CAVCON Meter

TheScar(.fr) · **Joined:** Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:38 pm **Posts:** 317

RAWA wrote:

Previous CAVCON stats:
[...]
Jun 2013: CAVCON:2.4, 33747 Logins, 252455 AgeVisits, 3228 UniqueUsers
07/03/13 - 110614 Accounts, 07371 Logins, 057998 AgeVisits, 1207 UniqueUsers
07/10/13 - 111013 Accounts, 06781 Logins, 054256 AgeVisits, 1194 UniqueUsers

Is there a way to know, for each month, the number of unique users who donate?

face in puddle man · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 7:24 pm

im happy to say that when i donate my megre amount,paypal asks in dollars,i donate,it converts back to euros which ends up being cheaper (as it seems).IM RICH, IM RICH I tell ya :roll:

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 7:35 pm

manloc wrote:

RAWA wrote:

Previous CAVCON stats:
[...]
Jun 2013: CAVCON:2.4, 33747 Logins, 252455 AgeVisits, 3228 UniqueUsers
07/03/13 - 110614 Accounts, 07371 Logins, 057998 AgeVisits, 1207 UniqueUsers
07/10/13 - 111013 Accounts, 06781 Logins, 054256 AgeVisits, 1194 UniqueUsers

Is there a way to know, for each month, the number of unique users who donate?

No, because that information is all confidential and/or anonymous. I suppose you could look for trends in each area and make comparisons, but I don't know if it would tell you much.

Mac_Fife · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 7:45 pm

The identities of donors is certainly confidential (I understand that even Cyan staff don't get visibility of that) but maybe the total count of donations made is less sensitive. It couldn't really be "unique donors" though, since that would mean someone going through them all to check for people who'd donated more than once, which would break the confidentiality in the first sentence.

Eleri wrote:

I think *now* is a very good time to firmly request (nag, beg, pester, etc...) that there be a way to subscribe, and have automated payments. I know many people who would happily pitch in on a monthly basis, but remembering to go and hit the donation button isn't on everyone's mental ToDo list.

The folks at Cyan are actually pretty busy just now, but I've been campaigning for a monthly email reminder service that people can subscribe to, following Tai'lahr's suggestion of it a few posts back. I know it's something that can be set up without a huge amount of effort, and if it can help maintain a steady flow of donations, then it seems to me it'd be worthwhile.

Ehren · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:32 pm

Lyrositor wrote:

The jump isn't that amazing when you think about it - remember that we had no CAVCON 2 to go through. So it went from CAVCON 1.2 to 1.9, then directly to 3, and then 4.0 and then 4.2. So, it's a substantial amount, but in the long run, it's not that much (essentially, it amounts to 100% of the monthly costs + 20% of that amount for the reserve fund). The reserve fund is still almost empty, so unless people donate this much every month, we're still facing the same problem.

Also, I think the various events which are planned will now gather less money as a result, since most people have already donated for the month.

Can this be correct? Because if this is true, the method used to determine the CAVCON meter most certainly makes NO LOGICAL SENSE.

At 4.2 wouldn't we be over 200% of the monthly cost? Because it makes no sense that we'd have to make it all the way up to 4 out of 5 just to be barely meeting the exact amount of money needed...

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:50 pm

Ehren wrote:

At 4.2 wouldn't we be over 200% of the monthly cost?

We're at 120% of the monthly cost. There are no decimal points for CAVCON 3, and there is not a 2.0 nor a 4.0.

Alien · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 9:56 pm

Ehren wrote:

Can this be correct? Because if this is true, the method used to determine the CAVCON meter most certainly makes NO LOGICAL SENSE.

I tried saying this all that time ago when they changed CavCon from 4 to 2.
I haven't agreed with it since then.

dgelessus · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:20 pm

Ehren wrote:

Lyrositor wrote:

The jump isn't that amazing when you think about it - remember that we had no CAVCON 2 to go through. So it went from CAVCON 1.2 to 1.9, then directly to 3, and then 4.0 and then 4.2. So, it's a substantial amount, but in the long run, it's not that much (essentially, it amounts to 100% of the monthly costs + 20% of that amount for the reserve fund). The reserve fund is still almost empty, so unless people donate this much every month, we're still facing the same problem.

Also, I think the various events which are planned will now gather less money as a result, since most people have already donated for the month.

Can this be correct? Because if this is true, the method used to determine the CAVCON meter most certainly makes NO LOGICAL SENSE.

At 4.2 wouldn't we be over 200% of the monthly cost? Because it makes no sense that we'd have to make it all the way up to 4 out of 5 just to be barely meeting the exact amount of money needed...

CAVCON is really confusing, but it does make sense to me.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Way too long explanation of CAVCON

First of all, let's ignore the decimal. CAVCON 3 is when the monthly costs are (more or less) exactly covered by the current month's donations. CAVCON 4 means that more money than necessary has been donated this month, and CAVCON 5 means that Cyan receiving loads of donations this month. CAVCON 2 means that this month's donations don't cover the costs (yet), but there is still money leftover from previous months, which can still cover the costs. Finally, CAVCON 1 means that no money is in the reserve anymore and Cyan is relying solely on the current month's donations. If the CAVCON doesn't reach 3 until the end of the month, Cyan has to pay, which they obviously don't like doing.
The reason why the CAVCON immediately goes from 1 to 3 is that CAVCON will go to 3 once the monthly costs are covered, no matter how much money is in the reserve.
Also the CAVCON always goes to either 1 or 2 at the beginning of the month, because there were no donations in that month yet.

Now comes the decimal! It means either how much of the monthly costs are covered by this month's donations (CAVCON 1/2) or how much excess donations there are (CAVCON 4). CAVCON 3 has no decimal, and I have no idea how things work with CAVCON 5. When does it start? What would the decimal designate there?

TL;DR: CAVCON is pretty hard to explain.

Just a few examples, maybe that'll help:
CAVCON 1.2: 1 --> Monthly costs covered to less than 100% by this month's donations, reserve empty. .2 --> 20% of the monthly costs are covered by this month's donations.
CAVCON 2.4: 2 --> Monthly costs covered to less than 100% by this month's donations, but money in reserve. .4 --> 40% of the monthly costs are covered by this month's donations.
CAVCON 3.0: 3 --> Monthly costs covered to 100% by this month's donations. .0 --> No significance here.
CAVCON 4.3: 4 --> Monthly costs covered to more than 100% by this month's donations. .3 --> 30% more money than necessary was donated.
CAVCON 5.0: :shock:

Lyrositor · **Joined:** Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:14 pm **Posts:** 808

The "new" CAVCON makes perfect sense to me. It's only logical that we skip from 1.9 to 3 to 4.1 when you think about it. CAVCON is not a linear scale of expense coverage.

dgelessus wrote:

CAVCON 2.4: 2 --> Monthly costs covered to less than 100%, but money in reserve. .4 --> 40% of the monthly costs are covered.

Actually, no; as far as I understand it, the .4 means that donations cover 40% of the monthly costs; if it's at 2, the costs are already covered with the reserve fund.

Off-Topic 1: Logical sense is redundant. Is there such a thing as illogical sense?

Off-Topic 2: Also, I'd like to reply to allegations on Facebook that reaching CAVCON 5 will let us put fan content on MO:ULa. That's not correct; fan content could be added with or without reaching CAVCON 5 (which, face it, we'll never reach).

Bogardan Mage · **Joined:** Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:48 am **Posts:** 232

Lyrositor wrote:

The jump isn't that amazing when you think about it - remember that we had no CAVCON 2 to go through. So it went from CAVCON 1.2 to 1.9, then directly to 3, and then 4.0 and then 4.2. So, it's a substantial amount, but in the long run, it's not that much (essentially, it amounts to 100% of the monthly costs + 20% of that amount for the reserve fund). The reserve fund is still almost empty, so unless people donate this much every month, we're still facing the same problem.

Also, I think the various events which are planned will now gather less money as a result, since most people have already donated for the month.

I say it is amazing because for the last few months donations haven't been meeting expenses. If nothing else, it demonstrates that CAVCON 1 is not the end of the world (or even the game) because it reminds people to donate. If you truly believe that we'll never reach CAVCON 5 then really this should be the best possible news: donors can and will save us from CAVCON 1, so regardless of what the CAVCON says the game's future is reasonably secure.

Lyrositor · **Joined:** Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:14 pm **Posts:** 808

Bogardan Mage wrote:

If you truly believe that we'll never reach CAVCON 5 then really this should be the best possible news: donors can and will save us from CAVCON 1, so regardless of what the CAVCON says the game's future is reasonably secure.

They can, yes, but will they do so every single month? I know some people donated much larger amounts than they usually donate for this month, so I think it's conceivable that two months from now, we might be back at CAVCON 1; in fact, if by the end of the month we're at CAVCON 4.9 or lower, we'll go back at 1 next month.

The problem is that the amount of active players keeps diminishing while expenses remain the same. So, while short bursts of donations are conceivable, we shouldn't come to rely on them every month, especially when you consider that for the past few months, donations have only covered 40% to 60% of the expenses most of the time (with a few short bursts in between), only reaching 100% once in the past 7 months.

Tai'lahr · **Posted:** Thu Jul 18, 2013 11:31 pm

Mac_Fife wrote:

I've been campaigning for a monthly email reminder service that people can subscribe to, following Tai'lahr's suggestion of it a few posts back.

Thanks for the acknowledgement, Mac, but I actually first posted about it more than three years ago...

Tai'lahr wrote:

I hope Cyan will consider adding the Paypal option that allows people to choose to receive period reminders.

And now I see that I wrote "period" when I meant "periodic" :oops:

Maybe that's why it was ignored. :lol:

Bogardan Mage · **Joined:** Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:48 am **Posts:** 232

Lyrositor wrote:

Bogardan Mage wrote:

If you truly believe that we'll never reach CAVCON 5 then really this should be the best possible news: donors can and will save us from CAVCON 1, so regardless of what the CAVCON says the game's future is reasonably secure.

They can, yes, but will they do so every single month? I know some people donated much larger amounts than they usually donate for this month, so I think it's conceivable that two months from now, we might be back at CAVCON 1; in fact, if by the end of the month we're at CAVCON 4.9 or lower, we'll go back at 1 next month.

The problem is that the amount of active players keeps diminishing while expenses remain the same. So, while short bursts of donations are conceivable, we shouldn't come to rely on them every month, especially when you consider that for the past few months, donations have only covered 40% to 60% of the expenses most of the time (with a few short bursts in between), only reaching 100% once in the past 7 months.

Only once in the past 7 months, but five times in the past year. The question is whether that is really down to people actually leaving or to people just not donating as much. Looking back through the history it seems to me that these kinds of "short bursts" usually last several months. Even two months of decent-high CAVCON 4 should be enough to create a buffer against CAVCON 1. By my calculations the reserve fund wasn't very large even before the recent string of CAVCON 2, at least since we started getting more precise figures. It wouldn't require too many months of CAVCON 4 to build up a sufficient reserve and, as I said, donors will rally just like this if it falls too low again.

adi · **Joined:** Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:37 am **Posts:** 383

Sorry, more off topic:

Lyrositor wrote:

Off-Topic 2: Also, I'd like to reply to allegations on Facebook that reaching CAVCON 5 will let us put fan content on MO:ULa. That's not correct; fan content could be added with or without reaching CAVCON 5 (which, face it, we'll never reach).

Please make it big, bold, italic, underlined, blue, red, neon flashing, with sparklies and a cherry on top.

There has been a lot of wrong information out, in capitals and panic. And also, too many people shouted that they donated and the amounts they donated, intimidating other people that for one reason or another, didn't. We need to make it more clear that this is optional, hence it's called a donation, not a fee. Whoever can, whenever they can, however much they can afford. Logins are important too, ideas, suggestions, programming skills, all that. Whatever everyone can do.

Anyway, many are waiting for the D'nipalooza to donate or donate again so there will be a little something more to add there.
And until the monthly reminder issue is settled, I'm sure we can make a mental note about it. Same way it happened with CavCon in general, 2 summers ago people hardly knew what it was, now everyone talks about it all the time, and that was way before it was mentioned at login screen.

Ehren · **Posted:** Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:36 am

Lyrositor wrote:

Off-Topic 1: Logical sense is redundant. Is there such a thing as illogical sense?

Interesting question, but I don't like being redundant or anything, so my thoughts were that:

Yes, there can be such a thing as illogical sense. For example, to me, CAVCON feels like it makes illogical sense.

Like, I'm sure they have a reason/standards they thought of for not using decimals with some numbers, and not using the whole number for others, consistent with their own rules. In that way it must make sense. But I don't think those rules are the most logical that could have been made up.

Well that's how I feel anyway. I wish it made sense in a more logical way.

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