CHANGES to the PROJECTS section of the web site

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               Recently I noticed that the PROJECTS section of the web site have changed. It was originally setup to order the list of projects in the order of their popularity (by vote total) a system that allowed what the community viewed as 'good' to be at the top of the list. Presently, the system has been changed, now you can ONLY order the list by

DOWNLOADS (problem with this is a catch-22, to get downloads people have to be able to find your project, if your project is 'down the list' as it logically must be at the end of it when you start a project, you can NEVER organically get enough downloads to get into the list unless you somehow drive hoards of users from outside to the project page you will have NO hope to get listed highly on the 'download' list).

MOST VIEWS (problem with this is again a catch-22, only those who have high views (as in were started first) will ever be at the top of this list - again, unless you can drive huge numbers of viewers from other parts of the internet to your project page, you will never be highly ranked here).

DATE UPDATED (problem here is, all you need to do is SPAM the updates and you can stay at the top of the list, or at least annoying people will likely do this as it is about the only way left to get to the top of any of the lists).

DATE CREATED (problem here is, without a time machine, you will never get your project listed at the top, unless you were on this site since day one).

PROJECT TITLE (problem here is OBVIOUS; anyone who starts their project name with enough punctuation or '0' (zeros) can be at the top of the list).



THE OLD SYSTEM WAS BETTER and should at LEAST be put back as a sort option, since it allowed the COMMUNITY TO VOTE and thereby act to assure that the best sites get listed highest on the list.


PLEASE EA - PUT BACK THIS SORT OPTION FOR US. It is particularly dissappointing for those of us who were getting enough votes to be in the top five - only to be dumped from visibility. PLAYERS have been voting for us, don't their votes count for something?!?!?



Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA

http://playnwn.com
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Agreed. +1
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               i think the change was pretty obivous - peoples cheated with the + button, told their friends to register and press it etc.

its actually a good things since the + button was quite hidden and for example projects like solaufein with 700downloads had less than 20 votes...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               The + was at the upper right corner of the page, not hidden at all, a big green plus sign. Do you have proof of 'cheating' as you defined it here? I am unaware of any such action, although such is _possible_ it seems rather unlikely; more likely that game enthusiasts who _bother_ to voice their opinion do so on the game's forum per the instructions. Granted I only use the NWN portion of the thing, and the meager 10-to-20-odd votes that we in the top 10 spots with NWN had hardly seem like any cheating was done (I mean, heck, MY family is hundreds in number). My own had just over 20 votes after about 800 views, and a bit more than 100 downloads - certainly no cheating there; the numbers added pretty steadilly.

In short, I have no evidence of cheating and do not see any great advantage to be gained by such petty actions. Of course, if you have evidence or some such to bear out the thought of cheaters, please do unveil the data.

Meanwhile, BIOWARE, please put back that option to see the listing by players' votes.

Be well. Game on!
GM_ODA
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ehye_khandee, 05 mai 2012 - 09:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Lightfoot8]

               The Topic is site related,  You may wnat to repost it on the  BioWare General boards. 

Bioware will see it there a lot faster.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               Seriously, this issue is a bit neurotic.  I can understand the concept of visibility but, TBH, unless someone is heading for the Project just to download the top ten vote getters, ton ten highest downloads or those only within immediate view, the order on the list will not change who downloads what.  The general public is only correct 1/3 of time anyway so we are all subject to our own resourcefulness to obtain what we want. Those of us who are searching for a specific utility or content will peruse the entire list until we find what we want.  And then... It's always a sound policy to provide oneself with a few alternatives... so I wouldn't stop checking until I found a few substitute candidates.  Notoriety of authorship has already been established by this point and we all know who they are, no?  There are no mystery builders out there and only few newcomers so the community pretty much knows the quality associated with each author.  Naturally, lack of prudence in shopping presents its own pitfalls so user beware.

I think it is much ado about nothing especially since our "Big Brother" seems to be in the habit of setting forum policy on the fly without consulting the community anymore.  Hell, make it alphabetical for all I care or based on the cutest avatar.  '>  I'll find what I want and vote accordingly, if I feel voting serves an objective purpose. 

BTW, no matter what listing method is implemented it can exploited by any one without scruples.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               Being at the top of a list means more eyes on that list will see your listing than if you were ten pages down. That is a fact and that is why it is, for example, important to be ranked highly in search engines. People look until they find what they want (or give up) - but, even if you do not, many DO look to the votes cast by others to see if there are any in the list meriting a personal recon..

Removing a sort option from those available - especially one that eliminates the usefulness of the 'voting' public, essentially puts ZERO value on the opinion of the players. That is very very poor thinking as I see it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               There's only one NWN Project that has a status of RELEASED, so no worries really. :happy:

The real question is, what project was on the first page for this to be such an issue?

Anyways, word of mouth is the best medicine.

FP!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Fester Pot, 06 mai 2012 - 01:26 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ehye_khandee]

               Some projects are not meant to be 'released' but rather simply played/dm'd on.

Just because one method is viewed as 'superior' (a subjective judgement)is no reason to eschew other methods; it behooves a server admin to use ALL reasonable methods to attract players and DMs. For a fact the + key is a form of computer age, word of mouth.

ArgentumRegio was on the front page of the nwn project list, third place and rising too. I watched it for MONTHS and now, poof, gone. I still say the + is as good a method as any to enable players to endorse (or not) any given server.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

                

ehye_khandee wrote... 

I dont think the + cheats was issue in NWN, but might have been at DAO for which were project created.

ehye_khandee wrote...

Some projects are not meant to be 'released' but rather simply played/dm'd on.

Just because one method is viewed as 'superior' (a subjective judgement)is no reason to eschew other methods; it behooves a server admin to use ALL reasonable methods to attract players and DMs. For a fact the + key is a form of computer age, word of mouth.

ArgentumRegio was on the front page of the nwn project list, third place and rising too. I watched it for MONTHS and now, poof, gone. I still say the + is as good a method as any to enable players to endorse (or not) any given server.

On the other side, I agree with this, there are also projects that has wrong category set (mostly because trere aren't categories for all games like BGII). There is also missing listing projects by the date of creation - newest.

Projects on these forums are generally very poorly treated and overlooked anyway. Albums are bugged (at least on my project and forum programmers obviously doesnt care), deleting posts on forum will leave useless message "this post was deleted", comments are listed by the oldest and newer will not appear unless you click on next page so developer might miss comments very easily. Files are very limited with extensions (why not 7zip omg, the difference between my patch packed in zip and 7zip is nearly 30mb), unability to use html in project description and unability to use NEWLINE in files descriptions... And now they changed the last thing that worked properly '>