ratings reform revisited

I went Bankrupt after the last Bonus Cut. No one willing to buy my products. I shut down all my booths. And there were only a few people who cheered the bonus cuts. a vast majority protested.

I am not amused

Maybe some want that to happen.

As for these:

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Allow the ability to change your avatar name. L$2000 per letter. I'd love to be Flipper Peregrine for L$4000, and would gladly pay SL L$4000 for the two letter change. This would make completely changing your identity cost prohibitive, and be a good sink.

Increase the cost for partnering / divorcing to L$500 or so.

Institute a cost for posting events of L$100 or so; something affordable, but something that would also help reduce the amount of spam on the events list and the constant posting of "non-events".

Starting a thread in a discussion forum: L$50. Starting a thread in a classified forum, L$100.

Land sales tax of 1%?

Light prim tax of L$1 per light prim per week assessed to owner; if owner no longer has money, prims are changed from "light" to "wood".

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I don't know what "light prim" is, but I don't like any of the other ones.

coco

I'd like to address the proposed changes one at a time:

1. eliminate negative ratings
I certianly wouldn't miss them. From my experiance they have more to do with past grudges than any actual in game behavior and everyone just tripple rates here anyway. The counter-argument is that ratings lose meaning without this but we're already talking about a system that's lost it's meaning if it ever had it in the first place. I say scrapping the negative ratings column is optional, if it's easy to do go ahead and do it otherwise don't spend too many resources on it. Though I certianly would feel better knowing I've helped remove the ability of trolls to scar good people's reputations because they really get a kick out of having that kind of power over people.

2. remove the stipend bonus from positive ratings
The system is going to be phased out so I would agree with starting this step of the process now. I would advise that the game currency that would normally go into stippend bonuses still go into stippends. According to the pricing page people with basic accounts only get stipends for the weeks they log on so an across the board raise wouldn't be pouring funds into dormant accounts.

3. make ratings optional viewing in profiles (ability to toggle them on or off)
note: This may require too much development time to implement but its something we are considering...
I honestly think this woud take up too many development resources that would be better spent on bug fixes and developing a better rep system.

Somebody give this man a cookie. Flipper for President!

What do you mean? That a few people, who are so powerful, made sure no one bought my things (And a lot of other people who have since closed due to the Bonus cut) so I would go out of business???


I believe this. I really do.

I hate Elitist groups.

It would be only sensible and fair that the Scarlet Letter be applied only after a warning has been issued by LL that the resident has broken the TOS, here is the link to it, be sure and read carefully because the next time goes on public record. This gives a person a gracious chance to adjust their behavior privately. Those who continue to be asshats are doing it knowing full well what the penalties are (and will most certainly wear their Scarlet Letters with pride whilst raging about the anti-creative mentality of SL) and thus the rest of us residents know exactly what kind of person we are dealing with.

Everybody wins.

Not exactly. I think what they have in mind is more a survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, with so many more people now, and the market already glutted with goods of every kind, that's a lot harder now than it once was. All the measures suggested that make it more impossible to make money, or to use the things that will help you make money (such as holding events), makes it that much harder for any new blood.

ust the sheer fact of increasingly more numbers of people in the game makes success that much more difficult for one starting out today, and when all the perks that made it easier to get a foothold go away, and get replaced with taxes, charges for this and that, and other punitive things, along with all the goods already on the market, merely increases the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

So while I think some people think it is the survival of the fittest, it isn't quite. Another factor is I think those who were on the game early really don't have that good a sense of what it is like today. They may be in favor of things to make it even more difficult today - things to take money completely out of the economy, etc. - without having much idea of what a disasterous effect that may have.

Then, too, there is the philosophy that no one needs stipends, cause everybody can just buy their money from GOM. While that may work out well for those who sell a lot of items, there just aren't that many pure consumers to make it a reasonable long-term plan. And if new creators can't get a foothold, well . . .

More importantly, all these measures - or too many of these measures - have the effect of making the game all stick and no carrot. Not enough fun, in other words. If I wanted just to go to a mall and buy things with rl money, I would go to a mall and buy things with real-life money. This is supposed to be about fun.

coco

P.S. Isablan, the Scarlett Letter just isn't necessary. Besides, no one is going to want to join SL if people are walking around in it literally branded as troublemakers by the Lindens.

There is so much wrong with the concept of branding people based upon their actions in SL - the prospects of it just give me the chills. How anyone can think a scarlett letter, a black mark on their profile, or a giant arrow that says "Loser!" above someone's head is a good idea is beyond me. * shudder *

If any alteration needs to be made to the discplinary system, I would say it is to start telling people what they actually did wrong and why they are being punished for it (instead of a vague reference to the TOS). Letting them know who accused them, and being able to present their side of it would go a long way too, but I know, let's not go crazy.

I agree with Coco.



Yep, that's all... it's too late at night to write an opinion on stipends and such now...

(1) You need to continue to roll out new products to keep people interested, and improve your own skills. Just ask any of the best designers; most are embarassed by what they initial created. Giving up and removing your booths is not the way to succeed.

(2) You can't really go bankrupt in SL. You don't NEED food, a house, and there's a ton of free stuff available.

(3) Please, let's not hear this opera AGAIN.



Trust me, it wasn't meant for your amusement. Do you understand that money CAN'T be free, and there must be sinks as well as sources, for any economy to survive without amazing levels of inflation? See what Germany did in the 1930s - printing money to make sure everyone was rich - and the result it had on their economy.



What suggestions do you have to balance the economy by providing adequate sinks? Or do you just want there to be extreme inflation and devaluation of the L$ (which we have already seen starting to happen at GOM)?

Regards,

-Flip

This doesn't really make me shudder. The fact that the branding/scarlett letter/black mark on our profile is currently set by groups of users and their alts that have vendettas against us, now THAT makes me shudder.

As Isablan said, a fair public warning system isn't going to make a pariah out of folks who commit minor infractions or receive warnings, in fact it will be unlikely to show these minor issues at all. But when users become chronic abusers and the Lindens won't give us fair warning about them, well... *shudder*

Magnum - STOP blaming everyone else for your own failures. You're responding to me as if I were an elitist group; wasn't it my "elitist group" that gave you a rent-free spot to sell your creations for over six months? Remember that?

If your products aren't selling, try creating new ones. Try improving your skill set. Try putting out new products. Very few in this day and age are interested in buying and 80286... because Intel keeps UPDATING THEIR PRODUCTS to improve upon previous products!

Check out the threads your have started:
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Nothing but complaints with no viable solutions other than "OMG I need my free money!". "1.6 is an abject failure! Go back to 1.3! Congrats on destroying SL's economy by eliminating L$1 rates!" Maybe you should read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

You blame Linden Lab.
You blame "elitist groups".
You blame me and write off my opinions as "not amusing to you".
You blame the fact that the rate whoring loophole has been closed.
You blame SL for changing in the slightest since your utopia of v1.3.

You blame everyone and everything but yourself. If you spent have the time creating and improving your skills that you did complaining, maybe you'd have some sales.

Regards,

-Flip

I'm not raggin your idea but seriously asking, would you tax a land seller some of the money they're gaining or the land buyer by adding to the amount they're paying the seller?

The former puts the burden on the seller to figure out how much they're actually netting on the deal. The latter causes the buyer, as in real life, to consider the price plus sales tax when shopping for land.

Or would you sales tax the buyer and capital gain tax the seller. The US currently taxes any money I earn at least three times before it leaves my coffer and I'm not packing to leave the country; so I suppose LL could get away with it too.

Out of the potential sinks I listed, I figured land taxes would be the least popular. The problem with them is that the costs will always be passed on to the low man on the totem pole, which is something I was hoping to avoid here, but I figured I would throw it out as an idea. That's why vanity services like name changes and light prim cost are a bit more appealing.

Part of the problem with trying to get ahead in RL is that the economy, taxes, and life are just so damn complex these days; there is something to be said for trying to keep SL's economy fairly straightforward and utopian. New players should be afforded the opportunity to understand it quickly and get involved.

Regards,

-Flip

Without getting into the economy impacts of the current rating system (which I think isn't a viable point to place a sink in the first place), until I see details about the replacement for ratings, I'm of the opinion it should just be scrapped. As I've long said, ratings are all but useless, except for the purposes of popularity contests and griefers.

If the Lindens are able to come up with a workable ratings system, I am sure the entire gaming industry would be very interested in seeing it. To date, none of the MMORPG's (or similar) I've dealt with have been able to come up with anything that wasn't almost universally considered to be flawed to the point of uselessness.


- Newfie

I think Newfie just stated the consenus opinion (i.e. scrap it). But I'm guessing we won't know whether it will change at all until it does.

Although the original poster asked about ratings in relation to bonuses - which spawned a side line about money sinks - I fear if they cannot control the money supply with altering the rating bonus pool, then the ant farm has really escaped them.

Thanks for responding in a nice way, Flip

I don't think I've seen another issue that stirred up more controversy, more negative feelings, and more division in the community than this ratings issue. I was kinda dreading the response to my post, and was pleasantly surprised

I can't wait for the day when it all becomes ancient history - after a full ratings wipe & a chucking of the current system into the trash heap.

You tell me that my remarks are re-hash of earlier remarks, yet you are still argueing the same line that you used to support cutting peoples bonuses.

Actually I do not blaim you, Linden Labs and I have stopped harping on the 1.3 stuff.

Why phase out ratings? Lets just kill the whole system all together. Instead put an interface that we can leave public notes about people.

It will definitely be interesting to see what happens after the "great wipe"! I think most people are willing to discuss these contraversial topics, and agree to disagree. In most cases, things may get heated, disagreements will happen. What gets to me is some people sing the same old tired song, beating a dead horse, over and over. At least bring something new to the table; perhaps, some new ideas instead of the same tired routine.

Your comments are always well thought out and explained. I wish everyone was willing to take the time to stop, think, and explain their positions. That's what makes forum discussions worthwhile instead of degenerating into flame wars!



-Flip

Again, you have failed to read my previous posts in this thread which were concerning new sinks for L$ in the economy. My comments did not concern the tired discussion of free L$ until you entered the arena.

Regards,

-Flip

I think we can go round and round on this and I think its time to agree to dis-agree I deleated the message that this post responded to because I just don't want to argue any more. I have read every comment and I disagree and lets leave it at that.

Lol. uhuh. You're right - what SL really needs is far more drama