Rating Decay?

I'm aware of some people who take pleasure in a weekly round of "Ratings Gambling": that is, rate and get rated enough to get boosted to the next level of stipend without going broke! You win some, you lose some... hopefully you win more, tho. I laughed at this at first, but given the current prices, there does seem to be an amount of merit about it, however controversial.

A lot of people have had the mentality, "If I rate them they will/might rate me and I will get paid." Take that away and we are good to go.

I have never "worked" for my ratings. I do my own thing and if someone likes it and rates me, then thats cool, a bonus to my morale and motivation. Probably some of my ratings were just invitations to rate back, I dont really know. Maybe they liked how I looked or over heard me talking to someone.

I dont think about rating people just because. There are people I known my whole time in SL that I see routinely that I have not rated. I just rated Eggy last week and I known him nearly two years. I thought, "geez, how did I not rate Eggy!?!" That happens all the time. Most of the time I am caught up in what I am doing and dont think about it. But other times I think to myself, "Wow, that guy is really kickass, what a cool AV, man thats a nice build." And I rate them. Ratings may not mean much to those that have them, but they mean something to me when I give them.

I said it before, no one should be financially rewarded for getting rated. It should serve as a barometer to reputation. Sure, maybe people have ratings that are not deserved, at least to you, but I can look at someones ratings, what they have, what they have given, how old they are and size them up for myself. Then I can talk to them and find out more about them.

I would not care if all ratings went away completely, but I think that would be ashamed if that happened. There ought to be a way I can publically give a nod to someone and boost their reputation to the community. Just remove financial reward as the motivation for giving a rate and it will mean more than it has to date.

What he said! ^

Rate for reputation and popularity but not for money. And please please please don't take away stipends. I love that I can shop endlessly without having to work. This is a game for me and not a full time job. I want to enjoy it not work my butt off in it!

Personally I think it is a good Idea. If a new player comes into the world 3 months later they only have a 15 in rateing because nobody rates anymore. I never have and never will return rateings just because, and we all know that was running rampant before the cost increase. Someone who was an ass could still get 500 rates by rateing others. The thing that should change after a month or 2 of rateing decay should be the Stip payment for them. They increased the cost they should increase the payout too but that would be totally unfair considering people with old toons have thousands of rateings that they very well may not deserve. Besides a world full of millionairs would make the game worthless. Who is going to show up in a place where the raffel ball give out 10L every 5 min when they are sitting on a 1000000L. It sucks to have to lose the cash but in the long run it will make the world a better place

I want my money back for the rates I gave when they decay. I'm also to cheap to rate very often so I give gifts insted.

Keep the rates but take away the bonus for getting them.

We pay or paid to begin working and living in SL. I think it is simply LL giving us our monthly fees back in order to support the economy. I for one do not want to live my second life in as cut-throat capitalist economy as the US.

Why should we have to make a virtual world such a mirror of the real-world? I think it is sort of a lack of imagination to do so.

Secondly, we create. I think that is value-added to SL, and it is reasonable - especially to you capitalists out there, to expect to get paid for goods and services we provide. It is done all the time in the so-called free market that the government (LL) subsidizes business. Besides that, these are paltry sums we are discussing for rates.

Don't like the rating system? Give the person you appreciate L$25. Last I checked, L$ didn't decay.