Summary:

I value freedom of speech on our site and having lots of reviews and a community more than having only great-quality reviews. We have to remind ourselves this is a game and a site for young people, most of which speak english only as a second language. It's not an encyclopedia which we need peer review for and very high quality.

This is admin policy and should be kept that way.

That's exactly my opinion. *cheers loudly*

Originally Posted by Fquist

You've got a nice argument but it is only valid if the point of the site is just rating levels instead of a community site. Yes, so many reviews are not really helpful. They don't have to be in my opinion, that's only what we prefer, but it's not compulsory. The site is not just for the creators of levels, it's for the reviewers, too.

Actually, the argument is only valid if the point of the site is reviewing levels, not just rating them. I will address this issue of our views of the site just a bit later.

Originally Posted by Fquist

It's like a restaurant. The admins are the owners. Now, they could have this policy where everyone who wants to eat in the restaurant has to wear very shiny and high-quality clothes, but that way the restaurant would become so formal they would barely get guests, because some people just don't like that. So what we, the admins, should do is allow in people without a nice tie, too. That doesn't mean they will let in people who wear rags.

In the world of the analogy you describe, anyone could have shiny and high-quality clothes materialize right on them using only basic reasoning and a little extra time; that is, if the analogy fits the situation here. It is not my idea to moderate reviews, but just following that idea, it needs to be looser. You would decide how loose it is.

Originally Posted by Fquist

Obviously some reason has to be given when reviewing a level. But "I really like this levels' graphics and gameplay." is good enough in my opinion. Only things like "Wow this rocks!!" should be disallowed. And even then you can pm the owner asking him to improve it before dumping it.

If you disallow smaller opinions people will go away. Who can blame them.

No; saying "I like this level's graphics and gameplay" is no more helpful than simply giving it a high rating. Anyone can tell that the graphics and gameplay of a level are decent when the level is rated a 9 out of 10. Calling this reviewing the level is absolutely illogical because it shows absolutely no effort to review it or evidence that it was reviewed. I do not review or even rate levels often because I even have an opinion of the level; I just do not have the time to post even a small opinion, and so I leave. The review system should not be completely discarded like this just because it is a little beaten up and unappealing to a few.

Originally Posted by Fquist

Indeed an opinion is never wrong. Neither is it invalid. It's just that, when that opinion is expressed people will give it more value if the opinion is supported by arguments. But some opinions are invalid for our site.

An opinion is invalid if it has no support. There are many invalid opinions on J2O, because the users only rate the levels and review them with an equally redundant compilation of text.

Originally Posted by Fquist

If an opinion differs a lot from the majority and has not enough supporting arguments, then we will have to doubt it's veracity. It's still a valid opinion in itself, but we have to see then if it has any value to keep. If it really is badly supported, like someone rating a level with a 1 because it is giving a 404, then actions should be taken.

If you start out with an invalid opinion, a chain of invalid opinions with a small variance can easily invalidate a valid opinion if it differs a lot from the majority. This system alone is inaccurate and ineffective.

Originally Posted by Fquist

Bad quality disallows giving a rating? That's not something I agree with. See my restaurant analogy.

Your restaurant analogy works with simply rating levels. What I described is what was happening just a while ago where users had to review the levels. There is a very big difference.

"Those who submit poor reviews have no excuse at all for posting poor reviews. He or she only has to ask him or herself a few questions and submit a minimum of three to five well-developed sentences to support his or her opinion."

Originally Posted by Fquist

They have an excuse. They're allowed to. It's that simple. We are not a proffesional site. We are not peer reviewers, scientists, teachers, whatever. We have a community site dedicated to a game. One inhabited by very young people, most of which who have english as a second language. That doesn't mean we can't try and push them to improve, but to just shut all their comments down is harsh. There're better ways for that. Still, it's allowed.

They have an excuse because they are allowed to, and because you allow them to. Basic reasoning has nothing to do with what language one speaks.

Originally Posted by Fquist

Why should we raise the bar as high as you suggest?

Our admin policy should be that when your rating really differs from the rest of the ratings people gave you will really have to have a good argument. But if it's the same, no, reviews don't have to be that detailed. The positive effects of this, more reviews, will outweigh the negative because more opinions (other than 'wow!' and 'cool!') will give a better average.

I value free speech here above having each review here really good. And it is in my mind that this will stay. I've made up my mind and I don't think my opinion of this will change..

The reason I suggested what I suggested was because I was misled by the fact that the link to the "reviews" section reads "reviews." You have a vision of J2O where users rate levels with short comments that cannot logically be considered reviews because they show no evidence of review.

Am I suggesting that you should change the link to say "ratings" instead of "reviews?" Of course not. My vision is different from yours for a reason. For one, I truly believe that better reviews will result in a higher quality in production of levels. If users do not have reviewers' valid opinions to make improvements on their levels, they can only copy off other good levels and hardly come up with anything innovate or remotely good. In my personal opinion, I find a database of good content with some reviews far superior to a database of bad content with a plethora of ratings.

You value free speech, and that is fine. However, by having J2O up in the first place, you imply that you value the community's prosperity and progress. You certainly have the propserity down with the free speech part, but you cannot say that there will be any progress with this "rating" system.

I am not suggesting a radical idea to make everyone think like high-class people with shiny clothing. I am suggesting that users should actually review the content than give their overall opinion of it, so the content increases in quality. Reviews do not have to be long; they can always be a few sentences. In fact, they do not at all have to discuss every single aspect of the content.

The way you want to run J2O is up to you, and I do not plan to influence or change it. I just want to let you know that prosperity of the community is not the important aspect of the community. What you value is different from what I value, and so our views of J2O differ proportionally.

Originally Posted by $tilettø

Well, Fquist.. as i see it Trafton has all the power.. if he wants something.. like Shadow getting demined ( they oftenly didnt agree.. this is a reason ) and in all these years shadow hardly did anything wrong.. and he didnt change j20 by making this stupid rulez editing like almost everything..

but i dunno what happens behind the "" schermen"" so thats nm..

Although FQuist already replied to this and basically said it all, I feel that I should say it for myself, as well. Sorry for the following sounding cheesy or mechanical, but I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment.

I really do not have much power. The main thing I do is enforce rules already in place and try, when I get a chance, to convey suggestions that have gained popularity on the JCF. I may have opinions, but I do my best not to introduce them into administrating.

I had nothing to do with Shadow getting "deadminned," even if I did disagree with him. Although I may do so, I would not ban him. It isn't my job to ban those who I disagree with. The very thing that supports any good democracy (or dictatorship, in this case) is differing opinions. Why should Shadow's opinions be held in less regard than mine? Why should I deadmin him just because I disagree with him? What sort of fun would there be in winning a disagreement by preventing someone from being in it? Even if I wanted to deadmin him or whatever, it is not my call. Bob and FQuist are the only ones who should do it, and my job is to enforce their rules, and nothing more.

Heck, I do not even know the reason for which Shadow was "deadminned," and really don't care. It has nothing to do with me and is honestly not my business.

~ Traft

"The review system should not be completely discarded like this just because it is a little beaten up and unappealing to a few."

Where did I propose that it should be discarded? Nowhere did I say that.

Rather, I am proposing that we keep the review-moderating system as it has been since the start of our site, with the exception of editing the really short stuff. How is this completely discarding the review system? It's keeping it as it is!

And it's not just unappealing 'to a few'.

"In the world of the analogy you describe, anyone could have shiny and high-quality clothes materialize right on them using only basic reasoning and a little extra time; that is, if the analogy fits the situation here. It is not my idea to moderate reviews, but just following that idea, it needs to be looser. You would decide how loose it is."

That's really not true. Not everyone is like you, Aiko, Trafton and the other good reviewers. Not everyone speaks english as well as you. Not everybody is as good at writing. Not everybody has the right mindset for it. Not everybody is as old. You're asking a lot of people. No, those ties can't just be materialised. And if we want them to be there there are other ways to purchase them than just editing everything. Like advice and other ways.

Even for me, someone older than most of the users on J2o, writing even medium reviews is quite hard. It's not just "a little extra time" and "using only basic reasoning". This does not mean it's good to have bad reviews, but what you say here is wrong.

"If you start out with an invalid opinion, a chain of invalid opinions with a small variance can easily invalidate a valid opinion if it differs a lot from the majority. This system alone is inaccurate and ineffective."

This has never happened on J2O and there is no reason to think why it would suddenly start happening.

"The reason I suggested what I suggested was because I was misled by the fact that the link to the "reviews" section reads "reviews." You have a vision of J2O where users rate levels with short comments that cannot logically be considered reviews because they show no evidence of review."

No, I haven't. Please read my post. I never ever proposed getting rid of longer reviews altogether. I never even proposed discouraging them. In fact, I'm only countering the people who think we should be much more authoritarian about it, instead of just using normal ways of helping the community get better.

"You value free speech, and that is fine. However, by having J2O up in the first place, you imply that you value the community's prosperity and progress. You certainly have the propserity down with the free speech part, but you cannot say that there will be any progress with this "rating" system."

Where I and you differ is not in how we perceive the downloads section but how we perceive the use of power. I prefer using other methods than power to improve the downloads section. You prefer having strict quality control.

SO MUCH TEXT.
Erm you guys haven't got pain in the fingers yet?

offtopic: wouldn't be A_LOT more easier to have a review team of people ? But still let users allow to comment on it.

Or make a splitted. - User rating, crew rating

Originally Posted by Fquist

Where did I propose that it should be discarded? Nowhere did I say that.

Rather, I am proposing that we keep the review-moderating system as it has been since the start of our site, with the exception of editing the really short stuff. How is this completely discarding the review system? It's keeping it as it is!

And it's not just unappealing 'to a few'.

If "This has great eyecandy and gameplay, I rate it a 9" is what it takes to be a review, then it was primarily a rating system all along. Keeping it as it is happens to be keeping a rating system, because that is all it apparently takes to constitute a "review." So maybe it was never discarded; it was never there to begin with.

Originally Posted by Fquist

That's really not true. Not everyone is like you, Aiko, Trafton and the other good reviewers. Not everyone speaks english as well as you. Not everybody is as good at writing. Not everybody has the right mindset for it. Not everybody is as old. You're asking a lot of people. No, those ties can't just be materialised. And if we want them to be there there are other ways to purchase them than just editing everything. Like advice and other ways.

Even for me, someone older than most of the users on J2o, writing even medium reviews is quite hard. It's not just "a little extra time" and "using only basic reasoning". This does not mean it's good to have bad reviews, but what you say here is wrong.

I personally feel that moderation should have no correlation with the ability to compose English sentences; this is a factor that the administration can control. That said, actually viewing the content should take most of the time, and then a short justified review can be submitted. What is being requested here is not longer reviews, just more justified reviews. I personally do not see a restatement of the rating to be remotely acceptable. Nobody learns anything from the review, and above all, the creator learns nothing.

Originally Posted by Derby

"If you start out with an invalid opinion, a chain of invalid opinions with a small variance can easily invalidate a valid opinion if it differs a lot from the majority. This system alone is inaccurate and ineffective."

Originally Posted by Fquist

This has never happened on J2O and there is no reason to think why it would suddenly start happening.

Actually, it happens all the time. A user's first review will indefinitely influence the reviews around it, and that is one fact that cannot be argued. This is also empirically true of many reviews submitted on content prior to heavier moderation. I speculate that if it happened in the past, it will happen again.

Originally Posted by Derby

"The reason I suggested what I suggested was because I was misled by the fact that the link to the "reviews" section reads "reviews." You have a vision of J2O where users rate levels with short comments that cannot logically be considered reviews because they show no evidence of review."

Originally Posted by Fquist

No, I haven't. Please read my post. I never ever proposed getting rid of longer reviews altogether. I never even proposed discouraging them. In fact, I'm only countering the people who think we should be much more authoritarian about it, instead of just using normal ways of helping the community get better.

Again, reviews have empirically shortened and lost quality. With this result, reviews resemble ratings with restatements of ratings rather than just reviews. It does not matter whether you encourage or discourage long reviews, as long as poor reviews can be made, they will be made. As a result of their materialization, poor reviews will bring poor reviews, and nothing will have been learned. This works both in theory and empirically.

Originally Posted by Fquist

Where I and you differ is not in how we perceive the downloads section but how we perceive the use of power. I prefer using other methods than power to improve the downloads section. You prefer having strict quality control.

I certainly prefer having quality control, but it is nowhere near as strict as you perceive it to be. Even an attempt to justify a review would be understandable, in my opinion. There is no point to having many people enjoying absolutely nothing, and there is no point to having no people enjoying a lot. A balance is necessary here, and that balance cannot be achieved without some sort of quality control. Progress is just as important as prosperity, and having just one or the other is not acceptable.

Originally Posted by ShadowGPW

SO MUCH TEXT.
Erm you guys haven't got pain in the fingers yet?

offtopic: wouldn't be A_LOT more easier to have a review team of people ? But still let users allow to comment on it.

Or make a splitted. - User rating, crew rating

How would the "crew" be chosen? It is unfair to have the overall rating affected strongly by a small number of people. Administrators should not be in the position to decide between different candidates and reject them; bias is too easily entered into the equation, among other things.

~ Traft

I do not feel like responding with another half essay-length reply. I feel I've argued my case.

You discovered what the rating system has always been, Derby. Yes indeed it has always been like that. That quality is bad at the moment is not due to a lack of quality control but due to a lack of the right people.

And stop putting quote around review, Derby. It's just what it is called, which is similar to thousands of other sites, including amazon, who also have one-line comments.

We SHOULD have quality control. But just not so authoritarian. Quality control is more than indiscriminately editing user's reviews. Progress isn't necesarrily caused by power.

I just don't understand the whole fuss about this. Is this a surprise or anything? It's always been like this. Our downloads section has never been of bad quality until now. Has this come due to our policy? No, it is because lots of good people don't review at the moment.

Oh boy, what have i done :-)

I just want one more thing to add, esspecially to the American admins around Derby, Trafton and Violet: your rhetoric and english skills are very good, and i personally cant compete with that (not that i have the time :), but...i would ask you to take all this a bit more easy...this is not science, war or peace or something, but just some kiddie 2d platformer.
Just be a bit more leniant with us people in the forums and in the downloads and please don't edit, comment and censor so much :)

P.S.:
I agree with Fquist on most points here.

Those are not "reviews" on Amazon. Those are the half second works of drunk people.

...in truth, the average review quality these days is a LOT higher than it was back in the early days of J2O. Many of the people who post good reviews on a regular basis, in fact, used to have quite poor average review quality. If we allow short, unsupported things, the users will NOT improve.

...English as a first language is not required. Even Bjarni can post good reviews. Especially because he really cares about J2O and what happens there.

Originally Posted by Unknown Rabbit

Those are not "reviews" on Amazon. Those are the half second works of drunk people.

...in truth, the average review quality these days is a LOT higher than it was back in the early days of J2O. Many of the people who post good reviews on a regular basis, in fact, used to have quite poor average review quality. If we allow short, unsupported things, the users will NOT improve.

...English as a first language is not required. Even Bjarni can post good reviews. Especially because he really cares about J2O and what happens there.

Lol, that's true! My reviews are really long!

"If we allow short, unsupported things, the users will NOT improve."

Soft power vs. Hard power fallacy. That we allow it doesn't mean we actively support short things. We can still work on improvement. It just means we don't automatically edit everything out that's just a little bit too generic. It means PMing the user instead, giving a good example, rewarding good reviews, etcetera etcetera.

Originally Posted by Unknown Rabbit

If we allow short, unsupported things, the users will NOT improve.

People's not going to follow this kind of evolution, enforcing it will only result in people not wanting to post their review or simply stop uploading to the dictory. You already have two examples: Aiku who deleted his review and Flash who uploaded his pack to the forum instead.

You have to accept people just wanna voice their opinion, either by content or rating. They want to have fun together. I do not upload my work for a 30 pages essay explaining me my own work, I upload it for feedback given by other community members. By editing ratings you are editing a part of their opinion, which is what we, the level authors, are intersted in.

I'd want to express myself better but I'm way too sleepy right now.

Derby: Previous quotation edit. You quoted one user and applied a different username for the quote; this was probably an accident.

I'll have to agree with most of the people here. I think I saw the same upload that Aiko saw, about 80% of the ratings were removed, only one rating remained. This is really going too far .

Yes, but have you read the topic? Assuming I know what upload you're talking about, that was a mistake, and is being fixed.

Originally Posted by URJazz

Atleast it appears to be to me. Not uploading to a site because they edit out short reviews which don't help the author seems like their overreacting to me.

Sorry, but "nice eyecandy and gameplay" does help me actually. Until now my levels were usually levels that had a pretty bad gameplay, so that review would tell me I actually achieved my goal, which was creating levels with decent gameplay.
And unlike most of you (at least it appears that's the case) I find a "nice work, you really made a few good levels" nicer than a 2000-character review with the boring standard pros/cons layout. It's almost looking like they are computer-generated.

Imho, a review can be short, but it should help the level author in some way. Saying "this is great level, eyecandy and gameplay is good! 9!" does not help the maker of the level in any way. How is the eyecandy good? How can it be improved? What are the level's strong points and what should be taken out? It just takes a few sentences to write this. People can at least try.

J2O is a community site, and people should have the freedom to rate things how they feel as long as there is some proof they actually played and evaluated the level. It could be as short as "The level is good, but next time you can use more ramps for smoother play, and less leaves in the foreground to distract you from whats going on."

Also, I sort of disagree on only editing short, pointless reviews with a rating too high/too low. If a user says "Great level! You get 8.5!" to a level rated 8.5 or so, it should get the same treatment if that review was said about a level averaging a 6, since in both reviews it doesn't give any notice whatsover that the reviewer even downloaded the level.

Of course, short revies are allowed and can help people, and there is no real rule to how long a review should be. It's really the reviewer's choice.

Well, that's my opinion. Feel free to criticize it.

"Good" news, everyone! All the ratings on those old reviews have been restored. Your favorite J2O Admins have personally gone through and restored ratings to countless reviews (which mostly qualified for "worst review ever" contests)! Be happy! It won't happen again!

Originally Posted by Blackraptor

Imho, a review can be short, but it should help the level author in some way. Saying "this is great level, eyecandy and gameplay is good! 9!" does not help the maker of the level in any way. How is the eyecandy good? How can it be improved? What are the level's strong points and what should be taken out? It just takes a few sentences to write this. People can at least try.

I suppose you didn't read the post above yours :P

Originally Posted by Unknown Rabbit

"Good" news, everyone! All the ratings on those old reviews have been restored. Your favorite J2O Admins have personally gone through and restored ratings to countless reviews (which mostly qualified for "worst review ever" contests)! Be happy! It won't happen again!

The quotes around the word good are funny. 9/10

I think that the reason review quality is down is that not many people care anymore. The two reviewers notorious for posting extremely long reviews are now moderators which I guess is taking up their time, or maybe they just don't care. Frankly, I don't review anymore. I never really was a "great" reviewer anyway.

Being an Admin is usually not very time consuming. Unlike J2Ov2. I don't know about Trafton, but I review less and smaller mainly because I don't care so much about JJ2 as I used to.

...I stand by what I've always said, the average review quality these days is better than it was when J2O began.

Originally Posted by Blackraptor

Imho, a review can be short, but it should help the level author in some way. Saying "this is great level, eyecandy and gameplay is good! 9!" does not help the maker of the level in any way. How is the eyecandy good? How can it be improved? What are the level's strong points and what should be taken out? It just takes a few sentences to write this. People can at least try.

Originally Posted by Fl@$h

I suppose you didn't read the post above yours :P

Originally Posted by Blackraptor

Of course, short revies are allowed and can help people , and there is no real rule to how long a review should be. It's really the reviewer's choice.

*cough*

I read some posts and I have come to one conclusion: this is moronic. I'm not uploading any more of my levels to j2o. Not like I have done that for some time anyway.

All you'll see from me now is stuff contained in level packs. If I wind up finishing any.


[edit]

Just to clarify, I am talking about BOTH sides of the arguement here, in case any of you think I am on your sides.

The fact that old reviews are being edited by these overly obsessive "admins" who obviously take their jobs too seriously is one thing, but the fact that this spawned two pages of this bull is just embarrassing.

It's stuff like this which keeps people from playing jj2.

I'm not holding my work from being uploaded because I want to "teach you a lesson" in case any of you feel the need to jump to conclusions. To be frank, I just don't like to associate myself with this kind of website.

The same goes with how the JCF is run these days.