The state of repository reviews.

Don’t eliminate reviews just because of a few people being jerks over one example. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t spend much time in the mods section, maybe this is a common occurance, but it’s not from what I’ve seen. I think the same goes for profile posts. I’d say a solid 95 percent of the time people weren’t telling other people to “kys”. I think that 5 percent of the time could’ve used a report button just fine instead of eliminating all profile posts. Just my two cents.

 

Personally I don't see this as an issue that couldn't be fixed with a few bans. That's obviously up to the staff, but the review system itself is not broken IMO.

 

I don't really favor the ratings system. I would rather share my opinions in the mod's discussion thread IMHO.

Like a few others said, plenty of people exploit it (or don't have a good understanding of either constructive opinions or reasonable thinking).

Other times, they are pretty simple as hell (which makes me question why we just don't have a 1-5 star rating, like MrAngry mentioned).

 

I wholeheartedly agree.
It'd be nice also, in my opinion, to be able to see the users who actually downloaded the mod they are reviewing. Whether or not its possible is a question that I myself cannot answer.

 

To add on to that, I think maybe there should also be a bigger minimum of text required in a review so it has a bit of depth and actually does a bit of describing.

 

I don't know how. It seems like a lot of people are agreeing with you, including myself.

Even though this was not connected, those reviews there made me remember the time where a user wrote a review that was a wall of text on the Variety Mod when it was still up, begging NinetyNine! to fix it. Anyone else remember that BTW?

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That wasn't moderating. I said it once and I'll say it again, you can't be a moderator unless you're hired on as one, simple as that.

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It could be similar to the system on Steam where you can't review a game until you actually buy it and play it for yourself. Surely it can't be that hard to implement such a review system that only allows you to review a mod after you download it.

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And to those mentioning an anonymous review system, I don't think that's a good idea. I feel like it would only make things worse.

Look at how @HDR pointed out that there were user(s) saying "go die" and stuff. I'm thinking that if they were anonymous, they would be more inclined to say even worse things.

 

I agree that simple bans can stop some toxic people, but then we, forum users who think the toxic posts shouldn't be here, have to report them, otherwise the staff members won't know that there are toxic and offensive posts, because the devs surely don't check every review here (and they shouldn't, they're human too). That's why I disagree with the idea that the staff members should approve every review, it would take too much time.
Reported reviews could be taken down until a staff member approves it, or not, but this still will take a lot of their time, and forum users could mis-use this.

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Warning: bad English and probably hard to understand 'logic' below. I suck at explaining my thoughts

Altho I agree with this, I think it would be hard to implement. Let me explain my thoughts:
The site somehow needs to know you downloaded the mod. This could be done by connecting your forum account with your steam account, and when you download the mod in the repo, this give some sort of signal (I don't know anything about this) to your forum account and give you access to write a review.
PROBLEMS with this:
1: manually downloading mods won't give access, but if the game recognize the mods, it can be solved.
2: I don't know if the same methode can be applied to Humble Bundle users.
3: not every one wants to connect there Steam account with a 3rd party forum.
4: you can still choose it you want to use the mod or not, so you can write reviews even tho you haven't tried the mod.
Previously I said: ''The site somehow needs to know you downloaded the mod.''. I don't know anything about making a site, but it sounds rather difficult to give access to writhing reviews when the user clicks the download/ install the mod button.
PROBLEMS:
1: I think it's difficult to implement
2: when you download the mod (not through the repo) you still get access to write reviews, but you did not need to tried out the mod, or even installed it.

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To sum it up, I think it would be best to keep the review part as it is now, but we, forum members, should report toxic and offensive, or even wrong reviews so the staff members can take them down or not.
(This took way too long to type this, and it was on my phone, so spelling mistake are made, surely.)

 

You make good points, but here's what I think. When you download something from the repo while you're logged in, you automatically watch the resource you downloaded. I know that's what it did with me. So, if you can make it do that, locking the ability to review a resource until after it's been downloaded could be just as easy.

 

Maybe just do away with written reviews completely and let people who have feedback post it on the associated thread. For some reason I think people behave better here than in the review section. Modders thrived for a long time from feedback given in threads and I don't see why we need to supplement that with written reviews in the repo. Perhaps the review button should just take you to the thread

 

Why do I always forget the easy part
And yea, that makes it a lot easier, but still, you don't have to played with the mod or even installed it, if you download it manual. But I guess that cannot be ''fixed'', sadly.

 

Why do I have to download and use every hot garbage to rate it? "It looks like feces, smells like feces and you saw it coming out of a dog's anus, but unless you take a bite, your opinion doesn't matter!"

 

Then why do you need to rate stuff so blatantly bad you don't plan to download it anyway?

Internet reputation...?

 

Altho you made a good point (people behave better in threads then in reviews) I don't think the whole review part should be gone, just because 10 people cannot behave. And with the review section, you can see what other people think of a mod, and so you know if you want the mod or not. The stars can help to display if a mod is good, but then again, people can give 1 star for no reason. Also, if I would post a mod again, I would like feedback of it or just some positive reviews, like: Awesome mod! A minimum off words in reviews can help, some perm. bans can help, but won't solve it completely. Another solution is that the creator of a mod should be given the choise if he/ she want a review section or not.
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You need to have tried it, before you should give FEEDBACK (yes, that is the purpose of the review section). To go with your example (which is inappropiate), you should have tried those feces before you give feedback of it (feces are inappropiate because you cannot really change them). The smell (reviews of others) is just a prejudgement, nothing else.

 

Maybe lock the review function for a limited amount of time if you have written something inappropriate multiple times?

 

Almost like there is a recurring name...



But in all seriousness the review system needs to be wiped clean and restarted, there are so many poor quality mods with high scores and so many high quality mods with mediocre scores that I don't think it can be saved. If you guys think a Would recommend/ would not recommend system would work better now would be the time to implement it in my opinion, that way it should be better balanced before Christmas when I imagine you have a boost in sales.

 

Well if you go trough several mods, you can find out there is few names that always pop up, magically same names often pop up even on forums when things go ugly. I also noticed Carrrs is no longer a member, no wonder with all those 'nice' comments people have been making. Sure his mods were not top quality, but guys it is always better to at least try to be constructive instead of destructive.

Sometimes it takes people bit more to grow, not all think same way and some people might have more challenges than averages, but you never know how good one can become with time, so maybe think of that before puking unfiltered emotional disgust you might experience, or something, idk.

 

Yeah, I know, the post you mentioned there was just a bit of a Friday shitpost.
In the latter though, the main issue for unacceptable reviews are two members by the name of 'Plymouth superbird 1970' and 'SubaruSTI07' who seem to be the main cause of it.
All do appreciate that action was took though.

 

I personally think, especially with the automation section, people just need to be more honest with reviews. sure, constructive criticism is almost always good, but it shouldn't really come with a 5-star rating.

 

I know I get hardly any reviews on my cars I have put up in the past 2 weeks but I am okay with that, seems there are no problems with them so thats okay for me