The Second Life Better Business Bureau

Hello everyone. I know this topic of conversation has come up numerous times, and I know a large number of people have attempted it, but I figured I would take my shot at it.

I was originally here in '04 so I remember RATE and how it didn't work out. I have also looked at the SLBBB.com website and saw that it didn't get a lot of movement either.

The problem, as far as I could tell, was that those institutions were attempting to work as a copyright office. With all the new content that is generated on an hourly basis, trying to do this is impossible.

My concept is step back from trying to police the objects and instead simply register the business. With the new functions that allow us outside access, I believe that I come up with a way to make this work.

Here is the concept:

1. Allow a Business Owner to register with the SLBBB.org website through the game client.
   
2. Initiate all transactions through the game client to cut down on unauthorized/hacker access
   
3. Through a central database, store all the relevent information about the Business Owner's business.
   1. (security) Owners Key
      
   2. (security) Owner Set password NOT their SL Account password, but a unique one created for the SLBBB.org website.
      
   3. Owners Name
      
   4. Owners Business Name
      
   5. Store Locations (via SLURL)
      
   6. Registration Date
      
   7. Date they were last confirmed "active"
      
   
   
4. Provide an in-game panel that the store owner can place on their property to show that they are registered with the SLBBB.org.
   1. The Panel will have a text display that will update hourly showing the Registration date of the business, the owners name, and their "active" status.
      
   2. Clicking on the panel will take the user to the SLBBB.org website and display the store owner's information and valid store locations
      
   
   

Now, while this is all well and good, it is only a confirmation of the store owners locations. It does not deal with whether or not the products within the store are original or stolen. That is not the purpose of the the SLBBB.org.

However, the SLBBB.org will provide a feedback system to allows consumers to rate the business; just like the RL BBB.

The rating system will allow a consumer to give feedback in the following manner:

1. Record the name and key of the Avatar giving the rating.
   
2. Give a Positive, Neutral, or Negative Rating
   
3. Add up to 254 characters of text to go with their rating
   
4. Limit the number of ratings a single Avatar can give to once every 30 days. (to limit abuse)
   

In addition, to allow the business owner a means of defending their position, they will be allowed a 254 character text response to any text comment made to their SLBBB.org account.

This rating system will be displayed on the SLBBB.org webpage when a consumer clicks on their SLBBB.org sign.


I've already registered the domains, I have a dedicated web server, I have the LAMP and LSL skills, and I have the time, so before I spend a few weeks coding this application in SL and RL, I want to open it up to comment to see if there is any interest in this and to see what functions should be added/changed/removed. I am also looking for community endorsement since, without it, this entire concept won't work.

i do understand a few things:

1. This will only be as successful as the belief in the system is. If nobody thinks this is a good idea, then it will fail. If retailers trust and use the system then it will be a success.
   
2. Abuse of the system will occur. Mitigating that abuse is what will make this a trusted concept.
   

So I open up to you. What do you think?

Androclese this is a good idea; however, LL might be undermining the SLBBB's value through the changes in the registration system. I think there is a relatively simple solution that also adds credibility to the overall system.

Ratings work well when the people doing the rating value their identity. Someone who consistently and accurately rates a business will be considered more trustwothy than someone that rates a single business one time.

Perhaps you should consider adding a comment rating system that indicates the usefulness or accuracy of comments/ratings. It could be as simple as a tag at the end of a particular rating that states, "14 of 25 people strongly agree with this rating" (you could include wording like "agree", "somewhat disagree", and "disagree" to allow people to more easily and quickly express themselves in addition to making the information more useful to others).

Users could filter on businesses that receive ratings for which others strongly agree with to determine a business' credibility.

Of course, the solution does not address scenarios like creating alts/new accounts to create a business and then using other accounts to positively rate that business; however, the community at large are likely to quickly spot those types of activities.

Good luck with the project and I hope it is a success!

Yes, that is something I thought of as well. That is why wanted to limit the number of ratings a user can give to once every 30 calendar days, but if you can create an alt at-will, I guess it makes that limitation moot.



I like the concept, I'm just wondering whether or not that would be open to abuse like the initial rating is. i could always record the Username and Key of the rater in all instances and display it upon demand.



Thanks.

Sounds like a good idea.

Works in theory. It'd love to see something like this implemented with httpr backend, that'd be sweet.

From a devil's advocated perspective, wouldn't this system still be succeptible to rampant griefing by anonymous (or not, since many may be temporary alts) individuals and/or groups?

The same can be said about unnecessarily propping up a business by individuals with lots of friends and acquaintances. Not that it would be a big deal to me personally, but it would detract from the credibility of the ratings of the included businesses inrelation to each other.

Well, yes, any system is open to abuse (especially since LL made it easier to create alt's), which is why I brought the concept here first to work those issues out.

I guess the main question is, do we want the rating displayed in-game on the SLBBB.org sign, or only on the webpage?

Additionall, in-game, it was brought up that this would turn into a whitelist/blacklist listing and that would keep it from being nautral. I can state for a fact that at no point do I ever plan to create a list of "high/low company ratings" or can companies be searched for by rating. Also, the rating is tied to the business, NOT the Avatar. It's a fine line, but a distinct one.

Of course..the whole system is open to abuse, unfortunately, because the SL signup process is so simple at this time. SLBBB's succss will ultimately be controlled by the community - I like the idea of the seal that a business could display - that reinforces the community-based appraoch.

As for publishing keys, you might want to reconsider that becuase someone can use a key to initiate email to IM communications. That is why LL, I suspect, has not implemented a name2key function for AVs simply based on an arbitrary name - to avoid spamming SL citizens through email-to-IM (for others: you can IM an AV via email using the AV's key). Another approach might be to have your system state that particular keys match or have been in use since a particular date (not the SL rez/start date) so that users of your system can determine the relative age of a key -- that information is much more useful than the key iteslf.

One last comment, for now anyway , you might want to update the seal less frequently or provide an minimum and maximum time frame (the seal should also display the update interval) to reduce lag. Maybe also provide the capability to update the seal from a touch event only once to avoid AVs from killing your server by repeadedly touching a seal.

-2fast

I'm sorry for any confusion. The key and name is sent to the web server, but the key is never displayed. It is used behind the scenes to confirm who is who but never displayed.

BTW, I am more than willing to let my code be audited by community members so that they know nothing shady is happening behind the scenes. Consider it a rating on the SLBBB.org itself.



Yes, lowering the update interval is a good idea, if for no other reason than to cut the overall game lag as 400 objects try to talk to my server.

My idea for the text would be four rows of text:

BUSINESS NAME
SLBBB.org Registered
Confirmed: YYYY MM DD @ HH:MM
Click Me to Confirm for yourself

Touching the sign sends the business name and the DetectedKey, and Avatar's name to the web server where the business's page is displayed. The avatar data is then used to track/record any rating actions that person might take.

As to limiting the touch event, the plan is to have it spawn a Dialog menu which then gives them the option of giving a rating or viewing the business's SLBBB.org profile. When the option is selected, it spawns the external URL link which is an game-client event, so that should work to slow it down. I have 50+ customer websites on this server, so I'm not too worried about it. If none of the other sites I run have crashed me in the 5 years I've been hosting, some dumb griefer punk reloading a webpage isn't even on my radar.

Sounds like a good plan - automate as much as possible! I may have some code I can donate to the project which will allow for the "in world data collection" if you're interested.

Another recommendation: age. Make sure the resident submitting has been in SL for at least X days (I'd suggest 90). You can get their born-on date from the data server. This will minimize the creation of accounts just to grief.

Regards,

-Flip

I would appreciate the in-game help. Assuming I get enough support here for the concept, I'll set up a private form on my server for those that want to help out. We can trade the code then and there. Thanks!

I do like the age restriction limit. i'm not sure 90 days is a good number though. 3 months is a very long time and some residents might have a legitimate complaint/compliment and having to wait that long would be punishing them.

Perhaps a 30 day limit would make a better balance?

Sounds good to me and I'd like to get my little business listed on any SLBB that comes into existence. I could do with the publicity. One thought though... 254 characters for each rating might end up being too much. I have visions of haveing to scroll through pages of lengthy ratings and possible rebuttals of negative ratings. Maybe keep the ratings simplified in an eBay 'feedback + 80 - 100 characters'? Surely that should be enough.

I think this is a great idea, I'd be one of the first content creators to register.

Last I heard, the new free registrations are a trial for 7 days only, so any age limit on avatar joining would simply have to be more than 7 days, correct?

Hi,

Good luck with this, and I hope it works out better than it's predecessors did.

As one of the founters of R.A.T.E. way back when, I'd like to offer any help I can, from what we learned setting it up, and the mistakes we made. Sorry we're not on the web, and the forum closed when it stopped being used, but I'm sure we can find a list of the people involved, should you want to ask questions. Actually, you'll probably fnd them reading this, and/or getting involved anyway ...

Sio

Yes, very nice idea, but what about multiple shop locations?

Since we are storing the information of all their store locations in the DB via SURL, it makes sense to give out multiple objects.

*inspiration*

For each object placed by the registered owner, it will "call home" to the SLBBB.org website and automatically register/update the store location. That eliminates the need for the Business owner to have to manually update the locations themselves.

The objects will be given out as NO-MOD/COPY/NO-TRANS.

That could work. I was just trying to think of a way to keep it automated without allowing for griefing / flooding. Ping me in world and I'll show you a few things I coded in the past which might prove useful. Take care!

-Flip

Right now I am mostly a consumer, but I will happily use your system and rate once it is up and running.

Ratings and reviews systems aren't perfect, but they are better than nothing (which is basically what SL has now).

Be sure to compare your system to similar ones at Amazon, eBay, ePinions, and rapleaf.com (the latter being quite new but promising).

Sounds good. Yours and anybody elsees assistance will be greatly appreciated.

To answer a concern of somebody who contacted me in-game, my acceptance of help from anybody does not mean they "own" the project. Nor does it mean they get access to the backend of the code, the database, or the data stored there. For something like this to work, it has to remain free and independent of outside influence.

Flipper, I hope this does not deter you or anybody else from helping get this project off the ground.

I have a question though... I have many stores so from what I understand I would put one of the "certificates" out at all of them. But there are many malls and places I rent that will not allow scripts of any kind. So how will that work? Maybe I'm not understanding correctly... isnt the Certificate scripted? And updateing does cause the "dreaded lag" that we all have to deal with. That is the reason Mall owners dont allow scripts. So please brake it down alittle more for me please tks

Hrm. Excellent point. The Panel is scripted, but if it is placed on "no script" land, that would be a problem.

That is something that needs to be worked out.

Ideas anybody?

I was able to get my account restored (thanks Billing), so Androclese Antonelli == Androclese Torgeson. My Antonelli account only exists now to pay the tier.

* * * *
I was asked in-game if this concept was dead and what, if any, work I was doing on it.

Let me tell you that it is not dead. I still want to bring this concept to fruition, but there are a few things holding me back.

Primarily, the issue with the '666' accounts and not having any accountability for or against them. Their existence makes moot the concept of being able to rate a commercial entity. When somebody can create a hundred accounts a day and skew the results, when this is no attachment their reputation, and no remorse for their Grifer actions, it makes the concept of the SLBBB.org a hard one to pull off. LL, through their Web Logs, have stated that the are looking into the situation. So... in the mean time, we can discuss the issues and concepts.

I also want to make it known that a great many people have contacted me in-world about this concept. There have been a lot of accusations and compliments from these parties. I won't name names. Having said that, in the future, any discussion about this topic needs to be posted to these forums to keep all information about this above board. If inquired about it in-game, I will refuse discussion. For this to work, everything has to be transparent and open. I will not make myself open to accusations of favoritism by having private talks. If you do not want to talk about it in the open, then it is not worth talking about. There will not be any further private discussions with me about the SLBBB.org.

Why?

Because the biggest accusation against me was collusion and sponsorship with one side or another. (I think we know the groups, so lets leave it at that). They both accused me of siding with the other side. I want to make it perfectly clear, on the topic of the SLBBB.org, I have no position. I have no stake in it other than for it to succeed. It will not favor anybody, anyone, or anything. The members that will belong, I hope, will be seen as trusted members of the commercial community; whether that commercial entity be objects, scripts, or land. As far as I am concerned, it is all the same; a commodity.

To further show that I have no stake it any "side" being favored, everything I will code in LSL, except for the security codes to prevent script hacking/hijacking, will be open and available for review by the community at large. I will not make the PHP available however. That code resides directly on my server and I will not compromise its security.

In addition, I will also not take *any* donations from anyone. Whether it be land, $L, or objects. Scripts that are 'donated' will likely be pulled apart and inserted in pieces into my own code, which as stated above, will be open for the community to review.

Right now, I have taken all the public and private suggestions made on this topic and I am rewriting the concept, covering every possible contingency. It is not ready yet, but it should be in short time.

I look forward to working with everyone on this and discussing it openly here in the forums.

Questions? Comments? Drop them here.