Helping out after all the battle : 'D
It was a long read!
So, I'm gonna be super honest about any rating systems... you have two objective reasons to discuss about the rating system(s) in place in a community:
- You do great content, but you're kinda new and it's hard to top the guy who are here since forever. You'd prefer more recognition. This is a "selfish" objective (you think about that because of your specific case).
- You have no opinion on your content, but you're seeing content like the guy from the previous point not appreciated enough because of the way of the algorithm works. This is a "community" objective (you think about that because you want to improve the community).
Both objectives are great. But! you can fix both by fixing the second one
It's kinda great that I'm late to the party, 'coz the hotpicks with the new algorithm show their limitations:
- Hotpicks "All" and Hotpicks "plugins" shows at the top of everything: Supa Additional Cloth Physics. It has not the downloads, reactions, reviews to be "objectively" here.
- Hotpicks "Scenes" shows at the top of everything: TittyMagic Laboratories inspection. Like the previous one, it is nowhere near close to the best scenes on the hub.
Don't get me wrong, I love Supa and everlaster's content, I'm just here to react based on facts
So, to get back on the rating system(s), you have several aspects that make them less relevant:
- If the rating system is driven by the persons who are the most active in the community... there's likely to be a "bias" to the reviews.
- If the rating system is not clear as to its objective, there's likely to be "incorrect reviews" (like the ones mentionned in this discussion).
- If the rating system is based on a simple scale (the stars), it makes the content itself disappear behind a subjective opinion.
To me, for the VaM community there is only one solution to fix that, it's called "UX" + improved algorithm.
The hotpicks is a great start, but it doesn't help new people to find something usefull on their first journey on the hub.
You could have something like this :
The advanced filters being the original system.
Of course, "best something" means a combination of all parameters as you said
@CitizenX , but I would go in direction that is more related to VaM itself than the hub. So I would drive the algorithm of "Best something" to something like this for everything but standalone resources (from higher priority to lowest) :
- Resource as a dependency ( sum of resources using this as a dependency )
- Downloads same time frame
- Reactions
- Number of Reviews averaged with the review score
For "standalone resources" ( Scenes and looks ) the "resource as a dependency" can either be stripped or simply lowered in priority. A scene will rarely be implemented as a dependency (if you do your job right
), and looks can be downloaded and used without ever using them in a scene.
You could also add a secondary dropdown with "All time" and "This month".
All time should be by default.
The reason behind this idea is this:
- No one active in the community ( beyond people fans of metrics and self-masturbation on numbers ) will ever use that screen. It is not meant for us, it is meant for new people.
- People new in the community want efficiency, they want to know in a matter of one, two or at worst three clicks what the should download and play with as fast as possible.
- They want top notch content or what can help them to understand VaM or things that will improve their scenes
We have to be extremely clear and give the best possible answer to "what is the best content around here". The best content around here is not driven by a subjective star rating or quick reactions
first. The best content is the one the community will use the most. We have the dependency system to make a great algorithm for that.
It is obviously gonna be hard to reach the popularity and dependency count of Timeline, or Divining Rod, or VAMMoan... as a newcomer with a plugin. But for pretty much anything else, it would be a better scenario.
I am sure and convinced that if tomorrow, somebody would bring a direct opponent to Timeline or VAMMoan, it would get the love it deserves. Great content is celebrated and used. And I'm not afraid to say that I don't have all the answers nor that anyone can be better at my own job. If the community suddenly shifts to another animation or moan plugin, it will be seen immediately in the "This month" section based on the releases and dependencies of the new content. It will take a bit of time to get in the "all time" part... but it'll get there : )
To go back on the two objectives of the beginning of this post. By improving the overall sorting of the best content for the community (objective 2). You allow new creators (objective 1) to get a spot quickly in the best content.
If a new creator comes with mad "hairstyling" skills, and becomes one of the most used as hairs dependency compared to the rest of the hairs available on the hub. He will be higher or at least on the same spot as any other OG of the community.
So... I think I've covered everything I guess
Other side notes:
- "Hotpicks" is not really obvious as a term to find great content. This might be something that should be more visible: First spot on the submenu with a "tag-like" appearance like hub-hosted var, and a more noob-friendly name "Find the best content" or whatever.
- Shoot at least 50 ressources in the hotpicks
- Remove "All", all is useless, people don't get in Wallmart to find "all groceries" they always have something specific in mind
- Remove "Top Resources" in the left column everywhere.
Or make it so that it's "Hotpicks compliant" (it should be the hotpicks algorithm, not the blend dumb default one based on ratings). It's not relevant.
If you're making it use the hotpicks algo, then redirect to "Hotpicks" when clicking on it.