Nah - you’re right, it’s a free-for-all. All is fair in love and war, I guess. But you have my opinion.
Also - I’m not getting personal. I didn’t call a single person out, I think it’s unfair to say that I was being personal. I also think it’s unfair to say that I was being angry.
Also I think it’s a little strange that you don’t think it’s acceptable for mappers to be competitive.
I guess the way how ‘Quaddicted’ averages out the ratings, does not help any further.
I volunteered to beta-test ‘Hard Driven’ and in the forum thread, dedicated to this map, I expressed my liking of it. Somewhat recently I saw the map was rated poorly here on this portal, so I went and rated it 4/5; it was a good map - not the one I would remember forever or save for yet another playthrough, but it was decent and the idea behind it, was great. I would definitely wish to see more from the mapper behind it.
I do not know why would someone rate ‘Hard Driven’ low or what are the reasons behind one such rating, I can only express my acceptance.
Anyhow, I find it personally comfortable that just in case I write a comment, I will not be judged by someone else for myself having rated the map this or that; in the comments, I would rather have someone read what I write, rather than have what I wrote, overshadowed by a single number.
I tend to be a humanist, mostly, y’know.
Anyway, in order for the average score to be representative, it needs to base on quantitatively sufficient base, which means, the average of three votes, is a rather poor sample, probably misleading - is it not better to have none at all, under such circumstances?
EDIT:
Very true, ‘Spirit’. Doing something for others or because of others, is a total misunderstanding.
Aye, some people just rate the thing as it stands to them actually, while some people like to embrace more historical perspective; you cannot just cut out those who “do it wrong”, because it may emerge that they eventually do make sense, only we dislike them or their ways, so we push our bias.
We are all beautiful people here, some simply need to learn how to express themselves better.
For the notion of being driven, I tend to think of myself as a person who is “hardly driven”, rather than “hard driven”.
IDK - I mean it’s not such a huge deal, I just think that some people seem to give crazy low scores to maps which are clearly decent. I think that some people are pretty mean-spirited in this way. I’m competitive sometimes, it’s true, and I have been impulsive and spiteful as well, I’ll admit it. But I’m not publicly trying to shame anyone in particular. And I also can’t do it. I did leave a spiteful rating or two, but I ended up reversing those ratings to more objective ratings, because I respect other people’s work (sometimes more than I respect the person, on the face of it). I have always been a bit emo and a bit impulsive 
Once I have calmed down, objectivity reigns supreme.
Just to make myself seem even more bipolar, in a way I think we need harsh critics as well as generous ones. I do fear that anonymity will be abused though. Hopefully that fear will prove to be unfounded. <3
Fear is a mind-killer, y’know. Fear is a little death.
I think ‘Quaddicted’ should have coherent policy when it comes to anonymity and that policy, ought to be transparent. Not like to give an impression there is anonymity and then be like: now little bug we teach you a lesson, look, you are exposed. That is small minded.
I was a bit confused to get critics from an Guest, who didn’t liked my map. Normaly I wouldn’t mind, it is your own opinion. This time it did, because after a friendly question he started blaming me down with facts like I wasn’t even capable for producting a good map.
Then he started to knock down his commands with : in other maps you also did…,
I wonder what people concern with other mans work, while themself they stay anonime and have not made a quake map ever! They even don’t have to login.
User ratings? Where is my viagra?
Sorry, misread the “you” there and assumed you meant me.
There is no issue with mappers being competitive by intent and in consent, mapping competitions are awesome. But what we created here with arbitrary user ratings going into some kind of measure of map “quality” is nonsense. Those ratings only have meaning in a very broad sense (and only if the majority of users is honest) and no one should even care about some decimal places in my opinion.
Numbers help navigate in the surplus of things; it is a tool to organize reality.
Somewhat like with money, I guess - it is folk wisdom that money does not get one happiness, but on the other hand, shortage of money definitely does not help with becoming more happy in our living conditions, unless one aims to be a saint, which very few people want. Likewise with the ratings.
Therefore, I would not underestimate or ridicule the conflict around the rating system - getting rid of the system, is not going to help either. Much like with money, it is necessary evil and there are people who will try to abuse it.
I believe we do not want to get rid of the people.
@‘Madfox’, I believe your main concern is that the criticism you mentioned, came from a guest account, is that right? Even though, guests are unable to rate the maps, as far as I remember. Therefore, is it about possible negativity in the comments section?
The analogy to money is interesting, if people treat the numeric ratings as some kind of reward or social currency it’s problematic if the system is not balanced and perfectly fair. Reducing granularity would remove some incentives for competitiveness on unreasonable levels while still keeping a rough estimation of “popularity”.
I say it simply is what it is. It roughly works, therefore I would ask whether the system, is broken, so that it needed to be fixed? There is a broken social situation - sometimes at least, inferring from what different parties say here - but this, is another issue. People make the system framework competitive in the same way as in lack of guns and swords, they pick up sticks and stones to kill one another.
Agree w/ this. Sometimes when I comment on a map, my review is mostly critical but I give it a high rating. The message I want to send is, “I think you could improve a few things, but overall it’s still a great map.” It’s harder to convey that sentiment when ratings are hidden.
Agree w/ this. Sometimes when I comment on a map, my review is mostly critical but I give it a high rating. The message I want to send is, “I think you could improve a few things, but overall it’s still a great map.” It’s harder to convey that sentiment when ratings are hidden.[/quote]
@‘JMP’, no offense but if your comment does not extend beyond a rating given, what is the point in making a comment? I mean, okay, you could want to show that the user ‘JMP’, rated the map high or low, but if you exclusively want that, you can simply put the rating you gave, as the content of a comment or a part of that comment; say: “dude, I love your map, I rate it 5/5, but I think you could do better with that lighting” or something. Publicly announcing your rating, should be considered an invitation to discussion, mind that. On the other hand, you could rate the map low but say you rated it high, which yet is another story and I do not see it as a reason good enough why the ratings, should all be declassified arbitrarily for each and everyone.
@- h4724 : yes I wrote that. Shall I quote that again?
@-TripleAgent : It’s not my concern if guests can rate my
maps if they are not logged in. It’s about the nonsense they distribute by commenting on maps with not related critism. In this case I just wondered why the guest won’ t register, while he was just waiting for an answer to continue his load of mincer stratigy.
Okay, so the guest makes some bullshit account, then moves on to create another account some time later. You see, common mistake is to try fix certain category of problems with a different category of means, such as, an attempt to fix a broken social situation, with systemic means - in result of which, the system, becomes adjusted to people who simply want things go bad. Eventually we end up having two things on the trajectory to failure. On the other hand, if people who want things go bad, start to prevail, those who simply wish to be creative - for example - are going to leave. The question is, will a broken system be very inviting to those who want to be creative, minding there are broken people - so to speak - only waiting for an opportunity to unleash themselves? Looks like sand castles built on ignorance, but perhaps this is the true image of life; if we knew, we would not be here.
‘Madfox’, I am sorry for your trauma. There is negativity out there, y’know. If you love making maps for ‘Quake’, please make maps, but find another source of motivation, than other people or their opinion - that is, what I would like to achieve, if I was doing what you do, I think.
Internet is a wonderful thing, but there are certain non-monetary costs one must pay, in order to consume it.
@-TRiplAgent : I have no trauma, there are lots of positive comments. It is just that ironical fact that someone tries to emulate scorn for reaction, while I was just making a friendly gesture. Got to take the good with the bad.
Personally I’d like to be able to see individual users’ ratings, as I see it as a tool for discovery (and I’ve used user profiles this way on, say, thiefguild.com). Global ratings are useful, of course, but often individuals are more interesting to me than aggregate data.
At the same time, I can see the concerns people have, and have witnessed abuse here and elsewhere in the Quake community. I find it easy to ignore, but I’m also not an active part of the mapping community, so as Markie pointed out, I have less skin in the game.
Mitigating (one type of) abuse by hiding individual ratings is an option, but it’s a trade-off. It seems Spirit has decided in favor of hiding them, and I respect that.
For what it’s worth, regarding my map Hard Driven, I don’t think it was “review bombed” at all :S It’s fine if people give maps a 1 or 2, that’s what the whole scale is there for. So no beef here!
What is the problem with simply asking them about their top-10?
Unless you want to “profile” people and build some psychological models; that is another deal, but that is also the case whether someone wants to be profiled.
EDIT:
Y’know, this could be a thing somewhat in the way of what you talk about - if some users wish to, they could maybe create a top-10 of favorite ‘Quake’ maps on their profile visiting card; visible after clicking on the profile name. This, again, should only be voluntary. Perhaps there could be place for other info as well.
@triple_agent: yeah, but it’s easier if I don’t have to. 
An “opt-in” for public profiles would be ideal but it would be a lot of work than just not dealing with it. As I said I respect Spirit’s call on this. Comments/reviews are more substantial anyway.