Scouting Criteria

[quote=jhoijhoi]Hi guys! A very long time ago I opened the first Review Shop for MobaFire and was inundated with requests. I've since ceased reviewing, and only do it casually due to university and work commitments. However, this forum is now FULL of review threads and every single one of you contribute to making MobaFire guides exceptionally better. Currently there's a discussion in the Scout Forums about the idea of a Criteria Sheet for Scouting. Have you ever wondered why a guide was "Featured" on MobaFire? Or why a guide you like isn't Featured? Me too! It's because Scouting is anonymous and if a Scout doesn't want to leave feedback about why they -Scouted or +Scouted your guide, they can! Not only that, but they can Scout for whatever reason they want! There are no set rules about why a Scout can Scout. They can -Scout because they don't like the cheat sheet, they can -Scout if they don't like your attitude in the comment section, then can +Scout because they particularly like your gameplay section. What I'm proposing is a universal sort of "checklist" for Scouts, that ensures two things: 1) MobaFire has an official Scouting audit. All Scouts will have to Scout for the same reasons, meaning that all Scout points are distributed as close to fairly as possible! 2) You receive FEEDBACK when a Scout -Scouts or +Scouts your guide! You now will KNOW whether your guide has gained the attention of a Scout, and WHY. Maybe you received a -Scout because of your Theory Content - now that you KNOW, you can work on it! And as a bonus, if there WAS an official Scouting Criteria sheet, you'd know EXACTLY what us Scouts are looking for in a guide, meaning you improve YOUR chances of being Featured on MobaFire. For your perusal; a draft of what the criteria could look like. (right-click > open in new tab) [IMG]http://i1106.photobucket.com/albums/h380/thejhoijhoi/sc3.png[/IMG] This criteria sheet would be interactive, meaning that if you're awful with mathematics, like me, the system will do it for you, and anonymously send your feedback to the guide author by PM or some other way (perhaps even displayed in the comment section of the guide!). So fellow reviewers and MobaFire users interested in helping me out. I've got two questions for you. First, do you think a Universal Scouting Criteria would benefit Scouts and guide authors? Secondly, what do you think of the current criteria and criterion - can they be improved, if so, what are your suggestions? Thanks heaps, and have a lovely day :)[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]I like it (even though I'm not a scout myself, darn it)! However, the definition of exceptional is a bit weird. I mean, how do you want to have exceptional items? Often exceptional items are the most commonly seen (especially for the ADC and support roles). Personally I would rename it to spot-on. Also, this should not force review shops into using this format, but I think that is self explanatory. I think the biggest thing is that scouts should give their feedback in a comprehensive way for the author.[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe]I already shared my opinion in the scout forum, but I will share it again here, I still like to use my own scheme, and I think every scout should be able to decide whether he uses it or not :D I am using the following "fill-in"-scheme for scouting: [spoiler] [color=#0080ff]Cheatsheet: /20[/color][rule] [color=#808000]/10 item picks + structure[/color] [color=#808000]/10 the rest[/color] [color=#0080ff]Structure + coding: /15[/color] [rule] [color=#808000]/10 uses of overviews, schemes and other uses of structure[/color] [color=#808000]/5 uses of coding[/color] [color=#0080ff]Content: /50[/color] [rule] [color=#808000]/20 Full Build Explanation[/color] [color=#808000]/15 Tactical Explanation[/color] [color=#808000]/10 Quality content[/color] [color=#808000]/5 Quantity content[/color] [color=#0080ff]Bonus: /15[/color] [rule] [color=#808000]/5 bonus chapters (matchups and synergy chapters)[/color] [color=#808000]/5 Originality[/color] [color=#808000]/5 attitude towards the readers (wants to improve)[/color] [color=#808000]0/0 Comment to vote[/color] [color=#ff8000]Result:[/color] [/spoiler] And the ratings are still changing every day :D[/quote]

[quote=jhoijhoi]That last aspect, comment to vote, is a poor choice of criteria. Do you give someone no points because they're past the 20 vote count? :/[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe]It's true, I am still working on my scheme every day :D But I still feel that it is worth mentioning somewhere... I will just put it in without any points then :D[/quote]

[quote=Embracing]The concept definitely is nice, but I feel the meaning of each section may differ to each person.[/quote]

[quote=Cortez Cardinal]I think this is a great idea. For me as a guide author it's really hard to know what scouts are after and it's never easy to really rate your own guide. However this chart still leaves so much open. What does an exceptional choice of summoner spells mean if I'm a jungler? Flash and Smite are just a must on alot of champions, any other choice would certainly be exceptional but not better all round. Also I think the estetics should have more weight. I see so many guides that have good content but they're just a pain to read, handle and get information out of. A good use of BB-Coding, use of paragraphs, color and text size can make reading a guide and using it so much easier and is almost as important as the information you will get from it. I believe that if a scout would write a short reasoning to every one of those points and his rating it would make it much easier for an author to know what he has to work on and what he can really be proud of. I am also really looking for a way to get your guide at least near the eyes of a scout. It is true that there are alot of "review shops" on the forums. Those are really good to give you a short review on your guide and point out some errors but they won't get you past the top 5 guides. In general it is almost impossible to change the top 3-5 guides even if they are either complete trash, out of date or both. This is obviously a problem that has it's origin in the fact that a really old guide got alot of votes over time and is now the only thing 90% of the people click on. Thus it will get more views and votes even though it is often out of date. I think that scouts should be looking at that problem and maybe look at some of the 5-10 placed guides if there is any that are being updated and maybe even have better information than the top 5 ones. This way mobafire's rating system could have some kind of relevance which it sadly does not have at this time. I know that this might sound rude or arrogant but I will try to demonstrate with an example: If you look at the top rated Amumu guides you will see a Stale guide, a season 2 guide and another season 2 lane guide in descending order. The next guide in line has expired and is also an Amumu lane guide. After this another one expired, a season 2 guide (starting boots 3 pots) and a season 1 guide (starting regrowth (the old one)). All of these guides are rated 85% or above and are probably the only thing a new player will ever look at if he asks mobafire for help with the champion Amumu. After the first 7 guides I'm happy to say there is one new guide from a diamond player that is featured. I'm happy to see that small change! Even though it does not give you an eyegasm it certainly has useful information. Why can't there be more such promotion of good, new guides? Why can't the old, outdated guides that are just there because they're so old just be replaced or moved into another section? I'm sorry that this has gone on for so long but I really had to get this out there and I think that scouts should be the ones to get these changes rolling. I'm eager to hear what you have to say to this! All the best Cortez Cardinal[/quote]

[quote=Meiyjhe][quote=Cortez Cardinal] I think this is a great idea. For me as a guide author it's really hard to know what scouts are after and it's never easy to really rate your own guide. However this chart still leaves so much open. What does an exceptional choice of summoner spells mean if I'm a jungler? Flash and Smite are just a must on alot of champions, any other choice would certainly be exceptional but not better all round. Also I think the estetics should have more weight. I see so many guides that have good content but they're just a pain to read, handle and get information out of. A good use of BB-Coding, use of paragraphs, color and text size can make reading a guide and using it so much easier and is almost as important as the information you will get from it. I believe that if a scout would write a short reasoning to every one of those points and his rating it would make it much easier for an author to know what he has to work on and what he can really be proud of. I am also really looking for a way to get your guide at least near the eyes of a scout. It is true that there are alot of "review shops" on the forums. Those are really good to give you a short review on your guide and point out some errors but they won't get you past the top 5 guides. In general it is almost impossible to change the top 3-5 guides even if they are either complete trash, out of date or both. This is obviously a problem that has it's origin in the fact that a really old guide got alot of votes over time and is now the only thing 90% of the people click on. Thus it will get more views and votes even though it is often out of date. I think that scouts should be looking at that problem and maybe look at some of the 5-10 placed guides if there is any that are being updated and maybe even have better information than the top 5 ones. This way mobafire's rating system could have some kind of relevance which it sadly does not have at this time. I know that this might sound rude or arrogant but I will try to demonstrate with an example: If you look at the top rated Amumu guides you will see a Stale guide, a season 2 guide and another season 2 lane guide in descending order. The next guide in line has expired and is also an Amumu lane guide. After this another one expired, a season 2 guide (starting boots 3 pots) and a season 1 guide (starting regrowth (the old one)). All of these guides are rated 85% or above and are probably the only thing a new player will ever look at if he asks mobafire for help with the champion Amumu. After the first 7 guides I'm happy to say there is one new guide from a diamond player that is featured. I'm happy to see that small change! Even though it does not give you an eyegasm it certainly has useful information. Why can't there be more such promotion of good, new guides? Why can't the old, outdated guides that are just there because they're so old just be replaced or moved into another section? I'm sorry that this has gone on for so long but I really had to get this out there and I think that scouts should be the ones to get these changes rolling. I'm eager to hear what you have to say to this! All the best Cortez Cardinal [/quote] I am happy to see that you like the formatting thingy, I myself am working a lot with guides and reviews, because I myself also believe that some information would be nice to know what your place is, to know where you stand. The discuss the matter you mentioned, yes, there are a lot of crap guides out there, where some of them even reach the top. There are also outdated guides and people that are just too lazy to keep their guide updated, and they are indeed unreliable. There are just a few problems if we were to check all top 5 guides of all champions: 1. There are 113 champions, meaning that we have to check a total of 565 guides in total, which is quite a lot. 2. A guide can be quickly outdated with just 1 patch, meaning that with every patch, we again need to check all guides. 3. We cannot simply change the voting, since there is a system behind it. If a top guide sucks, we can change their position, but this cannot be done alone, we need the scouts working together. 4. Basically, it is a ton of work :P Every day, people are discussing on Mobafire how to make the overal guide quality better, but it is quite hard, since there are loads of guides out there :P Right now, the expired guides are no longer seen in the top lists, and you will not find them unless you reall search for it. It is the best way to deal with it atm, since a stale guide in some situations mean that it is still legit (barely any balance patches for that champ), and there are even ideal guides that are already outdated because something has drastically changed. I myself could check the top guides every once in a while, to see if something is there that doesn't belong where it is, but other than that, I can't promise anything, and I think, none of the scouts can.[/quote]