I've been advocating a thumbs up/down system for a while. This works for me and it sounds like a good way to handle HoF too.
I'm wondering if there should be both - stars & thumbs with stars relagated to just being a search function or possibly part of the HoF calculation (80% yes's and a rating of at least 3.5 or something).
[ QUOTE ]
I've been advocating a thumbs up/down system for a while. This works for me and it sounds like a good way to handle HoF too.
I'm wondering if there should be both - stars & thumbs with stars relagated to just being a search function or possibly part of the HoF calculation (80% yes's and a rating of at least 3.5 or something).
[/ QUOTE ]
Heck, you wouldn't even need separate stars and thumbs, just get the word out that every vote of 4 or 5 is a thumbs up and 3 abstains or something.
Make 'em two red stars, one yellow star, two green stars. Easy visuals.
Up with the overworld! Up with exploration! | Want a review of your arc?
My arcs: Dream Paper (ID: 1874) | Bricked Electronics (ID: 2180) | The Bravuran Jobs (ID: 5073) | Backwards Day (ID: 329000) | Operation Fair Trade (ID: 391172)
Arguably, once an arc reaches HoF status, it should have that status as somewhat "locked" until either an exploit is discovered or the author edits the arc. If editted it may need a re-evaluation of whether or not it is within the score needed but otherwise this seems like a simpler way to prevent problems.
Agreed, once inducted (whatever the method) it should be more or less locked in.
While it would be nice to be able to look at a newly-voted in HoF arc and express your opinion if you don't feel it's worthy of the honor, the sheer amount of griefing makes locking in HoF status somehow the only really viable option I can see.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
Agreed. An easier tweak would be to use the current 5 stars and use Mode instead of Mean. (Mode is "what ranking got the most votes", Mean is arithmetic average.) But this really is a far batter solution, nice and clean.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Sorry but that is too easy and makes way too much sense.
They want to sell those slots for like 10 bucks anyway...you really think they care about the free ones you get for being able to spell and make an interesting story?
Good luck
[ QUOTE ]
Sorry but that is too easy and makes way too much sense.
They want to sell those slots for like 10 bucks anyway...you really think they care about the free ones you get for being able to spell and make an interesting story?
Good luck
[/ QUOTE ]
Hall of Fame is supposed to be for the players as much as the authors. Having that flag on an arc is supposed to say "your fellow players consider this arc to be one of the best." We all know that popular =/= good, but that isn't the point here. HoF will always be a popularity contest. What it shouldn't be, and what it currently is, is an unauthorized form of PvP.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I didn't see this in the thread, but they removed 0 star ratings on Test, didn't they?
That should help. O hurts more than 1.
[ QUOTE ]
If 500 people answer "yes" for a particular arc, give the author another slot.
It doesn't matter how many people say "no". If 500 people want to see a new arc by a particular author, then that author has an audience and deserves a new slot to make more arcs for their audience.
Does that mean every person who has 500 fans deserves to be in the Hall of Fame? No, because I'm proposing that we
Disassociate the "Hall of Fame" reward from the "extra arc slot" reward.
I understand that the "Hall of Fame" is supposed to be "the best of the best according to player votes". However, in practical terms, that will always be "the most widely-publicized arcs with the widest possible appeal", and I think it's a mistake to only give out extra slots to those authors. (It's a similar problem to the kind of thinking prevalent in the mainstream American entertainment industry, but that's neither here nor there.)
500 positive votes should be the minimum requirement for a new arc slot, but the Hall of Fame requirements can be much higher. For example, at least 80% "Yes" votes out of at least 1000 ratings.
[/ QUOTE ]
I approve of this. Best idea I've seen proposed thus far.
Play my MA arcs!
Tracking Down Jack Ketch - ArcID #2701
Cat War! - ArcID #2788
[ QUOTE ]
I didn't see this in the thread, but they removed 0 star ratings on Test, didn't they?
That should help. O hurts more than 1.
[/ QUOTE ]
And a kick to the balls hurts more than a kick to the shins, but I wouldn't want anyone doing either one to me unless I deserved it. 
[ QUOTE ]
Agreed. An easier tweak would be to use the current 5 stars and use Mode instead of Mean. (Mode is "what ranking got the most votes", Mean is arithmetic average.) But this really is a far batter solution, nice and clean.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes! If they want to stick with stars I want to be able to sort it by this method.
As it is now, the ratings system's on too much of a bell curve. 5 stars is the hardest possible average rating to have, statistically. At least twice as hard as any other average rating. (I'm probably oversimplifying that, but whatever)
What I mean by this, is that since the ratings are rounded to the nearest integer, you can only have a 5 star with 4.5-5 stars. Meanwhile, you can have a 4 star rating with 3.5-4.4 stars, not including more decimal points, i.e., 4.4999999999 is still 4 stars.
An easy way to fix that is to just include half stars in the average rating, so instead of the average rating going 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, it would go 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, etc. Leave it so you only vote 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Then just round up or down to the nearest half integer, i.e. a 4.2 would be a 4, and a 4.3 would be a 4 and a half average.
Then, you could have hall of fame require a 4 and a half star average rating or a 5 star rating. This would make it less difficult to get into hall of fame and stay there, while still requiring the mission to be good, it would make the 3 and 4 star ratings seem less like punishments, and make it so a 4.4 arc is no longer held to the same standard by the search function as a 3.5 arc. The 4.4 would be a 4 and a half arc and the 3.5 a 3 and a half mission. As it stands currently, both of those arcs would be a 4 star arc, even though their averages are nearly a whole star apart.
It's been a few months since the Architect launched, and there's a few things we can tell by now.
Five-star cartels are not an issue.
If we were seeing a lot of very crappy arcs inexplicably get into the Hall of Fame, we could conclude that the authors are getting their five-star ratings in underhanded ways, either through exchanging 5-star votes, paying others to rate their arc high, or other such means. But this is not what we're seeing. In fact,
There are no Hall of Fame arcs. At all.
Three months after launch, not a single player-made arc has gone into the Hall of Fame and *stayed* there. There are two possible explanations for this.
Either:
1. No player is able to make a story arc that is actually *good*
at least using the metric of player ratings. Among the 120k players, not a single one can make an arc that appeals to their fellow players. This would make the entire Architect system a colossal failure.
2. The ratings system is too skewed towards bad ratings.
You can only get a new story slot if you get into the Hall of Fame. You can only get into the Hall of Fame if the number of 5-star votes you have *vastly* outnumber the number of 0,1,2,3 and even 4 stars that you have.
In practical terms, that makes a 5-star rating the equivalent of "I would like to see another arc by this author", while all other ratings are "I do not want to see any more material from this author" with varying degrees of intensity.
The first problem is that most people don't feel that a three- or four-star rating is a condemnation. After all, nobody would object to staying in a three-star hotel or dining in a four-star restaurant. So even if they enjoy the story and would like to see more from the author, they give a rating which in practical terms is a thumbs-down, without realizing it.
The second problem is that there are always people whose main enjoyment is spoiling other people's fun. These are people who are absolutely elated to know that someone out there is not having a good time because of their actions, even if they receive no ingame benefit from it. For those people, the Architect ratings system is a neverending source of fun. In a minute or two, with just a few clicks, they can take down a 5-star rated arc to a 4-star rated one, and feel like they've taken away someone's accomplishment with very little effort on their own. And then they can do it again with the next arc. If they're really lucky, they can even see their rating knock an arc down from the Hall of Fame, which for this sort of person is pretty much heaven.
So what can be done about this?
There's been quite a lot of ideas floating around the forums on how to fix the problems with the Hall of Fame. Among them:
- Lower the barrier of entry to the Hall of Fame.
- Keep the barrier of entry the same, but set the point at which an arc is *removed* from the Hall of Fame at something much lower.
- Require people to finish an arc before they can rate it.
I'd like to discuss a much more drastic approach:
Rework the rating system entirely.
The rating window should look like this:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Would you play another arc by this author?
Yes ( ) No ( )
</pre><hr />
That's it. A simple choice. Yes or no.
If 500 people answer "yes" for a particular arc, give the author another slot.
It doesn't matter how many people say "no". If 500 people want to see a new arc by a particular author, then that author has an audience and deserves a new slot to make more arcs for their audience.
Does that mean every person who has 500 fans deserves to be in the Hall of Fame? No, because I'm proposing that we
Disassociate the "Hall of Fame" reward from the "extra arc slot" reward.
I understand that the "Hall of Fame" is supposed to be "the best of the best according to player votes". However, in practical terms, that will always be "the most widely-publicized arcs with the widest possible appeal", and I think it's a mistake to only give out extra slots to those authors. (It's a similar problem to the kind of thinking prevalent in the mainstream American entertainment industry, but that's neither here nor there.)
500 positive votes should be the minimum requirement for a new arc slot, but the Hall of Fame requirements can be much higher. For example, at least 80% "Yes" votes out of at least 1000 ratings.
I think this system would achieve what the Mission Architect set out to do: Players would have a constant stream of exactly the kind of entertainment they like, and particularly talented creators could gain recognition and fame.
Character index