Newbie Question About Rating, etc

Two questions:

The first queston ...

I've been here just over a month and someone RATED me for the first time. It was surprised because I was never aware how this system works. Well, to be polite, I RATED him back. It cost me L$25 for each rating. Where did that money go?

The second question ...

I decided to rent a house in SL. I was told to ACTIVATE the renter's group name before I set any objects. I did that. No problems. Now I have their group name above mine in the "bubble" above me. Can this be changed to another of the groups I belong to? If I *do* change it, will the objects I placed out in my house disappear?

I'm a newbie here and can find no answers to these questions on SL website.

Thanks in advance,

Egon

The money was "destroyed". Rating is an economic "sink".


You can change your "active group" any time under the edit menu, select "Groups..." that's also where you can look up group information, leave groups, and create groups.

Hi Egon,

The Rating system is basically a system of giving credit and compliment to other players in the game. It used to have a bonus by giving a prim bonus on land they owned to content designers if their building rating was high but that was removed and only the people that got the bonus while it was active still enjoy the benefits of it under a grandfather clause.

The money effectively just dissapears, its a minor money sink basically.

The reason they told you to set your title to their group before placing your objects was so that all your items are listed on the object management tab of the land management system as under the appropriate group. They've probably got auto-return set to on on the land, which will return any non-group affiliated prims after a set amount of time...but leave objects set to their group there.

Once you've placed your items, you can switch your group title and the items will stay assigned to the group you had active when you placed them, so unless they're manually returned by the landowner, they shouldn't be returned to you.

Welcome, and enjoy SL...theres quite alot to see and do.

Welcome to Second Life, Egon. Hope you enjoy it here as much as we do. =)

The money you paid to rate the person you met went back to Linden Labs. Ratings are one of several "money sinks" to help take money out of the economy to prevent inflation. It's essentially destroyed.

The group tag over your head can be changed safely now that the items have been placed in your home. They will not go anywhere if you change it. An item is set to a group when placed while wearing that group tag and stays set to that group until the item is picked up and placed again, or changed in the edit window. You will need to wear the tag (or learn to set item groups in edit mode) each time you place a new item or pick up and replace an item however.

Even if the item is not set correctly...and is returned, it just goes back to your inventory "losta nd found" folder and is not deleted unless the land owner intentionally deletes it (which is considered very nasty to do).

Hope that helps. =D

Whew ... that was fast!

Thanks so much for all your replies.

Interesting story, but completely incorrect. Ratings used to give you a bonus to your weekly stipend, based on your total rating, and how many ratings you managed to get in that week. It got to the point where it totally got gamed and people had 'rating parties' (I think at one point it cost L$1 to rate someone??) so they increased the cost to rate to L$25 and eventuially got rid of the stipend bonus (not sure what order) It never had anything to do with prims, since prims are a set amount per sim (15,000) and is definately not an enduring bonus.

Ratings as it is now is completely useless and really should be done away with.

This really made me laugh!

Briana Dawson

'cept it still feels nice when someone rates you!

I'm glad it did.

Do yourself a favor and head out to Ingrid Ingersoll's shop.

And explain the Rating Object Bonus in their Objects tab.

Thanks and have a wonderful day.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe its the FIC? OH NOEZ.

What's the harm?

None really! As Wildefire pointed out some people still get a sense of satisfaction from being rated as it makes them feel that the effort they put into their work or their dealings with others is appreciated. It's also good for the economy as it reduces the amount of currency in circulation, thereby increasing the real world value of the remaining L$.

The problem lies in the fact that, as in the real world, most people don't see the point in being rewarded for their courtesy/creativity unless that reward is financial.

Egon, welcome

Another little tip about setting the object's group. An object is automatically set to the group you are "wearing" when you bring it inWorld.

If you forget to change your group before placing your things, you can change that. Edit the object and in the first tab, the object's current group setting is listed. And a button for setting it. You can pick from any of the groups you actually belong to.

If you put out several things, you can select all of them, then edit the group setting once to change all those you have selected.

Have fun, and enjoy

I was rather surprised when I received three positive ratings after just spending some time at The Shelter trying to help explain things to some people newer than myself. To think they'd spend a chunk of what little Lindens they had on telling me I'm a nice guy... (This was after the Basic stipends had been eliminated, but before the initial bonus for Basics got dropped, too.)

After that, I put a note in my profile: "Don't bother rating me, save your L$ and go buy yourself something nice." I mean, I try to be a nice guy, especially to newer Resis; I don't need a bunch of little +s on my profile to tell me that. I'd rather sit back, secure in the knowledge that I'm racking up Good Karma Points.

(For those that missed it before: Good Karma Points are a hidden statistic kept track of by the sim and the client. The more GKPs you have, the less you'll experience in the way of crashes, lag, sim restarts, and other nastiness. The exact formula by which GKPs are given and taken away is no doubt proprietary LL information. As to how I found out about them...well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. )

I think what you are talking about is the Region Object Bonus - the city sims have double prims to help the city "up not out" building necessity.

As Osprey said that is a Region Bonus. That means that any plot in the region/sim gets extra prims. That is offset by the fact that LL owns 50% of that sim and doesn't use those prims. That way the 15k prim limit won't be exceeded.

Suzanna, i'm curious though, who or what let you believe this?