The Linden Need for Ratings

What are the possible reasons why the folks at LL can't abandon the concept of rating?

It’s a failed system as we have pointed out repeatedly, and the new 6 month fix will complicate things. Older players who may have earned ratings for builds long gone, a unique avatar now forgotten, or from a kind act quietly performed, will lose these ratings, and the ones left with high ratings are rate miners from the abundant clubs that are here now and were not here before.

It seems that the older ratings were the ones earned, and they will be wiped, but the newer ones, the bulk of which were rate mined, will remain, So a great builder will be rated very low in ratings but the club dancer or escort who never built a thing ranks high.

In addition, now when we see an account with low ratings and other factors that are contradictory to a noob account, it helps us identify alt accounts. Once ratings are wiped at 6 months, we will be unable to distinguish alts that may be in use for griefing.

If the folks at Linden cling to ratings believing they are a method to control bad conduct we have proven this to be a failed system.

So, let’s hear it. Why cant Linden give up its preoccupation/obsession/love for rating?

It’s time to let it go and get rid of it entirely. DUMP RATINGS ALTOGETHER!

I agree wholeheartedly, or at the very least, whipe ALL ratings and let everyone start fresh. The past 6 months have been by far the heaviest for rate mining. Most of the people that entered the world in the last 6 months have far higher ratings than I, because I never rate mined, and hopefully earned most of my ratings fairly.

So with this 6 month deal, the club-rate miners will keep thier ill-gotten ratings, and the old-timers who built, socialized and created for so long, will lose most of thiers. Makes no sense.

I see many folks everyday, that have started within the past 6 months, that have a higher build rating than I, yet have never owned land or built anything.

I agree - this new bandaid is a slap in the face to anyone but rating whores. Remove the system altogether.

I agree, completely remove ratings then start work on dismantling the leader board

I feel this way too, a bit... but I'll reserve judgement until we've lived with it for a while. I don't think people can really rate mine now that the rating cost has been increased to what it is. In the short term it will favor the club scene rate miners, but it will even out when the first six month period has elapsed.

I have another soloution...

Revoke all the changes including the disasterous 25 dollar ratings and give people back their full bonuses.

I lived it long enought.

Its a disaster already.

Money on the IGC is through the roof

25,000 Linden dollars are worth 119 US dollars where weeks ago they were less than 50 bucks.

One big massive windfall for the professional Money Exchangers.

The lindens don't need to keep ratings in place, but they do need to placate the noticeable percentage of players who do like and enjoy them, and feel invested in the amount of time they spent drumming up high "rating rankings"


Like it or not, Secondlife has expanded beyond artists and programmers. It's as much a social medium as a creative one now. The changes, I believe, are a good thing, but so is the gradual implementation of them. I believe ratings are on their way towards being phased out, and a bit of patience will see this happen.

I'm not sure how you will think it will even out. The club-rate miners will have a huge advantage. They will keep most or all of thier enormous ratings. Do you get rated alot? Because I sure don't since the change in rating costs.

I used to recieve regular build ratings from folks out exploring, mostly newbs, who ran across my Home in Mimas or Perilous Pleasures in Yabune. Now I get an IM saying they really like them, but no ratings (which I am fine with. The IMs are far more rewarding than ratings). And many old-timers don't rate much at all, and never have.

While I certainly wouldn't lose all of my ratings, I would lose many of the ones that were the hardest for me to earn, and meant the most to me.

Yea what she said. Please stick a fork in them, ratings are sooo done.


Yep.

It's way easier for me to see my bonus cut and pay more for ratings than to watch my history be eradicated.

fen-

*raises hand* I'd like to do a little math here... bear with me, I'm bad at it

Rates cost $L25 per rate. A rate miner traditionally does a triple-positive rate. That's $L75. If he were to honestly keep his task of rating everyone coming into view (let's say at a club), that's perhaps a minimum of 40 people a night.

75 * 40 = $L3000 a night.

If those same forty people rate everyone else in the room, that's $L120,000 sucked into the money pit, never to be seen again.

This is just one night, now. Consider how many clubs are full every day, and I'm sure there are MANY MANY regulars floating about them.

So, let's take this individual's clubbing hobby to heart, and assume that this miner goes to a club 3 times a week. That's $L9000 a week spent just on mining rates.

When stipends come around, the rate miners will get a huge increase of... maybe $L500.

Let's assume it's a generous bonus and they get around $L1000 a week (assuming basic account).

that's 4000 a month. Or, in 6 months (by the time the ratings disappear), $24,000 lindens received due to these ratings. Perhaps this would increase exponentially for a time, but keep in mind this little-known fact that I believe is still valid: The lindens, prior to version 1.2, had a limit to how much money you could receive in a stipend. I believe it was around $L3500 or so. When the new land tiers and stipends and whatnot came in, I believe the limit was never removed.

Actually, it might have been halved, now that I think about it... so $L1700? (the stipend halving announcement)

Ratings bonuses are based (again, I think, I might be wrong) on a percentage of that maximum total. So if you're in the top 5% of ratings received for that week, you would be receiving up to 95% of that maximum rating bonus. My guess, anyway.

So at max, you'll be getting (assuming a PREMIUM account now), $L2200 a week.

$L2200 * 6 months = $L52,800.

But if you keep up the rate mining...

$L9000 a week * 6 months = $L216,000.

In about 6 months time, there won't be any lindens left in the economy at that rate of sink

I think rate mining is on its way out, especially now that ratings are temporary, and ESPECIALLY now that they're expensive as all hell.

This may backfire, perhaps, into people rarely using the system at all; but then, maybe that was the original intention.
LF

Why? Inflation isn't good for anyone, sillyhead.

Ratings are for the weak

But seriously, there are other ways to have a rep than a number.

I get rated a fair amount, yes... not that I care. The point is that rate mining as a career option is dead and in six months the ratings earned that way will be gone.

Close... since 1.2, the stipend was ... (premium account)

L$500 (base)
L$750 (maximum possible for total rate - top 2% over all)
L$750 (maximum possible for delta rate - top 2% over all)

for a maximum weekly stipend of L$2000

now, the L$750s are L$375s so the max weekly stipend now is L$1,250.

Another great point...the newer rate mining members (ie: dancers who started in October and had well over 1000 ratings by December,) will get a higher stipend each week based on their total rating numbers. The older members who have ratings deleted will get a lower weekly stipend.

The new system works to the detriment of older players. I agree with Chip that eventually things will even out, however why maintain rating at all. The 6 month fix acknowledges the rating system as it is now does not work, but why replace it with another flawed system?

JUST GET RID OF IT!

I think if ratings are kept the Building rating should only be available by right-clicking (ready for it?) a BUILD and rating the creator (not the owner). Behavioral and appearance ratings should be removed completely and instead replaced by an internal system that monitors your Linden Rap Sheet (which, if I'm not mistaken, has a statute of limitations of 6 months anyway). If you've been a good pixelated member of the community, your rate is good. If you've been bad it goes down. Your total infractions would add up to your rating. It's the only way to truly make ratings fair.

I agree. Either leave it alone, or KILL IT DEAD.

keep ratings. i love ratings. just phase out/delete all the pre 25 L$ ones!

thanks LL for listening!

Can someone explain what good is a rating system that can only be used by middle-class or rich people? Except, of course, against inflation?

middle class is almost the entire game population.

anyway, anyone can rate. we all get 500+ L$ each week.

And now, a look into the future...

August 16, 2006

NeoOldbie Resident (born Sept.'04): "Check this out. We used to get paid for getting rated. People would spend L$3 and rate each other for our appearance, behavior, and building. We got a weekly bonus based on where we ranked in our ratings. The highest bonuses where like L$1400 a week!"

Brand Newbie (born two weeks ago): "LOL! No way! Thats crazy!"

NeoOldbie: "Groups of people would go to "rating parties", usually at night clubs, and just stand around and click on everyone else and "triple rate" each other so everyone that was there would get a good bonus that week. LOL, we called that "rate mining.""

Brand Newbie: "LOL, there used to be night clubs here?"

NeoOldbie: "LOL, yeah."

Brand Newbie: "People back then treated that like it was a job?"

NeoOldbie: (reflective pause) "Yeah."

No, some people have other things to do with that money.

The problem is that 25 bucks may be 0.0001% of your income, but it may be 5% of mine. That’s not real fair to new people or those who’ve been less successful. And, on a good day, the same generosity this system allows you could practically bankrupt someone else. So, even at its most benign, this new system unevenly impacts users’ ability to participate in the growth of our culture.

True, it wasn’t fair before, either, But (foolishly, in retrospect) no one complained about a dollar. They could afford to use the system the way we were told to use it – to promote the best of what we saw around us.

It hardly makes sense to suppose that richer players have a more significant voice in our culture simply because they are more successful business people, or saved up more of their stipend.

I like ratings. I've been rated twice since the change... I dunno how you other folks are doin'. But I tell you, both of those rates were a lot cooler than all the other rates combined.

Lordfly's math looks good to me. If you spend your whole stipend rating, you aren't going to rate more than a couple dozen people anyway. And if you don't make your money from the stipends, you really don't give a shit about how much money that brings in anyways, cuz you've found a better way to make it. @ 25 a pop, there's no room to abuse it. And in six months, it'll just be a ball of candy-coated goodness.