Reputation System

Yay! A suggestion that's simple and helps!

/me jumps on bandwagon.

Shadow, my apologies, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression!! There has been some misunderstanding, I'm not saying that the current system is ok, I never defended it, and never will! The only thing I ever said, if you take a look at my earlier post (I have also put that up on my blog as well), is an "alternative system" which is only based on socializing. It has nothing to do with a rating system based on improving content (like you did), because, frankly, I don't have any suggestion, despite having given much thought about it. I couldn't figure out one system that is fair and objective at the same time. But this does not mean that I don't want a rating system based on creativity and content improvement! I really want it, but I don't have a concrete idea to present...

Like you, I'm also not quite comfortable with ratings being equaled to money received. However, from early posts, I have come to the conclusion that a large part of SL (but certainly not all of it!) considers their top activity in the game to be "socializing", and since there is a way to promote socializing (ie. "rate parties", they make money out of it. My earlier proposal was a more complex system that separates the notions of "ratings" (ie. tied to a leader board and easily gamed) from "rewards from socializing", and tries to be fair and more objective. My own proposal has faults. The fact that nobody commented on it earlier made me realize that "socializing" residents didn't like that proposal as well and simply ignored it; non-socializing residents couldn't care less. That's also fine with me, and I didn't insist/encourage/promote any more ideas on the same line.

Your post, however, had two parts. One was an excellent idea - the notion that ratings (in particular building ratings) should provide some sort of feedback and construtive criticism. I didn't comment on that since I fully agree with that idea as well! (no point in just posting to write "wtg, I agree" Right now, our system is so limited, that even when I take pains to use the current system to send a message to encourage good builders, they probably ignore it. Your proposal would put in place a much better feedback system. And it would probably minimize (or even get rid of) the issue you addressed very well: people having 900+ "building ratings" and not a clue on how to rez a prim.

Please don't get me wrong - I fully agree with that part of your proposal (on the 250 posts of this thread, this idea has been expressed several times, every time in a slightly different way), both on the reasoning behind it (ie. avoiding "false building ratings" and providing feedback and constructive criticism to the builder) and your suggestion for an implementation.

The second part of your post, however, dealt with a suggestion based on the time people spend online. I just gave my thoughts on that. "Spending time online" is not a good measure for getting money rewards. No need to repeat myself here.

But now that I've reread your original post several times, if probably you'd added something like "logging in to spend time BUILDING online" (assuming that this could me measured and distinguished from a resident just creating prims and not really "building" anything - but that's a technicality), I would have cheered your suggestion! Perhaps that's what you had in mind after all, it makes sense, and all the rest follows naturally and in a consistent way. I would even accept that some people would only log in 1 hour per day rezzing silly prims just to get some payment. But thinking about it - how long would they put up with that behaviour? Looks rather silly, doesn't it? People just going to the sandbox, and rezzing prims after prims after prims, and other avatars asking "hey, what you're building?" "oh nothing, just rezzing prims, I want to get my longetivity award". I would think that the percentage of those trying to game this longetivity award would be very reduced.

By contrast, any good builder/scripter would certainly spend easily one hour per day working on new content, and they would earn the longetivity award honestly.

Now that's something I would support. If that was your original idea, please accept my apologies (and the congratulations on an excellent suggestion), but from reading your post, I certainly didn't get that impression.



Please tell me where what I say is basically promoting the newbies and degrade the content providers. Like I said, I effectively don't want that to happen. So I probably misworded some sentence which gave you this so negative impression, and I wish to correct it and set the record straight. That's exactly the opposite of what I have been defending in the past months!

For the record, I don't like the current rating system at all, and I want a fair system that rewards content providers (not necessarily with money). If, as a side-effect, we can put in place a system that allows us to give feedback to the content providers, and help people out that way, well, I couldn't agree more with that!

It seems that we double-misunderstood each other! Sorry!

Indeed it was a misunderstanding and I reread your post but could not decipher exactly where I had come to the conclusion when I responded for that I apologize.

We are in agreement the current system tends to lean towards the little Newb aspect I mentioned in my post.

However, my Longevity post was not in the theory of 1 solid hour at anyone given time. It was more so along the lines of some people log in for 15 mins then log back out take care of real life then they log back in for 45minutes to whenever. Sometimes its people logging in and out from creating stuff in thier paint programs but the "Login" for a specific period of time would be for anything from socializing for an hour to building for an hour. The thing is it would be a controled measure by the individual and not the masses. The log in time for that avatar could not be trade or given away to suppliment anothers time it would mearly mean that individual would be in world.

Now on the aspect of that a Longevity bonus would take the place of the current ratings one. As it would be a better gauge for what that person would need for a short period of time in world.

For instance if an individual logged in and maintained a 50% longevity rating that would mean they get less because they would in essence be doing less whether it was building scripting or socializing. A longevity set up would more or less guage activity in world by how long an individual spent. Kinda like dwell but different. Could call it dwell for the individual.

Now as a spin off to that in another thread Drift Monde had a good Idea of Dewl comming out of an individual pocket. She noted a small number of a set 10L$ per day to be divided amongst the places visited and any that an individual spent time at that was under 1$ would only count towards Dwell on the boards but the Money side would come from the individual player that spent time there.

For instance Little Johnny visited 15 places and 10 of them he was at only for 5 minutes or less and the other 5 LJ spent equal time at. Well the other 5 would get two lindens each and the ones he spent less than five minutes at that dwell time would be added to the total dwell for that place for ratings on the boards. But that wouldnt be a finacial "win" on the boards because it would mearly point out that place had High dwell and people should take the time to visit. Others may spend twice as much time at those places and those places would be rewarded by those that spent more time there.

IF LJ stayed home he would pay himself his own dwell money if he didnt leave his property for 24hrs so no loss....but 10L$ is hardly enough to stay on your own property when some of these other "Social" interaction places are offering 500-5k wins to visit.

Basicaly my Ideas are spurned but not blinded by the other markets that an Idea would in essence encompass.

Anyway my work day is over here and Im heading home.

have a great day and I hope this helped in understanding my Idea better.


Shadow

I'm a newbie, but if it's proper to voice a thought or two:

The current ratings system is interesting and fun, but may contain flaws in exectution:

1- Newbies don't know about it, so habitually do not re-rate
2- You pay L$1 to rate someone and get L$1 for every time you're rated. It tends to even out. Why have money involved in the transaction at all?
3- The rating system is abused. Ratings parties, "Please rate me" signs, and skimpy lingerie isn't exactly the best way to earn a rating.
4- If you neg rate someone, they're already being a twit and are likely to neg rate you right back... so what's the purpose?
5- Some people harass other users with neg ratings.

Just to name a few. What to do? Some kind of rating system is warranted. How about a simple "This person did something nice for me" rating. That's a true rating of character. Focus on the positive. If a person has a "Helped me" score of 1,500, you can somewhat rely on that. And rather than the rating system being based on money and therefore perhaps motivated by greed, it will be based on assisting others and appreciation for that assistance.

-- Wayfinder Wishbringer
Poetry Guild
Elf Clan
No$ Builders Guild
TRON User

This is very much in line with my earlier proposal. I definitely like it.

As to negative ratings in any way, I would like them to be a way to become a sort of constructive feedback system, just like Shadow Weaver proposed earlier.

Actually, I never thought before in the way how the current neg rating are so much against self-rule in SL. During my work as Mentor, I sometimes have to explain people that some things are not allowed under the ToS/Community Standards and point that out to residents. This is obviously exposing myself to negative ratings, since they are too easily abused. However, since nothing forbids people to neg rate, I have an ethical problem here. Shall I explain what's wrong and help people understand the ToS/Community Standards and risk my own reputation because of it? (I cannot even safely report them for abuse myself, since they may always neg rate me anyway when the Lindens tell them who reported abuse). Or stay silent and let people ignore the Community Standards. Difficult question, but it's like in RL when you step in between a mugger and its victim... you risk to get attacked instead.

The only way to fix the reputation system is to abandon it completely...it serves no good use.

I would (and may well have before... I forget.. been a loooong thread...) tend to agree. I just don't see the need. At all. Positive or negative. It's more trouble than it's worth.

I think the only thing that serves any merit in that regard is for voting on builds.

And if we are going to do something like that, rather than a rating, I think it would be better to have a scaled vote, like they do on gallery sites and stuff.

So you can right click a build itself - not a person.. you have to be right there at the 'thing' you are rating - and rate it from 1 to 5. So there's no possibility of a 'neg' as such because you can only rate it positively, albeit low scoring if you really must. And then don't average the votes because they would be more prone to gaming... simply total the accumulated points... so someone coming along to consistently rate the same thing with a low score isnt dragging down the average score, they're merely adding to the total. And most importantly, don't connect it to any reward system. Sure, have a leaderboard so that people can find the most voted builds, but thats all.

Yes, like anything it can be gamed, but I think it's far less prone to complaint about the way it's being gamed than anything we have currently.

And if that's already been suggested, then sorry... but I did start reading this in, like, July

Well said Talen, I couldn't agree more. The ratings system is attempting to measure something that is not measurable, thus it can never be accurate, and it will always be gamed which makes SL into a popularity contest when it should be attempting to be much more than that.

Pay everyone the same amount of stipend and remove the rating system completely.


Jai

Jai, thats why I proposed the Longevity bonus in Lue of Ratings. It would be base on an individuals efforts not the community as a whole.

anyway I digress.

Shadow.

I too think that everyone should be paid the same. With this exception. Any player over a year makes more than someone who started a week ago. Consider it the first step in customer appreciation.

Cat

First, there needs to be a continuation of the current stipend concept. Adding Lindens to the entire economy weekly, stabilizes the Linden by lessening inflationary pressure. If you look around, it is rare that anyone is hiking their sale prices. The currency is basically stable under the current system.

Second, ratings leading to bonus L$ *is* a rational system. It provides a solid incentive to attend events, and provides an easy social ice-breaker. As far as gaming the ratings, I think it was Prokofy Neva who said, in effect, in his blog, "well, SL is in fact a game. You're supposed to game a game."

I believe that it is the rating system that is primarily responsible for the current good atmosphere in SL (newbies tell me how surprised they are at how friendly their contacts have been), and provides the quickest way for the new member to understand that good behavior is rewarded and that being stupid or griefing is a losing proposition. SL needs this understandable behavior-mod tool, to get the new ones acculturated.

Once a newbie gets past the behavior issues, thanks to the ratings system, then they see that their energies are best channeled into creative endeavors.

Eliminating the stipend and/or rating bonuses would have two effects: (1) cause people to leave the game -- why pay membership fees *and* tier fees *and* put US$ in via GOM or IGE.. The money we get in weekly lindens is actually a small dividend off of the real money we put into LL. -and- (2) Increase bad behavior -- no reward for being good and no money to participate in the SL economy, to me is a formula for increasing non-creative negative behavior... There's been a little uptick in griefing lately ... lets not let it get out of hand.

Finally, keep the negative rating system... Most people hate getting a single neg rating... That by itself has kept me from acting out in a negative way... If I have a problem with someone I cant work out, I do an abuse report. The negative rating prevents wars from breaking out.

Bottom line... the system as it is, works.... As long as the stipend + rating bonuses is around L$1K a week, the goals of socializing, discouraging griefing, encouraging creativity, economic activity stimulation , and inflation prevention are all met. .... and the bottom-bottom line: If it gets too hard to subsist in SL, and I really have to hustle hard for a decent in-world income, then why be in SL? It would be too much like RL and one RL is all I can handle. (That's one frequent criticism of TSO -- too much work involved in the game -- SL's great advantage is its beautiful open-endedness... dont ruin this great facet of SL by making it hard to get by).

There... that's my 1.999999 cents. Fire away!
-Jeri

I have found with most online games, that to be successful you have to devote hours and hours of game time a week. For me, this is nearly impossible. I have a 60 hour a week job and a great relationship with my wife, so I have 10 hours or less to give to a game.

The reputation system as it is now gives a chance for those who don't have the skill to be builders, scripters etc and don't have the time to own a club, casino, etc a chance to get a bit of L$ to play with.

In my opinion, you would drive off a lot of players who don't "game the game" by getting rid of a way to provide a bit of income.

Good to see someone put their views across clearly like that Jeri, although I myself disagree with your view - I'm glad to have it.

The biggest area of disagreement I have is with the idea that SL is a game. I find that word somehow limiting. Now we can debate which of the many definitions of the word we like best - but just as I do not see the Web as merely a large repository of text & pictures - I personally see SL as being much more than a game.

Over and above the fact that we have a free market of goods and services, SL does not carry a defined goal, structured levelling or a player vs player competitive requirement. Part of it's beauty is the utter freedom to be, do, appear as, and create anything you wish. Over time, as we get voice, video, web and other external connectivity inworld - SL really will evolve into something quite significantly more.

We may choose to create or play games inworld, but SL itself is larger in scope and should (in my opinion) aspire to extend that scope as far as it can go.

One of the issues I have with the current rating system, especially (but not only) because it is linked to stipend - is that it is a 'gaming' device and seems out of place with a metaverse. This is somewhere we can teleport, fly, create at will - and yet we tick ickle boxes to somehow reward or punish - and always on an arbitrary basis. It seems childish to me. A virtual world of grown adults and yet we attempt to measure worth by the number of clicks of a mouse someone has managed to attract.

By all means let us keep stipend payments as an economic input, but I would be happy to lose the rating system itself.


Jai

Ok, I'm pretty new to this all but it seems to me that the ratings system is really kind of meaningless, one way or the other. I don't really ever notice how someone is rated.

On the other hand, like any social action, getting neg ratings is going to hurt people's feelings.

ANY suggestion (such as Lordfly's Longetivity bonus, or having ratings "die" over time, or just eliminating neg ratings altogether, or eliminating all ratings and raising the average stipend) that addresses these two facts and is SIMPLE to operate and implement would be great.

As far as gaming the system to get money goes, who cares? If that's how ppl want to waste their time, sure go for it. I DON'T CARE if someone else is rich in game or not. Good for them. It doesn't hurt what I want to do here.

The forums perhaps draw more than their share of geeky types, but please keep in mind, one of the things that make "social engines" - such as SL, Livejournal, the WWW, the Internet, telephones, etc. - work, is to keep the interface as basic and "transparent" as possible.

Most people aren't Linux types, they're Windows or Mac types. I suspect more and more of the new SLers will be as well, as time goes on. So some sort of elaborate system will just go unused, or will spoil the game for people who just want to fly around and look at stuff without having to work too hard.

Another noob who emphatically agrees with Jeri....

Maybe cease to tie the ratings to bonuses, but the rating system is PARAMOUNT for controlling behavior. I manage a RL community and anonymity will bring out the worst in those so inclined. The ability to rate people on their behavior and have it "stick" is crucial. There are going to be trolls no matter what you do, but I find that I read people's profiles all the time to learn more about them. I see few negative ratings, which is the way it should be.

Remove the ratings and you will see a huge increase in negative behavior because it has no consequences. We (in the US anyway) have a well noted societal problem already with a lapse in manners and good behavior, that problem will spill over into SL without a ratings system. Human nature is human nature; people will tend to behave according to what they can get away with. This is why we have so damn many laws and regulations in RL, because of those who need the incentive of fines or jail time for breaking the behavior code.

If we all had visible nice/jerk ratings posted on us in life, people would tend to not be jerks quite so often...

I only read the first page and a half of this thread, and I assume that -someone- must have mentioned this already. But for the sake of completionism, which is a word, I think modifying the current rating system to allow a set number of ratings per day would go a long way to enhancing the value of the rate.

The number of rates you could hand out could be set fixed each day, or proporional to your time spent in-game (Without a Away status). Allocated rates should not be linked to positive ratings received, in this system, because that would just cause silly-growth.

Rates become a personalized, unique gift instead of a random high-five. Triple-ratings would decline, both negative and positive.

I agree that the rating system could use some work. but as one of those people who come into SL to have fun and meet people and just have a good time why should I be penilyzed just cause I dont build or report on bugs. I work hard in RL and want to have fun in SL and I do not have alot of money to spend on it and if stipends were only rewarded to those who have the time to contribete in those ways SL would lose it soul. yes we all like those who have the drive and the time to do those good things but what about those who just want to spend time with there friends and have fun. please dont make the rating system tied into just how many events you hold or how much you build or report.

~Hunter~Rose~
Vivat Grendal

No, I dunno. I don't see any problem with this quite frankly.

I don't know about everyone else, but I only give out ratings if I fly by and see a sculpture I really like, an object I'm impressed with, a building that catches my attention. Then I rate the creator.

I only give out ratings if I have a conversation with someone that's interesting, I see them wearing a really creative costume/avatar, or they seem like a nice person. And it's pretty rare I rate someone more than once.

Conversely, if I'm flying and I'm hit with a fu**ing eject script or I slam into a patch of banned property for no real reason and the person is an ass when I mention it, I'll negatively rate.

I don't really see much potential for abuse in this system. Granted I don't fully understand all aspects of it, but I remember hearing someone explain once that the rating system gets you up to a bonus of 250 a week. Whether this is the case or not I dunno, but I can say that my max stipend each week has never surpassed 750, whether my ratings grow exponentially or not.

I've been playing long enough to develop a lot of problems with some of the proposed changes, but really, I don't see anything wrong with this. The abuse all depends on whether or not someone rates you back, and if the limit really is 250, then what kindof abuse is that possibly going to be? Nah, I think this system's fine. What really needs to be changed is the dwell-rewards. Reading the award list for the DI for this month ticked me off as I've seen none too few of those "winners" just getting groups of people to sit on their land all day, not even in conversation. That shouldn't merit any type of incentive.

Oh and I have to respond to this too. Jeri I think you're fantastic.

On a rant (and probably off-topic), SL is by far the most expensive game I've ever played. I can barely justify to myself why I pay a land tier, albeit an extremely tiny one, in the first place. It's insanity to me that I should consistently throw more money in on a continual basis. I say keep the current system in place and INCREASE the bonuses and stipends.

I have played many online games, FPS, MMORPG, etc, and I've never come across anything like this. Every other game I've played has been able to support itself fully with a small, flat, membership fee. Or in the case of Blizzard (Starcraft, Warcraft), no fee at all to use their online service. Shattered Galaxy (http://sgalaxy.com/) charges a basic 9.95 fee for all their features, or you can play totally free with restrictions.

Not to say that I don't love SL and don't think the money's worth it, but I'd feel better if I were receiving more for my buck.

My point is all these other games don't have to charge a membership fee per month plus additional costs for other needs, depending on what you want, and they still survive. Quoting the NY Times article on the SL homepage, City of Heroes has a membership of over 150,000, whereas SL is at 15,000. I don't have a figure on CoH's membership fee, but even assuming at the most it's 19.95 a month (which I doubt), plus the cost to buy the box/game itself, there's no way LL can tell me that with a fraction of the membership and a higher game cost they're still incurring more server usage fees and so forth than CoH. I refuse to find that as logical.

I think it's time for LL to be a little bit more generous with the users, especially the ones paying obscene amounts of money who have to deal with spouses, partners, family members, significant others who scream at them for their expenses.

< /rant_off>

One of the ways reputation could be "tracked" is by using the "My Notes" section of a person's profile. Make the section public so that any feedback on an individual can be seen on their profile by other residents. If the feedback is from a griefer and amounts to nothing more than a load of crap, it should be easy to identify. Rather than associate ratings, let the feedback speak for itself.

I do like the idea of noting categories for feedback, such as building, texturing, scripting but not sure how this could be implemented with the Notes section.

Other than that, I really don't see any use for the ratings system. While I certainly don't mind that it increases the weekly stipend, I have a hard time thinking of other ways to tie a financial incentive to doing well in SL. If you reward time in-game for example, you're penalizing folks like me who have too many RL commitments to devote that much time to play.

If you want to have a weekly stipend for SLers, great. It should reflect the in-game economy, rather than ratings. Maybe the only qualification for receiving a LARGER stipend is that a person "registers" somehow as a designer/builder of some sort. If nothing else, the increased stipend would offset the $L10/upload charge (grrrrrr)

I like being able to use that section for private notes, such as "I promised to do such and such for this person."

I like Kex's idea for the ratings, if we're keeping them for now, but with a tweak:

First rate costs $10
Second rate costs $15
Third rate costs $25

Total cost to rate all three: $50

Rating someone (typically for behavior) for L$10 should be too pricey. However, if you're going to rate them for appearance, it should cost $15. Build is the big one. Many people in the leader on build rating since I started a year ago have never really built anything!

This would also be another useful "sink" of funds in SL

Just my 2 cents.

-Flip

This was must likely mentioned already, but I stopped reading each response after the 11th page. As for the whole rating system, I honestly didn't realize the ratings where attached to a bonus idea. I know NOOBS !.

I received a triple neg rating from a member 2 weeks ago now, someone i don't know nor do I understand why he gave it to me. Though I know who he is since I received an email telling me so n so rated you negitively. I emailed him asking why and so far no response, so I have to assume it was a random griefing thing. I looked up his profile and whoa he has given out almost 100 negs in a little over a year that he has been a member.

Keep the rating system, but revamp it. Since a negitive rating will effect someones income there should be an explaination why it was given. Like at work if you receive a bad review and receive no raise you know why. No negitive rating permitted to go through without an explaination.

Also if a person needs to give out more then say 3 neg ratings in a years time, they should feel the effect of it also. People will abuse any system just to cause grief on others for their own entertainment, well make this entertainment a costly one and in time it will stop. Anymore then 3 negitive rating need to be given should go against yourself also.

I personally don't care about the reason in a sense why this guy rated me the way he did, but be man enough to explain your reasons.

I agree with most of the posts here - which may surprise some since i have a kinda high ratings rank. I try to rate people who make an effort to join in, attempt to be an active part of an event, whatever. I use it as a social tool too, a way to make conversation. Ive found that many newer players are simply overwhelmed and need that little popup to encourage them to talk. I have NEVER given a negative rating, feeling there is almost always a solution better than resorting to that.
I felt pretty good about that until today. EDDIE VOGEL triple neg rated me while i waited for a brand new player to enter the game. I was at the landing point for new players. I hadnt done anything to negatively impact another player. I tried to IM this guy and he has yet to reply. On his profile it says he has given 75 neg ratings in 5 months. COME ON LINDENS!! WAKE UP!! This guy is a griefer - as are others noted in this forum thread. And worse - allowing these griefers to camp out at the newb landing point and harrass new players is really lousy business.
Revamp the system.

I dont think there should be a rating system,or bad rates at least since take my problem for instance,i had a missunderstanding with someone who then posted this in his own desighned words to his group and had them gang jump me with bad rates thought they had no idea what had happened between me and him or what it was about other than what he said it was,so therefore,how does that play to be fair to people when anyone who does not know you can rate you badly and it affects your linden allowance?
So basically i loose bonus for 22 bad rates because of one persons gripe with me,thats just not right,almost all who rated me bad from his group,doesnt even know me!