rent a special place for guild's member and see a special movie offered in the cinemas. Different ones from the offered in the current one. rolleyes

Next idea is for towns 2.0

Would be great to have a virtual world for the guild in towns and be able to play and do stuff around including battling dragons or something like that...
^ w ^

This will also include a cost for the guild specially those "very" rich ones.

Lost ideas for now...but will come back later... whee  

[Sergeant Perks]

Well, since a lot of guilds already use guild mules as inofficial banks...

how about making an Official Guilds Bank? Guilds could store gold in a bank, and get paid interest... they could loan gold from the bank, and pay interest... guilds could arrange for a monthly wage of 500 gold or somesuch to be paid to all crew members... or a special active member bonus paid to members with more than 1000 posts a month... guilds could transfer funds to individual members, just like they do with guild mules, but they would have to type in a reason why the funds are transferred, and moderators would keep an eye on what kind of reasons are typed... there could even be a button in guild forums, beside the quote and edit buttons, for a vice captain to tip posts with sums larger that 25 gold...

I think there WILL always be misuse of guilds and gold. The guild mules can get hacked or scammed... captains can award prizes to their favorites... crew members can enter contests with mule accounts... ordinary members can join a guild with a dozen secret mules... charities can be compromised, donations can be used for purposes other than what they were intended for... minishops can sell stolen artwork, and hired workers can manipulate guilds and their owners...

A Gaia Guilds Bank would make it easier to monitor the misuse that is taking place, and to spot those guilds that abuse their members' generosity.  

[wingedcentaur]

To help avoid abuse, I would suggest that all guild transactions would be a matter of public record, so to speak. A page that shows all transactions, a reason for them, etc. So that members can see if the gold is being used responsibly. No one would want to be a part of a guild that wasn't honest about their funds.  

[Kaput Cards]

So, for Pangrammic to seriously consider it we need to come up with a system that clearly states what we want to spend the money on, as well as ways to counter abuse? Hmm...

I like the idea of a guild bank, like Sergeant Perks suggested. I'm not sure how easily it could be implemented, or if it would be more than Pangrammic was looking to do, but it's a nifty idea.

But for basic things I would like to use guild funds towards:
1) Money Prizes for Contests
An an often-used one. Instead of trading through a mule we can grant members money from the guild account directly.

2) Advertising. I think it would be kind of cool if there was a way to use guild money to get word out about your guilds on the site to attract members.

3) Um... lost my train of thought. I'll come back and edit this part if I remember what I was going to say. redface

As far as the abuse side of things... I think no matter what we come up with there will be a way to cheat the system, and the greedy will take advantage of that. Even if you limit it to just the Vice Captain and Captain, they themselves are only human.

There could be limits on how much money can be allocated to each user. So, you cannot give a certain user more than X amount of the guild treasury in a three month period.  

[Cho Wan HalHabbet]

I really like the guild banner idea. What if we could run banners within Towns, ZOMG or any of the other interactive features on gaia.

I would also love to be able to "build" a guild. Buy rooms, floors, wings, etc and have an actual virtual neighborhood comprised of allied and associated guilds.  

[OmniaVanitus]

nanieru

I'm afraid, I do disagree about using the funds to erase sub-forums. Though would mean a good gold sink, but think that we can use it in better ways as example:

Sponsor contest gifts:

My original idea was that there were a special guild's shop from were the captain and vice captain could buy special items, that are not found in shops or MP. To avoid abuse, these will be locked to the guild till the winner is announced by the said command.

"Winner is"

Too complicated system for being granted but also here is another option could be granted by the votes of the members, this somehow will make the members to come often.

This was my first idea too. I still think it could work, but instead of having special items made for the guild, how a shop that sold those Mythrill Coins and/or maybe those items from the Prize and Joy shop.

I think an option for deleting subforums would be good but I would also like to an option to hide the subforums too. If you delete a subforum, you may end up having to buy a new one where as if you had the option to hide it, you could make it visible again when you need it.  

[Osom]

I like the idea of a cap as well, but ultimately, that wouldn't even help much because they could just send the cap amount to a mule each month. Still, a cap is better than free reign over the funds.

Guild advertisements sound like a fabulous way to do it. Definitely suggest that. It could be like literal ads on the sides of gaia, or a "promotion" thread accessible through the gaia home page.

Also, they could make it so that you can have status marks under people's names when they post in the guild, or even the other forums. For example, they win a contest in the guild, so the captain is able to pay to have them get a "Guild Title Award," which might just be seen as a gold strip under the user's avatar near achievements (or as an achievement), and say like "Guild Contest Winner," or even more specific things like, " Writing Contest Winner in the Cookie Lovers Guild!"