The issue of bad campsites, i.e. non paying ones, but also of sharing good spots has been in the air for a long while now. I did get some hints from fellow readers and group members, and I guess it's time now to build something.
One must be careful when identifying the objectives in such a project, to avoid any possible misuse. The point here is that I don't want to create a system which campsite owners could use to attack competitors by doing faked negative reports.
Another issue is the very high rate of change on the camping situation. Despite some campsite remain open for weeks, some are created, changed, and closed daily, if not hourly. A directory would then never be accurate. Moreover, re-visiting all campsites to ensure they're still as described would be an enormous task.
My idea is then to publish reports of camping sessions, not just campsites, and to give positive feed-backs only, not negative. The principle would be that campers report (to me, to a special avatar, via an object, ... ?) the place they did camp in, and the amount they made if they are happy with a place.
All the reports would then be compiled and made available to "Free Money from JohnLight" group members in a notecard that could be obtained either via my inventory or a distributor in my shop to be.
The good point in this system is that no one could use it to attacks a competitor campsite. I won't be possible either to publish wrong positive reports, because such fake reports would always come from a single reporter and won't get lot of credibility because no one would confirm them by additional reports.
On the other hand, good sites would get confirmed quickly by other people, so they would increase their credibility. If I can build an automated and dynamic system, this could be as accurate as the reports getting in.
Any comment is welcome.
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2 comments:
Sadly just about any system can be "gamed" by false reports. False positives can be just as damaging as false negatives and any fool can put in a dozen or so reports with alternate AVs!
That being said, there is definitely a need to rate camping sites if only to eliminate the outright swindles!
For one solution, take a look at http://corp.helium.com/cms/whatishelium
which is a scheme to defeat just about any such "gaming".
Possibly a second life camping thread there?
Hi Judy,
as you correctly mentioned, any system can be bypassed or misused, it is only question of the means the misuser will be ready to use and put in place.
As I don't intend to put in place a professional rating agency, I don't want to go for too complex and protective solutions. If the system becomes too widely used to attack good campsites, I will just shut it down. This will keep it simple.
On the other hand, if the reporting is too complex, no one will use it, this is why I envisage something like creating a special avatar, just to collect reports per IM.
Anyway, thanks a lot for making the debate go on.
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