Negative endorsements

[Burbinator]

Hello, I was just wondering what, exactly, is the purpose of negative endorsements, and when it would be appropriate to do so.

 

In cases of an unfinished or buggy work, well, I simply wait until (if) the author improves to the point where they deserve an endorsement. Giving a negative endorsement to every piece of work that has a flaw, and then checking up on those mods to see if they deserve taking that negative away, is hardly practical for anyone.

 

In cases of something that adds gameplay elements I don't like, I simply avoid the mod. After all, people's tastes are subjective. Simply because I don't like it doesn't mean it's badly done. And if it's badly done, well, see point #1.

 

In cases of something illegal or actively malicious, I simply report it to an admin. The file will be removed soon anyway.

 

So I'm curious. What's the point?

[Vagrant0]

Hello, I was just wondering what, exactly, is the purpose of negative endorsements, and when it would be appropriate to do so.

 

In cases of an unfinished or buggy work, well, I simply wait until (if) the author improves to the point where they deserve an endorsement. Giving a negative endorsement to every piece of work that has a flaw, and then checking up on those mods to see if they deserve taking that negative away, is hardly practical for anyone.

 

In cases of something that adds gameplay elements I don't like, I simply avoid the mod. After all, people's tastes are subjective. Simply because I don't like it doesn't mean it's badly done. And if it's badly done, well, see point #1.

 

In cases of something illegal or actively malicious, I simply report it to an admin. The file will be removed soon anyway.

 

So I'm curious. What's the point?

It exists simply because people wanted to have some means of signifying mods which are of extremely low quality, do things other than what they say, are incomplete or broken (and are not a beta), don't contain all the files they need, or have other aspects which might be reason enough to not use that mod. The system was designed as a means of providing collective feedback (both positive and negative about mods (since comments in popular mods can get lost and PM boxes filled). Just because it has been employed by haters does not mean that there is something wrong with the system. A non-endorsement of a mod doesn't count against a mod, it just suggests that there might be some aspects about the mod which are not complete, or there was a few users who were too stupid to read the description.

[Burbinator]

Ah okay. It just seems like a lot of trouble to me. You should, of course, be removing your negative endorsements if the mod gets fixed, but I don't think anyone is capable of checking up all the mods they thumbed down, right? That seems like a lot of trouble to me if I want to actually act responsibly. Perhaps I could thumbs down dead, broken mods that are no longer supported, but since no one can see the reason why you thumb down except the author, it doesn't help the community much. Why not just leave an informative comment?

 

imho, a positive endorsement doesn't need much explanation because it's simply approval of the mod (hey, it works as advertised etc). But a negative endorsement is criticism of a mod, and criticism should be explained (via a comment) to be constructive. Potentially separating the disapproval from the actual explanation seems counterproductive and, well, not very useful.

 

Oh well. It's not a big deal.

[Yossarian22]

Why not just leave an informative comment?

 

Because this often leads to a quarrel that not seldom ends in insultings of both the author and the user, that only an admin can clear out. For me, as an author, I don't care if someone leaves an unendorsement without a comment, it doesn't bother me. But if someone leaves a stupid comment with it, that clearly points out his wrong reasons, because he didn't read the description or similar things, that makes me angry. So, it's a much better solution, if they just leave their unendorsement and then just go away.

[Vagrant0]

As far as the "going back to change your endorsements" part goes. For authors who are overly concerned about the 1 or 2 non-endorsements from people, the author can always view the list of users who didn't endorse their mod and either ask those users to re-rate their updated version, or find out what the problem was. Even as a user, if you have SO many mods that you are non-endorsing that you can't keep track, you should probably take a moment and think about why you're such a thankless brat. There is always the option of just not leaving any rating, so leaving a non-endorsement should probably be reserved for only those mods that actually deserve it. Someone who leaves a non-endorsement of every other mod they download (exaggeration here) is probably either doing something wrong, or should probably avoid using mods entirely.

 

As for the reason why comments weren't done with non-endorsements, Yossarian22 kinda hit it on the head. People who were forced to leave a comment about why they didn't like the mod would usually be rude, hostile, or uninformed, and proved to be almost entirely useless. People can still leave comments if they find specific bugs with a mod, but they are expected to maintain some level of civility when doing so. Commenting on a mod with "This shitty mod is poo that doesn't work for poo" (not as much of an exaggeration) is both an entirely useless comment and one which is clearly hostile.

 

Ultimately, people who enjoy making problems for others will always find a way to do so. This is why the forum has moderators. Just because there are a few people who are out to abuse a system does not mean that there is something wrong with the system, it just means that there is something VERY wrong with that person.

[pkleiss]

I want to know if anything can be done about unfounded negative endorsements that a user will not remove. I had a user post a negative endorsement for my mod because it would not work for him after he destroyed Megaton. But my mod is a WIP, and more importantly, it states in the description that it is an alternate beginning mod designed for characters who just left vault 101 and are level 5 or below. The fact that this one person tried and failed to get the mod to work outside of it intended use, and then issued a negative endorsement because of it seems unfair to me.

 

Is this a legitimate complaint or am I being a big baby?

[Vagrant0]

I want to know if anything can be done about unfounded negative endorsements that a user will not remove. I had a user post a negative endorsement for my mod because it would not work for him after he destroyed Megaton. But my mod is a WIP, and more importantly, it states in the description that it is an alternate beginning mod designed for characters who just left vault 101 and are level 5 or below. The fact that this one person tried and failed to get the mod to work outside of it intended use, and then issued a negative endorsement because of it seems unfair to me.

 

Is this a legitimate complaint or am I being a big baby?

I wouldn't let it get you bent out of shape since it's one comment from one user who clearly did not bother reading the mod description. In this particular case, you may want to have some sort of initialization message when the mod starts which detects if it is being loaded from a game in progress (player is anywhere other than one of the initial starting cells) and displays a message which explains that a new game must be started when the mod (name the mod) is active which will pop up every few seconds until the game is closed.

 

You can then message the user asking them to re-evaluate the mod because changes were made to make it more clear as to how the mod should be used.

Edited April 8, 2010 by Vagrant0

[pkleiss]

In this particular case, you may want to have some sort of initialization message when the mod starts which detects if it is being loaded from a game in progress (player is anywhere other than one of the initial starting cells) and displays a message which explains that a new game must be started when the mod (name the mod) is active which will pop up every few seconds until the game is closed.

 

This is a very good suggestion. Thank you for the idea.

[pkleiss]

I was able to get the fellow who made a negative endorsement to change his mind. The problem is he is unable to do it. So I tried myself to post a negative endorsement and remove it.

 

I found with with Windows Internet Explorer (version 8.0.6001.18702), this was not possible. I could post and remove a positive endorsement. But I could not post nor remove a negative one. The negative endorsement pop up window just froze after hitting the update button. However, if I did the same process with Mozilla Firefox, the operations were successful. I just thought you might want to check into this.

[TotallyNotToastyFresh]

I think it would be a good idea to make bad endorsements affect a file's place in the top 100. Because if I find a file which has 10 good endorsements, then think of checking it out, and when I get there it may have 200 bad endorsements. Just an idea.