*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Eh, fair.
Add-on Ratings changes
- Thread starter RoyKirbs
- Start date
After sorta talking about it over Discord and giving it a big thought, I figured I'd leave my two cents as well.
My feelings with the current changes are mixed, and to explain why, first I must go over the default XenForo's review system and explain why I feel it sucks.
With that in mind, here's the why.
Increasing the review character minimum to 100 forces the reviewer to actually put their mind into their review instead of "lol good 5 star" or "lol bad 1 star". This is great, and should open the door to more detailed reviews that actually go over the points they liked and over the ones they didn't.
That is pretty cool to me, honestly!
But the other part of the current change, which amounts to "Star ratings are hidden (except when using a filter).
The star based summary, which averages rating scores for something moderately useful, is now replaced by a counter going from zero to infinity. You'll notice that we already have two of these, namely
It also doesn't provide the same information that a metric with a potential negative position can provide -
Besides, a
These changes are rather mediocre, if not worse than what we had before.
I can understand these changes are coming from, mind you. Clueless actors tend to misuse systems in place for whatever reason, usually because they don't get how it works. Maybe they rate things 1 star because "i didn't like", but they don't really know any better than that. Bad actors will abuse these same systems for whatever reason, sometimes tiptoeing what's allowed.
But both these types of actors can easily be corrected with the help of the community and the powers of a staff member: The report button there is not for show, and moderators have the means to quickly navigate to a particular post to excise it if need be.
ANY sort of review system will be abused in novel ways when given the chance, and that's why the dynamic of the community and its staff helps to keep this at bay. Simply removing an ability that has been useful for quite some time helps nobody, it just disables an area of interaction from the community while not actually providing a better solution.
Overall, XenForo reviews are flawed, and the newer changes (except for 100-char) don't feel particularly useful.
I believe the actual solution to the overarching issue would be addressing the issues I highlighted:
Reviews are not engageable, and ratings are vague.
Perhaps, different ways to manage reviews and ratings should be considered?
Changing how reviews operate, and renaming then reworking the stars to something less vague, would turn the current feedback system into something more useful and less XenForo-y dogwater.
Reducing the amount of thought needed from 5 stars to 2 recommendation states would help in having better quality reviews - the "I (don't) recommend it" bit is already made obvious, making the rest of the review a forced elaboration as to why has the reviewer decided so.
And encouraging user interaction with reviews by facilitating comments on them can discourage low quality reviews, be it because of social pressure or just because it's easier to chisel them with discussion.
This makes all reviews easier to read and parse for players, and easier to moderate for staff.
edited to clean up some strange wording, pacing and emphasis usage
My feelings with the current changes are mixed, and to explain why, first I must go over the default XenForo's review system and explain why I feel it sucks.
I want to emphasize that being able to rate something, even negatively, is useful. I enjoy being able to leave a positive rating on something I like, alongside a review as for why I think this way. Conversely, I want to be able to leave a negative rating on something that I did not like, and be able to defend this with a why.
Being able to rate something with stars provides immediate feedback about a review - think of it as a summary. This rating affects the rating meter provided in the overview and in the addon list.
Addons seen as great by the community will have plenty of stars, while flawed addons or those that don't fit properly will have lower scores. This is natural.
Both positive and negative ratings help users see what's the most liked and disliked things in a list of addons at a glance, and (ideally) you can learn why if you go to the addon page and read the reviews. This all helps the author of said addons too, providing them with valuable information to better their craft and make something better next time around.
Even though I like them ratings and reviews, XenForo's default system is pretty ass.
Ratings... While they are par for the course, they're stupid vague.
Think about it a little: What are you measuring with stars? How much you like the addon? How well it plays? How SRB2y it is?
And note that you have five of these to give. If you know what 5 of them means as well as 1, what do 2, 3 and 4 mean? Why would you choose 3 even? Why would you decide to pick 2 or 4?
This sounds quite vague to me, and only the extremes tend to be most meaningful anyways.
Even so, with these stars you are given a quick summary to glance at, offering a rough idea of the "quality" (or whatever your assumption of this metric is) of the work as perceived by the community at large.
This not only helps a prospective player understand what to expect from the addon without having to start by digging through text (I get games from Steam, I'm sure you can understand why I don't wish to read reviews all the time), but also get the author to think "Hmm, maybe I did something weird?" on low ratings and encourage them to read reviews then try to open up avenues of change to make it more interesting for a better rating. Or get ecstatic at having all the meaningless shiny little stars.
(Ideally, you would always navigate to the addon page and check the reviews, provided thanks to the community.)
Now, reviews are also par - but definitely not great. They do their job decently though: You can leave a review with a rating... and that's it.
As a player looking at the review, sometimes you'd expect the reviewer to go over something that they may have summarized, or perhaps you've got other questions that you want to discuss. How do you go about it? You can open a conversation with them and point out the review they left, or you can @ping them in the Discussions tab, but both options are mechanically awkward. And the last one just brings the person into the thread, which might be socially awkward (but you can do, nothing stops you lol).
A better option is if you replied to it- Oh wait, you can't. Only the addon author can reply to the review, and only once. That's as much engagement as there can be with a review as-is, other than the previous options.
Besides, and by experience, discussion threads are easy to derail with random junk, and god forbid a conversation line lasts for several pages, making reading the many pages a massive chore from there on out.
On top of that, reviews are pretty abusable, intentionally or otherwise - While useless reviews can be reported, they can still be made. Prying information from a lazy player is then hard to impossible, either because the player doesn't want to navigate to the addon page anymore to discuss it, or because @pinging them in the thread to get information might be weird.
The way both concepts were implemented in XenForo are most useful with a community that can enunciate what they like and what they don't on a particular work in an hyper constructive manner, but... we're not really that kind of community, so we're bound to have a few bumps here and there that need to be tweaked.
Being able to rate something with stars provides immediate feedback about a review - think of it as a summary. This rating affects the rating meter provided in the overview and in the addon list.
Addons seen as great by the community will have plenty of stars, while flawed addons or those that don't fit properly will have lower scores. This is natural.
Both positive and negative ratings help users see what's the most liked and disliked things in a list of addons at a glance, and (ideally) you can learn why if you go to the addon page and read the reviews. This all helps the author of said addons too, providing them with valuable information to better their craft and make something better next time around.
Even though I like them ratings and reviews, XenForo's default system is pretty ass.
Ratings... While they are par for the course, they're stupid vague.
Think about it a little: What are you measuring with stars? How much you like the addon? How well it plays? How SRB2y it is?
And note that you have five of these to give. If you know what 5 of them means as well as 1, what do 2, 3 and 4 mean? Why would you choose 3 even? Why would you decide to pick 2 or 4?
This sounds quite vague to me, and only the extremes tend to be most meaningful anyways.
Even so, with these stars you are given a quick summary to glance at, offering a rough idea of the "quality" (or whatever your assumption of this metric is) of the work as perceived by the community at large.
This not only helps a prospective player understand what to expect from the addon without having to start by digging through text (I get games from Steam, I'm sure you can understand why I don't wish to read reviews all the time), but also get the author to think "Hmm, maybe I did something weird?" on low ratings and encourage them to read reviews then try to open up avenues of change to make it more interesting for a better rating. Or get ecstatic at having all the meaningless shiny little stars.
(Ideally, you would always navigate to the addon page and check the reviews, provided thanks to the community.)
Now, reviews are also par - but definitely not great. They do their job decently though: You can leave a review with a rating... and that's it.
As a player looking at the review, sometimes you'd expect the reviewer to go over something that they may have summarized, or perhaps you've got other questions that you want to discuss. How do you go about it? You can open a conversation with them and point out the review they left, or you can @ping them in the Discussions tab, but both options are mechanically awkward. And the last one just brings the person into the thread, which might be socially awkward (but you can do, nothing stops you lol).
A better option is if you replied to it- Oh wait, you can't. Only the addon author can reply to the review, and only once. That's as much engagement as there can be with a review as-is, other than the previous options.
Besides, and by experience, discussion threads are easy to derail with random junk, and god forbid a conversation line lasts for several pages, making reading the many pages a massive chore from there on out.
On top of that, reviews are pretty abusable, intentionally or otherwise - While useless reviews can be reported, they can still be made. Prying information from a lazy player is then hard to impossible, either because the player doesn't want to navigate to the addon page anymore to discuss it, or because @pinging them in the thread to get information might be weird.
The way both concepts were implemented in XenForo are most useful with a community that can enunciate what they like and what they don't on a particular work in an hyper constructive manner, but... we're not really that kind of community, so we're bound to have a few bumps here and there that need to be tweaked.
With that in mind, here's the why.
Increasing the review character minimum to 100 forces the reviewer to actually put their mind into their review instead of "lol good 5 star" or "lol bad 1 star". This is great, and should open the door to more detailed reviews that actually go over the points they liked and over the ones they didn't.
That is pretty cool to me, honestly!
But the other part of the current change, which amounts to "Star ratings are hidden (except when using a filter).
Cool! is now enabled on addon pages.", doesn't feel great to me.The star based summary, which averages rating scores for something moderately useful, is now replaced by a counter going from zero to infinity. You'll notice that we already have two of these, namely
Downloads and Views, making a third one rather pointless to have.It also doesn't provide the same information that a metric with a potential negative position can provide -
Cool!s just tell you how many players interacted with your work, and that's it. Low Cool!s only serve to tell players that some players liked it. What about those that didn't? Did they try it even?Besides, a
Cool! is practically just as vague as before. You're simply rating a thing as "Cool", and it doesn't pair itself with any review in particular. It's just "Cool". That feels like on the same level as a post with the contents being "Cool", or a "i like, 5 stars" review.These changes are rather mediocre, if not worse than what we had before.
I can understand these changes are coming from, mind you. Clueless actors tend to misuse systems in place for whatever reason, usually because they don't get how it works. Maybe they rate things 1 star because "i didn't like", but they don't really know any better than that. Bad actors will abuse these same systems for whatever reason, sometimes tiptoeing what's allowed.
But both these types of actors can easily be corrected with the help of the community and the powers of a staff member: The report button there is not for show, and moderators have the means to quickly navigate to a particular post to excise it if need be.
ANY sort of review system will be abused in novel ways when given the chance, and that's why the dynamic of the community and its staff helps to keep this at bay. Simply removing an ability that has been useful for quite some time helps nobody, it just disables an area of interaction from the community while not actually providing a better solution.
Overall, XenForo reviews are flawed, and the newer changes (except for 100-char) don't feel particularly useful.
I believe the actual solution to the overarching issue would be addressing the issues I highlighted:
Reviews are not engageable, and ratings are vague.
Perhaps, different ways to manage reviews and ratings should be considered?
I want to preface this by noting that I know changing the layout of the site to allow more features is XenForo addon territory, but figured I'd lay them down anyways. It could open up dialogue about what would be an ideal review system, if anything.
Originally, I thought that simply revamping them by doing exactly what Steam does for apps would be a great idea:
Personally, I think this is an ideal solution. But it works better for the game platform that is Steam - It is overkill for an addon aggregator like this message board.
But there are still some good parts to it to take from it. To highlight a few, renaming and reworking the rating system is a good method to remove ambiguity of what a rating is.
As written a section ago, why 5 stars? And what are you rating, anyways? Wouldn't it be better if this was more streamlined?
Therefore, instead of "rating" being just a rating with no nickname, it should be a "recommendation rating" (or some other better name): a metric that holds how recommended the addon is.
And instead of having that many stupid stars to choose for in your review, they get coalesced into two contrasting options: You choose between "Recommended"
Turning ratings into recommendations dispel ambiguity, letting the reviewer think less about "how many stars am I rating this" by simply asking them "Would you recommend this to other players? Yes or no?", with a review for the "Why?". Very straightforward.
This way, you don't have to stay in the edge thinking "ooohh, I don't really like the mod because this and this", now that you have to think about other players as well.
"Woah, is that CHARACTER!? Does it play good? Holy SHIT this is amazing, I absolutely recomend it!"
"Oh, this Kaizo map pack is really damn hard. I completed it, but I wouldn't recommend it to you normies."
Or something more advanced like "This niche character plays really well and I had fun, but I wouldn't recommend it because X" or "This music pack, I didn't like. But if you are a fan of Y, why not give it a go?".
Even better, "recommendations" help remove that notion that a rating has to correlate with the quality of a work. Yes, more polished works have higher recommendations as is natural, but the implication that "more score very polished" is no longer a thing, with more simplistic works being able to get just as many recommendations because they're amazing.
Works with a lower recommendation score doesn't necessarily mean such a work is bad - it's just not recommended. Could be too difficult, could be flawed in some way. This should not be seen as a discouraging moment, but one of learning: read reviews, figure out the main problematic points, and do something about it. Or it could be a badge of honor if you're insane enough?
In addition, reviews get turned into something like mini threads. Each review can now be engaged individually by anyone, be it to get information, be all like "yes bestie i agree", or... whatever you would want to do. With this, you don't have to do much clickwork to be able to ask and discuss why the review is like that.
This might be the most optimal way to engage with reviews, but also a bit too much, both for the backend (LOL A NEW THREAD PER REVIEW that'd kill storage i think) and for you, the viewer.
A little bit of talking lead me to something a bit more simplified, at least review-side:
This one is a bit more messy, but I'd say it integrates reviews into the discussions tab better, while still allowing just reviews to be seen in a separate tab, making this a better choice.
Going with this would encourage players and authors to visit the discussions tab to read reviews and discuss them or the mod itself, having them engage with the thread in a more organic fashion. You can quote reviews, discuss individual points, and get more information - stuff that would be slightly more awkward to do with reviews being somewhere else.
A fun point with this is that to leave a rating, you have to review the addon. Seeing other people talk might encourage (read: force) you to make an acceptable post just to leave a rating, as you can be quoted from it if someone wants to ask you something. A little bit of social pressure doesn't hurt.
Of note, this won't unspaghettify the discussions thread; In fact, this might actually make it worse.
Originally, I thought that simply revamping them by doing exactly what Steam does for apps would be a great idea:
Reviews have their own section, and each have a rating and a block of text associated to them.
The rating number in the sidebar is a summary of all ratings given, denoting how recommended the addon is.
Each review is a block of text, with a rating right above it.
Each rating is either "Recommended" or "Not Recommended". The site aggregates all ratings, averages it, and displays the result of recommendations as a percentage on the sidebar.
Works that don't have a particular amount of ratings do not get a score percentage. Hiding the score helps curb players that follow the rating of the player before them.
Each review has its own comments section where you are able to engage with the review author about it. This allows other players or even the developers to interact with the players to get more information or other things.
(Reviews can also have a "Developer response", which is basically a highlighted comment displayed right on the store page side of the review.)
Each review can also be given a rating itself, marking how "helpful" it is. There's also a "Funny" rating.
The rating number in the sidebar is a summary of all ratings given, denoting how recommended the addon is.
Each review is a block of text, with a rating right above it.
Each rating is either "Recommended" or "Not Recommended". The site aggregates all ratings, averages it, and displays the result of recommendations as a percentage on the sidebar.
Works that don't have a particular amount of ratings do not get a score percentage. Hiding the score helps curb players that follow the rating of the player before them.
Each review has its own comments section where you are able to engage with the review author about it. This allows other players or even the developers to interact with the players to get more information or other things.
(Reviews can also have a "Developer response", which is basically a highlighted comment displayed right on the store page side of the review.)
Each review can also be given a rating itself, marking how "helpful" it is. There's also a "Funny" rating.
But there are still some good parts to it to take from it. To highlight a few, renaming and reworking the rating system is a good method to remove ambiguity of what a rating is.
As written a section ago, why 5 stars? And what are you rating, anyways? Wouldn't it be better if this was more streamlined?
Therefore, instead of "rating" being just a rating with no nickname, it should be a "recommendation rating" (or some other better name): a metric that holds how recommended the addon is.
And instead of having that many stupid stars to choose for in your review, they get coalesced into two contrasting options: You choose between "Recommended"
+1, and "Not Recommended" -1.Turning ratings into recommendations dispel ambiguity, letting the reviewer think less about "how many stars am I rating this" by simply asking them "Would you recommend this to other players? Yes or no?", with a review for the "Why?". Very straightforward.
This way, you don't have to stay in the edge thinking "ooohh, I don't really like the mod because this and this", now that you have to think about other players as well.
"Woah, is that CHARACTER!? Does it play good? Holy SHIT this is amazing, I absolutely recomend it!"
"Oh, this Kaizo map pack is really damn hard. I completed it, but I wouldn't recommend it to you normies."
Or something more advanced like "This niche character plays really well and I had fun, but I wouldn't recommend it because X" or "This music pack, I didn't like. But if you are a fan of Y, why not give it a go?".
Even better, "recommendations" help remove that notion that a rating has to correlate with the quality of a work. Yes, more polished works have higher recommendations as is natural, but the implication that "more score very polished" is no longer a thing, with more simplistic works being able to get just as many recommendations because they're amazing.
Works with a lower recommendation score doesn't necessarily mean such a work is bad - it's just not recommended. Could be too difficult, could be flawed in some way. This should not be seen as a discouraging moment, but one of learning: read reviews, figure out the main problematic points, and do something about it. Or it could be a badge of honor if you're insane enough?
In addition, reviews get turned into something like mini threads. Each review can now be engaged individually by anyone, be it to get information, be all like "yes bestie i agree", or... whatever you would want to do. With this, you don't have to do much clickwork to be able to ask and discuss why the review is like that.
This might be the most optimal way to engage with reviews, but also a bit too much, both for the backend (LOL A NEW THREAD PER REVIEW that'd kill storage i think) and for you, the viewer.
A little bit of talking lead me to something a bit more simplified, at least review-side:
Each addon has a Discussions tab. Why not turn it into a place for reviews as well?
Instead of reviews being a separate concept that exists in the overview/review tab, being able to make a post should also allow you to add a "rating" for the addon.
Writing a new post in the discussions thread should give you an option to "update your rating". (How? Where?)
In here, you can pick between "No change", "Recommended" and "Not Recommended".
Except for "No change", changing your rating and creating the post will highlight it then give it a badge with the chosen rating. (previous posts with ratings from the same user should be marked as "outdated", with a link to the newest rating)
Through this, the Reviews tab can simply aggregate and showcase all non-outdated highlighted posts with a rating (or at least a summary of them, imagine long ass 10+ sentence posts here lol), followed by a link to navigate to the post itself.
(Perhaps, the link should also activate a filter that shows the review post, followed by all posts that quote it. This way you can also check how many commented on it!)
The "Leave a rating!" button should be removed, or lead you to make a new post. Or hint you to it with a message somewhere else.
Instead of reviews being a separate concept that exists in the overview/review tab, being able to make a post should also allow you to add a "rating" for the addon.
Writing a new post in the discussions thread should give you an option to "update your rating". (How? Where?)
In here, you can pick between "No change", "Recommended" and "Not Recommended".
Except for "No change", changing your rating and creating the post will highlight it then give it a badge with the chosen rating. (previous posts with ratings from the same user should be marked as "outdated", with a link to the newest rating)
Through this, the Reviews tab can simply aggregate and showcase all non-outdated highlighted posts with a rating (or at least a summary of them, imagine long ass 10+ sentence posts here lol), followed by a link to navigate to the post itself.
(Perhaps, the link should also activate a filter that shows the review post, followed by all posts that quote it. This way you can also check how many commented on it!)
The "Leave a rating!" button should be removed, or lead you to make a new post. Or hint you to it with a message somewhere else.
Going with this would encourage players and authors to visit the discussions tab to read reviews and discuss them or the mod itself, having them engage with the thread in a more organic fashion. You can quote reviews, discuss individual points, and get more information - stuff that would be slightly more awkward to do with reviews being somewhere else.
A fun point with this is that to leave a rating, you have to review the addon. Seeing other people talk might encourage (read: force) you to make an acceptable post just to leave a rating, as you can be quoted from it if someone wants to ask you something. A little bit of social pressure doesn't hurt.
Of note, this won't unspaghettify the discussions thread; In fact, this might actually make it worse.
Changing how reviews operate, and renaming then reworking the stars to something less vague, would turn the current feedback system into something more useful and less XenForo-y dogwater.
Reducing the amount of thought needed from 5 stars to 2 recommendation states would help in having better quality reviews - the "I (don't) recommend it" bit is already made obvious, making the rest of the review a forced elaboration as to why has the reviewer decided so.
And encouraging user interaction with reviews by facilitating comments on them can discourage low quality reviews, be it because of social pressure or just because it's easier to chisel them with discussion.
This makes all reviews easier to read and parse for players, and easier to moderate for staff.
edited to clean up some strange wording, pacing and emphasis usage
Last edited:
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
HOO BOY, LOTS to unpack here.
Overall, I agree wholeheartedly. But I agree with some things more than others.
I would ABSOLUTELY recommend the Steam way. I almost NEVER use Steam (
), but I've used it enough to get the main gist. This system would basically solve everyone's problems listen in this thread, adn would allow people to see whether something is recommended or not.
And holy shit, being able to actually TALK to the mod creator about it? HOO BOY! That's very useful! Now instead of ONE comment and going silent, I can have a full on convo, making it easier to get my point across over time! And the fact you can have other people rate whether something is useful or not could let them be the top comment, basically giving an ACTUALLY honest and USEFUL comment by other people who ACTUALLY TRIED IT!
I would ABSOLUTELY recommend the Steam way. I almost NEVER use Steam (
), but I've used it enough to get the main gist. This system would basically solve everyone's problems listen in this thread, adn would allow people to see whether something is recommended or not.And holy shit, being able to actually TALK to the mod creator about it? HOO BOY! That's very useful! Now instead of ONE comment and going silent, I can have a full on convo, making it easier to get my point across over time! And the fact you can have other people rate whether something is useful or not could let them be the top comment, basically giving an ACTUALLY honest and USEFUL comment by other people who ACTUALLY TRIED IT!
Well, in my opinion, I'd rather the normal Steam way, but I do see how much more of a compromise this is. It retains the Steam recommended and not recommended part, but ALSO keeps what the mods want, so everyone should be happy! But I think, as most people have ACTUALLY good intentions(Not all, but most.), the Steam way would work more well. Only a personal opinion though.
I agree completely. You've restated both sides, and kept as to the middle as possible, trying to please everyone, which should go well. Another great Amper post. Good job.
Eto, bleh.
I believe it was very transparently a dig at Pika for calling out his bad attitude. Not gonna let people get away with that after all the legwork staff put in to support modders in this community.
Tatsuru said "changes to prevent bullying towards creators is tantamount to censorship" is a bad argument, which it absolutely is.
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Mkay.
crystallinegazer
sakuya izayoi || she/her
Very big fan of this idea, actually. Might not be absolutely perfect, but I think it's the best way to keep reviews here. It also feels like this would allow people to write more varied thoughts on a mod instead of just going "this is good because so and so," because even if you don't like something, that doesn't mean there's not a chance you'll think other people will enjoy it.
Crappy Blue
girl in the whirl
what an exhausting thread to read. there's a pervasive mentality here in a lot of the replies that i'd like to shed my own light on.
i have a history as an active member for a time on a message board dedicated to pixel artists sharing and honing their craft. i became a regular there during a bit of a transition period, as the culture there had already split off from an earlier one that was still running separately. these folks were generally drifting away from the kind of mentality i see online a lot: improvement is the only goal, it's necessary for artists to have their work picked apart until it is without imperfection, and the point of art is to be good at it. the kind of mentality that assumes no biases or preferences on the critic's part, of course.
the community i'd joined and integrated with for a while had the slightly different mentality of "we all want to be better artists, so let's help each other recognize where we can be better", which resulted in similar behavior, just with less overt and blunt dismantling of people's artwork. this shift in tone didn't change that the culture of sharing work to get critiqued first-and-foremost resulted in an amount of users becoming discouraged from doing art entirely, or at minimum sharing it where others can see.
i'm speaking from experience: i was one of those users. i have friends who were those users. i have friends from social media who've had similar experiences in other places growing up.
if i can put this clearly and succinctly: for some people, yes, the point of art is to make better art. for others, though, the point is to enjoy making and sharing things. when the former is treated like they're just there for fun, they get serious and openly ask for help, and people help. when the latter is treated like they're there to improve, they say they didn't ask for feedback, and people get mad. i've seen both play out over and over. it's not an evenly-weighted response.
this change moves the mb's structure closer to being beneficial for both camps. people will cry (and have cried) coddling. people will cry (and have cried!) their critical voices are being taken away. none of that is happening! your fears of people not getting the feedback they need are unfounded!! people who want to improve will seek out the means to improve!!! i implore you to believe that criticism is not equally helpful for everyone sharing artwork with others.
i have a history as an active member for a time on a message board dedicated to pixel artists sharing and honing their craft. i became a regular there during a bit of a transition period, as the culture there had already split off from an earlier one that was still running separately. these folks were generally drifting away from the kind of mentality i see online a lot: improvement is the only goal, it's necessary for artists to have their work picked apart until it is without imperfection, and the point of art is to be good at it. the kind of mentality that assumes no biases or preferences on the critic's part, of course.
the community i'd joined and integrated with for a while had the slightly different mentality of "we all want to be better artists, so let's help each other recognize where we can be better", which resulted in similar behavior, just with less overt and blunt dismantling of people's artwork. this shift in tone didn't change that the culture of sharing work to get critiqued first-and-foremost resulted in an amount of users becoming discouraged from doing art entirely, or at minimum sharing it where others can see.
i'm speaking from experience: i was one of those users. i have friends who were those users. i have friends from social media who've had similar experiences in other places growing up.
if i can put this clearly and succinctly: for some people, yes, the point of art is to make better art. for others, though, the point is to enjoy making and sharing things. when the former is treated like they're just there for fun, they get serious and openly ask for help, and people help. when the latter is treated like they're there to improve, they say they didn't ask for feedback, and people get mad. i've seen both play out over and over. it's not an evenly-weighted response.
this change moves the mb's structure closer to being beneficial for both camps. people will cry (and have cried) coddling. people will cry (and have cried!) their critical voices are being taken away. none of that is happening! your fears of people not getting the feedback they need are unfounded!! people who want to improve will seek out the means to improve!!! i implore you to believe that criticism is not equally helpful for everyone sharing artwork with others.
All removing stars does is make the getting feedback part harder, I don't want to scroll through multiple reviews to find one that helps. I want to easily be able to distinguish between good and bad reviews, not just with some arbitrary like button.
to add on to bartz point, as a modder, im more interested in seeing negative reviews because those generally help me be able to improve my craft. with the star system it made it easier (for me at least) to filter through the 5 star reviews (which generally give no negative feedback at all) and negative reviews that maybe have ideas for improvements that can be made. now that they are gone i have to manually read the thing just to see if its just the usual praise or something that can help me in the future
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Ya'll...really didn't get the message, did you?
I was only replying to the part of the message that I found eager to reply to.
The other part about criticism not being equally helpful for everyone sharing artwork is true, But I honestly don't think getting critique (or 1-2 stars) on your work is going to ruin your fun, and it shouldn't discourage you from having fun.
In the grand scheme of things, the critique you give, the critique I give, the critique ANYONE gives is merely a suggestion. You don't have to do what they say, and you don't have to listen to it if you don't want to. If someone is suggesting something that's actively going against your fun then you can easily reply to the review and explain your design choices.
I don't feel like this is a good reason to justify removing star ratings, when the simple solution to this problem is to... Not be a slave to people on the internet.
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Alright, now saying this is going quite a good bit far. I'm sure their intentions are good. They don't wanna force you into anything, and just because you don't get what you want doesn't justify how you call it "being a slave" to people on the internet. It's just decent respect, get that through your skull.
I think you are misunderstanding the idea of the message.
This
is making reference to the fact that in some communities, feedback is considered king and something that you should really really really listen to, but an incorrect assumption made by people not in the know on these kind of communities that promote feedback is that you MUST listen to it and do something with it. This is not true! At least, not here in this board lol
You are encouraged to do so, so you can find out weak points to reinforce or figure out what's that thing people like the most that you could tack onto a future update or something else, but if you don't want to read reviews and ratings, then lol
that is always allowed(exceptions where its due: If you complain about how people don't like something you made but you don't do anything to remedy it despite having the means to do so... that's not a good look!)
In fact, making something you love often involves ignoring the people around you trying to curve your intentions towards a particular goal. For example, I dislike fast paced characters with a quadrillion buttons and I know a few labors of love here that meet this criteria. I could be rating then low scores with long walls of text for a review explaining why and detailing what would make me like it, but the authors don't have to listen to my boring fast-hating non-button-mashing ass
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Ah, that explains it. Sorry @Bartz and Amper.This is making reference to the fact that in some communities, feedback is considered king and something that you should really really really listen to, but an incorrect assumption made by people not in the know on these kind of communities that promote feedback is that you MUST listen to it and do something with it. This is not true! At least, not here in this board lol
You are encouraged to do so, so you can find out weak points to reinforce or figure out what's that thing people like the most that you could tack onto a future update or something else, but if you don't want to read reviews and ratings, then lol
(exceptions where its due: If you complain about how people don't like something you made but you don't do anything to remedy it despite having the means to do so... that's not a good look!)
In fact, making something you love often involves ignoring the people around you trying to curve your intentions towards a particular goal. For example, I dislike fast paced characters with a quadrillion buttons and I know a few labors of love here that meet this criteria. I could be rating then low scores with long walls of text for a review explaining why and detailing what would make me like it, but the authors don't have to listen to my boring fast-hating non-button-mashing ass
PlatterTheFinch
play bishi bashi
I'm sorry about that "incompetent" comment I made earlier, that was definitely a bridge too far. What I meant to say was, modders really do need to learn from feedback. Not one modder-- not you nor I-- have made the best mod ever first crack out the gate, and we should stop acting like that can happen. Mods can't be completely perfect, but with time, they can get closer to perfection, like any creation. This change makes it harder for that to happen.
*GOOFYRAT!*
The goofiest of investigators.
Now THAT I can get behind.
My 2¢: Stars were always useless to authors, because they flatten complex feelings into a context-free number with zero actionable feedback.
You cannot design a mechanism that differentiates a "needs improvement" 1-star, an "I am outside of target audience" 1-star, and a "you're mom gay" 1-star, regardless of how clear you make the criteria—but who cares? Even if you could, none of them give me any information on what I should be doing to resolve it.
I don't see any reason to frame pro-stars discussion in terms of critique. They've always been for players and no one else.
You cannot design a mechanism that differentiates a "needs improvement" 1-star, an "I am outside of target audience" 1-star, and a "you're mom gay" 1-star, regardless of how clear you make the criteria—but who cares? Even if you could, none of them give me any information on what I should be doing to resolve it.
I don't see any reason to frame pro-stars discussion in terms of critique. They've always been for players and no one else.
Whoexer9
Bask in the Glory!
Basically "Review Bombing" for you, one of the reasons of removing these stars.