File endorsements in their own discussion topic

[Nihilisaurus]

Can I ask how it makes your life much more complicated?

Of course. The best way to find new mods is to look through 'uploaded files' for titles that may interest you, only going by the top 10 and FOTM you'd end up with an awful lot of Underground hidouts, custom races and Books of Earaches (not to say there's anything wrong with this, but these are the kind of things that garner the most votes/endorses as they're well crafted pieces with a large audience). In order to get mods of ...smaller scope, shall we say? The best way is to browse Uploaded files. Now imagine that half of the topics in this forum are now duplicates, and the links to the files they pertain to are actually buried (at this point in time, it will grow for them as more endorsements are added) on average about 2 1/2 pages from the end. Furthermore, these topics consist of nothing more than "Yay", "I jizzed", "Aesthetically pleasing, my good man" and so forth, offering nothing but short words of praise and the occasional out-of-context chunk of conversation. This disrupts the ease of finding new and interesting mods, diverting attention from small, promising little mods to the endorsement topics of whatever is currently being endorsed.

 

Now I've no problem with endorsements, but they do clutter up the 'uploaded files' section so, and for so little. If you insist on maintaining this schism between comments and endorsements could you please separate the two into different subforums, or have an option to hide the threads, or just something to get them out of the way when browsing mods.

 

If I appear impolite its because text has no accent. I am not here to offend but to argue the case for getting the veritable litter of endorsement threads out of the way of mods.

[Emma]

I think Wrinklyninja made some very good points in his post, and I second his opinions.

 

Dark0ne, thank you for your reply earlier on in this thread. In reply to your post:

 

You have to go back to March 7th, about 30 posts back in the endorsement topic, to find an endorsement that has an actual question in it for Midas Magic. The next one after that is on the 11th of January, 80 posts in. It's a similar story for Deadly Reflex and while I understand these aren't your files and your situation might be different (aside: is it much different?)

 

Yes. It is much different. For Companion Vilja, who now has two threads of totally around 3600 posts, there haven't been much "problems", but many good discussions leading to further improvements have been initiated in an endorsement post and then continued, involving many new posters.

 

What does slightly annoy me is that people have brought up "minor bugs" in the endorsements, "bugs" that have had very natural explanations (conflicts, problems caused by the player's playing style, problems caused by other mods). I have of course instantly replied and explained these "bugs", but my posts are now separated from the posts where the "bugs" are suggested. So, by reading the endorsment topic it now appears that there are "bugs" in our work.

 

Anyway, as Buddah points out, the only constant thing in life is change, whether it's for the better or for the worse is easiest to see retrospectively. I'm grateful for this site and the work you put into making it better and better, and even if this particular change isn't something I personally get very happy over, I'm sure there are others that welcome the change. And, over time I guess I'll get used to having currently 64 threads to keep track of instead of just 32. And I can of course always post in the endorsement threads for my mods and kindly ask people to post in the other thread instead, if they want me to read and respond to their posts.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Emma

[Dark0ne]

If I understand Wrinklyninja correctly, he's suggesting changing the endorsement system so you don't leave a comment with your endorsement. Is that correct? Is that something you would prefer?

 

Perhaps after endorsing they could be encouraged to leave a comment?

[Emma]

I'm thinking that as there IS an option when you leave the endorsement to post a comment, many feel encouraged to leave a message even if they "don't have anything in particular to say". And that's where we get the "Thanks" or "great mod" or "Awesome" posts. With the new system, i.e. separate endorsement threads, these posts are basically treated as "spam" - i.e. they are put in a different thread in order not to "spam" the "real" thread.

 

If there weren't a comment-option with the endorsement itself, those who want to say something will still do this - they will go to the "real" thread and post a comment. Or a full mod review, as some people actually take the time to write a full review that they attach to their endorsement. Whereas those who only felt that they "should" leave a message because the comment-option was included with the endorsement will no longer feel an obligation to post "Great mod" or whatever.

 

(Now, that said... after 9 years of modding, it *still* makes me happy to hear that people have joy from my work, so personally I don't mind if someone post "Great mod" or "Awesome" about something I have done :blush: but if such posts end up in a "pseudo-spam-thread", well, then there isn't much point in it.)

 

 

EDIT:

 

Should you decide to somehow remove the endorsement threads, please don't do so without a warning!! I have several quite extensive and very well written reviews that people have made of my mods and posted with their endorsements, I wouldn't want them to vanish! Then I'd much rather want to take the time to copy and paste them into the "real" thread, but it's quite a lot of work as we are talking about going through many, many hundreds of posts manually to look for the "gold nuggets".

Edited April 16, 2011 by Emma

[wrinklyninja]

@ Dark0ne: Yes, that is what I am suggesting. As for being encouraged to leave a comment, I am open to that. I'd prefer it if that could be done without a pop-up window, but perhaps an AJAX-y floating box like you've got somewhere else on the site (can't remember for what) would do the job.

 

The floating box would then be dismissed when the user clicks outside of it (IIRC this is possible with JavaScript, could be wrong...). Basically, the idea is to simplify the process as much as possible and prevent user distraction from the page itself.

 

@ Emma: Exactly my point. :)

 

As for the issue of what to do when removing the endorsement threads, perhaps simply locking them (preventing further posting) would be enough? That way they can still be browsed, but they will also stop 'getting in the way' of the comment threads as some others have complained about the new system?

 

Personally, I don't use the forums much if at all, but for those that do I can imagine trying to browse comment threads when endorsement threads are also present is a bit more time-consuming. If the endorsement threads were locked though, then as more comments were made for the mods, the endorsement threads would sink to the back of the forum.

 

EDIT: Only 702 kudos Dark0ne? A shame, have another one. :P

Edited April 16, 2011 by wrinklyninja

[ziitch]

Perhaps reverse the way endorsements are done - Instead of having to check a box to endorse a file, instead have a confirmation that you want to endorse that file and then if you want to leave a comment, there's an checkbox along the lines of "Leave a comment?" where if checked a text box opens below to type your comment in.

[ub3rman123]

Although it might lead to further confusion or people not bothering to leave comments because they don't think they need to. What about just removing the "I have given this file my endorsement." text and giving them a comment box that says "Have anything further to say? Say it here."

[Zaldir]

I still stand by my suggestion of separated comment boxes for Endorsements and other feedback.

 

When clicking "Add a comment", the new window could appear, with one comment-box open, and a checkbox for "Endorse this file" (or something), and when that is clicked, a new comment-box appears beneath the other one, where you can post your endorsement if wanted.

[Arthmoor]

I like Wrinklyninja's suggestion of turning the green thumb into an Ajax control that simply registers the person's endorsement, adds one to the counter, and leaves it at that. That would leave the comments thread for the more useful stuff like actual bug reports or questions about stuff. Yes, even heaps of praise if someone wants to take the time to do so.

[Dark0ne]

It's something I'll look to do for the site redesign happening over the coming months.