I am just curious, what is the reasoning behind restricting the rating of a board until after a public game has been played on it and not just any game (public or private)?  Thank you in advance.

The restriction does seem a bit arbitrary.  The only reason that I can come up with is that a player who rates the board will also have a "rating" on that particular board because they've played it in a public game ..for whatever that is worth (very little, imo).

I think you should have to play a game on a board to rate it. I agree it probably doesn't need to be a public game - I'll change that.

Thanks, I wasn't really requesting a change, but I will accept it.

I think you should have to play 3 games on a map, public or private, or win a game before being able to rate it.  I've seen tons of ratings on maps where people don't understand how to play it because they didn't read the board description that are just completely ridiculous.  It's unfair to the map designers and to anyone using the rating system as a guide to see what good maps are out there.

sorry just my $0.02

Viper wrote:

I think you should have to play 3 games on a map, public or private, or win a game before being able to rate it.  I've seen tons of ratings on maps where people don't understand how to play it because they didn't read the board description that are just completely ridiculous.  It's unfair to the map designers and to anyone using the rating system as a guide to see what good maps are out there.

sorry just my $0.02

I totally agree with 3 games played before you can review the map and I have always thought so.  Winning or losing a game shouldn't take away from the overall rating of the map.  I don't think Gauntlet is horrible just because I can't win it ever and I also don't love A Day at the Races just because I do well at it.  I think that people not as evolved as I am do take winning or losing into consideration and that is why I think 3 games should be played before a review.

However, I only think this is important if the site is going to rank maps somewhere by ratings.  If things are going to stay like they are now then I don't really care.  Heck, I don't even read my ratings for my maps.

Viper wrote:

I think you should have to play 3 games on a map, public or private, or win a game before being able to rate it.  I've seen tons of ratings on maps where people don't understand how to play it because they didn't read the board description that are just completely ridiculous.  It's unfair to the map designers and to anyone using the rating system as a guide to see what good maps are out there.

sorry just my $0.02

I agree with this as well and have seen some of the ratings you are talking about.

I would like to offer a dissenting point of view.  There could be some terrible boards out there that I would be unwilling to play three games on before writing a review.

If there are others out there like me, and I suspect there are, the result is that a number of "un"-deserving boards will not receive the scathing reviews they deserve.  As an alternative, perhaps the number of times a player has played the board at the time the review was written could be attached to the review.

Personally, I advocate a system that throws out one pair (the highest and lowest scores) for every 10-15 reviews submitted, leaving the reviews and their numeric values intact on the page for all to see, but not letting them affect the mean score. In my opinion, outliers are much more of a problem than misinformed reviews. Besides, I suspect there are a number of players out there that could play a board a half-dozen times and still not "get it".   Remember, reviewers always have the option of editing their reviews.

Also, I think it would be kind of cool if the designer of the board could enter one unrated review (perhaps the box can set apart by color as well) where they can rebut/refute/agree and generally comment on their work.   This comment could always "float" to the top, or be a part of the page in some other appropriate manner.

M57 wrote:

...

Personally, I advocate a system that throws out one pair (the highest and lowest scores) for every 10-15 reviews submitted, leaving the reviews and their numeric values intact on the page for all to see, but not letting them affect the mean score. In my opinion, outliers are much more of a problem than misinformed reviews. Besides, I suspect there are a number of players out there that could play a board a half-dozen times and still not "get it".   Remember, reviewers always have the option of editing their reviews.

...

I agree with M57's comment on throwing out the outliers.  Hopefully that would also eliminate any data skewing if one person's "excellent" doesn't match up with other people's "excellent."

M57 wrote:

I would like to offer a dissenting point of view.  There could be some terrible boards out there that I would be unwilling to play three games on before writing a review.

How about a compromise where reviews are 'weighted' based upon how many times the person played the map.  That way if a map is horrible and enough people rate it badly, even if they only play it once it will still get a bad overall rating.

I think if you play a map several times, you probably do have a better idea if it is good than someone who only plays it once.

Something like:

# of times played   | Review Weighting

------------------------+-------------------------

1                             1.0

2                             1.25

3                             1.5

4                             1.75

5+                           2.0

This could lead to a bit of ''grade inflation' because players who play the map multiple times are more likely to be people who like it, but since it would be the same across all maps, it should even out in the end.

As long as there's a cap.  I have considered this option and I have mixed feelings.  I think it would be reasonable to say that someone who plays a board more than 5 times probably likes it.  It follows that higher weighted ratings will also be on the high side star-wise.

Playing three games on a map means there's a higher probability that the person actually understands how the map is played before making a determination of whether the map is good or bad.  It certainly won't tackle all maps since there may be some maps people fully get on the first play and just don't like, but it will help alleviate those that play a map once and then bag on it because they either lost or had a bad experience on it due to them not understanding how it's played or any variety of reasons. 

As an example, I'm playing in a game right now.  Awesome map by a solid designer (cramchackle).  It happens to have capitals.  Two of the players don't understand how capitals work at all.  They're both complaining that the map has broken borders and the capitals aren't working correctly.  This is obviously not the case.  I'm not saying they have done this, but they could easily go rate the map with a terrible rating because they don't understand how it works.  That in my opinion isn't fair to the map designer and detracts from the usefullness of the rating system.

There are a lot of good maps that are really fun and well put together that don't get much play.  While that may not be because of the bad ratings they have, I can say if I was a new player looking for a map to play and it had bad ratings I may skip over it.

Another couple of options might be to have an arbitrary moderator OR the ability to display a response like was mentioned above.  Though I could see that having it's own set of problems..

+1 for weighting system. I would even add a weight for site-wide cred (# of games total, h rating # of reviews total, etc).

I like the weighting, or giving more credit/viewable to player's that have played the board more.  Not such a big fan of increasing the min number of games, as I do think it is possible to leave adequate ratings of boards even without playing them a lot (which include good ratings but a board that the player just doesn't play all that much).

Yertle wrote:

I like the weighting, or giving more credit/viewable to player's that have played the board more.  Not such a big fan of increasing the min number of games, as I do think it is possible to leave adequate ratings of boards even without playing them a lot (which include good ratings but a board that the player just doesn't play all that much).

I agree. There are a number of boards that I have given Good and even Great ratings, which I have only played once.  Pipe-Dreams comes to mind.  I'm not a Mario Fan (the late 70's and early 80's was a black hole for me when it comes to pop-culture) ..and I'm mildly claustrophobic, which may be the reason that I just don't care for most choke-point laden boards, much less ones where I'm crawling around in pipes.  Regardless, it only took one game to confirm my suspicions that PD is a well-designed board with balanced play.

I am down with a weighted system.  I really like that idea.  That with the review panel should make reviews more close to people's actual opinion of the design and play of the map rather than just random lashing out at poor dice in 1 game.   I like the idea and I will promote it with signs and banners and perhaps buttons but only the kind that have flashing lights.

I think a weighted system would be a fair compromise. 

"OK, I suppose I can endorse a weighted system," he said whilst kicking and screaming.

I support the weighted rating system as well and now all we have to do is get more people to leave a rating for boards.  I glad that this was discussed.

Alpha wrote:

I support the weighted rating system as well and now all we have to do is get more people to leave a rating for boards.  I glad that this was discussed.

I actually have been waiting to rank boards until I have played them at least 3 or 4 times, because I don't feel qualified to rank them.  If there was some kind of weighting system, I would be more willing to rank after only playing once, because I would know my vote would not get counted as highly.