Ratings Reloaded - Community Consultation - UPDATED

[lackattack]

=============================================

UPDATE

I'm making progress on these changes and I'm probably going to be able to throw in the "change color of star for players needing re-rating" suggestion.

I'm getting to the part about making ratings relative to each rater's "average rating left" and I'm having second thoughts. It won't fully solve the problem - some people will still typically leave 5's and others will still typically leave 3's and get complaints about it. Also the solution is quite hard to explain and understand.

I'm looking at other suggestions brought up:

* 4 stars (1-Very Bad, 2-Bad, 3-Good, 4-Very Good) with no "average", so people could typically leave 3 with less controversy.
* 3 stars (1-Bad, 2-Good, 3-Very Good) so that "average" would be more positive sounding as "Good".
* 4 stars with a cap on how often you can rate 1's or 4's. For example, only one "extreme" rating per game to force ratings to be more moderate and therefore (hopefully) accurate.

What do you guys think? I need some more feedback!

=============================================

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 <<

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 <<

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

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 <<

None of this is set in stone and we need you input! Please comment on the individual solutions in their respective topics and comment on our overall approach here.

Thanks for helping us make a better Conquer Club!

EDIT: Due to popular demand I've added a 5th point to the plan...

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

[bbqpenguin]

if half the companies in the world had the same customer service and determination to please that CC has, the world would be a much more pleasant place. even though i couldn't care less about the ratings, i applaud the admin's efforts to put the customer first. thanks guys!


[/asskissing]

[t-o-m]

i dont find that people use the speicific ratings for the speicif category (fairplay ect)

someone who i accused of bring a multi whne i think he was, left me a 1* rating in everything, even attendance when it was a casual game and i took my turns virtually 30seconds after him!
so that needs to be adressed i think - i dont know a solution

[jonesthecurl]

Nicely said penguin.The ratings are never gonna be perfect, you won't please everyone whatever you do. As long as they give some sort of indication when a player is someone I probably wouldn't want to play against, that'll do me fine.

[zsp]

i really love some of these ideas lack...nice

[suggs]

It seems you have ruled out written feedback, which is a mistake.
You could just set CLEAR guidelines, eg no swearing.
But anything else is fine, as you have a chance to respond to the feedback.

To all the whingers who can't hack a negative and complain, send an automated response along the lines of "see our guidelines here, we don't get involved in disputes".
Problem solved.

[Snorri1234]

Written feedback is lovely.

[Pedronicus]

The attendance part of the ratings should be automated.
If you take your go in under 2 hours 5 stars
under 6 hours 4 stars
under 15 hours 3 stars
under 23 hours 59 minutes 2 stars
miss a go - 1 star.

these are just loose suggestions - a poll would be a good idea for the first 4 categories

the attendance ratings should be worked out as mean average over the amount of goes each person takes per game. Attendance can be based on pure math times and shouldn't be another way to be abused by disgruntled players trying to reduce someones overall rating or making a deadbeat look good because you beat him and always gave 5 stars regardless of attendance.

This should happen to every single game you play to create a really good mean figure for each player.

Speed games should be amended by dividing what ever agreed time limits per star rating by 360 (360 x 4 = 1440, which is the day in minutes)

People who take their goes quickly should be rewarded with accurate rankings. Personal opinions of what constitutes fast play are bollox.

[ZeakCytho]

The attendance part of the ratings should be automated.
If you take your go in under 2 hours 5 stars
under 6 hours 4 stars
under 12 hours 3 stars
under 23 hours 2 stars
miss a go - 1 star.

these are just loose suggestions - a poll would be a good idea for the first 4 categories

the attendance ratings should be worked out as mean average over the amount of goes each person takes per game. Attendance can be based on pure math times and shouldn't be another way to be abused by disgruntled players trying to reduce someones overall rating or making a deadbeat look good because you beat him and always gave 5 stars regardless of attendance.

This should happen to every single game you play to create a really good mean figure for each player.

Speed games should be amended by dividing what ever agreed time limits per star rating by 360 (360 x 4 = 1440, which is the day in minutes)

People who take their goes quickly should be rewarded with accurate rankings. Personal opinions of what constitutes fast play are bollox.

But the rating is for attendance, not speed. There are many times when I take my turn five minutes after the last guy's, but there are plenty of times when I'm asleep when that happens. You can't punish people for not being on every second. That being said, you can and should punish them for missing turns.

I think attendance should be automated, but based on the number of turns you miss.

[Pedronicus]

I'm not suggesting we all take amphetamines and give up sleep - We all sleep, but if you log on once a day one part during the evening or log in when you wake up and another when you get back from school / work - it will all even out.
A mean figure of your attendance will become evident over time.

[Frop]

I've commented on all 4 threads and ironically our whole ordeal has been for naught. We could've saved a lot of time and effort if we would've only solved the problem of moderating feedback complaints.

Edit: Suggs, you rock. Spot on.

[CAPK81]

Why dont you just tell us how many turns the players have missed ? How many they have taken on time. Thats what i care about not what someone thinks about how i am a team player when they have never been on my team !

[Pedronicus]

Attendance can't based on just missing goes - It has to take into consideration how often / quickly you take turns when you take your turn. It is open to a certain amount of abuse by players who organise real time games in 24hour turn games, but it's not something that should be decided by another players interpretation of what constitutes a good attendance.
if all games are counted - it will all even out in the long run.

It's the only part of the ratings that can be automated

[wicked]

Why dont you just tell us how many turns the players have missed ? How many they have taken on time. Thats what i care about not what someone thinks about how i am a team player when they have never been on my team !

I think this is a good idea - just scrap the attendance rating and instead have a # turns missed stat on the profile page.

[mcapizzi]

I have been frustrated with the rating system and find myself missing the written feedback.

I think one can learn a lot more about a player from the feedback written by and left for her or him.

I hope it returns in some way.

[Diamonds14]

I like the new improvements.. they help a flawed system. But why not go back to the old system with the feedback not showing up until the game is archived and that will eliminate the retalitory feedbacks which are probably atleast half of the feedbacks that the mods had to go through. Also, take the mods out of the old feedback equation. Then you'll have a free communication feedback system, sloving all the problems that the new feedback system has.

But these new things to this feedback system is good. Thanks for improving it.

Diamonds.

[edit] I can explin this better if you want me to, but to me everyone is saying the same thing. "I want to rate the player on game play." "I want to it ot be able to say why they left that feedback." "I want to be able to respond to bad feedback." The old system perfectly convers all of these things. If we tried this hard to make the new feedback to do the things that the old feedback does then why not go back to the old feedback and make changes to that. To make the CC staff happy (because i know it takes countless of hours to review all the feedback complaints) lets just take the mods out of the old feedback. So far that is the only benefit that ive seen with the new feedback system.

Thank you again for your countless time and effort making this site better. I am for sure really appreciative that this site exists.

Diamonds.

[Gregrios]

How about this?

Make it a 3 star rating system and have only the winner\winners able to do the rating.

Game winners are generally not sore losers. So by doing this, it would be far more likely to acheive a fair rating for all involved.

One consequence of this would be the winner\winners of each game would not receive a rating. Personally I don't see a problem with that.

Well, that's my two cents worth.

[Ditocoaf]

I support 1, 3, and 4.

[Matroshka]

Why dont you just tell us how many turns the players have missed ? How many they have taken on time. Thats what i care about not what someone thinks about how i am a team player when they have never been on my team !

I think this is a good idea - just scrap the attendance rating and instead have a # turns missed stat on the profile page.

I like this idea, but just to add , I think there would need to be a distinction between missed turns and being kicked for missed turns. I also think there should be some sort of ratio or percentage involved that factors in total turns and/or games.

[congobill]

Why dont you just tell us how many turns the players have missed ? How many they have taken on time. Thats what i care about not what someone thinks about how i am a team player when they have never been on my team !

I think this is a good idea - just scrap the attendance rating and instead have a # turns missed stat on the profile page.

I like this idea, but just to add , I think there would need to be a distinction between missed turns and being kicked for missed turns. I also think there should be some sort of ratio or percentage involved that factors in total turns and/or games.

I have to agree, but I don't think there needs to be a distiction between missing turns & being kicked out for missing turns, they are one in the same.

An attendence rating could be easily calculated (turns taken)/(turns taken + turns missed) x100 = attendence% If you want to keep the star rating system for attendence just make 5stars=100%, 4stars=80% ext.

People who miss a lot of turns and get kicked out (if they do this habitualy) will end up with a terible rating without making any special rating for it.

[yowzer14]

Why dont you just tell us how many turns the players have missed ? How many they have taken on time. Thats what i care about not what someone thinks about how i am a team player when they have never been on my team !

I think this is a good idea - just scrap the attendance rating and instead have a # turns missed stat on the profile page.

I like this idea, but just to add , I think there would need to be a distinction between missed turns and being kicked for missed turns. I also think there should be some sort of ratio or percentage involved that factors in total turns and/or games.

I have to agree, but I don't think there needs to be a distiction between missing turns & being kicked out for missing turns, they are one in the same.

There is definitely a distinction between a missed turn and being kicked for missing turns. A missed turn can happen whenever life intervenes into conquer club. Happens to us all, but being kicked involves missing 3 consecutive turns and is not just an oops usually.

[azezzo]

I have been frustrated with the rating system and find myself missing the written feedback.

I think one can learn a lot more about a player from the feedback written by and left for her or him.

I hope it returns in some way.

I agree, I dont know what it will take, but i feel that we need to keep the old feedback system,
I volunteer to help out if we can bring it back.

[DukeToshiro]

Read what suggs posted. That sounds like a very good solution to me. The ability to leave written responses is good, but we also need the ability to leave written feedback. This keeps getting repeated over and over and over again. Not being able to leave written feedback is the main thing that everyone is upset about.

[mattinmatsuyama]

In regards to the attendance thing. i live in NZ and I usually have my turn during my day, which is before the rest of the world! But then I end up having to wait for ages for another person to have their turn because they live in Timbuctu! I don't think that attendance should be based on how long it takes to have your turn. If there were a game category that said you should live in X time locale and you joined and you wern't in that time locale and mucked everyone one up then that would be different. . .

[KLOBBER]

Dear Lack,

Thank you so much for all of your hard work and constant determination to improve this site. I'm sure that everyone on the site appreciates all of your efforts.

However, the single best thing about the present rating system is its simplicity. Simplicity precludes the possibility of problems, while increasing complexity opens the door to more and more.

The more complex you make it, the more problems, real and imaginary, it will be subject to. Unfortunately, all of the current suggestions add varying degrees of complexity to the system.

Any and all changes that add complexity to the present system may lead to actual options for abuse, and will definitely lead to imaginary abuse (surely much more of this than actual abuse, just as with the current system), and you will observe many more frivolous complaint threads on the server as a result. Many, MANY more.

The more complexity added, the more frivolous complaint threads there will be -- this is 100% guaranteed.

For your own sake, I recommend that you at least be cautious about this, and introduce new additions only one at a time (if at all), as each added complexity to the ratings system guarantees to bring with it its own unique set of new frivolous complaint threads to bog down the already shaky server. The last thing we need is another major server crash to interfere with all our games, as happened recently.

If you feel that you absolutely must add new features to this already perfect system, please take my advice, and cautiously monitor how each additional complexity manifests a whole new set of complaint threads, one addition at a time. I know for a fact that this will happen, so for your own sake, and for the sake of the dangerously fragile server, leave yourself the option to control it by implementing a healthy dose of caution.

Better yet, just keep it exactly as it is, because it is actually perfect right now. Mostly, people fear change, and the so-called "abuse" being reported now is all 100% imaginary; the system is far too simple as it is now to be subject to any kind of actual abuse.

Also, it has only been in place for 2 weeks, and that is not nearly enough time for a system based on averages to work out any (perceived) problems by means of its own intrinsic virtues.

Major disaster is guaranteed if you implement a group of these unnecessary additions at the same time -- GUARANTEED.

In any case, keep up the good work! Everybody loves you!