I'd like to introduce a new community project for allegro.cc, where people put their talents to use and leverage the knowledge of others for the greater benefit of the community.

Let me explain. Imagine three allegro.cc members, Mike, Dave and Brent.

Mike is a pixelation wizard. Mike has just finished a new shareware allegro game, widely acclaimed for its beautiful polished graphics. He would like to get it ported to linux and Mac OS X. The problem is that he doesn't really know Linux, and he doesn't even have access to a Mac. The game is closed-source, but it isn't raking in the dollars just yet so he can't just pay somebody to do it.

Dave is new with allegro. His programming skills are really not great. He's good with web design though. He has started up a few team projects that got nowhere at all. For each of these projects he created a nice website with separate forums and dynamic contect all with php and AJAX. The games themselves got nowhere though. Perhaps if he could get some serious help in the graphics department, he could kick some life in one of these projects.

Brent is a great developer. He's doing work on the Mac OS X port of allegro. Plus he is a debian package maintainer, and he hacks away on a few open source projects. His projects are listed on his website, which has a "designed for netscape 1.0" button on it, next to the eternal "work in progress" line (with blink tag). He'd really like to update his website, but then he has to read up on CSS and with all his other projects he really hasn't got the time.

The ideal solution for these three people, of course, would be that Mike creates graphics for Dave, Dave updates Brents website, and Brent ports Mikes closed-source game. Everybody happy. This kind of deal is not very likely to happen though. Who is in reality going to sit down like this and mix and match needs and opportunities? Besides, would Brent be prepared to port a closed-source game for free, or would Mike be willing to share some of his (probably very low) profits?

Introducing: the Allegro Trading System. Hereby I introduce an imaginary currency unit, which I shall call the "Allegro Rupee" (with a wink to the Zelda Games), and the value of 10 rupees will be roughly equal to one hour of work. Allegro members will be able to post jobs and advertise their talents on these forums, and do some work in exchange for Rupees. The currency is completely virtual, and an impartial and trustable accountant (i.e me, for now) will keep track of balances and transactions.

(Of course this type of thing is often called a Local Exchange Trading System, except that this one is not Local in the literal sense)

How will this work in practice?

- You sign up by sending me a PM. (Only allegro.cc members can sign up). For this you will get a one-time only interest-free loan of 100 Rupees. This is the equivalent of 10 hours work. The initial loans are necessary to bootstrap the system.
- You advertise your talents on the allegro wiki (see link below), and at the same time offer jobs for others.
- If you want to make a deal, you should make agreements by PM or by email. You should approach this like a business deal, putting pay, time schedule and deliverables in writing as well as possible.
- You can charge an hourly rate or a fixed amount. 10 rupees per hour should be the norm, but if your skill is in high demand you may charge a little more. Since there is no actual money involved, you shouldn't be too worried about getting ripped off. The worst that can happen is a few hours of work going to waste. Of course, since this is a small online community freeloaders will be exposed quickly, and stealing is impossible because there is only one place where balances are kept.
- For the moment, I will do bookkeeping by hand. If the system gains popularity, we'll set up an automatic web interface.
- When the work is done and you are ready to pay, send me a PM telling me how much you want to pay to whom, and I'll do the bookkeeping and send PM's with the new balances to both involved.
- You can enquire anybodies current saldo with me by PM.
- I will closely guard the current value of the rupee. As with real money, printing more money leads to inflation. The only time rupees are added to the system is when a new member signs up and takes out a loan of 100 rupees. This I guarantee.

We could set up a more democratic form of government in the future, but for now I want to see how many people are actually interested. Don't be afraid that this will cause you a lot of work. If you want to join but don't want to spend more than say 2 hours per month, that is just fine. It will mean that you won't have many rupees to spend, but that is ok too. Remember that the things you are going to do are those things that you enjoy and are good at, so they should be easy for you.

I've given a few examples of what skills you can offer, here are some more examples
- writing documentation
- writing tutorials
- testing
- testing on different platforms
- translation to your language
- spell checking in your language
- pixelated graphics, sound, music, 3D models, level design
- openGL experience
- network programming experience
- experience with specific algoritms or techniques
- cross-platform makefiles
- scripting
- writing development tools
- optimizing stuff
- etc...

So, who is interested?

edit: I've set up wiki pages to list Jobs and Talents.

• Introduction

• Job listing

• Talent listing

edit: changed initial fund from 50 to 100 as discussed later in this thread

i'm in

Awesome idea! I'm in! Here are my talents (will probably edit later):

• testing and porting to Linux

• translation to my language (slovenian) and spell checking

• programming nearly everything: gfx rendering (plain Allegro and OpenGL), audio and music programming, AI, etc.

• user interface design and implementation

• writing development tools (editors for all kinds of stuff)

Somehow I fail to see how using virtual currency is going to make people do more work on projects that aren't their own or projects that they're not really interested in. Even if it gets them virtual currency, what's the point? To use it to pay someone else who's potentially not interested in your project to do work on it?

I also like to point out that within the Allegro community there are probably a lot more programming oriented people than art/pixeling oriented people. For this to truly work we'd need a proper balance of artists to developers. While I have no idea what that ratio is, I still think we're a bit on the worse-off side regarding pixel pushers here at A.cc.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that with a system like this, it's all up to the person who's got the currency to schedule people to do work for them. Those people who already have this skill at recruiting other folk and keeping them in check and inline with what they need done probably won't need a system like this since they already have their connections. Those people who don't have such skills will probably be intimidated by such a system, or not really be able to use it to its full potential.

Don't get me wrong, I think bringing the collective skills of people together is a wonderful thing. What might be more useful is a (serious and heavily moderated) forum section dedicated to recruiting for specific projects. This, however, might be out of the scope of Allegro.cc.

Don't forget it's equally important to list jobs (if you have them).
Oh, and I should post my talents as well.

talents

• GFX: my GFX are perhaps not great, but not that bad either and I like to do it. Check e.g. the screenshots of Mars for stuff I can do. edit: For these medium-quality sprites I'll charge 6 rupees/hour, a bargain!

• trigonometry stuff

• Astar pathfinders

• translating / spell-checking Dutch

• optimization

• PERL data mangling / text parsing, or any PERL related issue

• anything related with Bioinformatics / Biology

• java GUI's in SWT

jobs

• I want to create an OpenGL extension of my tilemapping library. I've been putting this off because I don't know OpenGL well enough. OpenGL in 2D skills needed.

  
  

• I'd like some help redesigning my website. Php + xml skills needed.

Now back to the discussion:

The point is, that not everybody does everything in the same amount of time. I can do some things faster than you, and you can do some things faster than me. Also, what is boring for you may not be boring for me and vice versa.

I don't propose this as a solution to anything. I just propose this as a cool idea that we might try out and see if it works. I'm not giving guarantees of fitness or suitability to any particular purpose. If it doesn't work then well... no harm done, right?

You see this too much in terms of "team projects". It is everybodies experience that team projects don't work, and this system won't make it work all of a sudden either. The point is simply to get some external help with things that you aren't good at, nothing more nothing less.

Having said that, pixelation skills will surely be in great demand. Somebody with good pixelation skills may be able to charge twice the normal rate.

Of course. The only way to get currency is to do some work first. Nothing for nothing.

Again, you think of "team projects". I agree with you that especially well managed teams won't have a need for Rupees. The problem here is, that there are hardly any well managed teams here.

yeauh!

- Music Production
- Audio/Sound Effects
- Web Design/PHP/JavaScript (not MySQL... for the love of Jesus)

"for 10AR? I'll do it!"

edit:
http://www.markmusicproduction.com/stuff/payment.gif

-decent CSS and PHP skills
-translation to Italian
-decent C\C++ programming with 2d Allegro, but i'm sure there are dozens of better programmers on these boards
-can port to Windows
-i'm studying Computer Engineering so i guess i could learn a few useful things with time

Ok, good to see we have a lot of talents. But don't forget the jobs! It will be a very one-directional trade otherwise. I suggest you list jobs and talents like I did, with bold headings at the top.

Hmm, this sounds like an intrigueing idea....

Edit; ooh, you could make a web page with our a.rupee balances that we could link to in our sigs, then we could keep track of each other, maybe do a rating system too.

I'm in. For 500 AR I'd make a webpage for it. I'll post my talents and such later.

Not a bad idea. It is like the eBay for Animal Crossing, where people offer items for bells to be used by the game. I can do anything that has to do with programming in C, C++, design, UML diagrams, documentation, etc. I can make scripts in Perl if someone needs to do a lot of stuff in text files, write regexps, HTML, CSS, etc. Note that I am terribly busy as of now, we are trying to achieve the CCHIT certification for our software product and will likely have to work overtime until the exam, in mid July.

BAF: Of course competition drives the price down. I think it can be done for less than 500

How do you deal with inflation? How many rupees are minted? And, if, for example, you pay some arbitrary sum for a website, doesn't that devalue the currency? Or do you have to take out a loan to pay that, as well? Can people apply for bigger loans?

Marcello

A nice site like rentacoder would be nice for this. You can post whatever jobs you have then otheres with the talents bid on it, then the employer decides upon the job. Once it's complete, you get your credit.

I don't have many jobs I need done right now, but I am good at PHP/MySQL (read: not web design), C/C++ programming (again, not as good at graphics, but more 'backend' / networkish stuff), testing software for bugs and such.

Perhaps I can sell small hosting (like I give away for free now) to people for AR.

50 rupees per person joining.

Yup, so I'm not going to do that. I'd have to make 500 first before I could order that site from BAF (assuming that nobody is going to undercut his bid). So I'd have to do about 50 hours of work... It might take a while before I can afford that. Then again, others might e.g. voluntarily donate to help me afford it, if they think the cause is worthy.

No, for now. If the need rises in the future, we'll have a thorough discussion about the pros and cons. Right now that is all academical.

Possibly, but AR only has real value if you have jobs for others to do. See what I mean?

Shouldn't you wait to see how many are joining before setting the monetary base?

Well, the value of money depends largely on trust. The value of the american dollar is stable because most people trust the government of the USA not to do crazy things with it like print tons of extra money. They also trust that others recognize the value of the dollar as well, so it's a solid basis for fair exchange.

So the question really is, do you trust me? And do you trust the other allegroids to recognize the same value for AR as you do?

Hehehehe, well, you got me there. I thought it from the point of view of a country that has never had that advantage. As you can see, it is foreign to me the idea of creating money based on trust than backup

I will sign up once there's a nice website for it

Get to work then.

Sounds like fun, so count me in.

Great idea!
I'll join, probably. I'm just gonna have to do a little bit of self-checking to find out what im useful for. And what i need help with.

Just a thought, without much actual "though" put behind, but could AR be awarded (inflation alert!) for releasing finished projects on the depot? How many AR and how that would be decided however, i do not know.

Just one little thing. I'm no expert in economy, but shouldn't there be a way to generate new money? As I see it, there are now just 50 AR per person in the whole system. The only way to keep it going is if everyone would immediately spend everything they have. That's not going to happen so pretty soon there will be some people with a lot of virtual money (and no way to spend it for whatevar reason) and some with none. You have to put more and more virtual money out into the system, which decreases its value (inflation) and consequently encourages spending. Also 50 AR at the start when 1 hour of work costs 10 AR seems like not very much. This virtual economy will need a much stronger kickstart before it gets enough momentum to keep itself running without too much external intervention...

Also there will inevitably be some people who will earn more and others who will spend more. This will lead to a lot of instability without some sort of corrective mechanism. One possible solution would be a possibility for those who have mone to put it in the virtual bank, and those who need more than they have, to loan it from the bank...

I'm your man. Got some form of a spec?

My rates 10 rupees per hour of work.

Could we act as a bank? People can lend up rupees with interest while we invest it in feasible projects and get more rupees in return.

We could have our own global economy that is presented on the news channels.

Incorporating some kind of project management system would be beneficial to the community, projects, and developers also like webcollab
Thus people can organize and task individuals they hire which then the taskee can report his progress through the management system. It also allows others to see projects that require some kind of service (incomplete tasks) and see whether the type of project is of something of interest to him/her.

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.

Those are valid points, but the downside is that I don't want to give away too much to people who might not be completely sure of how to use the system. So this initial money is at the same the maximum you can spend before you have to start doing some work, this will encourage you to both take jobs and give out jobs for others right from the beginning.

I have an idea that might solve this: I'm considering a system where you can increase your start fund after you've earned some trust. E.g. After you have earned 50 rupees and spent 50 rupees, you'll be able to take up another free loan of 50 from the bank. What do you think of this? This way you are forced to do a few short jobs in the beginning, to get the hang of it, but then you can focus on bigger jobs later on.

Yes of course, although I think that if this happens a lot that is an indication there is something going wrong with the system.

I agree. I started this thread first because I wanted to gauge the interest, but there seems to be enough to warrant a website. I'll set up a few wiki pages soon, and get working on a more advanced system later.

Good idea too.

Dustin: I'll write some specs for you later today.

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.

I've quickly set up a few pages on the allegro wiki:

• Introduction

• Job listing

• Talent listing

Miran: what do you think is holding people back then?

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...

Maybe you are right Miran. But I'd like to know the opinion of others too before I make a decision. So let's have a little poll, shall we?

Do you think I'm right being cautious, giving out only little money when the system is still so new and unknown?
Or do you think Miran is right and with 50/person there is not enough currency to get the system going?

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 think it should be more myself. ~200

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?

Give each person 1 month's salary: 1600 AR

[edit]
s/AP/AR/

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

I think the better display is the total grossed income. That way one can spend one's rupees and not have a "lower" rating.

"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.

I like the idea, and will join when I will be back home.
As Miran said, if we want the project to be OK, we should start it by accepting the fact: the beginning will not make you earn rupees.

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.

I like that idea.

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'd like to post a job for someone to do my perl homework, anyone interested?

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

You're hired

If anybody has any Music Theory homework...

... I ain't doin it!

Edited: Well, I decided not to take the task. I don't want to be doing everyone's homework in the future So, I offer you 1 AC as indemnization for not accepting it. If you have some doubts about the tasks, I can give you a hand, but not code them. Sorry.

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

Dustin Dettmer: Is this how you study? "I pitty the..." - in the words of Mr T.

Simply download OL. Oh, and I just decided to charge 20 rupees per download!

You take Visa Electron, too?

Its more of a time thing, I can do the assignments just fine, but work and my masses of projects take the majority of my time.

When I signed up for the class I figured it would be a breeze, but turns out the teacher picked some time intensive assignments

I added myself to the list as well. I don't have any jobs out yet though.

Well we all have different moral standards I guess. Let's hope for your sake that when you look for work in the future your prospective employers won't Google this page up and find out how you conducted your studies.

When I have time to sign up for jobs, I might add myself to the list (or if I have to jobs to give at least)

Ok, then I'll up the initial fund to 100. I'll send out updates to those who have signed up shortly.

Good point! I'll see if I can set up something that shows your current total income automatically. Perhaps I could show it as an auto-generated GIF that you can link in your sig? Suggestions?

That's right, and I don't think it's going to work for a huge online community, because there need to be social checks. If you'd want to do it internet-wide, you might as well use real dollars.

But a little promotion in other communities wouldn't hurt. The only requirement is that you have to get an account on allegro.cc.

I might do it. If ReyBrujo still doesn't want to do it, let me know.

It is C only, sorry.

I already have an employer.

You're hired. Attached are 5 or so assignments, pick whichever ones you feel like going.

[edit]
Hm, maybe we should decide on a rate first, what do you usually go for?

I'd put it in my sig if you had one.

Maybe you should get bonuses for getting high ratings in the depot. Without that loans are pretty much useless.

I think investing rupees in other projects is a neat idea. Like if I can convince everyone to give me their rupees so I can hire a lot of people or whatever. Of course here is where the problem becomes apparent. I don't make any rupees by finishing the project.

Maybe some bank can offer to pay rupees for a successfully completed project?

Marcello

Or even

Or perhaps there could be a virtual boss. This non-existent boss virtually employs us as its workers. He then pays us rupees upon doing our job. What is our job? To work on our projects of course! We tell the VB (yes, virtual boss) this is where our project is going to be at this time and at that time, the VB pays us a small amount (like a paycheck). This way, we keep our motivation, make rupees and everybody's happy.

Actually, I can already see several cons to that idea, but I just want to get some ideas rollin'. That, or we all get paid 200 rupees everytime we pass Go.

... I don't get it

So, what about a nice site for this? I can host it, and do the PHP/mysql code underneath it for a small fee (in AR), assuming someone can be paid to make a nice design/template for it (I am no good at web design ).

I'll design a site for 10 grand.

The World Cup is near. Name a match, and I will give you how the odds are for it. Transfer up to 5 AC to my account, and if you get a hit, I will transfer the earnings back. For obvious reasons, I will only be able to accept bets until I reach my limit.

Speaking of that, how about a virtual betting programme? An easy way to make some money for those short on cash.

I could give my 100 AR as a loan. Anyone interested? Who pays best 6 months interest? If I ever needed my munny, it would be only after 6 months. (I hereby coined the noun "munny").

[edit]
How about share trading?

Oh really?

How about paying people for finished products? If you actually end up finishing something, maybe there can be some way that you earn back what you payed?

Here are a few more ideas, borrowed from the open source world:

Donations. Had fun playing a game? Donate a few AR to the author. Nothing wrong with that. Are you using an add-on library a lot? Donate a few AR to the author so he can hire help to extend it. It should be entirely voluntary though. It never hurts to ask for small donations though.

Bounties. If you like to see a new feature added to an project or library, set a bounty, i.e. promise that you'll pay AR to the first person implementing that feature. Perhaps people can promise AR together and make the bounty really big.

I was referring to that you posted the credit card logos in your post I could buy a sound effect or two...

That you could. I should set up a sound effect/music library when people could pay with pAR-pal.

Maybe its just me, but I don't like the whole "per hour" bit with a thing like this. Since everyone starts with only 50 AR, don't you think 1 AR is worth a heck of a lot more than that?

The first transaction is in the books! Mark Oates is now the richest allegroid, with a total of 130 Rupees.

And who's the poorest?

I suppose I can take part... I specialize in lowlevel lib making and GUI design with Qt4. allegro gui is possible but that costs more. Though anything done in qt4 will have to be open source.

I have a job for someone who can draw pixel art (or alternatively make 3D models and render them). Nothing fancy, just some abstract shapes. Here's a copy of the job description I posted on the wiki:

As for the system itself, I assume work is being done on a more sophisticated page. Something where people can open an account, initiate communication with other people and eventually close deals and perform munny transactions...

Hey. Could I collect taxes ?

Ron: Sure. but those voluntary taxes are often called donations

Miran: indeed, I'm working on it. I agree we need a nice site.

<=== see my avatar change

'pimp chalice'

I pity the fool who does deals with Mark Oates.

Your avatar looks the same to me.

[edit]
Scratched that, I did a full refresh.

I just had a thought: Even if ARTS doesn't save you time or make you rich or anything like that, at the very least it is an excellent way to get your project planning and management skills up . You know, things like estimating the time you need to complete your task, writing your hours, setting requirements, negotiating contract details, etc. Quite useful if you ask me.

I'm sure some of you do that all the time in real life, but I come from an academic background, where it is not so necessary.

That's why I suggested implementing some kind of project management system as an added/extra tool for developers to plan/coordinate/manage/etc their projects.
Also, is there a site in the works? Writing something of this magnitude would be a daunting task. There are plenty of CMS's out there that provide this functionality and would suite the purpose of having something to work with.

I'll work on the site for 12 AR/hr

I'll do it for 10AR/h!

this per hour stuff.. give a realistic estimate, and a solid number given the value of AR (since you only get 100, its worth quite alot no?)

10AR/h is relatively realistic. That gives you 10 hours of work before you have to do some work yourself. You only get 100 if you don't do any work!

12AR/h is completely unrealistic, so don't even both with his offer. Just skip on over to mine. (just kidding, of course)

I haven't really commented yet, but I've been following the thread. It sounds like a great idea.

Derezo does his work in 2x the time, so effectively hes charing 20 AR/hr. My offer is clearly the superior price.

You don't charge per hour for a project. You get people to give you estimates on the total, and accept the cheapest one you can afford.

So programmers are soliciting themselves to other programmers to begin a community service? You guys might be losing sight of the goal of the movement.

I think I will try to start a transaction site tonight. With luck, it will be done for Monday. Please quote me on this to keep me moving

If I do this site, I assume I would be placed in charge of the currency, yes? If anyone has any issues with this, let me know immediately so we can work something else out.

If I run this site I think I will do so as follows: all transactions are subject to a 1% service fee, to a maximum of 1 AR, minimum 0.01 AR.

Eh? Amarillion already told me the guidelines and such for me to get a basic site set up soon. It's going to be done in stages.

How soon is soon? AFAIC, we can either work together or compete for the product

Starting to work this weekend, then doing more work as time progesses.

Plus I won't be charging a service fee

edit:

But of course we can work together. I've asked BAF to set up a simple database. Afterwards we can perhaps put the website engine on a subversion repo, so people can submit patches for new features.

Being that this is Allegro.cc, its likely already dead.

Yes, you suggested webcollab, which seems nice. It doesn't cover all our needs completely though, especally the virtual currency part. We would have to hack it up a bit before it is suitable.

edit:
another remark:

Well, you can define terms in whichever way you want it. If you trust eachoter a little bit, you can agree on a fee per hour, a maximum fee and a deadline. That way the person who takes the job won't have to fear for misestimating the time too much, he gets paid for the hours he works.

If competition is fierce, or if you can do a job way faster than others, it might be better to set a fixed bid.

I introduce my services to the Allegro Rupee world: escrow!

No more debates about whether the job was done right or is or is not worth the money. With simple contracts, all transactions can go smoothly. Specify an effective date, a project due date and the criteria in the agreement and I will disburse funds depending on the contract's requirements. If you want only half of the money paid after a certain time, it can be done. If you are running low on cash but are expecting more soon, the money can be disbursed in increments.

My fee is only 1% of the total payment (2AR minimum). An additional minimum of 2AR is charged for the drafting of an agreement. All agreements are "signed" by agreeing to them via a PM to me.

Note: I'm kidding (I don't really have time for this). Thought it'd be a cool idea though.

how much would a contract be if you charge 1% with a min of 2 ? for just 2 to be 1 percent, thats 200AR.. Noone even has 200AR, and at the most, half of the entire population would be able to gather that much, while the other half have none.

Thomas Fjellstrom: You must realize that he wants 2AR at a minimum and if 1% is more than 2AR he want's that instead? edit: (Plus the 2AR for drafting the agreement.)

Like all good investors, I'm looking toward the future. Should any 250AR transactions ever pass, I'll be rich off of the rounding alone!

No. He said he wants 1% or 2AR which ever is highest.

how much has been done on the website already? by anybody?

I think I'll start working on it ... ?

CGames and I have started design docs for it and figuring out how to best tackle it. We set up the webspace for it which is tied to a SVN repository, so multiple people can work on the site easily.

Well that's exactly what I wrote.

I disagree to agreeing to agreeing to disagree!

that's impossible.

...

I.. think ...

No, you said it was 1% or 2AR which ever is lowest. which really doesn't make sense. since most transactions will come in under 1%.

I was going to make a little design for fun, but since nobody is going to pay me Allegro Rupee's, then screw that!

TF: No, he said it was 2AR, but if 1% is higher than 2AR then the price is 1%.

Ah, so I misread.. So why was he disagreeing with me originally?

Never mind. Let's get back on track.

Cool idea! If I had any skills I'd sign up.

I've got one you could list... "Sig Skills"

Bobby and I are proud to announce that the first revision of the website is completed! It is accessible from http://arts.bafsoft.net. Next on our agenda is adding Allegro.cc user authentication, and user-managed, moderated transactions. Stay tuned!

Yeah, the site should still work, but it will look ugly.

And I entered all previous transactions in the database, so that everybody can view them now.

http://arts.bafsoft.net/

Right now the only function of the site is to see who is making money, if you want to make a transaction you still have to go through me. But in the next version of the site will implement authentication and some security features so everybody will be able to make their own transactions.

seems like noone needs my services oh well.

Your services? There aren't any listed on your wiki.

You've been following the thread haven't you?

meh.

I just read the last couple of post every now and then...

Well, it's Monday, and I won't work on it any more for a while (Friday, maybe sooner), I'll bet. The SVN trunk currently has Allegro.cc authorization, and transactions by all users. The only things left to write for it are the page for moderators submitting transactions, and adding an email address.

What do you mean by allegro.cc authorization?

I think he meant 'authentication'. Logging in with your allegro.cc username/passwd.

It means instead of signing into the ARTS website, you sign into Allegro.cc, and Allegro.cc tells our site that you are authorized, as well as public informatin such as user name, avatar, or profile. Note that passwords and email addresses aren't disclosed. To try it out, use http://home.cgamesplay.com/~cgames/arts.

Why are there two ARTS sites?

One is the one that is actually authoritative. Mine is a sandbox, with the SVN trunk. Baf has one, too. The SVN repo, for the curious, is http://svn.bafserv.com/svn/arts/trunk/.

Just seems scary to be giving away a.cc details to an offshore site.

Marcello

EDIT: Nevermind.

Awiki does it, as well as some other sites also. According to our documentation, we get information looking something like this:

<member id=”666”>
<name>John Doe</name>
<city>My Town</city>
<country>ZZ</country>
<avatar border=”true” animated=”false”>666.png</avatar>
<picture border=”true”>666.jpg</picture>
<website>http://www.allegro.cc</website>
<about>I am great.</about>
</member>

[append]
The layout could probably be fixed just by popping IE7 on it...

I meant sending the password through another server unencrypted.

Marcello

The passwords never leave a.cc. When you 'log in' at one of the a.cc authenticated sites, you are sent to an a.cc page, where you log in, then it returns you to the other page, then from our php we query a.cc and it tells us the status of the login.

The login box on http://arts.bafsoft.net/transaction.php says it's coming from arts.bafsoft.net...

Marcello

That is the phase1 site, which does not have A.cc authentication. The only sites with A.cc auth at the moment are the live sandboxes, one on my local box, one on CGames'.

Where's the login box?

On one of the sandbox sites, you have to login through a.cc to do anything. If you are already logged in at a.cc, it doesn't ask for your password again. That would be silly

So what's the "official" ARTS site now? Still the one linked to in the first post, or something else? Are transactions still done purely through PMs to Amarillion?

Good question. Baf, CGames: please don't confuse everybody with all the development talk.

The official site is http://arts.bafsoft.net

Rupee Transfers still have to go through me.

Sheesh

Hey, I like this idea. I wouldn't mind getting in on it, although I doubt I'll be very active...
I saw something like this on another forum and thought it was a cool idea. It would be even better if it were built into a.cc, so that we could see everyone's cash displayed until their name and stuff like that.

I will probably add a script to my custom Javascript to display the rupee count of a user in the same area as the member number. The trick will be the whole cross-domain thing, so I think I will have to do some sort of data mirroring.

When is it expected that we will be able to login, and begin user-moderated transactions?

If, say, a user made multipul accounts...wouldn't they be able to transfer the rupees from one to the other? Are you taking precautions to guard against that, so some jerk-ass doesn't make 100 accounts and get like 10,000 rupees without doing anything?

Monday

None of this is on the live site I don't want to confuse you so please skip the rest of the message if you cannot read up to this point
We have a security system planned out. When a user first creates an account, he is a "new user". He can't commit any transactions on his own, everything has to go through a moderator. Later he can become a "trusted" user, where he can give money away without approval. Finally when he becomes amarillion, he is a "moderator" and can take money and give it arbitrarily.

/me comes up with a dastardly plan to become amarillion. MUAHAHAHAA*cough**cough**cough*

How do i join?

3D Graphics, Hipoly static object modelling & rendering (.lwo , .blender)
Possibly Low-poly modelling for games (if stays very simple)
Hi-Level B1tzhing

Exitialis: Welcome, I'll add you to the database. If you want to list jobs & talents, head over to the wiki pages

Thanks. Added some bio. My workoutput might be slow since i am working on 4 movies at the same time. And the civil service.

But i will try to "lend" my talents whenever i can.

Wouldn't that be "rent"?

I'd like to join, I can translate to (or from, but if you can read this you probably don't need it) French, make ugly websites, write leaky C++ and test things on Linux.

Yeah.. well since there is no REAL money involved. Id call it lending for now.