PlanetPhillip

After much planning, work and hair-pulling, I am very pleased to announce that the new recommendation system is now online.

A PlanetPhillip reader, called Kalkin, kindly offered to write the code needed and I can’t express my gratitude enough for everything he has done so far.

How Does It Work?

The reccomendations images are only displayed for register users who are logged in. To select a recommendation, just click it. It will rise a little bit and have a slightly different coloured border. If you change your mind, click it again to deselect it.

Unlike the previous version, no text/code will appear in your comment, but don’t worry, it will still get added.

Type your comment and press Submit to post it.

Changed Your Opinion?

No problem! The new system allows you to create a new comment and add a new recommendation. This will then cause your previous recommendation image to show REVISED across it, making it clear to other readers that you have written another comment and used a new recommendation.

Currently, there is no limit to the number of times you revise you comment, but as always I will be monitoring and moderating ALL comments.

Displaying the data

The major benefit of the new system is that the data created can be used in many different ways.

The Excerpt

The excerpt on all the pages, except the single pages (which don’t have the except anyway), display a bar at the bottom. This bar shows the number of recommendations. They are coloured co-ordinated and have hover tips to show what each colour and number represent.

Below this is the post data, but this now contains the number of recommendations (as well as the number of comments) and a occasionally a comment about the types of recommendations.

A Single Page

On every single map and mods, there is a Reader Recommendations section at the bottom. It’s there because it’s not possible to put it anyway else.

It display 3 things. A graphical average of the recommendations, a text total and average and a pie chart of the numbers of each recommendation.

Using The Data

One fantastic benefit of the new system is that it can display a variety of different listings. If you look in the sidebar you will see anew section at the bottom called Recommendations. These are automatically by the recommendation system. You can view my recommendations (previously called Hall Of Fame) or readers. They can be by date or game.

They display the highest rated maps and mods for that date or game in descending order of the average score.

Customizing Your Views!

In addition to being able to display those preset details, it’s also possible to customize the view.
(Please Note: We are working on a proper user interface for this function)

All pages understand the following parameters:

• * g – specifies the game using the category slug
  e.g. /readers-recommendations/?g=hl2-ep2
  to display the readers’ recommendations for Half-Life 2: Ep 2 mods and maps. If this parameter is not defined, all maps and mods are included.
• * y – specifies the year of the posts
  e.g. /phillips-recommendations/?y=2008
  to display Phillip’s recommendations for mods and maps posted in 2008. If this parameter is not defined, all maps and mods are included.
• * t – threshold – this parameter has different meanings in each template.
  e.g. /readers-recommendations/?g=blue-shift&t=2
  to display the highest rated Blue Shift mods and maps that have received at least 2 recommendations.

It addition, the page parameters can be mixed, using & as a separator. Here is another example featuring all three:
http://www.planetphillip.com/readers-recommendations/?g=half-life-2&y=2009&t=10
This will display the readers’ recommendations for Half-Life 2 maps and mods of 2009 that have received at least 10 recommendations.

The New Hall OF Fame

This is linked to in the sidebar as well and is simply all the games and years with the highest average rating that have received at least 25 recommendations.

Bugs and Feedback

The system has recieved extensive testing but if you find any bugs or wish to provide feedback please do so on this Forum thread:
http://www.planetphillip.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1052.