Our community has long suggested we look for opportunities to add member created content into There as persistent additions. We are continually amazed by the talent and creativity demonstrated by our developers, and as Alex_Community has said in the past, there have certainly been times when we have seen objects or buildings and said to ourselves, “Wow, I wish that could be in the world all the time.”

As such, we have explored and considered different proposals (particularly contest proposals) to enable these types of in-world additions and have included both the previous and current MAB in this process. It was our goal to identify a solution that would be viewed as fair and help to avoid any perceived favoritism or adverse response in the community. Ultimately, after much discussion and consideration, and support from both MAB's, we have concluded this type of solution does not make sense given the amount of time and resources it would take to implement, manage and support these contests. Instead, if There believes the persistent addition of a member creation is in the greater interest of the community, just do it!

Please review the MAB meeting minutes from 4/21/05 for additional insight into the discussion with the MAB Fall 2004 group:

http://info.there.com/idx/52/427/article/MAB_meeting_minutes_42105.html

We have already made the first in-world persistent addition and received great community response - you can find Yoshitoshi's ThereOrleans here and we are actively working to bring back Hula Gulch as a persistent in-world addition.

Now, to provide some more information to help avoid any confusion or expectations.

We anticipate the addition of member created content will be VERY rare. We do not have a specific set of criteria, we will simply consider content we believe to be special or unique in it's impact and purpose in the community. Again, something we believe may serve the greater interest of our community. We will not be moved by efforts in the forums to persuade any such additions and thank you in advance allowing us to drive this activity as we deem appropriate.

We do not want our members creating content with the sole purpose of trying or hoping to get them added as persistent additions. Also, in the past, our members have offered to gift or donate content to There. We truly appreciate these acts of generosity and efforts to positively impact the community, but we cannot accept all such gifts or donations and it's very difficult to tactfully turn down content being offered as a gift or donation. So, we ask that our developers continue "business as usual." If we do identify a member creation that we would like added as a persistent in-world addition, we will contact the developer and offer to pay related wholesale costs only.

We hope you are as excited as we are about these changes! Thank you for all the suggestions and a special "Thank you!" to both the Fall 2004 and Spring 2005 MAB's for all their help.

Jack and The Team at There!