Reputation System

How about a meta-rating system?
I'm thinking of something like slashdot, where a few people are selected every day to moderate, with 5 rating points. Read their algorithm carefully. It selects people from the middle of the pack, which makes it very hard to game.
Then people have the ability to rate the ratings as fair or unfair. So if you see in the meta-rating interface that someone with no knowledge of building has been rated +1 building, you have the power to say, this is unfair.
Also, please cap ratings so that people stop mining them.

It is truly mega-important that development time be focussed on improving the rating/reputation system. After all, it is by far the most requested Feature Suggestion.

Oh wait ...

The very concept of rating people is flawed. It's ideas, effort, and product that are important, and not who delivers them.

The very best things can be delivered by someone with zero or even negative rating. Applying a historical bias to rewards is nothing more than a hurdle, creating an "establishment" of people with prior benefits. It's not a gain for progress.

I know I contributed to this thread before, but it's gone on for such a long time now that in the interim I've had the opportunity to change my mind.

The main problem with ratings is that they are given too readily - both positives and negatives. We've all heard tales of idiots giving out negatives at random, and other people taking unreasonable offence (like the one who neg-rated a builder because his building was in the way when he flew to a particular destination). The same thing happens to positives. I recently attended an event, and within ten seconds of my arrival I had three positives given. I could have been Jack the Ripper for all they knew.

To make the system work, all we have to do is to change things so that ratings are not so easy to give. The simplest way of doing that is to make them more costly. If it cost $L100 to rate somebody, I don't think it would stop me from giving positive ratings to people - indeed, it would make the gesture more meaningful - but it would certainly stop the promiscuous showering forth of positive and negative ratings.

If the price of rating someone was $L100 you would think twice before giving them. But you would give positives to those people you genuinely admired, and negatives to those who had really harmed you in some way. Surely, that is what the rating system should be all about?

PS:- This thread has been going on a long time. The above was written in relation to an earlier posting of mine, but going through the more recent ones, I see that I put forward the same idea a couple of pages ago! Sorry about that.

This is a really insightful thread. It's hard to quantify assets of human behavior and to assign some numerical value, especially a binary system (POSITIVE/NEGATIVE) when one is Rating. One could easily gradiate the system and make it more tricky by having a scale of 1-10, which I am not recommending at all, but which I am using as an example to show how obfuscated things can get.

The little comments field is nice to add a one or two-line quip about what you might have appreciated about a fellow Second Lifer. I do this a lot because it adds context and perspective behind a +1 or -1. For example, I really was excited by Grey Mars's Lament Configuration box, so I noted that down when I was rating him.

I would like to believe that in the long term, things make themselves readily apparent anyway and any such pool of numbers is only one set of criteria among someone's "reputation" in the SL community. However, I do take it seriously and I don't hand out ratings like dirty water because that is a dishonorable insult to both others and myself.

But you're both still falling into the same old trap.

The concept of rating people is itself inherently flawed. It's ideas and hard work and end results that are important, and not who delivers them. So why endorse a system that gives benefit for reputation, a populist notion that has only minimal correlation with any of the good things that we are trying to encourage?

People with zero reputation that produce excellent contributions don't deserve to be penalized, and only to become "as worthy" as the elite later on in their lives. You're giving support to a thoroughly bad thing.

Morgaine,

I don't quite follow your argument. You say the system of rating people is inherently flawed, but surely this is what happens in all aspects of human society. People have reputations. Occasionally they can be undeserved, but in general they accurately reflect what the person is like.

Personally I don't see a problem. Providing the existing system was used (with my suggestion in corporated), with points given for appearance, building and behaviour, even those people who weren't particularly sociable would still have the opportunity to gain a good reputation.

If, as you say, people with zero reputation produced excellent content, then their reputation would not stay zero for long.

I've said this before but nothing in the preceding 11 pages of comments has changed my view..

Any rating system that allows the residents of SL to rate each other can, and will be gamed. It just will. Putting a high fee on rating will merely allow the wealthiest to buy votes. And don't even start me on the subject of Alts and how they affect this - there are SL couples inworld now who have 10 accounts between them.

The only, truly fair way to rate (if you absolutely must rate), is for the system to do it inherently and automatically. Even then, you would have to base the calculation on metrics that cannot be taken advantage of and you'd probably not want to publicise the exact formula.

Trying to attach some notion of 'worth' or 'value' to areas as utterly subjective as human behaviour, how nice a build you made or how shiny your hat is - well its all very questionable in my opinion.

If Linden wish to pay us for being here, then pay us all the same. If I want to know if someone is a decent person or not, frankly, I will work it out myself or ask around. I don't choose my friends based upon the maths on their profile.


Jai

After a discussion on the rating system with Moon Adamant, we have figured out an interesting "alternative" rating system. It has a slight problem of "computational resources" required.

We both feel there is a need to "extra-rate" someone very special to you. Since ratings are over-abused, how can we mark in some way that "special friend" we love in SL?

Some forums/online dating systems have a "fan system" beyond simple "rating". These ideas are loosely based on that.

First, "friends" are public. You expect people to know who you make friends with. So they will be listed in your profile somewhere. Like in RL, choosing the "wrong" friends means getting a "bad" reputation. Making friends with the "popular" people mean you are seen at with awe! To make things interesting, there should be an upper-scale limit - let's assume 25. This makes profile still manageable and captures the spirit correctly.

So, "partners" are two-way commitments where both agree with the commitment. "Friends" are one-way commitments without need for the other party to agree (more on that later), but you assume the "friend" will reciprocate (or else you're not really a "friend", you're a "groupie"!). The rest of the residents are "acquaintances" (and you keep their calling cards).

To keep the "friend" status, you need to spend with him, say, one hour per week. If you don't, you get a warning - "Are you really sure X is your friend?? This week you haven't even said hi to him/her" - and the "friend" just reverts to "acquaintance" status (ie. a normal contact on a calling card). Both will receive a message informing that the status was "lowered" to acquaintance (so your friend may become angry for being neglected...).

What is "spending an hour per week"? Well, in RL you go out with friends and phone/email them to keep in touch. Since IM can be easily abused - you can write a script to "spam" your "friend" and this would count toward "friend status" - I'd limit it to "physical presence": being at the same place, at the same time, for at least an hour, every week. Ideally there should be a "limiting distance factor" to avoid abuse (ie. friends should be talking together, or going out to the same spot, etc.) but this would mean lots of additional processing. You can do it much more simply by listing the time both entered the same sim. It's crude, but allows for offline processing of logs in a straightforward way. So at the very least, you'll have to IM your friend with a "hey, it's time we keep our status, let's meet at X for an hour, we don't really need to talk, just be there". Of course, since you have to do this to up to 25 friends, time management will become an issue!

Also remember that "friendship" is not two-way. This means that you can list up to 25 people that you consider "friends". But you can have several hundreds or thousands of residents considering themselves your friends (ie. "groupies". They'll try to get to same spot where you are to retain "friend status" - so a popular guy, hosting events, will probably get much more than 25 people listing him/her as friend. They'll be at all events/places where he/she goes. This can be irritating, as "groupies" are irritating in RL, too!

Of course you can subvert the system. You can pay people to have them list you as a friend, and pay them every week to stay with you. However, this easily gets out of hand, and probably only the very wealthy, with lots of free time, will be able to do that. And will it "pay off" in the end? (you may need to pay people more than you'll receive from "friend status"...). Remember that you can only have up to 25 friends - so how many of those will you keep as "payed friends"?

Sooner or later, you'll have to make choices: you already have reached the limit, and have just met this fantastic guy you want to list as a friend. Which one will you drop? This is a similar choice that happens with the group limit, but here we are talking about social interaction. People will tend to keep friends they really, really like, and that are willing to spend some time with. So, like in RL, you won't have time to spend with ALL your friends, even if this would mean earning lots of L$ for having many friends. Better to concentrate on a few key friends that you usually hang around with, instead of having a whole lot of 25 friends and never get time enough to spend with all of them.

This encourages grouping, or ganging together. Instead of having 5 separate friends, it's much easier having your own group/gang. You 5 do everything together anyway. So it's much easier to go out together, and spend 1 hour of online time with all five at the same time! This will encourage you to seek out a larger community, but not spread it too thinly.

So how would Lindens "encourage" friendships? Instead of a rating-based bonus, you would get a "friendship bonus" at PayDay, based on the number of hours you spend with each friend. This should be a balanced formula, so that spending 25 hours with just 1 friend ("my, he is really, really your friend!" gives you a very good score, but spending 1 hour with each of 25 friends makes you more popular, so you should get much more. There are tradeoffs, however. A "recurring friend" (ie. someone that you keep week after week with "friend" status) should give extra bonuses. This means that a long-term relation pays off, instead of getting "a new friend every day". This is also relatively easy to implement.

When you look at someone's profile, you'll see a list of friends he/she has, and you can order them by "popularity" or by the profile owner's own preferences. "Popularity" is just a number of people that refer you as "friend", multiplied by the number or hours that person actually spends with their "friends" online. But the profile owner may list "more special" people instead of "more popular" ones. After all, you may be an Eggy or Torley groupie (who isn't, these days...? ), but still list your sweetheart first.

Sometimes, it is important to fall into that "trap" and figure out what to do next. Kind of like techno music, you have a series of set repetitive loops and keep throttling them until you throw a new element on, then you strip it all down to the breakdown, and build it up again. Such is life as well. I'll also quote Quark from Star Trek: DS9, who wisely (for a Ferengi) made the point that "The more things change, the more they say the same". What is the big picture here? Can we have the forest and the trees at the same time? I think so.

I embrace contradictions and I embrace a whole lot of flaws. How are we going to figure out things without ratings, reviews, buzz? As I mentioned, "I would like to believe that in the long term, things make themselves readily apparent anyway and any such pool of numbers is only one set of criteria among someone's "reputation" in the SL community."

I know if I really like something, chances are I'll be soon going "OMG!!! WHAT A TRIP!!!"




Awww.

You REALLY thought this out, Gwyn.

I do wonder, however, what about the self-professed hermits, for whom socialization is not a major priority and it's more about building and selling of innovative products from "afar"? How would they be rewarded for what includes interaction between them -- by proxy of their creations -- and the people who buy them?

Is this like a SL friendster in some ways?

Torley wrote:


In the dirtiest way possible, Torley. They'll get filthy rich

I mean, if you're good at doing stuff (or at marketing the stuff you do), you make money. People buy from you (instead of from someone else) if your "products" (or "services" are more appealing.

Making money from your work is always a measure of success Unfortunately, it's not so good for measuring "social intercourse", and since this only generates money very indirectly, it should be "rewarded" in some other way...

(BTW, I also like Tiger Crossing's suggestion a lot, even if it sounds a little complicated for newbies! But then again, isn't land sales the single most complicated thing in SL? And people get used to it rather quickly...)

Frankly, what I'd love is to just get rid of the ratings, and allow people to post small (256-character or so) comments in a sort of guestbook about the user and some info on its source.

So you could have something like...
_______________________________

Kelly User -- September 5, 2004 at 9:21am in Ahern (Welcome Area):
I hope you get RL time to take avatar commissions someday, your work is outstanding!

Joe User -- September 5, 2004 at 9:38am in Dore (Stage Four):
Had this super mecha bird avatar thing in Sam's AV contest. Awesome!!

Sam User -- September 5, 2004 at 9:39am in Dore (Stage Four):
Psyra cruised away with a first-place win from my sci-fi ava contest. I wish he sold that ava he was wearing.
_______________________________

Okay, hee. Maybe not with subject matter quite like that.
Though I'd love to be able to leave a littel blurb abut someone I've met/been impressed with.

Psyra, that is simple and effective because it gives a WHY to the WHAT. If someone gives a neg and doesn't give a punchy reason why, then perhaps *eyes shift suspiciously*

That also reminds me of eBay, in a good way! And hey, that rhymes!

Here's my contribution:


Torley Torgeson -- October 6, 2004 at 9:19pm in Ahern (Welcome Area):
OMG!!! WHAT A TRIP!!! Psyra that is suuuch a cool Deekin, he cracks me up! And the voice clips splishes me fishes too! It's always cool to see your Birdman of Alvatraz descend with the runway lights at the crack of daybreak!!

Wow, what a depressing question. By figuring them out for ourselves, either directly or through talking to friends and acquaintances.

The idea that one has to rely on ratings, reviews, and buzz is a crass and thoroughly enslaving bit of nonsense invented by the mass media, because without that notion firmly brainwashed into people's minds then the popular media has no reason for existence, other than purely informational.

I know that there's not a chance in hell of SL shrugging off the trappings of 1L in that respect, because 99.5% of its players almost certainly watch TV and read magazines and do all the other things that they have been brought up to believe is normal, yet which really is just the big industrial machine prepping them for life as consumers.

Oh well, not to worry.

I second this idea - except that I'd like to add that there should also be a category for "general helpfulness", in other words if someone took the time to help another person, this would reward them. This would also help to reward mentors & teachers in SL when they go above and beyond holding events and come to your house & help you build or script.

I don't think that L$ awards stipends for this should be abolished.

It would encourage creativity and general kindness in SL.

Rose

I do not know why this is depressing. I should explain two things about me to clarify: 1) I am autistic so I see things in a way I am told is quite unusual; and 2) I am a big fan of pop culture like Britney Spears, The National Enquirer, and McDonald's (which I have in moderation). So, I really can't relate to this because I really do like a lot of the mass media! Some things, no -- but again, this is why I embrace contradictions. Like "professional amateur" and "blockbuster indie".

Is not talking to friends and acquaintances -- word-of-mouth, as it's called -- is that not buzz itself? Do blogs not have personal reviews from one friend to another? Spread the word? Like the way some hip-hop music is popularized, it's "the word on the street" and then "the joint blows up". (I like those terms, they are so colorful. )

I am happy, like Anya from BtVS, to be a consumer in this regard. I should mention, however, that I am suspicious and wary of some types of marketing... I do not like "in your face marketing" aka the shameful Daikatana campaigns.

I like this Gary Numan quote:

"I went to a Spice Girls gig once. I was slightly arrogant about it and said I wasn’t going to get anything out of it and was wondering why I was going. But although it wasn’t my cup of tea, a little kid of about eight or nine years old in front of me was having a brilliant time, waving her arms and singing along to every word. I said to (my wife) Gemma then that that’s what it’s about and we must never forget that. If people like the music, that’s the be all and end all. Anything else is arrogant and judgemental."

Ah but Torley, there is one essential difference here, because what you get from talking to people and reading blogs and personal opinions is not a corporatized and homogenized product and therefore it preserves a degree of honesty and integrity, and diversity. In contrast, the output of the media is a completely distorted and dishonest fabrication created by a very polished marketting machine whose only goal is to keep you wanting more, and entirely without diversity because they do not step on each other's toes since that would be bad for business.

If I understand you correctly then this is where we differ, because honest and factual information is necessarily in-your-face in the sense that it is not dressed up and disguised, whereas corporate marketting is entirely about hype and illusion, and factual details are almost irrelevant. Even the daily news conveys the worldview of the establishment, dishonest hidden marketting (not in-your-face), and once you're sensitized to detect it, the disguised propaganda and hidden agenda leaps out at you in all its horror.

There is none of that in talking to people and reading their nutty and often totally contradictory blogs --- it's a breath of fresh air in a world gone bad. Non-corporatized information has very rough edges instead of slick polish, but at least it's fairly honest.

This is why I would rather like to keep institutionalized rating systems out of SL, because they create a single homogenous worldview, and that is inherently unsatisfactory and distorting because value judgements are necessarily subjective and hence very diverse. Trying to average them out through populist rating achieves no actual scientific metric so it would just be for fun, and there's no harm in that. But as soon as money is tied to rating, then you have a very different picture, and not a fair nor a progressive one.

Thanks for clarifying, Morgaine. That was very-well explained, yay!

For me, I see a lot of intermix. Different colors, shades, hues on the rainbow. My problem has never been with bias but not stating it. I can't just put all the big corporations in the same category because I am a YUGE Donald Trump fan. Likewise, there are individuals who I am suspicious of who push their own agendas without informing me. And after all, even with big machinations like the government, who are the recognizable heads who people identify when they want to point at someone? The Prez and friends, of course.

And there are also corporations with very rough marketing that's street-level, which definitely hype things up, but which can do so with satisfactory merits -- in my experience, after listening to a Jay-Z album (some messages not to be taken literally, obviously). So a number of hip-hop record labels come to mind, some of them classified as "indie" but under the arms of Sony et al. I'm sure you read the recent "pro-am" article in which Second Life was mentioned in tandem. I'd like to have both the glimmer and the ripped seams, because one can learn from the other to become a more powerful hybrid.

I'm against deceitful advertising and am a skeptic AND I FIND IT DISTASTEFUL WHEN INFOMERCIAL PRODUCTS DO NOT WORK but at the same time, a lot of people I've known -- myself included -- do like the image and fantastic hyperbole that isn't necessarily "100% factual" (and even then, there are personal truths to consider, so it's one big loop). It's something that human beings can relate to in terms of hopes + dreams and aspiring to, even if they fall short they'll try again. Isn't that why some (on an individual basis) of us come to Second Life? That's another reason why I've come to embrace contradictions. For me, there was not necessarily an answer, or a question... it's about the journey through life -- and Second Life.

Also in the intermix chamber which will surely rankle both of us: an increasing rise of "INFOBLOGS" actually owned by corporations and dressed up to sound like excited consumers, but made to promote specific products.

The goal of a reputation system is to enhance identity in an anonymous enviroment. For instance - I am Joe Newby - do I trust this person trying to sell me land for $$CHEAP LAND$$. Now, if I have friends and acquaintances in game, they can supply me with a reputation for the fellow (if they know him). If I don't have friends or my friends have never heard of this guy - then it is a judgement call. This happens all the time - a few weeks ago, a group I am a part of tried to sponsor free land for cool projects - almost right away, we got a guy saying "why should I trust you." He didn't know me, and had been burnt before, but if there was some way the system could say "BuhBuhCuh Fairchild is 95% trusted" or something, it would help.

This is why systems like Ebay work - I won't send you money unless I think I will get my goods. I have a pretty good idea that you will actually send my goods if you have sent 100 other people thier goods with very few complaints. Hence the seller ratings system.

Now, I agree with everyone that the current ratings system is pretty much useless. And I agree with Morgaine that being required to rate people is the wrong way to go about it, those ratings quickly become popularity contests where the way to win is not to actually accomplish anything, but to shmooze.

Therefore, I agree with Jai.

bbc

Well, I'm just as susceptible to the charms of the machine as you are Torley. Although I don't turn the telly on by choice anymore (I broke the addiction some years ago), it's pretty inevitable that someone presses the nasty ON button when friends or family are over, and then I get glued to the screen along with everyone else.

And yes, I enjoy it too at the time, because the product is manufactured to be irresistible and I'm just an ordinary mortal. It's only later when the brain gets around to processing all that input that the sheer inanity of the pap and the bias of the messages and the dumbing down of the information (etc etc) all gets to me and reinforces my previous assessments on the subject.

I will not be a battery hen for the big machine, no matter how appealing they make my square foot of straw. It's basically about mental freedom.

Fortunately, the crossover to Second Life is minimal in that area, and more importantly, one can ignore ratings totally if one wants to. The only part of the entire issue that is dramatically unfair and distorting is the money assignment angle.

The rating system is broken because it can be abused easily. And it can be abused easily because every AVI has an infinite supply of ratings.

My suggestion would simply be that every SL customer (NOT avatar, taking Alts into account) get a limited supply of ratings, good or bad, to hand out every week. That way, ratings would become meaningful.

Additionnally, people should be able to rate one another several times if they want, so that a long friendship can accumulate social points, just like in real life .

I think ratings should weighted on the basis of Ratings given, Ratings received, and Active seniority. Here are examples (and their opposites also apply):

--The more ratings you give out, the less each one counts.
This allows each rating to MEAN something. If you hand them out willy nilly, they will have little effect on the person you rate. Opposite also true.

--The more positively others have rated YOU, the more each of your ratings count.
This would hopefully reduce the harmful effects of neg ratings by notoriously bad people.

--The longer you have been ACTIVE in SL, the more your ratings count.
This would help reduce the damage caused by an alt attack and noobs that don't understand what the rating system means.

Users should be able to review ratings they handed out so they can take back ratings if they decided they made a mistake or need to grow up.

Finally there should ONLY be ratings for behavior. For me the real purpose for ratings are to provide a heads-up if a nice person vs. a potential griefer is heading your way. However i have NEVER judged someone's physical appearance or their building talents on their ratings.


One other thing... It would be great if SL security could include ratings. For example, it could possibly save alot of griefing headaches if, along with banning individual players, you could ban anybody with more than a set number of negative ratings for bahavior.

-Aimee

This is a great idea.



However this idea has serious abuse potential. Hypothetical.... Let's "Cool Sims" are "the sim/islands to do many things in SL but they have a "Neg rating Security Limit" on the behavior rating locking out anyone with -3 or more neg behavior negs (let's for the sake of the hypothetical say Aimee's suggested rating/reputation system is the new measure in SL, which also means behavior is the only rating), thats pretty hefty in this new rating system. It would be very easy to lock people out of the "Cool Sims/islands/events" experiences in SL, since a group could easily distribute the neg load on people they really wish to spite,hate since it effectively becomes a deathmark or black mark (whichever you like).

Scenario's of group abuse are not rare or unheard of, especially with all this silly "mafia" and other cliques which do that 'tough gang' thing emerging in SL. I also have 29 negatives received, some I earned, others were muled, some I have no idea about And it would be pretty disheartening to have my SL experience limited because of people's pettyness or have others have a limited SL experience because I was having a manic moment.

Briana Dawson

Personally I have no problem with the rating system as it is. As Francis said earlier I can get a good amount of info from their ratings as they are. I would propose a few changes (sorry lindens, I just can't help suggesting more work for ya ).

One, allow the comments that you can give with rating to be viewed by everyone from the profile page. Like ebay .

Two, along with total ratings in each catagory, have a total unique ratings column. If someone has a lot or positive ratings I'd like to be able to form an opinion about whether they went to a rating part or if they actually have done that many ratable things or met that many people. Also if they have a lot of negs I'd like to be able to guess if they have a personal enemy or are generally offensive.

I have no problems with your stipend and score being effected by your rating. I don't pay attention to either much as I'm a builder/scripter and whatnot and make my money other ways. I don't really even know how it works at the moment and am not really interested in taking the time to find out. If the current system rewards you based directly on your rating with no comparison to other players, then wonderful. People who play the system aren't penalizing others. If the system is based on a curve, so that if a large number of people go to rating parties, the honest guy gets less, then bad.

That's all I have to say about that .