Change to Review System

[runningninja]

I know most people will likely disagree, but I think we should go back to bitesizing. Just have the featured map queue display a random bitesized map every 24 hours. No reviews, nothing, just bitesizing.

[lord_day]

Right,I'm going to add some thoughts to this rambling thread.

- Mandatory proof reading is dumb. If you are a reviewer it is YOUR job to make sure your review is up to standard, the burden is on YOU. Occasional mistakes are forgivable, more frequent errors are not. If English isn't your native language, have some who is fluent in English check your over your review before you post it. There are plenty of people around who I'm sure will be willing to help.

- Reviewers should just submit better reviews. It sounds simple, but lots of reviewers aren't doing it. Current reviews, in general, have a low writing quality . Here I'm not talking about grammatical accuracy, but more the readability of the writing. Make sure what you are writing is easy to read, and make sure it makes sense!

(The combination of the above two points raises the question on how certain people became reviewers, but I guess the answer is just based on lack of numbers?)

Featured maps is about displaying maps that are worth being featured, new or old. As a suggestion to newer reviewers, you should try searching through a broad range of maps, and not just recent ones, to find interesting maps to review. That way, there will much less of an obvious bias for you to feature newer maps. At the same time, no one should be complaining when new maps are featured. That is up to the reviewers discretion.

On a more positive note, I promise to try and be a better reviewer, and submit more reviews.

[TommyWiseau24]

Mandatory proofreading seems... vaguely authoritarian too. I think that's my main issue.

[Sunset]

Mandatory proofreading seems... vaguely authoritarian too. I think that's my main issue.

There's nothing wrong with that, honestly.

[Pizzles, M.D.]

Right,I'm going to add some thoughts to this rambling thread.

- Mandatory proof reading is dumb. If you are a reviewer it is YOUR job to make sure your review is up to standard, the burden is on YOU. Occasional mistakes are forgivable, more frequent errors are not. If English isn't your native language, have some who is fluent in English check your over your review before you post it. There are plenty of people around who I'm sure will be willing to help.

- Reviewers should just submit better reviews. It sounds simple, but lots of reviewers aren't doing it. Current reviews, in general, have a low writing quality . Here I'm not talking about grammatical accuracy, but more the readability of the writing. Make sure what you are writing is easy to read, and make sure it makes sense!

(The combination of the above two points raises the question on how certain people became reviewers, but I guess the answer is just based on lack of numbers?)

Featured maps is about displaying maps that are worth being featured, new or old. As a suggestion to newer reviewers, you should try searching through a broad range of maps, and not just recent ones, to find interesting maps to review. That way, there will much less of an obvious bias for you to feature newer maps. At the same time, no one should be complaining when new maps are featured. That is up to the reviewers discretion.

On a more positive note, I promise to try and be a better reviewer, and submit more reviews.

Gonna go back on what I said and just agree with l_d. I don't think each and every reviewer needs someone to proofread their reviews, and those that do should put in the extra effort to have them proofread on their own accord. Over time those reviewers should get better at writing and hopefully not even need it anymore. If they are not putting in the effort to be good reviewers, then they should stop reviewing altogether.

[Leonidas]

Mandatory proofreading seems... vaguely authoritarian too. I think that's my main issue.

I agree. What is this, a dictatorship? It is the reviewers job to proofread.

[otters~1]

lord_day, the problem with your points is that they necessitate the implementation of some sort of punishment. I am completely for this, but people will complain, because quality of a given review is subjective. Many people like story reviews. Many people hate story reviews. Do I fire people who only write story reviews because their reviews aren't good enough? You haven't proposed a solution.

Are you all blind? I don't get it. "Write better reviews, everyone" is not helpful. Inevitably the quality falls as longtime reviewers get tired and quit. We cannot have quality and quantity at once for longer than a few months -- if we could, we would have years ago.

This brings me to what Sunset's actual opening post was about. Do we want to start having reviewers sign up for every other day? I would argue that, with about six people reaching out to me because of this thread, we don't need to do that yet. There are enough reviewers for the moment to keep things going. Should we keep it on the table for the eventual collapse back to the status quo? Definitely.

Continue to PM me sample reviews!

[otters~1]

A second post, because the subject is entirely different.

Proofreading seems to have rustled feathers. I can't possibly see how, but making it mandatory isn't unanimous, so forget it. I will say that it is strongly suggested, especially for the few of you who have had trouble with English grammar in the past. A PM to me, or an IRC message to me or any active reviewer, will probably do the trick. This takes three minutes and prevents you from being a laughingstock. If it continues to be a problem, I guess I'll start to demote people*. Let's leave that nebulous for now, because I don't want it to happen anyway.




*I also sometimes do this if I get on NUMA drunk; sorry in advance.

[Godless]

hahaha numa is like a dictatorship see.

[runningninja]

making it mandatory isn't unanimous

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

[Leonidas]

making it mandatory isn't unanimous

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

The default internet spell checker should, unless i am completely mis-remembering. Maybe it is because I use google chrome, but I think it automatically spell checks for me real-time when i type a review in the box.

[zoasBE]

making it mandatory isn't unanimous

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

Wow! You have said too much.
LOLOLOL.

EDIT: btw, who are you?

[Sunset]

making it mandatory isn't unanimous

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

Wow! You have said too much.
LOLOLOL.

EDIT: btw, who are you?

He's Jesus, bro.

[unoriginal name]

hey so just for everyone's benefit since i am apparently THE ONLY PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who still remembers what happened to the (Future) Featured Maps functionality, this is the basic story:

arachnid had set up some kinda algorithm so that reviews didn't just go out in the order they were subbed (as in those honeyed days people would actually write and submit multiple reviews at a time), and for some reason it kept pushing one map to the bottom (this one, if you're curious). like, for weeks. so one day atob decides to fix this, he being an admin at the time. now, as a present-day admin, i don't actually know how he did this, maybe it was something that broke with the queue, but atob forced all the queued reviews through at once, giving the green_ghost map its time and depriving five or six others of theirs. here's an extremely overwrought cry-fest from yours truly in response to that. having vomited forth all those maps at once, the queue promptly shut down and refused to accept any more and that's the way it's been ever since.

honestly getting nid back to fix the queue somehow would solve a lot of our issues probably at least for a while. i know that it would inspire me to actually use my reviewer status in more than the stubborn, corruptly symbolic way i do now, and just generally would make things worlds easier. it's kind of a miracle we've been able to keep it going as well as we have.

[otters~1]

=the queue promptly shut down and refused to accept anymore and that's the way it's been ever since.

wonderful. it's like dougals adams is back alive

[Leonidas]

making it mandatory isn't unanimous

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

Wow! You have said too much.
LOLOLOL.

EDIT: btw, who are you?

He was the main rebel in the tetris takeover

[thevdude]

I'm an N player from a long LONG time ago (started making maps on NUMA sometime around 2005, as the_V_Dude). I think I remember having to apply for and being accepted for bitesizing maps. I'd be more than willing to do some reviews or even help add some features (I do web development now) if needed.

I've only been back for a short time, so I don't know much about decline of review quality, but I do know that there's plenty of great maps from way back that could be dug up for newer players to try out.

/me shrugs

Off to rebeat the game, since I haven't had it since forever ago, I miss my colors. MTI is going to be a pain again. :(

[unoriginal name]

we actually do have some web devs in the community, the issue is arachnid, the guy who created numa, is the only guy with any actual power to change it under the hood so to speak and he hasn't stopped by for well over a year.


welcome back, though, and feel free to apply, we obviously could use more competent reviewers.

[Leonidas]

Comments on my review today? It has got a few positive comments so far. If I may say so myself, I think it was a pretty good story review.

[ska]

I'm an N player from a long LONG time ago (started making maps on NUMA sometime around 2005, as the_V_Dude). I think I remember having to apply for and being accepted for bitesizing maps. I'd be more than willing to do some reviews or even help add some features (I do web development now) if needed.

I've only been back for a short time, so I don't know much about decline of review quality, but I do know that there's plenty of great maps from way back that could be dug up for newer players to try out.

/me shrugs

Off to rebeat the game, since I haven't had it since forever ago, I miss my colors. MTI is going to be a pain again. :(

hello. I remember you, (I was Ben_Schultz_11 on numa back then)

[runningninja]

You forget that this was never a democracy of any kind. This is an oligarchy ruthlessly dictated by those in the upper echelon of administration.
This is somewhat frivolous, but is there any way that the review submission page can automatically put the review through a spell/grammar check? As a veteran Grammar Nazi, I believe proper grammar and spelling must be instated. When I returned to NUMA and saw "jealous" horribly misspelled on the front page, I assumed that metanet had just gone to complete shit. These reviews represent the community, and we need to recognize the power that these reviews may have on new and returning members.

Wow! You have said too much.
LOLOLOL.

EDIT: btw, who are you?

He was the main rebel in the tetris takeover

Reading the N wikia have you?
In response to Zoas: I am your mother.
Perhaps we could have 5 or 6 proofreaders, whose only responsibility is to proofread reviews before submission. Also, google chrome does do spell check, but, unfortunately, only cool people use chrome.
And there aren't many cool people left in the world.

[乳头的早餐谷物]

Having mandatory proofreaders as a staff position is unnecessary. Anyone who can't be trusted to submit properly proofread reviews—checked by someone else first if they do not feel confident in their own proofreading—absolutely should not be posting reviews.

[thevdude]

A system where it can be edited after being put up (by trusted users?) so if it's there and all ugly it can be fixed? I agree though that it's not really excusable to have things like "jalous" in the feature.

If you're ESL and reviewing, PM me your review and I'll proof it and send it back to you, ready to go for the feature.

[otters~1]

Having mandatory proofreaders as a staff position is unnecessary. Anyone who can't be trusted to submit properly proofread reviews—checked by someone else first if they do not feel confident in their own proofreading—absolutely should not be posting reviews.

Okay. Yep. We are done with this discussion because maestro is right. I am going to start getting rid of people who make too many typos, the end.

ceteris paribus

[runningninja]

Having mandatory proofreaders as a staff position is unnecessary. Anyone who can't be trusted to submit properly proofread reviews—checked by someone else first if they do not feel confident in their own proofreading—absolutely should not be posting reviews.

Okay. Yep. We are done with this discussion because maestro is right. I am going to start getting rid of people who make too many typos, the end.

ceteris paribus

And the oligarchy begins