A sea of 3 star products

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i have noticed increasingly in both the body shop forum and the clothing and accessories a sea of 3 star products seems to plaguing Second Life. Do the comsumers of our wonderful 3d virtual community really have so few 'good' or 'excellent' items to spend their hard won L on or is the tide of 'averageness and bad' products spreading like a cankor over our commercialism?

It's strange because when i post new products and look around the forum i see some beautiful garments. They aren't all my taste, but i can appreciate the hard work, love and spirit of adventure that went into creating them and i enjoy seeing what others are making. To me it seems churlish and mean spirited to rate an item as bad that you have not worn, have no idea how much work went into and probably could not make yourself. If i didn't like it, that is personal opinion and does not make an item bad so i would simply not rate it all. Surely the sea of average i see on the forum cannot be the result of the majority of items for sale in SL being 'average' or 'bad', after all people are still shopping, would we spend our L on things that were less than worthy of wear? Surely this cannot mean that the sea of average and below means people are deliberately rating things poorly? Are their people among the friendly folks in SL who would do something like that?

Yesterday i saw a post on new products that said, 'Hi all i'm new'. This was almost immediately rated 2 stars. How very discouraging for someone who has just come to the forums, perhaps plucking up courage to nervously post for the first time. i wished i could say to that person, hey there, welcome to Second Life, that's a great beginning. Because it was just that, a beginning, it might not have had bells and whistles attached and blind you with bling but it was a starting point for that new designer and who knows we may all be clamouring for her garments one day, maybe she will be the 'next big thing'. Or maybe she will get discouraged and give up before she's had a chance to see how good she might be at making clothes in SL.

i make things because i enjoy it. i post because i am pleased with what i made and want to show people, to share the experience and to let anyone interested know that this is new and they can have it if they'd like it. No one is forced to buy, i am just showing what is out there from me.

To those, if such people exist, who are rating bad for everything i am asking you, lighten up a little and give everyone a break, if you don't like it, don't buy it but please don't abuse the rating system for five minutes of power. i'd like to say that i don't care, but i do, i hate seeing something i've worked hard on get 2 or 3 stars next to it, frankly i think i'd rather have no stars at all, but more than that, i hate the idea that new designers might be discouraged by it. By the same token when something does get a nice rating i am overjoyed, thank you to the positive, encouraging voters out there, but does it really mean anything when the voting system is abused to the point of a sea of 'average'? Because the negativeness just makes a mockery of the whole system. At least with the old system of leaving a comment if you liked something there was a variety to what people said, even some helpful feedback and suggestions sometimes. A forum should be a community, a place to share, not to down people who are trying to show what they've created.

What really troubles me, the point of this post, is that i am noticing people are posting less, i am posting less, and i have friends who are relatively new to making things in SL but are terrified to share them with the forum because it is a sea of negativity. That is just plain sad.

Please reply here if you'd like to, or maybe just leave your name if you'd like the rating system gone, if people leave lots of names, i'll submit it to Jeska Linden by way of a petition.

Thanks for listening!

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I don't mean to sound rude... but isn't the point of having voting at all to give everyone, regardless of their opinion, a voice? It seems to me that if everyone who didn't like something was expected to not vote at all that that would make for a large portion of the public being completely excluded from the process.

That said, I certainly doubt poor star ratings have prevented people, especially the biggest designers, from selling things to the people that would normally buy their items. And when it comes down to it, that's what the classifieds are about. Selling stuff.

Hope I didn't come off as abrasive or anything. I just think that 'If you don't like it, don't vote' is a dangerous route to take.

Have a lovely day.

Interesting thoughts.

Since I never use the "star system" and wasn't even aware of it's existence for many many months after reading the forums, it took me a sec to understand what you were talking about. Usually a "three star rating" is pretty good in RL (I understand it to mean average here though).

Perhaps because I haven't been following the "star ratings" of products, I have a completely different impression. It seems to me that the deisgn "bar" has been raised quite significantly lately.

Many new designers first attempts, like those you describe in your post have all the quality of some of the "established designers" of just a short while ago IMO. And whereas recently there were just a handful of really good designers (and IMO only perhaps two really excellent ones), now there seems to be many to chose from. I can think of at least a couple within the last 3 or 4 months that have gone from zero to huge shares of the market (at least judging by how many products and stores tehy have and the amount of times on sees avatars wearing their stuff.)

That being said I see few products, even from the "excellent" and established designers category that if I were to rate them, I would give "5 stars" to.

My favorite designer is Jonquille Noir who is a very prolific, talented and established designer and has (with Siggy I believe), what I consider to be one of the best stores in SL (Little Rebel), but not everything she makes is perfection. "Mischief", one of the new designers that has captured a huge share of the market has lots of good clothes (more of the "drawn texture" variety than photo-textures), but I have bought a few that were clearly very uh, "quickly drawn" to say the least.

My purpose here isn't to criticise but to point out that if "5 stars" is the top, it should be a rare item that recieves such a rating. Lots of the "really good stuff," by the best and most established designers should really be a "four" to my eyes, making a "three star rating fest" for the other stuff quite normal to me. Especially in the case of the designer you mentioned, posting for the first time, a "solid three" is something to be proud of IMO.

Perhaps the problem is just those words that they put beside the star ratings. "Average" does indeed sound like something that is below a middling sort of rating even though technicallly that's exactly what average means (middle). People today attach a pejorative, negative type of meaning to the word "average" as if it is an insult, even though in a literal sense it's not. LL might do better to drop the word descriptions altogether from the star rating drop-down as they aren't necessary and only serve to confuse in some instances.

You can't really say that stars give ppl a voice since they end up being averaged out anyway. Whether people rate low or high stars on a product no voice has been given. Someone has simply said " I don't like it. " A voice would be explaining to the maker WHY you don't like it, so that they could try to improve. I agree that it can be extremely discouraging and no I am not saying it should be happy- happy everyone get 5 stars either. I mean without comments either way it holds no water. All it is right now is something to be annoyed by to go and check and see something you spent so much time on being called horrible and you have NO idea why . Is it that they dont think its creative enough? Do they not like the style? Do they not like the color? Do they just not like you? Who knows? Its just a stamp of disaproval leaving you feeling like you should hide under a rock and not post any more of your stuff lol. Someone could think your product is GREAT , but you will never know that on the star system since there vote will just be averaged out with the ppl that hate it. It would be cool to see individual ratings like 3 votes for 5 stars, 2 votes for 1 star.. etc etc. The way it is now you dont know if 10 ppl consider it average or 7 consider it fabulous and 3 ppl dont like it. I am consistantly frustrated when i see my products at 1 or 2 stars because I am left feeling like someone hates my stuff and I dont know what to do to make it better. Anyways Sachi , glad you brought this up. Every other day I tell myself that some new product i posted will be my last because of all of the negativity. But then I just do it again.. glutton for punishment pfft.

I've given up on the Star system First of all, no rates is shown until two people have voted. So you can imagine how disappointed I've become when I have seen something great with no stars giving it a 5 star, or 4, and it comes out with 3 stars (because someone have voted 2 or 3 stars before mine)! I have no idea why the first vote isn't shown, and think it's unfair to both voter and the one who gets voted on. Besides, it allows you to vote on yourself! So theoretically we could all start with a 5 star, right?

To me it seems like there's something serious wrong with the voting algorithm as well. I've tried to get LL's attention to this, but it doesn't seem they think it's a problem.

Have seen amazing stuff with just 2 stars and very average stuff with 5 stars. Fair to the creators? No!
Wouldn't cry one single tear if LL suddenly just removed voting from New Products.


Lis

I wouldn't worry at all about the star rating system. I've sat there and watched (using Refresh) as people go through and systematically lower the ratings on every single item posted. That's been proof enough for me that the stars mean absolutely nothing, and are absolutely no indication of the quality of a product or how well it's received. If I thought it had anything to do with a valid opinion, good or bad, I would pay it more attention.

We all saw how the in-world Negative Ratings were abused, to the point where they had to be done away with altogether. Why LL thinks allowing the same thing to be anonymous would be any different is beyond me. An anonymous rating system just opens it up to cowards who aren't even brave enough to neg rate with an alt. Why do they do it? I have no idea. Maybe they were picked on in high-school and this is their impotent revenge against the rest of the world.

In Robin's announcement regarding resident mods, she alludes to the idea that only resident mods will be able to rate threads once the system is implemented. Although I disagree with that step, at least we'll have a handful of names to attribute to the vindictiveness if it continues.

Greetings! I come to this forum often..because Im a shopaholic! I was very upset at the powers that be who took away the option to reply to the sellers posts. Of course there is always going to be a few bad apples to be nasty to those hard working people. But the rest of us who care about whats being made..and if we would wish to buy..should have the option to say WHY we do or dont like the product.

I find myself sometimes IMing the sellers with my observations. Meaning..if the pics are too dark (which is often the case) or a spelling error

I use the star system, but I want to be able to reply. Its a FORUM fgs! If I dont like a product..if its really bad..sorry I know people have to start somewhere..I wont use any star.

Everyone has been doing an excellent job! My PACKED inventory proves that! Dont stop posting new items here..good or bad stars. You do what YOU WANT TO DO and fook the nasties


Your faitful purchaser...

Carmilla

We all like to look at the products which got one and two stars, don't we? be honest! Many times, those are the only products I'll look at.

So, I'd rather that you all rate my stuff at one or two stars so more of the low ratings gawkers will look at my stuff!! LOL.

In reality, the stars don't mean anything. Case in point: I introduced an outfit that costs L$400 per color and L$1600 for a six color bundle. When I posted it on the forum, it immediately rated two stars. Cool, I thought--more people will look . It started flying off the shelf!!! Well, since then I've been selling a couple of that specific outfit a day, plus one bundle every 2-3 days. (yes, that means about 8K/week from that one outfit! ) I've also heard rave reviews about the outfit AND even reports of customers winning contests in it.

I feel like encouraging everyone to rate all my stuff at one star, just so it'll get noticed more often. As we all know, the real rating system is how many Lindens you get.

(however, for someone who doesn't have experience with the meaningless of the star ratings, it probably is no fun to get a low rating)

I like to chime in and say that i've seen the star rating system before in another online world and it only represents a very small portion of the online population base. Most people avoid official forums for "this and that" reasons. The star system is more of a popularity poll than a reliable source to guage what the average consumer likes and dislikes.

What matters overall is what actually happens in world. For example, designers may get 1 - 5 stars on the forums, but in world the sales are either really good or either really bad on a daily basis; that is enough to tell you how you're doing. I regard the classifieds as a form of advertisement only; like a window display facing a busy street.

People of course, may be very outspoken about it if your design doesn't meet their tastes so they criticize by one or two starring the item and that's understandable. In the end, if your item/s are sold, then there is a interest regardless if you have one star or five and that in itself makes you have more confidence in your abilities, not the stars.

Well, I for one, am afraid to post my fireplaces in the forum. People in the forums are just a little too brutal. I don't mind critisism, but geeez, if u don't own the product, why rate it?

Sachi is a dear friend of mine, and she has produced some awesome stuff lately. But how would a person know unless they try what she has lovingly put out for us. I notice a lot of pictures of items are not the best, but i still go see what the product is if I am interested.

I agree, I liked the feedback we use to be able to write in the forums, would like to see it again.

Well, the quiet one has spoken, and now goes back to her corner.

yes well i started making hair as some have noticed but i dont think im fully there yet....Its hard as hell to put out an item and not get feedback on how to improve or not to improve...for instance...i released and outfit a few weeks ago the set up a seperate link to a dicussion fourm, after so long because i still hadnt sold a one... i thaought it was hott but no response at the vendor. In the discussion fourm i finally got a response on why... you couldnt see the pics clearly. I had no idea unless someone told me...OMG a star cant do that! Also now that i updated the pics who's to know? how many people go back to look at fourms they have already seen and written off as they couldnt see? So all my work goes to the fourm trash cause i made a mistake in posting.But people go back to see responses to thier comments. Stars Suck!

Star-ratings don't mean a thing whether it's 1 star or 5. It has no correlation to the sales made. I've seen great products get 3 stars or less. That's just an average based on a real tiny amount of people compared to the times the ad was read. Like say 200+ hits and 8 votes. It's irrelevant and not stat-worthy. And most of those who voted prolly will never go over and buy the product.

I do miss the feedback we got, the forums were another place enabling me to interact with customers. And it's alienating to just post and that's it. Reply and no bump seemed like a better approach. But for some reason it was inapplicable.

The stars should be removed and the new products forum should be a place were designers can just advertise their products and merchandise for all to see and enjoy without having this star drama hanging over their heads.

After all, do advertisers irl leave a place for us to place little stars in their magazines, papers, TV, billboards etc?

I don't completely share your bitterness, but I would think that if the star system *does* become as Robin hinted at, and the stars are for moderators only, then it makes sense to me that they would disappear entirely on "post only" forums like new products. Otherwise the forum mods would be "rating" everyones designs and that wouldn't be fair at all.

I am not sure that they are thinking about that, but it would certainly make sense. The only other way it would make sense is to bring back follow up posts. Then you could leave the stars as they would once again only reflect whether the thread was "getting out of hand" and not the relative quality of the items.

I can't say I have heard anything one way or the other, but common sense would have it that you cant have a few hand picked moderators telling everyone which designs are best. On the other hand I have applied to moderate myself, and I *do* buy most of my clothes at Little Rebel.

It was interesting to see the spread of opinions here. i do feel that the current system is unsatifactory as it stands. i posted a gift yesterday and even that has been rated, how do you rate a gift?

i have to disagree that the forum stars give a voice, there is no voice in averages, freedom of speech is about comments, suggestions, advice, knowing why you don't like it or what could be improved.

Whether people like the rating system or not it was good to open a healthy debate and i'd like to thank everyne who has added an opinion to my comments here.

As designers we are creating and displaying our 'art' and i am not sure i am comfortable with anonymous, negative opinion. If you hate it, tell me and tell me why, i'm fine with that but i can't help feel that secret negativity, and the way it averages out it seems more negative than positive, is unhealthy. i found Jonquil's comment about refreshing as people deliberately went along and negatively rated things rather disturbing, disturbing that someone would deliberately rate others negatively for whatever reason. Perhaps i'm just a big softy but i am awed by what SL offers and thrilled by what i can do there. It's wonderful for me in chilly London to get to interact with others from all over the world and make wonderful friends i may not have met otherwise. But i can't help feel less than happy with the seedier side of the commercialism i enjoy, like the implication people are being deliberately rated down and this insane advertisment war to be first in the classifieds. One response in this thread suggested that people only look at the classifieds. Great, but not everyone can afford 10000L a week to have their name in the top few.

It seems to be getting out of control and smacks of greed and i dislike that personally. Classifieds ahould be one price and should be listed in alphabetical order with no ! * or 1 in front. Perhaps Linden Labs should be leading by example.

sachi

I read that post from Robin carefully at the time to see if it would be the case that only moderators can rate classifieds once resmods get appointed, and I believe it definitely said "Discussion Forums." Classifieds aren't the discussion forums.

Reply and no bump would be ideal, as I stated before Christmas (and posted a poll on) back when this new no-reply system started.

I also posted a thread called, "Down with the Classified Stars Ratings!" or something like that, calling for the star system to be removed.

I was then told by other forum regulars that this would probably be a big deal to remove them, maybe impossible. So I researched vbulletin and discovered that it is simply a matter of checking "no" in one check box per forum.

All the moderators have to do is go in and check "no" on those boxes and we wouldn't be plagued by this hopeless star-rating system.

On that thread, I was told by several posters that I was just upset because my own product naturally sucked. I had used my product as an example, along with an example of another person I'd rated 5 stars then wished I hadn't, cause that started the ratings war on her and she was soon down to two stars.

That began a free-for-all where I was treated to a number of posts from several individuals about how "mediocre" and sucky my products were, saying that they would have to honestly rate my products one-star.

The product that I had used in my examples in my first post was three small decorative angels I had made for my landlord that had to be only fifteen prims (this was before Christmas) - I will post the picture with this post so you can see what they were talking about. Because I used the experience of my own product (and the other girl's) to illustrate my point, my products and my own abilities were gleefully raked through the mud.

I was also told that these star ratings were actually meaningful, since it took "a lot of people" before the ratings even showed up, and thus, if my product went suddenly from five stars to 2 stars, that meant "a lot of people" had rated it low, and therefore just proved my products sucked.

So I researched vbulletin again, tested it, and discovered that it took only two such ratings for the stars to show up, so I reported that in the thread. I was then told I had gamed the system myself by doing this test.

Meanwhile, the thread ITSELF discussing this problem with the star system was itself rated two stars, just to show me who's boss.

One poster said that upon reading the thread, they went back and rated my product one star just because they could.

Indeed, I discovered that several people had immediately gone and rated my product one star, just because I had had the temerity to post a call for the removal of the stars from classifieds.

One individual even went back and one-star rated my products (apparently he/she has an alt) fifteen pages into the past, since way before people even started using the stars and could still comment.

This just goes to show you how childish some people are and how ridiculous this star/no comment system is.

The resmods are going to become the only ones annointed and special enough to rate stars in the Discussion forums, where the stars don't even pose a problem, and where discussion is allowed. How insulting. As if we need to be told which threads are good and which to ignore.

While in the classifieds, people are allowed to carry on star vendettas with NO COMMENTS ALLOWED. It's fun to watch people tear each other apart, I suppose.

If you think about it, though, it would be even worse if the resmods were the only ones allowed to star-rate products in the Classifieds. That would be conflict of interest of the highest magnitude. (The conflict of interest of allowing only resmods to rate Discussion threads is bad enough.)

I very much miss the comments - both being able to give them, and to get them. I loved reading through them. As I was trying to explain in the threads mentioned above, it's a warm feeling, to be able to comment on someone's good thing even if you aren't going to buy it, and to read the comments yourself. It boosts the creative spirits, helps with inspiration, provides GOOD FEELINGS.

What we have now provides only bad feelings. Those who run these boards apparently would prefer to encourage jealousy, competitiveness, and bad feelings rather than creative support.

I either wasn't able in my research to discover if a comment/no bump system could be done with vbulletin, or it can, but I have forgotten how; not sure without looking it up again.

The mods know, though. And they also know they could remove these star system entirely with one touch. I myself would prefer comment/no bump, and if not that, go back to the way we were before.

coco

P.S. I put two pics of the same thing here, so that the pic itself wouldn't show up on this post.

I haven't transferred my real life design skills to SL, so, the response to this post is from a consumer's perspective.

Checking the new product forums is a part of my daily SL routine - whether I log on in-world or not. I absolutely love shopping in SL, knowing about new releases, and ultimately where to find different types of products. I really could care less about in-world politics, I wanna see the new hair, outfits or skins that are being released.

The end of commenting in these forums was quite disappointing, however, as a result of the new rating system I have developed my own personal criteria for rating. Items that have been thoughtfully detailed with appropriately-shaded texturing get four or five stars from me, especially if I can see that they've been nicely hand-painted (which I personally like) get and excellent or good rating. An item that is well designed but without a nice texture that would really make it "pop" gets a three star rating. I never ever rate bad or terrible. If I feel a product is absolutely horrific I just don't rate at all.

Now, it's obvious that the rating system needs to be amended, and I'm sure many of you designers have effective ideas on how to accomplish this. I know this issue has been brewing for quite a while. Perhaps a poll as opposed to a rating system (which would allow designers to see HOW MANY people are voting at which star level and eliminate the automatic averaging) or private commenting viewable only by the post creator would offer a better perspective for designers. I don't know.

Just don't let the star system discourage you guys. Developers such as yourselves are the backbone of this entire online community, and you have a unique opportunity to make change in-world and affect in-world culture.

Keep up the good work.

i was sorry to hear you had such a bad experience bringing up this issue coco and your post was very interesting. i've tried to discuss this subject with Jeska Linden but she isn't answering so far. i think it's sad as i know it is stopping some from posting.

i thought your angels looked delightful.

Thank you so much Aemilia for your kind comments, it's nice consumers like you that make designing in SL so much fun.

I realize that positive feedback is important, especially when one works hard on a project to bring it to fruition...

I think the stars get more attention than they deserve...better to watch your account grow (or not) for feedback.

Besides, as much as I miss the feedback part of the classifieds, I really like to personally contact a creator to let them know I really like something they've made. I think it has more meaning, at least, it would to me!

What the stars do is make everything average. It's imperfect and it doesn't work. Some folks are going to LOVE your creations, others will not. It's PERSONAL taste here, not your ability.

So, if you get people who love your stuff to rate it, and also people who hate your stuff rating it, you get what we are getting: AVERAGE. Therefore, all it means is that you are making some people happy and they are buying your creations. Just as in RL, we buy what we like and there are some designers out there that we just don't care for their style...but we probably have friends who love that stuff.

See...the stars don't matter. Fagheddaboudem!

Please stop posting links to this in the new products forums, its really annoying.

Oh yes, Lord forbid we give anyone who may not read the rest of the forums any information/opinions...stop the insanity!

if they wanted that information then they could go looking, the forums have catagories for a reason. Some of us like dont like to hear the constant re-hashing of mundane topics such as star ratings in the new products, hence why we dont read the discussion forums. Samely people who dont care for new products posts dont have to see them because they are kept in the new products forum.

Im sure people would say the same thing if I posted to check out my new space cadet underoos in the general discussion forum with a link to my thread in the new products forum.

Rejoice! The ability for residents to star-rate Classified posts is gone.

coco