A whuffie-like social reputation system -- WuBu

PROPOSAL LINK: http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=316


Project: To make a whuffie-like social networking/reputation model, but decoupled with the concept of currency. It's more related to Slashdot's Karma system than it is Whuffie.

I call it WuBu.

With WuBu, you would start off with a basic amount... let's say 500 Wubu. If you see someone you like, for whatever reason, you can give Wubu to them. It wouldn't be a direct 1:1 translation, in most cases; It would be a sliding coefficient, depending on how much WuBu you have.

So, when you start off, your Wubu isn't very efficient at transferrance. Say only half of it gets to the recipient. So if you spent all of your Wubu, only half of it would go to your target. Also keep in mind that this depletes your Wubu allotment.

It would also be possible to take someone's Wubu away, but on a much more severe sliding scale. To take someone's Wubu away, you'd have to spend some of your own; it could increase with the amount of Wubu you want to take away. It would be possible for someone with a lot of Wubu to absolutely ruin someone else's Wubu savings, but it would cost them a ton as well. I'm taking you with me, etc.

Every day, to replenish the Wubu in circulation, you would get a slight amount back, depending upon how much Wubu you have in the bank (up to a maximum, to prevent rampant inflation). If you have a ton of wubu, you wouldn't get a daily allotment. This is sort of like a savings account system; if you keep your wubu, you tend to make more per day.

It would be possible to have negative Wubu; someone with a griefing streak would most likely have no Wubu (taking someone's wubu with them), and then if they continued being an ass, they would go into negative territory, where the only way to get out would be to be a nice person.

Now, about transactions. Each transaction in the Wubu system would be a) Anonymous, and b) delayed. This is to prevent Wubu-mining. So, if you give 500 Wubu to someone, they wouldn't know about it until some time later, and by then they wouldn't know who it came from by simple deduction.

Some other things to consider: A meta-wubu given by the system for people who are generous in their Wubu (perhaps imparting a bonus when they give wubu), while damaging those who rarely give wubu or never receive wubu (ie all their wubu is generated by their wubu interest)

This would supercede the current ratings system, and would ABSOLUTELY NOT BE TIED TO MONEY BONUSES OR STIPENDS. This prevents wubu-mining further.

Intended results:

wubu would give a numerically glancable reputation, like how the current rating system is supposed to work. With it being anonymous, people would be more willing to give wubu to nice folks without any sort of social repurcussions. Also, bad wubu would be given to deter pests from being annoying; having a negative wubu rating would be devastating, as anyone walking around with a negative wubu would be looked at with grim suspicion. This would encourage more positive behavior in the world, as having a high wubu reputation would be a socially-positive thing (ie "that person has a lot of wubu, I bet they're nice to hang around".

Anyways, just some ideas.

LF

I'm sure this is a fine proposal, but could you bullet-point it for me or something? I dislike reading threads longer than my hand.

Bullet points:

1. The current ratings system is broken.
   
2. Whuffie is a term coined by Cory Doctorow in his book, "Down and Out in the MAgic Kingdom", which is incidentally free to read online.
   
3. Whuffie is a sort of social currency, where you get more depending on how your peers like you.
   
4. I'm modifying it for SL's benefit by preventing it from being mined, and also giving us daily increments to replenish the pool.
   
5. This idea will, perhaps, force better behavior on us all, as griefers with a terrible Wubu score would be shunned almost immediately.
   

LF

Lordfly, what does WuBu mean or stand for? Is it a portmanteau of something?

WuBu is a transmogrification of my original thinking of the system...

Wu = Woo, or as in "when you do something good, people go Woo!"
Bu = Boo, or as in "when you're being an ass, people go Boo!"



LF

Interesting LF.

I still rate people - in fact rated Willow this am at the welcome center - so any new way to fix the broked systems would be Excellent!

Make it so!

how do you keep it from being mined?


well......shunning griefers is what you hope will happen but i don't see that as inevitable. i wouldn't say people shun folks with neg rates now or i wouldn't be talking to you hehe.

cute name tho. i like you wu! i hate you bu!!

Yeah I really like the name... reminds me of FUBU...

The numbers would be delayed and 100% anonymous. This will prevent people from rating back, which was common in rate mining schemes.

With that, people could truly vote with their conscience instead of being pressured into posrating someone (well, they did it to me first... might as well..)

The same for taking away Wubu... 100% anonymous.

LF

Hmm, I would posrate people back because I always accepted a posrate as a compliment... And nice people give compliments, so I rate them as such.

Am I too much of an example of the broken system?

First off, nice proposal and I'm glad you're thinking about this. Now, on to the discussion...

What would be the point of having wubu? On Slashdot, having high karma means you get to moderate forum posts more, and your own posts get an automatic +1 rating. What would having high wubu do for me? What is the motivation to act nice to earn wubu? Also, I don't think the anonymity is such a big deal, but I'm open to experimenting with it - it seems to work ok on Slashdot, but then they have metamoderation to help deal with problem cases.

In DAOITMK, whuffie was the actual currency of a reputation-based economy. You could use it to acquire things, compensate people for their work, etc. If wubu ever became a real currency akin to the Linden, there would eventually be an exchange for it, right? Then people could pay US$ for WB$ and the rating aspect would be meaningless.

Perhaps there is something else that having high wubu would do for you that was only available via wubu payments or having a certain wubu threshold. Like hubless teleporting, or buying a second "home" location, or the ability to join extra groups. Or maybe I could set my land to only let high-wubu avs enter, so only non-griefers would be able to get in (this would be a great filter for the Welcome Area and sandboxes). Maybe if my wubu is too neg I couldn't even fly. I don't know, just brainstorming.

I'm all for scrapping the current rating system and moving to a system that is not related to L$ charges or payments. I like the idea of a reputation-based economy of sorts. But as I said, it must be worth something to players to get wubu, and it must be kept a separate system so that you can't buy wubu with US$ on an exchange.

Thanks, sometimes I get sick of trolling and actually input something constructive.




Well, it would be a status symbol type thing... people in SL sure seem hung up on status, reputation, and prestige. To wit: All the mafias giving "respect" to their "family members", people on the forums are constantly tripping over each other giving praise for this-and-that, people buy "bling" to look "high class", and so on.

People rate mine in SL today for two reasons: one, for higher stipend, and two, as a popularity contest. Having a concrete number of "popular" makes some people think they are better than others.

On the flip side, look at the stigma negative ratings have. If someone has a random threshold of neg rates, people are going to shy away from them (I sometimes get that feeling... I won't be free of my pariahdom until November 2005, thanks prok'n'alt )




Yes, I was thinking of how to do metamoderation with numbers, but sadly my math skills aren't the best. Anonyminity essentially removes any incentive to Wubu-mine, as you won't have any clue who rated you for what.



I'd just like to go on record and state that I don't want Wubu to become a commodity item; this is starkly different from Doctorow's Whuffie in that it isn't really *worth* anything, except for the intangible benefits of having a "good reputation". If you tie it to any sort of economy, it will be gamed, clear and simple. Of coure, it'll be hard because the transactions would be anonymous.. paying someone $L1000 to give you 500 whuffie isn't a surefire guarantee



This will turn into elitism, which isn't what I want. I just want a system that more accurately gauges a person's positive activity in the community at large.



You can do this already with the current ratings system.. most folks don't do it because the cries of elitism would overpower any perceived benefits of being selective.



Again, this isn't an idea to get rid of the L$, this is an idea to fix the ratings system and come up with a useful system to gauge how someone really "is", at least in a semi-authoritive quantitative form.

LF

I love this idea. I suggested something similar a while back in Robin's thread about revamping the rating system, but this sounds far more complete.

Since I'm not really a regular slashdotter, and I'm just not as cool as I should be, I am struggling with this. I'm reading about it, thinking about it, but then thinking...uh-huh, just another FIC-creation machine...

What I dislike about all these games is that getting the status through the lot points or the dwell points or the pos-rates just then sets you up to sit on your laurels because then you draw even MORE rates by *already having* a high rate.

That's why I like the idea of the revised Linden ratings that tap out after 6 months, and require a constant renewal consciously, and payment of $75. It's a bit like the balloons in TSO for friendship, that would deflate and wear out, and then you'd de-skill in some areas, unless you kept up those friendships through socialization.

I like the TSO concept of socializing leading to upping of balloons, that then led to increased skills and interactions needed for greening.

Because it was more about interacting than about rating in a teeny-bopper kind of way.

What I'd like to hear Lordfly is whether you think this system will reward merit in any kind of real way, and encourage socializing (I am well aware it was gamed in TSO and is game here) of the genuine type.

What will prevent your wubbies from becoming a FIC -- reinforcing itself endlessly?

WuBu could expire after a while. I actually thought that was kind of an interesting idea the Lindens had, though I know it was unpopular.

I sort of like the idea of avs not being able to fly if their WuBu goes negative (the chains of your karma weighing you down, etc), but I suppose that would become a griefer tool, because someone could create an alt and blow all its WuBu on making someone else flightless.

Which gets to the issue of alts, ratings, etc., and there are no easy answers to those issues, due the the apparent near-impossibility of establishing actual identity online. I think that's a problem that has to be solved before any reputation system can actually work. I don't want to blame players for the actions of their spouses using the same credit card or whatever, but I don't think reputation is nearly as well tied to identity as it needs to be.

neko

On second thought, I have to laugh, that Lordfly, who will tell you so arrogantly and airly that "negrates don't matter, they're getting rid of them in August" can then turn around and cook up another system that merely does the same thing in the end, gives ratings and points and stuff around for him and his friends and their clique.

Does anyone else feel unconfortable about a single number that composes your entire first impression?
That's the one thing that struck me as something that would be awkward to deal with when reading Cory's work. Sure, the thing is supposed to tell you how "good" this person is, but when it all comes down to it, its just a number.

Also, it doesn't get rid of the problem where more social = more ratings. If people enjoy SL more for creating then for socializing, they will likely have a lower wubu score, and therefore will be less "attractive" when social situations *do* arise.

Pfft, all this ratings crap makes me think people just want to cop out of giving/getting good first impressions.
==Chris

This is another reason I dislike the ratings system -- why force me to socialize?
==Chris

How is it forcing you to socialize though?

If you don't want to be a "popular" person, then don't worry about Wubu Obviously only the socializers are going to give a hoot about a popularity score (as they do now with ratings).

LF

I believe that LindenLabs is ramping up friendster type functionality with their "Add Friend" functionality.


My thoughts are that we will soon be able to right-click on someone and it will say "This person is friends with Cristopher Omega who is a friend of yours!"

Isn't everyone friends with Christopher Omega?! I don't see how this is useful to anyone!

Seriously tho, it would be interesting to see a friendster system in SL..

Get rid of the whole thing do not replace it just drop it.

It's useless

besides whuffie is just a silly name

I do not agree with the creation of a reputation system that is not tied to the Linden economy. The core foundation of economics since the dawn of time has been Trust. The reputation system itself, like that of Ebay's and Slashdots, help me decide if that person is trustworthy based off previous user's interactions. It is an integral part of their systems, as it should be in Second Life.

By comparison to the other mentioned systems, Second Life's is too simple. With Ebay's system, you can make user comments with the rating that gives insight. With Slashdot, you can search thru the person's posts, but on SL we have no way of telling why the person was rated and we are only given a YES or NO (+1 or -1) choice if we like them or not. Despite the vagueness, there is also the problem with it's cost.

When the ratings were only 1 Linden, the world was in choas. A new standard account ($10) could give 250 ratings at initial creation and 50 more every week. After the rate hike, it's down to something manageable, 10 ratings at creation and two a week. Many of those with very high reputations were most likely buying several accounts a month and pumping themselves with cheap ratings.

THESE INDIVIDUALS NEED TO BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.

Linden Labs NEEDS to hunt down these people and find a way to recover their ill-gotten gains for abusing the sytem. This has to be the number one priority, above any further changes to the system (besides increasing the cost which was necessary). These criminals have a significant edge to other players which needs to be removed before we can trust even a NEW reputation sytem.

While I admire LordFly for trying to help fix the problem, I do not believe the precendants he is using have baring on Second Life's economy, nor is he taking account the full scope of the problems at hand. I haven't played Dark Age of Camelot in awhile, but I believe it still does not allow for purchasing land, and unique item creation. Ebay and Slashdot have much more expanded systems for doing background checks into people which would be to costly for a game like Second Life.

I believe, as I have outlined in Robin Linden's thread, that the current system should stay intact. Stipend should remain tied to reputation, but the reputation system itself should be expanded in a moderate way.

Link to thread:

/20/d9/17689/15.html#post493110

One idea

people whould have to fill out a questionair or write something about the person positive or negative.

and it would have to be meaningful not just "great guy" or "great girl"

I am not sure how doable it is since there would have to be occasional reviews to weed out the garbage stuff.

kind of like looking at ebay feedback (when it was a little more useful now its worthless)

single shot phaser problem.

anyway it would be delayed and anonymous (say all rates would at midnight each night)

this way you could READ over a persons "history" to get a real feel for them (word of mouth kind of thing)

OR better yet go back to the 1l$ rate and just remove the award from it. the problem with this is that its the only REAL way for lifers to get meaningful income (lifers being $9.95 one timers)

its a nasty problem all around sadly. I LIKE the WUBU thing sounds like fun a few easy solutions

make it so brand new accounts have no wubu. you have to have x amount of active in world experience before you get your wubu allotment. say 30 days active and 15 hours in world (must have both)

you can GET wubu'd but not give or take it. this will stop alt grifing etc..

that fixes that problem.

Chris Taylor
http://www.nerys.com/

With a wubu or wuffy system it's not just L$ you pay to rate someone.. When you rate someone you spend your own reputation.. You could say you lend your reputation(echange ratio of 1:1 or higher) to that person and you spend as much or as little as you see fit to properly reward that person for whatever you think is important.