UPDATE: the results are in!
First prize goes to the "Pregnant Slut Motel and Prison", which captured 59.1% of the votes. Second prize, with 11.8% of the votes, goes to "Serenity Lost", the dark CARP sim.
The individual prizes will be awarded privately, and announced here with the recipients' permission.
For posterity, the original contest details are below.
I'm going to try a little experiment this month. If it goes well, I might try some variations on it later.
It's time to chime in for your favorite sim to use your Deciduan HUD. Here's how it works. You must be using the latest Deciduan HUD (version 6.4.0.0 or later).
Go visit your favorite sim(s) where you use your Deciduan HUD and enter:
/37 vote up
Visit a sim you like, preferably a social one where you enjoy meeting other Deciduan users.
Enter the following into your client while wearing your Deciduan HUD (version 6.4.0.0 or higher):
/37 vote up
Sit back and relax until the end of July. If you change your mind, visit that sim again and enter: /37 vote down
You can vote for as many sims as you like (and are encouraged to do so). Voting one up doesn't cancel your vote for another sim.
There will be four prizes: L$2500, L$2000, L$1500, and L$500
After July, I'll go through the votes and donate L$2500 to the owner of the sim that meets the following requirements:
Has a Deciduan Affiliate vendor in a conspicuous location
Has had the vendor in place since at least July 15th
Operates a public sim (adult-only is fine, but not "requires payment")
Received the most votes (provided the other criteria are met)
The runner-up sim will receive L$2000.
Further, a random person who voted for the top sim will receive L$1500, and one other random voter (who may have voted for that sim) will receive L$500. No one will receive more than one prize.
As for why I'm doing this, I want to reward sim owners who help other Deciduan users meet and role play, and this seemed like a nice way to do that. It's also a way to start preparing for some new social features I have in store for Deciduan users.
As for why I'm requiring that there be a Deciduan vendor, it's to ensure that the sim owner is one that's "friendly" toward Deciduan. I'm also asking that the vendor be present for at least the latter half of the month; that will give sim owners a couple of weeks to get themselves into the running.
There are a few more caveats and rules:
Votes are tied to SL parcels, not regions. I suggest voting at the landing point to make sure you're not accidentally voting for the wrong sim.
The "random person" awards will be taken from pools of voters that allocate one vote per user.
I reserve the right to cancel the promotion at any time for any reason. No one is investing their own L$, so no one is out anything more than a few keystrokes. I will be the sole judge.
If voting is lackluster, I may extend the voting period for 2-4 more weeks, but I'll only do that if it's particularly bad.
If I think someone gamed the system to inflate votes for a sim, it will not be a candidate for the prize. I know some sim owners have bots and alts, and I certainly can't prevent them from voting, but let's all play nice, OK?
Users are expected to keep track of their votes. When in doubt, go back to the sim in question and vote it back up or down as necessary
Give me a few days to tally the votes and contact the sim owner. Pestering me will not get you on my good side.
In the interest of maintaining a "no purchase necessary" element, if you want to cast a vote but don't have a Deciduan HUD, send the "Deciduan" user an IM in the format: "vote GUID up", where "GUID" is the parcel GUID. It must be the parcel GUID (obtained by viewing parcel details), not the name; names are not unique. IMs that aren't in this exact format or are sent directly to Eliot will be silently ignored, as they will be processed by a script.