5 ms·

Sounds to me like there ought to be a MOOP cleanup deposit charged upfront, that only gets returned after this inspection. If the cleanup crew has to clean your

by zootboy 4mo ago

Sounds to me like there ought to be a MOOP cleanup deposit charged upfront, that only gets returned after this inspection. If the cleanup crew has to clean your site, you forfeit part or all of your deposit. Repeat offenders get charged increased deposits each time. Repeat inoffenders(?) get their deposit reduced.

ceejayoz 4mo ago
Seems likely this would result in a lot of disputes over windblown debris and neighbors dumping their stuff on your spot after you leave.
- lkbm 4mo ago
  This is definitely a concern. We've pretty much always been green, but it's hard to police after you leave, and usually we're gone before Temple Burn. (One year two of our camp mates stayed for Temple Burn and they ended up having to pack out two extra bikes that got dumped, in addition to having to deal with multiple people trying to camp in our empty spot. Maybe those people would've been fine, but given that they didn't understand the open camping situation, I'm unsure they understood LNT either.)
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
0xbadcafebee 4mo ago
This results in affluent people leaving all of their moop because they don't care about the deposit, which creates so much trash it requires a lot more staff and time to clean up. Existing system works: you clean up your moop because you're a good community member, shamed on Reddit if you don't, and if you're a problem multiple times, out you go.
- zootboy 4mo ago
  > ...affluent people leaving all of their moop because they don't care about the deposit This is why I suggested an increasing deposit for repeat offenders. Leave a huge pile of trash? Next year's deposit is $100k. Do it several years in a row? $10MM deposit.
  - sonzohan 4mo ago
    This is how camps known as "Plug n Plays" work. Charge exorbitant camp dues, provide everything for your campers, and let them lead the most privileged lifestyle out there. Many camps did this, and were actually turning a profit at Burning Man by taking advantage of the community of volunteers. A few years ago the Burning Man organization put a stop to this by decreasing or eliminating camps considered to be Luxury or Plug N Play. Not just because they were antithetical to the event, but because they became famous for a slew of problems. White Ocean is one of the more famous camps in this domain. A luxury camp that charged exorbitant fees for extremely wealthy individuals to come and party without any responsibility. They had loads of sexual assaults, dosing incidents, and campers generally being shitty people. The leads also refused to pay the hired help. This led to a now-infamous vandalism incident. White Ocean basically has a permanent ban on attending now. You cannot incentivize people out there with money. You have to take something away that they actually care about.
Jarwain 4mo ago
This penalizes honest mistakes, or moop from prior years resurfacing, or wind blowing trash into camp, or any number of things that are outside of a given camp's control The moop map, and community holding itself accountable, seems to be a decently functioning system. Not to mention the administrative overhead, at the org level and at the camp level. Frankly being a camp of 100+ people, not just taking dues but also handling this Deposit, and distributing the cost fairly? Running a camp is enough of a pain in the ass without adding on this kind of thing. Monetary incentive systems like what you're suggesting are just a way of enforcing culture. If culture spreads organically, why bother with the overhead of bringing money into the picture?
sonzohan 4mo ago
This would lead to less compliance. There are lots of people out there who would happily pay fines or not get deposits back if they didn't have to do the less glamorous parts of the event. You have to take something away that they actually care about. If a camp does a really bad job at moop cleanup, Burning Man organization talks to leads to understand what happened. Frequently what they will take away is the camp's placement in the event, or sometimes even the ability to attend the event as that camp at all. For reference: I am one of the leads for a fairly large and famous Burning Man camp. We camp on Esplanade most years. We do exactly what you proposed: We have deposits, and the more people put into the camp before, during, and after the event, determines if we offer them a refund and an invitation to camp with us next year. One of the factors is if you help us during setup and strike. An invitation to camp with us guarantees them a ticket at one of the cheaper tiers. We have plenty of campers that come in, pay the dues, do nothing for the camp, are generally useless during the event, and bail out leaving a huge mess. Conversely, we have a very small (10-20%) team of highly dedicated individuals who stay past the event and pick every piece of string, fuzz, fluff, lag bolt, rebar, and debris out of the dust and take it out. These people get nearly their entire camp dues back. If they attend next year, the social capital that they've built doing so compounds into them becoming increasingly popular and famous on Playa. If there's one thing that Burning Man has taught me, it is that very few people are motivated by financial incentive. If you really want to motivate someone, figure out what they genuinely desire. It's rarely money.
- red_admiral 4mo ago
  Your claim is backed by psychology research. The most well known study is the "Israeli Nursery" one where a fine was introduced based on how late you were to pick up your kid. Parents started treating "x shekel fine for y minutes late" as "buy an extra y minutes for only x shekels!".
  - fragmede 4mo ago
    I wonder how well that replicates between different cultures with different attitudes about money.
  - 4mo ago
zdragnar 4mo ago
If people pay for something, they feel entitled to take advantage of it. I've literally seen people fail to clean up after themselves and explain it as "that's what janitors are paid for". Requiring a clean-up deposit up front will encourage people who were already inclined to clean up to do so, and encourage people disinclined to do so to leave trash behind. The communal honor / shame culture that is in place is much more effective- people tend to care more about their reputation than they do money they've already spent.
smsm42 4mo ago
There's actually research that making people pay for noncompliance (either upfront or post-factum) leads to less compliance, because people that can afford it treat it as a service. And giving that these events are visited by literally billionaires and a lot of affluent SV tech folks, making it a pay service would bury the volunteers under the mountain of trash. If the rules are "you MUST clean up", you get some trash slipping by. But if the rules are changed to "you clean up, or you pay a small fee and don't worry about it" - the amount of things to clean up would raise exponentially, unless you make the deposit so high the vast majority of people can't afford it - which would kill the event completely.

by zootboy 4mo ago

ceejayoz 4mo ago

Seems likely this would result in a lot of disputes over windblown debris and neighbors dumping their stuff on your spot after you leave.

lkbm 4mo ago
This is definitely a concern. We've pretty much always been green, but it's hard to police after you leave, and usually we're gone before Temple Burn. (One year two of our camp mates stayed for Temple Burn and they ended up having to pack out two extra bikes that got dumped, in addition to having to deal with multiple people trying to camp in our empty spot. Maybe those people would've been fine, but given that they didn't understand the open camping situation, I'm unsure they understood LNT either.)

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

0xbadcafebee 4mo ago

This results in affluent people leaving all of their moop because they don't care about the deposit, which creates so much trash it requires a lot more staff and time to clean up. Existing system works: you clean up your moop because you're a good community member, shamed on Reddit if you don't, and if you're a problem multiple times, out you go.

zootboy 4mo ago
> ...affluent people leaving all of their moop because they don't care about the deposit This is why I suggested an increasing deposit for repeat offenders. Leave a huge pile of trash? Next year's deposit is $100k. Do it several years in a row? $10MM deposit.
- sonzohan 4mo ago
  This is how camps known as "Plug n Plays" work. Charge exorbitant camp dues, provide everything for your campers, and let them lead the most privileged lifestyle out there. Many camps did this, and were actually turning a profit at Burning Man by taking advantage of the community of volunteers. A few years ago the Burning Man organization put a stop to this by decreasing or eliminating camps considered to be Luxury or Plug N Play. Not just because they were antithetical to the event, but because they became famous for a slew of problems. White Ocean is one of the more famous camps in this domain. A luxury camp that charged exorbitant fees for extremely wealthy individuals to come and party without any responsibility. They had loads of sexual assaults, dosing incidents, and campers generally being shitty people. The leads also refused to pay the hired help. This led to a now-infamous vandalism incident. White Ocean basically has a permanent ban on attending now. You cannot incentivize people out there with money. You have to take something away that they actually care about.

Jarwain 4mo ago

This penalizes honest mistakes, or moop from prior years resurfacing, or wind blowing trash into camp, or any number of things that are outside of a given camp's control The moop map, and community holding itself accountable, seems to be a decently functioning system. Not to mention the administrative overhead, at the org level and at the camp level. Frankly being a camp of 100+ people, not just taking dues but also handling this Deposit, and distributing the cost fairly? Running a camp is enough of a pain in the ass without adding on this kind of thing. Monetary incentive systems like what you're suggesting are just a way of enforcing culture. If culture spreads organically, why bother with the overhead of bringing money into the picture?

sonzohan 4mo ago

This would lead to less compliance. There are lots of people out there who would happily pay fines or not get deposits back if they didn't have to do the less glamorous parts of the event. You have to take something away that they actually care about. If a camp does a really bad job at moop cleanup, Burning Man organization talks to leads to understand what happened. Frequently what they will take away is the camp's placement in the event, or sometimes even the ability to attend the event as that camp at all. For reference: I am one of the leads for a fairly large and famous Burning Man camp. We camp on Esplanade most years. We do exactly what you proposed: We have deposits, and the more people put into the camp before, during, and after the event, determines if we offer them a refund and an invitation to camp with us next year. One of the factors is if you help us during setup and strike. An invitation to camp with us guarantees them a ticket at one of the cheaper tiers. We have plenty of campers that come in, pay the dues, do nothing for the camp, are generally useless during the event, and bail out leaving a huge mess. Conversely, we have a very small (10-20%) team of highly dedicated individuals who stay past the event and pick every piece of string, fuzz, fluff, lag bolt, rebar, and debris out of the dust and take it out. These people get nearly their entire camp dues back. If they attend next year, the social capital that they've built doing so compounds into them becoming increasingly popular and famous on Playa. If there's one thing that Burning Man has taught me, it is that very few people are motivated by financial incentive. If you really want to motivate someone, figure out what they genuinely desire. It's rarely money.

red_admiral 4mo ago
Your claim is backed by psychology research. The most well known study is the "Israeli Nursery" one where a fine was introduced based on how late you were to pick up your kid. Parents started treating "x shekel fine for y minutes late" as "buy an extra y minutes for only x shekels!".
- fragmede 4mo ago
  I wonder how well that replicates between different cultures with different attitudes about money.
- 4mo ago

zdragnar 4mo ago

If people pay for something, they feel entitled to take advantage of it. I've literally seen people fail to clean up after themselves and explain it as "that's what janitors are paid for". Requiring a clean-up deposit up front will encourage people who were already inclined to clean up to do so, and encourage people disinclined to do so to leave trash behind. The communal honor / shame culture that is in place is much more effective- people tend to care more about their reputation than they do money they've already spent.

smsm42 4mo ago

There's actually research that making people pay for noncompliance (either upfront or post-factum) leads to less compliance, because people that can afford it treat it as a service. And giving that these events are visited by literally billionaires and a lot of affluent SV tech folks, making it a pay service would bury the volunteers under the mountain of trash. If the rules are "you MUST clean up", you get some trash slipping by. But if the rules are changed to "you clean up, or you pay a small fee and don't worry about it" - the amount of things to clean up would raise exponentially, unless you make the deposit so high the vast majority of people can't afford it - which would kill the event completely.