Suggestion: Blatently Obvious Abuse of Ratings Removed

[Kotaro]

Description:
When ratings are given, they are based on someones opinion, which is technically never wrong. However, in some cases, it's obvious that the player only rated them that way because they lost. My example is as follows:

This is a friend of mine I invited to the site, accessgranter. His current ranking stands at a 3.3, a very poor rating indeed. He must obviously be a jerk, a multi, a racist, SOMETHING, in most peoples minds. Many won't play with him because of his rating, as some use the rating system to watch out for players that are what I stated before. Lets take a deeper look at these ratings:

youtoo00 left him all 1's, with the following tags: Secret Diplomacy, Cheap Tactics. Game 3838194 is the only game they've ever met in. While you can see that the person playing with them in this 3 way did take quite a number of shots at youtoo00, you can also see that he also attacked my friend on most turns as well. If there was a Secret Diplomacy going on during that game, why take any shots at each other at all? This rating was just revenge for a game lost, and a game well played by my friend. And he's to be punished for playing his best?

The second all 1's rating comes from utelektr, a confusing player to say the least. His tags, to go with this poor rating, state: Rude, Complainer, Sore Loser, Cheap Tactics. However, if you search through all of their games together, you will find that, not a word was said in any of them, at all. No gg, no "f*ck these dice, goddamnit", nothing. There was no evidence of rudeness, nor soreness towards the games, nor any complaints. ALL 3 of those tags were simply put there to make my friend look bad. Another "just reward" for playing your best?

My suggestion does not just cover my friend. This is a suggestion that the moderator crew expands their ranks, and adds someone new. Somebody who people can send complaints about ratings too, and they can be investigated, and removed, if deemed that they are abuse of the system.

Also, a 2nd part to this suggestion. Since the rating system is obviously abused much, why not make it so that, should rating abuse be confirmed, they be temporarily blocked from leaving ratings? It makes sense; abuse the system, lose the right for a time.

[EagleofGreenErth]

Purpose of new ratings system was to get rid of the old ratings system where mods had to sort through contested ratings.... ratings are meaningless now....

[Kotaro]

Purpose of new ratings system was to get rid of the old ratings system where mods had to sort through contested ratings.... ratings are meaningless now....

Exactly. The old mods didn't want to deal with the crap... So they threw it out. How about getting a new one that will?
I'd gladly volunteer, as would many others. Obviously, there would need to be documentation of all ratings investigated, etc, but I'd be up to it, and plenty others would, just to get this damn system to work like it should.

[Night Strike]

Neither of the people you have listed have abused the ratings system yet. If they continue to give 1 ratings for another 20 or so players without any justification, THEN they can be reported for ratings abuse. Giving out 2 sets of 1 Stars is NOT abuse, so what you're trying to suggest is the same thing that caused the new rating system in the first place: too much time for moderators. And there's no reason to add another moderator just for ratings.

Ratings aren't removed, but the person who receives the rating can request the giver to remove it. Also, people who are found to abuse the ratings systems ARE warned and given vacations from handing out ratings. But the people you mentioned haven't abused it.

[Kotaro]

Neither of the people you have listed have abused the ratings system yet. If they continue to give 1 ratings for another 20 or so players without any justification, THEN they can be reported for ratings abuse. Giving out 2 sets of 1 Stars is NOT abuse, so what you're trying to suggest is the same thing that caused the new rating system in the first place: too much time for moderators. And there's no reason to add another moderator just for ratings.

Ratings aren't removed, but the person who receives the rating can request the giver to remove it. Also, people who are found to abuse the ratings systems ARE warned and given vacations from handing out ratings. But the people you mentioned haven't abused it.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. "It's not abusing the system if they haven't done it 20 times"? What the f*ck is that shit? I could play you, and because I disliked your post her, rate you a suicider, a sore loser, and a bad player, and that's not abuse?

Bull shit.

[sully800]

Neither of the people you have listed have abused the ratings system yet. If they continue to give 1 ratings for another 20 or so players without any justification, THEN they can be reported for ratings abuse. Giving out 2 sets of 1 Stars is NOT abuse, so what you're trying to suggest is the same thing that caused the new rating system in the first place: too much time for moderators. And there's no reason to add another moderator just for ratings.

Ratings aren't removed, but the person who receives the rating can request the giver to remove it. Also, people who are found to abuse the ratings systems ARE warned and given vacations from handing out ratings. But the people you mentioned haven't abused it.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. "It's not abusing the system if they haven't done it 20 times"? What the f*ck is that shit? I could play you, and because I disliked your post her, rate you a suicider, a sore loser, and a bad player, and that's not abuse?

Bull shit.

Over time, the ratings will average out. Many players get a really bad rating once in while, but it will be canceled out by all the ratings the player actual deserves.

Now there is a problem that if a players first few ratings are bad they will get a bad reputation and people won't want to play with them. But I think if you explain why you have a bad rating, or if anyone looks into the details, they will realize its not an accurate score. And then the ratings will even out once again after a while.

It's not a perfect system, but the man hours required to moderate ratings was too much to be worthwhile. There are a lot more ratings left than you realize, and determining what is fair and what is not leads to even more complaints! If however, you can suggest ways to make the automated system more accurate then it could be implemented without adding another few workers to the site.

For example, I think every person should have to leave average ratings. For every 5 you leave, you need to leave a 1 for someone else. Of course you wouldn't have to maintain a perfect average at all times, but you set some type of code to not allow people to rate everyone as all 5's or everyone as all 1's. This would prevent gross abuse of leaving 1's for everyone and would also prevent people from complaining when they get 4 stars instead of 5. It would create a true average score, and stratify the current players much more.

The problem is, some players would leave all 5's for their friends and then all 1's for an innocent bystander just to even things out. That would not be fair, and its why I'm not sure this is a solution at all.

[ctgottapee]

many players here seem to be way overcoddled by their mothers and just can't handle ratings

how one person rates you is their opinion and a player should have no right to remove another's rating of them, just like someone else can't remove your rankings of them.
as a player, you can control your play which leads to your ranking, and you can influence your rating through your gameplay, but you don't get to control it. it shouldn't be the biggest cry babies get the better rankings. and of course the system is not perfect, it is run by imperfect people tabulating the imperfect ratings of imperfect players. further yet, you do get to reply to any rating you receive in free form text which in my opinion is more worthwhile than a clickable star.

as noted, over time, the ratings balance themselves out. in this situation, the player just doesn't have enough games yet. i guess we could have a ? rating until four games worth of rankings are tallied.

[Bruceswar]

I do agree sometimes ratings are so obvious it is funny. Such as in a 1 vs 1 game, you get all 1's and the tag: Secret Alliance! Who you and the neutral? LMAO I just got one of those. I had to laugh. Being able to self remove those ratings would be nice, but such is the way things happen. I find the lower ranking people, tend to be all over the map with the ratings. Just my thoughts.

[The Neon Peon]

I find some of this rating crap hilarious.

Someone gave me a bad rating because of dice, okay fair enough. Their world, they can choose how to deal with it.

I get 1 star in every category:
Fair play: Why is this even an option in 2 player Sequential? Seriously...
Gameplay: Okay, I get good dice so I am a bad person to play with. Okay, fair enough.
Attitude: Surprisingly, my attitude was fine. I acted cool when he was swearing at me and accusing me of stuff.

So in the end, if someone does not like someone's gameplay, or attitude, or thinks bad of their fair play, that person gets a one start across the board... seriously? Why not just have only one category? No change in ratings will be made, but the system will be more accurate to what the people are doing.

[owenshooter]

Purpose of new ratings system was to get rid of the old ratings system where mods had to sort through contested ratings.... ratings are meaningless now....

Exactly. The old mods didn't want to deal with the crap... So they threw it out. How about getting a new one that will?

not true. it simply took up too much time and too many staff hours to deal with the old system. sometimes, you just have to realize that we aren't truly aware of how much time the mods spend working around here. lack made the change for a very sound reason, not because someone didn't want to work. there is a suggestion for a grievance mod in this forum, but i think that would only touch on the most extreme of cases (player handing out only 1's for every player faced): viewtopic.php?f=4&t=70663&hilit=grievance+mod

anyway, lots of people are discovering the shortcomings of this system, and it is slowly becoming it's own thing. should be interesting to see where the rating system is after a full calendar year.-0

[gundiesalvo]

Well, I do think there should be a place to place complaints about this tho, I mean, in the Support Ticket area you have the following sections: Technical Support & Game Problems, Multiple Accounts & Secret Diplomacy, General Inquiries and Usergroup/Clan Requests. Under which of them should people place a complaint about the ratings left by Eragonsomethingsomething? I mean, it doesn't really affect me since, as was mentioned before, the average tends to go to where it should, and a retaliatory rating here and there doesn't affect you in the long run. However, there should be a place to report this kind of abuse.
The funniest thing about this guy it he leaves 2s and 1s to people who beat him, and the only 5s are from people he beat. Funny that you'd say those players that lost to you are good, while the ones you lost against are bad...

[owenshooter]

Well, I do think there should be a place to place complaints about this tho, I mean, in the Support Ticket area you have the following sections: Technical Support & Game Problems, Multiple Accounts & Secret Diplomacy, General Inquiries and Usergroup/Clan Requests.

oh, so we should go back to the old system? have you read any of this thread? do you understand that the moderation of the old feedback system was taking up far too much mod hours? sigh...-0

[gundiesalvo]

I know what you mean, and I HAVE read this whole thread. But have you seen the rating left by that guy? that's abuse, that's a problem, it should be addressed as such.

If they continue to give 1 ratings for another 20 or so players without any justification, THEN they can be reported for ratings abuse.

My question here is where?

Ratings aren't removed, but the person who receives the rating can request the giver to remove it. Also, people who are found to abuse the ratings systems ARE warned and given vacations from handing out ratings. But the people you mentioned haven't abused it.

The case I mentioned has 4 and a half pages of bad ratings left, I guess he should be warned and given a LONG vacation from handing out ratings, yet since there's nowhere to place a complaint, there's nothing anyone can do about it.

[cicero]

If they continue to give 1 ratings for another 20 or so players without any justification, THEN they can be reported for ratings abuse.

My question here is where?

In the Cheating & Abuse Reports forum.

[gundiesalvo]

Ok, so it's via forum, not ticket? Thanks for the link. My only concern is not many people use the forums, but I guess if they're pissed off enough they'll find it (obviously I was not).

[sully800]

I would wager that many more people use the forums than the support ticket, but I suppose I could be wrong.

The real problem with this suggestion is the "Blatantly Obvious" part. Gross misuse of the ratings system is already punished. Nothing else can really be considered blatantly obvious without requiring excessive staff hours to moderate and judge each ranking complaint.