MOBAFire's second Mini Guide Contest of Season 14 is here! Create or update guides for the 30 featured champions and compete for up to $200 in prizes! š
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@Mowen:
I think this is a fine time to have the discussion. You don't have to bring all the stuff we talked about up to the other mods right now. Just let us actually talk more and find a finalized group of resolutions which you can then propose to the other mods.
@topicathand:
The community feeling must be retained as we seek to make the quality of guides better.
I believe there definitely is more we can do to improve the quality of our site while also retaining the incentive for players to create guides.
The main problem I feel is that there are sheep who blindly upvote and downvote based on their own standards. This problem actually arises from the game itself. People always feel they know what's best at their level, only to realize that they knew certain information wrong as they improve.
I like the idea of having highlighted guides.
I think this is a fine time to have the discussion. You don't have to bring all the stuff we talked about up to the other mods right now. Just let us actually talk more and find a finalized group of resolutions which you can then propose to the other mods.
@topicathand:
The community feeling must be retained as we seek to make the quality of guides better.
I believe there definitely is more we can do to improve the quality of our site while also retaining the incentive for players to create guides.
The main problem I feel is that there are sheep who blindly upvote and downvote based on their own standards. This problem actually arises from the game itself. People always feel they know what's best at their level, only to realize that they knew certain information wrong as they improve.
I like the idea of having highlighted guides.
complexity
<Member>
<Member>
Well this is a bit off topic but it feels like a good place to mention it
I was looking at Vi guides to try her out later and a lot of them were weird. Even the highly rated one had a dominion item when the guide talked about SR o0; now this got me thinking. why not have some kind of "new champion first impressions" special on mobafire TV?
invite the high elo community members to talk for a few minutes about the new champ and incite some theory craft. if the video is front page and viewed before the new champ goes into the guide builder, maybe the new guides won't suck as much?
this doesn't require the website to be rescripted either like a vote decay would...
Just a suggestion for the future
I was looking at Vi guides to try her out later and a lot of them were weird. Even the highly rated one had a dominion item when the guide talked about SR o0; now this got me thinking. why not have some kind of "new champion first impressions" special on mobafire TV?
invite the high elo community members to talk for a few minutes about the new champ and incite some theory craft. if the video is front page and viewed before the new champ goes into the guide builder, maybe the new guides won't suck as much?
this doesn't require the website to be rescripted either like a vote decay would...
Just a suggestion for the future
We had this discussion arise again and again the last ... what was it? 5 months maybe? (actually forgot when Scout came into working)
And there were already nuff nice little adds to the guide section mentioned, most should be rather easy to implement and not big enough to actually do any harm.
That's why I'm rather curious why there are "heated discussions" going on if you could just make 3-4 simple additions and observe how the current situation changes.
And there were already nuff nice little adds to the guide section mentioned, most should be rather easy to implement and not big enough to actually do any harm.
That's why I'm rather curious why there are "heated discussions" going on if you could just make 3-4 simple additions and observe how the current situation changes.
Embracing wrote:
The main problem I feel is that there are sheep who blindly upvote and downvote based on their own standards. This problem actually arises from the game itself.
this is a problem on all guide sites and not just mobafire. I'd actually venture to say it's worse on a site like lolpro or solomid where people sheepishly vote for featured guides.
If you want to have highlighted guides or whatever you call them, sheep voting is going to be worse, not better
Thanks for the Signature MissMaw!
The Overmyynd
<Editor>
<Editor>
Darcurse wrote:
That's why I'm rather curious why there are "heated discussions" going on if you could just make 3-4 simple additions and observe how the current situation changes.
If only it were that easy. There are ALOT of options and different suggestions up in the air that we are discussing, from rep limits to voting, to scout changes, to character limits on the "comment required to vote" part of the guides... We can't just take one person's ideas and say "that works, lets just throw it out there and see what happens". Not to mention Mowen, the mods, the veterans, scouts, and editors have no way to actually change the site, we have to come up with out list of "good ideas" then present them to the site owners so that THEY can pull out the site scripting and change stuff there. If they agree that they are, indeed, good ideas, and if they think that the ideas won't interfere with site traffic, which is really all this boils down to. Running a website is still a business, and when you are running a business, you don't just do something and see "how the current situation changes".
Hey, if you liked any advice i gave, be sure to +rep me! Oh, and check out my Shaco and Maokail lorecraft in my Blog! I'm a starving artist in need of attention, so please feel free to read, respond, and critique me! Please? Anybody that leaves a comment (good or bad) will receive a +rep!
If the current situation is unfavorable you want to change something.
And like I said, there was enough stuff already that can only be an addition to the current guide section and MAYBE will do sth. about those ****ed up up-/downvotes and reviews.
- What was mentioned earlier: Show who up/downvoted the guide (confirmed ranking, maybe also the forum rep count)
- Allow All-time forced commenting on votes (Srsly, where do you guys have a problem with that? Don't tell me that there's a problem with "post storage space" or sth else??)
- Allow only ppl to vote who do have at least X posts
etc.
(Can't remember everything that was mentioned)
I can't see any prob with those adds, they only bind voters to some really simple rules.
And before you guys waste 4-5 months on "heated discussions" only to come up with sth like the Scout System (IMO it's garbage, just saying), I'd rather see SOME changes which can't do any harm and maybe do some good.
And like I said, there was enough stuff already that can only be an addition to the current guide section and MAYBE will do sth. about those ****ed up up-/downvotes and reviews.
- What was mentioned earlier: Show who up/downvoted the guide (confirmed ranking, maybe also the forum rep count)
- Allow All-time forced commenting on votes (Srsly, where do you guys have a problem with that? Don't tell me that there's a problem with "post storage space" or sth else??)
- Allow only ppl to vote who do have at least X posts
etc.
(Can't remember everything that was mentioned)
I can't see any prob with those adds, they only bind voters to some really simple rules.
And before you guys waste 4-5 months on "heated discussions" only to come up with sth like the Scout System (IMO it's garbage, just saying), I'd rather see SOME changes which can't do any harm and maybe do some good.
The Overmyynd
<Editor>
<Editor>
1) Showing who voted at all times and all the info on them would require alot of coding and an entirely new layout for the guidemakers viewpage, and is not necessary.
2) Forcing people to comment would not change anything. Comments would simply consist of "." if they wanted to vote for reasons other than to say "this guide helped me alot" or "this guide needs some work, keep trying", which I assume is something you are trying to fix with this suggestion. tl;dr, it won't stop troll voters.
3) People make accounts every day because they saw a guide that really helped them out, and they want to show appreciation by giving an upvote. Forcing people to have been a member of this site for so long and limit what new members can do, whether it be through comments, rep, or ELO, will cut down on traffic and eventually lead to the community withering away. Believe me, I had the same kind of idea as you, but the vets and mods made it very clear that imposing a rep, elo, or comment limit on whether or not you can vote on a guide is not going to happen.
4) We are working now to find an agreeable solution by the next week or so and will propose it to the site managers as soon as possible, this won't be a half year in the making. And the scout system is still new, it has great potential and is likely what we will be changing most to fix the guide issues, i.e. making new scouts and giving them more tools to be able to do their jobs properly. Trust your site managers, we are just as concerned about this as you are, but we refuse to do something to just give the appearance of being useful. If we do anything at all, it will be a calculated, decided measure made to genuinely help the site.
2) Forcing people to comment would not change anything. Comments would simply consist of "." if they wanted to vote for reasons other than to say "this guide helped me alot" or "this guide needs some work, keep trying", which I assume is something you are trying to fix with this suggestion. tl;dr, it won't stop troll voters.
3) People make accounts every day because they saw a guide that really helped them out, and they want to show appreciation by giving an upvote. Forcing people to have been a member of this site for so long and limit what new members can do, whether it be through comments, rep, or ELO, will cut down on traffic and eventually lead to the community withering away. Believe me, I had the same kind of idea as you, but the vets and mods made it very clear that imposing a rep, elo, or comment limit on whether or not you can vote on a guide is not going to happen.
4) We are working now to find an agreeable solution by the next week or so and will propose it to the site managers as soon as possible, this won't be a half year in the making. And the scout system is still new, it has great potential and is likely what we will be changing most to fix the guide issues, i.e. making new scouts and giving them more tools to be able to do their jobs properly. Trust your site managers, we are just as concerned about this as you are, but we refuse to do something to just give the appearance of being useful. If we do anything at all, it will be a calculated, decided measure made to genuinely help the site.
Hey, if you liked any advice i gave, be sure to +rep me! Oh, and check out my Shaco and Maokail lorecraft in my Blog! I'm a starving artist in need of attention, so please feel free to read, respond, and critique me! Please? Anybody that leaves a comment (good or bad) will receive a +rep!
The private forums are filled with discussion on this issue at the moment, with three or four threads that are all about what we should do in response to this Reddit thread. We are all hard at work suggesting alternatives, even if you can't see it. :)
In my opinion, two of the most viable ideas have been posted already - different categories of guides, such as "competitive" and "casual", or implementing a "vote decay" system. I'll start with the first one.
We create two different categories of guides, "competitive" and "casual" guides, that separate the really good ones from the more laid-back ones. Joke guides also fall into the latter category. The main problem with this, as Jhoijhoi pointed out in the Scout's forum, is that nobody will willing post their guides in the "casual" section because nobody will look there.
A way to circumvent this is simply to only allow certain authors to make "competitive" guides - for example, you MUST be 1500 ELO or above to post a competitive guide; if it's a Twisted Treeline guide, you must be 1500 ELO or above in threes, etc, etc. This brings up even more issues, such as the sub-1500 population of MOBAFire's guide writers basically getting shafted, but also gives them more incentive to become better players (people have suggested that if you can't use a champion to hit at least 1500, you shouldn't be writing a guide on it).
The second plan implements a "vote decay" system so that "the rich don't get richer", as put very well by a user in the Scout forums. This means that the really really good guides have to keep fighting to stay at the top, needing constant updating, while the newer guides get more chances to shine as the top 10 are being frequently changed out.
TL;DR - the two most appealing plans ATM involve guide categories and vote decay.
In my opinion, two of the most viable ideas have been posted already - different categories of guides, such as "competitive" and "casual", or implementing a "vote decay" system. I'll start with the first one.
We create two different categories of guides, "competitive" and "casual" guides, that separate the really good ones from the more laid-back ones. Joke guides also fall into the latter category. The main problem with this, as Jhoijhoi pointed out in the Scout's forum, is that nobody will willing post their guides in the "casual" section because nobody will look there.
A way to circumvent this is simply to only allow certain authors to make "competitive" guides - for example, you MUST be 1500 ELO or above to post a competitive guide; if it's a Twisted Treeline guide, you must be 1500 ELO or above in threes, etc, etc. This brings up even more issues, such as the sub-1500 population of MOBAFire's guide writers basically getting shafted, but also gives them more incentive to become better players (people have suggested that if you can't use a champion to hit at least 1500, you shouldn't be writing a guide on it).
The second plan implements a "vote decay" system so that "the rich don't get richer", as put very well by a user in the Scout forums. This means that the really really good guides have to keep fighting to stay at the top, needing constant updating, while the newer guides get more chances to shine as the top 10 are being frequently changed out.
TL;DR - the two most appealing plans ATM involve guide categories and vote decay.
There is actually a very in depth discussion in the Editor's Forum going on about this right now. We are doing our best to find solid changes that can make everyone happy.
somehow I feel less assured that you're taking this challenge up