Hi everyone, I help Borg out on the website, maintaining stuff, and creating a few new bits and bobs.
Let me add my thoughts on the whole site, and this \"issue\".
CMON started off several years ago, and was created by a couple of enthusiastic hobbyists, on their own time and for fun. I\'m guessing at the time they had no idea the size and popularity that it\'d eventually grow into.
This is important to note, because when I look at the code, it says it all. Chern, did a great job setting up the site, considering that he\'d taught himself to code
. And it was originally coded with the expectation to handle a several dozen users, and maybe several hundred images. Over time, as the number of users have grown, new functionality has been added which the CMON community has suggested.
I work as a web developer, so I\'d like to think of myself as a pro
, and from what I can see of the code, it\'s pretty much near it\'s limit in terms of how much more it can be tweaked to add new functionality to the site before it really keels over for good.
Now, onto the subject at hand. It is possible to add a mathematical algorithm to \"patrol\" the votes to weed out the snipers. But, it will make the site even slower than it is already, and not to mention the work required to integrate it in, which I have to do on my spare time, for free (all will be forgiven if you vote 10 for me
)
I paint just like all you other mini crazies out there, and I\'m not in the top 100, hell not even in the top 500 (850 last time I checked, did I mention my gallery?
). So for people like me, which is 80% of the site, any and all votes matter. If there are some people, who have nothing better to do than sit there voting 1 and 2 for every mini, well, what can you do? Like a democracy, eventually it\'ll work out, as hopefully there\'ll be loads more voters who will cancel out the blips. (Unless I\'ve been targetted for assination for crimes against minis) And if I want that overall 9 rating, I\'ll have to be a whole lot better.
While I can understand it\'s cut throat being at the top, and every decimal point counts, just remember it\'s a public site, for everyone, for fun! And this is what adds to its popularity, and charm. And the best of the best, like the top 50, so what if you slip a few places? It\'s all subjective anyway, and at that level not everyone (amateur or pro) will agree on who should be ranked higher than who, but everyone will certainly agree that all those up there deserve to be.
If someone is sitting there sniping in order to bump their own ranking up or to have higher ebay prices, well good luck to them.
CMON community ain\'t that dumb, they can see and compare with their own eyes.
I think it is possible to hide the voting panel from non logged in users, but even if we restrict it, what\'s to stop someone from creating a dud account and sniping away? Then it\'ll mean that someone would have to patrol the accounts and check on people giving low votes. So we\'d have to have another layer of administration, like the FBI, to check up on this.
Well, we could take it to the next level, and create an \"elite\" group, where you\'d have to be special to get in, heck to even get to vote on it. Even better, the elite group could have their votes count for double, and can give negative votes! In fact, to keep the database trim, we should just delete out all the \"lousy\" minis and users, so that if you don\'t score more than 6 after being on the website for 6 months, then you\'re out! Hell if you\'re not even good enough for your table top, why do we want to see it?
Do we really want to politicise CMON, a website for the hobby of miniature painting?
Perhaps we need to put it to a vote.
