Bring back Ratings!! - A Proposal

[Caeruleiae]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Even without a direct tangible, basics with ratings begs the question "whats this for .. oh right.. premium"

That's the rub. There are more basics than non basics. Even though people like being liked and like having reputation. Most basics will get that exact reaction and then say -it does nothing for me, and that will be the end of that. Them being able to get those points won't matter at all to them, because it will give them nothing at all. They can't give others points either, so the whole system will be literally pointless to the biggest group of people in sl. It shoots itself down. 

I don't consider myself a forumite or whatever, not been here that long , but I think you're overestimating how many people outside the forums will like it and underestimating how many people have basic accounts and will be shunned by the idea. More of us than you and if we get nothing from that kind of system, it will mean nothing. It won't improve involvement if we know one group gets money for participating and we get nothing. We can't even give points in that system. Why would we care about it? 

I do understand incentive programs really well. They work, both positive and negative results, only when the possibilities for effect are even and there isn't an instant divide between one group and others. Though some may sort of game those systems, having more friends, be more outgoing and stuff, others can obtain the same too at their own pace if they want. When you add money or other kind of incentive an attach it to the points, it makes the system skewed from start and then it turns into something different. 

Remove financial incentive, let all give others votes, and then it becomes a social creation that improves involvement. Good idea that way, especially if opt in, not opt out default. People will participate if they want, but it won't hurt them as much if they don't, even in just their minds. If the goal is improve social aspect, that's how it's done. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

Sorry, Coffee. I will always say no to popularity contests. There was good reason LL got rid of the ratings system in the first place.

https://secondlife.fandom.com/wiki/Rating

There will always be someone who abuses the system. I refuse to be a victim again.

[Ceka Cianci]

45 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Who the hell are these cool kids and SL socialites?  Did I miss some memo?  You do know being popular in SL.or the SL forums, for that matter, means nothing?

People.who.are premium have already decided to.some degree, to stay for awhile.  Since this whole idea has nothing to.do with basic accounts, you know, the ones new residents usually have, what exactly is the point?  Yippee!  An extra 100L a month!  Not much of an incentive to even bother.  

The one thing it will do?  Show me who the heck to avoid.  Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.

What I gather since I worked most of the time when I was going to school. The cool kids were the ones that lived for, reputation, being liked and being popular.. At least that's what it was in every movie I seen  about high school..

Today's version is, Like and subscribe and don't forget to click the bell..

hehehehe

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 hours ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

You are completely using the wrong word there... 

negrate
(N) 1. An ungrateful person, behaving as if they were entitled to everything. 2. A white person behaving as if they were black.

(V) 1. To treat someone of the same color with the disrespect of racial discrimination. 2. To disregard a respectable black person because of their skin color.

Might want to look up a word before you use it. 

You should have scrolled down a little bit.

[Silent Mistwalker]

3 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

A good example is if we were to pay people to read books. They would only read the books to receive the money, they won't read books just to enjoy the content. The same goes for SL, they will come for the money and probably won't stay for the content in SL. As you can exchange your Ls for actual real-world money. 

I wish someone would pay me to read. Last year I read over 100 books. 

[Coffee Pancake]

11 minutes ago, Caeruleiae said:

That's the rub. There are more basics than non basics. Even though people like being liked and like having reputation. Most basics will get that exact reaction and then say -it does nothing for me, and that will be the end of that. Them being able to get those points won't matter at all to them, because it will give them nothing at all. They can't give others points either, so the whole system will be literally pointless to the biggest group of people in sl. It shoots itself down. 

I don't consider myself a forumite or whatever, not been here that long , but I think you're overestimating how many people outside the forums will like it and underestimating how many people have basic accounts and will be shunned by the idea. More of us than you and if we get nothing from that kind of system, it will mean nothing. It won't improve involvement if we know one group gets money for participating and we get nothing. We can't even give points in that system. Why would we care about it? 

I do understand incentive programs really well. They work, both positive and negative results, only when the possibilities for effect are even and there isn't an instant divide between one group and others. Though some may sort of game those systems, having more friends, be more outgoing and stuff, others can obtain the same too at their own pace if they want. When you add money or other kind of incentive an attach it to the points, it makes the system skewed from start and then it turns into something different. 

Remove financial incentive, let all give others votes, and then it becomes a social creation that improves involvement. Good idea that way, especially if opt in, not opt out default. People will participate if they want, but it won't hurt them as much if they don't, even in just their minds. If the goal is improve social aspect, that's how it's done. 

A systemic social tool only functions if used systemically. 

Making it opt in nerfs it to the point of being pointless. We don't need a novelty that offers nothing more than a head-pat counter from the marketplace.

The idea is to create an engine that generates recurrent platform wide social activity, and just like daily MMO chores, you don't have to like it to benefit from it, or see it as a beneficial.

When we lost gambling, we didn't lose the games, they eventually came back (and few play them). We lost a core part of the group social scene. Without the manufactured excuse to casually spend time together, buying and playing games that barely functioned, places closed and people left in droves. Even the people who didn't play the games took a loss as friends simply vanished. Personally, about half my friends list drifted away over a few months and never came back, including a lot of the people who made up my early reasons for staying SL at all.

Even if only a fraction of the population go for this and enjoy it, it drags in a lot of others.

 

[Drake1 Nightfire]

26 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You should have scrolled down a little bit.

Using a word that has racist connotations and definitions just because some millennials say it has a interwebz definition that's ok, does not negate the racist definition... 

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Using a word that has racist connotations and definitions just because some millennials say it has a interwebz definition that's ok, does not negate the racist definition... 

negrate = negative rating

I don't give a damn what millennials say. Pulling racism out of the word negative is being racist.

 

[Rowan Amore]

So basically, negrate isn't actually anything but a made up word with a couple uses and one of them being racist. Think "negro/ingrate.  Make sense now?   The word is NEGATE.  Lots of non words in the urban dictionary, just sayin'.

[Dragon Mommy]

I'm wary of any rating or number system even without incentive. 

I understand the need to gameify some of the social experience because it helps push people out of their comfort zones and into new things. Upvote / favorites/ karma/ headpats whatever aren't really a good example of what I want to see in SL. I've been in communities with similar systems and overall I think it was a social net negative. In the past in a different SL it may have lead to a lot of social events and such, but this is SL of 2023. Online behaviour shifts and changes over time, and I don't see this having a net positive effect.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Dragon Mommy
Typo

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Seeing as I'm here anyway . . .

@Coffee Pancake's proposal is carefully considered, well thought-out, and worthy of discussion. And I think it's a good thing she articulated it.

That said, I'd be strongly against it, for many reasons already articulated here. Even without a "down-voting" option, it's still going to create angst and drama, and it doesn't really seem to be doing much to assist those who really need assisting, i.e., new residents.

In general, I'm leery of this kind of "code as social engineering." And I don't really see much benefit in introducing a new activity that is essentially worthless in its own right. It's "busy work," intended to force people to socialize, but I don't see that it adds any value to that socialization. It may "bring us together," but it's not going to create stronger communities.

[Ceka Cianci]

Honestly, the way they are taking things to the web, they'll probably have something somewhere along the way..

They're putting everything else outside the grid..Maybe the whole damn internet  will get a vote on us.. Wouldn't that be special?

[Caeruleiae]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A systemic social tool only functions if used systemically

A systemic social tool can't function at all if it shuns more than half the audience it's meant to bring together socially the second it's created, either. Your plan does that right out the gate. Change it up a bit, and it won't. The financial element changes it, entirely. You're ignoring that because you want it to work in your favor, not because you want a social tool. A social tool, if the premise is to increase social behavior, doesn't need financial involvement at all. It would work the same without that. Otherwise, you're literally talking about an incentive program, that may or may not have social aspects, but still devalues more than half the target audience. Wrong tree to bark up. 

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The idea is to create an engine that generates recurrent platform wide social activity, and just like daily MMO chores, you don't have to like it to benefit from it, or see it as a beneficial

Yes, people will have to benefit from it to see it as beneficial, in this case, because you're involving money.  Get rid of the money, more people might see it as beneficial and a social tool. You can't keep marketing it as a social tool when it's clearly a monetary incentive program, specifically meant to only benefit one target group and no one else. 

I was going to go more into detail about this kind of idea and why it didn't make it off the idea floor for a couple of very well known companies, but it's pretty boring and just repeated what I already said. It doesn't work the way you think it does. You don't really understand incentive tools or why and how they really work, or don't. I hope that doesn't sound like me putting you down, I'm not sure how to say it better without it coming out that way.  I really do understand how these things work. It's a lot of boring information, but I know that as presented, this can't work the way you want it to. Modified version of it could.

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

When we lost gambling, we didn't lose the games, they eventually came back (and few play them). We lost a core part of the group social scene

I see you don't go to those types of places either. The groups of people that like gaming areas and people that play those games, still socialize. You don't socialize in most of the areas you keep marginalizing, do you? All those places people use to get a little extra spending money are much more social than you think. Maybe you're just less social than you used to be and it's not really the rest of sl that is.

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Even if only a fraction of the population go for this and enjoy it, it drags in a lot of others

No, it won't. No one is going to buy premium account for this. It won't bring new people in, at all. It won't encourage anyone to get premium. It will create a bigger divide, no one needs more of that. You already admitted it would and you just don't care that it would. I think it's okay if that is how you feel, it's your opinion, and your idea being shot down by people, that part's not fun.  I think it's a little bit pointless to make a discussion about something if you don't want the discussion about it, but that's probably just me. A reputation type thing could work, for fun, to increase social aspects, just not this way, this is the exact wrong way to do it. 

[Alwin Alcott]

go hang out at the newbie places, or create sort of help-hubs ( with rules to prevent the wellknown rolling restarts parking horror hubs) The message will get around fast when people are happy with the help /attention/social aspect.

What is better payment than another person going home with what they needed?
The rating will be visible in the traffic and growing friendslist...

no personal ranking

no money

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Seeing as I'm here anyway . . .

@Coffee Pancake's proposal is carefully considered, well thought-out, and worthy of discussion. And I think it's a good thing she articulated it.

That said, I'd be strongly against it, for many reasons already articulated here. Even without a "down-voting" option, it's still going to create angst and drama, and it doesn't really seem to be doing much to assist those who really need assisting, i.e., new residents.

In general, I'm leery of this kind of "code as social engineering." And I don't really see much benefit in introducing a new activity that is essentially worthless in its own right. It's "busy work," intended to force people to socialize, but I don't see that it adds any value to that socialization. It may "bring us together," but it's not going to create stronger communities.

That's it then, you won't get invited to the "dumb parties"'!

Good job with a kind and complementary post, even though you disagreed. I was impressed.

[Henri Beauchamp]

@Coffee Pancake

Err... Thanks, but no thanks !

I can already foresee dramas caused by such a ”feature”, and frankly I do think LL did the right thing™ when they removed ratings, back in...  2007, IIRC ?

 

On the other hand, I would be all for an ”achievements” system, to help newbies mastering the viewer and world features and improving their SLing skills. In my view, the rewarding in such a system won't be money, however, but just an achievement score in the profile; perhaps even with check boxes so that everyone can see what achievements have been fulfilled... In the recently (and stupidly) removed ”Interests” tab, for example ? 😜

Edited February 7, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: Add to the proposal, letting a user know who DID "like" / "posrate" them. 
Advantages:

- You can nag your friends (and strangers, too!) until they rate you.

- People can't "lie" and say they rated you if they didn't. 

My suggestion would reduce the drama! (The "can't lie about it" part.)

[Akane Nacht]

On 2/6/2023 at 9:24 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

people will go to absurd lengths for very tiny amounts of L$.

that right there is why I'd rather not. Suddenly got random people pestering us to click like on them? or making it a condition to visit their sim/club/shop? aiyoh...

On 2/6/2023 at 12:39 PM, Orwar said:

If it's that you need L$15 to make it through the month, feel free to hit me up. I'm sure I could be inspired into a charitable mood if you ask very nicely. 

(j/k, i have enough gruel)

[Sparkle Bunny]

Premiums, as a rule, don't care too much about grubbing for L$ because they're already getting stipend and can buy extra whenever they need it (one of many reasons why the Realms are moribund). In addition, many people have multiple premium alts for landowning/Bellisseria purposes, and few are going to run around giving free L$ to randoms when they can give it to themselves. Downrating is obviously undesirable, but without it you have no effective mechanism to stop every group on the grid being spammed by beggars.

If you need a financial incentive for people to gather in one place, bring back camping and sploders, and kick people if they go afk or gesture-spam instead of making small talk.

[Silent Mistwalker]

7 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

 

 

On the other hand, I would be all for an ”achievements” system, to help newbies mastering the viewer and world features and improving their SLing skills. In my view, the rewarding in such a system won't be money, however, but just an achievement score in the profile; perhaps even with check boxes so that everyone can see what achievements have been fulfilled... In the recently (and stupidly) removed ”Interests” tab, for example ? 😜

I could get behind this idea. 🤭

 

oops

Edited February 7, 2023 by Silent Mistwalker

[Garnet Psaltery]

I admit I have no interest in this idea and I scrolled to the end, but from what I read it's only going to appeal to the very desperate or the very sociable.  I could perhaps be in favour of a bonus for being quiet and sticking to the same people, thus being no great burden on grid resources.  Yay!

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Garnet Psaltery said:

but from what I read it's only going to appeal to the very desperate or the very sociable.

We could also use "peer pressure" to get the "unsociable" to be "more sociable" with the trickery.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

We could also use "peer pressure" to get the "unsociable" to be "more sociable" with the trickery.

Except that "unsociable people" don't give a tinker's curse about "peer pressure"...

Epic Fail! No free Lion-Kibble for YOU!

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Sparkle Bunny said:

If you need a financial incentive for people to gather in one place, bring back camping and sploders, and kick people if they go afk or gesture-spam instead of making small talk.

Would this work to bring back more jobs and get rid of bots?  

@Coffee Pancake, you had written on the forum that you hang with the devs.  We don't need the devs to create this idiotic status symbol thing that generates 100 linden per month, not to mention something which looks snobby and most of us could care less.  We need the devs to make the lighting better - they could start by getting rid of bump and shiny together...things like that.  

Edited February 7, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Coffee Pancake]

There is a lot of intentionally missing the point here.

Creating social activity though mechanics works and are demonstrated to work. We even had several of the very early examples in SL. Things are far more refined now and its understood systems needs to be engineered with abuse and exploitation in mind.

If we want SL to grow, then it's going to need such systems to help that happen. They work even if you don't like them. They work even if you opt not to participate.

These systems are a small price to pay and far better than the alternatives.

SL has been spinning it's wheels for almost 20 years and it has failed to show sustainable growth. We get people in the door just fine, but we can't keep them engaged. Retention is a systemic problem that can only be addressed with systemic solutions.