Xion Community

I was just looking at the skin collections, and on the first two pages, every skin has 3 stars. I found one that I felt deserved 5 stars and which had only one vote. I voted 5, which should have brought it up to 4, but it stayed at 3 (and the vote count did go up to two). Is the system designed in a feel-good way, so as to show anything less than 3 as a 3, or is there a bug?

I've been thinking the same for a long time too. I notice the first vote is always 3 no matter what number you click. If it's a "feel good" no-less-than-3 vote, well it's also a "feel bad" for skins that are face meltingly brilliant as it doesn't seem to rise either. Definately something going on with that system

Peace, Lance

The process was derived from several iterations of people mentioning things they thought were broken about it. Here's how it works:

If there are less than 5 votes, it displays 3 as the score. As soon as there are 5 or more votes it will show the average.

This way, it stops a one or two people from ranking everything down, just because they personally don't like it. The same for ranking up. If you see a skin ranked 3 stars and you don't think it should be, then place your vote. If there are enough other people that do something similar, then the vote will change as soon as there are 5 votes.

Pretty simple really, its just that currently not too many people are voting.

Everyone just needs to vote if they don't agree with the current vote

If you have any other suggestions I don't mind investigating them.

NOTE: Moved to General Discussion as this isn't a Xion Bug

Cliff

Maybe have a null rating image until 5 is reached?

why not a real rating from the beginning? maybe an unfair 1 is more appealing to make a new vote than a dull 3?

-maybe-

Both good suggestions but I've tried them before already and I had people contact me with their gripes about them.

If you make it null till 5, then it seems like your vote doesn't get cast when you're the first person to vote. Granted you can get this when there is one vote, it displays 3 and you vote 5, but that will only occur if you check how many votes have been cast.

I used to have it that it would show you from the beginning, but I got even more comments that it was unfair as a lot of skins got voted down because just one user would vote them all down.

So you see, while both good suggestions, I've previously used them and had to move away from them!

Cliff

Good stuff. I now fully agree with you Cliffy

Now, I think I had a dream about posting a suggestion topic here...I have to go check if it was real or not as that's the reason I'm here right now, but can't find it >_<

Peace, Lance

Hmm...just gave it a couple more mins of thought. I'm sure you've done this before, but could you reopen the voting to the public and not just members? I think that would be a better system. Yes there could be lots of spam votes, but the amount of genuine votes would give it a much smoother average. There aren't many people willing to sign up just to cast a vote, evidence is clear.

You could still keep your minimum votes thing in place, perhaps raise it slightly. But open to the public man, after all it is the public that use the skins!

Peace, Lance

Lance Wrote:Hmm...just gave it a couple more mins of thought. I'm sure you've done this before, but could you reopen the voting to the public and not just members? I think that would be a better system. Yes there could be lots of spam votes, but the amount of genuine votes would give it a much smoother average. There aren't many people willing to sign up just to cast a vote, evidence is clear.

You could still keep your minimum votes thing in place, perhaps raise it slightly. But open to the public man, after all it is the public that use the skins!

Peace, Lance

Well how do I track votes and give you the ability to change your vote? If I base it off IP address then I can no longer track if you want to change your vote. I think we have quite a few users on these forums now, they just need to take the time to vote too

If we take this back to the original post by OfficerMike07, then I'd just say that the system needs to be used more by those users who are currently here! If you all make a concerted effort to vote for skins if you don't think they deserve their current score, or even vote for them to solidify the current vote, then I think that will help everyone out!

The system is in place, it just requires people to use it. If no one does, the system itself doesn't work too well. Like I said, it needs 5 votes to show the average score. Whenever you check the skins page, be sure to cast your votes!

Also, if you're bored or want to help out some more, cruise the Unrated Skins filter. These are skins that haven't received ratings yet. Most likely because they were released long before the rating system came into effect. Perhaps I can add another filter for skins that haven't yet been 'broken in', so to speak (i.e. less than 5 votes, but more than 0)

Cliff

Well, the way I see it, users need either more motivation to vote, or increased convenience in voting... which brings me to my integrated ratings request. If a user could right click on a skin, and have a "Rate this skin" flyout, there wouldn't be any excuse for not voting. If it's really important to keep the registered users only aspect of voting, there could be a one-time login somewhere in the configuration menus (fairly simple, I think). That, or Xion could generate a random computer ID number (one time during installation, not to be replaced by subsequent installations) or something to track whose votes are whose, allowing users to change votes instead of voting again (not as simple, but would open voting to a lot more people).

Right click menu = skin votes
From XIon site = site votes

Can be shown separately?

I think users really need to try the skins before rating them tbh, going from looks alone is not enough to give a proper rating

an option to send rating via the skin to the rating on the skin on the site would be cool, then users can try skins out rather than just giving them a crap rating, some skins have lots of hidden stuff which is not always evident from just an image like others have said, the ratings hold more value if users at least try the skin and base a rating on user experience and options etc..
ratings are subject to lots of factors but just rating a skin on face value just doesnt cut it imo

So everyone wants to ONLY be able to vote for skins from the Xion Skin Browser to force people to download skins first?

Doesn't that make it even harder for people to vote too? Other than that I have no way of properly tracking files that you download to your PC without an overhaul so that I can perhaps embed the ID into the Skin file. Even if this is possible its very easy for users to abuse the system. Also, imagine if you'd tried the skin at work, and decided that once you got home you wanted to vote for it because you loved it. You'd have to download it again in order to cast your vote.

What about providing both? Well I guess its possible. I'd just have to implement connecting to the web server and sending requests. Might send people's Firewalls crazy? A quick compromise might be that it could open your web browser to perform the vote?

Cliff

Maybe something as simple as a voting popup offerring an additional chance for downloaders to vote. Granted that doesn't ensure that the user really uses the skin prior to voting, it would be a motivation.
xonenine.

Hmmm... what if the website kept track of what skins registered users have downloaded, and listed the ones we haven't voted for on the top of the skins page?