Blind Voting on the Portal; A rant

[Ronald-McDonald-LoL]

The Flash Portal is the defining feature of Newgrounds. However, the recent trend has shifted towards more protected flashes than blammed entries.

Let me start off by saying that fair voting is the most important thing you can do in the Portal. Your vote counts. This is not a rant about the lack of blams; this is a rant about fair voting.

Now, I've seen some weird things in the past, but this has got to be the worst yet. I was browsing the portal in the morning one day. You may notice that a lot of generally good quality submissions enter the portal early in the morning. This day was the same, with a few exceptions. Most of the flashes had filesizes around 3 MB. This submission caught my eye immediately:

• 
  A Pokemon movie that pwns by lucarioguyarceusboy

  Click to view.

  Type

  Movie

  Rated

  Everyone

Rather than being treated to some guy's animation about Pokemon, I was assaulted by Rick Astley, singing his hit "Never gonna give you up," otherwise known as Rick Roll. It didn't even have a preloader. This struck me as odd; I immediately voted 0 and blew the whistle, because after all, a music video from the 80's is not this author's work.

What shocks me most is the fact that it passed with a score of 2.00 exactly. No Newgrounder with half of a brain would ever pass such garbage after seeing it.

I have come to the conclusion that people are judging submissions by their filesize and are not even viewing the flashes anymore. They simply want the protection points that come with passing such garbage through the portal. That is what Clock Day is for. All other 364 days of the year, we should be more responsible.

The problem with the portal is that people are voting for the points and are not even watching the submission, or playing the games. When you vote without watching the submission, such trash as the above flash will get through.
The Portal was not created for you to click a button to receive a point. It was created so people could submit their own work to be judged by other users. Spam and other abuse is to be filtered out by the judgment standards. Blind voting sabotages the whole system.

What can you do about it? Watch the submission before voting. Play the game you're about to vote on. You cannot judge a book by its cover, and the same goes for a flash.

TLDR: Watch the flash before you vote.

[Ptero]

good thread 5/5

[Chronamut]

I admit to having my own convoluted voting system...

if it's a flash movie and under say.. 800 k I tend to blam it. As most things under that filesize aren't detaield flashes, and are usually crap.

for flash games - anything under200 k - blam.

anything else - 5ed.

and I only vote on pink flashes.

[GiantDouche]

At 12/13/10 03:37 PM, Chronamut wrote: if it's a flash movie and under say.. 800 k I tend to blam it. As most things under that filesize aren't detaield flashes, and are usually crap.

Thank you for doing your part to make this website a better place.

[Zerok]

The 'problem' stems from the incentive system, I'd say. Maybe more points / emphasis could be put on reviews? Maybe the redesign has already considered this?

All things averaged though, I don't think this is a hugely detrimental problem. So a few genuinely terrible flashes pass... they'll be forgotten / swept up by apt whistle blowers like yourself. :)

[Senmetsu]

I heard that link would rick roll me. After a while I developed a love for that song...so I rickroll'd myself.

Also, I tend to save most flash because I would want people to do that for me..

I do know what you mean, I intend to vote fairly someday but its not fun to be mean.

[Wunderbar]

• 
  Street Fighter Collab by Stamper

  Click to view.

  Type

  Movie

  Rated

  Adults Only

: Score: 4.42

• 
  Ryu: Then and Now by Egoraptor

  Click to view.

  Type

  Movie

  Rated

  Everyone

: Score: 4.31

SO A WELL WORKED FOR COLLAB GETS A DECENT SCORE WITH ALL THOSE SUBMISSIONS--INCLUDING EGORAPTOR'S-- AND YET WHEN HE SUBMITS AND 10 SECOND SHORT THAT GOT REJECTED FOR THAT VERY COLLAB IT GETS 5 5 5 5 5 5 AND AWARD AWARD AWARD AWARD BECAUSE NEWGROUNDS SUCKS END.

I DON'T CARE IF IT IS NOT RELEVANT IT HURTS MY FEELINGS.

EDIT: I DID NOT NOTICE MY CAPS LOCK WAS ON SORRY ABOUT THAT GUYS BUT I'M TOO LAZY TO CHANGE IT NOW.

[LordZeebmork]

At 12/13/10 03:33 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: No Newgrounder with half of a brain would ever pass such garbage after seeing it.

No Newgrounder with half of a sense of humor would ever write a massive textwall bitching about intentionally misleading titles.

[Ptero]

This took me like five minutes.

[Onepiece285]

No thanks.

[Peony]

Not to be an asshole, but I think we should all go and blam that flash right now before the thread gets angry.

[Wolfos]

Yeah, I remember when the SuperFlashBros released a pretty lame game.
At first it passed with a decent score of around 3.0, and reviews of around 7/8.
After a few days, however, it resurfaced on the top 10 of the week and had only reviews that gave it a 10/10, and went like this "lololol, good Flash!".

By the way, I hate it when people do that, yes we KNOW it's a good Flash, you probably voted 5/5 on it already!
Please leave the review space for people that actually have something useful to say, so the author can read it.

[Ronald-McDonald-LoL]

At 12/13/10 03:40 PM, Zerok wrote: The 'problem' stems from the incentive system, I'd say. Maybe more points / emphasis could be put on reviews? Maybe the redesign has already considered this?

Reviews tend to make it easier to tell if someone has no clue what they're talking about. Any fool can just write "Cool flash 5/5" as Ptero pointed out.

I've never considered a redesign. Although everyone is saying that there'll be one soon, I can't imagine it being anytime within a few months of now -- hell, the 07 redesign still feels recent. Thanks for the intelligent reply, though!

At 12/13/10 04:06 PM, Ptero wrote: This took me like five minutes.

I am going to save this.

[dx5231]

You know, after voting on about 19945 flashes (not all of my votes were successful blams/saves), it becomes boring and I only want to vote on these flashes, without actually viewing them. I do judge by the file size, if the person has other flashes, the description, etc.

I may try viewing the flashes instead of just randomly voting on them from now on.

[Magical-Zorse]

At 12/13/10 03:33 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: I have come to the conclusion that people are judging submissions by their filesize

Don't forget the icon, that makes a huge difference

[sweet21]

in all seriousness, no lie, i vote zero on every "games2dress," "gamesfactory," and kinggames" submissions in the portal, i don't even look at them i just DESTROY them immediately.
All the games they make are SHIT.
i also auto-blam every KK submission i see, i give CC submissions a view before deciding.

[CorpseGrinderClock]

At 12/13/10 03:33 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: TLDR: Watch the flash before you vote.

What amazes me are not the things that are voted for unintentionally, but the things that are voted for intentionally.

Seriously newgrounds, do you ever get sick of movies that revolve around masturbation and video games between masturbating and playing video games?

[Xyresic]

The whole voting system is flawed. A submission can never get a perftect 5/5 score if just ONE person rates it lower than 5. that hardly seems fair.
Also, why are you complaining about blind voting but not ass-kissing? What about all these horrible submissions that get 5'vd just because they were made by an NG Staff member or a popular member. What about all those stupid shape animations, or that "africa dudes" one by stamper? Let's be honest, they sucked. But no, everyone just fives away regardless. "AHURR GOOD WERK STAMPY HAR HAR THAT WAS SOOO FUNNEH".

[Ronald-McDonald-LoL]

At 12/13/10 06:21 PM, crapatflash wrote: The whole voting system is flawed. A submission can never get a perftect 5/5 score if just ONE person rates it lower than 5. that hardly seems fair.
Also, why are you complaining about blind voting but not ass-kissing? What about all these horrible submissions that get 5'vd just because they were made by an NG Staff member or a popular member. What about all those stupid shape animations, or that "africa dudes" one by stamper? Let's be honest, they sucked. But no, everyone just fives away regardless. "AHURR GOOD WERK STAMPY HAR HAR THAT WAS SOOO FUNNEH".

Voting high on overrated artists is good enough for another rant. I hate it as much as you do. Maybe I can make one next month, entitled "Overrated Flash artists" or something.

No animation can get 5.00; this I think is fair. 5.0 is perfect... Nothing is perfect. No animation can reach 0.00 (Some have, but they were blammed).

I remember when no animation was above 4.30. Considering this, 4.6 is insane.

[Lintire]

At 12/13/10 03:37 PM, Chronamut wrote: I admit to having my own convoluted voting system...

if it's a flash movie and under say.. 800 k I tend to blam it. As most things under that filesize aren't detaield flashes, and are usually crap.

for flash games - anything under200 k - blam.

anything else - 5ed.

and I only vote on pink flashes.

My own little system takes into account the size, but I also take into account the description, the title, and when even that is ambiguous to quality, I look at the flash itself. I like to be accurate, and I haven't bombed anything in a long time, but you can't really get people to accept that flashes will always fluctuate in quality.

To that end, what about bringing the old "waiting until the flash loads" system back?

[John12346]

At 12/13/10 06:31 PM, Lintire wrote: To that end, what about bringing the old "waiting until the flash loads" system back?

This, and MAYBE NG should consider raising the blam cutoff to 2.49/5.00. Extreme, I know, but it definitely rewards mindlessly spamming 5 a lot less.

[Jolly]

At 12/13/10 04:10 PM, Peony wrote: Not to be an asshole, but I think we should all go and blam that flash right now before the thread gets angry.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's not possible. I don't think a flash can be blamed after it passes judgment unless an admin removes it.

[razorbladesigh]

At 12/13/10 06:31 PM, Lintire wrote: To that end, what about bringing the old "waiting until the flash loads" system back?

It does, at least for me. I have slow internets, though. I can't vote until the flash has loaded.

[LittleWashu]

If you think that was bad take a look at this The game was made on purpose to crash your server, and what do people do? they pass it. If that isn't blind voting then I don't know what is.

But on a serious note there is so much good flash coming into the portal that people think that it is mostly all good. As a result they protect everything unless it is pure gargabe or as you said a tiny filesize. It is the main reason why most of the newer users have 100 or in some causes 1000 times the amount of saves to blams.

Even I now have more saves then blams but it isn't due to blind voting.

[PyroGreg]

Maybe if Tom removed Blam and Protection points it might get rid of the problem. No one will be motivated by points anymore and start voting fairly.

[LittleWashu]

At 12/13/10 06:58 PM, Hornby wrote: Maybe if Tom removed Blam and Protection points it might get rid of the problem. No one will be motivated by points anymore and start voting fairly.

I doubt it. If that happened then people may not vote at all. Why do you think people vote for the movies that come in? To get the points that is why. Remove that and the portal will come to a complete stop.

[TMdrummer]

Honestly, as of late, all I have been doing on NG is the bbs. Not very much at that.

[CyanSandwich]

I think this guy votes fairly.

sarcasm and hypocrisy

[tolerateu]

At 12/13/10 03:33 PM, Ronald-McDonald-LoL wrote: TLDR: Watch the flash before you vote.

Oh, now you tell me =P

coted 0 by the way, now it's like 1.17.....should be blammed soon enough....not really the point of the thread but a good capup.

[Kollskegg]

It's the internet.