New Feedback System Preview

[wicked]

I think that if there is a ratings-cap on games option, that it SHOULD apply to private games as well. There are a lot of private games set up through the callouts forum, based on score alone. Just because I want to play with people of similar skill, doesn't mean I want to play assholes.

Agree 100%.

[Bruceswar]

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

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

Terrible defs of those words if you ask me. Game play needs its own category. Otherwise this system is worthless. Suspicions without proof are worthless. Even with proof sometimes they are worthless aka O.J. Simpson? Seriously if that is the best CC can come up with then I do not know what to say.

That's just it, Bruce, the system is not supposed to be measuring the gameplay skills of players. The system proposed by Lack is to gauge the behavior of players.

If you want to comment on the gameplay of an individual, learn how to do it tactfully so as not to offend (yes, it is possible to do even in the worst case scenarios) and post it on their wall. Easy as pie.

Post it on the wall so it can be taken right off. What good does that do! No matter what you say they will be taking it off. If someone suicides into you need to let others knows. If I wanted a baby sitter to rate how I behave I would go to Day Care!

[FabledIntegral]

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

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

So the one star is going to be in attitude. Hell, I might get 2 stars for sportsmanship, I'm pumped.

[MajorRT]

Lack,Wicked,Twill et. al, this proposal is excellent!

[Dancing Mustard]

Anybody else have anything to say on 'auto population of walls'... or am I the only person with an opinion?

[Bruceswar]

Anybody else have anything to say on 'auto population of walls'... or am I the only person with an opinion?

I do not mind it at all. Auto pop them please and thanks. Not sure how much good self moderated walls will be worth anyhow.

[The1exile]

(1) % turns missed and % games kicked stats should replace attendance feedback

I don't think so - just the other day, I was playing in a game that was supposed to be rt, but went to normal time because one guy didn't notice. Yeah, it could have been speed, but with the current rating system I could have evaluated the guy who didn't stay for rt, even though the system didn't kick him.

(2) attitude and sportsmanship can be combined into a single feedback category

They're different things, at least sometimes - attitude being how much I like someone as a person, and spotsmanship being how much I respect them as a (hopefully honest) player.

(4) Don't have a game play feedback rating because it would discourage reasonable experimentation. Plus it feels good to occasionally suicide on a moron that ruins a game when you can see that the outcome is now obvious because he was either stupid or evil.

Even if you only "occasionally" suicide, you probably get a neg in the current system - why change it?

(6) if you get a negative feedback score that you would like to challenge in a game with 3 or more players, the highest rated player who is not the feedback giver or receiver should be able to judge whether or not it is COMPLETELY unwarranted if the receiver of the feedback requests this review. However, the third party would not be required to render judgment if they didn't want to.... well I like this idea even though I realize the code behind it would not be trivial or probably even reasonable! Someone else might be able to state it better and think of a better or simpler implementation... Or maybe feedback could be weighted... in other words, feedback from someone with a 5.0 would be counted 2x vs that of someone with a 2.5. This way designated jerks couldn't dump on you so hard.

I quite like this bit.

[The1exile]

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.

Yeah, but I disagree you couldn't do that by looking at the ratings (seeing who left the bad ones) - heck, if it's that urgent, you could ask the people who gave player X bad ratings for their opinion, but I doubt it's ever really that important.

[lancehoch]

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

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

Standard Escalating game; player A does not leave any 1s for player B to get a card. Where does that fit under?

[Optimus Prime]

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

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

Standard Escalating game; player A does not leave any 1s for player B to get a card. Where does that fit under?

Player A should never be under any such obligation to leave Player B an easy card. That just doesn't make any sense to me. I've never heard of some "code of honor" that players should expect that type of treatment/gift from their opponents.

[Fruitcake]

Looks fine on the face of it. Shame the 'wall' will be self controlled. I often enjoy wandering through the halls of feedback, reading up on what people say about each other when they are peeved. Talking of which, it wont be so obvious whether someone has received a load of negative comments will it.

[wicked]

So many people used the feedback system to leave jokes and such, both positive and negative, we wanted to keep an outlet for that and promote the social aspect of the game. The ratings will be the serious stuff, the wall will be the silly stuff.

[suggs]

Sorry, I'm probably being dumb, but I couldn't see the bit where you could leave prose?
Written comments are the key.

That falls under the wall part which is self moderated.

One day I will read a thread properly
Cheers.

[suggs]

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.

Big win.
Mustard on the money.

[lackattack]

People don't seem to get the wall concept... I added a note that "THE WALL IS A TOOL FOR SOCIALIZING, NOT A FEEDBACK SYSTEM". Also added category descriptions:

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...

Some people have mentioned that older ratings should expire. I don't think we need that since rating scores are averages and by nature will average out innacurate ratings.

It is true you someone can try to play another game with you to get revenge for low ratings. If you think someone might seek revenge mark the player as a foe. I don't think we'll have a major problem with retaliation.

@Mobajong - We can't keep the old system with the new one. The old system is too much of a headache to administer.

@lancehoch - Yes you can change your mind in a rating before the game is archived.

[Snorri1234]

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.

Big win.
Mustard on the money.

Word. The Wall sounds like a great idea, and old positive (and negative) comments should be kept. I have one negative from heavycola and I'd hate to see it go.

[gdeangel]

Moderation Policy

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

Good idea... long overdue. Note, however, that even though you are moving "subjective" commentary to "the wall", and making that self-moderated, there should still be some official role for mods to enforce a minimum decency standards (i.e., people who turn someone's wall into a "Flame Wars" rant repeatedly should get a forum ban, etc. even if the player being defamed has the ability to delete the offensive remarks. Also, you should have a simple option for players to turn off "the wall" entirely if they want to.

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

This is really stupid. Ability to post a response to a low rating is the best medicine. Since ratings can be changed anyway if opinions change, people can work out "mutual" rating correction through subsequent good behavior. Don't saddle players with more obscure protocols and procedures.

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.

This is a good idea, but it's really problematic because you have gotten rid of ratings based on skill. Before you implement this feature, you should implement a minimum score filter, or combine the two so you can really play with enjoyable players OF COMPARABLE SKILL. Otherwise, positive feedback is going to be doled out parsimoniously I would fear.

* 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

Rules vs. standards. If you set the rule, you better get it right. On a scale that is 1-5 stars, the difference between someone who has 3 stars and 1 stars is going to be huge, and the feature will be useless. You also don't know how liberally people will be handing out good feedback. If the distribution is bunched, your likely to have created a useless rule. Let the system take off first for a while before you implement this low rating block, so that you can make sure the rule you decide on has some actual value.

[Dancing Mustard]

Actually, good call from Snorri.

Walls should come pre-populated with all feedback (positive, negative, neutral, mineral), as users are free to scrub out what they don't want to keep. I too have some negs and neutrals I'd like to keep, so why not add them to walls too? Keep the prose, then let us self-regulate what we want to hold on to.

Is there any opposition to this pre-populated walls thing from anyone by the way? Or are we all in violent agreement?

[wicked]

Good idea... long overdue. Note, however, that even though you are moving "subjective" commentary to "the wall", and making that self-moderated, there should still be some official role for mods to enforce a minimum decency standards (i.e., people who turn someone's wall into a "Flame Wars" rant repeatedly should get a forum ban, etc. even if the player being defamed has the ability to delete the offensive remarks.

The wall will be somewhat moderated to prevent abuse. We'd like to not moderate it all unless there's real abuse, since you can moderate it yourself by deleting comments you don't want.

Ability to post a response to a low rating is the best medicine.

Retaliation is one thing we're trying to avoid.

[Timminz]

Ability to post a response to a low rating is the best medicine.

Retaliation is one thing we're trying to avoid.

I think he meant the "respond to this feedback" part of the current system.

Anyone who's worried about their wall becoming a flame-fest, should note the part about not being able to write on someone's wall if they have you as a 'foe'.

[wicked]

Yes I figured that's what he meant, but it's still leaving an avenue for retaliation. If you disagree with a rating, then you can request withdrawal from the player. Many times, after people have calmed down from the game, they're open to a request like that.

If you get one bad rating,it's not going to kill you. Your score will average out once you've played enough games. If you get several bad ratings, well then you need to take a look at yourself.

[t-o-m]

So many people used the feedback system to leave jokes and such, both positive and negative, we wanted to keep an outlet for that and promote the social aspect of the game. The ratings will be the serious stuff, the wall will be the silly stuff.

haha check my feedback left - its mostly negs but a few at the top are some friends, obviously they were joke feedbacks - so i love the wall!

[luv2tri2]

1) Missed the original discussion because I am too busy playing versus looking for social interaction.
2) Something this major should at least been sent through the in box to review the thread at a minimum.
3) Just put in a 1(bad) to 10 (good) rating of a player with a % (100% being all 10 ratings) next to his/her name. Done. Don't bother responding I am leaving the forum to go play.

[Optimus Prime]

gdeangel brings up a good point about the low ratings block. It might actually be more worthwhile to hold that feature for a couple months and see how the ratings pan out before doing that. If we notice that a vast majority of CC is rated 3.0 or higher it would be a pretty useless rule to be honest.

[wicked]

I think it's something that can be adjusted as we go, similar to how ranks are adjusted for inflation.

One question still to be decided is if the blocks should apply to private games. Thoughts?

Also, any thoughts on the moderation policy (mutual withdrawal)?