[UPDATED: We are now looking at a window around June 10th as we run more simulations on our changes!]
Okay Empire Avenue Community... this is going to be a big update.
We have not made substantial changes to how Share Prices are calculated or Earnings and Dividend calculations for over two years. In the next week we will change many of our "Market Makers". There is no easy or small way to do this, it will affect everyone and we will do all the changes in one go.
What is the process currently?
1. Every night a set of algorithms (named John Locke and so on) called "Market Makers" examine your Social Media activity and engagement (including your actions on Empire Avenue) as well as the trading of Shares on the Empire Avenue Stock Market and sets your Share Price.
2. We then go through and pay out Earnings to you and Dividends to your Shareholders from you.
What are we changing?
The changes we will implement encompass all our Market Makers and the Dividend and Earnings calculations.
1. We will start fixing what data we use for your social media activity and engagement to a specific time range. Currently we are using a rolling time window from when your specific profile gets processed, which can cause small earnings/dividend fluctuations from day to day. Even though some days are longer ranges and some are shorter, the net-effect however currently does cover your appropriate range. Going forward we will be using a specific set of times where your the ‘day’ will start and end, with regards to our calculations. The initial timeframe will be 01:00:00 UTC, in a ‘>=’ and ‘<’ arrangement, using the remote-network ‘posted’ time. So for example if you post something to Twitter at 00:59:59 UTC on a given day, it will count towards that day’s calculations... If you post it at 01:00:00 UTC it will be counted towards the next day.
2. We will remove blogs entirely from Earnings, Dividends and Share Price calculations. At this point they are so minor in how much count for Earnings/Dividends/Share Price that this change is immaterial but we want to disclose our changes as much as possible :). Blogs/RSS will remain as a connection for you to showcase links to your content on your profile.
3. Inconsistencies across all the Market Makers will be fixed -- these are internal inconsistencies and we cannot reveal them specifically but it will mean that adding new connections will be a bit easier in the future.
4. We will change our Empire Avenue specific Earnings. This is for activity and engagement on Empire Avenue itself. More emphasis will be placed on reputation of your engagement, especially on missions and any other feature we release in the future that uses reputation as a mechanic. Those that have a high reputation -- as much as we can measure -- will earn more in earnings and pay more in dividends.
5. We will adjust all Dividends and Earnings to reduce the impact of activity that generates little engagement. Instead, as always, we will continue to enhance the rewards for engagement from others on the content you create.
Why are we doing this?
1. Many of the APIs and the data we are able to collect have changed over the preceding 18 months.
2. We have seen some inconsistencies between Network Market Makers and we wish to address them.
3. We want to stabilize our daily close inputs so that there are less questions on what is being used and when, and more transparency so you can understand which content was used for which ‘day’.
4. Many in the Community have asked us for more transparency and understanding in Share Prices, Dividends and Earnings. While this update may not immediately give you that transparency it will set the stage for it in the future.
What will be the likely effect?
1. The first day will likely have the largest impact, primarily due to the rollback in time from somewhere between 08:00 and 10:00 UTC back to the new 01:00 UTC for an day-ends date. It is less data, true, however we will have an opportunity to ensure all data is collected between 01:00 UTC and when the close process begins. This is the biggest change, where content you created the day before we do this will count for that close, and not the next day. During this first day will also be included the Empire Avenue activity changes, and other tweaks, pokes, and prods here and there.
2. The second day will be closer to the calculations that will happen from the change onwards. However since we calculate averages across multiple days to ensure fairness, between the second and seventh day there will still be small variations - these variations will decrease in their severity with each day.
3. This will affect *everyone* in some manner. Whether you will actually notice it depends on your usage behavior and what times during the day you actually posted on any given network, and how consistent you are.
When will this happen?
1. We are currently anticipating these changes to take place as early as next week, approximately June 4th 2013.
2. We will post updates in the Empire Avenue General Community Discussion as well as via a newsletter on the day that the changes are applied. Please sign up for our Newsletter and/or keep an eye out on the Empire Avenue General Community Discussion to ensure you receive the most up to date information.