Rating/Reviewing System

I understand that in years past people have floated the idea of a ratings system, and that it's been turned down over concerns of "ethical implementation". It is necessary to consider the ethical concerns of not implementing a review system. Many users on the site can report countless horror stories of unwanted sexual advances, deliberate trolls with no intention of participating in the hobby, weird perverts subjecting people to bizarre fetishes out of nowhere, prank games, long applications for games that were never going to exist. The long list of awful situations that are enough to turn new, and experienced players alike away from the hobby occur daily on the site as it stands now with the wild west system currently implemented.   The problem is far worse than one might initially think as well. Good game masters, and players find each other, play together until some sort of issue causes a split, sometimes for years being removed from the looking for group section of the site indefinitely. People who are performing these undesirable behaviors, sometimes making multiple listings for many different games, or are joining tons of games are constantly in this section. To present a hypothetical, lets say someone sets out to deliberately mess with as many people as possible. He wants to mess with as many people as possible. He spends an hour creating five listings for five different games, setting them all within a few minutes of each other. He accepts seven people over a week for each of these games, then invites them all to his off site communication.  From there, he has them get on webcam, insults them, hits on them, whatever fun he wants to have at their expense. All 35 of the users file a report against this man, but as Roll20 doesn't deal with off site communications, nothing occurs. The use of discord, and other offsite communications is common, and doesn't bat an eye to anyone. Roll20 has ~300 lfg postings this week. I understand that implementing a rating system would take some work, and you figure you have plenty of people that can be scared off the hobby forever without causing you any financial loss. All that has to happen is a critical mass of trolls, and perverts are present, and they're able to scare off enough people to counteract new people joining. I'm not aware of the exact data for the site, but it can't be more than a few thousand new players in a week at most. If the system remains as is, 1 determined creep can spend his week turning away enough players to destroy the website, or about 50 different ones spending just 1 hour. Nobody here thinks less than 50 people on the planet are jerks who mess with people for fun. A user review system, even if implemented with no numerical value, and just has people saying things like "Hey we filled out a long application, were asked to write a several pages backstory, and the game opened with the gm narrating in detail non consensual relations with a clown." a actual thing I've seen. Could solve this problem of people who have literally never run, or played game, and are just here to cause problems. That guy, and everyone else I've had these sorts of experiences with over the past seven years under the current system are able to continue doing this sort of stuff.  I understand, and sympathize with the staffs fears of someone being upset, and complaining to staff that someone wrote "Didn't allow me to play Coffee-Lock 1 Star!". However the completely unregulated, no feedback system we have now is allowing people to do some really messed up stuff to as many people as they want, for as long as they want. The people crying sour grapes will average out, that's nowhere near as big of a problem as the guys telling everyone to get on web cam screenshotting it, then doing photoshopping unmentionable things into the image, and trying to blackmail people by threatening to post them around. That is also another true story about someone who as of 12/12/22 has three LFG listings up right now. 

as a dm on this site with 4 current running games, I would readily agree with a rating system. the number of games I've seen or had die, due to players who mass apply to games only to never show up is staggering, that's not counting the number of people I've had to eject from games because they, verbally abuse and bully other players, stalk other players, or sexually harras other players, and as the current means I have to "interview" new players is a crude comment section I'm left with little other option than to hope the people I let into my games are good people.  The way the system is set up now roll 20 encourages players to troll, no show, or act like a degenerate. There is no real punishment for wrong-doing  or incentive to be a decent person. a good safeguard I would recommend is that you be required to have been in the same game as the individual you're trying to review, that should at least mitigate review bomb trolling. 

Hey ahhh, just a freebee player here but I think this is a good idea. it would also allow players who don't have money to help improve the quality of experiences on r20 by carefully rating people. I have been in many parties, I have seen dms so unbearable they should probably have a radioactive sign on their profile, dms that will drop you without even a pm to let you know that your being kicked much less why. I have also seen amazing dms that deserve some sort of reward. I have seen many types of players too, from some that mute me when I lecture them for barely showing up in time to avoid have the game canceled for everyone, to some who routinely threaten to, or even do, murder others characters. I have been fortunate in that I rarely had such experiences or any worse, but if your going to be a douche, at least warn people. If they don't do that, they deserve a bad rating. I think that is fair personally.

That's just it. Every person who did that the second they got done causing trouble in your game, went right to another game, and started causing trouble in it, and they've been doing that constantly with nobody having any way of stopping them. Roll20 doesn't have the will to try, and stop every problem player, or game master. Even if they did have the resources to create a whole troll hunting team, it'd be more efficient, effective, and timely to just have the people that played the game give their feedback.  If someone is going around leaving negative reviews on every game they enter, trolling everyone they meet, that's exactly the person we need the system for. A guy who is going around leaving negative reviews on everyone he interacts with, is going to be getting them in turn. If anyone's worried about people trolling by review bombing games they join, or people who join their games, you'd acknowledging that the site has people setting out to cause problems with everyone involved.  It's going from a system where one guy can cause problems for as many people as he wants, for as long as he wants. To a troublemaker having to make a new account, play a few games getting good reviews normally, then he gets to troll a few people, and then has to make a brand new account, and make it look legit. It's creating a trail for staff to investigate "Oh this guy made 40 new accounts, and everyone left terrible reviews on his very first game ever." It's at least something. Right now they just mess with people until they get bored. 

Honestly even with the limited amount of experience with TTRPGs, this sounds like a good idea. I agree though that a user review rather than numerical system would be better in this situation. It’s so easy to go click 1 start on 5 games but takes a bit more effort if you have to write down at least 3 words for a review (honestly “good DM, players show up on time” is enough of a good review to get me interested in a group - yeah, you can see where my groups struggle…). Also a good limitation of review bombing would be a requirement to be in the game you’re reviewing and that would probably resolve a lot of the issue with people messing with the review system. While 10 people going through a month long game is absolutely believable, I somehow doubt a game which run one session/been online for 3 days hosted a 100 players, which would also be a good indicator of how genuine the reviews are. Yeah, there will be people gaming the system but this would at least be a start.

I believe that a simple system of "Did the Player/GM show up to the game?" would be enough, maybe with a requirement for GMs to set the time of their games properly and for players to confirm previously (24h before the game?) to prevent trolling. The way that I see it, the real and overwhelming problem is people just ghosting games. A "leaver percentage" (that would include people with no intention of partaking in the hobby even if they showed up) would solve most of those issues and make finding a stable group far easier, with the scarce remaining problematic players easily being dealt with by the groups themselves.

Fuck any and all sorts of regulation, Fuck taxes. Leave it. Leave if you want, stay if you want.   Don't Do nothing on account of an asshole other than yourself. Ya feel me man?

A ratings system has been shot down numerous times by the Roll20 devs.  They explained there isn't a way they can implement such a system that would not be prone to abuse.  If you hope to have the idea seriously considered, you would have to explain how your proposed system would work and couldn't be gamed by users. In the mean time, a few possible workarounds: If you are a DM, meet individually with prospective players before you invite them to a game.  Cold recruiting will have the highest chance of getting trollish players. If you are a player applying to a game, see if the DM has an option to ask questions about the game before you sign up to play.  If so, ask a question or two.  If the DM does not offer you the opportunity to ask questions or doesn't answer your questions, they may not be serious or prepared enough to run their game. Consider paid games.  If you are a player looking for a serious game, paid games will be more likely to be serious as everyone has something to risk.  Players willing to pay to be in a game are unlikely to be trolls (especially combined with #1.) Best of luck. -Adam

Adam, none of those things are a solution. Nothing is stopping someone from listing a prank as a paid game. People even have a financial incentive to mess with people on paid game listings to set their competitors back. From my experience, the longer the recruitment process, the more likely it's just a way to mess with people. Trolls want to eat up as much of your time as possible using as little of theirs, so they want to slap a big long application on their listing. 

I really believe that there should be a total star systems with a five question review no comments with a rating on each of the 5 questions. 1) Does this player show up to games on time and regularly? (1to 5 stars) 2) Does this player respectable player with others? (1 to 5 stars) 3) Does this player stay in games or gives notice to others before leaving? (1 to 5 stars) 4) Would you recommend this player as a Good Guide Master(GM/DM)? (1to 5 stars) 5) Would you recommend this player around other players and games? (1 to 5 Stars) Just like a rating on the profile itself, however I would highly recommend only paid accounts to be allowed to leave feedback because that would prevent others from making many dummy accounts to falsify there free profile. Ik not what everyone wants to hear but you have to register an account when you have paid account and not on free so it would ne easier to limit bad people accounts. The chosen questions are less targeted and more open to feel less invasive but gives you a good idea on a player or GM skills and type of person your bringing into the game. It also covers more then a one percentage on whole account. Someone might be a great player but horrible DM. So the. Stars go hand and hand but like have there own benefits.

I'm in the camp of this is a bad idea that will be abused and I'm behind the staff of Roll20 shooting a rating system down. I deal with problem players all the time as is the nature of running games online. I have not once had a player be amicable when I have had to kick them from a game, either because they were causing issues or there was simply a conflict in style between myself as the GM and them as the player that couldn't work out. Having these players be able to leave a poor review/rating because they're angry they were asked to leave a game would hurt my chances to find good players who don't do this sort of thing. What Adam suggested is a bigger solution than they're given credit for. Talking one on one with potential players before a game can go a long way in terms of mitigating some of these issues. There are reasons that other LFG pages and websites don't implement these types of rating systems.

Gabe said: From my experience, the longer the recruitment process, the more likely it's just a way to mess with people. Trolls want to eat up as much of your time as possible using as little of theirs, so they want to slap a big long application on their listing.  I politely disagree though I think you have different definition of "long application process". I have had multi-step application process for years, including but not limited to free application from the applicant, written questions from me, text chat to tie up any remaining questions and finally a voice chat to check equipment and applicant's ability to express themselves coherently. All this is due to my previous experience of first-come-first-serve -basis being a sure recipe for disaster, any proper DM has to screen players before taking them into the game. In same vein, having player rating system would not help me much because most new players I accept are complete newbies with little or no experience (hence with no rating if it would be developed). Additionally, I am not certain that other people's perception of what is a good or bad player would align with what I think of the issue. So mere star rating would be useless and worded rating would too leave too many questions unanswered to reject applicant out of hand.

"the game opened with the gm narrating in detail non consensual relations with a clown" I have had this exact thing happen to me here, about 6 years ago. That being said, Neverwinternights online site Neverwinter connections was subject to actual rampant abuse with sockpuppets trolling games to destroy other GMs Reputations, then catching players from those people for their own sever.  Multiple accounts voting up games that never actually ran, as in 6 games 3 days a week, all filled up with (Regular) players that did not exist, week to week, in an effort to promote the GM persona, which then claimed "Have successfully run 20 games this month! look at my ratings!" The only way to get this to work in any sort of fashion is to have actual ID in the form of verification by Driver's license or similar, one account per player. I also get it that as a GM here for 8 years, 4000+ hours of games, some players love me, and my style, some players see me as a pushy jerk willing to fire a narcissist at the drop of an insult.  Too many games here have died from having 4 female players and one male player joins, and starts trying to get some outside the game action, and when I call them on it, I get called a cock-blocker, then fire them, but the female players depart. dead game. The site has how many player accounts now? Take a few months and vet the hell out of everyone, then set up your rating system. I will not say I am all for it, but I know for sure there is a very small amount of trolls, maybe 1 or 2 % of players on roll20 that are a problem, for me, in maybe 15% of the games I have run. Far and away the majority of players here are good, and I try my best to vet everyone, pregame with the tool that rhymes with Ripcord, vi voice chat.   You do get the people that ghost with no notice.   I am not suggesting that roll20 become a pay to play site, but that seems to cut down a lot of the BS from potential players.  Every paid game I played in or ran, people were on spot, serious, ready to go.