Ratings going bye bye...what is the impetus for this insanity?

When I first started SL a little over 2 years ago, ratings were 5L per...it was a good way to show friendship and basically give thanks to people who you admired for their work, personality, and appearence.

Over time this changed to 25L per, but I still used it having spent in upwards of 200usd, there were/are many others who did the same and to an even greater extent.

In looking at Joshua Linden's notes I noticed the following * Rating system removed from Profile*

This is disturbing if true on a few levels. I can see removing rating land or objects, and I can list many other less useful features that are still around and that have not garnered the financial gain or loss (depending on which side of SL you are on) as a result.

Hopefully Josh made a typo...hopefully he cannot be serious about removing the rating system, which for all intensive purposes is a slap in the face to long time residents and even newer ones.

- Calix

I'm afraid you are a little late to the discussion. It's already swelled, raged, and died out from the point two weeks ago when this was first announced. You can probably search the forums to find the threads. It seems the majority feel ratings were, uh, well, Overrated. *runs and hides*

I am one of them. I do think it's a shame people are out the money. I spent a few lindens on them myself before realizing how subjective, and totally useless they were. I'm not sorry to see them go.

First thing I did, when I found out ratings were going away.. I rated my friend.
in all three categories.

Useless, data lost to the ether... but eh, it was L$75.. and I couldn't have done it after today.

I agree this is stupid having removed the ratings. It showed how competent people were and gave people an impression of the individual. Sadly, this is just more of a negative change to SL in a long line making it simpler for the teeny sex fiends to get in free to cyber sex and not be kept away. I hope they wont remove birthdays next.... i hate to see the server strain those have. Then again people in SL say they dont read profiles so why have them at all? Lets just put a group titler you can turn off/on: "A/S/L" ... SL in alot of areas is just turning into a cybersex junkies paradise. We need more control to filter these jerks out.

Even though I'm sad to see them go, I guess I can see how they added a lot of load. Since you can only rate somebody once, they had to track not only what your ratings were but also everybody who rated you. That can be a lot of info to keep around and call up..

It would have been nice to see more details before they axed it. Maybe something like 'we considered tossing the history stuff to keep db loads down letting people rate once/month' or maybe some combo of making it some kind of premium perk or something..

I will miss ratings.

I am not being sarcastic when I ask......How did a number that could be arbitrarily and subjectively issued reflect anything about a person's "competency" (whatever that means) and their character? I just don't see it. I really think people are goinf to miss the Ego boost given by seeing a lot of high numbers next to their names, as if that makes their Avi
Better" than someone elses. I thnk Ratings were a clever way for the providers to rake in some extra Quatloos, that finally had outlived it's usefullness.

At least for me, the number wasn't interesting.. It was the fact that somebody went a bit out of their way and spent a few extra L$ to say "good job!"

Hmmmmm, I may buy that if the rated person got the lindens, as was the case it seems at one time, but I still don't like the idea of it being a public record. Thta could be used to keep score. It's just tacky to me. As far as complimenting someone, you can still do that. Send them a note. You can send them the 25 Lindens as well.

I can't express how much I agree. Yes there were plenty of useless "rate" menus, but they didn't have to remove the whole dang thing! So yeah rating used to be dirt cheap but for alot of us (like me) who started SL right after they changed to 25L$ each and even those before that, it's still insulting for them to just revoke everyone who coughed up money to LL for them. I know I wouldn't mind having my 50USD back let alone others with even higher numbers; I mean hell I was already kinda pissed when the upped the cost of land and islands by 60% but shit... this is just insulting.

Don't care about the money - it's just a lousy L$25 - or the 'score'.

Like I said, it's just a nicer way of saying "good job."

We used to rate each other because you got a bonus stipend for total rates and rates gained per week. I kinda liked having so many, because I was from a time of 1L rates. Now noone will wonder why the heck I have so many rates..Call it ego, I call it cool.

One of the things that struck me about the rating system was that the older a resident was, the higher his/her ratings - seen a few in the triple digits. As Second Life expands and becomes more popular, it is attracting quite alot of talented people from other walks of virtual life, and within a very short time period after "birth", they are producing amazing builds, and engaging with the community in positive ways. The ratings system didn't really give much of a nod to them, as compared with the older residents who accumulated those numbers over time, but were really no more "deserving" of the high numbers than many of the newer residents were.

Other than a personal "warm fuzzy" kinda thing, the system was very subjective, and favored older residents. Not a very worthwhile thing, IMO.

Taking away our stipend to make people buy Lindens from them, upping the prices on land, etc. They are really destroying alot of what made SL so nice when I first joined. And you talk about all these wonderful new people but all I've seen in the last few months are people with the 'lamecock' syndrome. SL is going from Second Life to Sex Life and thats kinda sad .

well, after having your rates for so long they kinda held memories, like the pictures people take. Sure new people that never rated much due to cost and w/e, but I remember when it was a competition to see who could get the most. If I see people with assloads of rates, I tend to strike up a conversation about those days. There's more to 'em than just some arbitrary numbers after you look at 'em for 2.5 years.

Now it's just ripped from the game like *rate system removed*