Is it ethical to downvote farms?

Just something that I've been wondering, that I thought I would put up for discussion.


QUESTION: Is it ethical to 1-star obvious farm arcs in AE without playing them? Why or why not?

A) Why do you care?

B) Do you think it would matter to a farmer?

C) How could you be sure it was a farm, what if it wasn't and you discouraged a persons first AE mish attempt?

Meh. I have 2 arcs in MA, both could be called 'farms' I suppose. One is for low levels to smack Hellions around, the other is Freaks. Neither of them have a plot or central characters or what not, sometimes... I just like to smack stuff.

No, it's not unethical, because it's your opinion.

But what makes you think it's a farm? The mass of closely-spaced mob spawn points in a very herdable-looking map?

I am not clear on how it could be an ethical dilemma either. The ratings are there for you to express your opinion of the arc.

If you don't like, you don't like it.

I think it's perfectly ethical to 1-star your average "XP/ticket farmz" mission with poor spelling, no capitalization and no text beyond "kill stuff." They're not what AE is intended for and anything that gets them off the first few pages is ok by me.

As for the farms that make an attempt at a thin disguise, you can at least go in to confirm it's essentially a farm before you 1-star them. If you still have quibbles about ethics, grab the blinky and complete it. If you STILL have quibbles, aggro a mob, note how they all use Firey Melee, with a suspicious lack of any Fire Control, Fire Armor or Thermal powers (which a non-farm fire-based group tends to include), then go look at the Brute forums and note all the threads about /FA and farming, then one star it.

As for why do I care, go back and reread the bit about farms on the first few pages. Then go look up all the "why don't you use AE?" threads in the general forums that complain about AE being full of farms. Then go through a few of these farms and notice that they are all pretty much exactly the same. Just for giggles, try to find a short arc that isn't a farm, and see how long it takes. That's why I care. I don't care if it matters to a farmer, the farmers are irrelevant, it's the farms themselves I want off the arc listings. And if someone's first AE attempt is really so bad as to be mistaken for a farm, then frankly they should be discouraged.

Musing on the topic, I would like to mention that the people who set out to create farms generally do a very good job of it, whereas the people who set out to create a story generally do a terrible job of it. I've run a great many well-designed farms, whereas I can count on one hand, maybe two, the number of decent story arcs I've run in AE. So, I guess you can rate whatever you want however you want.

Downrating without playing is something I'd consider bad. However, I do have a low opinion of farms within the AE. I dislike but don't mind those that are dev created. I'd also argue that farms are far more immune to negative ratings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood So with that in mind if someone is planning to spend time going through the arc list in a quixotic attempt to down-rate farm arcs wouldn't it make more sense to spend that effort on something that is both constructive and more likely to actually work?

Well, I think the big million ticket question is, what exactly would be constructive and actually likely to work? SFMA and other tags have already failed.

I would think that 1-starring farms is not only ethical but should be encouraged. It weeds out the farms for real arcs in the search engine.

I say this as someone who only uses the AE to farm. What am I going to do if I want to farm? I'll either make my own, or search a specific keyword related to farms/play a specific arc I already know or heard of from someone else. Cluttering the search engine with 5 star farms is pointless.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses; it is interesting to read the broad spectrum of opinions on this.

I don't have a specific agenda in posing this question; I ask the question because I am no longer sure what the answer is.

Some background: I commonly use the AE search tool, setting the limitations of "not voted" and "my level", to try and find interesting story arcs. The search results return a list of unplayed story arcs, roughly sorted in some arcane way that usually presents "high rated" arcs first.

I have no interest in farms, so if an obvious farm showed up in my "top search results" list several times, previously I would start it, look at the first mission briefing, then if it was still obviously a farm (e.g., mission briefing = "Kill them all" with no other details) I would 1-star it and quit without actually entering the mission.

But yesterday I thought about this some and realized that I (and the "community" in general) would be generally against a player who 1-stars story arcs without playing them, simply because they were a type of arc they didn't like. For example, I would not view it as ethical to 1-star horror themed story arcs simply because I don't like the horror genre. And certainly I would be unhappy if someone were to 1-star one of my arcs without giving it a try.

This made me question whether what I was doing was "right". I thought this would be an interesting topic for discussion, and thus posted the question here. I am still not sure what the "right" answer is. In fact, I've found it quite interesting to read how many different points of view there are on this.

being a majority farmer myself, the couple farm mishs i made i literally dont care about their rating

the only arc i care about the rating on is my story arc

i usually get more runs on my farm mishs though and more poeple tend to rate those which means i actually net more tickets without doing anything, i havent had a run of my story arc in several months, but i get between 1-3 farm runs a day in author tickets

Ethically, I dont see any difference in downvoting farms or downvoting well thought out and written stories. If it aint your cup of tea, it aint your cup of tea.

I understand that the rating system is meant to reward people who put time and effort into creating a mission that is enjoyed by the player. However, once again, something the devs created with a purpose in mind has been redefined by the playerbase. If farmers wish to reward a farm mission with a vote, so be it. To 1 star it on the principal that its a farm, so it must suck is no different as 1 staring a mission/arc because it is too long, and therefore must be boring.

For what it is worth, most people that create farms that I know of, usually request that it not be voted. They dont want the publicity. As such, you are likely doing the majority a favor.

I think it is absolutely ethical, but absolutely pointless. Ethically it is no different than any member of a community taking (legally allowed) action against other members who violate the community's rules.

I personally look at it as 5 minutes of my time wasted by a farm builder if I start a farm arc just to rate it. Most farm arcs can be identified by title and description, and there are too few story arc enthusiasts to have any real effect on farm ratings. Now, if a farm arc writer creates a description that fools me into starting his arc thinking it actually has a story, then he deserves his 1-star, otherwise, I have better things to do with my time.

The fact is, if the devs want to keep story arcs from dying out completely they're going to have to acknowledge that AE is primarily used for farming and set up a searchable "Story Arc" tag you can add to your arc. (and, of course, stop using a sledge hammer to fix exploits and copyright issues)

I won't downrate Farms...

I just won't rate them.

If the Devs seriously want to curb this without hurting authors, there's ways...

You know my take on this... I think.