Wipe or NO Wipe?

I just think ratings should totally be gone and possibly replaced with an Icebreaker comment that you can send to another avatar. The only reason I would want the ratings to stay would be because they are linked to inworld pay ~ but if they take that bonus away .... get rid of the whole idea and rework it to be something more socially based.

I don't care about ratings. I don't see any sense in ratings. Ratings make SL a game, not the metaverse, not the next internet. Can I please pick up the Magical Axe of the Bizarre Warrior Monkey from the corpse of the next person I rate negatively? With copy and transfer so I can sell it, of course.

I don't know why LL even bothered to keep ratings, let alone restrict them only to those who can now afford them.

I started this same poll last night

-Ghoti

I voted yes but would like to see the whole ratings system scrapped.

As an old timer, I chose NO, and let me explain my reasoning for this.

I've never been to a rating party. I've never asked someone to rate me. I don't give ratings away like their are candy. I am willing to bet that I'm one of the LOWEST rated individuals in SL who've been here for more then two years.

Just because others have gone out of their way to artificially inflate their ratings, should be no reason why others that haven't are forced to reset to nothing.

When SL came out of Beta, those of us who chose to continue to play were allowed to keep our land, our belongings, everything. That wasn't fair to those that began playing the day SL went Live, yet there was no great uproar about how unfair that was.

My ratings have been hard earned. If you don't believe me, compare my ratings to someone that has been playing for only a year. You will most likely see they outrate me 2 to 1, sometimes even as much as 4 to 1. My ratings weren't gathered so I could go get more stipends, nor to prove how friendly I am. People, back in the day, rated me on my buildings and my helpful attitude and acts.

If you want your ratings cleared, I think that's fine, go ahead and allow individuals that want their ratings reset to 0 to do just that. But please, don't reset everyone, since everyone hasn't been so involved in rate gathering as others; that just wouldn't be fair.

One more thing to consider. If you reset ratings to ZERO now, what do you do in another 2 years, when a whole new group of users start to play and say, "It's not fair that everyone here has higher ratings then me?" Just because you have raised the cost of ratings, doesn't mean that it's going to be more or less fair two years down the road.

Now, will I quit if my ratings are reset? No. My ratings aren't all that important to me. Ask the people that act like children around me, they'll be the first to tell you that I could care less if you neg-rate me. But, I will say this, check with my profile in three months, and see if my building rating continues to remain at the lowest level and ask yourself, "is this fair?"

You Know ~ I hear a lot of people complain that newer players have higher ratings than some that have been here a long time. I have not gone to a "rating party" either - but I spend most (if not all) of my time in clubs and in very social places. So I naturally would get more ratings than someone that didn't enjoy those types of activities. I think that is something that gets lost in the mix when comparing ratings.

*and why am I still being marked as guest in the forums? lol*

I think this poll is unnecessary. Why? Because most people negatively affected if there is no wipe can not vote here. They are not yet Second Life residents

Seriously, I think this should be no brainer, shouldn't it? How can we keep our thousands of positive ratings that we received (almost) for free and then require new residents convince people spend 25 L$ per rating?

I would suggest:

1. Give every resident 5 L$ per rating as special "thank you"
2. Wipe all ratings

ha ha ha i voted yes but meant no. my coordination's always a bit off at two in the morning.

whatever though. when ratings bonuses have been reduced to zero, they'll chuck the whole system anyway. it'll be one less thing to bug the useful sections of code. next they can phase out dwell which has always been as buggy as taxes.

A good idea Anshe (gasp did I say that ?) but, I have to ask why $5L when each one only cost them $1L?

another touchy subject made into a public poll that potentially intimidates people from actually voting

Currently I could not answer either way as there was not an option to say just shitcan the whole ratings program.

Currently the Ratings are tied to a ratings bonus which has created a class of the Lazy Socialites. Yes Lazy Socialites that can be found like herds of sheep at clubs and anywhere there is money being given away. Let me reiterate the words MONEY GIVEN AWAY meaning these people are pretty much having fun and expecting to get paid to have fun. These are the same people that have paid 9.95 one time and getting to play the game for free while the rest that own land and pay monthly tier allotments are footing the bill for the bandwidth that these individuals consume.

((To give an example based on a 30 day month a Sim Owner paying tier of 204.95...195+9.95 is paying .28 per hour to play SL. While a 512 meter Land holder paying 14.95....9.95+5 is paying .02 per hour to play SL while a 9.95 supposed lifetime account pays nothing per hour to play and is consuming bandwidth that the others are paying for.))

With the new infastructure of the new ratings plan it has not solved the initial problem of the ratings system anyway. What is has done is slowed down the current method of which it was accelerating.

So whats the easiest solution. Basically dump the whole program as it has gone dramaticly awry.

Tying ratings to a monitary reward is asking for people to game a system which in itself is very clouded thinking. Especially when its already slanted towards the freebie member getting rewarded not only monitarly but isnt paying for any bandwidth they utilise when lagging the world.

Im sorry that my viewpoints may seem a bit harsh but it's fact people. You can look on the my account page of this website and you can see the tier payments and there is information on the 9.95 one time fee.

So in essence I have said it once I have said it 10 times...the Modification that LL made is ok but its not enough. Ratings need to be removed entirely. Flat lining the ratings to 0 is a slap in the face to those that never rate mined and a pat on the back for the 9.95 socialites because they really have nothing to loose anyway as they are already getting a free ride.

So in Closing...flatlining rates...rasing the charge..cutting the stipend in half that is tied to rates is not enough..its a stopgap at best but only slows the iminent problem we currently have. So baisically I say shit can the whole ratings project and look at working on something that cannot be gamed.

Sincerely, Shadow Weaver

And in two years when more players say, "It's not fair, I don't have money to rate people!", do we start this all over again?

How about posessions? Land, objects, et a! Should we wipe the world now because it's harder to make money then it was in Beta?

There will ALWAYS be a time when someone or a certain group of individuals think they are being unjustly held back. One of those times is now with the Ratings. Unless you are prepared to wipe everytime a group of individuals says, "I think this is unfair", I really don't see how you can fully support a wipe now.

How about when LL changes the cost to rate someone to $L10? Should we wipe them again?

It shouldn't matter how much a rating cost that determines whether or not they get wiped. If anything, I would have more to gain from the new cost, because I'm in the lower end of the ratings pool now. But I still don't support this move, it's not fair to those that have ratings now, and it won't be fair to people 2 years from now that say you wiped once, why not again?

Unless the ratings system is completely broken, or what completely broken at the time people were given these ratings, I don't see the reason for a wipe. Much like, and again I say this, when we came out of Beta and were allowed to keep everything. Why was that fair, but someone's ratings weren't?

If a wipe is instituted it sets a dangerous precedence for all time. No longer will we think, LL won't do this, because LL will have done it already. The only way I would support the wiping of ratings is if the ratings system were going away. Until that time, it's not fair to wipe someone's ratings because they were here two years before someone else.

what the big deal about ratings..............I can take them or leave them
..

That is what I thought first. But then you have ratings that can not be changed anymore. Or you would have to randomly choose which ratings to keep and which to reset.

Amazingly ~ I actually paid for a premium membership too - and have land tier fees that I pay. You are totally wrong in your assumption that people who enjoy the clubs do not pay for the very same services you pay. Just because people enjoy different things does not mean that their participation is any less valuable.

I voted yes from a "small landowner" standpoint, but at the same time I also ponder... it's a double hmm-thing.. as some people I know manage their land solely from their stip, and being plummeted back down to their base stip again suddenly will mean they can't afford to keep their current tiers.

ll have apparently finally figured out that we'll all be better off just leaving them.

and anshe has a good idea. when the ratings are purged from the code, pay us back a linden for each given (cost) and received (final bonus). go ahead and announce it now so people will know what to expect. surely nobody's gonna be handing out ratings after today.

although, i'll likely still stop and rate creators when i'm flying around looking at builds. oh and i would do that even if there were no telehubs. there, did i slide in all those points nicely? ha ha ha

5 L$ is just random number. I thought maybe people also spent time and effort to collect ratings, so would be nice gesture give them a little extra?

That's true!

On another note last night I posted a thred in the features page about possible a new system, or how to modify the current one. Please take a look!

I'm curious, how do events function to keep the economy maintained? If events are somehow so crucial to the economy, wouldn't it be more realistic and more fair to charge an entrance fee to attend these events, rather than a tax against everyone? After all, I have to pay to attend a concert or football game... I have to pay to go clubbing these days. My neighborhood sports bar even charges a cover on the weekend nights! Luckily, I get in under that.

I agree, that the government (LL) needs to offer incentives to get people motivated to create and host compelling content. However, this already happens... dwell is one, the base stipends are another, and for a long time, LL event compensation was a third. Now, it's time the world moves from baby steps to toddler steps and begins to exist without one of those elements.

rofl i love how they upped rating charges by 25x to basically sink money out of newbs while leaving other people who abused the system in the past with massively over-rated payouts. I voted YES. =P

I being one of them newbs agree...lol.

Er.. I don't really see how that's a compromise.

Uh, Dex...

They're cutting down the rating bonus anyways..

And it will sink money out of everyone. It's to limit rate-whoring.

Frankly, I personally don't care about the rating system, it was always flawed in the first place. I always went by *IF* I rated someone was either A: rated me, I rate back or, B: if the person I talk to, is generally a pleasant person, or by their creations; that's how I go by the rating system as a general rule of thumb.

I just think people should act the way they would in public view anyway, but this *IS* SL, and we all act differently. Common courtesy perhaps is just a habit.