Ratings

Andugus
Andugus
edited November 2007 in Feature Requests

Comments

  • Andugus
    Andugus
    Posts: 7
    I would recommend showing the names of those that rate other sites along with their comments. Without this, some might be encouraged to pan a campaign in order to inflate the value of their own campaign.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    This is a common problem with any sort of community moderation scheme. The hope is that as the number of users rises, this will become less of a problem.

    Still, your suggestion is a good one so I'll think about it.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    I personally would like to see a way to make ratings optional. I've never been a fan of impartial ratings systems such as what we have implemented here, and I would rather just receive comments on a campaign as opposed to a faceless vote- which, as stated above, is just as likely to be made just to sink down other campaign sites in order to drum up another.
  • outrider
    outrider
    Posts: 46
    I would like to see comments as well. I see the same thing happening with the voting. A person votes the campaign a low score for what ever reason, generally I think its to raise their buddies campaigns. If you don't like my campaign tell me why you don't. I would listen to the critique at least, unless its like "your game sucks." If it makes my game better for my players then great. If I don't agree with it at least I have an idea of why you don't like it.

    I'm willing to talk to others about my campaign and why I do the things the way I do. Just have to ask.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    We want to add comments to the adventure logs, but we're a little bit worried about possible abuses. We don't want to force GM's (and players) to constantly be moderating trolls and jerkwads who constantly post garbage.

    What does everyone think? Add comments to the adventure logs?
  • bluea
    bluea
    Posts: 18
    One way would be to limit the comments to people on the GM's "Friends" list.

    Or add a second list "Interested observers", and let the GM boot people from that list.

    There's an area for venting (here), so restricting access to the ability to respond to an adventure log wouldn't seem oppressive.

    On the ratings, perhaps the GM & PCs should have an 'internal' rating that they set, and the community (excluding them) gives a rating? It would seem to be useful knowledge to a GM to know that his players are losing interest, even if they won't actually say so out loud. But knowing that two people just gave your site a '1' because a 3.9 must have been high enough to actually reach the top five and get noticed is fairly pointless. Honest evaluations, excellent. Drive bys, not so much.

    Perhaps a list that each voter can see how they've voted? Or weighting each person's votes by how Gaussian they are? Only handing out 'fives' is also silly.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    To be 100% honest, we're not going to go with any kind of crazy weighting system or learning algorithm (ala Digg). The ratings are sideline to our main offering here (Campaign blogging and management). We try to focus on our core features and get the other stuff just good enough to not be irritating.

    For now, it seems that the ratings are kind of irritating. I've noticed it myself that a lot of 1s are being handed out. Perhaps making the ratings public would solve this. That seems fine by me.

    I won't have time to work on it for a while, and neither will Ryan (he hurt his hand). But I've put it on the list.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    Micah, how about allowing GMs to moderate the comments on the adventure logs in a myspace-esque sort of way. Give GMs the option of letting them inspect the comments and decide if they can be posted or not.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    I've been thinking more about this. I'm currently leaning toward making the ratings public. However, since they have been anonymous up until now, I might simply clear out all the ratings and start over. That way, anyone who went through and rated everyone down to a 1 won't be outed. Call it a second chance to be fair...

    Or, should I just leave all the data there and open it up, letting the light shine in?
  • outrider
    outrider
    Posts: 46
    could go from the point you change forward also, I leave it up to you.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    Glad you've made that decision Micah :) I'd suggest resetting so that "fair is fair".
  • viz
    viz
    Posts: 19
    I agree with AidanDark. Leave the anonymous ratings anonymous, and reset.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    Yeah, I think if things are to become public, it's only fair to reset everything. We don't want a bunch of bad blood to be started over something like this suddenly coming to light.
  • dungeoncrawlers
    dungeoncrawlers
    Posts: 32
    Something that might help also would be require a week or two weeks (or even a month) of membership before allowing a vote. Would prevent "dummy" accounts from being as convienient to create and then vote someones campaign down. I know it's not a major part of the site's purpose, but it does kind of suck to login just to see someone saying my campaign sucks becuase they want another campaign to show up on some list.
  • Charsen
    Charsen
    Posts: 85
    I very much hope that ratings are made public and we get to comment on other games. Also, I hope DMs or other players in the games can hide or report comments. It would probably be a good idea to reset the ratings, though I would be sad since we finally broke 23 ratings! :)

    I've noticed my campaign's rating drop every time it gets on the top 10 list, and I assume it's because people rate games low when they're near the top in order to keep new blood pumping...I don't know.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    I've noticed that seems to happen to me, and my boyfriend's campaigns as well. It really is sort of a sour experience, particularly since I don't really do all of this to impress anyone, you know? I really am on board for comments, though. Feedback is infinitely better than faceless evaluation.

    On a related note, does anyone else notice that ratings change? Like, I had 14 votes and a 3.6 rating earlier this week, and then 14 votes and a 3.8 rating this morning, and now I have 14 votes and a 3.9 rating. Can a vote be changed to be higher or lower once it is cast, or is there just something strange going on?
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    Ratings can change. Each user gets 1 vote on each rateable item. They can change their vote as often as they'd like.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    You guys can see a Top Ten? I only see Top 5. How do you change it to see top 10?
  • Charsen
    Charsen
    Posts: 85
    Sorry - I meant to say top 5.

    Also, it would be cool if it would tell us what we rated the campaign previously (or if we did). Like "Rating 3.6, you gave it a 4" or something of that nature. Right now I have no idea which campaigns I've already rated.
  • Andugus
    Andugus
    Posts: 7
    I think the issue comes from the voting procedure. One user could be multiple people with different accounts. I can think of no way to control this aspect. A wipe of previous votes and addition of access to who voted, how they voted, and an option of why they voted seems to have some support. Is this a feature that may be added soon?
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    bq. I won’t have time to work on it for a while, and neither will Ryan (he hurt his hand). But I’ve put it on the list.

    Right now, I am guessing they have bigger fish to fry, but they always get around to these things eventually.
  • olav
    olav
    Posts: 1
    I've been watching the top 5 ratings over the last couple of days. Today they have been crazy, with plenty of campaigns entering and leaving the top 5. This intrigued me, so I watched one campaign drop from 3.9 to 3.6 as the number of votes went from 23 to 26. A quick calculation shows this means the 3 votes probably had a combined total of 4 points. That is ridiculous, and would be ridiculous for most of the campaigns in the top 5. Usually they're all pretty good.

    My campaign is just an infant and has no votes. I think I like that. Keep a low profile. But it saddens me that some people apparently feel they have to drag others down to prop someone else up. I can understand how photoneater felt. He's got a good campaign.

    Overall, it's not that important compared to the mission of Obsidian Portal. I guess it's just an ego thing, and I agree fixing the ratings is not as important as adding functionality that helps manage campaigns. Perhaps ratings aren't really that useful and should just be abolished rather than trying to fix them.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    I enjoyed being on the top 5 but I've gotten over that, I'm just happy to know that people are interested enough in my campaign to keep an eye on me ;) Even if I don't have time to rewrite the adventures in a story-like fashion, it can be hard to capture the essence of a tabletop game in the rewriting.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    bq. That is ridiculous, and would be ridiculous for most of the campaigns in the top 5. Usually they’re all pretty good.

    I think so, too. I've really gone over a lot of the campaigns on this site, and for the most part, if it has content, it is at the very least pretty good. I haven't really seen any campaigns that have merited an out and out 1 based on content alone.

    bq. My campaign is just an infant and has no votes. I think I like that. Keep a low profile. But it saddens me that some people apparently feel they have to drag others down to prop someone else up. I can understand how photoneater felt. He’s got a good campaign.

    I think this is just the nature of the beast. People on the internet tend to be more ruthless because they feel uninhibited and can hide behind anonymity, so you are always going to see nastiness and thoughtless tear-downs as long as something remains in the public eye. I've noticed with most campaigns- they never seem to receive the really low votes until they hit the top five. Like, for example, I will see a campaign that interests me, and I'll usually give it a decent rating. The game will usually have a pretty fair rating, but the minute someone's vote knocks it into the top 5 territory, all of the sudden you start seeing single votes drop something from down by a significant amount, which has caused me to write off things like that as an unavoidable consequence of being in the top 5.

    Oh, and thanks, by the way. My campaign page is still something of a mess in my opinion, but I do appreciate the compliment. I'm easily like, a MONTH behind on updating the last session, primarily due to holiday activities, work, and using my time on this site to show Mamelon and Ethersphere the ropes (as well as doing my part to try and keep character pages updated).

    bq. Overall, it’s not that important compared to the mission of Obsidian Portal. I guess it’s just an ego thing, and I agree fixing the ratings is not as important as adding functionality that helps manage campaigns. Perhaps ratings aren’t really that useful and should just be abolished rather than trying to fix them.

    I think the favorites system will show that the ratings themselves are not necessarily the most accurate measure of what the community at large thinks of any given campaign. I'm personally looking forward to a comment system, myself. Also, I think we can count on them to address the issue, it's probably just a matter of time. Just stay patient, and I'm sure they will figure out something. :)

    bq. I enjoyed being on the top 5 but I’ve gotten over that, I’m just happy to know that people are interested enough in my campaign to keep an eye on me ;

    I'll admit, I was also a little tickled the first few times I surfaced on the top five, but the novelty wore off very quickly.

    bq. Even if I don’t have time to rewrite the adventures in a story-like fashion, it can be hard to capture the essence of a tabletop game in the rewriting.

    Especially when the core of your playgroup gets all preoccupied updating the pages on their OWN campaigns, and you end up having to remember everything that happened.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    Rofl... my group is just lazy, they let me do all the remembering even without updating anything of their own.
  • TroyAlford
    TroyAlford
    Posts: 33
    Personally, I don't like the rating system being accessible to people outside my campaign to begin with. I had someone come in and vote me a "3" before I even had all of my NPCs added. Later that night, they downed their vote to a 2... I can only imagine it was because my campaign (being brand new) hit the top of the list, and they didn't like it.

    Honestly - my usage of the site has nothing to do with any users other than my own players, and I don't care about their ratings. But so long as they are included, I don't get an accurate representation of my players' rating - which shoots the feature in the foot. I'd be very pleased to see ratings restricted to party-only, or perhaps have an option in the Campaign Edit screen, where the GM can choose if their rating is Public or Party-Only.

    Perhaps making things public will solve this.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    bq. But so long as they are included, I don’t get an accurate representation of my players’ rating – which shoots the feature in the foot.

    That's an issue I'd not considered in the past. Well, if they implement a comment feature, that also might be useful for determining your players feedback.
  • Charsen
    Charsen
    Posts: 85
    Say you are watching a campaign, and you think they finished their NPCs (because they have been untouched for weeks or months), but all their NPCs and wiki pages have one-sentence descriptions or less. Not so spectacular, so you decide to rate the game a 2, for example. Well, then the GM comes back and decides to buff up the descriptions, add more detail, and really polish up the look of the game. Now, it's still rated a 2, and it's possible the original rater will never know it was updated and so the 2 will stick forever. So like TroyAlford was saying... you might get slapped with a ton of 1 ratings when you just opened up a wiki page to start writing your first entry because people think, "Oh look, another blank game. ONE!" And that stains you forever, even if you end up adding 5000 awesome pages.

    Granted, you'll probably get many other ratings that will drown out the 1's from creation, but it just makes it harder for new games to get up a good score. That's why I've been reluctant to rate anything that's not already a 4 or a 5. I decided that if they don't have a 4 or 5 "quality" game, they might not be ready to publish yet. So I just pass on the voting until they seem more polished. Sort of like that whole, "If you don't have something nice to say" motto, except it's about voting. :p
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    I think you've got a lot of neat stuff on there if it's any consolation Troy :)
  • DarthKrzysztof
    DarthKrzysztof
    Posts: 132
    I've been bothered by all the hatin', too, and I had some ideas about it.

    One way to avoid the mudslinging might be to have the site default to "not publish" when a new campaign is created, instead of to "publish." That way, the GM could sketch in some content before anyone outside the campaign sees the page. It'd have to be made clear to the GM that this was happening, so they can publish when they're ready.

    Furthermore, is it bad form to give your own campaign a 5 if you don't have any content? It's a good way to attract negative votes, at least.

    Also, if the site eventually tracks who voted on each campaign, could it also track which campaigns you voted on? If so, you might end up with something like the Favorites list, which will let you know when pages are updated so you can revise your vote, if necessary.

    Finally, if the front page had a "Campaigns with the most fans" section, I think that'd cut down on the negative votes, since, as far as I can tell, campaigns can't lose fans.
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