Make the database ratings more useful

There seems to be a war on the /idgames database between morons who rate awful WADs five stars and serious people who rate them as they deserve (awful or vomit).

I have been wondering what the point is. It's impossible to find WADs with fewer than 4.5 stars using the search facility anyway, because it only lists up to 100 highest rated WADs. So unless a WAD is legendary or better than pretty darn good, it vanishes into the database never to be seen again.

Under these circumstances, who actually cares whether awful WADs get one, two or three stars? Can anything be done to make the search facility more useful?

It would be nice if you could somehow sort by stars, instead of just an overall 'top rated' button showing the same wads every time. click 5 stars for the highest rated wads in the whole database, click 4 stars to see the highest 4 star rated wad and down, 3 stars to see the highest 3 star rating and downward, and so on, even adding one for "unrated" wads that have lived a sad and lonely life of no one downloading and commenting on them.

Just a thought, dunno if it's possible.

Are they automaticcaly sorted by number of votes? I cant remember but if not that'd be great too.

cs99cjb said:

It's impossible to find WADs with fewer than 4.5 stars using the search facility anyway, because it only lists up to 100 highest rated WADs. So unless a WAD is legendary or better than pretty darn good, it vanishes into the database never to be seen again.

I think maybe you should check the settings you are using. The floor/ceiling for highest/lowest rated wads is 2.5 stars, the exact middle. Perhaps I will add some more options later.

I would love to see a system that allows people to comment without rating it so they can respond to criticism, either that or a feature that allows you to search for wads with a certain number of votes (0 votes, 1 to 10 votes, 11 to 25 votes, 26 to 50 votes ect.).

Or a 1 star file, 2 star file, 3 star file, 4 star and 5 star average search...

But all this is just wishful thinking.

Bloodshedder said:

I think maybe you should check the settings you are using. The floor/ceiling for highest/lowest rated wads is 2.5 stars, the exact middle. Perhaps I will add some more options later.

I don't think the problem is the floor/ceiling, simply that no more than 100 search results are returned which means that the middling wads (i.e. neither legendary nor awful) never appear in the 'Top Rated' search results.

I can get something similar to what I want by searching for an extremely common two-character search string (e.g. "th") and selecting "sort by Rating". However there are not enough results on each page for that to be practical.

cs99cjb said:

which means that the middling wads (i.e. neither legendary nor awful) never appear in the 'Top Rated' search results.

Um... why should middling wads appear on a "top rated" search?

Er, you can search by the lowest rated as well. Click Top Rated, then change from "highest rated" to "lowest rated", then prepare to chortle at some of the reviews. Excellent reading if you've got a few minutes spare. The shame of it is, you can only view 100, there's no option to view more than that, so the morass of wads will remain obscure forever.

MajorRawne said:

The shame of it is, you can only view 100, there's no option to view more than that, so the morass of wads will remain obscure forever.

That is exactly the problem: awful wads are more discoverable than good (but not legendary) ones. Might explain why people keep making them.

As shown in Bloodshedder's pic, just use the search tool and sort by rating. Search for .zip to get 17000+ results: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?search=1&field=filename&word=.zip&sort=score&order=desc&page=1

TimeOfDeath said:

As shown in Bloodshedder's pic, just use the search tool and sort by rating. Search for .zip to get 17000+ results: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?search=1&field=filename&word=.zip&sort=score&order=desc&page=1

Thanks. There are more legendary wads than I ever imagined (343 to be precise) including some surprising ones (Heretic conveyor belt demonstration, any one?)
I guess it's okay. I could bookmark the 34th page.

cs99cjb said:

That is exactly the problem: awful wads are more discoverable than good (but not legendary) ones. Might explain why people keep making them.

How so? You actually have to put more effort into finding bad maps. It's true that some bad maps have attained a legendary status of a kind, but that's always the problem with online communities, they elevate turds now and then.

I do find it somewhat baffling that someone would want to see mediocre stuff on a page called 'Top Rated'. Sounds more like fodder for an 'underrated' page to me.

Bloodshedder said:

I do find it somewhat baffling that someone would want to see mediocre stuff on a page called 'Top Rated'. Sounds more like fodder for an 'underrated' page to me.

The current 'Top rated' results with the default criteria include 2 texture WADs and 4 deathmatch WADs, leaving four maps I might be interested in playing.

If I increase the no. of results to 50 then I get 3 Hexen wads, 11 deathmatch wads, 2 drivers, 5 graphics wads, DeuTex, a magazine article, 2 patches, documentation, a tech demo, and 2 sound/midi wads, leaving about 21 Doom wads I might be interesting in playing. More than half the results aren't what I was looking for - namely decent single player Doom wads.

Of course I appreciate the free service you provide, Bloodshedder. I think what would make the 'Top Rated' facility more useful to me would be if I could specify a category (e.g. 'levels' or 'deathmatch') and if I could go see more than 100 matches. 100 doesn't even get close to the 'mediocre' stuff.

Cheers.

I think cs99cjb and Bloodshedder should have a fight. Whoever wins gets to craft the archive to suit them. :P

Seriously... yes, the search facility could be better, it's sometimes a pain in the arse to find what you're looking for. Being able to display 250 or 500 results would also be good if that's possible.