So as an adjunct to the problem at hand, will there be an option for Squad Creators to reset ratings? This would be an all or nothing deal so that you won't just remove the negative ratings. But, this could help with changing the ratings to reflect the change in squads (new pieces, changes in philosophy, etc.).

It's an ancient Chinese secret

There are two different numbers. For the top 5 list that shows up when you are in the My Squads section, then it is now 50 votes.

But when you click on Squad Ratings, its 10 votes. It seems to be working pretty well. Something with 50 tends to be a good squad, and its hard at that point for a few smurfs to hurt it. See Speedy Cannon and its 29 1 votes :)

But since its only 10 to make the top list on the other page, we can all go see what is "up and coming" and rate them. It will only get better with time. The biggest issue still facing us is the affect a quick 1-3 can have on a squad, but that's a minor problem. If we as a community are diligent in rating squads as much as possible, and accurately, we can affectively combat the jerks who need to get out of their mother's basement for a while.

I guess i have a ways to go. My most rated squad is only up to 27 (I think) ratings so far.

I believe that in order to prevent people from giving unnecessary 1's by excessive trolling... and I have thought about this very deeply... is by doing something like:

-You see a squad and on the right you see where you can click any number from 1-10 to rate
-If someone clicks 1-5 for the rating, a message would pop-up and tell you "explain your reason" with a comment box along with the rate score chosen (the rate number is selectable in that pop-up, so if the person clicks 1 by accident and decides to click a 7 or higher than 6, the pop-up comment box would disappear and the rating is posted without necessary explanation). A comment box would have a set amount of characters that is required for you to write the reason, to prevent limited response by writing 1 letter without understanding the reason behind it.
-The comment box would disappear as you click Enter and recorded as squad comments to the squad that made the rating.
-I notice that the comment is deletable, so if the person who posted a bad rating on a squad where to delete that comment, which was required to be posted... then by deleting the comment, you'd delete the rating that you posted originally



I thought long and hard about this and I think if you Shinja can create such a small program, it would solve the rate-killers motive.

Seeing how everybody cries if they get a six or less why not change from a 1-10 to a 5-10 rating system and force people to leave comments so all our squads will have references to our fat mothers or just a long line of dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd's or something like that and make sure that the comment leavers name is there so i can retaliate. THAT WOULD FIX EVERYTHING!!!!

Just kidding but seriously get over it no system is perfect and i also have almost seventy one's on my public squads some of them only .5 away from top five oh well.

Honestly, requiring a comment from only a certain rating is unfair. Either everyone should be forced to comment (including the squad poster), or leave it optional. And it will foster revenge ratings (we already have one feud going on, when comment aren't necessary). People can get really pissy when their creation is criticized, even if the criticisms are fair. I mean, WOTC has a ton of examples of this. It leads to another form of anger, imo.

I don't know if you are referring to Mercenary Moose and myself, or some other situation, but that one should be an obvious point in this discussion about comments anyways. You can't just go around making accusatory and inflammatory comments about someone else. I asked him to remove it in private and waited a week. He logged on multiple times, refused to PM me in return, and refused to remove the comment. Therefore, I simply applied his logic to all of his posted squads. If it was something that I have seen posted before, it received a 1, because clearly he must have stolen it. That's the logic he has accused me of, so therefore it is only fair that it be applied to him as well.

And personally, I really don't care one way or the other about the "revenge" rating issue. I already have multiple trollers who hit all of my squads with low numbers. In the past few weeks, all of my posts receive 5-6 votes within a day, all 1-3 and no comments left. Some of them even have 7-8 of those in that time frame.

Honestly, having thought about this a lot, there is only one solution. All ratings go public. I know Shinja, you don't want to do that, but unless you have a way of dealing with this otherwise, its going to continue to make people mad, and people will stop using the site (not me, others). I don't think it makes the problems worse, and at the very least, people who are honestly giving low ratings will comment why, because they will not want to be classified a troller.

Revenge ratings are already a major issue on here, I actually think it lessens when its public knowledge. There is nothing more powerful than the power of public knowledge. Right now, people are hiding in annominity and simply working to avoid one person's watchful eye. Trust the community with that power instead of only Shinja, and see if they stick around when everyone knows what they are doing. I think it will level off the issues given enough time. I actually think the "fear of revenge ratings" will be enough to stop most people from doing it at all. And when you see those "dummy" accounts, it ought to be real easy to identify them, and we can even create a thread to identify them for you.

For example, one day, my squads get 10 1s from the same guy who has 5 squads posted. He doesn't post, and his rating history is suspect. I post him in the "Suspected trolling" thread and we wait a week. If he does not respond, or whatever, his account is suspended for a week and all ratings are temporarily removed permanently. If caught again, his account is permanently banned. I think the odds of an honest rater posting to prevent being banned in that new thread are very high, especially if you make it an official rule, and post it both as a new account "read me" and on the main page.

How about resetting the squad ratings and starting over from scratch. Assign a squad rating group where you must apply to it with a criteria set on who can join it. Something along the lines of a veteran member of this community and a history of making good squads. shinja owns the forum so he should have the final say on who is put into this group.

Once this group is formed they can take the task of setting criteria on how a squad is rated. Unless a uniform way of rating is set then an arbitrary number is going to be added by each person rating based on their opinion. But if you set standards based upon elements needed in a squad then you can establish a formula of rating. having a set method of rating will lead to a uniform rating system that is easy to compare squads.

Once they have the basics of ratings down then they can start the arduous process of rerating all the current squads. It might take some time to get them all done but once the system is caught up then it is just a matter of keeping up. Each rating should not be able to be put in unless a comment goes along with it. If unsatisfactory comments are placed then a mod deletes the rating along with the comment. Such a comment might be a spam of letters.

As was said earlier, no system is perfect. However, you must try to establish a good system at the start or you will only lead down a path of problems.

I'm overworked with the site enough as it is. I'm not looking forward to a torrent of "Ban this user because he or she rated my squad badly!" PMs if I make the ratings public.

The squad ratings issue is on the back burner for me now. That's why I un-stickied this thread, and stopped reading it every day (sorry Kenred). People have lots of good ideas, but I'm working on some major infrastructure changes to the site first (behind the scenes stuff), then I'll come back to this.