DOWN with the anonymous star system in Classifieds!

These are being gamed all to hell and back. Especially in the fashion area, I believe.

I rated an outfit five stars a few days ago, then regretted it. I don't buy clothes myself, but I thought this outfit was really cute. But then I started thinking - this person is going to have five stars now, whereas before she had none, which means if this person has enemies, they are going to come along and make those stars LOWER, which is worse than no stars at all!

Then yesterday I was looking to see how many views my Angel Ornament Set got, and I noticed someone gave it five stars. That made me feel very good! Then today I checked again, and now it has 3 stars, which meant someone came along and gave it one star just to be nasty. OK, 99.99999% chance it was just to be nasty. 99.999999% chance there were only two people rating total, and the three stars does not represent an aggregate evaluation of dozens of different viewers (much less buyers!). Because this item doesn't DO anything. It is purely decorative.

I noticed another thing with 3 stars, and looked, and it was hammocks, and I could see nothing wrong with them, either. Why should this person have three stars? I doubt it is because someone bought them and they were borked all to hell. More likely it is someone who just doesn't like the creator.

These star things are just used for people to try to ruin other people's businesses, and since no one can even make comments, there is no way to counter that! And there is no feedback on an item EXCEPT the stars. A new person might think it means something important.

How many think these stars should go? Say so here if you agree!

coco

I think the stars are lame. Bring back comments so I can ask some damn questions and/or make a general comment.

I agree coco, the stars aren't a good idea. But it's also hard to make a fair system, maybe you should offer suggestions to help them since you posted this?

Well, Nimrod, like many, I didn't like that threads were bumped up due to a person's friends all making comments. Apparently some were making comments JUST to bump it up.

But that never bothered me much. I kinda figured well, if a person has that many loyal friends, maybe they SHOULD get bumped up, lol.

Then when it became no comment/no bump, I talked for quite a bit about making it no bump but still able to comment. Torley was helping to figure out whether this was possible technically. (Since the Lindens were not forthcoming on the subject.) The best I could make out of that was that (a) they could do it but lose support from vbulletin for at least that section, but that didn't really matter since they had already changed the client in some way anyhow, but (b) it would cost them extra.

So the comment but no bump thing seemed to be a matter of it costing them extra. (Again, no Linden comment on it that I could find.)

So that was okay for a while, but then people began remarking that the stars part of it was being abused; that people - especially in fashion - were misusing the stars to try to ruin others, rather than as legitimate comments on the item itself. (And I wonder there, too, how legitimate such an evaluation can be if the person hasn't even purchased the item.)

So I would be in favor of comment/no bump.

And if we can't have comment/no bump, then let's get rid of the damn stars!!!!! I don't CARE how much (if anything) it costs the Lindens to do it.

And if we can't have either of the above, then lets go back to the way it used to be!

Without comments, there is nothing to counter the stars, except for a star wars. Stars plus no comments is worse than any other option.

coco

Should they remove the stars before or after they finish hiring the IRC team, implementing the IRC server software, and writing the Linden IRC policies and procedures manual?

Or perhaps during?

Ah, I thought you meant in-world

Yeah, I agree with you there though. It would be worth it to have an effective system that would cost more, than one that doesn't work, and the resident's don't like.

Is noone EVER happy.

Personally I miss comments, but then I never asked for it to be taken away.

The comments get taken away and a select few prolly start one rating in protest, or generally just to grief, now you want them to take that away too.

Why not take the WHOLE classifieds away? Infact the forums! TAKE THEM AWAY, i mean ppl post things I dont agree with ALL the time! and I always get my arm twisted and made to read them, NO, SRSLY.

Is anyone EVER going to be happy about the forums and how they are run/moderated/abused/gamed/whatthefuckeva, in short, NO, of course as soon as something changes its going to upset some, please others.

Maybe if the bitchin and moaning stopped and we just came to the forums to do what we came to do, either discuss, post an ad, look for new stuff or just plain fucking troll, everyone would be a damn sight fucking happier!

Its a shame new designers are getting put off by this, it truely is, but then its a shame they can't have feedback minus the drama either, meh.

As this is third party forum software that does not even seem to be able to order a forum by thread creation date, I doubt the rating system can be turned on or off on a forum by forum basis. More to the point, who cares? I don't pay any attention to the stars - if something looks interesting to me, I use the wonderful new P2P (thank you LL) and go there and look at the item.

Well someone has a sense of humour because this thread received one star. (No, it wasn't me)

The real shame is that the average user in SL isn't 12 years old, but no matter what LL does, so many react like spoiled, bratty, evil doing children. All this classifieds drama just makes me think one thing, over and over again "Grow the **** Up."

Just ignore the stars - 9 out of 10 times when I go into one that has 3 or less its a great product worthy of 4 or 5 stars but some jealous little freak and his/her minions needed to bash it so they could bring some kind of purpose into their pathetic little lives.

According to the VBulletin FAQ, a thread rating is only displayed 'once enough votes have been cast for the thread rating'. So it needs more than just one person rating 5 stars to get a 5 stars vote on a thread, and likewise it quite probably needs more than one person rating 5 stars, and one person rating 1 star, to get a 3 stars rating.

Im with Nimrod,

Coco you spend a lot of time denouncing stuff, instead why not just suggest a better system? Its so negative and ineffective in trying to change things, rallying behind the destruction of something. It just comes off as whining and pouting. Why not be proactive and stop destroying things you dont like and try creating an altrenative first. Just a sugestion. You seem to be developing a bad reputation.

For example I am not completly happy about no comments on the new products, so it was I, mischevious Barnesworth Anubis who proposed we use stars. Why? Because im enough of an adult to know the difference between being proactive and reactive. I saw a problem and came up with a solution instead of just demanding the old way back, or demanding my way (which would also have been reply and no bump). Maybe my star idea has back fired but I consider it a more progressive attempt then a thread called 'DOWN WITH STARS!"

If you post "But Barnes! I have proposed this and that!" you have completly missed the meaning of this post and reread it.

I pay no attention at ALL to stars, but neither do I pay any attention to the drama in the threads. But whatever happens, whatever changes, nothing is gunna please everyone!

I'll just keep on doing what i'm doing and going to my fav stores once a week and seeings whats new! like YOURS

it is a shame that anonymity brings out the worst in some people

This, is SO true, its like the one star rater(S) on SLPICS that one star EVERY one of my pics with one star, its annoying and god I got really frustrated at first, but why bother sweating over it?

I will NEVER know who's doing it, although I have my fair ideas (OH EM GEE SHE POSTS PICS LETS GET HER), and its a shame that they seem to want to one star any pic I am in too, whoever posts it, but asshats will be asshats.

Only cowards hide behind anonymity and they are the kinda ppl I wanna stab in the face, but hey one stars better than none! or at least thats what I keep getting told

heheh yeah willow. so true. and at some point it stops being irritating and becomes really funny, like the picture you posted saying "good morning, 1-star rater!" That made me laugh, and it was nice to see you having fun even if someone else was being a bozo.

These people are lying to you. I'm gonna rush off and one star your pics

I agree with you, Coco. I don't think there's anything that can be done about it though except just ignore it. Since we all know it seems to be more of a way for people to rate their own level of pettiness than it is to rate the actual item in the thread, then we all know it's meaningless. It just really pisses me off to see brand new designers putting stuff up for the first time only to have some hateful jackass give them one star just to be mean. When you see that happen, send the creator a PM and give them some encouragement! This is supposed to be fun. LL obviously needs to do a better job of making sure everyone who belongs on the teen grid is actually on the teen grid. I can't believe adults can act like such petty four year olds. The mind boggles.

One person votes with 5 stars. OMG! MY PRODUCT IS THE BEST IN SL.!!
One person votes with 1 star. OMFG THIS IS SO UNFAIR!!

I don't even notice them up there. It's like 1st grade, only... who cares? You'll buy it if you like it and you won't if you don't. I don't think anybody buys anything they saw on forums just because it had 5 stars... right?


Leilany

I thought the stars were just for decoration.

Why must we be constantly set up to compete with one another...Rating, Ranking, Best of. Worst of, I paid more for my ad than yours, I have more ratings than you... all artificial indicators of worth that can be gamed up or down.

Setting us against one another to get ahead does not nurture the creative environment that LL wants to see exist in SL. I understand SL is suffering growing pains, but the SL membership consists of many creative minds and when asked for input and advice we can hash out solutions that could work better for us.

It seems many decisions made by LL are made by employees who really are not involved and immersed in SL to the extent that are the members who use the content and operate businesses inSL. LL decision makers seem to more observers or testers of the content and features introduced and cannot see the users side of it. We need more input and decision making from active users of the content ..thats us folks!

I just stopped posting in New Products altogether. It's supposed to be a place to post.. you guessed it.. New Product announcements, not a circle jerk or group therapy. When you can't even post a new outfit without some bullshit drama, the forum has outlived its usefulness.

Well. I am dismayed to see that the outfit I gave 5 stars to ("pet my puppies" is now somehow down to 2 stars.

Guess no good deed goes unpunished.

coco

NO NO NO! I wondered why I haven't seen anything from you in awhile. This makes me sad