Changes to soliciting ratings/file of the month votes

[Ihoe]

I Believe That 1-10 system is good, But 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2... 9.75, 10 is better.

The Fact is, Most users Really don't know how to Rate:

 

.....................................

"I have given this File a Rating of 10

the gun looks ugly, the textures are bad and it's hard to get, totally Senseless Crap"

 

"I have given this file a Rating of 1

Russian Scum"

 

"I have given this File a Rating of 1

I don't Like it"

 

"I have given this File a Rating of 1

It's Stupid"

 

"I have given this File a Rating of 1

OMG WTF You NOOB!!!"

 

.....................................

and all these Shmoes Got banned. or maybe the fact that Average users Rate any Female Clothing Mod Which is Revealing 10/10, but rate their male Counterparts 1.

 

But let's See what happens Next... with the FOTM Section. I think the author should be forbidden to ask others to vote for his/her File. It's Like cheating in election.

[Vorians]

"I think the author should be forbidden to ask others to vote for his/her File. It's Like cheating in election."

 

Well that's a terrible analogy. People up for elections campaign and advertise vigorously in advance of the actual election, spending thousands of pounds/dollars/whatever to promote themselves and their ideals if it's a real government election, or just putting up posters and fliers if it's a school election. It isn't cheating for an electee to try to get people to vote for them.

Cheating would be paying people to vote for them (in modding terms, payment might be making certain changes to the mod in exchange for a vote, or working on specific mod projects that they otherwise might not have bothered with).

If you want to compare File of the Month to an election, then frankly any modder who isn't requesting votes is a modder who doesn't WANT votes, otherwise they'd be campaigning too.

 

No one forces anyone to vote for FotM. No one CAN force anyone to vote for FotM. The most you can do is request votes if people think it deserves it. And if they feel like voting, they will. Or they might think, "ooh voting for FotM! Well actually I want to vote for this other mod, good thing this modder reminded me to vote!". Or they'll just choose not to vote as they can't be bothered or don't see the point or don't think the mod deserves a vote.

 

BUT! A campaign requesting votes clearly shows how many votes it is possible for a mod to achieve. Up until March 2009, what was the most votes any mod had received? 77 in May 2008. Then in March 2009, a mod gets 608. And how many of those votes came from people forced to vote? None. The modder did not go to the houses of 608 people, and force those people to vote for the mod. Votes were requested, votes were cast. And once a mod gets into FoTM, that's the end for that mod. It cannot be voted for ever again as it's already made it onto the list. So now it's out of the running, and every other mod continues to get its chance.

 

Regardless, requesting votes and ratings may be preventable on Nexus (through scripting to prevent direct links to the voting page, through warnings and Moderator edits to pages, through banning people) but it can never be prevented on other TES sites.

 

The FotM system works fine, and there's no reason I see to disallow requesting votes.

The rating system is heavily flawed as it is reliant on the common sense and intelligence of the raters to rate sensibly and fairly, and not enough people are capable of this to maintain the current system.

[Dark0ne]

Isn't that great? Now I feel I'm the one to blame because I asked people to vote for 2 of my mods as file of the month and met some success in doing so. I didn't know I shouldn't ask for it. After all I only asked and provided an easy way to do it: the link. It is like advertisement. Why putting advertisement if you don't want people to click it?

 

I feel really bad now that this new rules have been set. Not that I have more mods to ask people to vote for or that I want to try a kudo campaign or something. Just I don't see what is bad in asking people (who have the final decision as they are clicking or not the link and voting or not after that).

 

As the bad sheep I wonder if I have now to go on other pastures so that the others will find their peace without my bad influence.

 

Don't be silly. There were no rules about this so there's no issues. Simply put I want every mod to have a fair chance to get to the top of the the file of the month section without the author soliciting votes. Perhaps the author has moved on, perhaps the author doesn't mind too much, but I'd still like it to have a chance.

 

It's absolutely no reflection on the people who have done it in the past, trust me.

[HadToRegister]

Simply put I want every mod to have a fair chance to get to the top of the the file of the month section without the author soliciting votes

 

Well, if you stick with the current system, remove the

"25 ratings" criteria at least.

 

Wowinterface.com (Addons for WOW) has a couple of nice features, that calls to attention some lesser known addons.

 

One feature is called "Weekly Pick" where a "diamond in the rough" is featured on the Main Page.

 

Another feature is called "15 Minutes of Fame!" where

I believe a script randomly picks an addon to be featured on the main page for a day.

 

Here's a link so you can see what I'm talking about, the two features I mentioned are in the right hand column

 

http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/index.php

 

 

@lhoe....

 

NO, seriously NO to not only 1 through 10, but adding

.25 .5 .75 that just makes the entire 1 through 10 even more

garbled than it already is.

 

You yourself said

The Fact is, Most users Really don't know how to Rate:

 

If that's true, then adding .25 .5 .75 is going to make it worse.

 

I say save all the hemming and hawwing and go with Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.

 

You either like the mod or you don't.

 

A thumbs down wouldn't be conceived as being as malicious as

a "1" vote in a scale of 1 - 10 would be, as it would be

either YES I like this mod, or NO I don't like this mod.

 

Maybe even change the wording.

 

"Ready for Prime-Time", "Not Ready for Prime-Time"

or at least a Five Star Rating scale.

 

But no more 1-10.

The scale being so large, people who give 1's and 3's think they're really doing some damage psychologically to

the modder.

 

Reduce the scale to 5 or a Thumbs Up/Down

[VerbalEarthworm]

all this number crunching is relatively moot,

 

regardless of it's "d20 fetishists" support.

 

the thumbs rating system is already in place for images,

 

simple enough to adapt to mods,

 

and easy to understand.

 

 

if used like kudos,

 

where the single member point can be given OR taken away again,

 

how could that be open to abuse?

 

abusers would have to use multiple accounts (which as WarThug stupidly admitted, happens already) and all they would achieve from that is another thumb per fake account.

 

against the MONTHLY stack of thumbs each mod may acrue, this is petty abuse at best.

 

it's not perfect but it's MORE perfect than as it is.

 

n.b. to reiterate, the only "thumbsdown" in this proposal is when a member takes his rating away again.

 

it would also show a very clear picture of how popular any particular mod was at any given time.

 

this is of primary importance to prospective downloaders,

 

the rest is just a superfluous cult of personality.

 

 

 

 

@caitivoltaire: wow, nice cover story, if somewhat flimsy for my tastes. please forgive me if i am totally wrong but when i observe a newb who posts like War and Peace, my "spider-senses" tingle.

Edited May 25, 2009 by Verbal Earthworm

[Dark0ne]

Well, if you stick with the current system, remove the

"25 ratings" criteria at least.

 

I think you're confusing files of the month with the top 50 feature. They're different.

 

What's with folks putting in lots of line breaks in their posts by the way?

[VerbalEarthworm]

@ Dark0ne:

 

i like to space my lines out because i find that reading posts without spacing makes my brain discombombulate.

 

i can handle a single paragraph happily enough,

 

but a full screen of unspaced paragraphs is beyond the pail.

 

i am in no doubt that certain other posters feel similarly.

 

:)

[Ismelda]

Don't be silly. There were no rules about this so there's no issues. Simply put I want every mod to have a fair chance to get to the top of the the file of the month section without the author soliciting votes. Perhaps the author has moved on, perhaps the author doesn't mind too much, but I'd still like it to have a chance.

 

It's absolutely no reflection on the people who have done it in the past, trust me.

Well I'm sorry if I misunderstood but there was never any mention of the FotM to be changed but only the rating system. For where I'm standing, after 2 successful campaigns to get votes on 2 of my mods, it is all my fault if the rules are being changed because I somehow abused the system by asking people to vote for my mods.

 

Like Vorians said, FotM is a one time thing only, so all mods get their chances and it is the users who decide to vote, no one force them to anything. If they didn't get in this month they can still do the next one.

 

And to answer a poster here, I was not whoring my mods.

[HadToRegister]

What's with folks putting in lots of line breaks in their posts by the way?

 

I find it easier to read, so I do it out of habit.

Bifocals you know :P

Didn't realize we were talking about FOTM,

I thought we were talking about the rating system

Edited May 25, 2009 by HadToRegister

[onij]

First I'd like to thank Dark0ne so much for this wonderful site that I spend so much time on! And thanks to Buddah and the other moderators that help keep the site running so well. Although I agree that there should definitely be changes to the file ratings on this site, I also realize that this is the best Fallout/TES modding site available, so that leads me to believe that you guys have definitely been doing 99% of everything you do perfectly. I think you, Dark0ne, will definitely figure out the best system with the comments already given and your own personal ideas.

 

I think there is something even more important that should be addressed: Getting people to vote! Right now if you look at the top downloaded files, they all have like a .01 - .03% ratio. The most downloaded file on this entire site is FOOK. It has over 185,000 downloads but only 500 votes. So For every 350 people who download the file, only 1 votes! File of the month votes in my opinion are in the same situation. Like you have said Dark0ne, the modder's who get their file voted for FotM are the ones who ask. Honestly I feel that if there isn't any encouragement for people to vote, we'd be seeing the FotM "win" with like 15 votes or less. I know that everyone who runs this site is limited on time, but because you guys will be spending a bit of time in the future on the file rating upgrade, I'd suggest that you look into how to get people to vote. I know there is probably not any way to get more than 2-5% of the people who download to vote, but even that would be an improvement.

 

 

My suggestion: create a simple system at the top of the screen whenever someone logs in, that shows them how many files they haven't yet voted for. Like you log in and it says "You have 3 unrated mods" or something like that. Then when you click on the link, it would open up in a similar way to the download history (or maybe they could be in the same area). So it opens up and you see what files you haven't voted for yet, and the 3 options of thumbs up/down or whatever next to each file. Also in this same area, you could have the message of "you haven't voted for a file of the month" or something, and having your download history with all of the ratings you have given, you'd be able to pick one of the files that you have already downloaded and played as FotM. Also, if you applied this same principle to unregistered users, and they came back and had unrated files, they may be encouraged to register for the site in order to vote on some of the files they have downloaded.

 

Thanks!