Ratings Reloaded - Community Consultation - UPDATED

[JoshyBoy]

I just got a 1-1-1 because the guy lost the game!!!!! WTF!?!? Sort it out CC!!!!!

With old feedback he would have to explain himself...

[JoshyBoy]

Oh and btw... what is "average" attendance?

Is it the average for most people to miss one turn a day? Is it average for people to take their shots immeadiately after you? How can you define whether someone was average or not in turn taking? Seriously...how dumb is it?

CC a word of advice...

CHANGE IT BACK!!!

[Phatscotty]

I think there should be a minimum score to leave people ratings. I play games with cooks/cadets/privates that never show up for a turn.....and then hit me with a 1 for attendance.

[mightyredarmy]

Is there going to be some kind of vote on this?

If so I vote for rating players as positive, negative or neutral (which was much easier to understand) and dumping the 5 star system.

[DukeToshiro]

Is there going to be some kind of vote on this?

One would think so, but there wasn't a vote when this debacle went into place so I doubt there will be one now.

[JoshyBoy]

ITS JUST A MASSIVE SHAMBLES... CC SHOULD BE ASHAMED AND APOLOGISE AND CHANGE IT!!!!

[Soloman]

I've a bit of experience with rating scales and the only problem I see, lack is there is no set criteria for the ratings...my suggestion is for the mods to come up with clear criteria for each rating (exactly what would a mod expect to see to rank a player 5 star, 4 star etc), post it and then leave it to the individual players to honorably rate the other players based on the set criteria. I like the elimination of written responses...why not let players rate themselves in response to lower ratings without getting into the drama of written "tit for tat". Anyone who is interested can look up the games to decide who is the most honorable, honest of players both with themselves and other players. And a big thank you for allowing the input...cc has literally saved my sanity on more than a few occasions lately so thanks for that too....

This is arguably one of the best suggestions to date...

[Forefall]

Set criteria is difficult to monitor. In addition, people will commonly do the "you give me positive feedback and I'll respond with positive feedback" which will trash the accuracy of a 5-star system.

Someone else made an excellent suggestions - 3 ratings: negative, neutral, positive. This is easy to understand and follow and allows little abuse.

Personally, the current system just doesn't mean anything and is worse than the last imo.

[tzor]

Not that I want to throw a wooden shoe into the grearworks, but with the base two stats remaining, fair play and attitude, how to you even attempt to score the typical silent game; you know the game where no one leaves any chat comments whatsoever? You can, I suppose always grade based on actions, but that's a tricky subject especially in a fog of war game. Fair play doesn't mean not being agressive towards you.

There are a lot of people who wants comments back in. I don't but I think I have an idea. Comments generally are something related to both the player and the game, while ratings should be just generic to the player. You have the option to getting all the games that are involved between the two players in question for every rating left, why not attach a special "comments" section at the end of every game and allow the comment section to be editable after the game but only visible once archived. Treat it like in game comments and dont' bother about moderation since it's not a part of the permenent record of the player. This might be a good compomise.

[DukeToshiro]

After two weeks of experience with the new ratings system and a lot of important input from Conquer Club members like you, it's pretty clear that it could use some fixing.

So here is a 4-point plan to address the major problems with ratings, based on ideas brought up in this forum:

Problem: We want to know the reasons behind the stars, but written comments lead to too many complaints.
Solution: Introduce descriptive tags that you can attach to ratings, to explain them. >> discussion topic <<

Descriptive tags will only work if they are game specific. Personally, I think that a new form of moderation should be implemented to the old comments method. Either greatly reduce the amount of moderation or allow some kind of community moderation.

Problem: There is too much inconsistency - some people follow our scale and leave 3 for an average player, others typically leave 5.
Solution: Display average rating left (ARL) on each rating and factor it into your overall rating score. >> discussion topic <<

I personally don't think this will make much of a difference in the ratings. You should switch to a positive/negative/neutral system. Plus, maybe the ability to comment only on neutral ratings.

Problem: We have few options when left "unfair" ratings.
Solution: Allow written responses to ratings. >> discussion topic <<

Good idea. However, I think without game-specific comment tags the majority of responses will read "I have no idea why this rating was left".

Problem: We want to rate gameplay behaviour that affects the game experience for others, but doesn't fall under "Fair Play".
Solution: Introduce an attribute for Gameplay (which would include teamwork). >> discussion topic <<

A gameplay attribute would be nice. One's rank is not always reflective of one's skill.

Problem: Attendance should be automated, not a rating!
Solution: Add attendance stat to player profile, remove it from ratings. >> discussion topic <<

Automated attendance sounds great.

[alster]

My 2 cents on the new rating system is the following:

1. The new system is a nice thing. Easy to use, easy to read and takes the whole feedback moderation out of the equation.

2. The perceived problems could to some extent be mitigated by:

Not allow new users to leave ratings. E.g. after 100 games (when one understands CC a bit and actually have some insight on what the average/standard play is) one could get the option to leave ratings. Or after having purchased premium. Perhaps people shouldn't be able to leave ratings for players with <100 games as well. That would give new players a chance to learn the game before being subjected to hard-core players judgment.

There will nonetheless be some people who will just hand out e.g. 1-1-1 because they are pissed-off (right or wrong). Let's say you have a valid complaint about someone missing turns all the time, so sure, you put down a 1 on attendance. A lot of people hand down 1-ratings on the other categories as well. Now, for these 1-1-1 (or similar, e.g. 1-2-1) one could reintroduce the moderation function. Wouldn't take much time to look into that. No comments, no allegations, just a quick look at game chat, game log etc.

I believe that this would get away with a lot of the perceived flaws.

On second thought, I'd like to add this one to my comment above.

Ratings could be automatically removed after a certain time (e.g. 1 year). If ratings are suppose to show some kind of general consensus, a 1-year removal would reflect players' actions during the past year as well as (albeit after some time) solve issues with people leaving 1-1-1-ratings for no apparent good reasons. Also, that would get away with ratings left by people who basically just stoped by, played a few games and then moved on.

[jiminski]

drunk ramble

[jspi]

what do the silver or gold colors of ranks mean?

[n00blet]

what do the silver or gold colors of ranks mean?

lol off topic much? Perhaps it would be best to answer this in the highly disciplined form of Japanese poetry: haiku.

My heart aches with pain
Command: read instructions
Else, you will die alone

Thank you, thank you.

[mightyredarmy]

We don't need a 5-point scale. Look at the ratings dished out and you'll see that it's commonplace to rate 1s, 3s and 5s, while the 2s and 4s hardly get used.

We don't need categories. Look at the ratings left and you'll see 1-1-1, 3-3-3, 5-5-5 in the vast majority of cases

All we need to know is,

Did the other player's behaviour mean we had a bad experience? = give a BAD or NEGATIVE rating
Did the other player's behaviour mean we had a good experience? = give a GOOD or POSITIVE rating

Did we really not care? = leave no rating or leave a neutral if you're going for the rating medal.

I don't care if seomeone is 4.6 or 4.7 - I want to know how many people had a bad experience! Feedback would be nice, from menus if necessary, but drop all the overcomplicated nonsense, it doesn't add anything of value.

[Beastly]

This site has enough people to play on, where you can put people on ignore, and move on!

who cares if someone had a bad experience. Doesn't mean you will. Why can't we all get along, and bitch about each other in Flame Wars.

It's all a matter of opinion. A old lady might not like how a young boy plays, so what?

The only thing that should be a matter of concern is someone who deadbeats. IF you don't like the way a person plays. MOVE ON.... go join a Clan and go against their clan.

Why is everybody concerned with how others play? I don't get it.

It's just a game people.

Nothing wrong with good competition, but wanting to rate other people, and slam them, because they don't play the game the way you think they should???? sheesh oh man, this is getting beyond serious.

Everybody play me, I will always give you 5 stars or nothing at all.....

[suggs]

A very manly post, beastly.

[RadiantOne]

This may be slightly off topic, but it does relate to a player's attendance. Right now the "deferred armies" setting is actually REWARDING players for missing turns. I am in a game right now where someone just collected 18 armies after missing two turns in a row. This jumped them in one turn from near the bottom of the rankings to near the top. Some people have recommended rating people on how quickly they take their turn, but rewarding people for missing turns works against this. Personally, I think if a person misses a turn, they should be "punished" by losing their armies for that turn. I'm a new player on your board, but my first impression is that I'm going to start missing turns in games now if I think it will give me an advantage in a game.

[bayou]

Four words.
A Comedy of Errors

[alster]

This may be slightly off topic, but it does relate to a player's attendance. Right now the "deferred armies" setting is actually REWARDING players for missing turns. I am in a game right now where someone just collected 18 armies after missing two turns in a row. This jumped them in one turn from near the bottom of the rankings to near the top. Some people have recommended rating people on how quickly they take their turn, but rewarding people for missing turns works against this. Personally, I think if a person misses a turn, they should be "punished" by losing their armies for that turn. I'm a new player on your board, but my first impression is that I'm going to start missing turns in games now if I think it will give me an advantage in a game.

Whenever you hear that little voice inside your head saying that this may be off-topic, it usually makes sense to listen...

Nonetheless. Welcome aboard and nice to see new peoplw posting. What you're talking about has been discussed plenty of times before (just browse the threads in e.g. the general forum). To make a long story short: People have lifes and people missess turns. Missing a turn is rarely a good idea. And in my opinion, it can rarely be an advantage (unless other people for some idiosyncratic reason decides not to attack the player missing turns).

[PLAYER57832]

A couple of things are coming clear, at least to me.

1. Folks WILL rate the criteria they feel important, whether there is a place for it or not.
Most specifically -- folks who think strategy should be rated will simply add to to whichever of the other criteria they feel closest.



2. Folks WILL rate in their own ways.
A. Real guidelines will be helpful, to the vast majority. Most of us do pretty much try to "follow guidelines" when they are specific enough to be clear and understood.

B. Folks want some way to distinguish the "oddballs" -- be it the Jerks who give everyone low ratings because they lost OR folks who have thier own individual "systems" for rating that just don't corrospond with what the majority think.

[JoshyBoy]

Set criteria is difficult to monitor. In addition, people will commonly do the "you give me positive feedback and I'll respond with positive feedback" which will trash the accuracy of a 5-star system.

Someone else made an excellent suggestions - 3 ratings: negative, neutral, positive. This is easy to understand and follow and allows little abuse.

Personally, the current system just doesn't mean anything and is worse than the last imo.

negative, neutral, and positive... with or without comments available? Because if you cant explain why you left reasons why you gave negative, neutral, or positive then you will and currently do get people getting bad ratings just because you beat someone!!! With written feedback what are they gonna write? "He/she beat me and I'm a sore loser" Seriously get a grip and change back to the old feedback! lol I'm not gonna stop saying it...

[autogreg]

If it is to be ratings, then 1-3 stars is all you need. I miss the ebay style feedback. Yes it could be abused, but with it there was enough information for people to look at it for their self and form their own opinion. It's worked for Ebay for how many years now? I really enjoyed being able to leave very positive feedback for people who deserved it. I don't even believe it needs to be moderated anymore than before. So what if a lot of people get an undeserved negative feedback. If it was truly undeserved they should get enough positives to wash it out. One way to be sure of that is remove 1% of each players negative and positive feedback. If you have 10 feedbacks, and 9 are positive, you'd have 8 that showed. Get rid of the oldest feedbacks in each category. Then if someone wants to leave you a crappy feedback it's not even going to show up, unless it truly was a pattern and you had already reached your quota.

I know it is probably too late to plead the case of feedback (I would have done it much sooner if I realized it was in danger) but I do feel strongly that it added more depth to CC and made it much more engaging. Now it feels much more flat.

Regardless of the ratings, I think the automated attendance score is a GREAT idea....Whoever came up with it deserves 5 stars for attitude and fair play!!

[Soloman]

I've a bit of experience with rating scales and the only problem I see, lack is there is no set criteria for the ratings...my suggestion is for the mods to come up with clear criteria for each rating (exactly what would a mod expect to see to rank a player 5 star, 4 star etc), post it and then leave it to the individual players to honorably rate the other players based on the set criteria. I like the elimination of written responses...why not let players rate themselves in response to lower ratings without getting into the drama of written "tit for tat". Anyone who is interested can look up the games to decide who is the most honorable, honest of players both with themselves and other players. And a big thank you for allowing the input...cc has literally saved my sanity on more than a few occasions lately so thanks for that too....

This is arguably one of the best suggestions to date...

And create a tutorial and or a user agreement possibly that states they will use the system as was designed and any gross abuse can result in some type of punishment....Or at least the tutorial on what and how to rate...

[Tracita]

I actually thought the written comments were fairer than the star method for all the reasons already mentioned. I don't think the written comments need to be policed...eExcept, when a player uses clearly abusive, rascist or otherwise extremely inappropriate comments, that player should be referred to a committee, (like the cheaters/multi-players) who could decide whether to bar that player from leaving feedback or some other sanction. I dislike the neutral/pos/negative.... that is like receiving a pass/fail or a satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade. It doesn't given enough information when deciding whether to join a game w/a certain player or not. The written feedback truly gives one a better idea and everyone needs to be intelligent enough to distinguish between retaliatory abusive, sour grapes comments v. informative comments.

Perhaps a combo of stars/comments. you choose 1-5, and give a reason limited to 10 words.

I think it is a terrific idea to have attendance feedback automated. The one day CC was down during the day, i missed a turn and received two stars for attendance. I mean, come on...