🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 8, 2012 01:57 PM UTC:
Yes, letting users post their own pages is more efficient than relying on editors to do it. This is not a magazine with paid staff who can devote their time to this. We have some peer review through comments, but this is of benefit mainly to those who read the comments, and it does little for the average visitor. I would suggest putting something in the header of pages that reports on the popularity and reputation of a game and allows members to add their input. One simple thing would be to put Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet buttons in each header. But more than that, I would like a metric specifically designed for Chess variants, which appears only on game pages. It could ask the question, 'How often have you played this game?' and offer multiple choice answers, 'I have never played this game', 'I have played it once', 'I have played it a few times', 'I have played it many times', and 'I play this game frequently.' Another question could ask, 'What is your opinion of this game?' and offer multiple choice answers, 'It is poorly designed', 'It is okay but doesn't stand out', 'It is better than your average Chess variant', 'It is a good, high-quality game', and 'It is a favorite Chess variant of mine'. It could then report on how many people have chosen each answer to each question and also give an average score for each. If we modified the site to use cookies to recognize members, we could also have the page report back to visitors their own answers, so that they could easily tell which games they have already rated.
I think this would work better than the rating system currently in place. Problems with that one are 1) it remains hidden from users, 2) it is available only for games where the author has allowed ratings, 3) it is unavailable for the oldest and most established games, 4) it asks for detailed evaluation of games, which discourages people from using it extensively. It would work much better to put the two simple questions I have suggested into the header of every game page on the site by default, and if any author doesn't want his games rated, he can opt out.
Yes, letting users post their own pages is more efficient than relying on editors to do it. This is not a magazine with paid staff who can devote their time to this. We have some peer review through comments, but this is of benefit mainly to those who read the comments, and it does little for the average visitor. I would suggest putting something in the header of pages that reports on the popularity and reputation of a game and allows members to add their input. One simple thing would be to put Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet buttons in each header. But more than that, I would like a metric specifically designed for Chess variants, which appears only on game pages. It could ask the question, 'How often have you played this game?' and offer multiple choice answers, 'I have never played this game', 'I have played it once', 'I have played it a few times', 'I have played it many times', and 'I play this game frequently.' Another question could ask, 'What is your opinion of this game?' and offer multiple choice answers, 'It is poorly designed', 'It is okay but doesn't stand out', 'It is better than your average Chess variant', 'It is a good, high-quality game', and 'It is a favorite Chess variant of mine'. It could then report on how many people have chosen each answer to each question and also give an average score for each. If we modified the site to use cookies to recognize members, we could also have the page report back to visitors their own answers, so that they could easily tell which games they have already rated.
I think this would work better than the rating system currently in place. Problems with that one are 1) it remains hidden from users, 2) it is available only for games where the author has allowed ratings, 3) it is unavailable for the oldest and most established games, 4) it asks for detailed evaluation of games, which discourages people from using it extensively. It would work much better to put the two simple questions I have suggested into the header of every game page on the site by default, and if any author doesn't want his games rated, he can opt out.