Rate other Users

Maybe this has been mentioned already, but there should be a system that allows us to leave positive comments about other players and GMs so everyone can see you had a positive experience with them. Even if it's only clicking a "like" button or star button next to their name so people can rack up ratings from others. My suggestion has nothing to do with making this community exclusive but it does have to do with rewarding players and GMs alike for being courteous, friendly, punctual and/or civil. Just like websites where you purchase things, you're likely to buy from a user with a 99% rating rather than one with a 30% rating. It would be nice to see who has gained a good reputation before committing to long term campaigns.

I am 1000% for this suggestion and I think it could improve this sites usage by DM's as they will have more confidence in players.

I have seen some rather nasty social dynamics develop on gaming forums with reputation systems. I think that a system for reviewing the performances of GMs and players in particular campaigns, by people who had actually played in those campaign, would be one thing. But a system that allowed readers on this forum to add or subtract "reputation" to or from posters for their posts, without any knowledge of their GMing or character play, would be useless at best.

I dunno about a ratings system..... But a sort of feedback a la Ebay on the Players page would solve both issues without implementing a ratings hierarchy per say.

I think if anything is done, it would be better to have a "recommendations" section like the one on linkedin.com - people can submit a recommendation to appear on someone's profile (a short text piece explaining why they would recommend them), and the profile owner can choose which ones (if any) to display. This would only show positive feedback (someone on a board can easily create a new profile if their previous one has negative feedback anyway), and it would explain a bit more about the player rather than "three other people give this guy a thumbs up". It would also require a little more effort for someone to give a recommendation, so it would be more meaningful to have them. Just clicking on a star or a plus to give someone a boost devalues the true spirit of a recommendation anyway. It might also be nice if there is a tick box stating whether it's a player ranking another player, a gm ranking a player, or a player ranking a gm. One player should be able to give feedback on someone more than once, as long as it's in a different "perspective" - but of course, someone only showing 3 recommendations all given by one person on their profile would rightly be viewed with suspicion from fellow players.

I agree with Agemegos that the system should be restricted to people you are actually with in game screens. I also agree with the other two posts that a positive feedback section would be nice. I would think then, you would have to give each user the power to remove feedback from their profile when, inevitably, some troll leaves "positive feedback" only to find they actually left negative feedback. I also don't think racking up "stars," "likes," or a rating percentage is a bad thing. Most people don't have the attention span or time to write nice comments for each other. And clicking a symbol next to someone's name (in game of course) is fast and easy. Maybe we can have both, reccomendation comments AND recommendation symbols. I won't buy from an eBay user without at least a 95% rating, I won't watch a full YouTube video if it has more red bar (dislikes) than green bar (likes), I won't buy a product from Amazon with less than 4 stars (as rated by at least 50 buyers), and I don't want to commit to a game on Roll20 ( as GM or player) with people who aren't fun to play with. ESPECIALLY when I missed out on committing to another game entirely. I've played in 1 game and GMed 2 games thus far and haven't had a bad experience. This is all about rewarding each other.

The problem with bad reviews or downranking, is a player who happens to play with one or two highly incompatible groups in his first games will get dinged, and will struggle to find another game. If you want to be elitist about your players, then only take people with positive recommendations. Also the point of having a comment system is exactly because it is effort to write. A written recommendation trumps any amount of mindless clicks on a "like". And if you're roleplaying with people who can't even take the time to write a short paragraph when they likely spent 1 or 2 hours creating their character, then maybe you need to find better people to roleplay with too! Another option if you have written reviews, is that you can display reviews that people wrote (and had successfully published on profiles) as well, "see who this player recommends"... I'd rather play with someone who is willing to write recommendations for other players (obviously someone willing to make a little effort) than someone who has 99 "likes" with no other info. If you offer both systems, "like" and "written recommendation", then you're encouraging people to be lazy and just "like" other players...

I agree with Pete 100% as I have stated in another post about this. Number rating systems are easy to abuse and had to balance because it does not give any real info as to why the person has a low rank. Is he a jerk? Was there a misunderstanding about a game time so he missed it? Was someone from a game just trolling (It IS the internet)? You have no real idea there is all of a sudden just a low rank attached to that player making it hard to get into other games. I would be all for having a place where a written recommendation can be posted, I would also suggest that these stay positive only. I would also be ok with giving the GM the ability to "warn" a player for something such as not showing for a game or bad behavior but I think this should have to be accompanied by a written explanation of the warning and the player should be given a chance to state his case as to why he shouldn't be warned before it shows up on his profile. I would strongly disagree with other players being able to warn a player though. Overall I think a numbered ranking system is a bad idea. I don't want to be known as "A player with ranking of at least #" or have to deal with players having to explain why there ranking is a few points lower than normal due to some misunderstanding. I would be totally for being able to apply for a game and be able to put a link to my recommendations by other players and GM's though.

Well I'm glad everyone can agree on one thing: something more than a username should give the rest of the community more info about a user. Let's hope the Roll20 team tries something out.

Well, after 2 campaigns where the GM "silently" quit (players kept turning up for some weeks, but no GM), I'm starting to get frustrated enough that I could almost agree that being able to put a "ding" on someone's reputation is desirable! But my more rational head still says it's a better idea to let people build their reputation up, rather than letting people destroy it in a misunderstanding. I still support what I wrote above about written recommendations being the best way forward. How is the progress on this? I know the devs mentioned it recently, but there didn't seem to be any concrete commitment either way on player/GM reputation... -- Pete.