The problem:

People are rating squads a 1 when they deserve better, just to lower their ranking. People are also rating squads a 10 when they don't deserve it, just to raise their ranking. This problem is compounded by the same users creating many different accounts for the sole purpose of giving 10s to their squads (and their friends' squads) and giving other people's squads 1s.

The solution:

You tell me.



This is a thread to make suggestions for how to improve the Squad ratings on Bloo Milk. Feel free to suggest anything you think of, although I'll be far more likely to listen to mature, thought-out posts that aren't just ranting about how "my squad got two 1s and I want revenge!!!"

If you were webmaster for a day, what would you do to fix the problem? Don't worry about whether it's too difficult to code or anything like that. Just give me your ideal suggestion. Also partial suggestions are welcome--your solution might not solve the problem completely, but it will help with part of it.

I'm getting to the spot were I wonder about rating the squads at all. Ultimately, I think people use to use the ratings to look for squads they would like to play. I am not so sure that is the point any more however. I now look for squads built with a character that I am looking to build a squad around now. Maybe you could fix it so when we search for a squad with a character, we wouldn't have to start over to look at the next squad.

Do away with the rankings altogether, because it is causing so much contention.

i think there are 2 main things you can do, shinja, that would eliminate this problem. one would be to make users register an e-mail address to sign up for an account. that makes it MUCH harder for people who just want to create an account for destructive purposes. two would be to make it so people HAVE to leave a comment to give a number rating. that way it's MUCH more apparent who is just doing drive-by 1ing (someone leaving a comment like "no").

you could also make it so you have to have your account for a month before you can rate squads. that would most likely cut WAY back on drive-by 1ing.

I have to disagree with removing the rating system, as I think squad ratings can be useful. I like to look at the top squads to get some ideas on combos that will work with some of the minis that I have, etc., or to give me inspiration to build squads that I would consider to be competitive with respect to those posted. Also, I would be proud in my own nerdy way to have a squad in the top 5.

What I think would help is this: stop making squad ratings anonymous. I don't think there's any good reason for them to be anonymous. If they weren't anonymous, it would make users be accountable for the ratings that they post. If somebody posts a bad rating, it would encourage me to PM them to ask why if they don't provide comments as to that effect, although I think that people WOULD be more inclined to post comments if they were to rate a squad poorly. Bottom line: if everyone had to be accountable for their ratings, it would create a more friendly, open environment for criticism and evaluation of this important aspect (squad building) of the hobby that we all enjoy.

The downside, I'm sure, is that there would be less people leaving ratings for squads. So what? I haven't rated a lot of squads, but I have no problem explaining why I've rated squads the way that I have. I would hope for nothing less from anybody else. Those people that would rate squads would do so fairly, which is what we want, right?

On another (related) topic, I also feel that the squads page should display more than just the last 5 created squads. I think 25 would probably be better. I want people to rate my squads when I post them, but often they don't ever get a chance to get rated because at peak times when many people are on Bloomilk at the same time, the turnover rate of the 5 posted squads can be very high, and my squad will never get a chance to be rated. I know that you can access previous squads just by clicking "More", but I don't think people do that (to be fair, I don't). Special thanks go out to all of the users that go through old squads and rate them (you know who you are).

My two cents. Thanks for reading.

Perhaps something similar to newgrounds: An overall ranking with a bunch of sub rankings (say Competitiveness, fun, theme, synergy, etc.). Users would have to leave a comment with their ranking, and vote-stuffing comments on both ends of the spectrum could be reported and removed.

The vote-stuffers themselves would get a warning about their actions, and if it continues, their rating privileges are suspended or removed.

BTW - I also agree with imyurhukaberry regarding ratings by point value. I once saw a very highly rated squad that was 300 points (I believe it was number 1). I rolled my eyes. I'm not saying that it was a bad squad, nor that I will never play a 300 point game, but it didn't seem appropriate to put it in the same league as the 100, 150, and 200 point squads that are more difficult to build based on working with limitation and that are DCI legal.

There is no good solution. Leaving a comment is not going to stop it (if anything, it causes fueds). I keep on referring to Decktech, because it is an awesome site, but I think the best thing you can do is add an additional quantifier to squads, like whether it is a fun, theme, or competitive squad. I mean, the one rating for all squads really doesn't work, since a fun squad should be judge differently than a competitive one.

I would also like to see a function to see more than the last 5 created squads. Squads can get lost pretty quickly at peak times.

Edit: If you go with leaving a comment, make it so the poster has to post one as well.

Not trying to step on toes, but if you take away the lowest 3 scores, they will just use the next lowest. Then you take away 4 & 5...they use 6. That would pretty much just leave you rating everything between 8 and 10. Not a very accurate rating system then...

1) A voting right period would be good, like a week or two to meta gate account creations. Also an inactive accounts that hasn't been used in three month or so is good, with possible reactivation options.

2) I did come up with a way(using stand derivation, mean, Z scores and such) to make each person vote to sift form they actual rating to they different rating based on their history of votes, basically Standardizing themselves . Example if a person(me from some months ago) vote something like this:

Rating # of times used
1...................3
2...................2
3.................12
4.................64
5...............262
6..............1300
7..............2121
8................549
9..................25
10..................0

my voting of 7 turn into 5.88 and my as that's my average rating. were my 3 ratings are shift to 1.3 as i rare go that far down on ratings and my 9 is 8.13.
Were a person who votes like this

Rating # of times used
1...................5
10.................6

Their 1 vote is shifted to a 4.73 and 10 vote is shift to a 6.66

The Problem with this method is each person need something like 50+ votes before they could be standardize with them selves and it very time consuming for the voting process as a person voting value change with every vote and changes every vote that person has done. Now you could make so a person pass votes are not retro actively change and a person vote doesn't count or count for less than a vote till he voted X amount of times then all their pass vote start are counted and retro actively shifted. Hope people understand this

I say a rating of 6 or less should need a comment for why so low but I have know idea on how you would do that