Under Judgment Voting

[WadeFulp]

We have decided to experiment with a timer on the vote bar for users who watch entries that are "Under Judgment." Basically it delays the vote bar from appearing for a certain amount of time based on the size of the entry. So a 5MB entry would result in the vote bar being hidden for about 50 seconds. If the entry is 10k, the vote bar will appear almost instantly after the movie/game window is launched. We may play around and adjust the length of time the vote bar is delayed.

We still have problems with people not watching new content and voting based on who the author is, or other factors. Now that people have to wait for the vote bar to appear we are hoping they will watch more of the entry before casting their vote.

For those of you who want to defy the system and vote based on who the author is, keep in mind more people will be watching the entry and will base their vote on the content of the entry, not who submitted it. If you want to maximize the amount of BLAM and SAVE points you earn you need to watch the entry and cast an informed vote!

Some people may feel the timer is an inconvenience, but it shouldn't be if you are voting properly. If you complain about the delay then you aren't the type of person we want voting on Under Judgment entries. We award BLAM and SAVE points as a reward for taking the time to wade (har har) through all the new entries that flood into the Flash Portal on a daily basis. We want people to take their time and vote fairly.

[BlackVivi]

Great stuff ^^

[AngryToaster]

It sounds like a good idea. It just sucks that you can't stop the people who vote based on who the author is or what kind of flash it is.

[PimkPimp]

thnx for that

[mynamewontfitin]

Good idea. Ill feel safer when submitting now.

[Tri-Nitro-Toluene]

This would explain why the vote bar didn't appear when I watched an under judgment movie. not a bad idea but it's going to be a tad annoiyng if we watch a movie with a large filesize that we know is going to be crap within the first 10 seconds of it and then having to wait for maybe a minute to be able to vote. Can't complain though if this keeps crpa out of the portal.

[Tommy]

Sounds fair, good work guys !

[deslona]

I agree it is a lot more fair, but it will really dent my blamming rate :(
Ha, I can live with that :)
But what about resubmissions? And *ahem* obvious blams? I guess we will have to suck it up :'( ?

[FatherVenom]

You're a little late. There have been some threads on this already, but thanks for making it prominent. And thanks for the new feature.

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:21 PM, AngryToaster wrote: It sounds like a good idea. It just sucks that you can't stop the people who vote based on who the author is or what kind of flash it is.

The system works very well for the most part. There are things passing that shouldn't, and maybe things being blammed that shouldn't, but for the most part when this happens it isn't a major problem. However, if we can add features that don't have a negative impact on users who are using our system properly and can result in a more fair outcome, we will put them in place whenever possible.

I'm thinking we should have a minimum delay for all entries. What if all entries, including a 10k pile of crap, made you wait 15-30 seconds to vote?

[PureLionHeart]

Yup, I noticed that. There was a thread about it in Wi/Ht. Shouldn't be any change to me, really. May get annoying on movies that are nothing but a little stick fight with unoptimized audio, boosting their file size, but shouldn't be too big an issue.

[Bengal]

I bet my left nut that the amount of people who usually vote on under judgement flashes goes down

[iscrulz]

Yes now everyone knows about it. pieoncar estimated the amount of delay pretty well. I think since the expeaction of what a good flash is has been raised due current events (professional awards etc) You will still see o.k. flash being blammed, because of this.

[Earfetish]

Aaah, you've made it more difficult to get crap through judgement.

[Makaio]

i think its a good idea,it will be an inconvenience for the entries that are horrible and have uncompressed audio and the ones that are just an avi or somthing but for the most part it will help alot.

Are you guys planning to do anything about the mass voting zZero on any entry that gets on the top 50?
i guess its up to them but i still think its unfair.

[Dr-Nefarious]

Good idea Wade.

[Mazza]

Looks like a nice idea. Only problem I've had was that I had to wait for ages for a crappy flash with uncompressed audio to load, but a minute isn't all that much time wasted.

[Tri-Nitro-Toluene]

IVe just noticed a problem with this system though. With some of the movies I justw atche din the portal that wer eundejudgment the movie was still loading but the BAr had appeared so it might not be as effective as you want it to be :-\ if it does this. It might just be my pc though.

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:23 PM, FatherVenom wrote: You're a little late. There have been some threads on this already, but thanks for making it prominent. And thanks for the new feature.

I'm a little late huh? Maybe we didn't want to make an official announcement until we had some feedback from the regulars. So I can't make a front page post to inform a larger % of our audience about a new feature because someone else already posted about it on our forums where a very, VERY, small % of our audience may read about it?

[totoum]

everyone was complaining a while ago because they didn't know what was happening

i think it's a good idea, the fact that this time is based on the file size will make it work, crap movies that deserve to be blammed are always small

[iamnone]

i noticed it several hours ago and thought something is wrong with my browser. had to refresh several times because of it, apparently for nothing.
glad to hear that you guys still improve the portal.

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:23 PM, -Manic- wrote: This would explain why the vote bar didn't appear when I watched an under judgment movie. not a bad idea but it's going to be a tad annoiyng if we watch a movie with a large filesize that we know is going to be crap within the first 10 seconds of it and then having to wait for maybe a minute to be able to vote. Can't complain though if this keeps crpa out of the portal.

If people want their points, they will watch and wait. If they don't feel like waiting, they can let someone else have the points.

[liam]

At 3/23/05 03:19 PM, WadeFulp wrote: blah

I noticed that, I wondered what was going on. There was a really crap flash (by a level 1 guy, so I couldnt blow the whistle.. he hadn't changed sound quality) that was about 10 seconds long... I see why now and think it's a great idea. Thanks wade. And Tom, well everyone!

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:25 PM, Pure_LionHeart wrote: Yup, I noticed that. There was a thread about it in Wi/Ht. Shouldn't be any change to me, really. May get annoying on movies that are nothing but a little stick fight with unoptimized audio, boosting their file size, but shouldn't be too big an issue.

Some very good entries start off with a silly intro that is supposed to look like crap. If you rushed to vote, you may never watch it long enough to see the great entry that follows the intro.

On the other hand, some users have been submitting content with a nice preloader and intro, but then it's just a blank screen with a 4-5MB audio file. If people watched a few seconds longer they would have realized it was crap and blammed it, instead of protecting it.

People really need to watch through as much as possible.

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:25 PM, -Bengal- wrote: I bet my left nut that the amount of people who usually vote on under judgement flashes goes down

This might be a good thing. If people are just going through as fast as they can to rack up points and are now turned off, good. It will allow people who take their time to watch the entries to get more points.

[TehreTard]

this also helps us to be patient

[Crimson-Nova]

Yes, good idea. This shouldn't really affect users' blam/save rate, because everyone is going to have to wait the same amount of time to cast their vote anyway.

[masterchief2888]

At 3/23/05 03:19 PM, WadeFulp wrote: We have decided to experiment with a timer on the vote bar for users who watch entries that are "Under Judgment." Basically it delays the vote bar from appearing for a certain amount of time based on the size of the entry. So a 5MB entry would result in the vote bar being hidden for about 50 seconds. If the entry is 10k, the vote bar will appear almost instantly after the movie/game window is launched. We may play around and adjust the length of time the vote bar is delayed.

Oh I thought something was wrong with my browzer now i know what was happening.I like the new feature It makes voting more accurate ....

[WadeFulp]

At 3/23/05 03:25 PM, Iscrulz wrote: Yes now everyone knows about it. pieoncar estimated the amount of delay pretty well. I think since the expeaction of what a good flash is has been raised due current events (professional awards etc) You will still see o.k. flash being blammed, because of this.

Man, I have seen some idiotic statements, but this one is really dumb. Just because we are giving out awards to good Flash doesn't mean people should start blamming anything that isn't incredibly good.

[Tremour]

It's always nice to see you combat the scourage that is unfair voting. Go you, Cruasader Wade.

No, seriously though, more could be done. For one, you could hide the fact that the author has made any other flash. Some people just look down and go "Oh, this guy has gotten [x] flashes past judgement, he must be good, I guess I'll vote high" and vice-versa for people with a grand total of, wait for it, 0 submissions. Another thing you could do is disable access to the author's profile during judgement, as it contains the battling average (or lack of) of the author. Hell, if you wanted to go the whole hog, you could remove all details completely, including the authors name. Only the movie and voting panel would be displayed, meaning there would be no prejudice, what so ever. Well, apart from the preloader.