Sorry for the late response, I thought I had already posted here but apparently I just wrote a (part of a) reply, put it on a Sticky Note and then ignored it for days ._.
- Assume that people come back to a guide to refresh their vote. By my knowledge it is never made apparent that this action is necessary, nor that it is possible.
I'm not sure why you think this should be necessary. If a guide sees enough activity (and receives enough votes as a result of that), the rating will be continuously updated and should remain accurate without this being done.
If not, there is still a minimum vote threshold for every guide (based on the number of votes top guides get in 30 days), meaning that guides with a low amount of votes won't see the votes received decay. Again, refreshing shouldn't be necessary here.
The fact that it isn't obvious that it is possible is an interesting point however, and ties in with the comment you made in regards to tools later in your post. Mowen and I agree it would still be great to have a list of recent votes (and when they expire) for users, but I'm not sure how easy it'd be for the developers to add this so I'll have to get back to you on that.
Individual votes on this website have always been treated as equals (regardless of who the person is that is voting) and I don't see a reason to change that. Also, if a guide ever does get upvoted to the top by friends without deserving it, then that should be countered pretty quickly by other members running into it and realising it isn't all that great after all. Don't really see a big issue there, personally.
As Mowen pointed out, the issue Oxide mentioned regarding the different orders was addressed a pretty long time ago and all pages should follow the same order in regards to guide freshness (FR + S5 > S4 > ...).
Regarding the overall guide ordering and the "huge mistakes" the system currently makes, the general consensus seems to be that:
1. Guides with a low # of votes (< 10) should not have such an easy time getting into the top 3. We agree with this and will look into ways to prevent this from happening in the future.
2. Individual votes currently have too much weight / the threshold of votes that are counted (currently 20) should be increased. This one requires a bit more testing, and possibly more feedback from you guys, too. What I mean by that is it'd be useful if you guys could take screenshots whenever you run into a situation in which the system handles changes to the guide order (as a result of someone upvoting / downvoting a specific guide) in a way which you feel isn't logical or "normal". I should note here that - as Psi previously stated - feedback in the form of general statements such as "the system sucks" are surprisingly unhelpful in this context.
Finally, as a bit of a sidenote, I want to add that step one was for us to implement the new scoring display, which should hopefully give you guys a clearer idea of why certain guides are in the position they are in. This does not mean that we're done yet, however, and we will be closely monitoring the situation in the upcoming weeks in order to work towards improving the system in a way which satisfies as many users as possible.
Latest Legend wrote:
- Assume that people come back to a guide to refresh their vote. By my knowledge it is never made apparent that this action is necessary, nor that it is possible.
If not, there is still a minimum vote threshold for every guide (based on the number of votes top guides get in 30 days), meaning that guides with a low amount of votes won't see the votes received decay. Again, refreshing shouldn't be necessary here.
The fact that it isn't obvious that it is possible is an interesting point however, and ties in with the comment you made in regards to tools later in your post. Mowen and I agree it would still be great to have a list of recent votes (and when they expire) for users, but I'm not sure how easy it'd be for the developers to add this so I'll have to get back to you on that.
Latest Legend wrote:
- Assume that all votes are objective informed opinions, taking a very small margin for trolls and friends.
Latest Legend wrote:
- Simply order guides wrongly, or at least differently on different reference pages. These issues have been named as edge cases, small bugs or whatnot. The guide ordering system is an automated system. If it can make huge mistakes like these over and over again I think most people would conclude it's broken.
Regarding the overall guide ordering and the "huge mistakes" the system currently makes, the general consensus seems to be that:
1. Guides with a low # of votes (< 10) should not have such an easy time getting into the top 3. We agree with this and will look into ways to prevent this from happening in the future.
2. Individual votes currently have too much weight / the threshold of votes that are counted (currently 20) should be increased. This one requires a bit more testing, and possibly more feedback from you guys, too. What I mean by that is it'd be useful if you guys could take screenshots whenever you run into a situation in which the system handles changes to the guide order (as a result of someone upvoting / downvoting a specific guide) in a way which you feel isn't logical or "normal". I should note here that - as Psi previously stated - feedback in the form of general statements such as "the system sucks" are surprisingly unhelpful in this context.
Finally, as a bit of a sidenote, I want to add that step one was for us to implement the new scoring display, which should hopefully give you guys a clearer idea of why certain guides are in the position they are in. This does not mean that we're done yet, however, and we will be closely monitoring the situation in the upcoming weeks in order to work towards improving the system in a way which satisfies as many users as possible.
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What the current system does, in what I think most people's eyes:
- Assume that people come back to a guide to refresh their vote. By my knowledge it is never made apparent that this action is necessary, nor that it is possible. Guides feature an upvote and a downvote button and that's it. It does not make clear to me that (or what) I already voted and that I'm able to vote again to keep my vote up. Though I haven't voted on a guide in a long time; I can relate to Sirell's feelings very well. My assumption is that as long as it's not made clear to the visitor (AFAIK most visitors aren't reading the single topic on the forum explaining how everything works), the system simply won't work.
- Handle the votes which are being considered improperly. There have been enough examples of this in this very thread. Outside of the point above, it could have many reasons. I for one think that upvotes should not carry the same weight as downvotes. Four downvotes may mean a lot, and should bring a #1 guide down in my opinion. Four upvotes, on the other hand, should not place a guide at the top.
On another note, where do these votes even come from? When a visitor looks for a champion guide, it will likely find the reference page high in the search results. I would find it logical for a visitor to choose to read the top guide. I would not expect a visitor to choose a random 0 votes guide, read it full, form an objective opinion with the weight of a diamond player and vote the guide. A visitor wants to learn how to play a champion, not judge guides.
So where do these 4 upvotes come from? They certainly won't come from Mobafire regulars, since I think it's been stated already that nobody's bothered to check out new guides since the overview has been removed. They might be reviewers, in that case you could say these votes mean something. It might also be four random friends of the author, asked to click on a green button. These votes are treated like they are objective, informed opinions on a guide.
- Assume that all votes are objective informed opinions, taking a very small margin for trolls and friends.
- Simply order guides wrongly, or at least differently on different reference pages. These issues have been named as edge cases, small bugs or whatnot. The guide ordering system is an automated system. If it can make huge mistakes like these over and over again I think most people would conclude it's broken.
- Tools that would make this system work are not in place. There would be an overview of each person's votes and when they would "run out". I cannot find this overview. Without this overview, like stated earlier, it's hard to expect people to keep refreshing their votes.
At this point in time I think that most people would say that a simple reset every month or so would've done a better job at stopping #1 guides from being immovable than the current system.
Thanks for your openness to this subject! It must be really annoying hearing people about it over and over again, and I think that there's no system where everyone can be happy about. Your efforts are much appreciated!