Rating system overhaul

[ThePriest909]

One more voice for removing the negative endorsements system. Even if negative votes don't affect the rating of a mod some people still use it to bug the authours just because they have nothing better to do for the rest of their day... and besides that what does " The file caused conflicts with the game or other popular files " and the rest of those lines mean?... It means that "I have no idea how to install this mod". Seems a bit useless. Just my opinion though. As a reminder modders are not getting payed for what they do and the hours/days/months they spent for creating it... and that's why they shouldn't have to deal with those "ambusers". Either if a mod is good or bad its author deserves some respect.

 

-ThePriest909

[thehim87]

I totaly agree with you Priest. Many mod users take things for granted and resquest a clients service and allow themselves to be bitter with the author like if they had a problem with a game they bought. Except that if the price of the games allows them to be angry and unpolite (is that an excuse ?) in mods, they forget that they have no rights on those files since its free.

 

So I'm for not keeping this negative endorsement system, although not used. Yet there should be a way for a mod users to gather informations on it : is it buggy, is it always supported, is it reliable etc.

[crashpilot]

One more voice for removing the negative endorsements system. Even if negative votes don't affect the rating of a mod some people still use it to bug the authours just because they have nothing better to do for the rest of their day... and besides that what does " The file caused conflicts with the game or other popular files " and the rest of those lines mean?... It means that "I have no idea how to install this mod". Seems a bit useless. Just my opinion though. As a reminder modders are not getting payed for what they do and the hours/days/months they spent for creating it... and that's why they shouldn't have to deal with those "ambusers". Either if a mod is good or bad its author deserves some respect.

 

-ThePriest909

 

I could not agree more!

Negative endorsement is meaningless.

If I don’t like a MOD I don’t install it, if I encounter bugs I inform the author and if someone claims a MOD does not work I recommend reading the readme.

I bet most of the posts about a MOD not working or causing problems are from people that never bother to read what the creator has to say.

 

Crash

[ZuluFoxtrot]

I say remove negative endorsements.

 

- "I couldn't get the file to work" ninety percent of the time means "I didn't read the readme"/"I'm new to mods and put it in my Documents/My Games/Fallout 3 folder".

 

- "The file didn't do what the description implied" usually relates to "This file didn't do what I wanted".

 

- "There were important files missing (animations, textures, etc.) that meant the file didn't work properly" is pretty pointless anyway - it just means that the file gets a negative endorsement before being able to fix the problem. A PM/comment would do just fine. It also usually means again "I didn't read the readme"/"I'm new to mods and put it in my Documents/My Games/Fallout 3 folder".

 

- "The file caused conflicts with the game or other popular files" means "The file caused conflicts with my other 200 mods in my effed up load order".

 

- "The file did not meet my high quality standards" usually pertains to "It didn't have NUDEZ CHICKZ in it/THIS AUTHOR SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT MY MOD".

 

And the flagship of all "reasons"...

- "After playing the file it doesn't fit in to my personal tastes or beliefs, etc." usually means "I DON'T LIKE THIS AUTHOR/THIS FILE HAS HUNDREDS OF ENDORSEMENTS AND MINE HAS NONE/NOT ENOUGH NUDEZ WOOMENZ/ANY OTHER REASON WHATSOEVER".

[LadyMilla]

I also think that the negative 'endorsement' should go, I find the 'did not fit my personal tastes, beliefs' option particularly stupid. I don't like rap, but I won't go and visit rap sites, and start voting down rap music because I don't like it. Also, as other posters have already mentioned, a huge percentage of mod users are too lazy/stupid to read the readme files, install other mods that are shown in the 'Requirements' section, and there are very few people who use this feature intelligently.

 

There is also the question of when to use the negative endorsement option. The author may have uploaded a mod with some serious glitches that got revealed through user testing and feedback. In its current state the mod deserves negative endorsement, but what if the modder fixes the bugs and uploads a clean version? How long should the users wait before they use the negative endorsement option? Should it not be possible to reverse a negative rating once the mod is fixed?

 

All in all, the negative endorsement feature presents more issues than benefits. Maybe a positive endorsement/number of downloads ratio should be used instead? Or a combined sorting feature that shows the most frequently downloaded AND highest rated files?

 

There is one more thing: when I re-visit a mod, the site does not show if I have already endorsed the mod or not (I have the same problem with the tracking feature, the only way to find out if I'm already tracking a file is to click on the Track link again and get the error message).

 

 

[LHammonds]

a huge percentage of mod users are too lazy/stupid to read the readme files, install other mods that are shown in the 'Requirements' section, and there are very few people who use this feature intelligently.

What evidence do you have that supports this "huge percentage" perception? People who know what they are doing tend to be 100% quiet whereas those that have ANY kind of trouble (such as newbies...not necessarily stupid) will raise their hand and ask a question before even knowing the existence of the Oblivion Mods FAQ. Typically, when I point new mod users to that FAQ, they tend to stop posting questions that are covered in that FAQ....if they actually read it. You can probably get a fairly representative and actual percentage by looking at several mods and compare the amount of downloads to the amount of questions asked that were covered in the readme/description. Keep in mind that those listed in "top lists" and "must have" mods will have a much higher ratio of newbies simply because that is normally where newbies try their 1st mod.

 

 

Should it not be possible to reverse a negative rating once the mod is fixed?

It used to work that way. No matter what you voted before, a 2nd vote would remove the prior vote. If it does not work that way right now, please report it as a bug (most-likely related to the recent upgrade)

 

All in all, the negative endorsement feature presents more issues than benefits.

The negatives are not factored into any top listing or other ratios. It is mainly there as an attempt to corral would-be trolls. Just about anyone browsing this site and looking at the negatives can quickly tell if there is an actual problem with the mod in that area or if it was just the NN (Normal Negative) crowd that did a drive-by voting. The combination of removing the forced commenting and giving a pick-list to choose from when having a bad experience is much-preferred than what somebody angry has to say at that moment. It gives such people a way to voice their gripe in a manner that will not result in their banning and it has proved successful. The amount of hot-temper bannings went down dramatically once this change took effect.

 

Maybe a positive endorsement/number of downloads ratio should be used instead? Or a combined sorting feature that shows the most frequently downloaded AND highest rated files?

Dark0ne has already explained that such lists that rely on download / vote counts/ratios would be too costly in performance to the database and any attempt to defer when these numbers were updated simply means the site will always be out-of-sync with the actual numbers and cause more confusion than what it is worth.

 

There is one more thing: when I re-visit a mod, the site does not show if I have already endorsed the mod or not (I have the same problem with the tracking feature, the only way to find out if I'm already tracking a file is to click on the Track link again and get the error message).

There have been cases like this reported in the past regarding mods that were downloaded but does not show in the tracker. It seems that those scenarios have mostly been mods less than 2 MB and quite possible that the member was not logged in at the time of download...which you don't have to be logged in to download files under 2 MB.

 

LHammonds

[documn]

Hmmm, are you still fielding ideas for the endorsements? I think it would be useful if I could look up users and see how many files they've endorsed, how many they non-endorsed, and which files for each.

 

EDIT: Heh, I see now that we can already see what files we endorsed. My bad.