Marc Hartstein writes:
>2. To purchase an item with a price in points, your Total Points Earned
>must be greater than the number of items with a price in points you have
>ever purchased.
This was my first thought when I read your last post (I've also run
into the "how much discount do I spend given that I'll want to
conserve points for a future purchase" metagame question, though money
was never tight enough that it stopped a purchase rather than
requiring me to spend more money).
Basically, the current system does have two LL-positive results -- that
people like me who might otherwise buy some items entirely in points
end up spending a combination of points and dollars insteaed, and that
people who run out of points are encouraged to do more demos in order
to earn more points and one LL-negative one -- that people less flush
might run out of points and not be able to purchase an item they want
to buy, thus depriving LL of cash for more or less no reason (the
person has done enough work to "deserve" the item), but is entirely
fan-negative, and the postive results are fairly minor (for my
example; I have 12 points left, and plan to make another $18 purchase
from the site today with 14 points of rabbit points attributable to it
-- so I couldn't have made all my purchases without running out of
points anyway, and people who are short enough of cash that they would
run out of rabbit points also need the discount points).
But a rephrasing of your "idea 2":
The system accumulates two numbers where it now accumulates one:
You have "Rabbit Karma" and "Rabbit Points".
Your Rabbit Karma is the total number of points you've accumulated,
ever, minus the number of items Dangling Carrot items you've
purchased, ever.
Your Rabbit Points are the number of points you have unspent, and can
be spent for a $1 discount on shipping or Dangling Carrot items.
Whenever you purchase eligible items, your Rabbit Karma goes down for
each item you purchase. Additionally, you may spend Rabbit Points on
such items.
Marc, does this match your idea? Is this clearer?
(I was originally thinking three numbers, but two is much easier to
keep track of, and I really like the idea of Rabbit Karma).
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^-- "Did you know, if you increment enough, you /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\ get an extra digit?" "I knew," weeps Six. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\ "We knew. But we had forgotten." '---''(_/--' (_/-'