Please don't hurt me Dennis, but I'd like to talk about the rating system. I've found more and more lately the entire rating system on Halomaps is absolutely useless and with newer maps its continually falling apart.

This isn't just from the latest release of my own Geomar ( http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6968 ) being a nice 5.6/10, but a compilation of tons and tons of great maps out there that have (unbelievably) bad scores when the map is actually very very good.

For example, H3 Foundry ( http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=6677 ) has a rating of 2.0/10 when it actuality its a great map and port. How can this map possibly be a 2.0, compared to a map like House 2 ( http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=2670 ) which currently has a 9.0/10, an almost perfect score, and yet, the map is almost completely useless gameplay wise and really isn't that great of a level (no offense to its creator, but it proves a point here).

This really isn't a matter of taste or if the maps are legitimately good/bad, but an obvious abuse of the rating system. In theory, its a great way to say, "hey, this a popular map, not just in downloads but also its rating, it must be good". However, the opposite seems to be the trend, where the good, decent maps keep continually getting bad ratings, pushing them lower on lists like the "Top 50 of Year ####" and also pushing them further away from people finding them while browsing for maps. It seems like there is tons of people who use Halomaps who do not use the forums (like thousands) and who is to say that those same people keep track of projects located on the forums continually?

I remember having this discussion back when Lumoria came out about numerical ratings. In a sense, its great, in another, it makes no sense. For example, why are we rating really good maps with a 8/10, when sometimes they are the best maps out there? What are you comparing it too?

I'm not sure if I want to say/recommend to get rid of the entire system in and of itself, as its a really great system in theory, but obviously it's being abused by trouble makers and is being ineffective. Isn't there something we can do about this? I'd like to have a healthy discussion about this.

maybe your map just sucks

I can make it lower if you want. :)

You care about the rating? Oh Higuy, you handsome little devil, you!

Maybe we could scrap ratings all together and group maps by similarity and/or popularity that way popular maps are actually downloaded and people can play custom maps online without organizing gamenights.

option to organize map by author?

I seriously cannot believe that House 2 has 82,000 downloads while Foundry only has 14,000.

Sure it's been out for longer but the map is nasty shaders and stretched textures central.

Kinda hard I'd image. Just type the author into Search and there you go. (Except for some reason I'm not under the author for Takedown: Project Lawson maps...)

maybe your maps just suck

This is a valid complaint and one I have struggled with. Numerical ratings are fine as long as a crowd of people are not involved. As much as you won't like when I say it but the younger the audience rating something the worse the distribution. It has to do with nuance which is not acquired until later in life. Something I hadn't learned when I instituted the rating system. I actually never wanted one, but people kept insisting so I added it in.

But back to the problem here is a statistical distribution of how people rate maps on this site (as of 2013).



I cannot change behaviour or make the audience older so I am left with leaving the system as is removing it or hopefully when I re-do the site either limiting it to only three (good, fair, bad) options or just two thumbs up or thumbs down. However since the audience is still the same any input will be problematic.

One of my original solutions was to only allow select registered users to rate the maps but then that creates more work for me as I would have to pre-screen and monitor them and it also creates a "special clique" that everyone would either want to be in or want to hate. Also in order to be fair they would have to play and rate a lot of maps not just a few.

I am not certain what I will be doing but I can say what I will not do. And I know you did not ask but others will suggest this: No user comments! Ever! not at all! NO!

great post i rate it 10/10 best ma-er.. post ever.

Like/Dislike rating maybe?

I'm sure this would be hell to implement on the back end, but maybe some sort of commenting system where users can leave brief summaries of their experience with the map would be more useful than a simple like/dislike display, or any numeric rating display.

If implemented I could see maliciously negative/nonconstructive comments being a problem...

This, but the ratings can still be rigged. And Higuy with 87 downloads and that rating, + Dennis stats i'm pretty sure it is rigged.

What is the number of ratings posted necessary for it to show up on the DL page ? And how many people rate a map compared to the amount of downloads ? Those stats would prove my point.

What would be helpful would be adding a comment section or a better review of the map, or even tags like on some sites, like "large" "good gameplay" "nice", and if several people say those tags are matching with the map, they can somehow vote for it.

This is a very good point.



Like Dennis said, this would probably be hell and back to not only implement, but also maintain.

The best suggestion I can think of at the moment would be to only allow registered users of the forum to rate maps and possibly leave comments. The comments could have a max character usage, no pictures, and certain words/phrases banned, to make it easy on Dennis. This could also allow easy moderation in case someone starts spamming too, just delete the entire account and any posts linked to it (if thats how it works... if not, nevermind). This still does create an entire other task though and can be a tedious task.

Another option would be to have simply either a "like" or "dislike" bar, similar to youtube, showing the number of results on either side.

Either way it'll require work to change, but hopefully for the better. Overall Dennis doesn't need to create more work for himself though.

10/10 best bell curve ever!

Is the rating system already rated for 1 vote for IP? I doubt so and that may be part of the issue

It is, but people use proxy websites to spam bad votes.

Another idea that came to mind is to have a committie of users that could rate the maps and give it an average, but im not sure if that'd fall under Dennis' rule of having no outside people (non UXB) help with Halomaps (in terms of upkeep?)

e: also, another map with 8.6 rating YET ITS A BLOOD GULCH MOD?! http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=5525
Edited by Higuy on Oct 1, 2014 at 11:31 AM

That's because the audience of this map is targeted for... a certain type of persons.
Also I have to say that I didn't see about Dennis' comment words.

Buuut the tags would be quite useful if somebody is looking for a map with certain things, mixing nice gameplay and graphics. H2-3-4-reach could also be used as tags.

Dennis should include a video of the map so we know what it looks like before downloading and rating.

Oh please.

Ratings do matter. Maybe not for you but you're not the only one who download maps.

While I agree that ratings shouldn't make a huge difference, it does bring into question, "Why do we even have ratings if they are completely arbitrary and meaningless?"
Edited by Echo77 on Oct 1, 2014 at 01:49 PM

Ratings may not matter to us as a community because we are generally well-informed and don't need to look at ratings to decide whether to download a map. But for people that come to site just to download maps and not participate in discussion (ex: South American demographic), they may see 1/10 and decide not to download it because they didn't read the year-long WIP thread.

So the rating system most likely has a considerable influence on downloads. I'm think it's safe to say that not everyone that plays CE uses the forum, but this site is the go-to place to download maps.

Therefore, I propose the removal of the rating system. It likely only has a negative impact on map downloads anyway.




EDIT: If Dennis or others insist on having a rating system, here's an idea: link forum user accounts to file uploads (ex: while logged in on my forum account, if I upload a file the author is listed as stunt_man). Then, only allow users who have uploaded a file (maybe even: only allow users who have received total 'x' number of endorsements) to give another map an "endorsement." Think of it like a thumbs-up, but there's no thumbs-down.

Just an idea. If it's flawed or if it would be difficult to implement, forget it. But in that case, the current rating system ought to be removed.
Edited by stunt_man on Oct 1, 2014 at 02:11 PM

I'd have to agree with stunt_man here. I personally look through maps via rating to get a general idea of what good maps there are (notably if I'd be able to use them for RPs, cuz why the hell not). Unfortunately, problems like this tend to occur and then you get this whole slew of bad maps with high ratings and vice versa.

Yes it is, but people use proxies and Tor nodes to get past that and the cookie. Rule number one in web design: you can never trust input from the client.

There is also a critical mass of votes, I am not openly going to define, required before the average is posted.
Not certain if you meant that the chart I posted is fictitious or Geomar's rating have been rigged. The chart is real It was derived from importing all the rating for all maps records into Excel and then charting them. I haven't looked at the distribution of Geomar's ratings.
Maybe I wasn't clear so let me say it again: A comment system will NEVER EVER happen as long as I own the website. No comment system every! Never!
Who is going to take the videos of the over 4500 maps in the archive? Besides you can go here for map reviews
This was one of the concepts I had as well, however it creates another host of problems as to managing the committee and the inevitable desire for some to join and others to hate.
This goes back to the problem of distribution where not everyone of the 39,000 people who downloaded the map has rating it and only those with a vested interest have.

The other problem of a public rating system is not knowing if the person rating actually played the map. These were all the things I explained before I allowed the masses to convince me to add it :)

I have not yet found a solution but keep talking about it maybe something will be discovered.

I meant that Geomar rating was rigged. I wanted to know how many rating a map needed to stop showing "pending", because if there are more rating than DLs, that means they have been rigged. Or ratings with time, to show if there is like a flood of 1. By while saying that I give ideas to people who does rig the ratings

oh my.... my rating is 100/10







cool

Maybe we could have an outliers system. Delete the few lowest ratings, and delete the few highest ratings, resulting in the true probability of ratings?

Make it so you must dload the map before being granted voting status.

what if you downloaded it from something like mediafire?

Then tuff luck. Either download it form this site or collaborate with HAC2

You seriously think people care that much?

redownload it?

But again, why keep something around if nobody cares about it?

i.e. Is it not a sign that the ratings system should be removed or revised if it's assumed that nobody pays any mind to the ratings system that they know offers little-to-no useful information?