Rating System Features And A Code Donation Drive

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

There are many areas of PlanetPhillip.com that can be improved and for me the most urgent and important area is the rating system.

I want to combine it with my recommendation images system and make it easy for readers to rate/recommend mods, but just as importantly, allow readers to view the best mods for different games and Tags.

Why?

By combining both system it will make it easier for readers and comments to see what other people think of the map or mod in question.

This will also allow me to have a simple list of the highest rated maps and mods for each game. In fact this is currently possible but I am waiting for the new theme to introduce it so that more people will use the rating system and the list will be more realistic.

Nothing For Free!

To do this I will need to pay a coder to write the proper code and ensure it does everything I believe it needs to. I am starting to receive small amounts of income from the one ad I run on PP but it’s not enough.

I would prefer not to even have a donation drive and receive all the money through advertising but have been unable to secure a beneficial contract. (Any help in that area will be greatly appreciated.)

(Thank you to both people who have recently donated your donation will go partly towards the new design and partly towards the new code.)

A Chip-In donation widget is available in the footer, or you can send cash via PayPal to phillip (AT) planetphillip (DOT) com

Some Specifications

Below are the specifications of how I want the system to work. I am posting it here to allow readers a chance to make suggestions and propose additional ideas and features.

I don’t know whether all these features are possible, I just include them as “My perfect system”! Form this point forward I will refer to the combination of rating and recommendation system as the Rating System.

When a reader includes a recommendation image in their comment that should be counted as a rating. This will allow readers to either just add the image or preferably write a short review and then add the image, without having to rate the mod in a separate action.
A reader should only be able to rate a map or mod once.
The rating system should only appear for maps and mods, no other categories.
There would be no separate rating and recommendation sections. It would be combined into one.
The display of the rating would use a graphic similar to the recommendations images and a pointer to highlight the average rating.
It would also display the number of votes and perhaps even a simple chart showing when votes were made.

Stage 2

At some point in the future I would very much like to expand the membership profile of readers and tie this information into the rating system.

For example, “players with more than 5 years playing experience voted this mod as “Play It NOW!, whereas players with less than 5 years playing experience voted this mods as “Consider it.”

I would also like to see which members voted for which mods. That seems a little too Big Brother but I could perhaps offer prizes for the readers who voted for the most mods. Without honest votes the system is useless and I need to do everything possible to encourage voting.

Conclusion

I’ve vitally important that the Rating System become an integral part of PlanetPhillip.com becasue too often you seem forum threads with “What’s the best Half-Life Mod?” My combined system and simple display could make it very easy for new readers, and old alike, to find what they are looking for in a matter of seconds.

Your Turn

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for the combined rating and recommendation system? Well, please post them here along with any other comments or questions you may have.

A 2 Question Survey

View Survey (Opens in this window or tab)

About this entry

Published:: 2nd February 2008 at 3:03 pm

Category:: Phillip's Blog

Responses:: 6 Comments (add)

splatzone 27th January 2008 at 15:45 1

A problem I think might occur would be the older images used for rating.

The Avoid It! image for example.

Would these be included in the final score?
planetphillip 27th January 2008 at 15:54 2

I think I would include the older recommendation images becasue they represent a reader feelings.
I recognize that it’s not prefect but it’s probably better than not counting them.
planetphillip 2nd February 2008 at 21:17 3

I’m bumping this back to the front page because I think readers must have missed it.
Gypsy_Jim 2nd February 2008 at 22:18 4

I can’t speak for everyone else, but maybe, and it is just a maybe, you al;ready have the top Half-Life (full series + certain other FPS) site that there is.

I understand your need to “keep improving” things, and love what you’ve done with it so far. I don’t know how long I’ve been visiting, but it’s probably over two years now, possibly more, and think you’re pretty close to where things should be right now.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the most obvious maxim to come to mind, but of course it is your site, and you can do with it what you will.

For what its worth I honestly don’t think the ratings system is flawed, bear in mind that ratings are almost universally coupled with some sort of comment or review, and people will read them before downloading a map/mod anyway.

Your target audience is made up of a huge variety of age-groups and other factors, some can & do write brilliant and well thought out reviews, others can barely string a sentence together but they are all HL (1,2 etc) devotees. The tiny nuances attached to a more precision based ratings system would be wasted as far as I can see.

Having said all that I do understand the aim for a league-style table of Mods/Maps, based upon their ratings, but that really can only ever play to the lowest common denominator as we don’t all like the same things all the time.

Of course I/we get a lot out of defeating certain combat situations, certain puzzles, and so on, but the thing to my mind that sets this series of games apart is the fabulous layout-design/architecture of the maps. Often after playing a Mod through I will go back and noclip about just to see how it all fits together. A badly rated map/mod would slide down the league regardless of how it was put together and would possibly appeal to other types of gamers than the “head-shots only” type that we all know.

I’m probably not getting my point across here well enough, but I’m sure there are others who have a reasonable idea of what I’m trying to say.

“Concentrate on the core, rather than getting distracted by the detail” I think would be my comment…..But I’m sure you’ll do it well whatever you decide.
cubedude89 3rd February 2008 at 02:49 5

I think the rating pictures are great and I dont think anything else is needed.
If you want to help people find the best of the best mods. Then make a section called “best mods” and list mods in it that get a lot of “play it now’s” maybe make a rule like if a mod gets so many play it nows it gets into the best mods list or something.as for the new rating system i say..

and money
planetphillip 3rd February 2008 at 18:38 6

planetphillip Said:

you already have the top Half-Life (full series + certain other FPS) site that there is.

Thank you, but I mustn’t rest on my laurels!

planetphillip Said:

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the most obvious maxim to come to mind,

I know what you mean but I get constant request for a simple list.

planetphillip Said:

The tiny nuances attached to a more precision based ratings system would be wasted as far as I can see.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Perhaps I haven’t explained myself properly.

The images we use now as the recommendation images will stay (Although hopefully made to look better). A user would continue to just click one iof those and that would count as a rating.

The only thing that would be more precise is who the rating is displayed. Currently it’s a scale of 10 (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 etc). That would stay more or less the same but would include a nicer display that uses the rec. images as background.

planetphillip Said:

but that really can only ever play to the lowest common denominator as we don’t all like the same things all the time.

True, but the more people who vote the more likely it is that it will even out. And at worst it’s better than nothing.

planetphillip Said:

I’m probably not getting my point across here well enough, but I’m sure there are others who have a reasonable idea of what I’m trying to say.

I think I understand what you are saying and I suppose thatwe need to be careful that some great mods are not overlooked.

One possible solution is to ensure that mods can be listed not only by the game they are for but also for the tags. For example, you could see a list of the highest rated maps and mods that are tagged with “Puzzle” or even “Beautiful” (Which currently isn’t a tag but could be.

planetphillip Said:

“Concentrate on the core, rather than getting distracted by the detail” I think would be my comment…

Again, I know what you mean but I really feel this is “core”.

planetphillip Said:

I think the rating pictures are great and I don’t think anything else is needed.
If you want to help people find the best of the best mods. Then make a section called “best mods” and list mods in it that get a lot of “play it now’s” maybe make a rule like if a mod gets so many play it nows it gets into the best mods list or something

You could be right and I have added a survey to this post.

The trouble is that doing that manually would be quite time consuming because I would constantly have to keep a record of how many PIN (Play It Now) images each mod has etc.

It would also make it impossible to have the different lists for different tags.