I think this has been brought up before but I can't find it so I'm sorry if I'm repeating.  This time I am coming from a Players perspective and not a map makers because I've been looking for some maps to play with my RL friends that we haven't played and so I'm looking at the rankings, not understanding them in some cases and then going to the reviews and not knowing if it is valid or not.  On one particular map rater continuously says things like "this always happens" and so I looked to see how many games they had played on the map and after a lot of scrolling and page turning I finally learned that this player had only played 1 game on this map.  I guess he/she/it could have many private games on the map to base this on, but I doubt that.  In fact I have played this map 17 times and I know that what this person/creature/hobbit says "Always Happens" can only potentially happen and in fact it can potentially happen on any map.

Actually, the number could be an rolling count of the games played on that map by that player and the review could still be quantified well because if someone hates a map they probably won't play it much anymore.  I just want to be able to get a better understanding of the opinions.  I know bad reviews won't have many games played, but if someone is saying something that makes it seem like he/she/unicorn has experience on the map I will value that opinion more.

Ya, WarFish had this, I guess WarFish is just better in that area than WarGear 

Way to get "unicorn" in a pretty serious post 

'Twould be a nice little piece of information to include, though people/animals/entities are able to edit/update/revise their reviews and that should be reflected in the number. Even better would be for boards to have a wall / threads linked to the forums / wiki so something more resembling a dialog can occur.

I've always wanted a minimum number of games played on a map before you can leave a rating.  At least 2-3..  I know there's arguments against that but if someone gets stomped on a map and arbitrarily decides they don't like it upon losing they shouldn't be allowed to take out their frustration on a map maker.

Overall a large majority of the players here are very fair and give well thought out ratings.  Maybe even a "Number of games played" indicator on each rating would help.

I think this has been discussed before, but a "weighted" overall rating would be nice. Ratings by players who have played more games count for more.   As V pointed out, outlier ratings, especially those on the low side, will have less sting.  Overall ratings for all boards should rise a bit because the ratings of players that play and appreciate the board will have more clout.

Instead of weighting the rating on the board based on games played on that board I would suggest the ranking was done by games played on the site.  Long term members have greater "weight" in my mind then people who come and go.

Actually I am not a big fan of our rating system overall - which is why the only board i have rated in awhile were ones I was asked to.

Here have been my thoughts on the matter -

How about at the conclusion of each game the player was asked to rate the previous game somehow?

All these ratings could be stored and sorted according to settings the game was played under - number of players/fog/scenario etc. 

This would all be numeric - and you could leave a "wall" on the board for people to make further comments.

Amidon37 wrote:

Instead of weighting the rating on the board based on games played on that board I would suggest the ranking was done by games played on the site.  Long term members have greater "weight" in my mind then people who come and go.

 

Actually I am not a big fan of our rating system overall - which is why the only board i have rated in awhile were ones I was asked to.

Here have been my thoughts on the matter -

How about at the conclusion of each game the player was asked to rate the previous game somehow?

All these ratings could be stored and sorted according to settings the game was played under - number of players/fog/scenario etc. 

This would all be numeric - and you could leave a "wall" on the board for people to make further comments.

+1. I like some version of this idea, especially the part about tieing it to a wall, or links to related threads in the forums.  How the survey is implemented would be critical.. On the one hand, the ratings system would get a lot more participation, but on the other hand you want people to rate the board, ..and not the game they just played and lost. 

I'm in favor of weighted board ratings (especially like idea of having scenario/fog/#of players treated separately, or at least able to break out separately), but that might be a more complicated modification.  If it is a lot simpler, then at least getting # of games played at time of review added next to the review would be a step in the right direction.

I'd also like the option for the map maker to respond to reviews.  I had one review that said my +2 defensive borders were not working because they didn't understand that the +2 was to # of dice sides, and they thought it should apply after the roll.  Another review didn't understand how capitals work, so they didn't understand why there were eliminated so quickly (and I did review the idea of capitals in the game description).  And I have had other comments in reviews that I would like to be able to address.