Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2014 15:43:36 GMT -5
Decided to check out the so-called street team today. I'll hip y'all to what I found:
You need to have at least 600 points to even have a chance for a ticket. Now I expected that anything you could do from the privacy of your own home (basically post on various social media) would be low in points, but wow...3? In fact, even if you get in your car, use your own gas and other resources, and paper your city or campus with posters (it's your responsibility to know the applicable laws regarding this in your area too), you'll only get 60. That's a tenth of what you need to even be considered for a ticket. And only the top 20 people who pass that threshold get...anything, as far as I could tell. Lockn's site promises merch as well, but I didn't see anything about it in the partner site (StreetShimon.com, if you're interested). Also, just a general critique, but the site is clunky, slow and difficult to use as well.
The way I crunch the numbers, this results in a shit-ton of free labor, overhead and publicity for Lockn'. Basically, the only thing keeping this program from being slavery or indentured servitude is the fact that it's voluntary. So basically, just as the lottery is a tax for people who can't do math, this is indentured servitude for those who can't do math. As it stands now, the top account on the leaderboard had a little over half of the threshold. It'll be interesting to see if anyone indeed makes it in the 80 days we have left, what will happen if no one does, whether merch will actually be offered, and to whom it will go.
Lockn' is still a relatively new event, and there's gonna be a bit of trial and error. For that reason, I'm not going to completely condemn the promoters for trying this. I think, though, that unless I'm the only one who noticed (and sadly, that may be true), the promoters would be better off not partnering with StreetShimon in the future.
Edit: I found where they were hiding the merch. 300 points (half of threshold) for a lousy t-shirt.
You need to have at least 600 points to even have a chance for a ticket. Now I expected that anything you could do from the privacy of your own home (basically post on various social media) would be low in points, but wow...3? In fact, even if you get in your car, use your own gas and other resources, and paper your city or campus with posters (it's your responsibility to know the applicable laws regarding this in your area too), you'll only get 60. That's a tenth of what you need to even be considered for a ticket. And only the top 20 people who pass that threshold get...anything, as far as I could tell. Lockn's site promises merch as well, but I didn't see anything about it in the partner site (StreetShimon.com, if you're interested). Also, just a general critique, but the site is clunky, slow and difficult to use as well.
The way I crunch the numbers, this results in a shit-ton of free labor, overhead and publicity for Lockn'. Basically, the only thing keeping this program from being slavery or indentured servitude is the fact that it's voluntary. So basically, just as the lottery is a tax for people who can't do math, this is indentured servitude for those who can't do math. As it stands now, the top account on the leaderboard had a little over half of the threshold. It'll be interesting to see if anyone indeed makes it in the 80 days we have left, what will happen if no one does, whether merch will actually be offered, and to whom it will go.
Lockn' is still a relatively new event, and there's gonna be a bit of trial and error. For that reason, I'm not going to completely condemn the promoters for trying this. I think, though, that unless I'm the only one who noticed (and sadly, that may be true), the promoters would be better off not partnering with StreetShimon in the future.
Edit: I found where they were hiding the merch. 300 points (half of threshold) for a lousy t-shirt.
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