Snipers

[Sunset]

Can't you do anything about, origami? Please? My maps, as well as others are getting sniped like mad by a multi-accounter. I don't know who, but can't you atleast try to find out who it is? I may not be smart at this admin stuff, but can't you track people rating/commenting on maps? Please atleast try!

[sidke]

Can't you do anything about, origami? Please? My maps, as well as others are getting sniped like mad by a multi-accounter. I don't know who, but can't you atleast try to find out who it is? I may not be smart at this admin stuff, but can't you track people rating/commenting on maps? Please atleast try!

No, you can't see who rates what map what rating. You can't see anything about an account that can link it to another account other than the assumption based on how he types/acts and whether the emails are about the same. :/

[Scrivener]

http://www.nmaps.net/190745

[sidke]

http://www.nmaps.net/190745

You /do/ realize how stupid that is, right?
Once you all rate your little group with fives and the opposing group with zeroes, another little group will pop up going 'these guys are always getting fives and we're sick of it.' Then /they'll/ start up their movement to rate their maps fives while giving your maps zeroes.
This is so silly and pathetic, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Too bad I don't give a damn to do either.

[Nexx]

Can't you do anything about, origami? Please? My maps, as well as others are getting sniped like mad by a multi-accounter. I don't know who, but can't you atleast try to find out who it is? I may not be smart at this admin stuff, but can't you track people rating/commenting on maps? Please atleast try!

Yeah, it sucks. No, the admins can't do anything about it because that's the way NUMA was set up, sadly. Again: yeah, it sucks. All I can say is use the Map-Rating/Map-Commenting Threads to gather legitimate ratings on the maps you feel have been sniped (note: you have to rate/comment the latest in order to post your own!), and also make sure you're playing nice (you would be surprised how many guys we see bitching about being sniped when, if you take a gander at their own comments, they're not exactly a saint themselves).

[Pikman]

In the past, I've considered delisting my newest maps until they build up five legitimate rates from the rating/commenting threads. You could always try that.

[Pheidippides]

Ratings hardly mean anything anymore anyway. Heck, they hardly meant anything when I first got here, and that was three years ago. The best remedy is indifference. You make maps because you want to make maps, right? Keep doing that, and screw the ratings. If they're good, then good for you. If somebody goes on a sniping spree, such is life. If that really gets under your skin, disable ratings on your maps.

This same conversation has happened a hundred times over, and the moral of the story is this: Ratings aren't everything.

[rocket_thumped]

numa admins used to be able to see who rated what. I guess maybe it changed with newma.

[Leaff]

Why do you guys care this much? Just ignore it and move on.

[Nexx]

Ratings hardly mean anything anymore anyway. The best remedy is indifference. You make maps because you want to make maps, right? Keep doing that, and screw the ratings. If they're good, then good for you. If somebody goes on a sniping spree, such is life. If that really gets under your skin, disable ratings on your maps.

There is good advice here, but it is hidden under a skin of falsehood. (Leaff's comment above is further propagation of that falsehood)

It's true that you should map because you enjoy it, not so that you can gain fame or please the crowd or whatever other reasons there could be. Therefore, ratings don't matter so much, BUT THEY STILL MATTER. If you put your heart and soul into your maps and the "general public" rejects them, YOU CARE. And you should care! All reasonable human beings care about social acceptance.

So, when snipers come along and fuck with your "social acceptance gauge" (so to speak), YOU CARE. And good for you that you care! It's a healthy thing to do! But, truth be told, there is nothing to do but move on (or you can try to remedy the situation somewhat by using the threads I linked to earlier). I would also advise you to pay attention to comments as well as ratings, because a few good comments can make your day (in my experience).

Additionally, I would personally advise against disabling ratings, though my argument for that is lengthy and not really relevant. Basically, I would suggest you decide personally if you think the rating system on NUMA is worth anything, and if the answer is yes, don't disable ratings, and if it's no, then do disable ratings.

[rocket_thumped]

you could always just disable ratings. Then, if they continue to harass you with comments just flag them and we could work something out within the rules.

[squibbles]

The argument of "Rates are unimportant, comments are what you should value" is inherently flawed, because rates cause a map to float on HotMaps, thus enabling it to receive more comments.

Rates are important, as they are the means for receiving comments.

[Scrivener]

my first post was just to show who the sniper was. beyond that I must say rates mean absolutely nothing. many of you know I had an old account, Minion_of_Pi, and I was obsessed with rates. then I realized that rates had stopped reflecting the quality of maps. so I created script and now am simply on strike against rates.
yo squibbles: solution: everybody disables ratings. XD this also allows every map to get the same amount of attention/feedback, because they're all on hotmaps the same length.
or everybody could just stop rating maps. same result.

[origami_alligator]

yo squibbles: solution: everybody disables ratings. XD this also allows every map to get the same amount of attention/feedback, because they're all on hotmaps the same length.
or everybody could just stop rating maps. same result.

Actually, the time spent on Hot Maps would then be dependent on the rate of submissions, Scrivener. Between 3 and 4pm (PST) there might be 20 maps submitted, while between midnight and 6am (PST) there might be 20 maps submitted. Thus between 3 and 4pm (PST) a map would be knocked off the Hot Maps page faster than between midnight and 6am (PST).

The float values aim to correct this, but often the float values don't correct this. The only real solution is to click the "Next 10" link at the bottom of the page to see maps submitted earlier.

Ratings do not reflect the quality of your map and don't reflect your popularity. All they do is give a meaningless evaluation of one person's opinion of you as an author, the map itself, and various other factors (such as previous sniping, friendships, the "bandwagon" effect, etc.).

I also wonder why people viciously argue that ratings are important even when ratings are the number one complaint about NUMA. People complain about ratings more than they complain about site functionality and that's just ridiculous.

[Nexx]

beyond that I must say rates mean absolutely nothing.

Seriously? Nothing at all? I think you are being melodramatic. I dare you to browse through rated NUMA maps and play 10 maps rated 1-2, then 10 maps rated 4-5, then come back and tell me there's no difference in quality. I double dare you. Oh wait! There are apparently several recent maps that are rated 1-2 because they've been massively sniped. But this just proves our point: snipers disrupt the system!

then I realized that rates had stopped reflecting the quality of maps.

What was so different about NUMA sometime in the past that ratings meant something? Again, I think you're being melodramatic. It is arguable that ratings are less meaningful nowadays then they were, say, 3 years ago. It is not arguable that they were meaningful 3 years ago, and are worthless now. Sorry, no. If something underwent a dramatic change, it was your own mindset, not NUMA.

yo squibbles: solution: everybody disables ratings. XD this also allows every map to get the same amount of attention/feedback, because they're all on hotmaps the same length.
or everybody could just stop rating maps. same result.

I have a simpler solution: disable the float/sink system. Now ratings can still hang around and do their job.

Take home message:
All y'all who say ratings are meaningless, I think you have completely the wrong idea of what a rating is supposed to do. A public rating is NOT supposed to tell you whether or not you're going to like the map. If that's what you think ratings are for, then no ratings anywhere will ever mean anything to you. That's just not how it works. Ratings are just a quick snapshot of the opinions of those who have rated. You take it with a grain of salt. Yes, it's based on other people's opinions, and you can't be sure who those people are, or how similar their likes are to yours, or how similar their ideas of the ratings system are to yours. So yeah, lots of variables. Still a decent indicator as far as general trends go. THAT'S WHY SITES HAVE RATING SYSTEMS. In fact, I dare you to try to come up with a better system! Comments? Same problem. Faves? Same problem. So long as it's a public aggregate, you're stuck with a shitload of variability. Get over it, and move on to the part where you see that it still has some meaning.

I also wonder why people viciously argue that ratings are important even when ratings are the number one complaint about NUMA. People complain about ratings more than they complain about site functionality and that's just ridiculous.

Dammit southpaw, you too? Well here, I thought about it for ~5-10 seconds, and I came up with the following idea: people bitch about ratings because they are important to people! Consequently, when they get messed up, people bitch! And yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of pointless bitching going on (because there's always a lot of that), but I'm trying to say that some portion of the bitching is meaningful. When you see a nub map that's 5/5 from 8 people, that doesn't annoy you? When you see a non-terrible map with 0/5 or 1/5 from 18 people, that doesn't annoy you? If it honestly doesn't, then I need to have a conversation with you. Anyway, I don't even understand your second sentence, because a rating system *is* a website functionality, just like commenting, faving, featuring, user profiles, tag searches, etc. All of those are functionalities.

[Scrivener]

responding to the above post, which i actually found very insightful:

part of the reason i said rates mean nothing is because of the sniper this thread is about, and snipers in general, because a snipe usually means a rate that is not actually related to the rater's opinion of the map. so snipes mean nothing, in the context of map quality.
sorry for being unclear about this: rates don't mean /nothing./ sorry. basically what I meant was what southpaw said.

I can't say much about how NUMA used to be, as I've only been here for about a year and a half. But I know that now almost every rated map is rated a 4. except now there's this sniper multiaccounter, which means that if you search for rated maps you basically get maps rated 4 and maps rated 1 or 0. of course there is variation, but if you type "rated" in the search box, and compile the results.... hmm i think i'll go do that

edit: i looked at the last 80 maps, you can do more if you feel like it. numbers of maps that had the following ratings were:
0: 3
1: 7
2: 7
3: 8
4: 44
5: 11
most of the 0s, 1s and 2s (if not all) were sniped by this new guy. If you looked back further, you wouldn't find many 0s 1s and 2s at all.

disabling (or severely altering) the float system is a good idea. for the exact same reasons that i listed.

and to southpaw, about map submission rates: I think that would be at least partly annulled because while there are more maps being submitted, there are more people on to play the maps, so they still get attention.

[origami_alligator]

I also wonder why people viciously argue that ratings are important even when ratings are the number one complaint about NUMA. People complain about ratings more than they complain about site functionality and that's just ridiculous.

Dammit southpaw, you too? Well here, I thought about it for ~5-10 seconds, and I came up with the following idea: people bitch about ratings because they are important to people! Consequently, when they get messed up, people bitch! And yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of pointless bitching going on (because there's always a lot of that), but I'm trying to say that some portion of the bitching is meaningful. When you see a nub map that's 5/5 from 8 people, that doesn't annoy you? When you see a non-terrible map with 0/5 or 1/5 from 18 people, that doesn't annoy you? If it honestly doesn't, then I need to have a conversation with you. Anyway, I don't even understand your second sentence, because a rating system *is* a website functionality, just like commenting, faving, featuring, user profiles, tag searches, etc. All of those are functionalities.

What I meant was, it's the only part of the site which functions exactly as it needs to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ratings system itself. You're all bitching about how other people abuse the rating system and never take the time to consider how you might abuse the rating system. You're all bitching about how ratings matter because they reflect the opinion of a portion of the community and then you hate it when people rate their friends maps higher or when a sniper comes along and "ruins" the "perceived quality" of your map. You're all bitching about all sorts of things that we've been bitching about FOR 5 YEARS, and where has it gotten anybody? Just a flame war here and a flame war there and a whole lot of people that are bitter because nobody else came up with a valid argument or a decent solution. If it were up to me I'd scrap the ratings system entirely and we'd just show how many times a map was favourited. Unfortunately people like to have something to bitch about, so I'd assume that utopian system would get shot down by the community in a heartbeat.

To answer the final portion of your post, no, it does not bother me when one map is rated 5/5 from 8 people and another map is rated 1/5 from 18 people. I don't care anymore because I don't contribute to the ratings system. I haven't rated a map in over 8 months. I haven't had ratings enabled on my submitted maps for about that long as well. How can I care if I don't contribute? When you figure that one out, let me know.

[Spawn of Yanni]

I didn't even think snipers were a part of the community any more. Rather, there aren't really dedicated users spending long periods of time bringing down map ratings. Someone sincerely rates a map a 2 or a 3 because that's what they think it's worth and you will invariably see the author commenting "Snip'd. Oh well!" on his own map. Those users that mass-snipe for no reason come around only every once in a such-and-such. The majority of the maps that have been "sniped" have... well, not.

Maps that are hanging around at 0s 1s and 2s certainly aren't victims of sniping because they require at least 5 people to have the same opinion, and unless the other 4 people have rated the map 3 then a sniper really can't bring it all the way down from a perfect rating to 2. ( (4 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 0)/25 is still a 4 star rating, for example)

I think as a website NUMA should have a sort by ratings feature. I think we managed, as a community, to justify to ourselves taking off the sort-by-ratings feature a while back and I'm not sure it's working out - not particularly because it gave a fantastic, definitive list (it didn't) but because it gives mappers something to shoot for. A refined version of the top maps list, certainly - something that takes into account playability, definitely, and something that takes into account time spent on the list. That is to say, Hot Maps had the concept dead on, but the execution didn't work out. From there, with this list in place, it's up to the users to decide whether or not they want to consider it significant - right now we've forced our opinion onto users that a top rated list isn't significant, and naturally they're complaining.

That's pretty much certainly not going to happen on NUMA, especially with maestro's new project coming up on the horizon, which has the potential to deal with a bunch of problems.

[otters~1]

As Yanni said, we need the ratings system if only for sorting, at least for the time being, but what purpose does the rate-floating still serve? We could do without that.

[im_bad_at_n]

Maps that are hanging around at 0s 1s and 2s certainly aren't victims of sniping because they require at least 5 people to have the same opinion, and unless the other 4 people have rated the map 3 then a sniper really can't bring it all the way down from a perfect rating to 2. ( (4 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 0)/25 is still a 4 star rating, for example)

well not true in all cases. certainly true in some, but not all. Take my last TWO maps into account. Both are rated a 2 with 21 (TWENTY ONE) rates. 21! (or more) thats a mass sniper at action. Sure a map with 5 ratings might have a snipe that doesnt affect them overall, but i dont think 21 people felt my map was bad while it was on the hot maps... it would drop too fast for them all to rate/play.

Here are the two maps:

[Spawn of Yanni]

Maps that are hanging around at 0s 1s and 2s certainly aren't victims of sniping because they require at least 5 people to have the same opinion, and unless the other 4 people have rated the map 3 then a sniper really can't bring it all the way down from a perfect rating to 2. ( (4 + 5 + 5 + 4 + 0)/25 is still a 4 star rating, for example)

well not true in all cases. certainly true in some, but not all. Take my last TWO maps into account. Both are rated a 2 with 21 (TWENTY ONE) rates. 21! (or more) thats a mass sniper at action. Sure a map with 5 ratings might have a snipe that doesnt affect them overall, but i dont think 21 people felt my map was bad while it was on the hot maps... it would drop too fast for them all to rate/play.

Here are the two maps:

... huh. I stand corrected.

[Nexx]

But I know that now almost every rated map is rated a 4.

There are a fair amount of 3's and 5's around, but it is true that 4 is the most common rating. But again, I have trouble believing that you really thought this through. Please tell me, if you will, why people are going to play a map if it looks like a bad map? People are looking for good maps to play, not just random maps. Again, tastes vary significantly in any community, but there are still some broad patterns to be found, and one of them is that obviously bad submissions (in this case, maps) don't get much attention. And why should they? By definition, you can tell at a glance that they are not worth your time to look at. Consequently, these submissions don't get a public rating, skewing the results of public ratings upward.

Another thing I will point out, again, is that you have to take public ratings with a grain of salt. Go look up some shitty movie on IMDb. I bet you its rating is at least 20% higher than it should be. In short: the general public tends to be easy to please, and the more discerning consumers of a particular medium will always find that public aggregates tend to be inflated, in their eyes. (aside from just general variation, which I spoke about in my previous post)

What I meant was, it's the only part of the site which functions exactly as it needs to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ratings system itself.

You may think you are saying something insightful here, but you are not. Consider the function of a moderator: it is solely to keep the users in check. It has little to do with glitches and bugs, and very much to do with preventing and controlling dickishness. If you need a specific example, the most common way dickishness is perpetrated is actually in the commenting system, which also "functions exactly as it needs to". The only difference is that mods can do something about comments, whereas they can't do anything about rates, so they just end up frustrated with those kind of complaints.

You're all bitching about how other people abuse the rating system and never take the time to consider how you might abuse the rating system. You're all bitching about how ratings matter because they reflect the opinion of a portion of the community and then you hate it when people rate their friends maps higher or when a sniper comes along and "ruins" the "perceived quality" of your map.

*sigh* Yes, there are a lot of idiots who do this. You may have noticed that I am not one of them. My point is: there are legitimate concerns here. I keep saying that, and I keep giving you the logic behind those, and all you seem to be able to say in return is "people are idiots and only have illegitimate concerns!" I would gladly accept: "Sorry, Avarin, your concerns aren't illegitimate, but sadly they are far in the minority, so there is little point in discussing them."

You're all bitching about all sorts of things that we've been bitching about FOR 5 YEARS, and where has it gotten anybody?

This goes back to there being no active coder for NUMA. The site is not changing, but meanwhile people are not happy. When there is a spark, expect it to ignite flames. Those flames will eventually die out because what else is there to do? But come next spark, those same flames are likely to return because, again, the site is not changing, but people are not happy with it.

If it were up to me I'd scrap the ratings system entirely and we'd just show how many times a map was favourited. Unfortunately people like to have something to bitch about, so I'd assume that utopian system would get shot down by the community in a heartbeat.

(1) I actually think your idea is insightful, and I plan to host a more cogent discussion of it in a separate thread.
(2) Yes, people do always have something to bitch about. The best possible solution to anything is going to be bitched about by a significant number of people. It doesn't mean it's not the best possible solution.

[otters~1]

So, until we have an active coder, can't we lock these threads instead of restating ourselves endlessly in them?

[terrazza]

Maybe this is why they took out .5 ratings

[Cheez]

*hint hint*