Token System - Marketplace

Justin, I am surprised at you for thinking like this. I feel I can do the community a lot better if I was to manage it using private funding, and obtaining capital hopefully one day through the site. Yes, this would be called profits, but I hope one day to create jobs.

Chopin, I greatly admire that you think that highly of the purpose of YC that you are willing to fund it your self. But I understand Justins response as well, and I think you should prevent the idea that you are trying to make profit. Using the income to pay for the hosting etc. or using it as an investment still fits (for me) in the non-profit are.

On the other hand making profit at the expense of voluntary work everybody here offers, arouses suspicion...

On the other hand making profit at the expense of voluntary work everybody here offers, arouses suspicion.

Since when is doing work for monetary exchange voluntary?

And tell me, why would making profits be a bad thing? You guys go to school, why? Because I am sure you have future plans for yourself. How will you support yourself? There are a few ways actually. You can get government aid, you can run a business, or you can work for someone who runs a business. This is just the way life works, nothing can be for free in life, as there are limited resources. However profits are put back into businesses to grow them to the next levels, and this is ideally what I would like to do. I may not get to that point, but I can try.

And if you guys can make money with the process, why not?

I was talking about services provided by all, generating profit for only one. And then profit defined as more than the expenses for keeping this site up and running.

I have nothing against you making money to cover the expenses. That only seems fair.

But if the income generated exceeds the costs, than reviewers, moderators, people writing wiki-pages, are become kind of your employees, because these are the main service this site provides. This would also make you the only shareholder, and ultimate boss. I don't care so much if this is so, it would be only new to me. I was only in the impression this was a educational site, with free access to services provided by a community.

To be clear, I do want to engage in a fight, and if I've said stupid things feel free to say so. I only want to make certain things clear, because I think this whole misunderstanding is based on different purposes people have in mind for YC

I think you are looking far to into this. I'm just proposing a marketplace where trading can occur, but is not enforced. This might encourage the exchange of higher quality material, jobs that people would like done. For example, if someone wants something "sequenced" that requires a lot of effort, this type of event would most likely not be performed as a free job on this site. The solution would be an exchange or a trade.

Other ideas would include:

• composing music for a video game/movie
  
• lessons
  
• adding a drum sequence to a midi
  
• recording midi into an mp3 using sound samples
  

The above are just examples of services that are not done on this site for free, or these services can be done at a much higher quality level if they were paid jobs.

ok. That sounds fine.

But how is YC involved? I think you want to do more than connect two parties? Otherwise I do not get the token idea. When I want to follow some lessons, and someone else provides this, I am going to pay him/her Euro's/Dollars, not YC-tokens...

YC is involved in facilitating the transactions, and advertising them.

And fair enough about the tokens. So you'd rather use real money rather than a universal credit currency that you can cash in?

So you'd rather use real money rather than a universal credit currency that you can cash in?

Absolutely. Especially since PayPal is better at it than YC.

Geez. This is getting out of hand, and seeing as how I need to be in bed, I'll be brief.

A marketplace is something akin to a flea market. All Chopin is doing is saying, "Hey, you vendors [Composers] out there, would you like me to make space for you to do something that earns you money?" People then take this to mean, "Hey, YC, go make me some money!" So, what's getting lost in translation here is that Chopin wants to make this place more business-friendly, add another dimension to the "market" (that currently consists of 'us', we members of YC) and attract composers who want to take their interests in music to a more professional level. 

The real question, though, is whether YC is that place. When you turn part of a school/community center into a flea market, it is bound to confuse existing members. So much change over so little time has really not benefited the YC community. Do I think the idea has merit? Sure. Would I use a marketplace? Depending on the clientèle and the opportunities, possibly. Would I expect to see this become a "part" of YC? No. 

I don't walk into a school looking for a flea market. YoungComposers is specific, and it makes great sense to send those within the community that are interested in becoming a vendor at a flea market to a place that is actually a flea market. It also makes great sense to send those within the community interested in buying stuff at a flea market TO a flea market, not a school. I have to say that I really like the concept, I just don't think YC is the place for it to exist. Put $10 into a domain and use your existing host and server to link up YC users to this marketplace if it ends up taking off. Otherwise, if it fails, that's just another burden on the community and on the site itself... and on you. 

Baby steps lead to big things. The YC community needs all of this to slow down. We need to catch up on our numbers, return to the basics of how this site and its membership interact, we need to bring some of the old members back eventually, and we need to grow in membership. It takes time, but so did Facebook. They could have made change after change looking for ways to leverage what they had, but they waited until they were about 500,000 members strong before actually leveraging their site to make money. Nearly $19,000 went into its development over several years, then they tweaked and waited for the right time and right way to leverage their market for profit.

Think what we will about YC, it may never be a Facebook, but it has potential to be a strong contender in its more specialized market. The next proposal I think we should consider is how to reach out to music students and bring them to YC, one school at a time. Build the membership, let the community build the resources, and let time run its course. The marketplace is down the road, it's not a well-timed idea FOR YC at this junction. 

That's my opinion, and maybe it wasn't so brief but w/e. 

Well said AA!

People are looking wayyy to into this. It's not a bad idea. and not that much negativity can come from it if it fails. If I'm not mistaken, this would just be a section of YC where you can hire/get hired for a music project (ie what chopin listen on page 3):

Need a midi file turned into a piece with updated Vst's?

Need an in-depth review of a piece? (screenwriters always pay for their script to be read by professionals, to get in-

depth reviews and help)

Orchestrate a piano theme?

etc etc

I say go for it. If you don't want to participate, don't. The forums will still be here. It will probably bring in more traffic, also. I really don't see how you can lose much if it doesn't take off.

Unless I'm missing something, like a whole revamp of the site, I don't see what the big deal is.

my 2 cents

Not a big deal at all, I don't think. I just think it's a lot of energy to invest in the wrong environment or culture. IF it takes off, YC will attract a new market that may or may not clash with the existing membership. That's all I'm saying. It's a gamble if, say, instead of building the community that exists by shoring up those features that members come here for, we're putting effort into creating something completely different - then if that doesn't work, the existing community has been neglected without a new community there to keep things going. Then we're back, once again, to the drawing board.

Just saying, it's a good idea, just the wrong time and/or place for it.

Agreed. While a good idea on some other sites, for YC, it wouldn't work.

Wait, when did this become a school? I'm here for promotion and shop talk, mostly.

How are you going to market this? There are a ton of sites out there like that with no real professional traffic... How are you going to bring the site to buyers of the service?

Well this idea branched off of my site Record Hall. I get requests to record music on that site at least a few times a month, but I do not have the resources any longer. Furthermore, because I dedicate all of my time and energy into this community, I simply do not have the time to continue this business. However, the traffic here at YC is 10 times greater, and I figure that much more activity can take place here.

Just saying, it's a good idea, just the wrong time and/or place for it.

I absolutely agree. I also agree with jrcramer when he said:

If people are awarded for their reviewing or their favouring, I fear that would dramatic decrease the value of that review. When I review that is a service I provide. I do not want to earn something by that, except for the good-will of others to review as well. Good will should be the only currency, imho