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Are zero-bombs "permanent" now?

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Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-21 18:25:58


Audio Portal's voting system seems to have gotten a script update so that you can only vote once on a file per lifetime -- or so it appears. I'm wondering if I'm missing something, but this was mentioned before as a change to the system in order to combat unfairness and abuse. However, from what I see, this will have dastardly implications in the case of zero-bombing; if a song is zeroed by more than one user on this system, there will be no way to 'balance it out' other than to get more publicity to your song, when by default, zero-bombed songs get less publicity due to the way the ranking system works. In this sense, a zero is now effectively a permanent blemish on a score, especially if it's zeroed early on.

Upside to this system is that people apparently now cannot consistently zero someone's work, but the downside is that returning listeners can't award their favorite song another 5 for brightening their days. I do this when I stumble upon a favorite like, say, ParagonX9 or Dimrain47 that hasn't been around for a while. I haven't checked to see if the inability to vote extends beyond a few days, but it makes me sad, all the same. I don't really think this was thought about before the system was implemented.

Your thoughts?


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-21 18:31:03


Didn't want to say anything because the effort was made to help us out but yeah I agree, there needs to be a different solution because this one just doesn't work. For all the reasons you stated.


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Perhaps the tracking system? Because b0mbers usually b0mb what they see in the portal front and the first page of each section (popular, best of the month, etc.) and 0 them all at once. So I think those who 0 too much submissions in the short time and 0 only on high-rating submissions (excludes self-vote) can be tracked easily imo. Anyway, I didn't tell that it should be a bot for banning. Just make the bot report the b0mbers to mods or admins for consideration. But if you think this is a bad idea, I'm all ears. :)

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-21 19:11:23


IMO, this is a much better system than before. Zero bombs were always "permanent blemishes" - this system just stops zero bombers from doing it more than once.

Now all we need is to make votes public. I know it sounds insane, but plenty of other sites have done it, and they don't seem to have gone to pieces.


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At 7/21/15 07:11 PM, johnfn wrote: IMO, this is a much better system than before. Zero bombs were always "permanent blemishes" - this system just stops zero bombers from doing it more than once.

Now all we need is to make votes public. I know it sounds insane, but plenty of other sites have done it, and they don't seem to have gone to pieces.

Seconded this too. Or just partial like play store did? (With that graph, it's pretty obvious that b0mbers are there.)

Are zero-bombs


At 7/21/15 07:11 PM, johnfn wrote: Now all we need is to make votes public. I know it sounds insane, but plenty of other sites have done it, and they don't seem to have gone to pieces.
At 7/21/15 07:06 PM, Noisysundae wrote: Just make the bot report the b0mbers to mods or admins for consideration. But if you think this is a bad idea, I'm all ears. :)

I think if we combined a bot that reported consistent zero bombers (Hell, A-Bot, maybe) -- reporting ips or usernames with more than 3 or 4 zero votes in a row or more than 10 a day/in short succession to mods -- plus making votes public, it would really enforce the accountability that this system is sort of skipping over. It's reminiscent of YouTube's like/dislike feature now, only the votes you place are just a degree of thumbs up or down, and you can't see a finite score either. That's irritating. I haven't checked any posts from @TomFulp on this yet; the last one I saw on the subject was just a brief mention that the overhaul would be happening, with focus more on reviews than final scores, which would be archived.

I agree that zeroes have always been a permanent blemish, but I don't think the solution is nerfing all voters' say. Reviews are permanent, one time things, until the 'edit review' feature is (maybe) added down the road. I see no reason votes should be the same, and, for me, it will take a lot of fun out of revisiting the old classics I used to listen to, if NG won't let me express my love for them more than twice in a lifetime -- one vote, one review, end of story.

This being said, I respect the Newgrounds team for trying to improve the site and ensure fairness. I just don't think every angle was taken into account.

edit:
@noisysundae -- Good point with the graph. Respecting anonymity is important as well, especially considering the flash portal, where people might not want others to know about their fiving "Sex Kitten Sim" or some other game. Perhaps if the decision was made to do full, instead, the A-rated portion of the site be excluded from that. Partial doesn't seem to discourage bombers much, though.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-21 21:07:42


Zero bombers WILL only zero bomg your track once though, if they don't have a personao grudge against you that causes them to search up your track every day just to give you a zero rating. Thus this system won't really help against zero bombers at all. The only people that actually votes on a track multiple times are loyal fans that want's to balance out zero bombing on a track. Now that we can only vote once on each submission, I'm afraid the audio portal scores will drop quite a bit.


Just a random idiot

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 03:10:38


Maybe they should add an option that when you zero bomb you are forced to write a review.


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At 7/21/15 09:07 PM, Ectisity wrote: Zero bombers WILL only zero bomg your track once though, if they don't have a personao grudge against you that causes them to search up your track every day just to give you a zero rating. Thus this system won't really help against zero bombers at all. The only people that actually votes on a track multiple times are loyal fans that want's to balance out zero bombing on a track. Now that we can only vote once on each submission, I'm afraid the audio portal scores will drop quite a bit.

My point exactly. Thank you for saying this in a way that people can actually digest, not like my standard drivel. You get a cookie.

Does anyone else think we should take these concerns to the Wi/Ht suggestion or General boards? The audio forum is a bit of a small community by comparison to General, and NG bbs is a vast minefield to navigate. I wonder if these ideas will get much traction just here in our little corner.

At 7/22/15 03:10 AM, Mattashi wrote: Maybe they should add an option that when you zero bomb you are forced to write a review.

Or nix voting entirely, and force people to review to leave a score. Would probably cut down on unjustifiable low scores and encourage feedback.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 06:49:03


How is it about if you are only alowed to vote if you listened to the whole track? It would stop people from just clicking track by track and give a zero. It also would make voting a bit fairer since people are forced to listen to a whole track before voting in any case. Of course there is still the possibility to dodge this by loading several tracks at once and waiting five minutes. At least it would complicate things...

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 11:49:46


At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted? (just like the new score change). Keep the rating system for comments the same (out of 5 stars) but then we could move away from 0 + 5 bombing.

Have the thumbs-up score exist for a track for 1 year and then get 'archived' away afterwards. Top 50 per genre could always be determined by default to be the most popular of the month instead of overall lifetime score.

It's also an awesome way of bringing back the old Gold and Platinum record awards which I remember when listening to NG audio back in my school days haha.

I completely agree with you. Having a system where you either give a positive score or no score will negate both 0 and 5 bombing. It will also help to fix the wierd scoring system in the top audio list. The audio portal is still fresh compared to the otherportals, so there are still a few problems to tend to, but the admins and mods work their butts of trying to make this place the best possible, so I think they are still experimenting. Why not post your idea in the "Ways to improve the Audio portal thread"?


Just a random idiot

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 12:55:59


At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted?

Been saying it for years. Scores don't work for subjective content. It needs to go period imo.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 16:29:23


At 7/22/15 12:55 PM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted?
Been saying it for years. Scores don't work for subjective content. It needs to go period imo.

But what about sites that issue scores, like Pitchfork, Allmusic, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic... etc? It seems to work just fine for them.


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At 7/21/15 06:25 PM, EDM364 wrote: I don't really think this was thought about before the system was implemented.

This has been discussed and analyzed multiple times over the years.

At 7/21/15 06:31 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Didn't want to say anything because the effort was made to help us out but yeah I agree, there needs to be a different solution because this one just doesn't work. For all the reasons you stated.

You know, this just goes to show that we can never please everyone, even when it's a change that seemed like it would be supported by an overwhelming majority of users (who knows, maybe it was).

A primary driver of this was constant complaints from users about zero bombing, especially on the audio portal. I've seen complaints about this since day one more than anything else in fact. It's been brought up almost every single week since I started working for NG, sometimes more than once.

Even the recent sing-a-long submissions had a few zero bombing users which really surprised me. I did some analysis on the votes on those submissions, and I found that zero bombers tended to vote more than once twice as much as people who voted higher. One user voted 0 on those four submissions a total of 57 times.

This problem is compounded by voting power. A person who votes more gets a higher score and subsequently gets more voting power, which means that a daily zero bomb could be worth as much as 8 or more votes!

So in this instance - and I think this was generally true for most submissions from what I saw - people who went back and voted 0 did so far more than the people who voted higher. I think it's simply human nature to feel far more motivated to do something if you feel negative about it than if you feel positive about it.

Overall I think that this was a net positive change for most content creators on the site. It doesn't solve every problem with voting, but with relatively minimal effort we were able to solve this major problem. While you can't go back and vote on favorites, you also can't go back daily and zero bomb stuff you don't like (or submissions done by people you don't like) which was happening far more often like I said.

And as far as I'm concerned, there is no longer such a thing as "zero bombing." To me, that was when a user repeatedly went back and voted zero on a submission. Now that you can't do that, a vote is just a vote. That would also happen with thumbs up/down as well.

I don't think making votes public makes sense either for the simple fact that maybe not everyone wants people to know what they vote on and that would discourage some people from voting at all and we certainly don't need that. Plus I really don't think it's going to do any good to "name and shame" people who vote 0 on a submission if that's the idea.

We give people the choice to vote between 0 and 5, and if someone wants to vote a 0 then that is certainly their prerogative and there is no shame in that (even as upsetting as it is to receive that 0 vote). I don't see a 0 vote as a "permanent blemish on a score" either - it's just a vote.

Even if we go to a Facebook system of only providing a like or thumbs up, that would basically be the same thing to me. A thumbs down or dislike would be implied and submissions would probably still be sorted by likes/thumbs up.

So it's not a perfect system, but I think it's better now than it was before...and hopefully most users agree.

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 19:12:47


At 7/21/15 06:31 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Didn't want to say anything

By the way, I wasn't trying to be harsh to either of you. Hopefully I brought up some additional points to consider even if you still don't like the change.

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 20:32:21


You should make a song so good that they have no choice but to give you a good rating


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 22:18:19


I love most all of these ideas here guys, but I think we need to stop beating around the bush, so I guess I'll be the one to say it.

We need to have a system in place where anybody who likes our material can personally fly up to our residencies, have them get down on their knees, and perform fellatio on us for as long as they want. We must also grant users the ability to write multiple 5 star reviews that are essentially metaphorical versions of the aforementioned fellatio. We're musicians, after all! We worked hard on those tracks!

As for those cold, callous, heartless, evil, racist people that vote zero on our submissions? They will inevitably be subject to an eternity of everlasting fire for having the audacity to desecrate our tracks with their vile opinions. But in terms of earthly punishments, we can make their experience on Newgrounds as unpleasant as possible by having a weekly front page list of all of their names plastered in boldface right next to the tankman. After having them stand before a tribunal, which would be more of a formality than anything, we will forever ridicule them into either liking us or completely leaving the site. After all, if you don't like something, don't listen to it!

These are our demands, @Brentheman. We expect you and the entire adminstrative team to uphold them.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 23:39:05


At 7/22/15 07:12 PM, BrenTheMan wrote:
At 7/21/15 06:31 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Didn't want to say anything
By the way, I wasn't trying to be harsh to either of you. Hopefully I brought up some additional points to consider even if you still don't like the change.

Yus, all's good. I read this in your original post on the previous thread and I agree it's pretty crazy data. Still gets on my nerves that people can get away with it at all though. Nothing is worth 0 points really.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-22 23:48:31


At 7/22/15 11:39 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Nothing is worth 0 points really.

I'd have to agree there. At this point I just look at 0 votes as a thumbs down.

Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-23 02:12:35


At 7/23/15 01:34 AM, TheDukeofJuke wrote: I think the reviews should be connected with the ratings. That way if someone wants to zero-bomb content, they have to explain why. And if they can't, they can get kicked off the site.

I disagree with the "kicked off the site" bit, but maybe it would be better for NG as a whole if, to leave a score, you had to write a review. That would mean more feedback to the creator as well as less 0 or 5 bombing. I'm using the term 'bomb' a bit liberally here, as in either case, you wouldn't be able to vote multiple times.

As a creator, I could definitely deal with that, but with this system, we still have the anonymous 0 voters. Only now, they'll just beeline down the new submissions once and be done. If they had to leave a review to do it, maybe that would help. Time has proven that reviews more often than not tend to leave a more honest score.

At 7/22/15 11:48 PM, BrenTheMan wrote:
At 7/22/15 11:39 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Nothing is worth 0 points really.
I'd have to agree there. At this point I just look at 0 votes as a thumbs down.

I disagree, only a little. Look at some ear rape spam in the AP. To me, that's a zero; a 5 is professional sounding and catchy, and a 4 is almost there -- so on down to 1, which is just short of ear rape. I don't encounter many zeroes or ones, but they're there. Most are being deleted over the years.

Hell, maybe the audio portal should have a judgement section like the flash portal, for all we know, but that's a topic for another time.

Giving some great food for thought here. Thanks. :)


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At 7/23/15 02:19 AM, Voltage wrote:
At 7/21/15 07:06 PM, Noisysundae wrote: Perhaps the tracking system? Because b0mbers usually b0mb what they see in the portal front and the first page of each section (popular, best of the month, etc.) and 0 them all at once.
This should seriously constitute a year's worth ban for too many 0's in such a short time. It's almost inhuman to just 0 bomb so many things in such a short time.

Agreed. At least now they can't do it more than once, but a ban would keep them from doing so for a long time. Perhaps a system to have them banned and the votes that lead to the ban removed from the score?

Also, currently, there is no way to change your vote. If you misclick and leave a zero? Too bad. Now not only can you not go back the next few days and five it to even out your mistake, but the zero is there forever.

Another thing to think about, since the Audio and Art portals are young -- the flash portal has records of blams and saves, pretty much a karmic representation of a voter's decisions in the UJ section. It doesn't say what they voted 0 or 1 on, and blams were deleted for their unworthiness. A user with a high number of blams over saves, however, just looking at how many flashes on average pass over how many do not (Clock Day may contribute to the high number if we go monthly), can be concluded to vote either universally or selectively much lower than other users.

I'm not sure if vote tracking in the AP just tracks the votes on individual tracks by IPs/usernames in a way that could be useful if we want to monitor abuse, other than just serial zeroing, but if there were some representation of voting habits available in the form of an average, we could possibly cut down on people just going through and zeroing.

I think it's also important that we look at why people serially zero material. Anarchy? Envy?


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At 7/22/15 08:32 PM, SmokeAvery wrote: You should make a song so good that they have no choice but to give you a good rating

The thing is, those people don't even listen to your song. They just go in, b0mb, and leave no matter how good or what genre you made. That's the sad story. :(
(I saw a few fresh submissions got unreasonably 0'd as their first vote.)

At 7/23/15 02:19 AM, Voltage wrote: This should seriously constitute a year's worth ban for too many 0's in such a short time. It's almost inhuman to just 0 bomb so many things in such a short time.

Oh yes. They're inhuman. XD
They did 0 everything in their sight except their favorites. I knew this when one of my submissions got into best of the month page. It was b0mbed daily. After it dropped to page 2, the votes went silent for like 4-5 days. And you can take a screenshot of best of the month and compare it to what you see a week later. You'll definitely see some submissions go down too deep. (not sure in this permavote era though)

At 7/23/15 01:34 AM, TheDukeofJuke wrote: I think the reviews should be connected with the ratings. That way if someone wants to zero-bomb content, they have to explain why. And if they can't, they can get kicked off the site.

I've seen Tom's reply in some therads that implementing it might result in many junk reviews (or no review and vote at all) and eventually ruin the review system as well or something. I'm neutral on this idea anyway.


At 7/22/15 05:43 PM, BrenTheMan wrote:
So in this instance - and I think this was generally true for most submissions from what I saw - people who went back and voted 0 did so far more than the people who voted higher. I think it's simply human nature to feel far more motivated to do something if you feel negative about it than if you feel positive about it.

Overall I think that this was a net positive change for most content creators on the site. It doesn't solve every problem with voting, but with relatively minimal effort we were able to solve this major problem. While you can't go back and vote on favorites, you also can't go back daily and zero bomb stuff you don't like (or submissions done by people you don't like) which was happening far more often like I said.

And as far as I'm concerned, there is no longer such a thing as "zero bombing." To me, that was when a user repeatedly went back and voted zero on a submission. Now that you can't do that, a vote is just a vote. That would also happen with thumbs up/down as well.

After reading about the voting system changes and thinking about it, I have to agree it is a good change, for the reasons above.
People trowing zeros for fun (or hate) are no longer allowed to give all their BS to a single target, they will get bored and hopefully give up, or at least they will be forced to "dilute" the hate into smaller particles distributed through all the portal.


I don't think making votes public makes sense either for the simple fact that maybe not everyone wants people to know what they vote on and that would discourage some people from voting at all and we certainly don't need that. Plus I really don't think it's going to do any good to "name and shame" people who vote 0 on a submission if that's the idea.

Completely agree on this as well, this will be far more shameful for us if we allow such a thing.


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At 7/23/15 03:14 AM, Noisysundae wrote: Oh yes. They're inhuman. XD
They did 0 everything in their sight except their favorites. I knew this when one of my submissions got into best of the month page. It was b0mbed daily. After it dropped to page 2, the votes went silent for like 4-5 days.

This happened to me too when one of my tracks made it to the best of the year pane. I had posted up a thank you message, but two weeks later, it was gone from the front page. After that, the score didn't change.

The new fix addresses that but it doesn't stop people from serial zeroing and it doesn't promote feedback, so we're far from a good system. Now, the users who helped against zero bombing in the past are powerless to upvote previously bombed tracks, and bombers will likely just make multiple accounts unless it tracks by IP. If it does track by IP, users in the same household can't vote on the same submission, which sucks also.


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-23 06:41:05


Make it so reviews and ratings are possible only if the track was listened to entirely.
Also bring me a beer!


Salut!

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Merci!

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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-23 07:14:59


At 7/23/15 06:41 AM, Daru925 wrote: Make it so reviews and ratings are possible only if the track was listened to entirely.
Also bring me a beer!

That's a little gratuitous. If we're going to do something like that, I'd say 15-30 seconds would suffice. It also wouldn't stop people senselessly zeroing. They'd just mute and wait.


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At 7/22/15 04:29 PM, johnfn wrote:
At 7/22/15 12:55 PM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted?
Been saying it for years. Scores don't work for subjective content. It needs to go period imo.
But what about sites that issue scores, like Pitchfork, Allmusic, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic... etc? It seems to work just fine for them.

Look at the majority of the sources. Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic. These are websites that don't sort or depend on their algorithm generated by anonymous user scores. Their intent is to rate commercial or indie music to give you an idea of how they feel about, but it's not at the forefront of sorting and publication. With Allmusic, they are also reviewed by allmusic themselves. Scoring to these websites is a feature. Newgrounds is different. Newgrounds is self-published content, and then that depends on an algorithm to sort and label an artists quality through users who gain more to make others have a lower score, with zero repercussions to hate on things. Mix that it with a low teenage demographic and you have a recipe for disaster - which is why people constantly talk about.

You hear it all the time. People say "just ignore the scores." Yet, the entire website depends on them to sort it's content. Likes are far more positive, and suffice, likes are also proven to push for feedback, comments and community integration. You need to look at self publish websites rather than websites reviewing content released on another domain. To see how sorting doesn't need scores, and neither does Newgrounds. Self publishing websites like Artstation, Deviantart, soundcloud, Vimeo and most importantly and the largest entertainment website, Youtube prove that they are irrelevant to content spreading, and finding what you want to see, hear and watch. Newgrounds has a strong community, yet it chooses to depend on fairly random algorithms to sort the content. The randomization coming from the users abuse of the system. I've spoke to Tom about this, and although he had a lot of positive things to say about the idea the jump to Scores to No Scores so the artist and content could be seen rather than the score he also said could be detrimental to the website. Which I agree with, because Newground's dependency on it is now so hard coded there may be no going back without upsetting a huge fan base.

There are other options we discussed that would help, so that it would hit the users too hard. Such as optional hidden scores, so no judgement from them would be impacted. Scores were only for those who would comment, is another. But like we've seen with websites and software, games, etc. To keep up with the times, starting fresh can be the best solution. It doesn't mean Newgrounds charm, layout drive or distinct look should vanish, though. That's the website's USP.

To conclude though, what purpose does the score serve? Does it matter what an averaged score is? Nope, it's creative and therefore subjective. The user nor its viewers gain from it. Does that score impact in what you would score it? Nope, it shouldn't, and if it does that therefore implies your influenced by it, which is wrong. Does it make the majority of users who arent popular feel good? Nope, it doesn't because it's a negative system. You tend to start of with a high score, then get blammed. So what does it do? Nothing more than sort your tracks among the rest. So if the result of the score is to sort the content through an algorithm, and it can't do that efficiently (for reasons mentioned above) then to move Newgrounds forward away from this continuous downward spiral is to make the score what it should be, a feature not a core mechanic.

We once had a debate about it, the thread was called. Newgrounds: The System.


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At 7/23/15 09:40 AM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 04:29 PM, johnfn wrote:
At 7/22/15 12:55 PM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted?
Been saying it for years. Scores don't work for subjective content. It needs to go period imo.
But what about sites that issue scores, like Pitchfork, Allmusic, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic... etc? It seems to work just fine for them.
Look at the majority of the sources. Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic. These are websites that don't sort or depend on their algorithm generated by anonymous user scores.

I'll just stop you right there :P They absolutely do sort and depend on this algorithm. Metacritic has top of the year lists, and IMDB has top of all time lists. Rateyourmusic has both. Yelp has "Best of your area" lists, which is sorted by score.

People use these top lists all the time - they're possibly the core draw to these services.

FWIW, I completely disagree that "likes" should be some sort of core statistic that determines everything. "Likes" is just another way to say "popularity" and the entire point of a scoring system is to surface good content without regards to popularity. Which, by the way, the services I mentioned above do a really good job of!


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-23 14:51:56


At 7/23/15 01:16 PM, johnfn wrote:
At 7/23/15 09:40 AM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 04:29 PM, johnfn wrote:
At 7/22/15 12:55 PM, PeterSatera wrote:
At 7/22/15 10:59 AM, Lich wrote: How about we just abolish the scoring system entirely for the Audio Portal and just have a thumbs-up system which locks it down to one-up+ per account per submission voted?
Been saying it for years. Scores don't work for subjective content. It needs to go period imo.
But what about sites that issue scores, like Pitchfork, Allmusic, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic... etc? It seems to work just fine for them.
Look at the majority of the sources. Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Metacritic, IMDB, Yelp, Rateyourmusic. These are websites that don't sort or depend on their algorithm generated by anonymous user scores.
I'll just stop you right there :P They absolutely do sort and depend on this algorithm. Metacritic has top of the year lists, and IMDB has top of all time lists. Rateyourmusic has both. Yelp has "Best of your area" lists, which is sorted by score.

People use these top lists all the time - they're possibly the core draw to these services.

FWIW, I completely disagree that "likes" should be some sort of core statistic that determines everything. "Likes" is just another way to say "popularity" and the entire point of a scoring system is to surface good content without regards to popularity. Which, by the way, the services I mentioned above do a really good job of!

I know what you mean, but lists of the top 100 movies isn't produced by metacritic or imdb, they don't make the movies, so the movies aren't effected by those scores. Plus both use their search engine as their main feature and the core mechanic is reviews and information. When we you go on these websites you know what your looking for. IMDB is all about finding info on a movie which exists. You know what you're go for. So as I say, the scores aren't the core mechanic just a small feature.

Likes isn't a core mechanic either, but it defines positive feedback rather than negative. YouTube as I say show how to sort user based content without the dependency of scores. running millions of users and visits to the content they seek. You can't do that here you have to wade through music before finding what you like. The majority of people I watch come from the forums, and its a very common thing here. That's proof itself that design by score it's not good for user based content. No system is perfect, but NGs has large issues deep rooted. :)


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Response to Are zero-bombs "permanent" now? 2015-07-23 14:53:28


@johnfn and @PeterSatera, both of you make damn good points.

Hidden score until a user has voted may help to enforce fair voting. It does sway people.

Organizing song line-ups by score also feeds the serial zero bombers, too, who gain from lowering others scores either psychologically or in terms of their own rankings. Perhaps organizing by plays or favorites would be better, but then new music wouldn't get much if any time in the spotlight, due to pre-existing tracks, and you'd have a best-of portal of classics from '06, lol. Organizing them by review average may better reflect quality. Higher averages would attract more reviewers over time due to placement and thus more accurate ratings.

Perhaps the Audio and Art portals should have a UJ similar to the Flash Portal that would count toward a sort of blam/save stat. Combined with the above, passing audio/art would likely garner reviews and thus be placed accordingly after passing. Voila, scores still have some relevance, after much coding, and both portals receive some much needed attention.

Just some thought food I've been thinking on as I read these replies. There are really a lot of ways the voting system could be handled better with regards to ensuring integrity, honesty, and accountability. As is, people voting abusively are just moderately inconvenienced, and if people are saying "ignore the scores", there is a reason they are not considered relevant. I believe this is it. Don't get me wrong, I love voting, and I used to do it for hours as a tween, when I first discovered NG.


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