User Ratings

Many people have said it would be better to get rid of the rating system, and I'm starting to side with them...

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I agree, the only real use it even has is for simfile categories; even then, I'm sure another method can easily be implemented to give simfile categories for those who want them.

I think it would be better if we had a simple +1 and -1 button on people's individual posts. You plus one it if it's a good post (NOT SOMETHING YOU JUST AGREE WITH) and minus one if it's a post of glaringly bad quality. It'd be a lot better than just having a rating system on individual person imo.

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The problem is that we'd still find some way to fuck that system up. I'm fine with the current system since I learned to ignore it. I think the best way to fix the rating system is to constantly remind new members that ratings don't matter.

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The ratings on this site are just like the points on Whose Line is it Anyway. Everything's made up and the points don't matter; that's right, it doesn't matter... Just like rapid in the phrase "rapid transit."

Well, they should've been. There was a time when ratings actually did more than just being there. If you had a negative of 100 you got banned. And I'm somewhat glad now after a while that this rule was abolished. If there's something I learnt from when I hanged around in forums like these, it is that a forum is not working at all if people get too afraid of posting the wrong things. Even now, if I, for example, happen to write something which causes people to take ill and bomb me with -5's, of course I'd panic and hesitate from posting for a while. (Admittedly, this has actually happened once before here, but I'll leave it at that.)

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It does matter if you want to get a simfile category and you've been posting for nearly a year, but never followed the secret rules enough to get a rating of 50.

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"the secret rules"
The thread with the rules is pretty public last I checked so I don't know what you're talking about lol

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This is just how I see it.

-Rating system is heavily misused so people can bully other people to not post stuff they don't like, even if it's constructive and/or productive. It's especially apparent with newer people who start posting and aren't familiar with how the site normally works, and really does nothing more than scare them or make them panic about an insignificant internet number.

-It being an indicator of how good someone posts are just seems really redundant considering... I can just look at their posts myself and see how good they are in general.

-The whole needing 50 points for a category is really its only purpose and even then a lot of people ask to be put under the 49 and under club thing which kinda defeats the purpose.

I honestly stopped caring about it months ago and the only time I see mine go down is when someone gets pissed off at me.

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The only time I truly misuse the rating system is to keep up my record of having a +5 on every banned user. Why? Because I want to.

Otherwise, I don't really mean to misuse. :/ I had Michael1991 at +2, so...

Seeing as this thread is pretty active right now, what would be a good method for giving simfile categories to users if points if the rating system were gone? Something like "Wait X amount of days until you can request for a category"?

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You mean like how you have to wait 24 hours to go into the chat unless you get 10 points? Yeah, I'd say you can wait about 5 days or hit 20 points to get your own simfile category. That way, the standard isn't so high, but isn't low enough for potential spammers.

I still don't see what the problem is with waiting to get 50 points. Like, if you're an active member and you followed the rules and you treated people with a modicum of respect, you'd get that amount in no time. People act like it's such a hard task to achieve but, like, it's really not.

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Maybe I'm worse than I think I am, but I've been on here for 3 years and I'm not even at 25 points, let alone 50 (now granted, I don't really care that I can't have my own simfile category, but there's probably a decent amount of people in the exact same boat I'm in who care more than I do). I think we could at least make it so that you have the ability to have your own simfile category at, say, 15 points with certain limitations (i.e. amount of sims, frequency of adding sims, etc.) that slowly lift as you get to 50, then completely lift once you reach 50 points.

It's funny how I say it'd be good to get rid of the rating system, but seeing my points go from 74 last night to 80 this morning... I don't know, I guess I kind of like it, because I know someone found my posts useful, entertaining or friendly, and that's a really nice thing.

Boy, there's someone always there to spoil things, ain't there?

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I was being needlessly rude last time and mine went from like 48 to like -7 lmao

But really now guys, rate with more jurisdiction, bombing -5s will just scare away people

For me, it is quite a challenge to achieve higher points from my current point. I think we should be more active and answer the forums with helpful answers so as to serve helpfulness towards the readers.

For me, it is quite a challenge to achieve higher points from my current point. I think we should be more active and answer the forums with helpful answers so as to serve helpfulness towards the readers.

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Presenting the Okie's Stupid Idea:

Remove the arbitrary gate of the chaotic nature of other users. Rather have the 49 and Under category renamed to the "Communal Category." In its place, if someone decides to submit enough simfiles to warrant their own category, it could probably be defined by the following criteria:

1. Based on what kind of file it actually is. (Edit? Challenge Steps addition? Original?)
2. Based on how many they actually have.

Let's just go ahead and say that someone has either five original simfiles, or about ten edits/challenge steps to existing official simfiles. Okay, it clearly shows that they're interested in having their own category, but ohnoez, their arbitrary rating says "no" to that. This person has a lot of content they want to share; therefore, it's crammed into the 49 and Under category until they pull a rabbit out of a hat and miracle the people enough to get them to give their + ratings away.

If not based on how much they've submitted, just do it a simple time-based plan. Say, it becomes the XX day bucket. We'll go with 90 days for shits and giggles.

Alan, I think you might change this thread's first page post; it's outdated because the rules had been changed.

And in about a day, that jumped up to 55, rofl. I'm guessing there was a bunch of people that thought 'wait I should have upped this guy' reading that post.

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