Reputation System

But seriously people, what is the *point* of ratings? What do we feel we are actually measuring? No two people will rate the same way as each other, there will never be consistency of use, so what is it that is actually being measured here? You cannot group measure something as totally subjective as 'worth' or 'behaviour' in any fair way, it isn't possible.

The fundamental concept here is broken, and it will never ever be fair - all that is being discussed here is 'degrees of unfairness' that we can achieve.

Currently ratings dictate stipend, which makes the situation even worse because real life money is intrinsically linked to a totally unbalanced and meaningless rating.

People will always rate their friends, because.. they are their friends. It is no measure of anything, other than that someone either has some friends or they spend their time flitting from green dot to green dot socialising. Either way it is more or less useless.


Ratings should be abandoned. As soon as possible.

Stipends should be paid equally to anyone that earned less than 5k from Sales in a given week.


Jai Nomad

Ok Briana, you talked me into it. Security limits on negatively rated people is a bad idea. But I still do like the idea of weighted ratings.

Jai, I agree, ratings should have nothing to do with stipend. But if the ratings system were fixed (such as the plan I described above) hopefully we could have enough confidence in it to use it as a "heads-up" when you meet someone new. Even with the ratings fundamentally broken as they are now, I STILL find a roughly accurate coorelation between behavioral ratings and behavior (Briana being the possible exception ).

There are absolutley exceptions....But when someone with -30 ratings in behavior comes to visit Umber, I keep my guard up for some kind of griefing...I am normally right.

-Aimee

It's tricky Aimee, because even fixed (and yours is as good a method as any) I personally can see no real value. It is attempting to fix something that is, fundamentally, pointless.

All they can be a measure of is how many friends a person has or how sociable they are. I have seen people who have been inworld for 2 months with the same rating levels as I have, and I have been here well over a year. Some of the most disreputable people I have met have very high ratings, and some of the most wonderful people I know inworld have barely any. Being unpopular doesn't necessarily mean anything negative, and being popular is not always a good sign.

If I see someone with 10 neg ratings what am I supposed to glean from that? They may have earned those negatives for attempting to right a wrong, for fighting inworld crime, for shooting people, by random chance.. I can assume nothing because it is all subjective.

Surely no-one would actually 'decide' anything based on these figures?

And while I'm ranting away..
The other point I would make is that mechanisms such as ratings re-enforce the idea that secondLife is a game, there are points to score and rewards for doing so - and frankly I believe SL is far more than that. We're a society of adults and I find the idea that I have to right-click someone and rate them for being 'lovely' or 'mean' - as being a little bit embarassing and 'schoolyard' somehow.


Jai

Good ideas Aimee, but I think the part about each one meaning less only works against the person receiving the rating rather than the rater. It works against them yet they have no control. If you are a social butterfly you might think 1000 people are incredibly nice, but me being a hermit I might only come across 100 people. It doesn't make your ratings any less important.

But I definitely like the idea that someone's ratings count more if they have a higher percentage of good ratings, and have been around longer. Reminds me of Google's page rank system, which basically means links inbound to your web site give you higher rank if they have higher rank, and more links pointing to them. I'd say it works pretty well for them and is about as accurate a measurement as we can get.

Percentage is important here, rather than quantity. That way newbies and hermits get fair treatment.

I see your point Milo. Somehow we need to incorporate an user's exposure to others to their ratings weight so hermits don't get the shaft while us social butterflies look like saints

I think what I had in mind by deluting the effectiveness of one's ratings when given out too freely had more to do with Neg ratings. If someone tends to use neg ratings as a weapon, it would be nice to see the 300 people they neg rate relatively unaffected.

The flip side being, if you manage to piss off that person who is SO nice and understanding that you are the ONLY person they have EVER neg rated, that should carry alot of weight. Perhaps there is another way to disarm those that use ratings as bribes/weapons?



OH one more more issue I have with neg ratings...the COUNTER NEG rate. To be honest I have only ever neg rated someone ONCE back when I was a noob and this is because I don't want them to neg rate me out of revenge. I ignore some pretty jackassish behavior because of this. I don't know how to solve this problem other than anonymous ratings (with which i have OTHER problems). But if people are too concerned with counter attacks, the rating system wont work.


-Aimee

I 100% agree with this. Ratings should be dropped all together. People who know me will judge me upon my actions, and behave towards me as is appropriate and deserved, in this way my good deeds to others are rewarded by their deeds to me (and inconsiderate behaviour would also likely be returned in-kind). Any system where stipends are linked to ratings is sure to be abused my a minority.

In short, drop the ratings completely and have no rating related stipend.

Having just started to get ratings, I'm quite surprised at just how much stipend you can get from them. It certainly is one of the larger injections of cash into the system, at this point...

I remember the first night I was in world, which since I am only about two and a half months into SL at this time, should not be too hard to remember, even with my poor memory (I'm glad there is no rating on that!)

I rememember hearing someone (who was also new) ask me, "What is the socially accepted thing to do when someone rates you?". I was not aware at the time that it meant more Lindens on payday when you were rated more. I simply replied something to the effect that someone would rate you must be a nice person, so rate back in that category, and if they look nice give them the top two. So that originally was what I naively thought every one was doing.

I like the idea that the ratings give you more money in the form of a stipend. That gives me a reason to go out and be more sociable than I might otherwise be. I tend to be one who would rather build and script to see if I can finish that project, or learn more about one thing or another. Sometimes I realize by Saturday night or so, that hey, I need to go get some ratings. So that form of "rating mining" helps me be more social.

How does it rate to fairness in leader boards?

I do NOT want to generalize and say that NO ONE rates with all three, but I can say that I will generally rate people I consider my friends with all three. When I first meet someone, I give them a rating on their appearance. I usually do not know anything about their building/scripting so I usually do not give that one. If you look at my ratings, you would think well, this person does not do much building/scripting. Those are my favorite things about this world, and it is not reflected. To whomever said that most people rate all three... I think that is not a very accurate generalization. You can numerically disprove that by looking at the profiles of a lot of people and see that their building ratings are generally FAR less than the other two.

I like when someone can show that they like my skills. There does not seem to be a generally accepted way to measure something abstract, no way to truely quantify art skill except that a good number of people like it. That concept SCREAMS of popularity, and that dictates that there is a vote or a showing of support of some kind.

I don't think there is anything any organization can do about people who would grief, I do not think there is ever going to be a way for any group or organization to keep people from being corrupt. No matter what form of measurement you use to judge someone's abilities someone will abuse it one way or another.

I salute anyone who can get close to this answer. Too bad there is not more integrity in human nature. You do find groups of people that do have it, and I have to say that this group of people "generally" are good people.

I for one do NOT want the stipend bonuses to go away. I don't know how to fix this. Personally I don't think it needs fixing, but I'm just a NOOB!

I think the positive ratings system is fine; the only problem is that it strongly favors the more senior players, but since that encourages people to stick around that is not really so bad.

However, I think that negative ratings do more harm than good. Word of mouth is probably a more effective means of dealing with objectionable characters. Then no one would be able to damage somone's reputation without explaining why.

Ratings should be decoupled from stipends.

Again, so I can make my point more clearly.

NO LINDEN DOLLAR PAYOUTS FOR ANY RATING ACTIVITY.

This would defuse most of the controversy. Those that still care about ratings can oooh and aaah about their stats on the 'big board' all they want. At this point, they are a hindrance to SL as a whole.

sorry if these have been suggested, there are many many posts, and just not enough hours in the day to read them all And yes I realize this is a pretty old thread, but what the hey, I want to throw my 2 cents in anyhow



For the most part, with the categories that we currently have, they would be very difficult to measure with objective data, as they are very subjective categories. But here goes anyhow:

*#of objects/items of clothing sold in relation to their cost = good builder/designer. Perhaps some sort of compliments page could be added to the avies profile. # of uploaded textures can be a part of this.

*Appearance is totally subjective, unless you wanted to calculate how much time one has spent changing their avies. Although, for some people, no matter how many hours they spend on changing their appearance, just cant seem to get it right, however, at least they'd get brownie points. Guess you could also look at the number of attachments an avie has on, or amount of clothing in their inventory, but again, this doesnt look at the quality, or the subjective side of this.

*Behavior could be some sort of formula of # of abuse reports, thanks you's that a person got, items given/recieved, length of convos, amout of time being in the vicinity of another avie. But again, behavior too is pretty subjective and is difficult to rate objectively.

Diff categories may be a good idea if your hopes and dreams are to make ratings totally objective.

Perhaps, instead of a rating system have a skills earning system, i.e. you earn points by length of time spent builing (gen people get better at this the more time they spend on it), length of time chatting (people that talk a lot are generally sociable), amount of time changing your appearance (gen people start to look better the more often they do this), event coordinator (more events a person holds), ect ect. A skills system allows it to become more objective and not quite as abusable (I am sure with every system there is some sort of abuse).

In the event they remain subjective I do like what other people said of either getting rid of the monetary value of them, or making them more costly.

Word of mouth is not effective at all. Unless you consider someone posting that you are a whore and had AV Sex with 50+ people, as well as telling people InWorld the same thing, or that you are into animal encounters, or that they think you are a raging bitch and worse.

Word of mouth has so far been very very common in SL as far as trashing personalities. And it does nothing but damage a person's character.

Are you suggesting that you accept what is said to you by "word of mouth" concerning another person you know or don't know, and that you then will react accordingly to that person even though "he said, she said, said <insert word of mouth rumor>"?

It's hardly the way to treat anyone fairly since "what is learned first is learned best" and what was learned fist could very well be a load of B.S. - not uncommon in SL.

** Aimee Weber, so far has posted what I think is our best possible hope for a more fair, more accurate rating/reputation system. A Weighted sytstem as Aimee suggests gives value to each rating you have been given in conjunction with the ratings given out by the person rating you. This way someone who sits around and passes out 9,000+ ratings (yes some have given out that man) has very little veracity or value to their ratings given when compared with someone who has only given out say 100 in the same amount of time.

Briana Dawson

$0.02L worth of thought.

The rating system as it is currently implemented - meaning both the numbers, categories and openness for gaming and abuse AND being tied to stipend bonuses - is something I would like to see just plain go away.

As for suggestions offered to fix it...
I don't think that older players should have their opinions pro-weighted or given more weight than anyone else with less in-game time. Two relatively newer residents illustrate the reasoning here - Psyra and Torley. I think most people would agree that both residents bring something special and unique to SL that is as "valuable" to SL as a large percentage of residents who might have joined months before them. If Psyra rated me on appearance, that would mean something - to me based on his own skill. But wtfc really what he thinks of my appearance? Nothing personal Psyra, but if I am happy with my appearance, I could care less what others think of it regardless of who they are.

As for upping the cost of giving a rating? Right... I get abused while quietly building in a public sandbox.... Make ME pay an exorbitant amount to neg someone (theoretically the sceond step in getting them to stop - the first being having had to ask them to stop) just so I might be left alone. (that was sarcasm in case you missed it... but serious sarcasm.)

Hermit versus social butterfly - also rating-seekers/gaming versus playing the game for the stipend bonus. I am sure more people have seen me than I know about. I just took a look at my own profile for the first time in a month and was surprised to see that - as expected, my appearance is more often rated than my building or behavior. I guess a skeleton av stands out. But so what? I have seen a number of really well-done "human av's) that just look good... Some I have rated and others not. I've also reciprocally rated occasionally just because I was in the mood to. So, my appearance ratings actually mean nothing to me and shouldn't mean anything to anyone else. How does/can anyone else know if I made or purchased my av just by looking at me? And if I am in an av that someone likes, isn't that just a question of THEIR taste? I was speaking to Loki Pico a while back and he made the comment that part of the reason that he has "orange skin" on his most-used av is that few others do. So he likes to stand out - is that reflected in his rating for appearance or is that merely a by-product/additional piece of information I wouldn't have know had I not spoken to him? I don't know Loki well at all, yet I had no problem rating him in appearance because I think it is a cool av... however, thinking about it in detail, neither he nor I should be rewarded with $L for our appearance IMHO - nor should anyone else.

Builder ratings? I think that a lot of builders and scripters get rated - through purchases. Some, of course, don't do it for the money, and others don't even get paid for some of their best work. Gotta tell you, I have seen a rank newbie stumble onto a neat shape just putzing around in a sandbox. I have "taken" that shape and run with it in a couple of my own builds... Was this stealing? I don't think so. Does this put me in a position where I shoudl somehow try to transfer any rating I receive that is a result of using that shape? I see no way to do so - and how would I know that was the reason for the rate anyway? Isn't building rating merely a matter of taste anyway?

As for scripting rating(S).. this is not broken out separately and yet it is quite different than any other "skill/talent" in SL. Some people come into SL with transferable programming skills, others have beaten their heads bloody to learn what they have her ein SL. How can I rate a script which does exactly what I want it to do when I wouldn't consider rating another script which is more technically complex or innovative because it doesn't do a damn thing I want? In my mind, I can't. So I don't give out any scripting rates - under any category currently available. That some scripts are no mod so I can't see if it is efficient or wasteful of resources only adds to my comfort level and decision not ot rate scripts.

Finally, the infamous question of zeroing out versus not zeroing out ratings already earned if we swap to any other system.... While this would create a new "level playing field" in some sense, it perpetuates the LL decision and system of corporate-led social engineering. They publically state they want us to socialize... as pointed out earlier in this thread, some of us are not social butterflies, others are merely socially challenged/awkward. A few of us are the type who can't stand even the slightest "rejection", so we hang in a small tight(or loosely)-knit groups. Ratings are meaningless for such people in terms of whether or not they add anything to the community - those who know them know what such people bring to the community. Those who don't haven't got a clue. Zeroing out their few pitiful ratings may or may not affect such people and/or their stipends. I haven't got a clue....

Lastly, I'll repeat.. I don't like the rating system. I think it should be done away with. I think it should be decoupled from the stipends.

i like the negative rating. i think it is a very important condition that people become very upset when they are negatively rated.

politics arises when our digital bodies are bumping into each other. the negative rating is a mechanism that often insures people play nicely together and offers retribution to players who feel slighted.

i think that was the only one thing in Sims Online that i liked. that you could right click someone and publically declare your dislike for that person in the social network. i think catherine omega mentioned something about network much earlier. i would like to see some kind of implementation of that. it would be cool to see how you might be connected to someone in world. this would make calling cards much more meaningful.

Here is a proposal I made some time ago. I still like this idea, and I hope it gets at least reviewed by LL for consideration. I've not had as much criticism of this system as I have had of other rating system ideas.

There are two parts to the ratings system. One is the informational the other is the bonus-calculator.

For the informational aspect, I propose the following:

I suggest taking away the current rating system and replacing it with something that is designed to more accurately describe someone, without all the social disasters that ratings create.

This is a hybrid of the Slashdot and Orkut systems for moderation and social networking.

Which best describes this person?
o Unspecified (default)
o Socializer
o Builder
o Scripter
o Explorer
o Achiever
o Artist
o Gamer
o Trouble

Your relationship with this person:
o Haven't met (default)
o Foe
o Neutral
o Acquaintence
o Friend
o Good Friend
o Best Friend

Setting these is anonymous. The person is not informed when there is a change.

The counts acquired for each setting are shown in the person's profile. Ie:

The community recognizes me as:
23% Socializer
11% Builder
47% Scripter
09% Explorer
04% Achiever
05% Artist
01% Gamer
00% Trouble

Other people consider me:
1 a foe
291 a friend

I consider others:
2 foes
321 friends

Acquaintence/Neutral are not counted or shown, and the various friends categories all add up to the friends total (they are distinct for your own reference and for social networking purposes that could be implemented later)

Advantages:
- You aren't *rating* someone, you're just choosing what you think defines them best, and your relationship with that person (big social difference between literally rating them).
- No more "triple neg" effect
- Anonymous ratings mean no retaliation ratings
- Gives others a fairly objective overview of your talents (no more giving false build ratings)
- Incorporates more talents than just "build".
- Rate mining becomes more or less useless

Possibilities:
- The "describes" category may be expanded, and perhaps give the user the chance to choose two categories instead of just one.
- The social network could later be expanded upon to be used for actual features (ie permissions, IM conferences, etc)

=========================

Now, I suppose we still need a way to do bonuses.

- Bring back the "vote box" concept, excpet make it a single button on our profile, and make it cost, say L$5 per vote (negotiable, but it should be high enough that it shows you really mean it instead of just trading votes with everyone you meet).
- There is no negative vote.
- The person does not recieve a notification when someone votes for them, nor do they know who voted for them.
- Votes are reset each week on stipend day so you can then vote again if the person continues to create/do great things.

One thing that always frustrates me about SL is that you can't re-rate someone who does especially great work. This would allow you to keep rewarding those who you recognize as doing great work over and over again.

=========================

BTW, I like Torley's eBay idea as well, which may be a lot simpler to implement than my proposal. This could also work as the informational side along with the vote box bonus-calculator proposal.

eBay-style ratings:
- You can write up a comment (up to about 250 characters) on someone's profile.
- You can respond to comments left on you (up to about 250 characters also).
- Unlike eBay though, you can change your comments/responses at any time.

I think this would be a wonderful social tool. Often you notice people making comments about others in their profile anyway, so why not replace the ratings system with it =)

I like Kex's idea on this, However I would have Describes as multiple choice, with as many being selected as you want. Some might select all of them, but really there is no point in this since theres no gain to do so.

I'm new, and so far I really really like the ratings!

I like them both because of what they show about other people's history, and because it's an incentive to behave nicely and look attractive - at least it's an incentive for this poor newbie!

Most of all I like how rating and being rated give you another way to act socially. Being rated positively with a nice message means so much more than just chat words! Part of that is because it costs money.

These aspects of the current ratings system are some of the things that have hooked me into SL, and made me sing its praises to my friends. I'd welcome improvements so long as it still had these basic effects.

I can see that ratings might lose meaning as people get rich. One possible change could be to make the cost of rating a fraction of your total income instead of just $1. You would have to cap the max and min, but that way even a rich old timers rating's could have value.

Also one of the things I really like is how simple they are - from some of the ideas this thread I think a lot of folks on the forums might be forgetting how complex and intimidating SL is for new comers!

Out of all the replies I've read so far, Lordfly Digeridoo's seems to be the best. It keeps the simplicity of the current reputation system, spotlights what each of us does best, and still treats everyone's votes as equal (as it should be.)

I think that negative ratings should go away. We should focus on the good things we find in one another, not the bad. There's no need for negative reinforcement here. If someone is bad at something, well, no cookie for them. No need to beat them up over it.

If someone is being a jerk and giving you grief, then complain to the Lindens. A neg rating isn't going to stop a jerk from being, well, jerky. And besides, jerks can neg rate you right back just to get even, which can scare people from neg rating someone in the first place...not a good thing.

I like this idea, Kex. THe comments addition would be neat as well... The breakdown is nice. THough I'd like to see building skills split into things like "Avatars, Buildings, Natural Items, Vehicles" etc



This part... hmm... if I retired from making stuff does that mean I'd drop to zero?

Ya know... "Reputation" is hard to quantify with numbers. It just is. Nowhere else is such a system in actual use that I know of.

Now, if there was a required "personality quiz" everyone had to take when signing up, and the answers could be viewed quickly when you meet someone, that would be more useful to me in getting the mettle of a new aquaintance. What they think of THEMSELVES, and not what others think of them.

I don't mean using something like a dating service questionaire, or the 5 million questions eHarmony will ask... Just a few simple multiple-choice questions and a couple-word essay answers would do it. Nothing that is 1st life personal.


Because except for a bonus to stippends, what does a player's reputation numbers DO for you? A tally of rating votes means nothing to me. They may be a long-standing player, or they may go to a LOT of social gatherings.

Now, if our avatars had full RPG stats (strength, dexterity, jiveness, etc) perhaps "reputation" would fit in, but for me someone's reputation is HOW WELL I KNOW THEM, and you can't put a number on that.

This *IS* rating.

You are ranking people by class - This is a rating system

This system can still be gamed. Some of these clubs have many many members enough so that having 15 or so declare someone as "trouble" or "foe" isn't impossible.

I *do* like this system however, it does seem more personal in that people are recognized for the niche(s) they fill in SL.

However, i think i find Aimee's system to be somewhat more to my liking since it gives a weight to each rating given by a person so that ratings from a person who has given 9,000 ratings mean very little compared to a resident who has given only 100 in the same time period.

Although I do use negatives and often it seems, I would rather have a system that did not allow for any outlet by which to judge or label someone negatively. But i supposed this is too much of an ideal dream.

Briana Dawson

I think kex's is a well balanced system (and not to hard to implement). It covers the issue of bonus's (which i'm not totally happy with but i can live with). I support this proposal.

I don't really like the weighted vote idea. Everyone's opinion should count equally. Otherwise how does it accurately reflect what the SL population as a whole thinks about you? If you end up with some sort of elite bunch made up of people who's votes count more than everyone elses, then it's not accurate and it's not fair.
Aimee first point says, "The more ratings you give out, the less each one counts. This allows each rating to MEAN something." But just because someone doesn't rate other people often DOES NOT neccessarily mean that they rate more wisely than others. And what if someone likes to positively rate everyone they meet that acts at least a little bit nice towards them? Then everyone ends up with a bit more positive rating than they really "deserve"...which really isn't an issue at all. There's nothing wrong with that, and their rating votes shouldn't be worth less.

But I think Aimee touched on the real issue, which are people abusing the system by using negative rating to get back at people, and how others are afraid to use negative rating because they are afraid of being retaliated upon with an undeserved negative rating on themselves. Her weighted vote/dilluted vote idea attempts to address that, but doing away with neg ratings altogether would be a more bulletproof solution.

And I don't think it's too much of an ideal dream, Briana. Then again, I've always been an idealist AND a dreamer....not exactly the wisest combination

negative ratings are a clear way of saying "i don't approve of your behaviour/contribution to my SL." the only abuse of negratings is when people use alternative accounts to do it.

i personally have no problem with people getting their friends to negrate thier "enemies" to let thier views be felt or to coerce another player. i only have a problem if people are trying to use a massie group of players and alts to use negative ratings as a griefing kind of coercion/extortion.

i am a big believer in the negative rating system or the TSO enemy option.

So it's okay to coerce somebody if you're not using alts? Or it's okay if the people doing the extortion aren't considered "massive"? Remind me never to tick you off, miss 666 post count

IMHO, coercion or extortion is a bad thing to me, regardless of how many people are doing it or what mask you're wearing when you do it--it's the same person behind the alt or the av.

You're right in that there should be something in place to balance out the jerks, but it needs to be a solution that people can't abuse.