3pointD.com

• The Sublet Experiment: A romantic comedy about mis-taken identity
  “This romantic comedy is performed for an audience of twelve in rotating venues of real people’s apartments. So not only do you get to watch a play, you can see how the other half lives.”
  (tags: traveling theater nyc)

I’m a big fan of the idea of user-created trust and ratings networks, although most of them seem to not work very well. I recently came across two interesting examples in the virtual world of Second Life, though, which are worth pointing out here. The first is Dale Glass’s TrustNet, a fee-based subscription system with a slightly confusing Web site (here’s the basic product description). The second is known as BanLink, created by Travis Lambert of »The Shelter« and Mera Pixel. Both systems seem to have their good and bad points. I present them here merely as example of ways to address issues of trust, ratings, conflict resolution and land bans in a virtual world like Second Life, not necessarily as product endorsements. I came across BanLink in a blog post by Mera, and TrustNet through a BlogHUD post I’ve since lost the link for, apologies.

TrustNet is the ratings system; BanLink provides a ban list. Both systems work by applying the ratings or bans of your first-order associates, as well as your own. TrustNet also applies the ratings of your closest associates’ closest associates (i.e., those who are two links away from you in your network). More detailed descriptions below the fold: (more…)