Add-on Ratings changes

[Avalice]

Yeah I'll be honest if you make a change tailored towards a certain subcommunity in your community and then people from said subcommunity are against the change you should stop arguing and revert it. There is no "silent majority" that's secretly enjoying this change.

 

[Pikaspoop]

Yeah I'll be honest if you make a change tailored towards a certain subcommunity in your community and then people from said subcommunity are against the change you should stop arguing and revert it. There is no "silent majority" that's secretly enjoying this change.

You can run your websites that way if you'd like. We'll do stuff our way.

 

[Othius]

Buuuuuut, wouldn't that let them say "bad, one star"? Or sum shit like that?

You could always do that! But that's just opening yourself up to

Moderator Notice:

Don't do this. Unconstructive criticism without justification only serve to hurt the creator involved.

Now, of course, all systems that allow users to type and send messages open themselves up to bad-faith discussion. Sorry, it came free with your ability to socialize. However, say that people only ever engaged in good-faith discussion? The review tab still shuts down the ability for that to become a conversation compared to the discussion tab. Yes, even in a perfect world scenario, it's a worse system.

I still think there's some merit in having the Reviews tab, if only to provide a dedicated space for reviews and to make them feel valuable (even if the implementation is a bit shoddy).

I totally get what you mean by this from an intuitive sense. It's like, omg, star go up. It's a novelty, kinda like facebook likes (although there are so many studies on the psychological effects of those @_@). It just seems cool on paper. The community also operated just fine without them for 20 years, and more effectively too on terms of community mod-engagement. I could be on board with some sort of inbetween-solution. That would require somebody able to code it lmao

 

[Bartz]

This forum is meant to be a place to share your work, collaborate, communicate, and have fun. This is not about earning brownie points or climbing some social ladder here.

If this is the case, then why have the entire "cool" system at all? That's just doing this exact thing but to a even higher extreme. I feel like this can easy lead to a case to where those people that couldn't handle their mods having 1 or 2 stars to someone else's 4 or 5 are also not going to handle their mod only have 5 "cools" to someone else 100 "cools".

At least with stars, it feels like you can actually achieve and gain better ratings if you make updates addressing issues or adding new features and actually make a effort to improve.

But with "cools" mods that have been around for longer are inherently going to always have more "cools" then newer mods, and mods that are already popular are going to also inherently get more "cools".

In theory, before this change you could get as many stars if not more then any other mod if you tried hard enough and or cared about it enough. Now its basically impossible to get as many "cools" as mods that are just older or more popular. I feel like if stars are gone, "cools" shouldn't exist either.

 

[Bandder]

Not to say I haven't had any experience at all, but I've only made a color mod, so I dunno where I stand at that point.

i mean i would say that counts, cuz otherwise im a hypocrite and all my points are invalid or something

Everything that a review can do can be done within a discussion thread. Discussion threads also opens up the chance for a proper dialogue, formatting, embedded imaging, and just general expression. Review pages which consist of [one unformatted review] followed [one available reply which only the author can write], and then that line of conversation is forced shut arestraight up infuriating when there's a forum system that exists and solves all these problems, yet is comparitively hidden.

well thank you for providing a reason other than "the staff feel that way," and "we don't want artists to feel bad" for explaining your reasoning. :D

Bullshit, I've coded Mach, contributed to Tag Team Racing, made TagUtilities, and so many smaller addons for my multiple netgame servers. The staff themselves have also made some of the most recognizable addons in this community.
You do not get to say that only non-creators are with this change. this is very disingenuous.

apologies, you are right. allow me to specifiy, random non-modders, the staff (who are modders) and a small amount of other modders agree with this change, while most other modders do not. i apologize for not specifying earlier. i will make sure to specify next time.

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

Okay, lots of text from Pikaspoop, so I'ma just get on with it.

Bullshit, I've coded Mach, contributed to Tag Team Racing, made TagUtilities, and so many smaller addons for my multiple netgame servers. The staff themselves have also made some of the most recognizable addons in this community.
You do not get to say that only non-creators are with this change. this is very disingenuous.

Really understand this. But also, it's kind of a stupid point Bandder made (Not tryna be rude here, but it really was quite a big assumption. You're great with mods, and I respect that, Bandder, but assuming things gets people to be real suspicious of ya,), so is there really any reason to get a lil mad over it?
(EDIT:Never saw Bandder's specification. My bad, man.)

Why are you looking down on creators? This is just incredibly rude.
In fact, this is a big reason we're removing the stars to begin with. We don't want elitism or bullying to occur on this site. The fact that creators are being identified as "lower" or "bad" due to the star system is proof that it should have been removed a long time ago.

I agree with this here. It indeed was VERY rude. But there's no reason to bring up the fact you don't want bullying, as:
A: It's a given, it shouldn't be on any site to begin with. And:
B. You kinda already said it, so it gets repetitive.

No, we are not. You can still portray all of this in text. We are simply removing the 1 - 5 star rating and average of stars.
You can still give numerical ratings in text, I have said this before. Any arguments about "staff not wanting creators to see criticism" is immediately invalidated by simply speaking your mind in the review. :P

I'm kinda confused here, as no one will ever ACTUALLY know if this is true or not. But that's a lot of things in this world. isn't it. Hell, I can barely trust anything, haha.
But I do agree you could review in the discussion tab. However, as I said before, that would make the limit change useless.

I feel like this idea that stars equate to a view of quality has been said a lot, yet hasn't addressed some of the counter points to it.
Addons will have gifs and screenshots showcasing the overall gameplay of the addon, and that alone can help a person determine quality. If a user wants to look deeper, the reviews are still there.
We have so many other methods to determine quality, so users are not prevented from seeing the quality of an addon at a glance.

Nothing to say here. It's all true on this fact.

Staff have all been community members and modders in the past, and other modders have posted in this thread both agreeing and disagreeing with us.
We will and have been listening to modders, but we won't sit on the fence for every issue. We'll do what we see as being the most beneficial for the community.

Okay, so I've used the "Talk to the staff" page a lot, and it definitely clears up whether this is true or not, which it def is. But maybe you could hire more staff, y'know, to be active at certain times or not? Like a shift.

After all of this discourse, I have the distinct feeling that people are actually afraid of the potential clout that they may lose from this change. The loss of a metric you can use to show other how "good" you are at making mods, or how cool you are in the community.
This forum is meant to be a place to share your work, collaborate, communicate, and have fun. This is not about earning brownie points or climbing some social ladder here.
Reviews are still going to allow users to share feedback with creators, you can still give numerical ratings in text, and reviews will always have a place here (not all discussions will be about improving addons after all). We just don't want an average of the ratings to be so pronounced on the face of every addon, as we've had issues with review bombing and unhelpful reviews reflecting an incorrect view of the work.

Gonna be real, that "incompetent" comment really set me off. You should not be referring to other users that way.

NOW THIS, on the other hand, is a HUGE assumption. But again, you said it's a feeling, so you never actually assumed.
But again, feelings aren't always right, and maybe it's not true.
But it's definitely likely there's at least ONE person doing this.
It is indeed a place to collaborate, and so people should definitely take that into consideration.
So overall, good points, but a few holes. Maybe patch em up?

HOO BOY, never wrote such a wall in a LONG time. Kinda proud of myself, lmfao.

 

[Othius]

I feel like this can easy lead to a case to where those people that couldn't handle their mods having 1 or 2 stars to someone else's 4 or 5 are also not going to handle their mod only have 5 "cools" to someone else 100 "cools".

Oh, there's actually a fundamental difference here! Let me put it this way:

1 star is direct negative feedback that comes from somebody actively leaving negative feedback.

5 cools is just five people leaving a cool. Cool! It gets rid of immediately visible negative affirmations.

It takes a lot of clicks to cross-check your cool count with another mod's cool count and then use that information to make an informed comparison about what that says about your mod. On the other hand, a 1 star immediately tells you "I made something shit...", and you have to take effort into finding out WHY (which many people will not do). That's no good!

If someone wants to leave negative affirmations then they have to make a thread where the creator and the reviewer can have a conversation out of it, and, ideally, learn something about their creation and have knowledge for what to do in the future. The reviewer can be instantly moderated if they're being toxic

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

You could always do that! But that's just opening yourself up to

Moderator Notice:

Don't do this. Unconstructive criticism without justification only serve to hurt the creator involved.

Now, of course, all systems that allow users to type and send messages open themselves up to bad-faith discussion. Sorry, it came free with your ability to socialize. However, say that people only ever engaged in good-faith discussion? The review tab still shuts down the ability for that to become a conversation compared to the discussion tab. Yes, even in a perfect world scenario, it's a worse system.

Hm. You make a good point. Nice job with the explanation!

 

[Maverick]

This is a very extreme change to make just so certain incompetent addon makers can feel better about themselves.

while I wasn't around in the mystic era of the community, the horror stories I have heard made me GRATEFUL I didn't join back then.
tho I see the complete removal of stars just plain stupid, we SHOULD be supporting newer/up and coming artist to the community. the big names of now wont be here forever, so we should at least welcome the names of tomorrow with warmth rather than that of ridicule"

Next they're gonna remove reviews entirely, then remove the discussion tab, then remove the creation of threads as a whole.

since when did they say that? I've been checking in this thread every now and then and I haven't seen any of the moderators or devs say that they were removing everything that makes a message board site literally function. it's fearmongering and it helps nobody.

if the problem really is just people saying "your addon sucks" and 1 star with no actual feedback, then just delete the review and keep up those and that give 1 star AND actual feedback

gonna be real here as someone who doesn't know how to operate a website. I could only imagine how much manpower it would take to check negative review that amount to nothing and delete them. even so, people would probably complain to the devs/moderators/others about how "it's basically 1984"

it prevents the mod creator and user(s) from seeing the quality of a particular mod at a glance, which again, is the whole point of reviews.

you're acting like searching from rating was completely removed, it isn't btw

Well, that's just one review. Again, removal of stars doesn't really contribute to or take away from the effect this message has.

and neither does keeping them in

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

you're acting like searching from rating was completely removed, it isn't btw

Hey, it would help a lot if you could show me where to find this. I don't see it, and it makes it much harder to find things people see and haven't seen.

 

[Whoexer9]

You could always do that! But that's just opening yourself up to

Moderator Notice:

Don't do this. Unconstructive criticism without justification only serve to hurt the creator involved.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS DISSCUSION?!

 

[crystallinegazer]

Everything that a review can do can be done within a discussion thread. Discussion threads also opens up the chance for a proper dialogue, formatting, embedded imaging, and just general expression. Review pages which consist of [one unformatted review] followed [one available reply which only the author can write], and then that line of conversation is forced shut arestraight up infuriating when there's a forum system that exists and solves all these problems, yet is comparitively hidden.

I honestly entirely agree with this - I enjoy talking about my mods with people and it's fun to hear what they think needs work, however it's kind of hard to do that in the review tab considering all I can do is give a short response back and... that's it. They can't reply back to me.
Mod discussion threads have kind of just turned into people making little comments like it's a YouTube comment section and it sucks, I'd love to see bigger conversations about mods on here. Getting rid of reviews entirely really would be a change for the better because you could easily just write what you would put in a review in the discussion tab instead and people can actually talk about it together. (which is literally just how it used to be before the move to xenforo!!! it would not be a problem at all!!!)

 

[Maverick]

Hey, it would help a lot if you could show me where to find this. I don't see it, and it makes it much harder to find things people see and haven't seen.

it's still accessible by clicking on "top resources" in addons & more

 

[Bandder]

it's still accessible by clicking on "top resources" in addons & more

oh yeah i knew that already

 

[Maverick]

oh yeah i knew that already

I was talking to the people who didn't

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

it's still accessible by clicking on "top resources" in addons & more

Sorry, but I don't see it. Is it somewhere else?

 

[Maverick]

Sorry, but I don't see it. Is it somewhere else?

yes, it's on the opposite side of the screen

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

yes, it's on the opposite side of the screen
View attachment 147406

OKAY, thanks! This basically makes it to where the stars are still there. It's only that the stars are COSMETICALLY GONE, and that the stars still work as intended, right?
So basically, nothing really changed.
Clever moderators!

 

[Sls64LGamingBro]

On the other hand, a 1 star immediately tells you "I made something shit...", and you have to take effort into finding out WHY (which many people will not do). That's no good!

I mean, removing the stars completely prevents first-time SRB2 modders from effortlessly making their addons better from time to time. Unless it's constructive criticism, they would agree with it. If it's negative criticism, they won't agree with it. Unless it's a stupid and offensive review. The Moderators would remove it.

This is a very extreme change to make just so certain incompetent addon makers can feel better about themselves. Next they're gonna remove reviews entirely, then remove the discussion tab, then remove the creation of threads as a whole. When you baby-proof the whole website, it becomes less of a community and more of an echo chamber.

I don't think that's considered to ever happen. Heck, this Message Board would've been shut down entirely if the Staff decided to do so.

You can run your websites that way if you'd like. We'll do stuff our way.

I mean, people who make decisions and choices have to be careful of their restrictions.

I agree with this here. It indeed was VERY rude. But there's no reason to bring up the fact you don't want bullying, as:
A: It's a given, it shouldn't be on any site to begin with. And:
B. You kinda already said it, so it gets repetitive.

You know, he was trying to explain in a way that you should've not said. And he wasn't going to aggressively repeat it.

Getting rid of reviews entirely really would be a change for the better because you could easily just write what you would put in a review in the discussion tab instead and people can actually talk about it together. (which is literally just how it used to be before the move to xenforo!!! it would not be a problem at all!!!)

Even if you consider saying that, most people (who were new before the site moved to xenforo) got used to this brand-new change. This caused new people in the SRB2 community just to get an account and see this. I agree with the statement entirely btw. It's just the part you just said later on caught my attention.

 

[*GOOFYRAT!*]

You know, he was trying to explain in a way that you should've not said. And he wasn't going to aggressively repeat it.

By this I mean that bullying shouldn't be on any site.