Is Rating dead now?

Wow, sounds like SOMEONE is bitter about not being able to leech so hard anymore

No idiot someone is bitted because I won't have money to enjoy SL any longer! Sounds like someone is happy their L$ is worth more on GOM now!

Yay, I just got a triple negative rate from Angelina Zapata while offline. No comment of course. So I assume just a griefer.

My observations:

Yes, rating is much more appreciated now, it is like a gift rather than something random (arbitrary?).
The rating numbers in one's profile don't say a lot anymore and certainly don't reflect the meaning of the ratings received or given since the changes. So I also support getting rid of them.

When I receive ratings now, I must admit I feel the pressure to rate back a lot more - it seems rude not to do so since the other person has spent real money. I am happy to rate back when I want to say something good about that person but since the changes I have received positive ratings without comments on several occasions (i.e. events) without even having seen that person or spoken to him/her. In this case, I feel reluctant to rate back.
In that kind of situation I have also caught myself wondering what the intention behind the rating might be (without meaning to say there has to be a selfish intention).

I still think 25 L$ is FAR too much - hey, it is 2.5 times more than making a relationship official which should be regarded as something more important or precious.

Also, it means that noobs or people with little money cannot rate others as much as richer people can.
If you think more about that, it could even result in another effect: people who expect to be rated back (and there are quite a few I believe) will tend not to rate a noob because the noob might not be able to afford rating back...

I strongly feel rating should be more expensive than it used to be but 25 L$ is way over the top.

Anna

Ratings should be abolished completely, lol.

Ratings are rarer. This would not be bad thing if there wouldn't be millions of old ratings. As is now there is two class society: Those who got their old ratings and can enjoy nice bonus and those who have little chance to ever catch up

I've wanted to rate two people this weekend, both were newbies but I thought to myself, what good does a rating do them. So I payed them the $25L and told them via IM that I was rating them on their behaviour but instead of giving the L back to LL, I was giving it directly to them.

That's the whole point!

Its NOT Leeching, and it was done only for the benefit of the Money Exchangers who whined about people getting more pay.

If you rate someone, they do not have to rate you back. And I have rated a total of 9,000+ times and have only receaved 3000. Is that leeching?

No

Talk like this only makes me more angery that people actually listened to the money exchangers. Cutting pay and increasing bonuses ONLY benefit the Money Exchangers. And wow, look at that $L Go, climbing right up there as the money exchangers expected.

Yes I am quite bitter. I use to rate newbies when they came in and I had a bunch say that because I rated them, they stayed. Now because of the Money Exchangers, I can't do that any more.

It would not had been this way, if the Money Exchangers hadn't whined!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Massivly Big AMEN there

What really blew me up, was I was at a telehub somewhere and these two people were saying that they have the Lindens in their back pocket and GOM was through the roof and the stupid people will not be getting as much money making the GOM go even higher. The other laughted and said all they have to do is reduce the base pay and they will be set for life.

Yes, I am quite bitter.

Kinda silly, unless you are brand new. Who can tell which ratings cost L$1 or L$25? UNless the slate is wiped clean, they are meaningless still to everyone but the person recieving them. I still see folks a few weeks old with triple my amount of ratings. And no way to tell which were given because they deserved them and which weren't, or which cost someone L$1 or L$25...

Indeed, they should just scrap ratings altogether.

Or just wipe everyone to 0/0/0 immediately, and now since they've delayed, refund the L$25 payments everyone has made over the past few days.

Or wipe it clean and just show the ratings that have been made since Day X.

The ratings are working much better now IMO.
As far as deleting all the old ratings, I disagree. I beleive they should be divided by 25.

Magnum - The point of the ratings is not to positive rate every newbie you meet. They are supposed to mean something and I think this change has done that.

It will now cost $8675L to clear my negs!

The $1 L once used to be paid was a gesture which was equally appreciated when accompanied by a nice text (personally I appreciate a $1 rating with text a lot more than a $25 rating without). The $ 25 L now is a sacrifice with questionable benefit for the recipient. I agree with Rose - it makes more sense to give the money to the person directly and Im sure a lot of ppl will find other ways to show their appreciation than throwing the Lindens at LL.

I think most people agree that we need to either reset or scale the old ratings, no?

Scrap 'em completely

<-- Is in the "0/0/0" the ratings camp - all the 1L$ ratings, anyway.

To give everyone a little incentive (and to help quell a little grousing), refund the L$ used.

Later we can dump the ratings=bonus system altogether. After people have found good ways to get L$ also passing through the newbie and casual user's hands. And I know people are already cooking these up.

i've rated a few people at show and tells lately. i also still rate build with the pie menu when i see something wonderful.

rating is more discreet now, not dead.

Well, as a rank newbie, I know I didn't value the ratings much starting out. On the first day, I was rated positively three times between the public teleporter and the gun range at the welcome center. (But, then, I was walking around and bumping into things in a particularly stylish manner that day. Maybe I deserved it.) Didn't exactly give me the warm fuzzy feelings intended.

From a purely selfish standpoint, as one with all his ratings still in the teens, I tend to lean towards the Divide-by-25 proposal. If nothing else, it gives me the dream of someday- with a lot of hard work, cleverness, luck, and good intentions- achieving a ratings status at least in the same order of magnitude as those of the old timers. Granted, ratings are just an isolated scoring system, with little mechanical or financial impact on the game world for most folks. But they're also one of the ways of deciding the social pecking order in the SL community at large. At this point, I can't even dream of being really respected in-game... At least as far as the approved first-glance numerical indicator is concerned.

As an aside, the price hike probably takes the opinions of the basic subscribers completely out of the opinion pool. I don't know if I'd give you half of my weekly salary if you saved my chihauhau from a speeding bus. (I'm landed gentry now, but if I were on the tourist plan, I mean.) But I definitely wouldn't do so if I liked the clever texture animation on your front porch, or the cut of your designer dress. (Or if you stopped to spend 15 minutes explaining a tricky scripting point to me? Well, okay, I would there.) I don't know the actual percentage of basic subscribers that play actively (as opposed to once-a-month casual or dummy avatars). Perhaps their numbers are too small for their voice to matter in these discussions.

How much of the average player's scores came from "handshake" ratings? "Hey, nice ta meetcha, here's a +1." That's gone now. It occurs to me that, should the scores stand and the rate cost be maintained, most people will unconsciously divide any unusually large ratings score they see by 25 in any case. Which means that that the 20,762 rating Methuselah Oldtimer (acclaimed designer and popular club owner) has earned is going to be effectively devalued to 830 (or as close as people can manage dividing in their heads on the fly) in any case, with adjustments downward as people contemplate how much of it was earned by actual accomplishment, and how much by passing politeness. Not that folks with ratings that high haven't earned them, of course. They have! But it's easy for the Have-Nots (or Have-Not-Yets) to view the achievements of the Haves with skepticism. This just gives the aimless sour grapes a concrete rationale.

Well, I'm rambling on and muddying my own point. Basically, by increasing the cost per rate, the newbies are condemned to a permanent second-class status in the ratings game. (This is a disparity similar to the old-stat/new-stat gulf in a competitive MMORPG- an ongoing balance issue for their developers.) At the same time, the older avatars have their rightfully earned scores devalued by anyone who is aware that the ratings cost was once much cheaper.

Well. Thaks for listening/skimming/whatever.

si!