Critique of the Front Page - Vote Inflation Issue

[quote=JunSupport][b][u]What I thought before: Pretty Cool![/u][/b] When I first joined MobaFire, I thought the 30-day chart was very good. You could also change the filter for "past 7 days" and "of all time" which I thought was a good feature. It let me see what was the best, and I especially liked it when I got myself on there. :] [h2][color=yellow][u][b]What I think now: It's Too Stagnant[/b][/u][/color][/h2] The Top-Rated of 30 Days Chart is the default. I can't even change it. And the side-panel-picture focuses so much attention on which ever guide is #1. I think the major topic most of us agree upon is that top-ranked guides have way way WAY more votes then everyone else. The "Top Rated Build Guides" is contributing to this. No matter what their rating, so long as they were released within the last 30 days, a guide will stay on the list. No matter how many votes, a guide will still stay on the list for until it's over 30 days old. As we've seen in the past, guides can often reach over 300 votes by getting onto this list. [u]Now, what I don't get is:[/u] [color=red]Why is the 2nd Link to this chart on the Front Page called "Star Rookies" ?[/color] A guide with over 100 votes, is clearly not a rookie by this site's history. In my humble opinion, I feel this list is allow guides to stay on front page too long. Being on the top of a champion's guide list already gives a guide effective amounts of extra attention. The front page is the first thing any viewer sees, the url gets more hits then any other page on the site, the effects of the 30Days Top-Rated chart is being severely underestimated. [color=lime][b][u]Possible Ideas to Remedy the situation:[/u][/b][/color][list] [*] First off, rename the "Top Rated Build Guides (30 Days)" to "Top-Rated Star Rookies" or something to that effect. What's important is eliminating the emphasized "30 days" factor. ~ ~ ~ [*] [b]Limit chart time to guides with under 60 votes.[/b][list] [*] [color=yellow]5/10 guides on the list have over 60 votes.[/color] [*] [color=yellow]5/5 of these guides are already at the TOP of the respective champion lists.[/color] [*] This would effectively allow newer guides to cycle onto the chart. [*] This would effectively allow votes to be more evenly distributed if guides received 60 votes and were left to fend for themselves. This is consistent with the recently implemented C2V limitation of 20 votes. [/list]... [*] Reduce the time filter to 25 days.[list] [*] [color=yellow]8/10 guides were posted within 25 days.[/color] [*] This would effectively allow more guides to have more distributed exposure. [/list]... [*] Remove the Picture panel.[list] [*] It's default set to the first guide. [*] It simply takes up space. Doing nothing but give an insane amount of exposure to the top guide. [/list]... [*] [b]Re-Implement the 7~30~All days filter, and set the default to 7 days.[/b][list] [*] More functionality for viewers. [*] This would effectively give more guides (7 days old) face time on the front page. [*] Opens room for customized filters like "1 day" and "90 days" which could allow Admins to remove a lot of extra Charts on the front page. (You wouldn't need "Newest LoL Build Guides" chart anymore!)[/list] [/list] Thanks for your time, I hope this was a meaningful and informative post for you.[/quote]

[quote=Read]Huh. I dont really pay attention to the top list honestly. I go to the character i was searching for. Though i know what your saying. I agree with you but i think the filter should stay at 30 and be changeable. 25 days is simply too illogical.[/quote]

[quote=wRAthoFVuLK]I like this, since a lot of the guides written by well known guide writers on this site (not mentioning any names, but you know who) get a lot of votes instantly, since people look for those names. And then they stay up there. For a month. And take the space of other guides that can get highlighted by less known writers.[/quote]

[quote=JunSupport][quote=Read] Huh. I dont really pay attention to the top list honestly. I go to the character i was searching for. Though i know what your saying. I agree with you but i think the filter should stay at 30 and be changeable. 25 days is simply too illogical. [/quote] There's a way to make 1 + 1 = 3. Being illogical doesn't mean it can't work. Though, that's why I didn't bold it as a preferred solution idea. Also, it's not illogical, it's just inconsistent with your schemas. Which has always been 30 days = 1 month :P 25 =/= any sort of month/week variable. I picked 25 because it was approximately a good time to cut off guides, based on the current guides on the front page.[/quote]

[quote=Jebus McAzn]I have suggested this a while ago, although not as in-depth and not that well-received. But I agree that having the top 30 list be the default setting causes too much stagnancy and too much snowballing of guides. If a guide is only up there for 7 days, it not only prevents that stagnancy, but also prevents one build from being needlessly highly-rated because of how long it stays there. I support this, as I did months ago.[/quote]

[quote=EvilDice]This is a pretty interesting idea. I really do miss the old functionality of picking between 7 days and all time, would love to have that back at the very least. Also yeah it gets pretty annoying that every time I open this site I see the same guides up there for what seems like forever.[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]The picture shouldn't be taken off because I think it's aesthetically pleasing but should be randomized. Setting the limit to around 60 votes is all it would take for guides that have already enough exposure to not be shown. If you also limit the days there won't be much change and I think that the 30 days is important because it's something everyone can relate to. Also, the recent recommended guides should be made a little more eye catching, with a wallpaper of the champion like the top rated ones and a bigger or bold title. It shouldn't be possible for a guide to be there twice either and the picture should be randomized and cycled. I have two recommendations right next to each other, and I don't think that should be happening. Furthermore, the Free to play LOL champions window should have a random champion selected right away. For quite some time I thought it was just informative and was a big waste of space, not knowing you could click them to see the top builds. It also looks pretty ugly when you load the page and that window is empty. EDIT: By the way, are the statistics on the guide volume true? There's definitely not 2100 Master Yi guides. Is it counting the unpublished and archived ones? Because I don't think it should.[/quote]

[quote=Jebus McAzn][quote=Canoas] EDIT: By the way, are the statistics on the guide volume true? There's definitely not 2100 Master Yi guides. Is it counting the unpublished and archived ones? Because I don't think it should. [/quote] It is most likely counting all current published, unarchived guides and builds, both user-made and guest-made.[/quote]

[quote=JunSupport]If anyone comes up with a unique idea for helping with this issue, I'm all ears.[/quote]

[quote=DEWO]This is accualy a good read. I'll throw this topic link to FlashJ since he is doing most (if not all) the job on layouts. The -MOBAFIRE CHARTS (GUIDE TOP LISTS)- was an experiment FlashJ was doing so it is kinda duplicating some features. As for the 30 days thing. I agree on the name change. "TOP RATED BUILD GUIDES (30 DAYS)" might be VERY missleading. Simple addition of NEW in there might be enaugh for now. (TOP RATED NEW BUILD/GUIDES (30 days)) as an example. This feature is needed there for sure, we want to highlight the new guides so they will get the chance of fighting with the older ones as well. I somehow like the side panel thing. Well what is bad about it? It focuses on the 1st place.. but tbh it is the best new guide at this moment so why not give it a nice highlight? We want to promote those valuable builds too! We dont want spam builds getting attension dont we? Dont see any harm in this one. We want way more votes to be casted, so i dont see a point of not considering a new guide to be new if it has more than 100 votes... it is still new coz posted not more than 30 days ago. This 30 day period is suppose to be the time when ppl accualy make a statement if the build is good or not. So if it gets more and more votes it is a good thing. 25 days or 30 days doesnt matter much tbh... i dont see a point here to make another filter... To add more guides we could make it a bit wider... not best 10 but best 20... not limiting the highlight time. This could work if we would make the side panel occupied by next in line 10 builds (11-20) I kinda agree with you on the dropdown menu on that 30 days there. So the user can quicky swap between "all time/30/7/today" thing. Matt? (Tbh i didnt even see it vanishing from there!) Thx for posting this topic, for your time and your ideas. Keep em going![/quote]