One thing I really don't like about the workbench process on this site is the limited voting option. Instead of having just "Did you find this movie entertaining?" I feel there should be a second voting box with the question "Should this movie be accepted?", in fact this question should come first. I think I speak for most of us when I say that I vote on the current "Is it entertaining?" question as if it's asking if the run should be accepted (most of the time). Having both questions covers both bases and makes it so that you don't have to write out a post just to convey your opinion on the run if you don't feel like it, while still giving people the option to expound on their thoughts in a post if they choose to. I've noticed people on this site love to voice their opinions through text in the workbenches so I don't feel that adding this voting option will reduce the amount of detailed explanations as to why people think a run should be accepted/rejected. One thing is certain: the current voting results for "Is it entertaining?" are totally unreliable as an answer to the question it's asking.
Looks like this has been brought up before, but I hope a change is considered.
The voting is only ever a very rough guide to audience reaction anyway. Posted responses with explanations of how viewers feel about the run get approximately a billion times more influence than the votes themselves do. If you can't be bothered to write a post, then it's assumed you don't feel all that strongly about the run.
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This discussion appears to happen every few months. Although it can be tedious it's not necessarily a bad thing because opinions change, the state of the website changes, etc etc.
The question is fine as it is, because publishability is not subjective and is better decided by an experienced judge than by the (relatively) ignorant masses. Entertainment, however, is not subjective, so it gets held up to a general vote.
I agree there is a problem with people answering a different question to the one that as asked. However, a judge is better off reading the comments as well, since commenters are not responding to questions and therefore there is no danger of them answering the wrong question. The comments may also raise technical points if the judge is unsure about these.
Although I have repeated this at least two times by now, here's nevertheless it again. Perhaps third time's the charm.
There are two things with the current voting system: What the admins would want it to mean, and what actually people use it for.
You want it to mean "this doesn't decide publication, this just tells us whether it's a moon candidate."
However, that's not what it means in practice, nor how many people use it. It instinctively means "is this worthy of publication?" and that's how many people use the voting system.
Voting "yes" when you think it cannot be published (eg. because it has some significant issue) feels unnatural. Likewise if you think it's ok to publish it, voting "no" also feels unnatural.
Personally I have not voted on many submissions because of this conflict. This kind of renders the entire voting system moot.
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I determine what people are using it for on a submission by submission basis. If I see the posts' general conclusions are reflective of the poll, and the discussion is primarily about it's eligibility and position, I'll ignore the poll entirely.
I'm not sure what you're trying to express though. The point of the poll is to be close to moot, the discussions and judge expertise are what is important. If the poll was for whether one is of the opinion it should be published or not, then it'd always be ignored. In any case, most of the time, the poll is in the right ballpark for people's entertainment feelings. Changing the poll would just make it more useless.
So third time to fix something that isn't broken? If we wanted to handle judgment process with the polls, then we wouldn't even bother with judges, and just tie it all up in an automated system which goes live after enough users filled out a complex form.
Edit:
To put this differently, if you want to talk about how you were entertained by the run, I'll pay close attention, if you want to take rulings upon yourself, I'll ignore you, unless you're also a judge.
If you want to make an impact, discuss in the thread what you liked or disliked about a run. Also point out issues you noticed, and how it fits in with the rest of the site, but don't use it as a soapbox to be your own armchair judge.
People like Derakon are very helpful in commenting on many runs with terrific feedback. Warp, you're pretty good too for the few submissions that are graced by your presence.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I'm trying to express that since the poll exists, it would be most useful as a tool for people to express what they want to express with it.
In the past the "no" option has always been a very strong indication that there's a problem with the submission. A large number of "no" votes ought to draw attention to this fact at a quick glance. This ought to be useful even for a judge: When they see that there are lots of "no" votes, this will quickly give them information that there might be a problem.
The usefulness of the "no" vote has been largely devalued, for no good reason.
I have suggested this compromise before, and I'm suggesting it again: Change the options to (something equivalent of):
- Liked it, and it's ok for publication.
- Didn't like it, but it's nevertheless ok for publication.
- Not ok for publication (explain in comments why.)
(Perhaps add the 'meh' option if needed.)
Really the main purpose of the poll is to rope people into participating in the process of watching submissions. There's a ticky box that you can click! But you have to watch the video first. And if you go to that much effort then you might as well write a post with more detailed feedback.
(semi-serious)
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But judges are not interested in hearing what you think viewers are trying to express with it.
If you want to provide a strong indication, express it in a post, so everyone can see what's wrong. Then you might even influence it to even the highly valued rejected state. You'll also get others to react to your feelings and get a more in-depth discussion and review going.
Really? Maybe it should draw attention to it being a shoe-in for vault?
If there really is a problem, then a lot of no votes is useless for a judge, unless they also happen to notice the problem themselves. Hopefully they will, but judges aren't perfect, and may be less familiar with the game than other viewers are.
Or perhaps you were placing too much stock in it in the first place.
That looks a lot like armchair judging to me. If that's what the viewer wants to do, please take your thoughts to Twitter or some other place equally useless.
In order to appease you, perhaps we should offer "Should this movie be accepted?" as a second set of polls for each submission as alec kermit suggested. When you vote for this secondary poll, instead of the results being displayed here, it'll automatically post on your Twitter page: "I do not want TAS ___ published."
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
None of your arguments presented any rational reason against my suggested voting options.
The options I suggested provide the best of both worlds: You want the votes to express if the submission should go to the vault or the moons. It does. People want to be able to express if the submission ought to be published or not. It allows doing that. I don't see any rational argument from you against those options.
At this point it seems to me that this whole issue is more a question of stubbornness than pragmatism. You won't budge because... I don't even know. Just because.
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It seems like you don't understand what I'm saying.
No, that's not what I want.
There's a lot of criteria to determine what happens to a run. Judges will process all the relevant data, of which entertainment feedback is only a single factor in the decision. Your line of thought is that viewers should be making that determination, and the judges should just follow the majority, which is not the way we handle things. If we were to handle things that way, there's no point in judging at all.
Judges need to know how viewers reacted to the entertainment level of the run, not what viewers think is the best way to handle it. In your system, viewers may decide for reasons other than entertainment, meaning they can and will use their layman's viewpoint on how the run meets various qualifications for their vote.
Such information is not helpful for the judges. If people want to express that idea, they're free to elsewhere.
Let me simplify your options for you:
What would you do if you were the judge?
[ ] Publish to a top tier
[ ] Publish to the vault
[ ] Reject
As I said above, we're not interested in armchair judging. If you like the above poll, please submit your what if thoughts to FanFiction.
However, perhaps our poll indeed is not clear enough. Would the following be clearer?
To what extent were you entertained by this movie?
[ ] It was awesome!
[ ] Eh, I'm a fat slob who will watch anything.
[ ] Utter snoozer.
This is the poll that will help the judges, and the imagery and wording is more eye-catching.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Do we really need to have this argument every few months?
Also, can anyone point to a specific example where judges made the "wrong" decision based on the results of the poll? I'd love to see one, since it would justify all the words we're spending on this.
What a highly ironic statement, given that you followed it by:
Nowhere did I say anything like that.
"Give the people the option to express their opinion on what they want to" != "judges should just follow the majority".
You keep repeating that a "should not be published" vote would be "useless". I do not think so. It would be the only natural thing for people to vote if they see a problem with the submission, and it can give information to a judge and to other people at a quick glance. What exactly is the harm in providing this option? I just can't see it.
The very fact that the subject regularly comes up is an indication that the poll does not fully reflect what people want to vote.
I honestly cannot comprehend what the problem would be if the users would be given the option to vote what they want to vote. The only option given currently, if voting "yes" or "no" feels awkward (as I described earlier) is to abstain from voting, which in itself feels like some kind of protest against the system, which is not necessarily what one wants to do.
I really have come to the conclusion that this has become a question of pure stubbornness.
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No you didn't, nor did I say you said it. The ultimate conclusion of your line of thought however is that everyone should be their own armchair judge, and drop the judging system altogether.
Warp wrote:
You keep repeating that a "should not be published" vote would be "useless". I do not think so.
That's wonderful! It's also why we haven't made you a judge.
Warp wrote:
It would be the only natural thing for people to vote if they see a problem with the submission, and it can give information to a judge and to other people at a quick glance. What exactly is the harm in providing this option? I just can't see it.
Maybe they should also be voting "yes" if they like the color green? Or any other idea you're trying to shove into an unrelated poll.
The harm in providing it the way you're suggesting is that the author and the judge no longer knows if the audience is finding the run entertaining or not. Say there was a problem, and one level needs redoing, is the run entertaining enough that the author should even bother redoing part of it?
The natural thing to do if there is a problem is to SPELL OUT WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS. This way people will know objectively there is an issue. Putting it into a poll only indicates that subjectively there may be a problem, and the judge and author will not have the slightest clue what that is. Maybe the discussion in the thread will also show that your supposed problems with the run in fact aren't.
If you truly wanted to offer a compromise, you wouldn't stubbornly (your words, not mine) be suggesting what you currently are, rather you'd instead be suggesting:
Thoughts on the run?
[ ] Loved it.
[ ] Not crazy about it.
[ ] This should be rejected, AND I found it boring.
[ ] This run should be rejected for reasons I will elaborate on, however I still found it entertaining.
Note that crucial last option that gets utterly lost in what you're trying to do here.
Warp wrote:
Bobo the King wrote:
Do we really need to have this argument every few months?
The very fact that the subject regularly comes up is an indication that the poll does not fully reflect what people want to vote.
Or perhaps it indicates the poll's contribution to the process is unclear.
Warp wrote:
I honestly cannot comprehend what the problem would be if the users would be given the option to vote what they want to vote.
You're right, let's also allow them to vote for favorite color, favorite breakfast cereal, favorite in-game character, favorite boss, and all the other multiple things they would want to vote on, if only given the option to do so.
If you were an American, I'm sure you'd also want to vote on state Senators for states you don't live in, because you know, you have an opinion, and you want to be able to vote on it. Heck, you probably want to vote on them now from Finland, because we all share this same planet, and there's no reason the people of earth shouldn't have a full say in what goes on in it. Maybe you should petition your local government to add options to your voting system, as well as clarify the existing candidate choices to indicate which option will lead to the situation abroad that you prefer?
Warp wrote:
The only option given currently, if voting "yes" or "no" feels awkward (as I described earlier) is to abstain from voting
As you should when it feels awkward to make such a decision.
Warp wrote:
I really have come to the conclusion that this has become a question of pure stubbornness.
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree! You stubbornly want to subvert the polling system to perform a function other than the one that it does. If you'd be willing to try to understand and accept the function it currently provides, I may even entertain some of your ideas on how we can make it clearer, or even introduce a new kind of poll altogether. However, instead, I just keep seeing you want to somehow turn something best elaborated on in detail, and shove it into something unrelated, because you like your voice being heard, and feel some massive oversimplification down into some numbers in a statistic is a better means to get people to listen to you than to express them in exquisite detail. In fact, I'll go edit this thread to add a poll, so if you prefer, you can vote instead of having a meaningful conversation about it
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
You're right, let's also allow them to vote for favorite color, favorite breakfast cereal, favorite in-game character, favorite boss, and all the other multiple things they would want to vote on, if only given the option to do so.
Now you are just being childish. You understand perfectly well the rationale behind my suggestion, but still deliberately straw-man it to a ridiculous level. It almost feels like you are deliberately trying to make me lose my temper.
You really aren't helping alleviate the impression that you are just arguing for the sake of stubbornness. Fine, you don't want to hear my suggestion and you won't budge. That part has become clear. I suppose it's useless to continue to discuss the matter, given the level of respect and understanding you are showing to a user's opinion.
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Warp wrote:
given the level of respect and understanding you are showing to a user's opinion.
Right, I don't respect users enough to devolve their opinions to a mere number. It must be a wonder that I even allow users to discuss submissions with a unique thread dedicated to each and every one. :eyeroll:
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
given the level of respect and understanding you are showing to a user's opinion.
Right, I don't respect users enough to devolve their opinions to a mere number. It must be a wonder that I even allow users to discuss submissions with a unique thread dedicated to each and every one. :eyeroll:
Do you have some kind of reading comprehension problem, or are you deliberately twisting what I'm saying? (I'm assuming it's the latter.)
I was talking about you not respecting my opinion on this issue (I'm a user of the website as anybody else, and it should have been quite clear I was referring to myself.) Instead you twist what I say, you build straw men, and you make childish remarks like "Oh, I wholeheartedly agree! You stubbornly want to..." when I was talking about you being stubborn.
And now you have made this ridiculous "poll" that seems to be nothing more than mockery.
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Warp wrote:
I was talking about you not respecting my opinion on this issue
You're right, I don't, because as I described above you're not verifying you even understand the point in the poll as it currently exists. I just keep hearing I like my soapbox.
Warp wrote:
(I'm a user of the website as anybody else, and it should have been quite clear I was referring to myself.)
Okay, I must've missed that, I viewed your statements as referring to the topic at hand, voting on submissions. I'm sorry for any misunderstanding.
Warp wrote:
Instead you twist what I say
Or perhaps I'm taking what you say to (what I find to be) it's logical conclusion.
Warp wrote:
you build straw men, and you make childish remarks like "Oh, I wholeheartedly agree! You stubbornly want to..." when I was talking about you being stubborn.
Yes that was your intent, however I'm trying to hold up a mirror here (albeit a magnifying mirror). I'm not trying to be stubborn, I highlighted what is wrong with your suggestions, and I offered multiple alternate poll choices above which should better highlight the current situation to truly meet a compromise which addresses all the issues, instead of only the ones you seem to be highlighting, all of which you repeatedly ignored and failed to address. You can't even pay me or the other members here the courtesy of commenting on alternatives you didn't yourself suggest, or have a point for point discussion.
Warp wrote:
And now you have made this ridiculous "poll" that seems to be nothing more than mockery.
You're right, it is mockery. If you're not willing to discuss the heart of the issues, but instead cling to some idealistic notions and issues of personal self esteem, I will continue to mock.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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For those interested in this topic and not on IRC last night or today:
Technical:
<Ilari> Nach: There are places in site code that depend on vote options and option ordering... Would have to be patched.
<Nach> Ilari: I didn't say we have to use the options I laid out here :P
<Nach> I'm trying to explain the system better, using visual aids
<Nach> If this is in fact the route we need to go down, we'll nail down something more precise and worry about it then
<Ilari> Nach: Well, I suppose with a couple of messy JOIN statements it would be possible to swap any two vote entries for submissions in the DB.
<Ilari> Nach: Dunno if the relevant cross table is set to FOREIGN KEY ON UPDATE CASCADE (that would be helpful as then one only had to swap the vote texts and votes would follow).
<Nach> Ilari: phpBB doesn't support images in polling options :P
<Ilari> Also, the relevant table doesn't even have any FOREIGN KEYs.
Conceptual:
<Nach> Ilari: If we were to use images, I'd also like if we had multiple sets expressing the same idea, and pick one randomly for each submission
<Nach> Like have Super Caped Mario flying, Wario just staring at a blank screen, and Mario sleeping in bed
<Ilari> Nach: Statically for each submission or rotating even for same submission?
<Nach> Ilari: I was thinking the former, but now that you mention the latter, it may be worthwhile
<Nach> and I already have the code in my avatar generator for the latter
<Ilari> Nach: Could be fun if the texts changed with the images.
<Nach> !
<Nach> :D
<Ilari> Nach: E.g. if the meh character is not a slob, probably better not to have slob in the text. :->
<Nach> Ilari: indeed
<Ilari> I suppose one doesn't get a good imageset out of Jazz Jackrabbit... :-)
<Nach> if it did, we could use it
<Nach> also, we should try to aim for recognizable characters
<Nach> JJ was an icon in the DOS world
<Nach> not so sure about nowadays
<Ilari> Or perhaps there is something on Jazz Jackrabbit 2...
<Nach> Ilari: Unfortunately, I can't think of anything good Mega Man based either
<Nach> sure there's some fat pathetic looking bosses, but even those have and edge about them. And what to do about boring?
<Ilari> SSM is probably too obscure (for yes)...
<Nach> SSM?
<Ilari> Super Shadow Man.
<Ilari> IIRC, 112HP(!), no proper vulnerabilities and at least one one-hit-kill(!) attack.
<Ilari> Nach: And I know really pathetic Mega Man bosses, but unfortunately one must play the relevant games to know those are pathetic.
<Nach> Ilari: Toad Man?
<Ilari> Nach: That's one example.
<Ilari> Nach: (Not the Toad Man from RM4MI, that one is actual threat). But Toad Man from MM4 / MMIV.
<Nach> yeah, he was an utter pushover
<Nach> I'd use Sunstar as an example for awesome, but again, not so well known
<Ilari> Well, I would know one for boring (but it is WAY too obscure reference)...
<Nach> Ilari: Chrono Trigger has some good imagery
<Nach> Chrono performing Luminare, Chrono drinking, Chrono sleeping
Later:
<Mothrayas> Nach: so how's the pretty-much-trolling-Warp thing going?
<Nach> Mothrayas: the "pretty-much-trolling-Warp thing" actually led to some interesting insights that we may use to improve polls
<Nach> Mothrayas: Ilari and I were discussing last night some ways to make the poll clearer, and also more fun
<Mothrayas> Nach: and what'd you conclude?
<Nach> Mothrayas: well, we discussed offering eye catching imagery randomly from different games appearing in the polls, with more fun wording
<Nach> Mothrayas: However, Warp does raise a good point, and as I said in the thread, perhaps the "no" option should be split into two kinds of "no"s
<Spikestuff> Nach: I want meh to stay
<Spikestuff> please
<Spikestuff> please master nach
<Nach> Spikestuff: You don't like the fat slob option?
<Spikestuff> I like the fat slob option
<Nach> Spikestuff: that's the equivalent of "meh"
<Spikestuff> I like voting No, when it's a tas that can be improved
* Spikestuff wanting to complicating it for users
<Spikestuff> mwahahahaha
<Mothrayas> I like the option of submitting "what if" thoughts to fanfiction.net
<Nach> ha
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
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Too long, didn't read. Why is the system there, and why it IS working:
The system as it is now was introduced when we moved to tiers. Speed records are the general Vault content. There is nothing the poll could do about it. When it's a Vault case, we ONLY judge how well it was executed - optimality. Vault is not when something is BAD, it's when something is a speed record. So in terms of optimality, any poll would make no sense: you can only read the posts on what is sub-optimal, and figure out the measure of sub-optimality, and make a decision on whether that's acceptable or not, as a tool-assisted speedrun. No poll fulfills the purpose of TASVideos being the host of TASpeedruns. Only posts.
Then, there meeds to be some indicator that a submission must be published to a higher tier. Moons is our movies that don't need to be speed records at all. They need to be superplay that the viewer would widely enjoy. So the posts still matter the most, but why not make the poll showcase how much people actually enjoyed it? It makes the most sense to me, in order to directly find out how much is a submission Moon content. The role of TASVideos as a host of TASuperplays is fulfilled.
Stars is a tier, but it's a different story, any poll that could exist won't help too much. Only posts and the history of that branch.
If we weren't within the tier system, any poll that better reaches the goals would be there. But now, if you aren't satisfied with the current poll, please consider what it helps to get done (detect Moon cases) and where it currently fits as part of the system, and tell if it really is bad at that, in its current mode, and provide practical improvement suggestions on that matter.
So, the goal of the poll is not to let us express something that it yet doesn't let. If it was this goal, no poll would be suitable at all, since people have different feelings to express. And if it was this goal, we could never rely on the poll in our tier decisions, so it would also be useless.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Well, at least from my part I'm not going to repeat my point.
I understand tiers. I understand the current poll. I made an argument about what could be added there and why. It's my opinion on the subject. Read it or don't.
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For those who dont' like reading, Warp's opinion can be stated more simply (correct me if I'm wrong):
He wants to (in the poll), be able to express that while he was not entertained, he found the movie to be high technical quality (or not).
Also, I'd like to pose a scenario in a Warp suggested poll:
Poll:
Were you entertained? 0 votes
Yes, but there was problems with it, 12 votes
No 0 votes
0 comments in the thread
As a judge do you reject this because it is sub-optimal? Despite the overwhelming vote results towards it, you aren't left with any information from which to make a reasonable descision are you?
As a judge do you reject this because it is sub-optimal? Despite the overwhelming vote results towards it, you aren't left with any information from which to make a reasonable descision are you?
Speaking as a non-judge, at this point IMO it's left up to the judge's own opinion of the movie, which of course requires them to watch it themselves. If the audience can't be bothered to write comments on the movie then they don't really care what happens to it.
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I would agree, at which point I would argue that this option doesn't have much value at all then. Even if everyone votes this way, it will just be "up to the judge because no one cares", a situation more concisely stated as "meh"
What I'm arguing is that a silent vote of sub-optimial-ness has basically no value, but being in a poll deceptively suggests it does.
He wants to (in the poll), be able to express that while he was not entertained, he found the movie to be high technical quality (or not).
More like a distinction between "no, I wasn't entertained (but no problems to publish)" and "no, this is unsuitable for publication".
I understand perfectly well that the latter won't affect the actual acceptance or rejection of the submission, but I still feel that it both conveys useful information and gives user an outlet to vote in a more natural way.