New Submissions
After listening to people's thoughts about the idea and experiencing a few things for myself this week on this website, and a few others, I think we as a group need to talk about our thoughts and feelings involving the Citadels Voting system.
It was brought up a few times earlier this week, is our voting system good? Does it offer what the authors of the posts want? Does it help people with their post or does it cause them to shy away? Is it just a glorified popularity contest? Like most organizations, voting seems to be the easiest way and most hated way of solving issues involved with making big decisions, who will be president or who should lead the group, but for a website that has more flavor like the Citadel, simple voting just does not cut it.
One proposed idea was to make voting more detailed. Have sub-categories associated with each vote, so the author could get a much better understanding of what was liked and disliked among his post. Websites likeeBay have broken down their voting system into five categories: Item as described, Communication, Shipping time, Shipping charges, and a +/- system for the overall transaction, whileAmazonhas a rating system based on what the customers have said who have used/bought the item. Would it be better for the Citadel to adopt a voting system like either eBay's or Amazons? Would it make any one a better writer to know their post got a 5 star rating on description but only a 2.5 star rating on delivery of post?
A secondary idea was to make voting on post only available for awards. When it comes time for ourHall of Honor'sandGolden Submission'sindividuals would nominate a few post they felt were HoH or GS worthy and once all were submitted, voting would take place on the whole lot. This would leave the Citadel open to enjoy more post without worrying about who did or didn't vote on each other's post. This would also make things a bit easier on the reworking of the site's system later on, with only having to worry about voting for maybe a month out of the year, the Citadel heads can get together and make improvements to the Citadel overall. Like new paint for the ceiling, cleaning the court yard of the barbarian corpses, maybe getting that rouge tentacle back in the basement where it belongs, putting actual fish in the fish tank and not just the skeletons of the ones we have eaten. Little things.
A consideration does come in here though, would changing the voting system do anything for the Citadel? With the younger generation having such an apathetic attitude towards voting like cats do to people, will anything change if we only ask them to vote every once in a while? What are the thoughts of the more "experienced" Citadel members? Likely-hood here is that they like voting as much as the youngen's do, but they are always willing to give advice, thoughtful input, or an annoying Rick-Roll, STROLEN!
In the end, whatever is chosen to be done, I believe the most important thing to keep in mind the purpose of the Citadel: Exploring, Creating, Helping.
January 18, 2014, 17:17
The real value as a writer here is the honest feedback. Don't get me wrong, I love me some 4 or 5 ratings, but the single most valuable feedback I've gotten here came with a lower vote and some honest criticism. And you can't formalize or granularize (it's a word because I say so!) honest feedback.
That's my two cents.
January 20, 2014, 6:03
Since the advent of the v2.0 of the citadel, when voting was first introduced, this has been a topic of dissent and strife. Even among the admins there are vastly different views on what to do.
Here are the groups thus far:
1. The original designers of the system. They recognize the difficulties, feel they are necessary, and seem unwilling to change it.
2. The redesigners. They acknowledge that we have lost members and popularity due to the voting system. They want to redesign it. Every member of this group has their own idea of how to do the voting, which is an omen of trouble to come should one member get his way (it is IMO unlikely that the rest of the redesigners would rally behind the one redesign that was chosen. Hell hath no fury like a GM scorn).
3. The Nostalgics. They feel everything was better back in the day. Before the voting system, when there was only the forum. The community was thriving back then, and everyone commented and helped each other out. With the competition, and performance anxiety, that the votes brought, we lost that.
I agree with you on your assessment that comments are the most valuable. Unfortunately, a comment is only valuable if it is actually thought through and more than one line.
As for votes:
Some people will read the first paragraph, and vote based on that.
Some people will read the entire thing, then change their vote because everyone else voted different than they felt.
Some people will be angry for your last review, and will skim your sub to give it a bottom vote.
Some people will vote as low as they need, to make sure you end up badly in a quest (happened to my "Crawlers of the Dark" back in the day)
Some people will think you a fantastic fellow, and will give you a high vote, regardless of the sub in question
Some people will have low self esteem and will vote you lower than any vote they get. Because, they are, after all, the norm and your sub is obviously poorer.
But really, I think 60% of the votes will be honest feedback, based on whatever system the critic uses. And we all use different standards for our votes.
January 20, 2014, 8:45