New Feature - File Ratings By User

[LHammonds]

I like how you are ever-improving the site and started working on the ratings by giving us a "File Ratings By User" report.

 

It would also be nice to have the ability to "remove" a rating on a mod that you previously voted on. For example, I voted on a mod when it was released at version 1.0 but later on, it was completely re-vamped and my original vote was no longer valid and I didn't have time to review the mod again. It would have been nice to have the ability to remove my vote since I no longer knew what my vote should be with the re-vamp of the mod.

 

As a contributer to this site (by uploading content), I see ratings as a general "how are you doing" in terms of how well liked or disliked a mod is (mainly by the number of votes). In order to improve a mod or leave a feature the same, one has to "hear" what people are saying in terms of what they dislike or like about the mod. To make this more useful (to me), I'd rather "require" that a comment must be left in order to place a rating. If somebody hates the mod and votes it as a 1 out of 10 but they leave a comment saying "I hate armor mods", I can simply ignore the rating and recognize that the rating will be "off" because of something like this because there is NOTHING I can do to "improve" an armor mod if somebody hates armor mods.

 

I've noticed on one particular mod that seems to keep climbing the charts and when it gets very close to the top, one user throws a low-ball to knock it down (without any kind of justification). It's just a little frustrating to have a rating system and a "top" list and not be able to actually view it as a useful tool. I know it's not your fault and I don't know of an easy way to solve it.

 

Example: Users "awenwen22," "qaz1qaz1" and "edc1" were recently created with zero posts, zero uploads, similar location but have identical statistics in number and average of votes made. With one vote being 1 out of 10, the other two are obviously 10 out of 10 with an average of 7. Only the webmaster could tell if it's the same person that created the account simply to vote-down certain mods and vote-up others.

 

EDIT #1: Oh!!!! I just had a wonderful idea!!! Have two rating buckets. Ratings by people without any uploads to their name (general public) and ratings from people with uploads. They can use the same rating system but during the rating (or nightly process) the votes can be counted in the "General" or "Modders" vote area. Both votes are important to know for different reasons:

 

1. General Vote - Let's the author know how people view this mod from the standpoint of not knowing what it takes to make a mod and rates purely based on how they like it.

 

2. Modder's Vote - Let's the author know how people view this mod from the standpoint of knowing (or more likely knowing) what it takes to make a mod and rates it from that perspective.

 

EDIT #2: I also noticed empty userIDs on this list which I assume are deleted accounts. Shouldn't these deleted account also have a cascade effect on deleting votes that these users made as well? BTW - The deleted users I've noticed have all voted 1 out of 10.

 

Thanks,

LHammonds

[LHammonds]

It looks like the "rating_pop.php" script is somewhat broken now...or perhaps modified on purpose. It still shows the votes but the user information is missing. No more IDs, No more "User Joined on" dates, etc.

 

LHammonds

[LHammonds]

Thanks for modifying the ratings to require a comment. It will be very helpful to modders.

 

LHammonds