Outrageous Opinion: Ratings not broken

Okay, hear me out

Let me being by starting with the assumption that the rating system exists to promote social interaction.

Let's review what we already know:

- Having a higher +build rating than someone else does not mean you are a better builder, and vice versa. In this sense, they're meaningless.

- Nobody likes getting negative ratings.

So, the main reason I like the rating system is that I believe that socialites play an important role in SL. The rating system (and dwell) provides socialites with a way to derive an income. I like that. I wish there were more people in SL who's existence revolved more around making friends.

Moreover, ratings act as an incentive for people to actually be civil to each other. You play nice, someone will probably +rate you. This is good.

I actually miss swapping trading cards for money. Swapping a trading card was vaguely equivalent to "Hi, nice to meetcha, I wouldn't mind to get to know you better." It was an incentive for people to take the first step in making new friends.

On a different note, sometimes ratings make me happy. Occasionally, I get an email:
SoandSo Foo rated you positively: Nice [insert whatever here]

That means I made something someone likes. I like that pat on the head. Surely, I'm not the only one this happens to.

Now, let me talk about some of the more controversial issues:

- Noone likes negative ratings. However, what they do give everyone is a feeling of power - you are not completely helpless if someone's giving you a hard time. Is someone harassing you? Neg rate them. No need to file an abuse report.

- Also, fear of getting negative ratings makes people bite their toungues for fear of provoking a negative rating. Flaming someone encourages more flaming. This is ungood for SL karma as a whole.

- On rate mining:
Everyone knows the rating system can be gamed. The quickest way to a +rating is to hang out in the welcome area, and attend/participate in events. I think this is not entirely a bad thing. Noobs sometimes complain "I've been here 3 days and noone's said hi." Well, rate mining encourages people to hang around and do the whole meet & greet.

- On penalizing closet builders:
People who keep to themselves and make fabulous content have lower ratings. This is just a fact of life. I have two comments to make:
1. You can sell your content for L$. The rating system is more for socialites to be compensated for their contribution.
2. I think people are more important than content. People don't stay in SL because of the content. We stay here because of the other people. How many people would have stayed passed their first week if they didn't meet someone who made them think, "I would like to get to know this person better." (Incidentally, thanks Ironchef and Kats for showing a dumb noob the ropes. I appreciate it)

- The power of Negative ratings:
A lot of people take issue with getting negative ratings. People triple-neg rate, and get their friends to help. Here's the brilliant part though: A single tripple-neg (or even 10 or 20) has negligible impact. Any single person + their mule accounts & friends won't make a lick of difference. Ratings just aren't that powerful.

It's the odd-opinion-out I know, but I agree. I think the rating system could use tweaks but I don't think the system as it stands are fundamentally broken. The problems I see are in the usage and interpretation of the system, mostly in regards to negative ratings.

I also believe in the original purpose of the ratings, resource distribution. Before 1.2 this worked out, you did good things, you got rated, you got more money to pay taxes to do more good things. The opposite was also true, piss enough people off and you get less money to do your bad things. However with the advent of 1.2, the role of resource distribution has been taken over by our wallets, so ratings become just extra income, ok fine. This means the social side of ratings comes out more, the side that equates a negative rating to running over your cat. Moneytary reward is still important though, for buying land and helping new users get started on their feet. I know some people on one-time accounts with land who make all their money off reputation bonuses.

To be honest, the only change I would make to the rating system is some way to see what you've done. Instead of decaying negative rates, do a weekly popup of all your negatives more than a month old. This would hopefully force people to review their black marks given and see if the person has improved.

In addition, add a friend/foe system with no consequences but social ones (see Slashdot for an example of this type of system). This would hopefully take over the social blackmark aspect of ratings.

The problem is, none of that will correct the biggest problems, alt rating and grief rating.

Actually, content is exactly the reason I stuck with SL. If meeting people was my goal there are any number of real life and online methods I could use to accomplish that, without the learning curve and expense of SL. What I dig about SL is the experience of wandering around the sims and stumbling across interesting, surprising, and just plain cool builds. SL is a unique canvas for creativity.

(That being said, I think the population of SL is generally made up of high-quality people.)

Three things can solve those:

1) Get rid of ratings, period. They put the system in for a reason, so I for one assume they want to keep a similar system. I would be very suprised if this is something that will ever happen.
2) Make ratings positive only. A stronger case could be made for this than removal. Only allow happy feelings, no one does bad things, we're all good enough and smart enough. More personal opinion, but I think negative feedback and reinforcement via the game system has its place.
3) Stop worrying about it. The "problem" with with all the grief related to negative ratings is because people get bothered by them. The inclusion of "friend/foe" is basically to give you something to really worry about. Conversely, the "negative reminder" helps to make negatives less permanent and reduce their blackmark status. The idea is that these two together would help take the social shunning off negative ratings and onto something designed to hold it.

Basically it's my opinion that people are broken, and the system is generally ok.

2. I think people are more important than content. People don't stay in SL because of the content. We stay here because of the other people.

I was under the impression people played SL to create content.

Well, is this really a problem? A negative rating, or 20 will not measurably impact you in any way.

Cienna said something that I've kind of danced around:
"Basically it's my opinion that people are broken, and the system is generally ok."

A possible solution to reduce the amount of fretting people make over a few negative ratings is to do what they've done over at slashdot - stop showing actual rating numbers.

Background: On slashdot, there's only one category - karma, which is a point based system. To reduce the amount of obsessing over a single point, they've stopped printing the numbers, and just decided to lump ranges into categories: good, very good, excellent, etc.

Personally, I dislike this idea, because it reduces the amount of information I can infer about someone from their profile. For instance, if I see that someone has gotten tripple-negged once, and has given none, I might guess that once upon a time they ran into a griefer (or whatever) but were too classy to bother rating them back. This might be someone who has a sense of value that I might want to get to know better.



If there was noone around to enjoy the content, who would play SL? LL has created a wonderful environment in which you can make all sorts of great stuff, but in of itself, it's not the greatest tool for creating it. If you only wanted to make content, you'd stick with Photoshop/Maya/whatever, which have much more sophisticated tools. SL is more of a content _delivery_ service.

But, we're getting off-topic here

I agree with Francis. I feel the true purpose of the rating system is to encourage socializing. And it does succeed at that. It fails miserably at identifying who is a good builder or who has the best appearance, but I don't believe this is its primary objective.

Neg ratings suck They make people stress and feel bad. And maybe, with the idea in mind that the ratings are only a tool to encourage social interaction, they should be eliminated.

I dont think the system was intended to cause such distress over a single negative rating...but that is what happens. So maybe simplify it to positive/neutral. It will still encourage and reward socializers, but prevent it from being used as a tool to cause distress to other players.

LOL!
So true.

The problem isnt the system, its the ppl that repeatedly abuse it. That issue does need to be dealt with, but dont kill a system that validly rewards one group because another group can't handle having the power to place a number.
Edit:
That said, the easiest way to deprive these children of thier favorite greifing toy is to remove the neg rating entirely. after thinking on it for a bit, the neg option could be removed with minimal impact to the beneficial parts of the system.

also: i adore cat omega's term for neg-rating alts: Neg Mule.

If I may, I must add- having one's CC cancelled creates a feeling of rejection- don't do it out-of -hand

hi:

someone observed that people get high ratings by hanging out at the newbie area, and attending events there.

personally i never hang out at the newbie area. i might attend one event in that area a week, and on average only attend maybe 3 or 4 events a week.

my building rating is a farce. from what i can tell most peoples are. i mean, to look at ratings alone i would be considered a better builder than chip midnight. pfft.

neg ratings strike me as meaningless. all of mine are from people who no longer play the game, except for my last three which came recently from someone trying to drag me into their drama and i would not play.

well, the fastest way into the top tier of ratings is by bringing people into the game. LL gives u ratings credits for this in a huge way, and on ratings alone, no one is going to get past 4th place in this system without bringing 100 people into the game. i notice no one in this thread addressed that little ratings fact.

the system is what it is. i feel fortunate to get the extra stipend money from this system.

marilyn murphy

If people wouldn't give the things out to everyone that even happened to get within seeing distance, it wouldn't happen.

I have never cancled a calling card to anyone who's card I offered in the first place.

I have never cancled a friends calling card.

I have never cancled the calling card of anyone who I have any reason to have the calling card from.

I do cancel, routinely:

All calling cards picked up at events from whom I've never heard a single word (Why did you offer me your calling card? Really?)

All calling cards to which I look at in my inventory and think, "Who is this person? I have no clue who they are. What am I doing with the're calling card?"

Anyone to whom I have had no signifigant conversation with in better than a month.

See, i actually use calling cards as a way to keep track of, you know, friends, clients, buisness contacts, that sort of thing.

I don't see them as the next pokemon, no "gotta catch 'em all" attitude for me.

Perhaps a good demonstration of why the rating system is broken is to host an event.

The 'digeridoo corporation triple positive rating" contest.

At a certain time, everyone congregates at an area, and when the host says "go", everyone triple positive rates everyone else. The person that triple positive rates the most people after 15 minutes wins a prize.

Everyone wins! higher ratings, higher reputation, higher money, higher higher higher!

What's the harm?

Yes, it's gaming the system, but everyone wins, right?

Lf

Marilyn:
It's mostly a matter of interpretting ratings. Everyone knows that you can't compare numbers directly.

For instance, in chip's case, I see that his build rating is almost equal to his other ratings. So I can guess that he's mostly known as a builder of some sort.

Most non-builders have build ratings that are around half or so of behaviour/appearance.

Also, neg ratings are not completely useless. Let me give an example: Someone's at Stage 4, being a nuisance. Neg rate them. Sometimes, they'll stop. Sometimes, they'll even be repentant.

Lordfly:
Why dont you hold that event? Seriously! I mean, suppose you have a well attended event, say, 30 people (that's the sim max, right?). +30 for everyone! Noone really gets hurt from this, and it's a social event! People meet each other, new contact etc etc. So, if we assume that the rating system exists to promote social interaction, then it would be succesful

Anecdote: A couple weeks ago, someone came up to me and a friend, and asks us if we'd like to trade +3 rates. I declined, but my friend agreed. They +rated each other, and then went on to strike up a conversation The system works!

Well, your bonus comes from a pool of L$. Your share of the pool depends on your relative rating compared to other people (I'm simplifying). So if everyone increased the same, the relative rankings would remain the same and the no one's bonus would increase. The way you get a bigger bonus is by increasing while other people do not.

Are you referring to overall score? Referrals don't actually affect your ratings unless the people you refer come rate you after they get in-game. Referrals do, however, affect your placement on the high score list.