Stephen Tortora-Lee said: Say like to have a conversion from hours put into this system to ven?
timeinterchange.wordpress.com

It might be a good way to make a local system be able to hook into this international one (hubculture). Instant creation of network to network interaction. I'm sure someone in a network of a couple hundred people would be able to find a place for a pavi pavilion for a few hundred ven a month. Currently there are more people having offers to give hours than there are takers.

But there are a couple other barter exchanges around NYC too. Bringing them together through a place in the idea of becoming instantly international seems like a good way to move this project forward.

Stan Stalnaker great idea. can we pay you some ven to help set it up?

Stephen Tortora-Lee Sure. What would be the best way to set that up here? As a knowledge exchange or somewhere else?

A key question I think I'd have to answer to them would be:

How would the rate of exchange be set up? On a case by case basis or could we use the common currency of our exchange (the TINY (equivalent to one hour of work done by a member) where like the dollar it is set to 10 Ven to one dollar. Perhaps it would be 100 Ven to a TINY or something of the sort.

I'll mention talking with you when I go to an orientation for coordinators this Sunday. But would love to form a bridge between this local exchange and your international one. They are also working to redesign their website from http://timeinterchange.wordpress.com to something more interactive and modern. Group is only about 6 months old and has about 300 members in it.

Talk with you again tomorrow hopefully.
Link to a small personal site for myself is here ( http://stephen-tortora-lee.yolasite.com/) if it is pertinent.

Stan Stalnaker hmm well the problem here is that time is worth different things to different people - which is why ven is sent along digital micropayments so you can charge varying rates - they are not all constant.

if we are exchanging out to tinys then that is effectively putting cash to tinys so we need to understand if tinys are linked to monetary systems or outside it? ven is linked to monetary systems so therefore has value in this way...

Stephen Tortora-Lee I think that the idea is that everyone who give time to the time bank is treated as equal and therefore the time of a computer technician would be equal to that of someone to do lawnwork or babysitting (all actual examples from the site). There are some items for sale (I have an old bike equal to 3 tiny's or some such).

Two points branch off of this:

I am just beginning to interact with these people, but it seems that this type of equal time for unequal specialization is a bit of an attraction to join the group. Currently there is an excess of services offered to service requests. If there was an interchange outside the system people could purchase the right to use services without being a member perhaps and use of this excess if the exchange rate was appealing. If there was too high of an exchange rate then people would not want to purchase all services for 300 ven per hour , but if it was too low like Ven per hour would be like slavery and people would not want to donate their services. So it would have to be agreed upon and reviewed often if an exchange would be to take place.

However something that was too formal may make it so people may not have as much desire to donate to the cause.

There is also the idea of unidirectionality of currency or bidirectionality (can you take ven and convert them back into regular dollars or is it mostly one way right now?).

But have to go and will talk about that more later. Will check in again tonight.