There's nothing wrong with basing cleanup deposits on exodus cleanup results

[sparr]

In their invite they state that 50% of their MOOP deposit collected from campers ($500/person) is dependent on the overall camp score (something only the last people leaving the camp can influence).

My 9-12 person camp makes it very clear and explicit that we keep 100% of your cleanup deposit if you don't stay for exodus, regardless of how the MOOP map turns out. This is, again explicitly, to encourage people to help clean up the camp at the end. Returning the deposits if things still turn out ok even without their help would be nicer, and not at all necessary.

This thread is NOT saying that $500 is a reasonable such deposit; that camp is solidly into the for-profit plug-and-play category, but that discussion belongs in another thread.

[ItalyPlaya]

Yes, agree, there is nothing wrong with keeping the deposit if it has been COMMUNICATED clearly that it will be kept if you don't stay for exodus. They did not do that.
That particular camp, Playaskool specifically asked in the registration form if you "can stay for clean-up" with the option to say NO, meaning they know who can stay or not.
Further did they promise in their "invite" that the moop deposit "guarantees" a green score, which they also violated and not achieved (coupled with not requiring people to stay).
Lastly did they NOT tie the moop deposit to someone staying for exodus or not, only to the overall camp score. They violated their promise to deliver a Green score and still kept the moop deposit, overall a clear violation of their terms put forward.

So I agree with you, if you communicate to people clearly that deposit will be kept if you don't stay for exodus, then fine, keep it, regardless of your score. But if you don't communicate to people they need to stay (especially this camp has mostly virgins), make false promises that the money will achieve a green score, then you can't go out and keep the funds just out of greed.

I've seen other camps policies where it is communicated clearly and so do you guys I guess. Playaskool has not done this so they should pay back the deposit to the people they took it from unfairly.

[Canoe]

Just a tiny itsy bitsy teenie weenie conflict of interest. With the camp area left inadequately MOOPed.

[jneilvindy]

*My cleanup fee rant*

(not aimed at a single lovely person here on this board)(well maybe lonsomebri, but I feel lost and forlorn if I can't single him out, our Dear Leader, long live the BRCCP!)

So it's about the Benjamin's after all?

Pay X amount of dollars and drive out without a care in the world if you got deep enough pockets vis-a-vis the cleanup deposit!

In my humble opinion (sorry Ratty) camp dues goes towards camp infrastructure and expenses. It doesn't line anyone's pocket.

I'm sure everyone here on the board chases moop all over the playa all week long. And I'm not saying that sarcastically; you all here are the best and brightest of Burning Man IMO. You chase moop all week long. You encourage other's to chase moop by teaching and by example. I don't believe any of you do it expecting payment or a Larry's best moop hunter trophy

(ok a best moop chaser trophy handed out by Larry woulda been kinda cool)

Where and how exactly does a camp spend cleanup fees? Cleanup Sherpas? Cleanup rally bunnies? Do camps hire an OSS crew to come in after everyone's gone and get the job done?

Sure it could be noble, say donating all cleanup fees to the Burning Man Art Foundation or a local Native American tribe but I'm willing to guess that's generally a big no.

It lines someone's pocket as shekels earned for doing work they feel someone else should be doing. It's righteous. It's honorable and that will teach them to drive off without contributing!

How about camps don't invite anyone they don't want to cleanup after for free? Or as a gift? Or just cause they care about how their camp leaves the playa and not what their moop map looks like for next year? An act of love to the Playa itself so-to-speak?

Any fee that ends up in someone's pocket reeks of commodification to me. Where does it start? More importantly, where does it end?

[Captain Goddammit]

It’s simple. If you patronize a plug&play, you’re not a burner you’re a cancer on the event and you’re a bigger part of the problem than the moop they left.

If it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away... then it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away. Next time I’m in Italy I’ll be sure to throw my trash out the window. It’s too hard to bring it home.

[Jackass]

What you are talking about is a strike fee, and many camps do it, which is understandable. It is meant to prevent your campers who are supposed to stay for clean up from disappearing to Reno or SF or their lover's playa home instead of picking up all of their shit like they agreed to at the start. The deposit isn't pending on moop performance, but rather on if they flake out or not.

Nobody should be keeping deposits based on moop score... That's the snake oil

[Skuzzy61]

What you are talking about is a strike fee, and many camps do it, which is understandable. It is meant to prevent your campers who are supposed to stay for clean up from disappearing to Reno or SF or their lover's playa home instead of picking up all of their shit like they agreed to at the start. The deposit isn't pending on moop performance, but rather on if they flake out or not.

Nobody should be keeping deposits based on moop score... That's the snake oil

Yep yep!

[lucky420]

It’s simple. If you patronize a plug&play, you’re not a burner you’re a cancer on the event and you’re a bigger part of the problem than the moop they left.

If it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away... then it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away. Next time I’m in Italy I’ll be sure to throw my trash out the window. It’s too hard to bring it home.

Yessssss

[wraith]

It’s simple. If you patronize a plug&play, you’re not a burner you’re a cancer on the event and you’re a bigger part of the problem than the moop they left.

If it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away... then it’s too hard to do burning man from too far away. Next time I’m in Italy I’ll be sure to throw my trash out the window. It’s too hard to bring it home.

Quoted and signed. Doing the Burn from long distance is a bitch of logistics, but if you want to come, you need to embrace that and do it right.

[sparr]

How about camps don't invite anyone they don't want to cleanup after for free? Or as a gift? Or just cause they care about how their camp leaves the playa and not what their moop map looks like for next year? An act of love to the Playa itself so-to-speak?

Any fee that ends up in someone's pocket reeks of commodification to me. Where does it start? More importantly, where does it end?

You're concentrating on where the money goes and ignoring where it comes from. Suppose we simply burn the cash. It would still be effective in incentivizing people to uphold their commitment to the camp.

Where and how exactly does a camp spend cleanup fees? Cleanup Sherpas? Cleanup rally bunnies? Do camps hire an OSS crew to come in after everyone's gone and get the job done?

The easiest bit of budget to explain is the cost of disposing of the trash bags that each person is supposed to take out with them. Anyone who bails early probably didn't take our camp mandate of "2 bags of trash and 1 bag of recycling" out with them, so we have to pay to dispose of those, and depending on where we dump them that might be $25 per person right there.

What you are talking about is a strike fee, and many camps do it, which is understandable.
[...]
Nobody should be keeping deposits based on moop score... That's the snake oil

Is this fundamentally distinct from keeping deposits from everyone who bailed... and then returning them later IFF the moop score is good?

[Bless]

Sparr;

I think you're conflating two separate issues: one is helping your camp strike and clean up. Some camps require a deposit or fee if you chose to skip striking/cleaning up.

Separate and aside from this is the issue of your camp's moop score. In my personal opinion, everyone should strive for a green score regardless of whether personal finances are involved.

If a camp wants to levy a "sin tax" or environmental penalty on all of their campers if they fail to achieve a green score, that's fine. But the money should go to a charity of some sort rather than padding the bottom line of the camp's finances.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Playa Skool wasn't implementing a sin tax or environmental penalty. Rather, they were profiteering off a negative score. This is what we call "moral hazard" because, ultimately, the camp self-incentivized leaving a mess behind.

[Jackass]

Correct, they were basically bribing themselves to tank the game... AKA "moral hazard"

And sparr, you know what I'm talking about, don't try to parse it.

[BBadger]

Mmm yeah, the camp operators should not have an incentive to throw the game so to speak. I'd hope that the bad MOOP score would negatively impact their ability to get placed, but a yellow score isn't usually enough. They could just switch the deposit policy to not staying to the end for cleanup as well.

[sparr]

It seems like many of you are ok with keeping deposits from people who skip out on cleaning...

But not ok with later refunding those deposits if the camp gets a green moop score?

[Jackass]

If you don't show up for or are completely useless (sleeping) during your strike duty = forfeiture of deposit

[Popeye]

It seems like many of you are ok with keeping deposits from people who skip out on cleaning...

But not ok with later refunding those deposits if the camp gets a green moop score?

My camp charges a deposit to ensure participation in cleanup NOT for a good moop score. If you are there for cleanup (and not passed out) you get your money back.
This is to ensure that 2 or 3 people are not left to do all the work.

[TT120]

I think the main point of a strike deposit is to create incentive to stay and help strike the camp. If you do that, then you get your deposit back regardless of your moop score. Money just happens to be the best and easiest thing to use to create that incentive. You could use other tangible things to create the incentive like your car keys or blowjobs or whatever, it's just that money is easiest.

If you do skip out on strike, then your deposit should go back into the camps coffers or buying dinner in Reno for everyone that DID stay and cleaned up.

[wraith]

It seems like many of you are ok with keeping deposits from people who skip out on cleaning...

But not ok with later refunding those deposits if the camp gets a green moop score?

Sweat equity is the name of the game. Don't reward the lazy for the rest of the camp doing a good job cleaning up after them.

If for some reason I couldn't stay to strike (life happens, after all), I sure wouldn't want the money back based on effort I didn't help with. Making sure your strike leaves no trace is your responsibility, even if your camp is conscientious enough of their responsibilities to pick up your slack if you can't be fucked to do it right.

[trilobyte]

There are as many different ways to run a camp as there are camps on the playa. The whole thing, with any camp, is buyer beware.

To ItalyPlaya...

If you don't take the time and interest in looking into a camp (or for that matter what other camps do), meeting or connecting with campmates beforehand and really getting a sense of what the operation is like, then yeah it was foolish to sign on and send them money to begin with.

There are a multitude of camps out there to join, and as others regularly point out you don't even need to join a camp. Read the first post in this thread. Finding an existing camp isn't that hard, even if you didn't even start looking until relatively late in the season. You can also do your own thing (and in the case of a big dues mill, you can often do something pretty great for a lot less than the cost of dues).

I'm sorry to hear that you had an unfortunate experience. Sometimes it's a hard (and expensive) lesson, you'll be best served by learning from it and moving on. It's early, you've got plenty of time to either find a better camp connection or figure out how to do it yourself.

[Lonesomebri]

Breaking camp moop sweep... That one year... the main idiot in camp was arrested and released at the Temple Burn at 2 am, sleeping thru Monday afternoon, oblivious to everyone else working under the sun trying to strike camp, until I finally got up and lent a feeble hand to my loyal and faithful camp stooges who had thankfully dismantled most of the THREAT.

I'd never thought of this whole moop sweep insurance until this year, this issue. But, as said, for my camp it would be cash from my one hand to my other.

Great topic.

[jneilvindy]

Breaking camp moop sweep... That one year... the main idiot in camp was arrested and released at the Temple Burn at 2 am, sleeping thru Monday afternoon, oblivious to everyone else working under the sun trying to strike camp, until I finally got up and lent a feeble hand to my loyal and faithful camp stooges who had thankfully dismantled most of the THREAT.

I'd never thought of this whole moop sweep insurance until this year, this issue. But, as said, for my camp it would be cash from my one hand to my other.

Great topic.

Man there's always that "one guy"!

[Bless]

It seems like many of you are ok with keeping deposits from people who skip out on cleaning...

But not ok with later refunding those deposits if the camp gets a green moop score?

I don't understand this. You would pay your camp mates to strike your camp and clean everything up, and if they did a really good job and got a green moop score, you would get your money back? Why the fuck would your camp mates clean up after you, then?

But this does bring up a salient point re: the commercialization of playa services, which is what I think this what this whole plug-n-play conversation dances around. If it's okay to pay someone to clean up after you and strike your camp, and it's okay to pay someone to drive you to BRC, and it's okay to pay a camp to provide all your food and water for the week, at what point does something cross the line in to luxury tourism camping?

At the risk of sounding sympathetic, it's not difficult to see why these big profitable luxury camps have gotten away with so much over the years. Largely, because BMOrg has failed to draw boundaries and guardrails regarding the profitization and commercialization of playa services.

And, I can't really blame them. Much of what makes TTITD beautiful is the level of freedom and liberty that goes along with the event. And setting rules and guidelines necessarily takes away from that. But it also helps protect what's special. So it's a balancing act, and I think we can all agree that BMOrg hasn't been doing a very good job at it.

[capnjonny]

Seems to me this discussion is missing something. Why are people creating so much moop in the first place.

When I first came to the playa I read everything about leave no trace and took it to heart.
Got rid of all possible packaging and brought food that I could completely consume.

During the burn I kept an eye out for moop, both in my camp and on the street. When I struck camp to leave I did a final moop sweep and left my camping spot squeaky clean. In doing so I found a few tiny bits of stuff left behind in years past and picked it up too.

After almost 2 weeks on Playa my total for trash was a small grocery bag full of mostly paper and about 2 quarts of dirty water and some dirty terry shop rags in a plastic bucket that came from giving myself sponge baths every day.

I was with a placed camp which included 14 other people. We had a large shade structure with tables and a kitchen area. The other campers prepared their meals there. During the course of the event the rest of my camp created six 40 gallon garbage cans full of trash including cans, bottles, paper and food waste. If they had done their prep like I had they would have created much less waste.

I can only imagine what it is like in a plug and play where the "guests" have virtually no responsibilities and probably have no idea how much waste is created by their camp.

[wraith]

That's part of the problem.

With the ticketing the way it is, people can't rely on ever coming back, so more and more that thing in the desert is a once-and-done bucket list trip.

People who aren't coming back aren't going to feel any social pressure not to be shitweasels.