Bring back Ratings!! - A Proposal

[Coffee Pancake]

8 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Instead of giving the monies to those who already have it, why not give it to the newer people

Because there is no limit on how many basic accounts someone can roll, or how they can automate that account.

Genuinely free money should be considered an exploitable vulnerability and must be avoided at all costs.

Basic accounts are a valuable necessity, but they also represent a significant risk that must be handled with extreme care.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

29 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

What is LL's incentive to lose money on Linden Homes ?

Why does you supermarket have cheap milk ?

If you buy one and get one free, are you really ?

I'd give you a rating just to get a raise out of you ❤️

For Linden Lab, SL is a zero sum game, and they will never be the losers.

Every penny that comes from playing the realms games, every sqm of linden land that isn't paid for by a resident, and so on .. we all bare the cost of that.

So, there is no incentive.. Why would you think LL would do this? They got rid of the rating system. I dont see them putting it back AND giving away more money to premiums for no reason other than you think it would be cool.

[Arielle Popstar]

16 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Because there is no limit on how many basic accounts someone can roll, or how they can automate that account.

Genuinely free money should be considered an exploitable vulnerability and must be avoided at all costs.

Basic accounts are a valuable necessity, but they also represent a significant risk that must be handled with extreme care.

Other companies seem to be able to figure out how to limit accounts and the Lab supposedly limits them so maybe they just need to start enforcing it? A loss leader is not really free money but just a tried and true methodology for hooking someone into a long term addiction of needing more whereby eventually the ones hooked will buy plenty more to compensate for the ones initially given out for free.

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Arielle Popstar

[Rowan Amore]

39 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Whichever though i was responding more to your first reference which was a more ambiguous make everyone log in at some specific spot and from which I imagined something along the lines of a properly managed social area where people are diverted to in case of login or tp issues.

Those types of places are probably even worse.  People (and not very nice people at that) have always hung out at most every Social area since I've been in SL.  It's the last place anyone I know would choose to engage with anyone.  The concept is great but the reality?  Not so much.  Last time I went, about a year ago, nothing had changed.  Still overrun with idjits, spammers, gesturbators and that giant flexi peen.  🍆   

Still chuckling at the "properly managed" part, though.  😂

[Ayashe Ninetails]

46 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Yeah, just sitting at my plot just doin nothing but waiting for that call to go to the upvote party.. Not.

Bolding for emphasis. I think one of SL's greatest strengths is its sandbox nature and the ability for us to do just about *anything* we can imagine (or script, at least!). Parties aren't going to appeal to everyone. We'd still be left with a large portion of the population who's more interested in finding people to do social gaming, fishing, shopping, roleplay/combat, building, skydiving, horseback riding, surfing and beach lounging, photography, sailing, diving, flying, poetry readings, language lessons, ballroom dancing, book club chats, and more with. A rating system does little to promote actual social activity for people wanting activities that have nothing to do with clubbing or partying.

On that, the Destination Guide is helpful, but it still lacks features - when's the next event? How many are signed up? Etc. If we can improve on that, I think we'd be well on our way.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Those types of places are probably even worse.  People (and not very nice people at that) have always hung out at most every Social area since I've been in SL.  It's the last place anyone I know would choose to engage with anyone.  The concept is great but the reality?  Not so much.  Last time I went, about a year ago, nothing had changed.  Still overrun with idjits, spammers, gesturbators and that giant flexi peen.  🍆   

Still chuckling at the "properly managed" part, though.  😂

They do such a wonderful job of it for the forums, you'd think they could take the experience and do it inworld.😀

[Coffee Pancake]

18 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Other companies seem to be able to figure out how to limit accounts and the Lab supposedly limits them so maybe they just need to start enforcing it?

They normal way to limit access is to put up a pay wall of some kind, anti cheat systems, specific clients ... 

This isn't a case that LL have a lever to solve the problem and they are refusing to use it, it's that such a level can't be constructed without other concessions that would radically upend how everyone connects.

[Sammy Huntsman]

I mean if we have ratings. Does it not turn into a popularity contest? I feel like this will create bullying, especially if someone has such a low rating. That being said, Gaming the system would not retain users in the way you are thinking. It will just create people coming online, doing their daily collection activities, and then they will log off. Especially if you implement monies, they can take that money and transfer it to their RL accounts. You will get a bunch of people forced to be social, and for some of us, we get awkward. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

47 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Because there is no limit on how many basic accounts someone can roll, or how they can automate that account.

Genuinely free money should be considered an exploitable vulnerability and must be avoided at all costs.

Basic accounts are a valuable necessity, but they also represent a significant risk that must be handled with extreme care.

The basic problem is that the only value this plan offers is financial value in Lindens, which is both:

1) A magnet for elaborate scheming

AND

2) Easily replaced/bypassed by real-world money. Drop a dollar and you've gotten the same value as two weeks of interaction.

If you want to encourage interaction you should give it some sort of value other than Lindens, and which can't be obtained in other ways. A (dysfunctional) example would be what "traffic" is meant to represent. (We're obviously assuming that just hanging out with other people for fun isn't of value or there'd be no reason for this plan.)

[Dorientje Woller]

No thanks, we don't need to put people back into boxes/squares based on a rating system. And we have already a basic rating system: either you're on the block/mute list or not.

[Rowan Amore]

Maybe the rankings can be published on a website for the entire internet to see!  Wouldn't that be fun?  🤔😁😂

[Coffee Pancake]

32 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean if we have ratings. Does it not turn into a popularity contest? I feel like this will create bullying, especially if someone has such a low rating.

I'm going to have a low rating, under no illusion there.

How does the bullying you're worried about manifest - what does that actually have the potential to look like (considering there is deliberately  no LSL call to get the points score as part of the proposal)

"Sorry, we only let people with 400 or more points in this club, please leave" - That says more about that venue than it does the person with 324 points, sounds more like dodging a bullet to be honest.

"I only date people over 9000" - OMG THANK YOU, Byeeeee !!

"Haha look at that sad person with only 7 points" ... 

 

Maybe it's just me, but having a mechanic that makes jerks out themselves right in front of you is a huge social positive.

 

32 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Especially if you implement monies, they can take that money and transfer it to their RL accounts.

The premium requirement pretty much makes that pointless .. no one is spinning up a 300L account to grind a rating score for an extra 10% and logging off so they can cash it out and .. still be worse off ?

 

32 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

You will get a bunch of people forced to be social, and for some of us, we get awkward. 

You don't have to participate to benefit. 

If you have a friend who does enjoy it, and this becomes part of their fun routine, then it helps keep them involved, helps them stay on the platform, helps keep your friendship alive.

It's not a magic bullet on its own, it's a one tiny thing in a long list of tiny things that can make up a person reasons to keep participating.

 

This is how we solve retention. Not with the ONE BIG THING. But with a slew of little things that alone seem silly or contrived. 

Not every feature in SL has to appeal to every resident.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Maybe the rankings can be published on a website for the entire internet to see!  Wouldn't that be fun?  🤔😁😂

Dang, Rowan.  You went there.  😄😄😄😄😄

[Caeruleiae]

7 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This is how we solve retention.

No, it's not.

Why don't you actually ask new people, people who are more at risk of not coming back, people who are not premium, and people this idea would shut out? They'll give you much better ideas of things they would like to see and ways to keep them here than people who have been here since dirt was invented. Of course I value the ideas and opinions from people who have been here since sl dirt was invented, because they have helped me a lot. But you seem to devalue ideas of anyone who hasn't and I don't think you see that. 

If you want to know how to improve socialization and retention, ask the people it affects more directly, or people that affect it more directly in some cases. While some people who have been here for a very long time may come and go, they are way less likely to up and leave as quickly as someone less attached. Newer people are more likely to be less attached. Give them reasons to stay, not reasons to say- those people don't want me, they think they're better than I am because they have premium. That's just stupid. I didn't want to put it so bluntly, because I value people's ideas and opinions a lot, even if I don't agree, but it's just flat stupid. 

Your idea shuns the less attached, it does not give them any kind of incentive, big or little, to make them want an attachment. It does the opposite. It negatively impacts retention.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

"Sorry, we only let people with 400 or more points in this club, please leave" - That says more about that venue than it does the person with 324 points, sounds more like dodging a bullet to be honest.

"I only date people over 9000" - OMG THANK YOU, Byeeeee !!

"Haha look at that sad person with only 7 points" ... 

You knooooow this would happen. And real talk - this would make SL completely unplayable for me. I'd drop my land and leave in a heartbeat.

Not because of having no/low ratings, but because of not wanting to be associated with a platform that promotes behavior like this.

You played WoW right - I'm sure you know all about the inspect gear "lulz get out of our raid scrub!" thing. Yeah...this is why I moved to GW2.

[Sammy Huntsman]

3 minutes ago, Caeruleiae said:

No, it's not.

Why don't you actually ask new people, people who are more at risk of not coming back, people who are not premium, and people this idea would shut out? They'll give you much better ideas of things they would like to see and ways to keep them here than people who have been here since dirt was invented. Of course I value the ideas and opinions from people who have been here since sl dirt was invented, because they have helped me a lot. But you seem to devalue ideas of anyone who hasn't and I don't think you see that. 

If you want to know how to improve socialization and retention, ask the people it affects more directly, or people that affect it more directly in some cases. While some people who have been here for a very long time may come and go, they are way less likely to up and leave as quickly as someone less attached. Newer people are more likely to be less attached. Give them reasons to stay, not reasons to say- those people don't want me, they think they're better than I am because they have premium. That's just stupid. I didn't want to put it so bluntly, because I value people's ideas and opinions a lot, even if I don't agree, but it's just flat stupid. 

Your idea shuns the less attached, it does not give them any kind of incentive, big or little, to make them want an attachment. It does the opposite. It negatively impacts retention.

 

I like how you put that, the best way to retain people. Is to take surveys and directly asking what people want out of this platform. Not buy putting something new and shiny, that looks like a whole lot of people do not want. I mean Bethesda with ESO and FO76 only got the retention they got, because they listened to the player base. Which in turn got them where they are today.

[Coffee Pancake]

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

 

What are you trying to prove with this? 

[Marigold Devin]

On 2/6/2023 at 1:24 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

Another thread reminded me of ratings we used to have in the profile.

For those unaware, it was a simple system to give each other pretend points that directly affected how much free money (stipend) everyone got each week. The intent was a crude reputation system. Obviously we gamed the fire out of ratings by having parties where the goal was just to help people & alts max out the quota. LL finally wised up and took away ratings.

 

But what we lost wasn't just a way to game the system and get a few more L$ every week, it was an incentive to throw parties that invariably involved a lot of profile reading, chatting and making friends. All the good things we frequently lament SL not having anymore.

I met people at ratings parties, they were dumb fun, and the tiny amount of free weekly L$ on offer was enough to create a lot of activity.

Every party needs an excuse, this gave us one.

 

Proposal

• Bring back ratings as a premium members perk.
• Premium is required to give ratings.
• Base stipend as it is now remains unchanged.
• Ratings go from 0 to 100 and are reset to 0 on the first of every month for everyone.
• Profile shows this months rating score, and your all time running total.
• People may only issue 1 rating point per minute. They may not vote for themselves or the same person more than once per day.
• On stipend day you get an additional "bonus" that your rating score% of 10% of your normal stipend.

(so on stipend day. if you normally get L$300 a week, and have 50 rating points, you get 50% of L$30, which is L$15 as your "bonus")

 

 

• Basics can still receive ratings with no finical gain (100% of 0 is still 0), perhaps some other free perk ???
• People love dumb internet points, plenty of us will do it just to make sure our numbers are bigger !!
• An extra L$30 a week isn't a huge amount, but as we have learnt, people will go to absurd lengths for very tiny amounts of L$.
• The amount isn't so large as to punish people who don't care for this kind of thing.
• Oh No people will game it, how terrible .. !! *wink*
• It very much favors newer residents who have more time and patience for BS, and arguably they have the most to gain from the side effects beyond the extra L$.
• The limits acts as a huge throttle and makes botting pointless (it wouldn't be economical). If someone comes up with a creative way to work around, then caps that don't impact humans can be introduced (such as a max number of ratings a premium account can issue in a certain period).

 

• Any user whatever account level can opt not to receive ratings.

 

 

The big gain is the uptick in engagement, people will have dumb parties, some of those parties will be fun. The extra L$ ends up in the economy. Gives newbies who got premium something to do. Answers the age old question, how do I meet people, something else to do at regular clubs, a nice way of showing someone appreciation, bragging rights, shame points ... 

I totally get that plenty here will have no use for such nonsense. All I can say, it was actually fun back in the day, most people I knew kept going to the parties even though they didn't need or care about the points themselves. It's no less nonsensical than a belli trash service.

 

JIRA FEATURE REQUEST - https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-233330

If they have an option to hang my avatar on a gibbet and have it's virtual eyes pecked out by vultures I'd rather do that.

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Marigold Devin

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Marigold Devin said:

If they have an option to hang my avatar on a gibbet and have it's virtual eyes pecked out by vultures I'd rather do that.

 

careful what you wish for .. because what you just described, that's called advertising in the viewer.

Sansar are going all in on that and people will pay attention, not to how popular or successful it is, because it wont be, but for how they attempt to pull it off.

I think we can all agree we don't want ads.

[Sammy Huntsman]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

careful what you wish for .. because what you just described, that's called advertising in the viewer.

Sansar are going all in on that and people will pay attention, not to how popular or successful it is, because it wont be, but for how they attempt to pull it off.

I think we can all agree we don't want ads.

Yes and we also don't want SL to be turned into a platform, where most of the userbase if your proposal comes through. Are just coming on to do these little activities and then GTFO and transfer their LInden dollars into actual dollars. We keep on telling you, that a good way to keep the playerbase around, is to ask the playerbase what they want. 

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Sammy Huntsman said:

Yes and we also don't want SL to be turned into a platform, where most of the userbase if your proposal comes through. Are just coming on to do these little activities and then GTFO and transfer their LInden dollars into actual dollars. We keep on telling you, that a good way to keep the playerbase around, is to ask the playerbase what they want. 

This argument is entirely disingenuous. Please just do the math on how many Linden $ > USD you think people will be able to gain by participating in this.

[Kathlen Onyx]

4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Why are MMO's king of the hill. Why do lots of games work on a subscription or season basis.

They present a broad world, limited episodic story, and a literal mountain of busy work for trivial & cosmetic reward.Mission tables, daily activities, reputation grinds, repeatable content with varying difficulty, collection activities and a staggering number of time sinks that only exist to eat literal weeks of your life.

They are all objectively bad and manipulative from the perspective of players. 

BUTT ... 

They create opportunity for socialization, that has value all on it's own but needs a spark to get going. There has to be a shared excuse. A little nudge.

Lets go do this <menial poorly disguised contrivance> together. 

How many times have a heard "Second Life is NOT a game", Yet this is exactly what this proposal turns Second Life into.

Here's an example of how forced socialization does not work.  BeYou is a Role player farming, cooking and crafting HUD.  One of the metrics is to keep you social meter full. You can do that various way but the cheapest and*free* way is to interact with other avatars who are also wearing the HUD.  90% of the players rather spend $L to fill their social meter rather than have to socialize with other avatars.  So much so that the developer had to make the non-socialization features less attractive and a lot of people quit.

You can force people to socialize that won't or can't. They just won't participate. 

[Kathlen Onyx]

12 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I think we can all agree we don't want ads.

I think we can all agree that we don't want what you are proposing. I haven't read one post in 7 pages that supports your proposal though I didn't read the last two pages.  

[EliseAnne85]

7 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This argument is entirely disingenuous. Please just do the math on how many Linden $ > USD you think people will be able to gain by participating in this.

If that $5.99 Plus thingie you put up is real with a 150 stipend and then we do this reputation thingie, I'd say the math adds up to something for 7-year-olds because that would be an awful lot of work for about an extra 10 linden a week.  You have to be kidding, Coffee.

You said PBR was our only hope of saving SL.  To have PBR, about a third of SL's current userbase may have to upgrade to a gaming computer and buy all new SL content which could cost a lot of money.

$5.99 Plus monthly subscription with a possibility of earning an extra 10 linden a week to put out all that money to upgrade to entirely new computer equipment and content for SL because of PBR, makes me think SL is doomed now.  LL needs to do the math.  People don't care about 512 plots nor 150 stipends and an extra 10 linden a week.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhh!