Workshop rating system overhaul

[Alex_D #NoWar]

Right now the system is as simple as on YouTube: you open the submission's page, and press one button (thumbs up or down). You don't have to test it in-game, you don't have to write a review, and your vote will remain (almost) anonymous. This opens a nasty possibility to "follow" a mod creator and downvote all his submissions, especially if one has several dupe accounts or friends who have nothing better to do. Just look at the Left 4 Dead 2 Workshop: it is taken over by what we call "Weeb Mafia" that boosts anime-related mods and downvote bombs everything else. A remarkably good addon can get as many as a hundred of downvotes and a grand total of none negative comments or constructive criticism.

Other mod resources such as Gamebanana or Gamemaps force users to write a short review to rate the mod. Everyone is able to see the commenter and communicate with them, asking for more constructive criticism, or just thanking them for the sweet review. Of course, most people are too lazy to write an actual review and will write one-word-long reviews most of the time (if at all), but the exposure of your profile to public (and the additional steps requiring more time and effort) would eliminate the lazy rating abuse from existence. Thumbing up or down my screenshots or stati is alright, but I would like to know where those downvotes come from when it comes to stuff I potentially spend a lot of time creating.

tl;dr Replace the anonymous thumbs up/down with a more useful system of public reviews (and force in-game testing of downloadable addons). This would benefit ALL Workshops out there, for every game there is one.

[Ramm.asmiette]

Amen

[xdshot]

Thumbs up
Comment: +rep

[xdshot]

>force in-game testing of downloadable addons

It would require implementing proper programming so it detect that the user actually plated the game with enabled addons. Or we could just count played hours, but that's meaningless as "bots" then could simply afk the game. Knowing that there're game "idlers"...

[Count_Dandyman]

Just because you don't like the fact there are people that dislike what you are making does not mean there is a problem.

[Ramm.asmiette]

If it's real poeple that tested your addon and didn't like it sure, if it's 30+ fake account controlled by only one guy downvoting in less than a hour to make his own low effort mods in front page, i hope you get the problem ?

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by Ramm.asmiette:

If it's real poeple that tested your addon and didn't like it sure, if it's 30+ fake account controlled by only one guy downvoting in less than a hour to make his own low effort mods in front page, i hope you get the problem ?

We often see people claiming this never with any evidence or even hint that it is happening beyond their own ego telling them they are too good for the negative votes to be real.

[Ramm.asmiette]

Please....i don't really care about negatives votes, but if you spend 3 months working a mod and you get only good feedbacks and still get 90+ downvotes in LESS a 1 hour to kick you from behind too long on front page there is somthing wrong, I got tons of screenshots proving there is a problem, but to write clear numbers, i had a mod with 5/10 negatives downvotes all day ( published at 10/11am => 19/20pm) but after a certain hour of day , usually at 20pm+ for me downvotes are coming, it reaches around always around 20% downvotes.
My division hud published long ago dont have this issue , 5 stars 746 positives votes and 22 negatives SINCE 2017. now my uncommon infected mod published the 3rd april got 453 positives votes and 98 negatives votes, my medkit 2.0 had 5 stars almost all day but went kicked to 4 stars because mass downvotes after 20pm, it has 522 positives votes and 108 negatives votes, nice try tho...

Oh and if you still don't understand what's happening, take a look at this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_ria_6lHo

have a good day

[Alex_D #NoWar]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

We often see people claiming this never with any evidence or even hint that it is happening beyond their own ego telling them they are too good for the negative votes to be real.

I am suggesting improvements to the ratings system on the Workshop. We want contstructive criticism instead of dozens of silent dislikes, is this too much to ask?

If you often see people claiming there's botting going around, perhaps there is something going on? You are a fool if you think that several distinguished modders just made up this fact because of their ego. This has not been happening until relavtively recently, my older mods have been able to amass a hundred of likes (even if not a fifth star). Nowadays, if it sticks around in the popular for too long, it is downvote bombed, and anime mods reign supreme. This is not a coincidence, this is basically organized crime. There's more evidence than you could've wished for, just ask any active L4D2 modder out there.

[Count_Dandyman]

So your evidence is that on a globally available platform where people using it are in different timezones people voting negative aren't doing at the same time as the ones voting positive and that new content which is more easily seen is being voted on when older ones that have to be searched for to even see aren't.

Sorry but no you still haven't shown any sign that the negative votes are any less valid than the positive ones and the video you linked only shows someone is claiming it is happening still without any real evidence hell I could link you a video of somebody talking about how dinosaurs are having a tapdancing contest on Venus it still doesn't mean it is happening.

[Alex_D #NoWar]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

So your evidence is that on a globally available platform where people using it are in different timezones people voting negative aren't doing at the same time as the ones voting positive and that new content which is more easily seen is being voted on when older ones that have to be searched for to even see aren't.

Sorry but no you still haven't shown any sign that the negative votes are any less valid than the positive ones and the video you linked only shows someone is claiming it is happening still without any real evidence hell I could link you a video of somebody talking about how dinosaurs are having a tapdancing contest on Venus it still doesn't mean it is happening.

Hurr durr, I'm gonna defend the flawed and irrelevant rating system and disregard its abuse by not doing research (or being an outright troll), and tell people who want constructive criticism that they don't deserve it.

Would you kindly get lost and move on? This appears to be a wrong thread for you.

[🜂∴🜏 Cassie]

There’s definitely some shady business going in with the ratings, especially for Left 4 Dead 2 workshop. Some people keep downvoting every non-anime mod to keep the anime mods on the front page of most popular mods.

Makes it irritating when I’m trying to find a good quality mod instead of generic anime girl survivor replacement.

[Ramm.asmiette]

I'm saying one person or more leaving on specific timezone are "probably" using cheap fake accounts (russian account at 0.99€ with l4d2 ) and scripts to manipulate others mods and so far it happens on the same moment of day, i got NAVY a modder as friend i talked to saying one of his friend is using scripts to upload/modify/control his multiple mods simultaneously and using this to downvotes is not a problem/hard to do.

I won't update my list of screenshots of my mods taken hour by hour showing increasing downvotes in less an hour because i have more interesting stuff to do but you can find somewhere a gif of a mod showing this, 8asiandude linked it somewhere i think.

But maybe you need to do making l4d2 quality mods to understand what's happening ( or even buy the game to start) ? that would benifits all of us to get more interesting mods.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by Sylfr:

There’s definitely some shady business going in with the ratings, especially for Left 4 Dead 2 workshop. Some people keep downvoting every non-anime mod to keep the anime mods on the front page of most popular mods.

Makes it irritating when I’m trying to find a good quality mod instead of generic anime girl survivor replacement.

There doesn't have to be anything shady going on for that different people have different tastes while that might not be what you want or like for others it is and what you want to see isn't what they want.

[Alex_D #NoWar]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

There doesn't have to be anything shady going on for that different people have different tastes while that might not be what you want or like for others it is and what you want to see isn't what they want.

Keep "bringing up my post". Whatever you're trying to achieve backfires and does the opposite.

[Ramm.asmiette]

You exposed your point of view, you can move on if you don't like ours and have no proves on your side.