Help us with the Cartographers Choice! - Rate Maps!

[Robbie]

Thread rating is currently scaled for the tutorials forum...they don't show up until 10 people have rated it. This was decided because most tutorials were either not rated or rated 5...so we figured 10 five star ratings would qualify for a tutorial award.

This may have to change for this purpose, but we have to find a nice balance. I can't set the ratings on a per-forum basis.

I just changed it so you cannot re-rate threads that you've already rated (no changing of ratings) lets see if that makes it easier to tell whether you've rated or not.

But be honest with ratings...they are private I think...and don't follow the 5 or nothing rule, or this system will never work. Make it a habit to rate a finished map and if everyone does this, after a few, the ratings will show up.

I'm definitely open to suggestions though.

[Immolate]

Arcana,

I really appreciate all the hard work you do on this forum. This is the best community on the internet that I've seen, and I've been here since gopher was the coolest thing going.

I tried rating the first ten maps from the top, and what I found was that about half of them said I'd already rated them. I haven't rated a map since this conversation began, and I haven't seen any of the maps that I tried to rate, so I'm pretty sure this is an error.

A good example is the thread " Kingdom of Earlsdale - v3.0". I haven't even been on the finished maps forum in a couple of weeks and the thread says that's I've already rated the map.

Thanks again!

[Robbie]

Immolate, thanks much! I just set it back...must be a bug...Hopefully there will be something different in todays big upgrade.

[jfrazierjr]

Just a friendly reminder from your community leaders, please rate threads in the Finished Map Gallery!!!! We would rather you rate a map a 1 vs not at all... granted, we hope you will find many you like and rate most higher, but please rate the threads.....

For those of you who may not know how to apply a rating, I created a quick sample screenshot. The Rating menu is at the top of the thread above the first post.

screenshot_01_2011-07-26_12-40-27.png

Note that while you may not see any visible effect that the rating has been performed, rest assured that it will be stored. Of the top of my head I am not sure of the exact numbers but usually the rating will only show up after a thread has been rated by a specific number of people.. so for example, the rating may only show up in the forum search results list after it has been rated by 10 people(as an example).

Also, please take the time to go back and rate older posts. There is some incredible work in the Finished Maps forum!

EDIT: please also remember to rate any tutorials you read....

[arsheesh]

Thanks for the reminder Jfraz. I have been rating tutorials all along but I didn't realize that it was important for finished maps. So, does a decent amount of 5 star ratings somehow figure into the community leaders selection of featured maps?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the reminder Jfraz. I have been rating tutorials all along but I didn't realize that it was important for finished maps.
-Arsheesh

Yes, it is important, and thanks for at least rating the tutorials! Now get busy going through 4 years of finished maps, heh....

So, does a decent amount of 5 star ratings somehow figure into the community leaders selection of featured maps?

ummm.... yea.... it does... well.. that's the theory at least... As a group, we have been kind of slow to do featured maps over the past 1-2 years and the original idea behind using the ratings was to help us CL's pick the best of the best. While any of the community leaders has the option to feature any map they deem worthy, there are so many excellent maps AND we CL's get busy with stuff to the point that it's hard to choose one from a huge field of contenders.... so the ratings will help, especially if everyone rates honestly instead of just giving some threads a 5 and just not rating any that they don't like(I have been guilty of this in the past....)

[Jonat84]

Agreed. This is great idea!

[Robbie]

Reminder...again...Rate these maps! I'm going to look in to some changes to the thread rating system in order to promote this. We should be rating maps, tutorials, and threads in general...The thread rating system is good for more than just letting the CL's know what needs to be featured, but it's also good for letting new and returning users know where the good content is.

[Master TMO]

I haven't gone through the Finished Maps section, but will do so. I just went through and rated every thread I had ever subscribed to, either Good or Excellent. On the assumption that I wouldn't have subscribed if it wasn't interesting or useful.

[JefBT]

The voting system can get the highest ranked thread with the most votes. It can also make a threshold with something like the then 5-star votes.