Negative Ratings (Lindens)

This is a repost from a general discussions, Lindens please respond, a lot of people are worried about this:


Negative rating must be anonymous, and that's that, otherwise it's completely useless.

Ignore is another excellent idea to get rid of annoying chat traffic.

Warning, like on aim, would also be a good idea. It should add the text "Warning: XX%)" to the text above their head, and wear off after a while. Also the option to add an explanatory note would be useful (the note should show up in that users profile). That way if some one is a public nuisance, or a pedophile or whatever, they can be tagged as such.

-Pat Murphy

I disagree......if it''s anonymous, then it will be useless. I believe the idea behind rating someone negative is to inform them of a diservice, or any number of other annoying actions. If you allow anonymous ratings, other then allow grievers another way to cause hate and discontent, there is no way for the offending individual to know he has made a booboo. Unless you tell them, and then it's not anonymous again.


-TK

I think it must either be

a) anonymous - it used to be this way, and I liked it.

or

b) have a "reason" field - so if I rate you, I can tell you why - this would be nice for both pos and neg ratings

BBC

A reason field is completely necessary in this situation.

If its anon, I can go and rate everyone negatively and nobody would know it.

Reason field would be good so that if someone had a negative rating, perhaps they could ask for it to go away because the reason was something stupid like "i don't like how you look". But if the reason is something like "you get in the way when i'm working" then that's different.

of course then someone could lie and well... that messes everything up... *sigh*

how about having JUST positive ratings, and then instead of negative ratings, you have an "ignore" option lol

seriously the ratings system is just too much of a double-edged sword!

On the whole, the rating system doesn't seem to do much for the SL experience. It just doesn't enhance it. I think it should be taken out.

I hope no one takes this wrong -- I am very grateful for my rating, and grateful to all the people who have rated me up. I just don't see much benefit to it. Particularly as time goes on, and new people come in, and they are at a gross disadvantage. It's awfully unfair -- how will they ever catch up? And the way the system works is that the top person gets the most money, then the next one down, then the next, and so on, so that as time goes on new people coming in won't ever get more than a few dollars, if that.

I would rather see different ways of making money -- more fun ways of making money like the events, and different ways of controlling negative behavior. People who behave badly just don't care if you rate them neg.

My 2 cents -
Kerstin

IMHO, the rating system should be kept...it just needs some tweaking. The point you made Kerstin, about the old-timers getting all the $$, as they have tremendous ratings advantages over the newcomers is a valid one, though...I can only imagine what the monetary distribution would be like if a cadre of old-timers had ratings over a thousand compared to the newbies..lol.

One solution for this is to cap the ratings bonus at a 100...anything higher than that should get the same amount of cash, except for the bonus for being in the top ten on the board. This way, you would still have a strong incentive for newbies to get out and meet new people, but keep the income distribution at an equitable level. Also, those of you who have ratings over a 100 and get nailed by retailitory ratings wouldn't be hurt like you are now if you have to rate someone down.

As for the negative ratings, if you have positive, you have to have the negative...it's unpleasant when someone gets a neg, but that's "life"...how else can people learn that certain behavior is just plain unacceptable? Anon ratings do sound good, but after thinking about it, I'd much rather to know who's rating me, up or down...and if someone rates me down, I'd have the opportunity to make amends, etc. Having a reason field in there wouldn't hurt, although I wouldn't expect that feature until after public release.

SL, like r/l, is certainly not perfect..lol...but I really like what I've seen so far, and the amount of cooperation, friendship, etc is really quite amazing. Those of you who have made SL the way it is today deserve a big "thank you."

J

As the population of the game goes up people will form there own little groups. There will come a time when you just won't know everyone in game let alone rate them.
How about a limit on how Many people you can rate at a time, say around 20 or so.
Once you reach 20 you'd have to remove someone from the list.
" Fred was really helpful today. I'm going to rate him posistivly, hmmm my list is full. I'll keep Sam on my list because I see him all the time, and he helped me out with that building problem last week. I havn't seen Sally in over a month. I guess I'll replace her."
This way you wouldn't be handing out ratings to everyone you see. One person would still be able to get a high rating but may also be able to lose there rating over time to someone else.
It wouldn't be a negitive thing either. A person would see their rating go up or down over time and use it a a gauge as to how they are in game. You'd get a notice from the person when you get a positive rating, but nothing when they take you off their list because it may or may not be personal.

i really like that idea maxen... we would just need to decide on a number... 20 might be right, i think it might be just a tad low though.

I just threw a number out, Could be higher, but not too high. If the number is too high people will just keep handing out positive ratings. Also you want them to have to take people off their list from time to time.

no i agree, make it much more dynamic. it would also make a high rating worth that much more... i really like it

Fantasatic idea Maxen. I love it. It's much more selective and realistic, and it definitely gives a more equitable chance to everyone.

Why don't you forward your post to Philip?

Thanks -
Kerstin

as far as ratings go, I tend to agree with Kerstin.
I too am grateful for all the pos ratings I have, and I am way up there on the ratings scale and they do little as far as SL$ is concerned and I don't see it as a fair tool in accessing another av's worth.

I must admit getting the message you have been rated pos is kinda nice, but most, including myself, more times do it as a economic/boost your rating score thing, instead of an actual appreciation of a fellow av.

If ratings ever include a reason field, may I suggest that it be kept private between the rater and ratee. I don't see any good coming from branding anyone, especially when online interactions can be so often misinterpreted.

fen-

I've had some time to think this out some more. I'm throwing out some numbers here, they're only examples.

Every player gets a Rating list with 40 positive votes and 10 negitive.

Players can use them as they see fit to rate other players.

When you fill up your list you must delete someone in oder to rate someone new.

The positive and negitive votes should work together for an over all rating.

When recieving a Positive vote you'll be able to see who it's coming from but not with the negitive.

Rating should be seen as + or - eg: +40, -10

Players make money for having a positve score but loose money for a negitive.

Now that last bit is there to try to curb bad behavior. It's works with the total over all score and you'd have to be behaving pretty badly in order to start loosing money. I'll set up an example;

You provide a valuable service to the community and recieved 50 positive votes. You get into a tiff with a another player an in the fall out recieve 5 negitive votes. This leaves you with + 45 and you still make money. At some point those 5 people who voted against you may want to use there negitive votes somewhere else and over time your score might go back up to 50.

You spend all your time being a pain in the neck to other people. You have a rating of -50 and are loosing money. You decide that you'll change your ways. You start to get positive votes. Over time the people who voted against you want to use there negitive votes toward other people. Since you are no longer bugging them they take you off their list and your rating goes up even more

This system of limited votes makes the rating system mean something. I think the number of negitive votes should be limited so as not to get abused, but still be usefull if someone is being a real pain. Having more positive votes will help to balance out greifers who'll try to abuse the system. For every one greifer negitive vote there can be 4 positive( or what ever ratio that seems fair).

It also keeps some balance with old and new players. Older players will have to work to keep their high rating. Being in the game the longest won't mean having the highest rating and Newbie's would have a chance to build up a high rating.

I really think there should be cost involved for a negitive score. It's the only thing I can see that greifers would pay attention to.

These are all just ideas, I'd love to hear more feed back.

Maxen, that was a well thought-out proposal, and I think this idea or a variation of it would work. It'd solve the problem of the newbies forever trying to catch up to the old-timers, and the ratings would more or less have to be earned rather than the typical SL "handshake" we have now.

I was wondering, if the idea of "decaying" ratings would be good, in order to urge players to keep "current"...a rating would be good for 30 days and automatically expire. This would also encourage people to rate new people when their old ratings expire.

Just a thought, anyhow...

J

Yeah I thought of the decay as well. In the end I think players would like to have the choice of where there ratings are going, at least I do. With they decay, depending on how long it was, you'd have to keep renewing a vote even though you may not want to.

Great idea Maxen.

My one concern is from a practical point - the interface for such a system. I want to be able to rate someone pos or neg with just a couple of clicks (partially due to lag, partially cuz I'm lazy). Your method seems like it might require a rather bulky interface. I think it is probably worth it and would deal with it if I had to. I just wanted to chime in for a simple implementation if at all possible.

Ok that I'm not sure about.

Rating would be the same as it is now, but you'd need some sort of drop down menu for the rest. A list of names for pro and neg. When you click on a name it'll ask you if you want to remove it from the list. Yeah it could be kind of bulky, Hard to remember who's who. The list could sort itself so the newer names are on the top. Maybe in that sense the decay thing would be a better idea. Maybe an option to lock names into the list if you're not planning on changing them soon. I don't know.

More good ideas, Maxen. Thank you for the thought you've put into this. I like the + and -.

On the interface, could prolly be as simple as having 2 subfolders in your Calling Card folder. 1 Pos and 1 Neg, with a limit on how many calling cards can go in each one. When you try to drop a CC on a 'full' subfolder, you get a message.

Alternatively, could use the current rating system, with an * or number or something appearing in your CC folder on people who are pos/neg. Again, when you try to rate 1 over the max, you get a message.

Thanks -
Kerstin

Here is an idea.

It is sort of a compromise between 'The Maxen System' and a decay system.

You have the max number of votes you can cast. After your list is full it automatically drops the oldest vote.

However, add a button to the ranking interface to 'refresh' your vote. This will move it to the top of the list again, but not actually add any to their score. This way if someone is often doing nice things for you you can keep your vote there. Unless you are ranking new people all the time (which the Maxen system discourages anyways) then you shouldn't have to refresh a vote very often to keep the person on your list.

A seperate window, or one of those "more>>" buttons, could be added to view the lists of where your votes are going, but for the normal interface only 1 button is added.

Ouch Kerstin I have to disagree with you on that method.

After the system gets rolling then the majority of the time you will be dealing with the 'too many votes' message. I don't want to have to open my inventory and move things around everytime I want to cast a vote after the first 3 weeks.

That's a good idea Ama.
I'm hoping it wouldn't discourage voting though only make people think about where there votes are going
There would also need to be a pop up message comfriming things like a change from positive to negitive and such.
I'm glad people like the idea I thought I might get some heat for thinking people should lose money for a negitive rating.

Maxen, great idea - you are a genius.

lol now that the back slappin is done, I really mean it. ratings are a nice touch for the game. I think that getting out and meeting others should give you a boost. And if you get out and are helpfull that should be rewarded even more. By capping the number of pos/negs you can give out (and give the option to juggle them for new encounters or new helpful/objectional situations), you create (as stated before) a more dynamic experience and actually help encourage people thinking about their ratings rather than passing them out like candy.

look what i started

Using the cards to rate with wouldn't work anyway since you're not always going to have exchanged cards with someone you want to rate positively. I think Ama's synergy would be a great way to go. That also prevents people from being able to just rate positively someone over and over and over to get them caught up to the older players. (I always thought it odd that you can only rate a structure once per day but a person as many times as you pleased)

Um, if you have a way to rate a person more than once Sabine please report it. You should only be able to rate a person once period in the current system. You can later change that rating but that won't raise their score (unless you change it from no vote or neg to pos).