New Feature Suggestion! Replacing the Upvote!
TappedOut forum
Posted on July 9, 2015, 12:34 a.m. by Femme_Fatale
Many of us as of late have found that our current upvote system breeds unwanted competition in our community, along with people (myself included) getting salty about others having more upvotes and using methods just to get more upvotes, be it through coding or making useless joke decks.
I have been brewing up an idea that tries to remedy this problem, while keeping the original intention of the upvotes intact.
Summary:
The upvote system gets revamped into a ratings system. The total upvotes becomes total times rated in a five star system. There will be numerous categories for people to rate a deck on, like humor, budget, competitiveness, uniqueness, creativity, vorthos, efficiency, etc.
Details:
Getting Rid of the Upvote System:
What I mean for the upvote system to become total times rated is that the prospect of "score" and "points" gets removed entirely. I think that is a large portion of what makes people behave like the upvote system is a competition as they make people think of sports and/or being the "number one". In reality, that isn't what it was intended for, but rather to be as another method to help search functions and to help through feedback.
The upvote system currently does not follow the spirit of this site being entirely about getting feedback on one's deck to make it better, as it doesn't really do anything but to show how popular the deck is. As many of us have seen, this site's user base is biased towards budget and kitchen table entertainment decks, as that is a large majority of our user base. The upvote system does not actively indicate this, and those looking for say, a deck that the community looks at in high regards in terms of creativity and uniqueness would be kinda lost.
Getting rid of the upvote system would cause some backlash from the members of the community who have spent their hard earned money on feature tokens to get their decks up there and it would cause certain features of this site to no longer work. In this, just renaming it would be effective. "Upvote" would become "rate this" and score would become "times rated".
System of Ratings:
While I understand that all these people who have upvoted a deck most certainly haven't rated the deck on various categories, so you'd end up with like a deck that says it has been rated 50 times but none of the categories has any rankings in it. To attempt to remedy this, everyone would get a separate notifications bin detailing which decks that they have upvoted on in the past that need to be properly rate, so that they can effectively rate them.
Sort of building on the last point of going back and rating things, there would be the option to "re-rate" a deck. Obviously a deck that was made a year ago isn't going to be the same as it is now, so people would have different views on the deck as it gets built over time. The ability to change their rating would be able effectively portray the changing vies an individual has on a deck after it has been through some updates.
Enticing People to Rate Decks:
Now we are obviously not going to remember which decks we rated on in the past and aren't going to continuously check when they get updated, so our "separate notifications bin" (which I shall now change to "deck update notifications") will work to notify us of when a deck that we rated on gets changed by a certain percentage of what we set in our settings. So if we say we want to be notified of whenever a deck is changed by 25% of when we last rated it, we will get a notification for when that happens, and we will not get another notification till we re-rate that deck and it gets changed by another 25% by the time of that re-rate. This system also serves as an automatic deck advertisement function for the individual who made the deck. To prevent abuse of this system, let's put on a restriction that the deck must stay that way for 2 days before the notifications get sent out.
Now since people are stingy about giving out upvotes, they are going to be stingy about giving our ratings. Increasing the time it takes to do an upvote would push people further away from doing one. While we are essentially trying to remove the negativity of competition surrounding this feature, it won't be enough to combat that stinginess people have it the rating takes too long to complete. Thus, the number of categories we will have must be limited, and is up for debate, though I think 12 is a good number.
Now for the categories themselves, the should satisfy something our hubs cannot do, or achieve something better than the hubs currently do. I'll list some of the categories I think we should have and my reasoning for them, and we can discuss these categories further. And yes, shout out to Epochalyptik's pandora's box articles for giving me a fair portion of these ideas. The awesome thing about this is that we can have links to his articles on the "rate this deck" pop-up to educate people on the different deck types.
- Budget (While we do have a budget hub, the term budget changes from individual to individual, so an average feel by the community of what is budget would be more accurate than an individual's feel of what is budget. Example, one might think that an $600 is budget in modern, whereas the community might think that $200 is budget in modern. In this, a $400 modern deck might get a budget rating of 2.5 stars.)
- Vorthos (How well connected the deck building is to a certain lore or story.)
- Humor (Whether or not a deck is funny. Good to categorize all these joke decks and allow people to avoid them if they don't want them.)
- Effectiveness (How well does the deck win by doing what it wants to do with cards that utilize their abilities to forward the deck to the goal more than any other card could.)
- Effeciency (How does the deck win in the best possible manner with the least spent resources and time. Example, an aggro deck winning by turn 4 with the same amount of cards as one that wins by turn 6, would be rated higher in effeciency.)
- Uniqueness (How creative, new or unique the deck is. Rogue builds would usually rank highest here.)
- Consistency (How consistent the deck is at doing what it wants to do.)
- Competitiveness (How competitive the deck is, or seems to be.)
- Cohesiveness (How much the deck focuses on a unifying strategy or set of interactions and how the deck functions and builds upon internal synergies.)
- Sustainability (How well can the deck deliver constant pressure and maintain resources throughout the game.)
- Resilience (How well can the deck endure unfavourable conditions and setbacks)
- Flexibility (How well can the deck adapt to the numerous different threats and scenarios it would see throughout the numerous games it will play in.)
Additional Applications:
Another aspect that having these categories instead of/in tangent with hubs is that we can do specific searches for them. Currently we have the feature function at the top to show only decks of our favourite formats in order to give them more viewing time. We can do a similar thing with these categories, though how, and where it applies, is up for debate. I'm thinking that it can apply not only to the feature section but to the deck cycling section and front page as well. In terms of how, my current idea is that it gets applied as a sort of "threshold" mechanic. Only decks that are rated 2.5 stars or higher in effectiveness would get shown, for example. This should not apply to decks that aren't rated, so that they can get views. The search function would apply in a similar way, in that we can do a detailed search for decks just through these categories.
These are the ideas I currently have for this. I may have forgotten some as I wrote this in-between working (as indicative by the sort of abrupt end here), so if I remember or come up with any more points I'll put them down.
I'm totally down for this. I don't particularly care about my decks getting upvotes at all. I want the feedback. Changes, tweeks etc but I personally feel that the upvote scheme is just not getting me there as most people just say "cool deck. +1" which I do appreciate but no deck is ever perfect in my opinion and saying the afformentioned doesn't help me improve.
Great idea Femme_Fatale.
July 9, 2015 1 a.m.
Jamesfurrow says... #4
I really like this idea. Especially having the deck scored in different catagories. I feel by making deck searches through these catagories such as humor, competitiveness, and effeciency will help users find the kind of decks they enjoy.
I would love to narrow my search for decks i find to fit the "competitive" world of magic because a lot of the time i see gimmic like decks with hubs of competitive when i simply see it as more unique. While its true unique decks can be competitive a lot of the time they are simply hard to pull off combos because of how many windows of opportunity arise during magic. But with this system; i can set my star ratings in any of those catagories to filter out fun modern decks for more serious competitve lists to help me with brewing one of my own.
Though my only addition to rating the decks would possibly be adding the "tier" status so people can see how popular that style of a deck is in the community. For example a lot of people in the fun catagory might enjoy building USA/JESKAI combos more than ABZAN/JUNK combos thus making for the fun catagory USA "teir 1" but the ABZAN in the competitive catagory might be a "teir 1". Im not sure if that makes sence but that would also kinda let people see where these decks popularity comes from. Anyways I definitly feel this could be a nice change for tapped out! Great idea
P.S sorry for the long post
July 9, 2015 1:02 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #6
As for the tiers Jamesfurrow, one can just look at ChiefBell's modern format primer. Or MTGtop8.
July 9, 2015 1:14 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #7
Also yes, buddy guy brings up a good point, you know the islands deck is going to get like 1000% upvote in the competitiveness category should that be how it is implemented. I'd say when building the deck that you decide which category it's going to fall into, this can be a changeable ordeal via an admin, and you're graded on that category mainly? Or something along those lines, I don't know. Otherwise, anyone could just recycle the ratings on a deck just as they do the upvotes now.
I definitely am guilty of taking a deck that has a bunch of votes that I no longer play or use, an old standard deck for example, and just change the list on that page rather than make a new deck, so that deck starts off with 20 votes instead of 0. Just somehow finding a way to stick the rating to the deck and have that rating reflect the deck in every sense.
July 9, 2015 1:19 a.m.
IcyLightning says... #8
While I like the idea of replacing the +1 system, I think the categories to be rated on should be condensed. I think limiting the categories to 5 would be ideal if anything, especially since ratings in some categories would be unclear.
For example, how do you rate budget? To some people 5 stars would be a $2500 deck, while to others it would a deck built from scraps for under $30. How would rating budget apply to different formats? is the rating universal? If so would top tier Mondern/EDH decks always score higher then Pauper?
Also what about a joke deck that scores 5 in the suggested humor category but 1 in everything else?
I suggest that the categories are limited to
1.Competitiveness/ Tier: Allows people to tell how competitve the deck is by rating. 5 stars=Top Tier
2.Uniqueness/Creativity: I feel that most Rogue decks, uncommon tribal, fun combos, humor decks will score highly here
3.Consistency: Ranking highly in this category demonstrates that the deck achieves its goal well, and repeatedly. This does not mean that the deck's goal is necessarily competitive, just that whatever the deck tries to do it can do so, be it crazy combos or turn 2 wins
4.Synergy: Is the deck syngergistic? Do all the cards feel like they have a place, whether that is tribal or geared around specific mechanics or goals
5.Adaptability: Does this deck respond well to threats and other decks, if it gets knocked off its feet can it recover enough to win?
In addition to receiving a score of 5 stars in each of those categories, I think that the deck should have 2 scores shown on the deck's page. Mean score, the average score of its reviews, and the highest category score, to demonstrate that a deck that scores well in one category but not the others is not necessarily a bad deck.
Then in addition to all that, new hubs should be added for each category that the deck is featured in whenever it is cycled in each category that it scores higher then a 3.5
July 9, 2015 1:29 a.m.
NoviceMagician says... #11
Alright, first off, gotta give a shoutout to my boy Magicrafter for getting that beautifully placed comment. XD
Alright, but onto the actual subject at hand. To even begin to consider this, there are a few things that have to be taken into account first, all of which you've mentioned:
Implementation: How long, hard, and how much refining would this have to go through to just be implemented?
Upkeep: What will it take to keep this system up and running in an efficient manner as the site, users, and MTG itself changes?
Repercussions: What sort of reactions will this warrant, good, bad, or mixed?
So while I find this a highly intriguing idea, I just don't see it being set into place currently. Upvoting something meant that you support the deck and would like others to see it, this seems like it is judging decks even more so than upvotes ever were. Perhaps a better way to "fix" upvotes, would be by putting something along the lines of this: "Upvoting shows that you want others to see this deck." Right next to the upvote amount.
I don't know, I just don't see this as a reliable way of fixing the T/O problem of late, but like I said, very intriguing idea.
EDIT- Really the only way the user-relationship problems can be fixed, imo, would be for everyone to start listening to Epoch's posts about helping each other out and not being hostile.
July 9, 2015 3:03 a.m. Edited.
isn't it kinda 6 in one, half dozen in the other? what is a search today for decks tagged 'Rogue' and sorted by score missing?
July 9, 2015 3:23 a.m.
Any sort of grading system will generate competitiveness from a community and I'm honestly more in favor of cutting these systems from tappedout completely especially the current upvote system as it really isn't all that good for searching or sorting (what exactly makes upvoted deck's different from lists with high view counts?).
it even acts as a deterrent for me as it usually only means the deck's owner has pumped a lot of feature tokens into the deck or went with an overly long description full of pictures and often card choices that haven't been in the list for months (and often just a mess with it's comments where one could almost bet that any card suggestion has been suggested at least 3 times).
Overall I'd prefer the site lost their rating systems in favor of just going by pure views with an option to crop out views that are so many months old, and to maybe clear view history if the decklist gets change by about 25% within a month's time (in fact I'd suggest putting that system into the current upvote system to prevent someone from farming upvotes and honestly any deck plays drastically different with even a 8% change so why count upvotes from a old version anyway?).
July 9, 2015 4 a.m.
I do not think that this will actually solve the issue of competition.
July 9, 2015 4:06 a.m.
Demarge in that situation the score would still exist, sure, but that doesn't make it a top deck.
another metric for interesting decks could be how many folders it exists in.
July 9, 2015 4:29 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #17
See, the fundamental mistake in site design is in assuming that any user dependent-feature will be used correctly. Our experience alone indicates that this is simply not the case. Users who upvote a joke deck are just as likely to write that deck five out of five stars in all categories. If users could be trusted to always appropriately apply a rating system like this, then it might be a more ideal and more accurate system than what we have now.
Additionally, the issue with named categories is that some users may not understand what those categories represent. If a user is unable to easily and quickly determine what something means, then it is unlikely that he or she will use that feature correctly or at all. Four example, how many people do you think understand what "vorthos" means?
Maybe this idea could work with simpler categories, but then we must ask whether transitioning to this new system would be beneficial enough to mitigate the hassle of doing so. How many people are really going to go back and re-rate the deck with a more complicated rating system? Additionally how would you propose that we develop new features to accommodate the reminding of users and the possible expiration of ratings as a deck is updated? I applaud your effort and time you invested in this idea, but I think that it raises many more problems than it promises to solve.
July 9, 2015 8:17 a.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #18
Just a problem I came across while skimming: I seriously doubt that this'll reduce the "supremacy" of joke decks because the people that rate it will just give it a vote in each category, because it's a joke deck... I'll give some more feedback later, I'm short on time.
Also yeaGO, I'm not convinced that folders would be a good metric, because there some users who don't use folders a ton (such as me).
July 9, 2015 8:25 a.m. Edited.
First of all, I like the idea of splitting a simple +1 into a ratings system that includes flavor, competitiveness, budget, originality, and what-have you. I would have no problem giving a few plusses in select categories rather than one generic +1. Any kind of rating, though, that starts to smack of grading could become too much. People are lazy to click +1 as it is.
Personally, I just don't give a flying uncle any more. I give +1 to any deck that earned my attention because it did that whether because it looked fun or it handed my butt to me in playtesting or if only for titles or music or some other style feature.
The thing is that I just don't find myself capable of taking the +1 ratings very seriously at all. I don't take it personally.
I also really suspect that those who would be likely to get panties in a twist over points have underlying concerns like marking their territories, proving their superiority, or something else and if the +1's isn't the trigger for their issue, they will express themselves in some other way.
Another example of these kinds of "deeper issues" is people not giving help or feedback to each other much. I will admit that I did decide to "pull" most of my decks into private - and one (among several) of those reasons was that the lack of response meant that there was no upside to letting all my opponents and haters and such know exactly how to build and board against me. (Another reason being my need to update and not having things together enough to do that just now).
I'm not sure how many people are most interested in raw scores versus discussion / feedback.
July 9, 2015 8:34 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #20
I also think that it's at your own peril that you interpret the ratings as anything other than how many people like a certain deck for one reason or another. That's not to say that the system should never be changed or improved to offer more valuable information; rather, it's just to say that we shouldn't expect that we can eliminate popularity as a primary driver of user ratings.
July 9, 2015 8:44 a.m.
Hello, it has been awhile, but I had to pop in and comment. This seems like a logical step forward to the admittedly flawed +1 system. My main concern is the level of code, and subsequent debugging, required to make this a feasible feature. I also think that Epochalyptik is correct in that it will be impossible to remove popularity as a driving indicator behind any form of public rating system. This would require a lot of of refinement and testing to become a feasible alternative to the classic "upvote" system. The sad thing is, just by correctly using the presented hubs we have access to, many of the above issues could be avoided. Perhaps instead of immediately changing a system when there is an issue, we could try to educate the community as a whole about the proper use of the system? Someone could start a series of articles exclusively to help users understand the ins and outs of tappedout.net, but that would be a massive time consuming project to write articles to the standard of things previously seen created by users such as Femme_Fatale, Epochalyptik, and users in different categories such as Spootyone's Showdown series.
July 9, 2015 9:59 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #23
It may be a noble endeavor, but we've also seen that users don't read material. For example, there's a warning banner above every new thread field that instructs users to post rules questions in the Q&A, and that gets routinely ignored.
The issue really is that users who don't know how to use a feature probably also don't know how to use other features to learn more about that first feature. Or users think they know how to use a feature and end up misusing it instead.
The hard part about user education is that the only group truly in need of any such education is also the hardest to educate. It's harder to reach them and it's harder to get them to retain information.
The most effective investment of our time is to develop a very obvious and straightforward feature that people will understand how to use correctly. Arguably, they already use the ipvote feature correctly. It doesn't advertise itself as anything, and it's traditionally used as a "like" feature. It's not meant to be a 1:1 indication of your deck's strength or anything like that. And while I understand the desire to generate more helpful statistics, we have to be careful about making the system that facilitates them too complicated to generate them meaningfully.
July 9, 2015 10:29 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #24
From the broadest sense, we have to consider whether users would understand this feature, use it correctly/appropriately, or use it at all. I'm not convinced that they will. How many threads are moved daily? It takes a lot less effort to correctly place a thread or asking a Q&A question than understanding a new rating system.
I think we have to look at how users comment on deck lists. There are those who give helpful suggestions where they back up their suggestions, offer changes to make, and point out weaknesses of a list. There are others who give unhelpful comments like "Hey use this card. Cool deck. [Check out my unrelated deck]."
We all know which category is prevalent. My assumption is that the users who give helpful comments are the users that will take the time to understand and appropriately take advantage of this rating system. I, however, would prefer to have a detailed comment rather than a detailed rating so I can receive deck-specific feedback. This is under the assumption that a helpful user would only take the time to do rate or comment, not both, which is likely what I would do.
A more specific question to ask is whether or not the deck builder would be able to see individual reviews, or just a composite? I would like to see individual reviews so that I can discuss with that user how to improve the list. Others, however, could be offended by individual reviews and spark an argument.
The big question is what would this accomplish? Aside from the transition period that's bound to have hick ups, would users actually use this? And, as I mentioned above, would it reduce the number of helpful comments?
July 9, 2015 11:07 a.m. Edited.
NoPantsParade says... #25
Not gonna lie, I had this same idea in the shower two weeks ago, but I thought it was silly. Of course mine was a dumbed-down version of this.
Anyways, I haven't read through the comments on here since I just woke up and have stuff. Couldn't someone simply rate other decks as 1 or whatever for each category? Sure it's sad and pathetic, but I wouldn't bet against someone sitting there all day doing so. That's the first thing I thought of when I was showering myself.
I don't mind the upvote system, but it is annoying to see the joke decks that are all Islands be number 1 or whatever since anyone could do that.
July 9, 2015 11:09 a.m. Edited.
i am imagining it basically like an expanded tray on the comment form which people can fill in once while they are leaving a comment. its sits side-by-side with the existing voting system. so a deck could have 6 comments, 21 upvotes, and 4 reviews.
July 9, 2015 noon
Rasta_Viking29 says... #27
I'm not a fan. I really don't care about ratings though. I give them out for all sorts of different reasons and will not bother with the different categories. 5 stars across the board or none at all is how I will vote if that's how we're proceeding. Using it alongside instead of rather than upvotes like yeaGO mentioned is preferable to me.
When I first returned to the game and started using this site I ignorantly looked at the higher rated decks as "better" and sought to find out why. I mean no offense but it was your decks always being highly rated Femme_Fatale that made me realize the ratings are nothing more than a popularity contest. Honestly that's what the ratings should depict in my opinon. If you want to find quality competitive decks you should be looking at tournament results instead of decks on here that have a bunch upvotes from random scrubs(myself included) stating "oh you're so creative, have a digital cookie".
July 9, 2015 2:45 p.m. Edited.
NoviceMagician says... #28
I always thought this was a weird place to look for really competitve decks anyway, as I believe yeaSavior once said:
"i was under the impression that the users on this site were casual."
Or something like that.
And I agree with Rasta, I wouldn't do it, but many users would simply rate it either highest or lowest.
July 9, 2015 2:53 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #29
NoPantsParade I mean, anyone could also paint a white canvas entirely blue (y'know, the one that someone sold for millions which was just an entirely blue painting). It's getting the idea first that matters.
Wait, why am I defending that deck??? Anyhow, I more or less agree with much that has been said here, but I particularly want to develop on a possible "Review" thing. I believe that DeviantArt has something like that (Femme_Fatale, you use Deviant, right?), so that could give us an idea or so. But essentially, one person would give a detailed review on a deck once requested, putting up maybe a rating of sorts, and giving suggestions, all in good detail. Could that work? It would obviously require a bunch of work.
July 9, 2015 4:09 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #30
I'll try to be more clearer about this next time: The biggest purpose for this in fact is actually getting proper feedback on decks, something the upvote system doesn't do. What does this ratings system do for that? It allows users to see how the average rating on their deck progresses as time goes on and they do more updates. They can actually see what the community thinks of all the different categories of their deck and that user can make an effort to improve on that category.
Now I shall go forth and answer/respond to everyone's concerns ... BEWARE THE WALL 'o' TEXT!
The point you brought up about individual preference actually always happens in every single ratings and surveys system that happens around the world. There will always be people who think dramatically differently from the rest. However, there is something called the "bell-curve graph", where the majority of people will fit in the middle of this bell curve graph and the extremists will fall on the outside in small amounts. In other words, because of the amount of people rating, one person rating a 5/5 stars on a $2k deck (don't forget that budget is different per format. $2k in vintage would be very cheap) wouldn't affect the overall result all that much.
5 categories are definitely not enough to express all the different types of fields of the deck that hubs cannot express. Remember that this new ratings system is meant for the deck's creator to get an good feel of how the community thinks of the different aspects of the deck, and what areas they should improve on, without having to rely on 1 user's opinions that were placed down in a lengthy comment. Remember, a collective input is better than an individual input. However, I do understand the purpose of the suggestion, but I feel that the lowest I would go is 8, highest 12. What I would remove from the list above to lower it down to 8 are these: Efficiency, Effectiveness, Consistency and Uniqueness. Uniqueness could be solved, as someone had mentioned, in a hub, and the other 3 are kind of hard to define on their own and are interchangeable. I think those 8 are a good amount.
As for the scores, I thought that it was a given that the total number of times rated would be score #1 and the average "out of 5 stars" of all the ratings would be score #2. I don't mind the idea of a score #3 basically saying "Best category: (insert category here) 4.6/5 stars).
It wouldn't take very long, as all the systems are already in place for it to be implemented. Remember that the main upvoting system won't get changed, just renamed. Then yeago would implement a pop-up feature (like what happens when we click our deck folder) to store the ratings section. That is the main part, and the most important part, and arguably the easiest part. The rest of the features don't need to be implemented right away and yeago can take his time on them. I would think the new notifications system would be most difficult, but yeago has had no difficulties in implementing new notification systems for other locations in the past.
Upkeep: No more challenging than the current notifications and upvote features.
Reactions: I already listed them. Because people won't like the complete removal of upvotes due to the time and money spent on them, it is just going to get renamed and upgraded. Time and money will not be lost with this update. If anything, people will show a lot of positive feedback as after about 3 months (initial implementation will always harbor the most negative feedback) once the effects of the new ratings system start to take place in helping people with their decks. Because that is the purpose.
If we wish to fix this site's user relationship problems, we have to tackle it from every angle. Show effort, and not shoot down things that could potentially make this site a better place just because they think that "it won't make a difference".
There is a large difference between a competitiveness that might be created from this and what is being created from the upvote system. Currently the upvote system can be abused by people altering the codes on their deck and begging for upvotes. Now if people beg for rates they have a legitimate reason to do so: It helps them make their deck better. Also, in order to get a high rating, you have to put effort in making your deck better.
I already mentioned before why we can't remove it: There would be a large back-lash. We just have to change it to something better. I have considered pitching an idea to remove the upvote system entirely in the past, but you need that upvote system in place in order to do various searches. There are a lot of users who netdeck the best scored deck on this site, and removing the upvote system basically removes their ability to effectively netdeck on here. Implementing a ratings system just helps their ability to netdeck.
Now the refreshing of the upvotes on a 8% update basis is very flawed. Remember that a deck contains 75 cards, 15 of which can fluctuate on a monthly basis, so we can only count 60 of those 75 in the update. About 1/3 of the deck will be lands, and lands can also fluctuate quite heavily as people fiddle around with their mana base. I generally would consider around 10 lands to be constantly fluctuating in any given deck. That's 50 cards now. Take 20% of those 50 cards and you get 10 cards that have to change in order for an upvote refresh to occur. I don't know about you, but 10 cards is very easy to change without the deck's idea being changed at all. Consider meta changes, new cards and even people finding better cards in a massively growing card pool. If we want to do this, we would need a much larger percentage.
This site has a really bad problem with not telling people where anything is or what anything does. There is no OBVIOUS tutorial (as Scytec mentioned)for this site and lots of what is available is tossed underneath things or hidden in corners, so to speak. I take my experience from this from having to hand teach many people what to do on this site as soon as they get on when I suggest it to them, even when they are intelligent individuals.
To remedy this problem, we will be putting little question mark bubbles literally right next to the ratings category name that will bring up, when clicked, a short definition of what is meant by that category, and a link to a larger description if available (for the most part it would be your Pandora's Deckbox articles).
I also already mentioned the thing about reminding people, the separate notifications system. As for ratings expiration, Demarge's idea seems like a good place to start, just at a much larger percentage. Like 40% or so? The total times rated wouldn't change, just the scores. It could probably give an indication of how many of the ratings are old or what not. I'm definitely open to other ideas if people have them though, the old ratings thing is probably the biggest issue to tackle effectively as have never had to to this with upvotes.
As for giving people an incentive ... well, we've always ran into problems with giving people incentives before. I give the card database as the best example. When I had suggested removing the incentives to stop people from putting in pointless half-assed submissions, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Then we started getting complaints from people wondering where the hell are their tokens, and yeago had to start forking them over because they said that there was no point in doing the submissions without them. So now we have the incentives back, even though it isn't really fair to everyone else if one person (me) gets 150 feature tokens. With all this being said, the two best incentives I have to offer are user points and/or an additional deckcycle for the day after say, 25 decks rated. If people think this would be abused, then I ask them how often do comments get abused, since that also gives user points?
Apparently some user did a site wide tutorial a while back through a youtube video, though you'd have to ask yeago where that went as I learned about it from him. However, that was a long time ago, and much has changed.
How many times do we get people spamming the forums and decks for comments just for points? Because that would be my first warning about putting in a ratings system.
Putting the ratings system alongside the upvote system ... urg, I don't know about that. It doesn't actually help the ratings system and nor does it help mitigate some of the popularity issues with the upvote system. If you replaced the upvote system with the ratings system entirely, AND implemented a side ratings system when people comment, that I would like. It would be another method of getting people to rate. And I think it helps calm some of ducttapedeckbox's qualms about the ratings replacing the comments if they are side-by-side. And no, I don't think the ratings will replace the comments, because the ratings don't specify specific things which you can in a comment. I also think the user can choose to remain anonymous or not through their settings, and perhaps when the user comments on the deck, what they rated the deck as is viewable to either everyone, the deck builder or no one through right on the comment which would be adjustable through the settings as well.
The only reason why my decks were getting more upvotes all those days ago was because I was one of the only people to ever write lengthy deck descriptions that detail every single card and their interactions with other cards. I then started to tell people that that is how they should go about getting more feedback on their decks, and it caught on now. Though back then, we never had as many upgraded users as we do now. This site's dedicated user base has grown a lot.
That is is no different from the lengthy comments people already leave on decks. I don't see any reason to post it down. It is important for deviantART because in dA, people use the comments solely as a means for others to try and get to look at their artwork. Hence why they are never detailed or descriptive or thoughtful. It's not that bad here, though I presume it will be one day.
End: I hope I replied to everyone properly... it is now time for me to go to bed and work a long day tomorrow. I'll reply to everyone again in another 24 hours.
July 10, 2015 2:19 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #31
The fundamental issue is still that you're expecting too much of the user. You can have any number of grand plans, but, if you need user cooperation, you need to simplify them enough to make them work. People aren't going to want to deal with another notification feed, revisit all the decks they've rated, and then think about updating ratings as decks change. And say you reset ratings on each deck update; what would bring people back to look at your deck and analyze it for the umpteenth time? Incentives would need to be handled very carefully, and they'd need to be true to the effort invested in ratings.
It's also hard to put the responsibility of understanding the different ideas and accurately eating them on the user. If you wanted to ask users to rate a deck in eight dimensions (five and three are far more comfortable numbers), then you would need them to cooperate with whatever educational material you're providing. What's the likelihood that people will understand eight complex concepts well enough to rate a deck properly? And what's the likelihood of people rating 1s, 3s, or 5s across the board?
Further, 1-5 scales begin to trend toward that "downvote" realm of which we don't speak. We don't implement downvotes on the site, and allowing 1-star ratings is effectively allowing downvotes. We'd have to think about the implications for griefing. Especially if you want to incentivize ratings. People will spam the shit out of useless ratings just to get something for free. We have no algorithmic way to QC ratings except perhaps by kicking anyone who consistently gives 1s or 5s across the board.
Comments, I think, are still the best way to communicate feedback on ideas like this. Maybe it would be worth beta testing some kind of multi-faceted rating system, but I have my reservations.
July 10, 2015 7:24 a.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #32
I find that the upvote and/or ratings system is just a popularity contest. If somebody wants to make their deck better, upvotes and ratings don't help, but well-constructed comments do.
July 10, 2015 9:15 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #33
You mentioned usability, which I think is the fundamental issue with TappedOut. I can see benefits to having this star system (hell, I swear by the 5-star system on Amazon), but I think we need to perfect our user interface before adding to it. Most of us commenting on this thread have been around for a while, so we know what features are there are what's not. Before we start adding to the rating system, I think this needs to be addressed. That's for another thread, though.
I'm not sure why, but I had envisioned the rating system being on the side with the upvote button. I think it would be much better, if implemented, in the comments, as 'Go suggested. I'm still not convinced that this would improve the feedback on decks, mostly because I'm concerned that it won't be used widely enough to be worth all of the work.
Should we try it, I was thinking that the rating categories could be tied into some of the hubs, like Competitive, Budget, and Casual. Each hub would "pull" a few rating categories from a pool of your suggested 12. This way we limit the number of ratings on each deck. Top-tier competitive decks wouldn't be rated on their budget or gimmicks and casual decks wouldn't be rated for their competitiveness.
If we try this out and find that the rating system doesn't take away from the density of useful comments and is used effectively and properly, I'm down to try. While I will always have my concerns, there's no reason why we shouldn't at least try.
July 10, 2015 11:13 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #34
Could also allow users to select a max of five categories as part of the deck edit screen (kind of like how you get to pick hubs). That would allow user customization and avoid conflict/overload between hub-based cats.
July 10, 2015 11:17 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #35
I personally like this idea. I think it has some merit, though I do think Epochalyptik is right in that perhaps 3-5 categories is a much more appropriate number.
However, I'm going to have to disagree with you Epochalyptik about this asking too much from users. I realize you have much more experience in this than I do, but I firmly believe that people are not inherently stupid or lazy as you seem to be implying. And yes I fully realize I am making a very large generalization there.
On to what I really want to talk about: Comments. I cannot tell you how useless most comments are. There is a reason that I've started posting warnings in my deck descriptions detailing that any unsatisfactory comment will be removed. By and large, comments on this site are not always the best means of expressing opinions on a deck. In theory they should be, but deck comments by and large can be boiled down to: "Cool, +1. Add X card."
Now, I realize that I am in a minority here. I'm someone who wants to read an essay on why, for example, Delver of Secrets Flip is much better than Monastery Swiftspear in the current deck I am running. I want reasons and I want insight. And want such things detailed and discussed. As I often tell people, I would rather them write me an essay than tell me my deck is nice.
But, you know what I've noticed since I've posted those warnings in my deck lists? I've actually gotten better feedback. I set a standard and people met that standard. So, if we could implement a system along these lines, yes there would be grumbling, but I think more people would embrace it than you realize.
July 10, 2015 12:04 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #36
But how does implementing this system make the comment issue better? Rating something is (in my opinion) the lazy man's way of saying "cool, nice job" or "you're bad". It offers no explanation or reasoning as to why they felt that way.
The other thing is that I'm afraid a lot of people won't be bothered to fill out 5-8-10 categories for a deck. I know I probably wouldn't. It just takes too long, and if the person wants feedback, I'd rather write a specific comment on whatever they're looking for.
Edit: Upgraded users can see who upvoted their deck, right? Would we keep that for this rating system or no?
July 10, 2015 12:09 p.m. Edited.
Epochalyptik says... #37
I don't believe users are inherently stupid. I believe they are not inherently trustworthy when it comes to understanding and using features.
July 10, 2015 12:13 p.m.
NoviceMagician says... #38
Yeah, that is probably the best point so far. Users aren't going to jump through hoops for this. Some will learn its workings, and how best to use it, but for the large part, decks will always have more comments and upvotes than they will these rates.
The decks with low viewings will be even more affected. Virtually no rates will be on the decks with low view counts. There just isn't a way to goad users into taking the time to use any new features, let alone learn them. Even now, users that have been here for years still don't know many of the site's features, because they don't want to take the time to learn and apply them.
July 10, 2015 12:37 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #39
NoviceMagician but this brings us to a point that has been stated numerous times: the site is not exactly user friendly.
July 10, 2015 2:16 p.m.
NoviceMagician says... #40
And implementing this system won't make the site anymore user friendly than it already is. This would just provide more features that would need to be explained and taught.
July 10, 2015 2:25 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #41
I'm not interested in rating on a scale of 1-5 a deck's Uniqueness, Creativity, or Budget. Those things are entirely subjective and irrelevant to the quality of ones deck. Even rating Efficiency or Resilience seems completely useless to me. Those two things are typically applied per card based on interactions, not entire decks overall. I also have no desire to rate a deck belonging to a juvenile who recently started playing and give him a 1 on creativity because he lacks the background knowledge and exposure to the game to create and explore beyond the basics. I view upvoting essentially the same as giving someone a high five, nothing more than a positive acknowledgement of whatever you feel like.
Honestly if you guys want better feedback then start playing your decks more in real life. Just from observing the common thought process and deck improvement tactics on this site you can tell a lot of active members rarely play irl MtG and use this site as their MtG outlet. Theory crafting is all well and good but it's an early part of the deck building process and quickly loses it's importance during playtesting. Ratings given by unqualified individuals are absolutely useless in improving your deck, get out and get some reps in.
July 10, 2015 2:39 p.m. Edited.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #42
I'm not going to read through all the comments, but just keep this in mind:
It takes literally half a second of your finger pressing on the mouse to upvote a deck. In my experience, around 1 in 5 people that vote the deck actually suggest a card or even comment. People are lazy, so if your system takes more than a couple seconds to do, it certainly won't effectively replace the upvote system. The upvote system is popular because it's so easy.
July 10, 2015 4:13 p.m.
BarfQuackers says... #43
I think your first sentence is the reason why an 'out of 5' system wouldn't work, see someone with a better rating than your deck? Salty 1 star. I think there will always be people abusing the system no matter the system. Plus I'd be upset if I lost my deck rating it took me forever to get 13 upvotes I'm hella proud 13 people liked my deck lol. For me it's not a competitive thing more a self-satisfactory thing.
HolyFalcon says... #2
+1
July 9, 2015 12:50 a.m.