Idea: add number of people owning your items into profile

Idea: add number of people owning your items into profile

This came out of the ratings discussion here: /130/4f/35544/2.html#post383427

We were thinking about ways to let people know you are a good content creator.

So, the idea is to put into your profile the number of people owning any scripts, objects, textures, sounds or animations where you are listed as creator.

Characteristics of this measure:
- fairly objective
- easy to do ("create table temp as select creator, owner, count from inventorybase group by creator, owner; select creator, count as creatorrating from temp group by creator;"

This measure would have the following effects:
- encourages people to give their items away
- encourages people to create
- provides a first-order rating of content creation skills

Azelda

that's kinda a cool idea but i think we'd end up being crushed under waves of losers gaming the system by dropping "Really Cool Cube That Has A Default Script In It" on everyone in their calling card list, people trading useless objects just for the "rating" points etc just like the rating system gets abused and is meaningless now.

yus.

*drops prim to everyone in SL*

Would people bother to game it if there was no direct monetary compensation? (I suppose at least some would.)

I suppose your profile could also list the top three items you've sold, so at least people would have to come up with more creative names for their trinkets.

Or you could only count things someone has actually paid for, but that seems a shame. Several people have given me really nice things, and if anyone's getting credit for creation, I think they should be included.

Just thinking aloud here... I don't know if I actually support this or not. I'm more interested in keeping track of a list of who's bought my stuff so I can get patched versions to them, etc. than in advertising what I sell or give away to anyone through my profile.

neko

Maybe only items purchased. I already get a ton of stuff dropped on me as it is.

But, what about people that dont sell stuff? I quietly putter around my land, build my mazes, and enjoy people enjoying my Upside Down Room. Im off the beaten path and every once in awhile someone will stumble on to my place and enjoy it for a few minutes. I sort of like that I am remote and waiting to be accidentily discovered. I could not deal with the traffic of a telehub location anyway.

I dont have anything for sale. Its a deliberate choice I have made not to sell goods. People will look at my zero column and judge me as worthless when I am actually having the time of my life playing around, amusing myself, and mentoring others.

I used to keep a spreadsheet with sales data in it when I used to sell clothing. It's very interesting to note which products sell, who are your return customers, etc. In four months of keeping records, I managed to amass just over 2,000 entries. I think I would have eventually needed to move it to a database application.

I think this is a great idea! I like getting things and if this encourages the gift economy, that would be a wonderful thing. The gift economy is one of the best aspects of SL and I still am more likely to give my creations away than to try selling them.

If we add a modifier like this it's less likely to result in people dumping crap on you:

+1 point for each object, clothing, etc. you created that is in another's inventory.

+5 points for each that is actually rezzed, attached, or worn.

-1 point for each that is put into the trash.

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Sounds like a fun idea.

I've kicked this idea around before. The reason I've never particularly liked it is it's a system that's too readily gamed by people who would then happily set up scripts to spam notecards/landmarks/textures to just about anyone in range, on a list (llGiveInventory works cross-zone to avatars), et cetera.

I'd much prefer enjoying Second Life without having to set up spam filters. It can get pretty bad already, but it's tame by comparison to what an incentive for randomly tossing people stuff would do. Furthermore, it'd be a relative pain to regulate through the existing (core) inventory code, IMO. Anything more superficial than that would render the system more easily gamed.

Besides, what incentive does that give us, as scripters, to release free code to the Script Library? If someone can just copy-paste it into Second Life from the clip board, how does this reflect on us getting any credit for our hard work?

I'm not saying it's a terrible idea; what I am saying is something like this would need to be thoroughly thought through, and more likely, be a hard-lined "feature" of Second Life as opposed to something that can easily be patched in. And that, in my opinion, renders it unlikely.

Well.... a good library script should:
- do what you need
- be easy to use

Whether it is opensource or not is perhaps secondary in many cases, as long as the API (linkmessages) is stable and well-designed.

I'd be quite happy to sacrifice the 40 or so scripts in the opensource library for a plethora of useful, well-designed library scripts floating around.

Azelda

Yes, but my question was:

How would an item-tracker in profile incent anyone to release code freely through, say, the Script Library here if someone could potentially just copy-paste it and gain credit?

The way I see it, this would give incentives to close off made scripts in objects.

Also, on that train of thought - what of people that would simply link one of their own prims as master to a copy/mod creation? There goes credit there, too.

Like I said, it's not a terrible idea on paper - it's just something that needs to be thought through by the community-at-large. If your aim would be to incent Non-modifiable Stuff, then this would be a good idea. However, something like this would put a damper on creativity, since one of the Big Things There is people like credit for their work.. and such a system would only promote the ways that people (already) steal credit.

> The way I see it, this would give incentives to close off made scripts in objects.

Well, you could, but if you're a scripter it's probably easier to distribute closed-source library modules. Do you know that you dont need to make library modules opensource? You can just provide a well-defined API into them, using linkmessages.

As far as child prims vs parent prims, the asset server does store the owner of child prims, so that information is available.

I think this is where we may agree to disagree. My point is, by virtue of not being "open source," this would put a clamp on folks that wished their scripts to be freely available for any old person to make use of and learn from, while retaining original credit. Such an ownership system would place emphasis on the "Created by" that Second Life uses, as opposed to what's written in the script or spoken by word of mouth, and writing a "black box" script is slightly against my opinion of "furthering the pursuit of knowledge in the community."

But that's okay. That breaks down to opinions on how scripts should be distributed and credit rendered, as opposed to a real "problem."

Furthermore:


This is, at core, correct. However, I would like to point out that keeping track of the ownership of each child prim at the "rating" level would exponentially increase the data transfer necessary for such a system (though you're right that it is "already in the system". Depending on how you see it done, that could be moot or horrific to the health of the asset servers.

Also, I'll note that you sidestepped the problem of gaming the system and spam control. How do you feel about those problems?

i'll support the idea of collecting my creator item distribution and sales and publishing them for me to see. that would be useful.

numbers posted in my profile are just something else to be gamed. it won't be any more reliable as a reference than ratings are today.

How about number of people actually wearing / attaching your items?

That'd be interesting..

Also, I think if you rez something it is no longer on the asset server and is just in the SIM that you are on.

That might be hard for LL to count as they'd have to poll all the SIMs and find out all the objects in every SIM and then remove duplicates that are also in the inventory?

I really wish there were some rewards to the open source scripters in sl. THe hole community benefits from their endeavors. Almost every one I know uses the open source door (with locks), and jeffery gomez has his amazing script that imports 3d files into second life. I have an open source dance bracelet. And there are plenty of other scripts just as useful.
By being open source the development of new ideas happens at a faster rate. People can read the scripts and learn from them.
But right now I haven't herd of many open sours developers receiving any incentives to keep releasing their code for fee. I don't know about the other developers, but I haven't receives one lindon or one good rating. And I haven't herd of lindon labs rewarding these developers ether.

But it would be intresting to find out how many people have your objects rezed.

I think it's great that you suggested this but I would not want to see this. First, it offers free marketing to those who produce goods. People who offer services would not see a benefit from this. The profile text area is where people may highlight such items (e.g. "I've sold 70 cars, contact me to be my next customer." or some nonsense like that.

I personally feel the profiles contain enough fields for data. I'd hate to see them clogged up with even more. I'd rather ask someone how many of an item they sold and if it is worth it get a reference.

Leaving aside for a moment the profile cluttering issue, this is a good point about services. There's a similar thread in Land & Economy about a BBB or rating system á la eBay, and the same issue applies there. My thought is that a services log could be used to advertise for, contract, and rate services, and could also be used to track and display service sales in the same way as is being proposed here for goods. I'm not necessarily advocating listing such things in the profile, I'm just suggesting that this kind of setup might make the proposed feature more equitable for those who provide services.

neko