Staredit Network

Though this really only concerns MillenniumArmy, who wants to pour his heart and soul into the section, I'll ask everyone. Any features we want for the reviews database in v5?

I'm roughly halfway through coding it (in my opinion), and I can't really finish it completely until it's ready to be hooked up to the DLDB.

So far...
* No longer limited to UMS maps. Any file in the DLDB can be reviewed (well, programs and such may not have a point, but if it's got an ID number in the DLDB, it "can" be reviewed ).
* File must be in the DLDB to be reviewed.
* Anyone can write a review, but staff must approve. The approving staffer can give a reward of minerals/vespene gas depending on how awesome they felt the review was.
* Ratings are done in free form text with BBCode, the only numerical rating is an overall rating of 0 to 10, and the person can even say N/A if they want all text.

I hope entering text into ratings is optional also. You're going to end up with a lot of "Entering text just to give rating blah blah blah 1234etcetc".

I'm not sure about having to manually reward each review, but I guess that's better than nothing.

Like the tutorials I was thinking it would be more effective if there was a way to link DB entries with threads. Then people can review the map as a forum post instead of having to go through a separate function. Most people will comment on a map in its thread anyway where there's more likely to be discussion, so I think that should be put to use somehow.

Rating is selected via a dropdown menu. This way we don't have "it's not as good as that other 10, so let's put 9.999" type of stuff.

Maybe a review team membergroup?

Sounds good

- Is the approval thing going to work just like the DLDB one? Where everytime a review is approved, they get an automatic PM from the approver saying it was approved?
- So can I write on the mainpage or something what kind of reviews get accepted and what don't or something? Something like a guideline?

ADDITION:

As in like they get their own group color?

It seems what IP is doing is just having a "Staff" group with individual permissions doled out as needed. Well, assuming we have membergroups. -_-

Well obviously we should keep the member groups, but yes I think staff grounds need to be more consolidated.

SEN will have 2... maybe 3 member groups: Staff & Members.
I don't like the manual approve thing. I think I pointed out earlier, bad reviews should get deleted... with random scanning and a report function. I want to write out a globalized report function so you can just code senv5 like $report = $display->insert_report($id); and blam! That's it. No fooling around in every script.

Uh... like the DLDB, I want to move away from manual approval of everything. The reviews was supposed to be linked to the DLDB in such a way that it kills the need to manually approve either of them. Review a new file = greater possibility for rewards (minerals, gas) = faster reviews and faster "omg, this file should be deleted" reports to staff = dealing with only the crap that needs to be dealt with.

Rating on reviews would be a good indication on other reviews that can get a few minerals.
Function -> sort reviews with highest rating with no reward

Just like the DLDB
Function -> sort maps with the crappiest ratings and most "this should probably be deleted" values to find out which maps need to die

Tux's system (more or less?)... it's a very good one.

We'll see about auto-approval. If everyone jumps up their keyboards and floods us with 10000 reviews, manual approval is obviously not going to work.

Moderating reviews manually could still work. It'd be like moderating posts but in a different context. Unless there's a DB refresh and by consequence a huge influx of maps and reviews thereof (which'd likely only be transient until all the old maps got resubmitted), you could probably manage it.

Still, the best and "ideal" way to do anything is to automate it. That of course would be the challenge, though.

Why not just modify the current Comments system so people can add a comprehensive rated review if they wish, or just leave a comment if they want to be brief?

Manually approving Reviews is better IMO. First, you can control what kind of reviews get displayed and what don't. Secondly, it takes time to write a good lengthed review so I highly doubt people are going to spam us with reviews. Thirdly, moderating reviews does not require you to open up SC; so even if you are away on vacation or something, you can still inspect/review a review.

Even if people submit hundreds of reviews, most of them are going to get deleted. Unfortunately, most people do not know how to write good reviews. Good reviews do not equate to giving accurate ratings (infact there's no such things as accurate ratings since it's all opinion); it means telling the reader almost everything about the map from your point of view and your thoughts about it's functionality and the gameplay.

That's why I wanted to moderate the reviews section; because I want to ensure that only quality reviews get submitted.

You can home on in a map's quality by getting a diverse sample of reviews, though. Problem is getting diversity. Most people will review either what they really like or really hate, as far I can see it. That's why I'm thinking rewards are needed to encourage less popular maps to get coverage.

Probably can stick with manual moderation of people's reviews, though.

I want the community to learn to manage itself.

I would think the authors themselves would report retarded reviews on their own files. That's how it starts off good.


And DTBK, this NEEDS to happen for the better of SEN. There's a lot better things to do to improve SEN than reading countless reviews or constantly going through submitted files. It'll be just like the forums... we can't read all the posts... or instantly stop stupid ones... why is reviews so different? It'll actually be easier if people actually rate the reviews on usefulness.

I'm going to try. It all plays out nicely in my head. Here we go:

We have the DLDB, works mostly like before but there is no pre-approval (except for things containing .exe's). Users submit maps.
Other users review these submissions, critiqueing the map on gameplay and etc, generalized rating 1 to 10, but more importantly, alerting us to which maps aren't worthy to be in the database. The idea here, for them, is that good first reviews get rewarded first than a good review 50th on the list, more or less. We also have a simple report button for users who wish to tell us a map is utter crap without writting a review, necessarily.
Other such users can rate a review on 1 to 10 on it's worthiness. No reward necessarily, but it'll bump up better reviews to the top of the pile and crapty ones will go down the list, if not deleted. This is where the submitter, if the author, comes back into play. If I was an author of a map, I would be checking the reviews and if someone was being stupid, I would report it to get it off my file.

People who manage the DLDB can do random checking on files, reviews, whateverm besides the "this file is getting horrible reviews / 'not worthy to be in the database' values." Here is what furthers the system's usefulness: if a manager checks out a file (at random or otherwise), s/he can put his stamp of approval on the file, keeping it out of the automatic "this file might need to be checked" list.

If the managers still proceed to go through every file, more power to them. But they won't necessarily need to do so. Ultimately, the goal is faster approval, more user interaction, community management, and actually BETTER checking of files, opposed to one person checking the files out. And that makes it worth the try.

And so I'm going to try that. And so... Moose, I don't want to disregard(?) your effort and time, but I want the reviews to be apart of the dldb itself, in the manner described above.

If we can assume the rewards for helping with staff functions like reviews are worth it to people, then that might work.


Had a new idea recently when looking at maplantis's option of picking more than one type of "report" to give a map. You could expand on that by making it possible to take the place of writing full reviews altogether, where instead users can pick out terms to "describe" the map from a set provided in a list or box or something. That way the software itself would have something to work with to know a map's qualities. How's that for automation?

Theoretically with that it'd even being able to use the descriptions provided to automatically move maps to the categories they're most appropriate for (useful if categories were to change later), create "most difficult defense map" or "most disturbing movie map" or other abstract categories, filter out bad ones, etc. Of course anything that ends up on the filter queue would have to be checked by moderators. Plus maps found in the wrong place can be "reported" separately to counter abuse.


I don't know. Just an idea I was thinking about.

Like... write a review in pre-selected multiple choice anwsers? Sounds very un-reviewish... unless that's just part of the review.

Well I meant for general people who'd otherwise bother with little more than a side comment and a 1-5 rating.