I think it's a great way to increase the quality of the involved projects, but only if it's properly organized. Someone should set up a wiki to keep track of the people offering their skills and the projects in need of help. There should be "reliability points" to be awarded to those people who actually do the requested work.

As I said, a system like this needs to be kickstarted before it gets going properly. Your idea is doing the exact opposite as it assumes people will be able and willing to both earn and spend right from the beginning. You can be almost 100% certain this is not going to happen.

Some people are busy with projects and don't have time to help others right now. They will "pay back" later.

Some people don't have a project, so they will only help others right now. They will "give jobs" later.

Your idea assumes "later" is a very short amount of time. I don't think this can work. Yes, when the system is running, maybe it can, but not at the very beginning. You must first artificially kickstart it (I use that word wy too often) by giving big loans and stuff like that, so that as many different people join in, then later it will hopefully stabilize itself and only minor interventions are needed...

I agree with Miran. A lot of people will want to see some results before they commit, so things will be slow at first.

I don't think it really matters how many ar you give out at first. BAF can bid 500 for a site, but since he know anyone only has 50, sounds like he doesn't really want the work. I think very few people will utilize the system at first and they may deplete their funds or accumulate large amounts of ar's and the rest of us will sit on the 50 ar for quiet some time and may not use it at all.

I think the system should be setup to rely one additional thing: Programmer Pride. The main reason alot of us do this kind of thing is to build up esteem among our peers (according Eric Raymond) for our coding abilities or ability to create projects. It'd be nice if allegro.cc could be setup to display your rupee account balance in you sig somewhere, it could act like a 'rating system' some other sites use.

Another problem could be: if a person accumulates alot of rupees, what are the chances they in turn will spend them? So maybe give the rupees a half life, if you don't use them they go back to the bank?

Ah, speculation. That is something I do know in Argentina! I will lend 10 AC for a 1 AC tax per week, to a maximun of 15 AC

"In other news, Archon-soft global banking systems went up 10 points today, and expect some pretty hefty rupee dividends this year".

I help people just for the warm fuzzy feeling inside...Or maybe grahm crackers and mountain dew don't mix too well.

All other things aside; where are we going to promote this so we can get more people outside the realm of programming? This whole project is only going to be as good as the community that's going to back it and keep it alive.

Sounds interesting, at least the 50% of each post that I read. Anyway, here's my talents (if you want to call them that):

• Simple, generic loop-sampling music writer. Great for upbeat background sequences and/or placeholder music. For original compisitions, see other users, but for five minute production, see me.

• Design savvy. Let me set you up and get you started.

• Story writer. I've got some die-hard fans out in the fanfiction world. I can write you up a story, side-story, etc.

• Tester. I'll play your game and probably give you the best feedback you've ever seen.

• Enthusiastic programmer. Great for writing modular code and works well with teams. I'm fit for writing the code that you don't really want to handle. I'm studying to become a more hardcore coder, but I'm not quite to that level.

• Art. If you want me to do some art, I will, but it's going to take a while. If you got some tedious pixel work to do, well, you get the drill.

Me in a nutshell I guess. BTW, amarillion, you might want to sum up the process on your original post. I kept veering away because I didn't want to read all that material, nor did I have the time.

I can do that. I would be needing you to tell me what is it about, and provide the data samples. My fee for Perl tasks is 1 AC per half an hour. I will review the problem and tell you how much it will take me (if I am able to do it, if I see the requirements are too complex or I am just too busy by the time).

Note that I won't be able to help you with your exams, though

If anybody has any Music Theory homework...

... I ain't doin it!

Then up your price, I can offer you 5 AR for an hours work