89 réponses à ce sujet

[Rolo Kipp]

<on the eve of an age...>

There are a lot of things The Vault has done well and a couple it has done great.

By now, I think I've shown my affection for the old gal and so hope this thread will not be construed as criticism or the dreaded "vault-abuse" so many wizards are known for.

I want to talk about voting and karma and how we sort things on Vault v2.0 (V2).

The old way - a ten point comment vote by registered users - failed for several reasons. The user registration was a joke (your email is bite@me.com? Srsly?). The voting was unmoderated. The voting was unlimited. the voting was unfocused.

But that vote, and a download count, and a time-since-first-upload is what determined ranking, Hall of Fame status and some other stuff. Basically, it determined how much exposure a project got, in what lists, with what highlighting.

There was some discussion about this before on the NwN2 forums (persevere, there's a lot of other subjects in there, also), and recently I had a pretty good PM with MagicalMaster :

[ edited ]
MagicalMaster
Seems to be what looks like a spam comment on my module's page
But it's definitely not the usual spam. I tried adding the last part of his link there manually to the end of the Bioware boards and it doesn't lead to anything. I'm hesitant to actually click the link since it might somehow to redirecting elsewhere (though offhand I don't see any obvious signs of it).
Something still seems fishy for someone to vote on my module 18 minutes after registering and claim he has a module up or something as well.

Rolo Kipp
That fellow's a regular troll. His latest email for registration, for example, is asfasfaf@duudu.com.
He thinks up a new name and registers and posts something infantile. I blacklist the new name.
On the new vault, I'll just blacklist the IP, but then you need a valid email to register anyway :-P
Anyway, tell me when he returns :-/ I'll hammer him again.

MagicalMaster
But...but...his vote of 10! Surely getting my module a higher score is more important than the integrity of the vault?

Rolo Kipp
Tell ya what I'm gonna do, ya get twenty four o' them votes -thet's jest one shy a the whole kit an' kaboodle -an' I'll spot ya the last vote fee free!How's them apples? ;-)


MagicalMaster
You, sir, are a [ unprintable compliment edited out by shy wizard ].

Rolo Kipp
Well, a [ edited ] at least :-)
Seriously, though, I'm hoping to work out a more effective and rewarding voting system on Vault 2.0.

MagicalMaster
Yeah, it is kind of annoying having over 200 downloads and two whole votes/comments. One of which was from someone else in the ABC, meaning only one person who found it on the vault has voted.
I get that it is technically only about half of a module, but it is still 2-3 hours of play and you'd think people would have SOME opinions on it - hate or love.

Rolo Kipp
One of my thoughts on voting (just toying with it) is a karma system. You start with a karma pool of a hundred. You don't lose karma by voting, but you can only vote your karma. If you get votes for something, it increases your karma pool, allowing you to vote more. If you never get votes, your limited to the votes you can cast.
This would reward frequent contributors and quality contributors and give a vested interest in receiving votes.Thinking about it.

MagicalMaster
More seriously, though, I don't expect everyone to be interested in an action-oriented level 40 module - but you'd think that people who bother to download it would be interested in it, if that makes sense. You could say I'm not annoyed by people who look at it and say "Nah, not really interested" but it is frustrating when people go "Yeah, that looks cool" and then don't say anything.
I'm confused about your proposed karma system. You say you start with 100 and do NOT lose karma by voting. In that case, you can always vote 100 on everything since you never lose anything by voting. What's the point?I also would be strongly against any system that forced players to submit something in order to get karma points - not everyone (indeed, a minority) will create stuff in the toolset.

Rolo Kipp
Re Karma: you don't "spend" karma... That's the finite number of votes you can give. Vote ten point on ten projects... Or five on twenty. The authors of those projects has their pool increased and can vote more. So how many total votes you have out there helping *other* people is a basic dole + received (merit) karma.
All this is a thought experiment at this stage, but the current voting scheme is rather pointless, IMO.

MagicalMaster
So if I vote 10 on 10 projects, I am down to 0 remaining karma (or maxed at 100/100 karma if you prefer) and cannot vote on anything else until someone votes for my stuff?
What's the point of that, *especially* for people who play modules and don't create them?

Rolo Kipp
The value is that the votes mean something. If you only have a hundred points to distribute, you're not gonna slap a ten on everything ever submitted. You're going to think about where to put them and maybe even adjust some over enthusiastic reviews down to give you the mojo to pump up something really good. But, just like gold and other valuables in a campaign, there has to be multiple faucets & sinks and limiting good stuff to CC Makers is pretty short-sighted.
So the karma points would have to be pertinent to any member of the community, whatever their role.The value of each point is increased both for the seller who has a limited supply and the buyer who always needs more. 
Perhaps calling them votes is contraindicated. It comes with far too many connotations and the implication of a ten point (or hundred point) scale.
Lots to consider and I'm always willing to listen :-)
Do you mind if I quote the vote-pertinent parts of this Convo?
It'll give give me a start to the thread I want :-)

MagicalMaster
Feel free to quote any of this, sure.
More things to think about:
1, some people play simply play mods that are better than average simply because they choose mods well - saying that they can't rate every amazing mod at a high score doesn't make much sense.
2, even if you did do something like that, it would cause people to game the system. Like I throw up a module with one monster and you say "10/10 would play again!" to give me points to vote on YOUR module and give it a 10.
3, in this system, how do people who simply play modules get more points to distribute?
I'm not saying that the inflated vote system on the vault that has mediocre mods getting scores of 9+ is a good thing. But let's make sure we don't make the situation WORSE than it already is, eh?

MagicalMaster
The good news!
I got a vote and comment on my module (http://nwvault.ign.c....Detail&id=6386) that started with "This module is incredible!"
The bad news!
It's the troll again.

Rolo Kipp
Heh. Want to keep the vote or take out the garbage?

MagicalMaster
KEEP IT! KEEP IT!
Not only do I get a vote of 10, I also got credit for making the final mod in the Prophet series!Damnit, you already deleted it.

As you can see, I'm far too funny to be in charge of this :-)

Er, I meant, I'm trying to think of alternatives.
Researching alternatives brings me to the Slashdot moderation method, which really looks good to me.

If you think about it, we, as a community, are judging and ranking two separate things. The value (to *us*) of a given project (mod, hak, whatever) and the value (to *us*) of an author (of a project, post, comment, tutorial, editorial, amusing screenshot...).

We have the potential with Neverlauncher of tracking how often (for those willing to participate) a project (not just mods, but any project looking for an update) is used (when it goes online to check for updates). This metric makes far more sense to me than arbitrary votes for ranking projects.

With a karma system similar to Slashdot's in place, this makes much more sense to me than a forum with no (or absent) moderators. And even newbs can see immediately how much weight a given poster has in *this* community.

As I told MM above, this is a thought experiment at the moment, but in the shift from IGN to V2, I want to do *something*  better than Kickbong Voting :-P

Give me ideas, questions, concerns, solutions, links... 

<...and the dawn of another>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 21 avril 2013 - 10:47 .

[Tarot Redhand]

The problem with the karma system that I can see is that it will make some people even less inclined to vote. I'm talking about those people who don't actually make stuff. Register and get so many karma points to spend, now spend them wisely because you won't get any more... I know at least one person who almost never (no I won't tell who, but it was just the once) makes anything but is still active. They get to have so many karma points and then...

TR

[Rolo Kipp]

<nods vigorously...>

Oh, I've dropped the "only 100 points" thing. I'm much more impressed with the Slashdot style vote up/down thing and allowing users to set their own thresholds.

So it would be only 1 vote per post, not per user.

Sorry I didn't make it clear... this is an evolving process.

<...and shakes his head>

[WhiZard]

So if I had 100 karma, I could vote 1 on 100 items and really skew the overall reputation of contributors? I'm not sure if the voted points (or lack thereof) should be tied to an average if there is a limit based on points allocated.

What might be better is to give out status rankings to good vault members so that their rating is weighed more than other raters. For example let's say I am a newcomer. I would have a tier 1 status. My votes would only be influential on content not heavily voted on. The more I vote and play would aid me in getting up to tier 2. Tier 3 would be reserved for those who contribute and tier 4 for those whose submissions get good votes. Tier 5 is hall of fame. If there are a significant number of votes from a higher tier than the lower tier votes are ignored or have reduced weight.

[Rolo Kipp]

<shifting his...>

Something like this?

This module only recalculates the voting results, wont change database records.
So it's quite safe to install and uninstall.

Features:
Set voting weight on roles

Usecase:
Votes of good authenticated users should have more weight.
Keep anonymous and new users from voting flooding, more or less.

Or perhaps a hybrid of vote up/down & weights? Or perhaps the Apple-like "useful - yes/no/maybe"?
I like that the weight is applied to the results and not a part of the data.

Edit: Also, am I correct that we'd pretty much all like *something* other than the ten point vault-style vote?

<...weight>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 21 avril 2013 - 11:32 .

[Tarot Redhand]

Actually (I know it will be heresy to some) I think we need to drop points altogether. I'll clarify. On the users side instead of pick a number you have the following categories "Avoid, Poor, Satisfactory, Better, Good, Very Good, Excellent and Superb". This removes numbers from the users side, much to the relief of some (aka its good but is it a 7 or an 8?). Anyway it's just a thought.

TR

[Pstemarie]

Why not allow Vault 2.0 users to link their Vault 2.0 account to Facebook and use a simple like/dislike system that posts a link to the work to Facebook if the voter so desires?

Social media is such a prevalent part of life - why not exploit it?

Modifié par Pstemarie, 21 avril 2013 - 11:36 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<thinking up...>

It looks like Slashdot does something like that Tarot. They specifically mention "Flame bait (-1)" and "Redundant (-1)" categories. I guess you rate it with a radio button...

<...some really descriptive titles>

[Pstemarie]

While they're at it they could also "tweet" a link to the Vault 2.0 entry, etc.

[WhiZard]

Rolo Kipp wrote...

<nods vigorously...>

Oh, I've dropped the "only 100 points" thing. I'm much more impressed with the Slashdot style vote up/down thing and allowing users to set their own thresholds.

So it would be only 1 vote per post, not per user.

Sorry I didn't make it clear... this is an evolving process.

<...and shakes his head>

The +/- system while good at distinguishing good from bad, does not have enough range to compare good submissions.  If I had a submission with +56, and another person had one with +112, then is their's better than mine? Assuming that all those that voted gave a + since their was quality in both of our submissions, his 112 better reflects good marketing while my 56 shows only a decent level of advertising.  (Granted that 56 and 112 votes are quite a large sum for our current system).  I think the 10 point system works well if one was forced to vote (if they hadn't already the default setting at 5 should they try to ignore even this) when they initially posted with a comment or concern.

[Rolo Kipp]

<face-...>

Easy to do, actually. Except I, personally, do not have a facebook account :-P Or twitter, myspace, uh, others...

BSN & the various vaults are enough of a time-sink... but I digress :-)

Facebook integration is on the table unless I hear some strenuous objections.

<...palming>

[Tarot Redhand]

No objection to fb but beware. It seems that there are one or 2 innocuous looking apps on there that can multiply the spam you get in your email something dreadful. However I am against a nero-esque thumbs up/down like system for voting on submissions.

TR

Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 21 avril 2013 - 11:51 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<making a...>



<...face>

[Rolo Kipp]

<stepping back...>

Just to be clear: I am talking about a different metric for *projects* and *posts*.

Projects would be ranked in a relative standing based on actual use reported. User votes will be with their game client. :-P
Edit: Might not be a bad idea to give one vote per download/day/ip as well. The use metrics would still dominate, but that gives a voice to forest creatures who only come into town once a month to buy toilet paper and download stuff...

Initial weight will be given to the current votes on the vault (when migrated) which will result in the old stand-bys starting at the top (where they are fossilized now) but moving downward as others are used.

Posts would (I'm proposing) use a Slashdot style community moderation system. Probably based on label feedback ("Flaming" "Pointless" "Redundant" "Meh" "Interesting" "Relevant" "Great" "Wow!"). Users would use the "karma" rating this produces (with weight, I do like that idea) and set their own threshold of what they want visible and the visible stuff will be marked in some way to indicate ranking.

Or Posts might be unranked entirely (current system). And leave it entirely up to this old wizard to moderate everyone's posts. Fair warning!

Edit: Re-reading that, it sounds like my mind is made up... far from it! Talk, I'll listen :-)

<...and refocusing>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 22 avril 2013 - 12:22 .

[FunkySwerve]

To be clear, do you actually have authority to change the voting system? Last time I spoke to Maximus about the problems of the current system, he said he didn't have authority to change it because it was done by IGN standards.

Has something changed? Is Vault 2.0 a new community project, rather than an update to the actual Vault?

Either way, what I told Max was, user verification issues aside, that things should be ranked by a combination of votes and values - that is, a new submission with 10 10.0 votes should not be higher than an older sumission with 20 10 votes and 5 9 votes, just because it had a higher average number - the lower sample set means a less accurate valuation, even before accounting for the way I've seen people go about getting those first 10 votes. Instead, rank by total value - that way the 25 vote submission above would have 245 points, and the new one only 100. This, of course, favors older submissions, but it's still quite a bit less distorted than current possible outcomes.

Of course, if you want to talk about methods of weighting votes, you could give additional weight to people who actually have submissions (and therefore are likely to have some idea what they're talking about). Of course, that would engender a spam-submission problem, so you might want to limit that to HoF status submissions in the given category.

Funky

[Rolo Kipp]

<wincing and...>

The first part: The Vault Preservation Project (V2) is owned by me and paid for out of my pocket, ($400+ so far, and exactly zero donations (not that I'm really expecting them, understand) and that may be peanuts, but I'm also homeless, so it's *not* peanuts) and absolutely, completely and irretrievably my responsibility... until someone takes it away.

Please.

Srsly.

It is also endorsed personally by Maximus and in negotiation to receive one last little "kiss-them-goodbye" from IGN that I'm not going to talk about because I'm superstitious and probably under some NDA I didn't really notice...

Or, to put it bluntly, I can do *anything* at all with what I have. And in a few [ deleted for above reasons ], er, Real Soon Now, V2 will be the last Vault standing.
Sad isn't it.
Well, yeah, about the V1 passing, but I mean sad a madman is the one at the helm...

For the second, weighted votes sounds good to me, especially post-processing the data so the rankings are relative rather than absolute. Rank relatively "3rd most downloaded mod", "#10 in models used", "in the 98th percentile of preschool wizards"

But then, I want to get away from impulse voting on projects completely.
Vote by using. Vote by downloading and updating.

<...squinting in the spotlight>

[painofdungeoneternal]

My thought is aimed at the workflow. Download a project, if you use it, wait a bit until you are done then ask if you liked it, and how much. Keep track of such comments, and what is downloaded. It would be a small niche, but similar features could be added to NWNCX, basically work to make it easier to get people to do a rating to begin with.

Note that if you use a mega-pack - which uses project A and project B, you are kind of voting for project A and B. But how to rate things, hmmm? Gets complicated

If i can provide the raw data on all this ( in aggregate, non identifiable ), and a way to make it open, and let how we rate things compete. Have a central way to let people manage the official "list" of content, which is open.

Then if i can provide a way for people ( who are programmers at least to a script kiddy level or via some website done by Rolo or whoever ) to set a rating - ie a person who loves orc romances can maintain orc romance related modules ( replace romance with your niche ). They can set whether if an item is in this group, they can set the rating to whatever they want. They can also spot new content, recalculate their scores based on it. I would let people list and search content based on Bob's Romantic Orcs Ratings.

[WhiZard]

Since you can do *anything* (well some things might take a lot of time and resources) could you attach to a user's account a list of items that they have downloaded but not yet voted on? That could get a wider participation with just a subtle hint.

[Rolo Kipp]

<being quite objectively...>

How I see it for the megapack usecase:
Megapack1 has dependencies on project A, B, C and D.
If someone clicks "play" on a mod Alpha (using Megapack1) from within Neverlauncher we want it to "Just play, baby!", right?
So NL will ping somewhere to see if there's an update for mod Alpha, which will (through dependency) bump mod Alpha, Megapack1 and all dependent projects +1.

The rating is automatic and objective and doesn't (need to) ask subjectively how a user rates a project.
If they like it, they'll hit "Play" every day.
If they don't, they wont.
Dependent projects gain when incorporated with many higher-level projects and become "standard" fare, because they get rated on being used so much.
Stand-alone projects get rated based on use directly. When we get the granularity down that fine, A model's rating would be formed by how many mods incorporate it that actually get played.

<...subjective>

[Rolo Kipp]

<frantically reading...>

WhiZard wrote...
Since you can do *anything* (well some things might take a lot of time and resources) could you attach to a user's account a list of items that they have downloaded but not yet voted on? That could get a wider participation with just a subtle hint.

Actually, that wouldn't be all that difficult in Drupal... but what about all the stuff they already have? I'm a terrible example since I have almost everything already (but as someone recently pointed out, I don't have the CODI Stickfigure :-P ), so something ubiquitous like CEP or Dances with Rogues would get almost no votes because everyone has them ;-) and again, it's asking people to give a subjective rating on content.

Although, it's not a bad idea, really. If we *do* keep the vote.

Yes, I *can* do anything (subject of course to my own physical, mental and financial limitations :-P ), but as I'm sure we are all aware, "can" isn't "will". I mean I *can* take my miniVault and go play Skyrim...

Aint gonna happen.

<..."the great and powerful" handbook>

[MerricksDad]

I hugely second this...

----
WhiZard wrote...
Since you can do *anything* (well some things might take a lot of time and resources) could you attach to a user's account a list of items that they have downloaded but not yet voted on? That could get a wider participation with just a subtle hint.
----

But, as I mentioned in the VPP forums, what is it exactly the VPP is planning to do with the votes. Will there really be a hall of fame anymore, or will this ONLY be for tracking what everybody else is looking at. I am totally for that later.

That being said, my opinions on how the later should work:

Not only should it be a searchable field, but something used to flash top content the way you have the slideshow for new content. I think everybody immediately flocks to the top content, but only because top content definitely stands out due to advertising. I see that as fine. It really doesn't take away from unknown artists at all IMO.

I personally like simple +1/-1 (or weighted varieties of the same) for the fact that they leave a very simple trail. Without any hall of fame, magical prizes, or crowns of recognition being passed out monthly to highest scorers, I suspect less bots will be made, used, or targeted upon the VPP to fudge votes (especially since it requires valid email to vote right?). Its almost a non issue. Almost. Bots are wily.

In the same idea though, I agree hugely with a system that eventually down-ranks older posts from the OV (other vault, old vault, original vault). Reasons include: the fact that OV content may have been neglected, overridden, improved upon greatly and re-released by another, etc. It helps to shift attention to the higher ranking items. So again that flows best with a non-rewarding fame system, than it does with a fame-so-much-its-permanent-and-heres-your-gold-badge kinda system.

However, if you prefer a limiting system, and one in which votes do actually get the content maker something (can't imagine what that would be), may I suggest a daily counter increase of +1 for each voter, to a maximum of their voting capacity. Take for instance facebook games. I know you can't Rolo because you don't have one, but I think others may understand this. Many games start you with like 10 "life" and every so many minutes you regain a used 1 point. As you level up, gain ranks, or whatever, your max life increases. Basically its dnd rules...funny. The question is, how do you level up? Do you give VPP frequent downloaders a boon? The more you download, the more ranks you get, so the more voting you can do? Kinda makes sense, and encourages slightly the trying of new stuff. Not a lot though.

As its been pointed out, some people just don't vote. I preferably do not vote until I have actively tried something. I do however see that its the general consensus to vote a project before its maybe even out, in building stages, as in how some my posts on the OV are getting attention right now. This potential system would stop that dead I think. Or you could code that if a project had no files, it could not be voted on. OR, if person x didn't download it, they couldn't vote on it (which I understand comes with a can of worms). Ok strike that last comment.

I love your dependencies ideas. I started writing a brain project years ago and never finished it, where everything was linked by magical resource reference id's, very much like we use tags today. For any given idea, you could just click the related thoughts and go see what you were thinking years ago. It was basically for saving your own journal notes in a linked format for later remembering. In that same topic, I would really hope that VPP makes a very effective way of linking projects, not just by tags, but by allowing a customizable "if you like this, try these..." kinda sidebar on every project upload. And as a side thought, perhaps as part of the dependencies idea, allow project uploaders to specify which resources they already know they used, which would make visible links to those projects for visitors to follow, automatically and without having to make the uploader specify html links to those projects.

Is there, or will there be a subscription system so users can "listen" for updates or comments on their favorite (or owned) projects in the catalog? I think it should exist and be part of the user's main panel when they log in, and potentially as a messaging system like facebook, top left or something. I know about the track tab on the user panel already and it seems it only links a user to their places of commenting or projects they own.

My 2nd coffee is wearing off so I will start fresh tomorrow....

[WhiZard]

MerricksDad wrote...
But, as I mentioned in the VPP forums, what is it exactly the VPP is planning to do with the votes. Will there really be a hall of fame anymore, or will this ONLY be for tracking what everybody else is looking at. I am totally for that later.

I am very supportative of Hall of Fame or similar designation category to identify quality.  What a +/- vote system emphasizes is popularity.  This may be good for forum posts, but far too often products with a catchy feature tend to be oversupported causing quality pieces to be lost in a world of clutter.  When I am looking for a good module to play, I am not particularly looking for a catchy sound track or an impressive tileset.  My concerns are based on how engaging the plot is, how developed the theme is, how much does it cater to a variety of playstyles, and similar fundamental properties of a module.  The supportative stuff, yes can be of quality, but I want the module itself to be quality not just popular.

[Rolo Kipp]

<Working out a way...>

What about both? Track usage and have a review process that not only generates vote, but develops its own weighting based on how useful people find the review.

Not a simple impulse click, but rate the content in each of the OV voting standards and the weight of the vote is augmented by the reviewers history. I.e. if Able reviews ten mods and a hundred people aggregate likes how he reviews, his voting is weighted more than a drive-by who's never reviewed before.

Then people can sort by use or by rating or even follow a certain reviewer ( for instance, if Rogueknight or MagicalMaster reviews something, I want to read it. If PHoD remviews something I want to read it just because I need a rotflmao every now and then :-)

<...to have his cake>

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Rolo Kipp wrote...

And in a few [ deleted for above reasons ], er, Real Soon Now, V2 will be the last Vault standing.

Unhappy news, indeed, the impending closure of the original Vault.

As far as voting/ranking/etc. go...I think that a combination of ranking by use, ranking by review, and ranking by vote (weighted or not) would be nice.  I would miss it if there wasn't a sort of "hall of fame", but that could just be nostalgia for a time a few years ago when I used to look forward to them.

[PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

I suppose I might as well hurl my penny's worth into the steaming broth...

(Eurgh - what a repulsive metaphor).

So, with regards "Vault 2 - Revenge of the Vault".

IMPORTANT:- A whopping, dirty great Archive of Community Content (hopefully continuing to grow).

UNIMPORTANT:- Pretty much everything else.

OK, that's a gross oversimplification, so sue me... I'm now going to quite deliberately risk flaring some tempers, but better than than flared nostrils which sound ridiculous or flared trousers which are HIDEOUSLY UGLY!

Exterminate voting entirely.
ANY voting system, be it a scale of integers or a series of "amazing, very good, good, bad, abysmal, seething crap, etc" is going to reflect personal opinions, friendships and such far more than any true measure of CC quality. Add to that the fact that something one person feels to be worthless garbage may be seriously impressive to another individual with different aesthetic tastes, Module needs, etc.

So really, what's the point? REALLY. No, honestly, think about it.

What IS the point of a votes system of any description?

Are we to believe that there have been any CC Creators making new Tilesets, Creatures, Scripts, etc and submitting them to the Vault over the years for no reason other than a desperate desire to garner votes that are wholly meaningless outside one little website and enter a Hall of Fame that does not pay you a million dollars when you get there? I think it unlikely.

Yes, we (CC Creators) always liked it when people voted on our stuff, naturally. But I myself, and I've heard many, many others say the same, was primarily interested in comments, eg:- creative feedback from people saying "yes, great monster, but it should be a different colour" or whatever. That's the way forward for Community content for those authors who want to expand upon their work, improve it, and so forth. Voting is irrelevant to that.

If there had never been a system of votes on the Vault, then nobody would ever have been concerned about getting them (or not getting them). I know when I tentatively put my first Undead Animal on the Vault all those years ago (in the late Jurassic, I think), I did it for one reason only. I had downloaded other CC by assorted talented authors and wanted to just give something back, however abjectly rubbish. It was the positive comments and obvious enthusiasm for my dribbling nonsense items that made me strive to improve and expand on the filthy piles of Undead Animals. Votes were nice and all, but made no difference to my submitting stuff.

Hell, though some of my stuff had high hundreds of downloads, one or two near a thousand even in this depleted community, I never got more than thirteen, fourteen votes on anything, though they were always high votes, and I saw a number of subs that had less votes and less downloads get put on the front page as "ooh, look, quick, only needs another twenty votes for HoF". Nobody ever bothered urging people to push mine that had higher scores into HoF. Did I whinge to IGN? I did not, because it wasn't important. (I also never believed any of the stuff I had put up was worthy of HoF anyway on the grounds of comparing it to some of the astounding completely original works by people far more 3dsmax savvy than me.

I create CC for only one reason. I need it for my Modules. I submitted some things to the Vault because I felt they might be of use to someone other than myself and some of it evidently was and is. It was fun to be involved in the whole process. That's it. Votes never swayed me one way or the other. If they'd taken away the whole voting system, I wouldn't have cared and I know I'm not the only one. There were lots of comments on the Vault, e-mails and PMs here that assured me there were those who enjoyed my rubbish content and found it of use.

So, in practical terms, if we are to assume that people do not create CC solely to gain votes, having NO voting system will not instantly cause the creation of CC to halt. Is anyone out there prepared to stand up and say "If nobody gives me VOTES then F*** you, I'm out of here"? COMMENTS are what matter because they express some modicum of structure. A voting system, however complex, however simple, can basically do nothing more than give a thumbs up or a thumbs down... Comments upon a project, Module, model, submission, planned submission, give the author the chance to learn if elements of the project don't work, get help finding bugs, learn what aspects people really enjoy, etc, etc. It's that interaction within the Community, the sharing of knowledge, the help with aspects we can't do ourselves, that's important.

I downloaded a number of things from the Vault with really crap scores - you know, like, it had one vote and had been languishing under musty cobwebs for years with ten downloads - which I thought were pretty good and, even if I needed to retexture it and hit it with the odd brick, it was something of use to me in my Module making. On the other hand, I also downloaded things with monstrous and outrageous piles of votes, HoF status and everyone gushing over it in the comments which I personally thought to be not really terribly impressive at all, and I mean "not impressive at all" rather than "it's great, it's just not any use to me personally".

The best structure I can see for an NWVault kind've resource of any description, would be a solid framework where content can easily be found by category (Tileset, Creature, Module, etc), or by author and whatever other criteria may be useful, and that each sub has a description from the author and screenshots so that you have a reasonable idea of what it is. Appended to these individual subs would be the files to download plus a place to put comments and reactions.
Any potential downloader can thus browse through the category, pluck out whatever sounds to their liking/needs and, if they wish to be picky in their downloads, they can read comments for a sub. If everyone is saying "this is riddled with bugs, it doesn't work, it's useless, it smells funny" then they know what to expect. If everyone raves about how perfect something is, they'll have a good idea of its likely quality. OK, it's still a matter of individual perceptions and praising their friends' work whilst ignoring others, but it would be far more constructive and informative than any voting system - somewhat less contentious too, apparently.

Comments are seen as people's opinions and thus taken at face value, agreed with or vehemently refuted at will. That's all.
BUT, when there's a number of votes, a percentage, a quantified RATING for something, many people subconsciously start to see it as some kind of officially sanctioned, Inviolate Truth.
It isn't; it's just the same people's opinions in a different form. It's inherently meaningless. Yes, if something has a thousand votes, chances are it is PROBABLY better than something with one vote, but that's as far as it goes.
Do you really all wish to be controlled by arbitrary values assigned through essentially irrational and inevitably biased factors or would you rather just have a Big Pile of Stuff to sort through for what you need (full of all sorts of treasures that might inspire you to do something you hadn't initially thought of)?

I've heard a lot of people complain that there are those who only browse through subs with very high votes, or even ONLY HoF stuff. Again, no votes, no problem. All content gets more or less equal exposure. Is that a bad thing? Or do we really want to focus exclusively upon Creators who are demonstrably bloody good and thus have potential NEW Creators starting with moderate content feel excluded, ignored and thus pack it in when they might otherwise have gone on to create some amazing stuff further down the line?

Anyway, the way I see it, the CONTENT is important, not people's opinions of it. Comments can be a helpful guide, but I have always downloaded something that sounded of use. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. If it is, I TRY to remember to go back and comment (and vote because it's polite to use the facility when it's there). Not having my own internet access makes it less easy than it might as I sometimes have to remember for weeks between being online and, yes, I forgot from time to time. But NEVER did I look at a sub and think "Oh, that sounds useful - oh no, it's got crap votes and two people said they didn't like it - right, I'll ignore it then". I make my own mind up about things.
Voting systems can either be ignored (at which point, don't bother with them at all) or they can lead you by the nose like a sheep (at which point, best get rid of them).
Again, I'm oversimplifying eveything, but if I didn't this post would get into the Guiness Book of Records under "Longest and Most Pointless Forum Dribble Ever" or something.

But the basic points are valid (again, a personal opinion, but all things within our frame of reference are). I'm quite surprised to find anyone's really this (apparently) bothered about the whole general concept of votes and voting systems. Is it so very important? Can't we appreciate CC without applying all manner of hollow scales of merit and awards and votes and ratings and tiers and weights and values and Mouldy Mongoose Pies to it?

Are we in this for the fun of telling stories, making new worlds and new creatures, creating interesting art... or are we a cabal of gnarled little fruitcakes utterly fixated upon other people's artificial scales of merit with regards our imaginations and or talents.

More FUN;
Less rather pointless obsession with irrelevant details of fundamentally futile ephemera relating to secondary and even tertiary components of the system by which the FUN is packaged and delivered!

(PLUSH HYENA of DOOM wishes to apologize in the humblest terms possible for what is, essentially, a wholly sensible post about a (more or less) serious topic. It won't happen again, I promise... Normal foaming rabidity will be resumed forthwith.

Modifié par PLUSH HYENA of DOOM, 22 avril 2013 - 07:58 .