Remove the building rating.

Ok, seriously now

I build when I'm in SL. It's my "job", it's how I make my money, it's how I contribute to the game.

I've gotten tons of compliments on my builds.

My build rating is 100, same as my other ratings (appearance/behavior).

I don't really care, if people don't REALLY like my builds, that's their business

What gets MY goat and sets me off in a rant-induced tangent is when I talk to someone who's, say, 3 days old, and has a 400+ build rating. WHAT THE HECK?

There has to be SOME other way to rate builds and get the creator compensated. Ratings as they are do NOT work.

The ratings sytem is just broken in general, but what it needs MOST is removal of the "building" rating.

It has almost NO correlation to how well people build. It has a direct correlation with how many hours a week you socialize.

why not just condense the 4 ratings into one, "social" rating? If you're good at being a nice person, you get a point. If you're an annoying git, you lose a point. The stipend can still be exploited for all you rate-miners out there, and I don't have to talk to newbies that have 4 times my build rating, yet have never rezzed a prim. We both win.

LF

Lordfly this is not the first time this has been addressed unfortunately i do not have reference threads where this was brought up before.

I am there with you buddy I feel the same way. The only socialization I get is from my Triva and selling my clothes. Other than that I never seem to have time to socialize to get that glorious Card rating up or that Build rating up.

Maybe as they go along and tweek things it will pick up.

I would have to agree with Lordfly on this one point.

Building Rating has apparently nothing to do with people's ability to build, or the quality of their builds.

Perhaps there could be a rate this building pie that could go along with every building that was created in the world that would be tied back with the creator of the building and would give the creator (or co-creators) so much bonus per votes?

This way you could rate positively and negatively for those builds people put up, such as signs that some people seem to like to put up just because they can

I concur.

There are lots of ways to go about 'fixing' it - Bob's idea is one. Others I have seen proposed:

- Make the build rating only available if you are rating from right clicking on a building. Optionally (preferred for me) make that the *only* rating possible from a building.

- Allow ratings on a specific property or bulid. Each build would have its own rating. A higher rating means less taxes for that build. So if you build something wonderful you may pay little or no taxes for it, but at the same time you could own something hidious that you pay 5x the taxes on.

- Make build ratings work more like vote booths do - they only last X time and payout more directly and frequently.

My favorite of those three is the middle one. The proper interface for it might be difficult though.

I recall a suggestion which would address this issue:

Building ratings should only be given to the builds, not to the person directly. This would make the rating a more honest indicator of someone's building skill.

I agree that at a minimum:

1) You should only be able to rate a person's building ability thru right-clicking on a build of theirs, not through their profile or clicking on their Av.

2) You should ONLY be able to rate the build category for a building, not their appearance or behavior.

It would be cool if builds had their ratings independent of the creator's ratings, and it would be great if that constituted a tax break. You'd have to make sure that tax breaks were computed relative to every other build so we couldn't rate mine all our builds up to the static 'tax-free' point, though.

Personally, I think we need a build rating to remain (sorry Lordfly), but it should definitely be restricted so that it really only applies to a build.

what if they have 'built' a really cool AV, would you be able to right-click and rate that build?

Wouldn't that be appearance?

I agree with Lordfly's point - I am in the same boat about build ratings, and it makes me crazy to see players who have been playing for a few weeks with much higher built ratings, just because I actually spend my time either a) building or b) teaching people how to build. However, everyone seems to be missing the fact that you can now rate someone when you see their build, very easily - if you right click on any object, you can rate the creator or the owner. I use this feature a lot when I see builds that I like, and others have used it on me. While not a perfect solution, it makes it far easier to rate people who create stuff that you like.

No, I consider some builds too - because you have to create the items. Some which are based on clothing templates would be just appearance, but say they build something and attach it - then it'd be a build rating too. (at least the way I'm figuring.)

I've posted on this topic several times about a re-vamp for the ratings system. The suggestion breaks down like this:

When rating a player:
Personality -- How they behave
Organization -- How they run events or help others
Appearance -- How they look

When rating an object:
Construction -- How well the object was built
Scripting -- How well the object was scripted
Ambiance -- The overall feel of a place

The ambiance rating would be like registering a little dwell without actually spending time at that location. The other two are actually rating the owner (or creator if the object is No Modify), so rating a second object by the same person would show that you have already rated it.

Pie menus would act like:
1st> [blah] [blah] [*Rate*] [blah]
2nd> [Personality] [Organization] [*Appearance*]
-OR-> [Construction] [Scripting] [Ambiance]
3rd> [-1] [*0*] [1] [2] [3] [4]

So you can give a relative score. The scores fade towards 0 over time. The closer to 0, the faster they fade.

By moving the "build" rating out of avatars' menus and into the actual objects only, you limit the effect of people who rate everyone they meet positively in all three categories.

I also like Ama's suggestion that object ratings on a particular plot of land could lower taxes for that land. But I have a feeling that such a system could be too easily abused.

Perhaps some other method of tax-break-ing might work. Perhaps a TAX-FUND voting pole that voters have to pay 10 L$ into to cast a vote. The system could pledge-match and take $20 each off the taxes for that property that week. One vote per person each week.

The very general over-concept that relly appeals to me is to have ratings in different categories effect you differently.

I don't care if the overall end result is the same or very similar.

Examples of what I'm talking about:
- Building ratings being specific to a build and lowering taxes on that build. And yes, Mark is right - tax breaks would have to be relative.

- Have one rating that decayed quickly but always payed cash, perhaps daily, instead of just going towards your taxes.

- Have one rating that acts as it does now towards a bonus at the end of the week

I am sure there are more ideas. Again these are overall general concepts not concrete ideas.

I agree with Lordfly completely and there are a few good suggestions here. I think taking the building rating and seperating it from "meeting av" ratings is a more prudent way of handling this often misused rating. A side note to Lordfly...fear not ...you have made your reputation known as a cool builder and you are earning a living because of that skill and reputation....these so called mis-rated builders are not going to make any money actually building anything and will not be taking any of your real income away. I dont look at a persons building rating and say ...wow thats a big number they must be a great builder...lots of us know better....but we do look at builds and if we like them remember the names of who did them and slowly as you have done they become known as cool builders. True skills do not go unnoticed.

I agree Lordfly! The very first time I ever went to rate someone, I noticed the "build" rating and thought to myself "there is no way I'm giving them a good build rating when I have never seen what they built". And I have lived by that rule since. When I meet people that I do rate, I leave the build rating blank until I've seen something they built, and then if I like it, I'm willing to spend the extra dollar to change their rating and add the build rating.

I know not everyone does this, but I bet if I do it, there has to be at least some others that do as well.

Hopefully this is an issue that can be revamped, as I do believe in its current state it just isn't really working well.

Alright, so I'll admit it, I didn't read too many of the posts before.. it's early and there were just o many little scribbles on the screen... uh, what are they called.. oh yeah, words.
So, here's my two cents. Have the rating system be attached to the AV or the land. i.e. Social skills (Behavior and appearance) could only be handed out when you clicked on a person's AV and building could only be rated if you are actually standing in front of a person's build (clicking the building itself or the land). And yes, I do realize this is basicly what the vote station is for, which is fine. It just means that the build option would be removed from the list on the Av.

BTW... I've never run through the starting process, but, does it ever explain the importance of votiong stations to newbies? I can't tell you the number of times I've had a newbie say they absolutely love my build and never once touch my vote station... (and no, I don't just tell them to because I don't want to be a vote miner)

I agree, the current rating system is not being used correctly and doesn't really work.

My suggestion.. and I think this would help immeasurably..

1. You can only rate someone for Building if you have spent over 10 minutes within say 50m of their build, and only during the hour after that happened.

2. You can only rate someone for Behaviour if you have been in their immediate presence for more than 10 minutes, and only during the following hour.

3. You can only rate someones appearance if you have been in their immediate vicinity for at least 5 minutes - and again, only during the hour after that happened.


Any views?


...

Jai Nomad

Jai,

I think the idea is interesting, but it would require a tremendous amount of system overhead I think - it would need to track all avatars position in relation to all other avatars, and track how much time they spend in relation to each other, not to mention have a cutoff time where the ratings would apply. I think a simpler system, where for example, you can only rate the building skill of someone by clicking on something they have actually built, might be more feasible.

Cristiano

Also, letting us only rate each person once per day, and only one rating at a time would help cut down on the "Hi, I just met you, here are three ratings" problem.

Rating ultimately comes down to whether or not you like a person. If everyone knows that already, and rates accordingly, why not just do what Lordfly suggested at the very beginning: throw it all on one big pile calling it as it is used:

( ) Yes, I like this avatar/person
( ) No, I don't like this avatar/person
( ) Idunno

Keeps the social control thing in (for those who care), does away with all the rating stupidity and required social behavior.

If someone likes me and/or my creativeness, I'd prefer them to say so anyway.