A thought on ratings - and the new system.

Gotta admit - after a good nights rest - it still sounds good!

And I have a lot more positive than negative ratings too!

The way it stands - there is NO WAY anyone who joined this morning could ever be on the leaderboards - no matter how good they are.. hell folks who are here NOW that totally crap over most will NEVER be in the top 10.

Let me put it in perspective:

it will be economicallly impossible for Starax to be rated a better builder than Misty Rhodes..

Misty - I love you, but nuff said.

Siggy.

precisely! now the ratings will be much more meaningful as the average player will not be handing them out like candy. this will mean when someone negrates, they really mean it. and when someone pos rates, they also really mean it, or it's a very good friend. this will be the general case. perhaps, the very generous wealthy people may rate more indiscriminatel, but wealthy are always a small portion of the population.

this will mean the end of rate mining. people may argue that argue that all these 1000+ ratings are a result of commitment and contribution and blah blah blah. but one of my dearest friends in SL, who i have known to contribute to no ends as a teacher, mentor, helper, content creator, and socialite, is also openly a rate miner. i do not consider their stipend earnings deserved or earned, but a gaming of the system.

i love the rating system. i thank LL for making this change. i look forward to them reseting the current ratings.

I only have one thing to say on this Idea but first...Siggy love ya like a brother but something is amiss here.

Sure zeroing it out would put it on a "Fair" playing field.

But, here is the problem, it wont change...the socialites will still rate the Scripters/Builders and Texturers are still gonna get screwed.

Sorry either way zeroing the score or the L$25 part neither is going to work effectively. Its still gameable and it only means now that the petty partys will ensue....the OOOOOH I lost all my points...waaaaa...please please rate me so I can make cash....pfft partys.

The ratings system needs an overhaul I agree totaly on that aspect however, I feel this is not the overhaul that it needs. I have offered several sollutions but no one ever seems to comment or speak out on them. Unfortunate but true.

Anyway, I digress...think I will start playing Mechwarrior II with my son more now on XBox ...least there I can Kill shit.

Shadow

I endorse this product and/or service. And, I'm betting that the changes we're seeing this week are a prelude to completely wiping ratings soon enough. If the stipend bonus (which is tied to ratings) is cut in half, and the cost of rating people goes up by, what, 2500%, I think that means the Lindens are easing us into wiping our ratings. I currently have no negs and a lot of positives, and I'm in favor of this. The ratings system is an ineffective relic, let's trash it and start over.

I have three negs I've given out long, long ago, and I can't remember to whom I gave them! No doubt it was to some griefer who came in during the July/August 2003 period when LL dropped the credit card requirement for trial accounts for about two-three weeks. Regardless, I wish they would just go away.

Siggy that's like saying, I play Everquest; but the economic system isn't working right; so they should put us all back to Level 1 and start over.

Shad, personally I'd like nothing better than the whole ratings system shitcanned

(amoungst other things)

But I don't think that's gonna happen. Not for while longer anyways.

But hey - good folks doing good stuff will get ratings still. Rate miners will still rate (though hopefully less effectively)... any system will be gamed - this is true...

But that being said...

If we're gonna eat a turd on it - we may as well try putting a lil sugar on it to help the medicine go down - especially for the new players out there. I for one am sick of copping flack for being 'grandfathered in to the hedonistic clique of the semi-oldbie' -- so I don't mind being the first for the axe on the grand ratings hack if it will get a few folks to STFU.

Siggy.

As in money - land - holdings - ratings...

I don't see the community as a whole buying that one - but hey - if we gotta start somewhere - why not start with ratings? It's gonna be so flippin slanted now anyways.

Understandable, however Siggy and anyone else consider this...they wipe it tommorrow and Viola we all start from scratch we all have base ratings of..0.

Ok as you know it takes forever to get anything implimented. The ratings will soar to the same percipice that it is now even with the $L25 per rate and in a Year or 6 months Newbies will be screaming again the Rate system is unfair. So do we set it to Zero again then and see what happens....what happens to all the people that work hard for what they have gotten. Do they have to Bite the Bullet again and accept a new 0 Rating and have to work at socializing to get them back.

Sorry the Ratings system like you said needs to be done away with yet the credits of those that worked over the past 6 months/Year/2years needs to be considered as well. Its a double edged sword thats gonna cut both ways but which one is going to hurt LL the most in the long run. When People that Joined over the last year bought full sims and were doing it so they could make a weekly stipend to help offset the costs of those sims leave taking thier 204.95 with them. Enough leave and you will start seeing a down scalling of Sims because LL wont be able to afford them on thier own.

Sorry but all in all both propositions ...Rating $L 25 and cutting the Stip Delta in half is a realy realy bad economic move. The bad part is more so on a Psychological level than it is on an actuall currency level. People that dont have economic vision are gonna simply see this as an attack on them as an individual not as an attack against the community.

Oh well I digress...

Shadow

While I personally would still like to see the rating system scrapped, or SERIOUSLY overhauled, I actually think your idea of wiping everyone's ratings back to zero when the new pricing goes in, is a decent idea. It will certainly even the playing field, and give new people (starting when the change happens) the same opportunity to rise along with those who have been here a long time.

Pros to this suggestion:
-- Everyone starts out on a clean slate
-- Gives a bit more meaning to the ratings as from this point forward *most* will be accurate and not mined (granted of course some will still mine, but doubtful too many)

Cons to this suggestion:
-- Hurts those who have worked hard to earn their ratings and have never "rate mined". They will have to start over "status wise".
-- Removes a way to see those who were mass neg raters in the past

I guess I could live with this if they decide to wipe the slate. At this point I couldn't guess which way they will go. They will of course receive complaints no matter which way they decide to do it. But that is inevitable and understandable.

I support a full rating wipe, but it really would have to be done concurrent with the change in rating fees. Doing it after only punishes those who rated under the new fees. Now, this is kind of obvious I admit, but given the timeframe for the ratings system overhaul, I doubt that LL will approve of a rate wipe before that time, and doing it after is capricious, so I don't see any rate wipe happening alas. Until a total ratings system overhaul.

Still, I think the idea is sound, but I don't have that many rates to lose so if you want to consider me biased, there's your ammo.

One possible refinement, keep all neg rates. For neg rates, $1L and $25L aren't a big deal and most likely would have been tendered regardless of the price. Course there is something to be said for really wiping the slate clean after some of the neg rate shenanigans in the past. I'm neutral on this adjustment.

If they insist on keeping ratings, they can at least do this.

Maybe they could start everyone at 0 for the new system, but also display their old totals in their profile.

For some Cadroe thats like insult to injury...

Like I want them to wipe out my 3000 pos ratings that I earned but leave the 29 negs I did not deserve

I DON'T THINK SO

By all means wipe ratings, but both pos and neg

Lindens! Please consider this immediately and make a concious decision on this before the change over! Lit makes an excellent point.

Actually with the cost to rate being $L25 even zeroing wont help as it will just build back slowly to where it is...the update is not enough of a fix but a bandaide....I say either Revamp it entirely or totaly get rid of it as the ratings tied to Stip Delta is Fubar.

It will rise back to the level it is, but much more slowly, and with a lot more L$ being sunk out of the economy along the way. And hopefully, it would rise with a bit more discernment. Maybe then people who actually built would top the Leader boards for building, instead of those who just hang out a lot.

If the impetus behind this request is because the changes are unfair, then taking away earned (or, yes, possibly gamed, but MOSTLY earned) rating points would ALSO be unfair. You must see that, I'm sure. Yes, after the wipe everyone would be on equal footing, but why not set all of our bank acounts to zero while they're at it. Empty our inventories. Reclaim our land. That would be just as fair. If you want to zero them, KEEP them zero. In other words, remove the whole concept of ratings. (Not that I'm professing that change, necessarily, but that makes more sense then effectivly removing them then turning around and bringing them right back at a higher cost.)

Instead of zeroing, they could divide all previously accumulated rating points by 25, or just weight them at 1/25 value when calculating the stipend bonuses. This makes the old points of equal monetary value as the new points. But, it's not the MONEY that the points cost that is important here. You can't sell your ratings on GOM for US$. They aren't a currency, so a change in cost to add one is NOT something that effects the inherent "value" of a rating point.

The sole purpose of the change is to reduce flippant rating.


I prefer that they just make the cost change and do nothing else. Check out my 12 opservations in this thread and see what you think then. Add your own observations too, if you've got some that don't involve peices of the heavens plummeting down upon your noggin.

I'm all for the changes. As is.