Changes to soliciting ratings/file of the month votes

[caitivoltaire]

To be honest, I think a defined set of any sort of rules for what makes a rating "ok" is a bad idea for two reasons:

 

A: It encourages a whole new level of "rules lawyering" and all the hurt feelings and drama and other Bad Stuff that comes with that.

 

B: It seems entirely counterintuitive to the way the site's been run in the past.

 

We're not here to coddle people, and it's not one person's place to decided what a mod does or does not deserve for a rating - save perhaps the site administration. Advertising is not a bad thing, but with the level of competition that mods have, it puts new mods already at a significant disadvantage at breaking into the "scene", even more of a disadvantage, and I think that's precisely why Dark0ne is making the change he has, unless I misread his post on a very fundamental level.

[katashy]

I don't really understand why people are asking people to rate and download or whatever, i personally like to make a mod and see how many people download it and rate because they think it's good, although i have only uploaded one file on to this as my computer kept crashing...

 

But if people REALLY want to advertise their mods to other people, i think they should be able to, any modder could do it, they just choose not to.

[Ranokoa]

I made a huge rant kind thing here, woke up today and realized it was not needed, so i edited to remove it.

 

As for warthug, Dark0ne pays for the site, he gets to choose what happens.

 

As for the rating thing, i believe the rating system is good as is, but i also believe it needs revision because of the abuse it suffers from. Still, i like how it is for now, and will enjoy every moment that i can before the change. Hopefully though, i will enjoy the change too.

[DavidSPD]

Wow, reading the news then reading the comments all I have to say is:

 

People stop making so much drama over something that's not that big of a deal. If it's a big deal to you and you don't like it, then go find a different website to d/l from.

 

Dark0ne owns the site. He can do what he wants with it.

Edited May 28, 2009 by JD_Hman

[KeyserSozeJr]

The system as it stands is perfectly fine. I would submit that the overwhelming majority of mods are rated on a scale for all intents and purposes between 8 to 10. Of those, there are far more ranked between 9 and 10. (Several mods have ranks of 0 out of 10 because they have yet to receive a single rating.) If this premise is valid then a rating of 8.8 or even 9.1 are low ratings compared to a rating of 9.8.

 

If the outliers below 8 are excluded, the average rating is probably in the low 9's. When I look at the rankings of a mod, anything below a 9 I ignore completely. Mods in the upper nines are mods that I consider most seriously downloading. Of course, there is a caveat.

 

I also consider the number of times that a mod has been downloaded. The more often is a strong indicator of a successful mod. It would be interesting to put my premise to the test scientifically. That would, however, be a lot of mental masturbation for a game.

 

Leichendiener

[VerbalEarthworm]

"I gatta go now im in a rush even though i would love to make the length of this letter 5 times bigger"

 

 

/me discombombulates

[leapinglizard]

i know i shouldn't comment but i just have to say im so glad to see warthug gone. So many times i would see him in the comment section of a mod criticizing and insulting the mod author. scary thing is his profile said he is looking forward to a career in law enforcement.... god help us all.

 

anyway enough off topic.

 

Im looking forward to the file rating changes... current system is workable but could definitely be enhanced. hopefully with the ability to give more than one rating per mod. eg a rank for technical proficiency, a rank for number of features vs others mods on the site , a rank for how much the file appealed to the downloader after playing it.

 

re the encouragement by mod authors for downloaders to vote for their mod.

- maybe it could be coded into the front page of all mods - a notice saying that if you like the mod you should rate it and also consider it for file of the month.

that way the file of the month and ranking system gets more published and widely understood and also gives all mods the opportunity to be voted on.

 

thanks for this site Dark0ne... its great to have a single file depositary that is reliable, fast and doesn't have a ton of advertisements !

[ANG3Looo]

How about just scrapping the rating system all together and have 1 vote per person per month and leave the description & comments sections so people haft to read them to find out what the current score is with the mod.

 

Any mods that don't win file of the month are allowed to enter the competition for the following month.

 

Have two main weekly updates on the front of the site one for new files only for the last 7 days published every Monday.

 

One for file updates again published every Monday that only pertains to core file updates, ie; not pictures/description changes.

 

Nice and simple.

[JGvardija]

Hi. I am replying here because I saw several people suggesting a thumbs up/down buttons rating system and I got scared. That system has one incredibly huge flaw - the thumbs down button.

 

Please note that I'm talking from experience - I was a member of the Spore community for a long time. For those who don't know, Spore is a game with several "creators", where you can create your creatures/buildings etc., then upload them to the internet, where people rate eachother's creations with a thumbs up/down system. Simply put, that system brought so much crap with it that many people, including me have left the game for good. People were using the thumbs down button aggressively for what ever reasons they had. There were/are even hidden rate down groups that choose a creation to downrate and hit it at the same time in order to bring it down to ratings of -80 and the likes. Some do it to rivals in order to spotlight their own creations, some do it for fun or who knows why. There have been boycots, where huge numbers of the most popular creators have ceased uploading their creations for a while, but nothing has helped. In short, the thumbs down has more or less been nothing but a source of negativity and bad feelings since the launch of the game. And isn't that exactly what the thumbs down symbol represents? I have also heard that the Sims 2 community has these exact problems.

 

Also, what do you actualy say when you give a thumbs down? Not only do I think this mod doesn't deserve a good rating, I'm actualy going to substract a vote, so that other guy who liked your mod gets his vote nullified (in a overall rate = thumbs up - thumbs down system)? Is that option really neccessary?

 

Having said all that, I strongly advise against a thumbs down button, but see no problem with a thumbs up button. Also, I challenge anyone who still thinks an up/down system is a good idea to give a single reason why a thumbs down button should be included. Is there anything a thumbs down button lets you do that you can't do by simply not rating the mod at all? Except expressing negativity.

[VerbalEarthworm]

to quote me:

 

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

 

kudos already uses this system.

 

it's fairly obvious that a system in which you could rate either negatively or positively from the outset would garner abuse.

 

i think it's a semantics issue.

 

instead of a "thumbs up", think of it as a "gold star", for example.

 

i.e. everyone gets the ability to give a mod a "gold star"...and then if they change their minds, the option to take back the "gold star", which they could perhaps give back later etc.

 

"gold stars" could be counted as TOTAL and MONTHLY amounts and compared in a TOP50.

 

mods that fell out of popular favour would be replaced by more popular ones, thus creating a fair and accurate snapshot of the modding community at any one time.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Verbal Earthworm