The minerals are a lie!
The minerals are a lie!
The minerals are a lie!

What's the present state of minerals and mineral planning?
Will we be using Vespene or no?
Will minerals be given on posts or contributions? Both?
Will initial mineral boosts in the next iteration be post-based or contribution-based?

I've been thinking for a short time now, especially after my excursion into the mystic lands of Troll and after having gleaned some very basic knowledge from a recent business course I have taken (high-school level, not very dependable).

What follows is a vision I have of the next SEN iteration (I guess we call it that).

Minerals are given out based on contributions by members. "Contributions" are rewarded minerals in a very specific fashion, such that the more significant the contribution is, the greater amount of minerals is doled out. In order to start up the economy of SEN, mineral rewards will be given out only for significant contributions, such as presenting new theory, knowledge, or maps and mods. Proportionally, post-based "community service" would be lower in mineral-reward value, especially when no new theory is presented or such, and only a link to existing theory is provided. However, heavy contributors to the community in this fashion should be able to build up proportionally equivalent stores of mineral wealth as heavy file and theory-based contributors in the same amount of time. Thus, in the same allotted time, both types of contributors should be able to generate the same amount of minerals for themselves.

This would start off SEN with "tangible" wealth. Minerals will have been sourced from actual items and services provided.

As SEN grows, so will the amount of minerals circulating the system. However, minerals' purchasing power should be proportional to the amount of actual items and services are being provided. Only those who have contributed will have minerals.

However, members of SEN are also able to hand out their own minerals to others, and trade it for services (commissioned materials?), etc. Through member-member circulation, contributing members will be able to share the mineral-wealth acquired through their contributions. Member-hosted competitions will be able to be hosted. As a community, members will be able to participate and donate to mineral prize pools in competitions, events, etc.

My framework's principles are based on how I perceive the real-world economy, in an extensively and extremely simplified manner. The minerals that are to be given out for members' contributions will not be valuable themselves, but will represent the value of the contribution towards the community as a whole. Thus, minerals will have to be given out in appropriate quantities and will represent how valuable a contribution is for the community. Small contributions would receive less minerals, large contributions would receive greater minerals.
E.g. if someone scanned through a forum to collect relevant information on a topic to create an FAQ-style thread, they would perhaps receive some 10 minerals. Versus, someone who creates a groundbreaking new map that employs new techniques and features, which would be more valuable since they share not only the examples of code bits and such, but also the entertainment value and they increase the reputation of SEN. The latter would receive proportionally greater minerals, perhaps some 100.

Minerals that circulate in this way will be able to be used in more things than just forum bonuses. They could be used to pay someone for doing stuff like creating an avatar, creating a new graphic, "hiring" a person to code, and running competitions with prize pools. Even forum games would be able to use circulated minerals (real-world equivalent of money spent on entertainment and leisure products and services, e.g. gambling).

Thus, minerals will be measures of how great a contribution is, and members with many and great contributions will have large sums of minerals. This would promote members to be productive. Circulation of such minerals for various purposes will be able to strengthen the community.

For the incentive of contributing and acquiring minerals, such things like avatars, sigs, titles, attachment size increases, PM size increases, maybe hosting if admins decide to do so, colours, etc. Furthermore, such (or some) features might be temporary or have mineral upkeep costs, to push users to always contribute. For example, a member who creates a map or mod might want to advertise it, and he/she pays minerals to bump it to the top of DLDB. The member must continue to contribute in order to keep the item bumped and advertised.

Mineral cost of items will fluctuate depending on demand and supply. E.g. if advertising space is limited, the more people that want such space, the more they will have to pay.

Alternatively, we can be more open like Maplantis was and be open-source and stuff. IMO, things become more club-housish-niche/etc. in such an environment (not to say that they never work out; OpenOffice ultimately isn't that bad, GIMP might be a bit of a joke, Paint.NET is sweet, etc.).