My thoughts about map ratings
Map ratings - this has been annoying me for a while, but just a few days ago I thought I'd have to post about it. I searched and found
this thread which contained about all the suggestions I would've named too, so I'd like to point at that one. However, it seems that when the thread was posted and actively discussed, the main issue was on the other end of the scale.
Frooker and I wanted to test all the top-rated hive maps a couple of days ago when it struck me as super-obvious: it is too easy to get a top rating. I browsed for maps, sorted by rating...and
lo and behold: maps with lots of - obviously 10 points - ratings, but with few or none comments and which aren't even approved yet. Figures, it's pretty easy to manipulate. If I'd want some 10s on my map, I'd just post the URL in one of the IRC channels I regularily idle in. That would be some easy 10s and that's what makes the whole system so easily abusive.
Another point going along with it is that, while comments are certainly handy to pick a map and see if there actually is something "behind" the rating, I'd say that most people (including myself usually) will just check for the rating and download a map according to that - which often is followed by a lot of frustration. My point is just that it is too easy to "fake" the aspect showing "map quality" that is actually more relevant. That's why I suggest:
1) allowing only logged-in users to rate maps and
2) make map-rating as an additional function of your comment to the map.
People won't necessarily have to add a whole novel with their rating, but at least everyone can see who rated what. Maybe you could even add a system to allow users to approve / disapprove of a comment and thus the rating linked to it. This way I believe more map section mods wouldn't necessarily be required, since users could spot "abusers" (their number should be reduced due to the harder requirements of rating faking) by themselves and then report them to mods, also, a highly disapproved comment/rating could be used as an "alert" system for mods. Additionally, I think that people will think twice before rating a map when they know that their name will be shown next to their rating, thus maybe increasing rating honesty (although not necessarily, probably people will rate more mildly overall, which is actually an issue) and, i believe, certainly decreasing the number of "fun" ratings.
In the other thread linked above, Ralle and Purplepoot said something which i agree on: that another problem would be the way ratings work, scaling from 1 to 10. Especially Purplepoot pointed out that he would rate a map he considers to be good a 7 according to the tooltips. I also had that problem a couple of times already when rating maps. I thought "this map is cool, but is it really outstanding?" But if the map had ratings among 9 before, it's hard and may seem unfair to rate it 7 - even if that would be your actual opinion. I however have no real idea how to fix this, I believe that being able to give up to 10 points for a map is better than just saying "I like/dislike it". Maybe both things could be combined and the tooltips behind the rating removed. Users could simply grant a map 1 to 10 stars and a download recommendation/no download recommendation (just like the "I like/dislike it" thingie), both attached to their comment. That might be a possible solution; but i don't know, maybe others have some good objections that make this idea seem stupid.
Anyway, I hope i didn't just address something that was discussed in the mod forum all this time anyway. I just thought i'd like to point at this issue again after i had browsed the maps section the last couple of days. Thanks for reading!
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