New Feedback System Preview

[lackattack]

After asking What YOU want out of a feedback system and a lot of brainstorming with CC staff and volunteers behind the scenes, we've come up with a solution to solve the problems with our current feedback system. In particular, we need something that:

1. Encourages good behaviour and discourages bad behaviour

2. Is low-maintenance for staff and won't piss off our members

This solution is not set in stone yet, so please tell us what you think, especially regarding the bold sections!

Introducing Ratings

Next to your username will appear a star followed by an overall average rating between 1 and 5 stars.

Click on the number and you'll get a complete breakdown showing average ratings for 4 categories (as well as the overall average which appears next to your username):

Sportsmanship: covers fairness/fair play, suiciding, secret alliance suspicion, breaking alliances, someone delaying their turn so you don't miss yours, etc...

Attendance: deadbeating, missing turns, prolonging rounds, finding a babysitter to keep things moving, etc...

Attitude: behavior in chat, foul language, sore losers, gracious winners, "great chatters!", whining about dice, etc...

Teamwork: playing with teammates - coordination, communication, etc...

These categories were carefully chosen to cover the types of behaviour issues we may encounter in the game. They do not cover skill because we want ratings to have maximum effect on behaviour. Can you think of better names or groupings for the categories?

You'll also get a history of how people rated the player. Not every category must be rated (an unrated category will appear as 1 grey star). As with the current feedback system you can tab to a page containing ratings left by the player to others.

Leaving Ratings for Players

As with the current feedback system, you will only be allowed to rate someone after finishing a game with them, before the game is archived. However, ratings are not tied to any particular game, so you can update an older rating for someone as your opinion changes over time (provided you complete more games with the member in question).

Leaving ratings will be more convenient: On your My Games -> Active Games page will be a notice indicating "You can leave ratings for x members". This will disappear when you leave ratings for everyone or all eligible games are archived.
On your My Games -> Eliminated and My Games -> Recently Finished you will see a "Leave Ratings for:" section which shows stars next to the username, grey indicating you haven't yet rated the player, yellow indicating you already have:

Clicking on a "Leave Ratings for" link takes you to the rating screen, and when you complete it you will be returned to the screen you came from. The player's grey star will turn yellow and you can rate the next player without interruption.

To prevent tit-for-tat ratings, new or changed ratings will be hidden until the game is archived because at that point it is too late for the recipient to rate back (thanks greenoaks and GabonX). Ratings cannot be altered or removed once the game is archived, so rate carefully and fairly!

What happens to old feedback?

Since there is no way to fairly translate feedback into ratings, everyone will start off with a blank rating score. However for a 2 week transition period we'll let people access their old feedback left and rate anyone they have previously left feedback for.

Since the ratings system can't be used socially like the current feedback system, at the same time we go live with ratings we'll go live with "the Wall". The wall is a type of guestbook that goes on your profile, where other players write messages for everyone to see. The wall is meant to be used for fun, and walls will be moderated by their owner (you can delete messages on your wall and block people from posting by placing them on your foes list). THE WALL IS A TOOL FOR SOCIALIZING, NOT A FEEDBACK SYSTEM!

Even though the wall isn't meant to be used as a feedback system we are considering initially populating walls with any positive feedback comments people have left the owner. This is to avoid an outcry by people who are very attached to their old feedback. However, positive feedbacks are not well suited for a wall - they are judgemental, written to 3rd person audience and may lead to incorrect wall usage. Do you think we should pre-populate the wall?

Moderation Policy

Conquer Club will NOT review, judge, edit or delete individual ratings.

The following part is undecided - it would make both parties happier but will take away from the transparency and integrity of the ratings system (by eliminating mutually deserved negatives). What do you think about mutual rating withdrawal?

If you disagree with a rating you do have an option to seek mutual rating withdrawal. Mutual rating withdrawal works like this:

1. Player A gets a low rating from Player B and doesn't think it's fair
2. Player A clicks on "request withdrawal" link next to the rating, and is taken to form explaining the process
3. Player A optionally writes a message to be included in a pm to Player B and clicks submit
4. Player B gets a pm indicating that Player A initiated a mutual withdrawl, the pm contains a specially coded link to complete the process
5. If Player B clicks the link, the rating B left for A and the rating A left for B (if it exists) are both deleted
6. Player A is notified by pm of the withdrawal

Low Rating Blocks

The following part is undecided:
The current feedback system warns you of assholes before you join a game, but doesn't help you avoid assholes after joining a game. To make better use of ratings and encourage players to earn a higher rating, we are considering adding a feature to block those with low ratings from joining games of those with higher ratings. Specifically, those with overall ratings of 2.0 stars lower than yours will be blocked from joining games that you have joined (provided their overall rating is based on at least 20 individual ratings).

* The low rating blocks would not apply for tournament games or your friends. Should it apply for private games?

* The low rating blocks is always on and not set per game. However we could make it an optional setting with default OFF... obviously that would water down both the pros and cons.

* If you want the low rating blocks to have thresholds that each player can set, you better make a good argument for it. i dislike options and I prefer to keep things simple, optimal, and automatic

[The Fuzzy Pengui]

Wow! Very nice idea. A giant THANK YOU to everybody that helped figure this out and come up with the new design of the feedback system.

It will definitely improve the feedback system, and I hope it comes out soon

Thanks for another awesome improvement to the game....and sorry clapper, but you're gonna go from 400+ positive feedback down to * 0.0

[Soloman]

Great Idea I fully agree with every thing and the ratings block should be a option to turn on or off other that it sounds awesome

[The1exile]

* If you want the low rating blocks to have thresholds that each player can set, you better make a good argument for it. i dislike options and I prefer to keep things simple, optimal, and automatic

I'll give you a cookie if you put it in?

Really though, it looks like a good system. Optional thresholds would be nice (because sometimes you want to play with the more uncouth for a bit) but the whole thing looks nice, shiny and practical. The mutual rating withdrawal looks good, and the wall in at least 6 distinct genres of awesome.

[Optimus Prime]

Yep, make the ratings block an option to turn on or off, and you are good to go in my book.

Everything else seems to make pretty good sense to me.

As far as pre-populating the wall is concerned, why not? The players will have the option of cleaning them up and can keep the ones they like and trash the ones they don't. No real reason not to give them that choice if you ask me. It's not going to harm anything, and if someone wants to keep a positive comment left by a player they played a lot a long time ago, why not let them?

I really can't think of a good argument NOT to pre-populate the wall to be honest.

[Bruceswar]

First off I think this just gives tons more room for abuse. 95% of CC will not abuse it, but people will post low ratings out of madness they lost or any other stupid reason they can think of. The low rating idea is terrible. If I am playing a speed game and player X with a rating of 1.5 joins I should be able to decide if I want to stay in or not. I usally play 8 man games, so 1 or 2 people might have a low rating. Also feedback is pretty much useless if a person cannot comment on the game play of another. A person can be totally nice but terrible at a certain game type thus wrecking the game for others. All my negs I have ever left are to people who made terrible moves gifting away games or suiciding into others. As far as the categories, personally I think they stink! Attendance is good, Sportsmanship and attitude should be lumped together and teamwork only applies to about 25% of the games. Seems sorta wasteful. I would add in one where you can rate a player play. The whole wall idea is bad as well. All it will turn out to be is a kiss butt festival for people. "You are my Hero player X" If nothing bad can be said without getting removed this system will fail miserably. The point of feedback is to let others know of your experience with the other player, good or bad. Overall this new system is terrible.

Ways to improve it.

Rating Categories:
Attendance
Attitude/Sportsmanship (How nice was the player in chat or with moves) - I say with moves, because a player could take out every newt in the map before killing you. That would fall under sportsmanship.
Game Play( How well a player played in this game)
Team Work - Applies to team games only

Take out that wall section. It will turn into nothing more than propaganda for players. That is unless you allow comments that are not so appealing to stand.

The whole low rating idea should be trashed. Personally I find that I am able to pick out which players are going to be jerks beforehand. How by looking at the feedback system in place. Negs for the most part work. In this new system case low ratings would do the same. I could look at a players rating and see weather or not I wanted to play with him.

Another suggestion is to have ratings go away after X amount of time. Why? Simple fact that players change over time in skill, attitude, attendance etc etc. Say after 6 months the ratings would go into an archived section. I know when we all started, most of us stunk at this game online. I see many new players who right out of the gate get a neg for their play. This should with time fade away. Maybe have an archive section along with the current rating.

If you ask me this was a nice attempt but to work properly needs a lot of fixing.

Edited to add. Thanks for trying to improve CC and keep it running smooth. Also forgot that showing the ratings others posted for you and then allowing them to play another game with you and change them only leaves room for abuse. Player X will play player Y leave him 4's and 5's for all categories. Player Y leaves him all 1's. Then Player X joins another game with player Y just for the fact he wants to retaliate back and leave all 1's.

[jnd94]

^^^^^Agree with Fully^^^^^^

[Optimus Prime]

Brucewar, I do believe the point of the ratings is to judge behavior and not gameplay from what I can see while reading through it.

[The1exile]

Take out that wall section. It will turn into nothing more than propaganda for players. That is unless you allow comments that are not so appealing to stand.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was thinking of the wall as more of a self-moderated place for in-jokes and comments, rather than Serious Feedback With Really Important Capitalisation. It would be nice to get the joke negs on the wall while still getting an honest rating with no strings attached; anyone basing their opinion of the player of he wall is going to run the risk of being suckered by propagandists, but that's still a risk really with the current feedback system, isn't it?

[The Fuzzy Pengui]

I didn't think of the points you brought up until you said them. I agree with what you said other than the wall. I think it could be something fun, and people can always delete comments they don't want. Maybe allow for an option to still leave feedback for the person (maybe a 100 character limit so it remains small) below where you rate them. This would allow for the rating to be there still, but allow for someone to add their own personal experience as well (why they said what they did). As you said, people change, and you could see how people improve if you click their feedback rating and read the small little blips about their experience. Then the wall could be used for anything that people want to say other than feedback (although I could see people abusing it and flaming people they get mad at...although it can be removed, there are some people I can think of that would repeatedly do it).

Player X will play player Y leave him 4's and 5's for all categories. Player Y leaves him all 1's. Then Player X joins another game with player Y just for the fact he wants to retaliate back and leave all 1's.

I would assume that there would be an option to only leave feedback for a person once. Kind of like the Pos/Neg right now, only one of each, and you can post neutrals....but people shouldn't be allowed to post multiple feedback for the same person.

Wow, longest post I've done in a long time Hope it makes sense....

[Bruceswar]

Brucewar, I do believe the point of the ratings is to judge behavior and not gameplay from what I can see while reading through it.

Yes that is what I read as well, but that does nothing really. Personally most of us are grown men or ladies, and can handle ourselves. If someone calls me a "retard" or "asshole" I more than likely deserved it. What I cannot generally find out about someone is how well they play this game. The current rank system tells me nothing about game play as I have seen majors play terrible and cooks play killer games. If I cannot comment on someone's game play feedback becomes a kiss butt festival, as you can get most negs removed. or in this case you can change your ratings on a player. Somewhere something needs to be said about the game play of a person! Just because a person enjoys doodle earth ass. games which usually result in a lot of points won or loss, tells me nothing about the person's game play. A perfect example of this is Jan1976. I have seen him go from Major to Private First Class back to Major in less than 2 weeks time. So which one is he? PFC or Major?

[Bruceswar]

Player X will play player Y leave him 4's and 5's for all categories. Player Y leaves him all 1's. Then Player X joins another game with player Y just for the fact he wants to retaliate back and leave all 1's.

I would assume that there would be an option to only leave feedback for a person once. Kind of like the Pos/Neg right now, only one of each, and you can post neutrals....but people shouldn't be allowed to post multiple feedback for the same person.

Wow, longest post I've done in a long time Hope it makes sense....

In Lack's post he says every time you play a player you will be able to rate them or "change your ratings" as he put it. This will allow for the problem I mentioned.

[Bruceswar]

Take out that wall section. It will turn into nothing more than propaganda for players. That is unless you allow comments that are not so appealing to stand.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was thinking of the wall as more of a self-moderated place for in-jokes and comments, rather than Serious Feedback With Really Important Capitalisation. It would be nice to get the joke negs on the wall while still getting an honest rating with no strings attached; anyone basing their opinion of the player of he wall is going to run the risk of being suckered by propagandists, but that's still a risk really with the current feedback system, isn't it?

With the current feedback system you can read the negs left by people and decide for yourself if you want to play with player X or not. For the most part you can usually pick out which negs are truthful and which ones hold little meaning.

[The Fuzzy Pengui]

Player X will play player Y leave him 4's and 5's for all categories. Player Y leaves him all 1's. Then Player X joins another game with player Y just for the fact he wants to retaliate back and leave all 1's.

I would assume that there would be an option to only leave feedback for a person once. Kind of like the Pos/Neg right now, only one of each, and you can post neutrals....but people shouldn't be allowed to post multiple feedback for the same person.

Wow, longest post I've done in a long time Hope it makes sense....

In Lack's post he says every time you play a player you will be able to rate them or "change your ratings" as he put it. This will allow for the problem I mentioned.

However, ratings are not tied to any particular game, so you can update an older rating for someone as your opinion changes over time (provided you complete more games with the member in question).

If someone leaves you all low ratings, then most likely they won't want to play you again (for some time at least), and therefore you wouldn't really be able to alter them the way you are saying...I think. If you can only leave it after you play someone (on a game to game basis), maybe to prevent the cases you are talking about you should be limited to changing your rating of someone to once a month, or some other time frame?

[MOBAJOBG]

Is it possible to have both the New Feedback System with the Star rating and the current positive & negative feedback system in place?

[poo-maker]

Thanks, good improvement.

I agree with Bruce, I would rather know how well someone plays over how nice of a person they are. I still like the update though

[Dancing Mustard]

Walls should definitely come pre-populated with positive feedback comments.

I know a lot of players are very proud of the comments they have recieved and left (me for example), and would be furious to lose them. Also, given that we can self-moderate our walls, anybody who doesn't like what is left of their feedback comments can just scrub them out.

Basically, those who want to keep the comments should be allowed to do so, and those who don't will be free to erase them with minimal fuss. Make walls pre-populated, it's the only sensible way.

Otherwise, this all looks like a big improvement.

[Bruceswar]

Player X will play player Y leave him 4's and 5's for all categories. Player Y leaves him all 1's. Then Player X joins another game with player Y just for the fact he wants to retaliate back and leave all 1's.

I would assume that there would be an option to only leave feedback for a person once. Kind of like the Pos/Neg right now, only one of each, and you can post neutrals....but people shouldn't be allowed to post multiple feedback for the same person.

Wow, longest post I've done in a long time Hope it makes sense....

In Lack's post he says every time you play a player you will be able to rate them or "change your ratings" as he put it. This will allow for the problem I mentioned.

However, ratings are not tied to any particular game, so you can update an older rating for someone as your opinion changes over time (provided you complete more games with the member in question).

If someone leaves you all low ratings, then most likely they won't want to play you again (for some time at least), and therefore you wouldn't really be able to alter them the way you are saying...I think. If you can only leave it after you play someone (on a game to game basis), maybe to prevent the cases you are talking about you should be limited to changing your rating of someone to once a month, or some other time frame?

The point you missed is that player 1 will be getting a low rating from player 2. Player 1 then goes and joins a game with player 2 only to leave him a low rating in return. Provided player 2 did not ignore him.

[lancehoch]

I agree that there should be some sort of gameplay rating included. As to someone's mentioning of retaliatory ratings, if you give another player 1s for sportsmanship or attitude you would most likely put them on your foes list. Thus, you will not be open to the retaliatory feedback. I think the wall should be pre-populated with all feedback, since the negatives can be removed. I am not sure about the removing mutual negative ratings, since it does skew the overall results.
@ lack: When you leave a rating, are you unable to change the rating before the game becomes archived? I would hope that this option is available, since people may leave ratings out of anger or spite, but later realize that they should change the rating they left.

[Bruceswar]

This should be added to the main page like the update on the Classic map had for a bit. Everybody does not come to the forums, but all should be able to see and comment on it.

[SGUstickman]

A suggestion:

Feedback from other players can be valuable, but for attendance, I think that automatically compiled statistics would be a better choice.
What percentage of turns has a player missed? What percentage of games has a player been kicked for missing too many turns? These figures could be cumulative, or based on the last X number of games. I think this would be easier, more accurate, and less hassle than subjective reporting by individual players. Impossible to abuse, too!

[Bruceswar]

A suggestion:

Feedback from other players can be valuable, but for attendance, I think that automatically compiled statistics would be a better choice.
What percentage of turns has a player missed? What percentage of games has a player been kicked for missing too many turns? These figures could be cumulative, or based on the last X number of games. I think this would be easier, more accurate, and less hassle than subjective reporting by individual players. Impossible to abuse, too!

Oops! Just noticed how old this thread is! Sorry 'bout that!

I like this idea. The system can keep tract of this fairly easy I would assume.

[JOHNNYROCKET24]

can I cash my 589 feedbacks in for 1,000 points.... lol !

[owenshooter]

can I cash my 589 feedbacks in for 1,000 points.... lol !

yeah, that is a big concern, i can imagine. i mean, with what lack is saying, you will be able to leave feedback for the 589 people that left you feedback, and hope they leave you feedback again... soooo, basically, you would have to fish for positive feedback again, breaking a rule.. hmmm... this is going to be an interesting transition. i am going to miss some of the epic feedbacks i swapped with foes... or, since i'm responding to JR, feedbacks i swapped with my multis.-0

p.s.-overall a great change...
p.p.s.-agree with brucewar about adding how good the member played...
p.p.p.s.-twill, stay out of the BpB forum.

[SGUstickman]

Another thought:

Some sort of score for communication might be nice, too. I play singles games, and like in-game chat and wheeling and dealing diplomatic overtures. I understand that some people are opposed to diplomacy at all. It might be nice to be able to see if the people you're signing up to play against are chatterboxes or the type that never say a word. This would depart from the good/bad rating concept, as it's a preference thing, but it might be nice to know going in. It could even be maintained automatically, by maintaining an "in game posts/game" figure for each player.