just curious... ratings system poll

I didn't want to continue to change the topic of the tiered bonus stipends thread and i'm really curious about how the rest of you feel about the ratings system. Philip just wrote this before:



i've brought this up before and i don't know if i'm wasting my time or what cuz maybe the rest of you agree with the way it works already, but i don't. so i'd really like to know what the rest of you feel about it.

personally i feel that ratings don't accurately reflect our value in these categories. say for instance you want a high building rating. you have to get a lot of people to rate you for building. this takes time away from being able to build. your rating will depend on how many people end up rating you for building, not how good you actually are. after building something, if a lot of people don't rate you for your skill then you've wasted your time.

granted, rate mining is generally frowned upon by the community so it won't be that effective when taken to an extreme, and many of us try to be honest, but even with full honesty by all of us i still feel that the system is skewed toward those who meet more people. the more people you meet, the higher your ratings go no matter what you may actually deserve. ratings reward socialites and discourage those who spend more time alone working on things.

this is of course only an opinion. i know theres some of you that agree and some that don't. i'd really like to get an understanding of what the rest of you think, because if its clear that most of us disagree with it then maybe it will change.

so do you guys think the system should change? or stay as is?

i agree with you completely, but i also cannot see an immediate solution to the problem. i dont know if there will ever be a solution that will please even a majority of people. maybee a combination of rating systems should be considered...dunno

Perhaps when someone clicks your vote box outside your build, it should add a rating point to building, making sure it adds only one point ever for each person that clicks.

Facilitating easier off-line rating for building and scripting would be good. You can rate someone when they are offline, but who would go through the trouble of searching for the person then rating them. Appearance and behaviour shouldn't be rated without actauly meeting the person, but not so the other two.

As for what you said Ope, I think you can't get around the fact that you have to work to get popular, to get your name out there. You can't just build in a bubble and hope people find out about you by luck, and I'm sure the Lindens intend you to have to build your rep.

As I said before, I'm more builder than socializer so I know where you come from. Perhaps setting up some kind of gallery in a well trafiked area is the way to go. A lot of non-socializers like us can pool together, make a gallery of images that hands out landmarks to people (and even teleport cash) in an effort to gain popularity. Then people can go see the builds that interests them and rate you will you are not there.

a thought....

what about adding an area in edit that adds a pie menu item
"rate this build". then if a person likes your building skill, you can be rated by them without having to stand next to it.also, this option should not alert you that you have been rated, maybe a rating number you can see when u check the object.

worth a try maybee???

I'm in the same boat, and I think by now everyone that's been reading this threads in the forums is aware of my opinion, so I won't rehash it here.

yeah this is a good point since a reputation is of course defined by other peoples opinion. we'd have to make sure other people see our work in order to 'build our rep'. i just think that the system rewards building this reputation more than it rewards our actual skills.

I agree with what I think some of you are saying: the problem with it working as philip says it should is in the interface, not necesarily the system itself.

The easiest way to rate someone on any of the three categories, including building, is to be face to face with the person. This is generally considered a social activity, unless you just stare at each other.

I think more seperation is needed between them, and easier ways to rate people.

- It should be as trivially easy to rate someones building category from their building as it currently is from their AV, if not easier. And by 'their building' I mean anything they created, not just anything they own.

- It should not be possible to give someone a bulding or scripting rating by clicking on the person.

- It would be nice if behavior votes could be cast through the forums. It would hold people accountable on the boards as they are in game. But no other ratings should be possible from the boards.

- Rating for scripting should only be allowed on scripted objects. Again I would think only of the person who created it, not the owner (unless they are the same, duh).

Just ideas.

Here's an idea, A rating system for buildings alone. With this system you rate the actual build independant from the builder. Buildings that get high ratings get tax breaks.

Each person would be only allowed to vote once on a build. The vote would have a timer that would expire after a couple of months. As the votes trail off on a build the taxes would go back up again. The reason for this is there is a high turn over on buildings in SL anyway. Even the best builds only have a life span of a couple of months before people, even the builder gets bored and wants to move on to another project.

This idea is not to keep buildings around forever but award the people who make buildings. If people like what they make their taxes go down and they get to put more money in thier pockets for their next project. On to bigger and better builds.

If someone wants to keep the buildings around for the long term they will have to figure out some way to pay for it after their free ride ends.

This is just an idea. Feel free to tear it apart if you wish or add your own thoughts.

Maxen, I think thats one of the best ideas Ive ever heard, tieing ratings with taxes on a build by build basis, very original IMO .

I think that might just work, If no one differs, I think that should be the basis on our next ratings system.

How do you define one building? (for limiting votes purposes)
How do you define a building? (is a really cool bed someone made a building?)
[edit] Ok I see how this could work. Actually, cuz yes a bed would be a 'building' and the votes could only help knock down the taxes on the bed.

Any help for land ownership? Prim taxes don't hurt me. They are about 1/4 of my land taxes.

Aw geez now you want me to make it work


Ok well right off the top it wouldn't be a perfect system.

I suppose one building would be one block of continuous owned land, and before you say there can be more than one building on a single block of land all the buildings would share the tax break. I just realize that it would help on group builds as well. As long as it all sat on land owned by one person.

As for what the tax break would be, I can't say maybe a break on the cost of the prims, but maybe an overall % of the total tax of everything on the land

It's just the basic idea. Need some help filling in the details.

wow maxens idea is really interesting. and i like ama's suggestions too. so i'm taking it that so far you all agree that the system should change, even though we haven't yet come up with a perfect solution. i'm sure we can at least come up with some better way to do it. then again that could probably be said about anything....

i guess its a tough problem to fix, but really i just want to know if most of us at least agree that it is a problem that needs fixing.

The best thing I like is it seperates the ratings more. I think they are too similar as it is now. I would like it if each rating was gained seperatly or in a different way and each effected you in a different way.

[trying to be succinct]

I'm thinking the rating system as it is now should be colapsed back into one singal vote. Behavior and appearance amount to the same thing and I don't think the building rating is being used the way it's suppose to. Inculding scripting in with this seems odd. Will a person who knows no scripting have a high scripting rating simply because they have a lot of friends?

Ama is right, different rating systems for different things

Great idea!

My guess is that the scripting vote will be the least likely to be a further extension of the popularity contest, but still it would be good if you had to at least witness a script running before you voted on someones's scripting abilities.

I'm in complete agreement with just about everything in this thread. And the building rating being tied to a tax break on the build is a really great idea!

I have a couple of suggestions.

- Have the ability to rate someone anytime, anywhere from their profile window. Do not give notification that you have been rated. This is so you don't feel bad if you give someone a bad rating in front of them. This would easily be implemented in the game with little controversy.

-As for the rating tied to buildings, it wouldnt help those just build small objects. Some may choose not to build a structure and just live in an apartment making dolls all day. Those dolls may be a work of art, but the building rating wouldn't be tied to them. So to appease that crowd, maybe put in a system where your building rating is tied to an object that was rezzed by someone else. It can be tracked since each object has the creator field. So all those doll buyers who keep your dolls on their mantle helps you out some way. This can easily work with tailors also.

Yes small objects are a problem. The best way to deal with those would be to have a "rate it" botton in the edit pie menu that would go into a general rate system. Of course if that person had a small shop somehere the larger build rate system would apply to everything in the shop. It would help to encourage people to show their objects for sell.


Here's another idea. The Dwell System.

How about if that applied not just to one persons land but to everyone in the same sim as a tax break

Larger communities would all share the rewards of somebodies event.

Themed sims would benefit from such a system.

It would encourage people in a sim to work together to make their area someplace that people whould want to hang out.

It would also encourage some competiton to attract people to sims who put on good events. Instead of people saying come to our sim if you want to hold an event people would go to the event planners asking them to come to their sims.
That could spark a whole new business in itself.

once again just an idea, feel free to rip it apart


Oh with this idea the voting booths would still be in place so people would still benefit from hosting their own events beyond just the general tax break for everyone.

You know, I have stopped by some people's builds to basically say: "Hi, I love your House!" and they often react in a frankly rude - if not sociopathic manner to the intrusion. I am all in favor of tying the building rating to an object, as I think it will be, but some of you need to get out and interact, too; maybe teach a building class to share your talents.

Maxen, I was thinking along those lines with the Dwell system.. except I was thinking more like a radius around a player instead of a sim effect. That way you could have communities across sim lines as well. (:

I think either idea is better than a cut and dry dwell.

Yeah I guess that might be a problem. I could see a radius idea having it's problems as well, but yeah I think either would be better than the dwell system being offered.

Maybe the area effect tax break could be given to only those in the person's group the land is on all over the sim/radius?

I see probs with that and the others too... but I think linking it to groups could help the themed communities in particular.

i teach a class david. and i enjoy it. and sometimes i get rated by the attendees, which is nice and all, but pointing out that we need to do this only further proves that the only way to get a high rating is to meet a lot of people. i just think this is wrong.

when i look at a persons' high ratings i think, "well that person gets around a lot", instead of thinking "well that person is really good at _______". and thats what bothers me about the whole thing. its dishonest. and to add insult to injury our stipends are affected by our dishonest ratings.

the ratings are supposed to reward contributions to the community. i'm not sure what this means. does it mean we should be rewarded for getting around a lot? i hope not because popularity has its own rewards. but if we are actually trying to reward our value in the different rating categories then i think the system should be changed.

i think my arguments are sound. i can see how maybe this just isn't the most important issue. but it just bothers me whenever the topic of ratings comes up because i think the whole system is BS.

A lot of the mentors, we DO get around a lot, there are also a lot of shut-ins who are in world maybe eight hours a day. The reputation ratings are in many cases really well deserved, but I know a lot of us just get blanket ratings, pop, pop, pop, and it results in me having a higher rating than some really super builders, whereas I tend to hang out and chat mostly, never building much. I'm not happy about that situation, because it kind of takes away from my more realistic ratings, and it's not fair to others. Were I to be rated for my actual objects or my non-extant scripting abilities, things would be a hell of a lot more balanced. And Ope, you weren't one of the individuals I was thinking about; I've been meaning to do one of your classes for a while, now! You come highly recommended...

aw shucks thanks david come by any sunday

anyways, exactly as you were pointing out, its that possiblity of unfairness that i'm talking about. i feel that unfairness is not only a possibility, but that its practically impossible to achieve what i would consider to be fairness.

to me its similar to the problem which plagues the vote booths. ratings aren't tied to our actual abilities. they simply don't represent who we are.

i assume that ratings are supposed to be a measure of public opinion regarding our value, relative to eachother, in each of the different categories. if so, then generally one should only be able to become the highest rated at something if it is commonly agreed that the person in question is the best.

currently to become the highest rated person you would need to be rated the most times. since its not likely that all of us will meet each and every other person in the game, then it is simply a game of who can meet and be rated by the largest subset of the population.

what i'm saying is that there is a huge difference between our ratings and our actual skills/values. its the number of times we have been rated versus our actual skill. the difference between high ratings and high skills amounts to the difference between a multimillion dollar making blockbuster which may suck versus an independent film which no one sees but deserves an oscar.

imagine when the scripting rating becomes activated. who will end up with the highest rating? i think its obvious that whoever comes in contact and gets rated by the most people will likely have the highest rating. not necessarily who most of us believe is the best scripter. how does this reward good scripting?

as far as a solution, i like the suggestions up above as a good start because they allow us all to more easily rate eachother which would provide us all with ratings from a 'larger subset'. i had another suggestion a while back which i would still love to see. it was to allow us to rate each other on a scale of 1-10, and our average rating should represent the average opinion of those who have rated you. i think it would be fun to hand out 1-10 ratings to eachother, and it seems like it would be more accurate, at least IMO.

but really i only started this thread to see how many of us agree that the system should change. cuz it bothers me to death.