Question about voting on guides

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I was wondering why voting on guides is not portrayed accurately most of the time. To explain, I will use an example.

My guide has 14 positive votes and 1 negative vote. I know it doesn't say that numerically anywhere, but I've been watching this guide like a hawk since I made it, so I've been tracking every vote.

My claim is also confirmed by the profile page's "published guides" area, which shows mostly green with a small sliver of gray.

However, when I go to look at the guide anywhere else, whether it's among a list of guides, or even just on the guide itself, it looks different.

When portrayed this way, it looks my my guide has only 60% positivity, which is terrible and probably pushes people away from my guide. Technically, 9 1/2 of those 10 bars should be filled in blue, although I'd be happy with 9.

I only ask this because I am the one who is potentially being negatively affected if it turns out that there is a problem. I can't fathom how this wouldn't be a problem, because if this applies to all guides, then every guide with even one negative vote now looks like total trash to every visitor of the site.

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Notable (4)
Posts: 34

Shlappz,

This is voting degradation, and is something that was built into the functionality of the site a long time ago. I think the idea is that some guides, over time, might not be updated, and so older votes have less of an impact on overall score as time goes on. It's a really weird mechanic that I don't fully understand, but this has been discussed in multiple threads in the recent and more distant past.

I'll bring it up to the admins.

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Mythical (400)
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wrote:

Well if that's the case, it's a stupid feature which was never discussed anywhere and has done nothing but lead to confusion among many people. It's also unfair to the guides which do stay up to date. Tell the admins I'd like to see this removed, and thanks for your help.

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Hey Shlappz, just wanted to clear up some things.

We do have a vote decay system of sorts, but it has a minimum threshold (aka, you always keep a certain number of votes) so since your guide is below that threshold that should not be the problem here. This system is to give newer guides a chance to compete with older guides that have significantly more votes.

After investigating your votes there seems to be something wrong with the score calculation, which we will be investigating immediately. The head dev is away tonight which is unfortunate but I'll do my best to get this fixed ASAP.

<Production Coordinator>

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Others have stated their case as well...like ricu, Technotoad, etc. I agree it's confusing, with a high possibility of creating misinformation about the quality of a guide. That said, there are also deeper thoughts that can be considered here.

Based on the constant rotation and fluctuation of participating members of the community (as well as just the general habits of people), most people won't revisit a guide once they've read/voted. Yours, unfortunately, is one of the guides that is being affected negatively, because you started out with what I'd consider a very solid initial guide, and have only worked to improve it since publication.

On the flipside, some people started with low-quality builds or content that were lacking in various ways, and got initial downvotes...again, the downvoters likely won't change their votes once they vote, and many have come and gone so those votes are there to stay. No matter how much work the authors put into improving the guide, those downvotes will always haunt their score. So, the degradation can work in a positive way as well.

That, of course, is a best-case scenario, and I'd say there's no perfect solution. Any voting system is going to be flawed in some way...someone that posts a guide on the same god might downvote all others that are not his/hers. Someone might artificially inflate their votes with fake accounts. I know that's not your concern, but I'm just trying to show that there was at least some meaning in why it was likely implemented.

*edit* Thanks, Mowen, for your response as well.

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Mythical (400)
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wrote:

someone that posts a guide on the same god might downvote all others that are not his/hers. Someone might artificially inflate their votes with fake accounts.

*cough cough* *cough cough*

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Prominent (33)
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You're a funny man, Bernardo. I was thinking the same thing.

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Mythical (400)
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I wonder why.

#9e2aff

#a12bfd

#af29e8

#bd29d0

#c828be

#d728a8

#d728b0

#e02899

#ee2891

#f02887

#d72875

#d72860

#8a42ff

#9c30f6

#ab21ec

#b329e4

#b829d9

#ca29c7

#d429bd

#de299f

#ee2887

#e62873

#e03163

#e53d44

#7b54ff

#8d39f6

#a311f4

#a22afb

#ae29ed

#b63dc7

#a247c7

#ca3d9f

#ee3175

#e6325f

#e94348

#f14f2c

#676cff

#793fff

#910aff

#871ef5

#7f2ee4

#7542da

#665bc7

#8e519f

#c04777

#f0464b

#f2552d

#fc6410

#5384ff

#6545ed

#7b00e0

#6b1ada

#5738d0

#4356d0

#2d74cc

#5c65b3

#985b77

#dc5037

#e94c1b

#de4606

#3598fe

#4750da

#5d00a8

#4423b2

#2b46bc

#1762c4

#008fcc

#377b9f

#636b7b

#9a574e

#d73a12

#c12300

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Prominent (33)
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wrote:

On the flipside, some people started with low-quality builds or content that were lacking in various ways, and got initial downvotes...again, the downvoters likely won't change their votes once they vote, and many have come and gone so those votes are there to stay. No matter how much work the authors put into improving the guide, those downvotes will always haunt their score. So, the degradation can work in a positive way as well.

That, of course, is a best-case scenario, and I'd say there's no perfect solution. Any voting system is going to be flawed in some way...someone that posts a guide on the same god might downvote all others that are not his/hers. Someone might artificially inflate their votes with fake accounts. I know that's not your concern, but I'm just trying to show that there was at least some meaning in why it was likely implemented.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I'd argue we shouldn't be letting people post half finished walls of text, for their own sake and for the site's, although I'm not sure how I'd go about that. Also, what's up with ? Was there some kind of incident a while back?

wrote:

Ah, so it isn't even the vote decay system at all. Mind if I ask what the threshold for decay actually is out of curiosity? I already know it's at least above 15. Thanks for taking the time to look into it. Hopefully this will help guides across the site instead of just mine.

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wrote:

I have no idea what you guys did, but hallelujah, it's raining positivity!

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Question about voting on guides

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