News: Meet The New Rating System!

FreakinMeany FreakinMeany — June 5, 2009
A few weeks ago or so I mentioned in the forums that I was working on a revision to the rating system. I'm happy to say that the changes are complete and have been pushed live!

It's a dramatic change, and you'll notice right away that it's now a standard 5-star rating system that I'm sure you're familiar with. Simplifying it in this way is a huge improvement over the old system, being much faster and far, far easier to use.

In addition to the cosmetic change, there are some other wonderful benefits of the new system:
  • You can now rate maps with a single-click.
  • You can rate maps from anywhere you see the rating stars. Currently, that includes the home page, browsing, search results and the map detail pages.
  • You can now re-rate maps at any time, allowing you to fix mistakes, change your mind, or adjust your opinion after you've spent more time with a map.
  • Results of the ratings are calculated in real-time.
  • Your rating is always displayed so you don't have to dig to find out what your rating was.

The only odd thing worth mentioning is that because the old rating system was an 11-point scale (0-10), I had to come up with a way to translate all of the old ratings to the new 5-point scale. I think I did a fair job but you may encounter a few ratings here and there that need adjusting. The good news is that now you can :)

There are a couple of improvements yet to be made, but the basics are there and functioning. Let me know if you have any issues, questions or feedback.
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Comments

  • Manticore Manticore — June 12, 2009
    Yeah, just noticed this while I was rating a map. For a minute there I couldn't work out where the ratings link had gone. :lol:

    Pros: Immediacy of use and accessibility. The ability to re-rate maps later.

    Cons: I did like the old system where construction and gameplay were factored separately. Obviously it was more complex but allowed me to be picky. :D

    I'm sure I'll get used to it.
  • FreakinMeany FreakinMeany — June 12, 2009
    Thanks for the feedback, Manticore. And I agree, it was nice to have the multiple categories. But in my analysis of the system, other mappings sites and people's opinions, I observed one thing: When in comes to a preference of a single rating over multiple categories, the results were pretty much evenly split.

    But the real takeaway was this — and you even exhibited it yourself :D

    The people who liked "single" ratings would rarely spend the time to rate categories,
    BUT the people who preferred categories WOULD spend time/adapt to rating with a single rating system.*

    So far with the new system, it's looking good. We're already at double the average number of monthly ratings for the past year and it's still the middle of the month!

    With all that said though, I'm always in a constant state of learning. If we discover that the single ratings are poop, I'll consider changing it again to make it better.

    *Actually, I think StoneViper was one of the very few who said he would mutiny against the site if I changed it to single rating. But he is an exception having only rated 14 maps since the site's launch almost 7 years ago. ;) :D :P
  • Manticore Manticore — June 12, 2009
    Originally posted by FreakinMeany: "We're already at double the average number of monthly ratings for the past year and it's still the middle of the month!"
    .... and that's probably the biggest pro for the system. As far as accessibility and ease of use go it's a winner based on your statistics there.

    It's great that the system is successful and bringing in the ratings.8)

    As I said, I'm sure I'll get used to it. :)

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