hey, this did determin weather someone was a “long standing alt” as well, it did determin weather people enjoyed your work, it ment you had use, it ment people could say wow, i WILL “SPEND” the “MONEY” to rate because they “DESERVE” my “RATING”

i can’t wait to see how make of the dinosaur players out there are going to go nuts when this attack hits the user where it counts

this won’t reduce anything but user friendlyness, with the ammount Linden Labs brings in revenue, i say hardware, not “stickin’ the user” for a “guessing game” at what the person’s moral’ is and if there worth hiring

Are ratings the huge resource drain some people are saying they are? Possibly, but only if the rating routines were badly programmed. Stuff that resides in the data base and isn’t being accessed isn’t a load on things. The problem is when the asset servers actually have to serve it — like when inventories are loaded, for instance. If, as one person seemed to suggest, your ratings have to be calculated by a complex algorithm every time someone looks at your profile, then this is simply an example of stupid programming. You only need to recalculate a rating when it changes. Then you store it as a static value. People access their inventories much more often than they look at people’s profiles. Think about that.

As for ratings not paying their way, neither do inventories. If we’re going to pay to rate people to help feed the asset servers, then, surely, we should be paying some sort of “inventory tier”, as well, right? I know how *that* idea will go over with the majority of residents, but the analogy is a good one.

My main gripe with the ratings was that you could rate people on only three things — behavior, building, and apperance, and all of these, when considered in such general terms, are very subjective, at best. And scripting, as a vital in-world skill, isn’t even in that list. I suspect that the appearance rating is most strongly affected by how wealthy the resident is. You can spend thousands of L$ for a shape, skin, hair, eyes, and clothing — the best avatar money can buy. That leaves us poor people to just fiddle with what we started out with. Interestingly, the only part of “me” that isn’t original is my hair and skin — and the skin was a freebie, and I think I paid only about L$350 for the hair. Even so, I’ve gotten in-world comments about my appearance that are very positive, including several from people who asked me how much I paid for my shape and skin, they were that convinced I had invested a lot of money into them. I valued rating adds to my behavior and building much more than to my appearance. To me, those are much more important than how you look, especially since one person’s beauty can be another person’s ugly.

Each of the third-party rating systems has some good things and bad things about them. I’ll keep my comments general, though, rather than single any one of them out. They are all as fundamentally flawed as the SL rating system. They can all be abused and I guarantee they *will* be abused. As has been mentioned, someone who has been griefed with unfair negative ratings has little to no recourse, and I really wonder what Linden Lab intends to do about this very real issue. Personal information (and, yes, I consider as “personal” all information which is attached to my avatar even if it doesn’t apply directly to me) will reside in third party systems. I’m not sure I’m happy with that. And, of course, they’re all incompatible with each other. To get the best of all worlds (and endure the worst along with that) you will have to wear multiple hud devices, and I’ve already pointed out the issue of the load on the servers if everyone in SL is wearing one or more of those things — potentially much higher than the current rating system could possibly cause.

I would much rather see a more extensive rating system implemented as part of Second Life — one based upon weighted averages and not the stupid cumulative system we have, now. I would like to see it either free or less expensive than L$25 per rating, which is prohibitive to newbies and nopies, particularly. I recall in my first few months here I *wanted* to rate people because they deserved it, but I didn’t have the cash to do so. I don’t want to see negative ratings. I did at first, and then it became clear to me how badly something like that can be abused, and I reversed my opinion on it. Instead, I’d like to see a rating system based upon a 1-5 scale, where all the numbers are considered “good”. Being a “1″ is average. Being a “5″ is at the top tier. This eliminates the possibility of griefing using the rating system. No, you can’t tell if someone has a rotten personality this way, or can find a way to bungle the rezzing of a standard cube, but at least it’s usable. I’d like to see a comment feature, as well, where residents can post their opinions on other residents, but not anonymously. Again, this would discourage using the rating system for griefing attacks on people. Sadly, I doubt we’ll get any of this. LL has steadfastly maintained a full-blinders approach to implementing their policies. They want the rating system gone and they’re going to kill it — leaving their residents at the mercy of people who are going to abuse the third party rating systems in ways we can only begin to imagine.

On the flip side of the coin, you’re right. At least to a certain extent verified users can be held accountable, but, unfortunately, the implication is that people who aren’t accountable do bad things and people who are don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. Out of the first three griefings I endured as a newbie, here, one was a nopie, one was a basic, and, guess what? One of them was a premie.

@ 363: Crymson, I point my finger at *everyone* who is willing to judge the worth of an individual by his or her perceptions of the qualities of a group to which that individual belongs, and your “extreme measures” give a very strong indication that you think you’re better than I am just because you have a verified account. Get rid of me when things get tough. That appears to be your stance from the words you wrote. The simple fact is that I do more for SL and Linden Lab than the majority of premium users, and that includes pumping about $1500 a year into the system at my current rate, and that will shortly go up dramatically, assuming LL gets some of the problems ironed out so I can actually pursue a business in-world. I know basic users who have never purchased a single L$ with real money. I know premies who never do more than pay their ten bucks a month. Maybe what we need to do is to limit the abilities of people, regardless of their payment records, based upon what they actually contribute to the in-world economy. That would really tick off a lot of lily-white arses, I think.

As for not knowing “jack” about you, think again. I judge people by their words and actions — not by the groups to which they belong, and you’ve said a great deal in this thread, alone. I know much more about you than you might think, and I’ll be perfectly honest with you. It’s not all bad. We’re in essential agreement on most issues except for the one involving non-verified accounts.

Nor did I compare you to a racist. In fact, I was as careful in my wording to avoid that as you were in your wording to distance yourself from intolerance. If my qualifying statements mean nothing than neither do yours, and by implication you would place yourself in the unenviable position of being the thing you deny being. The sad fact is that two groups of residents in Second Life have been singled out for the bigotry and intolerance that various other groups have to deal with IRL — furries and nopies. The fact that our skins aren’t different than yours, the fact that our beliefs aren’t different than yours, the fact that our languages aren’t different than yours … the fact that, behind the keyboard, we are the same as you, doesn’t change the fact that we are still the targets of hatred and intolerance. We, at least those of us dregs of society who are unverified (I can’t speak for furries) are blamed for almost all of the problems that happen from griefing attacks to gridlag. The sadder fact is that many of us are more up-standing citizens of SL than many of the residents who have dared to give out their credit card and bank account information to people they don’t know. Indeed, the trouble-makers among us account for a very tiny percentage. The vast majority of us are here just to have fun — just like you.

Yes, you’re right … in other communities non-paying members are only guests, with limited abilities. This isn’t one of those other communities, though. Some of the best builders and scripters in Second Life are unverified. The fact that personal initiative and skill determines a person’s in-world worth in so many ways, here, makes this a special case — one in which it is imperative to judge people on the basis of their individual worth and not on the basis of what you *think* they do because of your arguments from the general to the specific, particularly when your assumptions regarding the necessary attributes of a class of people is flawed in the first place. The *only* thing that nopies have in common with is the single attribute of not having supplied personally-identifying information over the Internet to Linden Lab or PayPal. In other respects we represent the same cross-section of users as do basics and premies.

If linden would get there head out of the ass. I know its hard cause its a bug in game that keeps our head up your ass. But why don’t Linden Labs just go to RatePoint and offer them a spot on the website, like this blog is set up throught a 3rd party website WordPress.com . It could work. From what I have found about this 5 systems is that only 1 is a RL company with a history behind it. If they would just create something like rate.secondlife.com. Abuse would be able to be controlled, not stopped but more controlled. Also REFUND no need to ask for a refund if Linden would work this out and use the info from the database that is already there. Just give the data to Ratepoint. and I’m sure they can put it together with there system. ITS A WIN WIN. There a rating system protected by the community standards, run by a RL company that has a history in the rating business. And no database problem. And if I don’t want to be a part you don’t have to. Just like it is now. BUT ITS FREE.
I would like to know what the lindens feel about this. Since theres no town meets and no reply to emails. They can contact me in game. Im here from 7am slt - 9pm slt 7 days a week.
I would like to hear what Zee Linden has to say about it. Also I would like to know what Jesse Linden thinks about this idea, he is incharge of the website. Correct. Jesse whats going on with my.secondlife.com.
I know how MikeRP feels about this. And from talking to him in game this morning for over 2 hours. He want to help not hurt secondlife as a community. I still dont like the way it is now, and i will not use this service until Im protected by the community standard set by Linden. I still feel that Im forced to be apart of a 3rd party website just for being a resident of SecondLife. and I don’t think that is fair. So what do you think?

BELIEVE AND IT CAN BE DONE.
Spontaneous Radio

#308 Still waiting since friday morning for MIKERP from rate point.
#316 in game hours. Feel free to contact me in world my hours my office hours in game from 7am SLT - 9pm SLT 7 days a week feel free to get back to me.
Thanks
Spoontaneous Radio