Score Sniping

[darthfoley]

Originally posted by finn17
Don\'t feed them...they might go away

Nice sentiment, but guess what...as the \'unfair\' real world has proven all too many times (PM Chamberlain ring a bell?) it doesn\'t work.



Anyway (raises pint at Finn, no hard feelings, chum!) I just wondered about the 50/less than 50 thing. In the end, it doesn\'t really matter...just my curiosity.

 

[Temperance]

I believe the 50 vote guideline is because Chern Ann wanted enough votes to get a decent distribution. For example, say a mini gets a 1 vote, a 5 vote, and a 9 vote. Which one(s) do you remove?

It\'s a lot easier to make that sort of calculation once there is enough votes, and 50 is the number that was selected.

 

[SaxonAngel]

It WAS stressful and somewhat oddly amusing to see my Sophie drop down to a 7.8 after a dozen votes, back when I posted her.

I think it all evens out in the end.



:innocent:

 

[darthfoley]

Originally posted by Temperance
I believe the 50 vote guideline is because Chern Ann wanted enough votes to get a decent distribution. For example, say a mini gets a 1 vote, a 5 vote, and a 9 vote. Which one(s) do you remove?

It\'s a lot easier to make that sort of calculation once there is enough votes, and 50 is the number that was selected.

Fair enough. But when you\'ve got, say, a 9.0 average at 10 votes and the next is a 1...

Ah, imperfect and tempermental scoring monsters...how we all love ye...

 

[waxfive]

i gave up trying to figure voting out long ago
http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=33974

all the comments are at 8+ but its never made it out of the sevens, poor thing

(and quite strange as rackham liked it enough to offer me a job???)

 

[PF]

@waxfive:Yes it is very strange...I suppose it is mainly cause it is unpainted tho I\'m not sure...Some of my greens are 8 or a bit more and no company wants them I think that Rackham is right about your skills and here that we have some (very very censored)when I see that kind of average I \'m a bit angry and i think about posting stupid comments such as 9:The far I can rate for a PAINTED mini...lollol

 

[ZaPhOd]

Thanks for the vent

Originally posted by darthfoley
For example, Glyn\'s druidess - that 1 when there are only 10 votes hurts a lot more than a 1 when there are over 50.

Yeah pretty much that was my whole beef. Both you and Kevin said it very succinctly. All fo a sudden serious voters will look at a 9 instead of a 9.8. This means the votes will most probably become 8s and 9s instead of 9s and 10s. Logic. To say otherwise knowing what the community as a whole is like is silly.

Anyways, I don\'t care anymore. She was fun to do, and I hope everyone likes her! Cheers!

 

[johnboyjjb]

I like the fact that you can hide the scores. Since I don\'t know what everyone else is voting, I can\'t adjust my vote to match or compensate.

 

[finn17]

Raising pints in return...

Originally posted by darthfoley
Nice sentiment, but guess what...as the \'unfair\' real world has proven all too many times (PM Chamberlain ring a bell?) it doesn\'t work.

Anyway (raises pint at Finn, no hard feelings, chum!)

Comparing the rise of the Third Reich to schoolboys voting spitefully on painted toy soldiers, is not an argument that is going to persuade me very easily. Keep the pints coming though and you may weaken my defenses

 

[darthfoley]

Certainly evils of different levels, but evils they both be.

Anywho...pint the second slides your way.

 

[sulaco]

The score will equalize eventually once a significant number of votes have been tabulated.

It doesn\'t really matter if someone gave a mini and unjust 1 cos after it\'s had a few hundred votes the true score will shake out.

 

[vincegamer]

no show?

Originally posted by darthfoley
I just wonder why the algorithm doesn\'t kick in until after 50 votes. Seems like the damage done by snipers like this would be less after that point than before. For example, Glyn\'s druidess - that 1 when there are only 10 votes hurts a lot more than a 1 when there are over 50.

What about just not showing a score until there are 50 votes?

 

[ZaPhOd]

Great!

Yeah, except for after you vote why not? Since myself and others feel that sniping scores when minis are first posted is what is really destructive, this is a great idea!

 

[farseerlum]

well the score isn\'t shown until it hits a certain number of votes! so the mechanism is there. mayby it would mean the system has more number to look after?

nah that can\'t be right.

it\'s a fine idea but 50 is a bit much! alright for you pros but it take a few weeks for some stuff to get that many votes.
i would die of frustration.
25?

 

[Wren]

With the recent change to the browsing system, reaching 50 seems to take only 24 hours or less for just about everyone now. (Thanks CA for this change, which I think is great for a variety of reasons.)

Also if such a system was implemented, I\'m sure it would be easy to do it in such a way that the owner of a pic saw the score at all times, just as we now see our comments as soon as we post them, even though no one else sees them until they\'re approved. (Although if CA\'s looking to cut down on people getting cranky about sniping, he might want to hide scores from owners until after the magic-50-anomalous-scores-are-removed point. )

While I have no personal stake in this (I suck too much to snipe), I believe that a mini\'s current score will affect many voters, so that a snipe (or a padded vote) will have a greater effect than it would initially seem given that such votes are eventually removed. If my opinion on a mini seems a fair bit off from the current vote on a mini with not many votes, I will often wait until the mini has more votes and look again and see where things stand then. (I have no problem voting higher or lower than the average, I just like to be confident that\'s what I\'m really doing and for what reasons.) There are many minis I\'ve raised or lowered my initial impression by .5 or 1 based on the current vote or comments. (Comments influence me much more.)

 

[kevd82]

I was half-joking in the past about having a personal sniper, but after seeing both my new posts get sniped in the first few votes, and no other new posts getting it, I am starting to think there is someone who has a problem with me. Seems like it has to be someone who is here alot - they get me every single time I post within the first 10 votes. Doesn\'t mean its a member, but seems like there has to be a way to block the IP address of idiots like this.

And yes, I know the low scores get taken out eventually, but when you go from 7.8 to 6.9 in one vote, and people tend to be swayed by the current rating, it gets annoying.

Mostly just venting, but I really feel like just leaving CMON sometimes when this happens (and it has happened with every miniature I have posted in the past few months).

 

[supervike]

I agree!!

Originally posted by kevd82

And yes, I know the low scores get taken out eventually, but when you go from 7.8 to 6.9 in one vote, and people tend to be swayed by the current rating, it gets annoying.

I would agree, IMO voters are swayed by the current rating and vote accordingly. I think it would be more beneficial for everyone to \"hide\" the current score until after they have cast the votes. It would be a much more honest portrayal of the individuals vote, as opposed to what \'the group\' thinks.

I have the current score \"hidden\" when I vote, but still I get swayed by the comments that are left. It is hard to be completely unbiased when you can see how other folks voted....

...And you have my empathy about the sniper, it is unfair, and I can understand your frustration. But, don\'t let some sad excuse for a voter ruin CMON for you.

 

[kevd82]

Supervike - thanks for the encouragement, but now the miniature in question is getting lower scores, around the level that \"1\" dropped me to. Not alot of fun to see your hard work denegrated, and in an intentional manner by someone that can hide behind the anonymity of the computer.

 

[Trevor]

All this talk of sniping got me interested, so I posted a bunch of minis of varying quality and followed as closely as I could for a few hours.

There is definitely some \"odd\" voting (not sure if its sniping, more on that later).

My Nurgle terminator got a 10 then a 5, then was averaging low 8\'s until vote 18 when he got a 3. Now you may hate nurgle, and terminators and green, but to say he\'s worse than tabletop? Interestingly I noticed he jumped from ~7.8 to ~8.4 on the daily update, looks like the vote checker was doing its job

And don\'t think this is just the good minis.

My rather poorly painted skeleton door ID: 36533 which I would say is about a 5 (although the pic is bad as well so that doesn\'t help), started off with a 5 and a 6, then he got a 1, and after that was getting a lot of 4\'s. Now he\'s not far off what he should be, but I\'m sure the 1 did him no favours.

Some were very consistently hitting all 6\'s and 7\'s, whilst others were all over the place, getting anything from 5 to 10. One got 6,6,6 then two votes equalling 4, 4 then 5, 5 and then 9. The 9 is almost certainly a reaction from someone who thought it was too low because there is no way it is really a 9. So you see it swings both ways. If the 4, 4 was actually a 1, 7 then I actually benefit from the sniping, because the 1 is removed and the 9 stays (or does the check remove high scores as well?).

Now most of these are on 50 and they are getting pretty much exactly what I thought they would.

Now are these \"odd\" votes sniping? In some famous peoples cases they may be, but I think that some voters are just using the whole 1-10 range and forgetting that 5 is tabletop (which should mean that most minis score 5 or above).

As I\'ve shown real sniping may actually help you if you\'re in the lower scoring range as later votes overcompensate for the low score, but for those people getting 8\'s and 9\'s I think a sniper can do a lot of damage which is a shame.

The last problem is over expectation. The way the voting works means that you are highly unlikely to get the score you expect. The best way to not be disappointed is to work out what you think the mini is worth and subtract 1, and you should be about right.

Finally this is all a bit of fun, so don\'t get too stressed about it.
:bouncy: :bouncy: fun! fun! fun!

 

[Jericho]

Personally I don\'t think the sniping thing is that big of a deal, it\'s an annoyance but I know I\'ve given a lot of people a few bonus points if their score was way lower than I think it ought to be, so it\'ll balance out in the end. If I see a high end figure with a 7.5, for example, I\'d be inclined to give an 8+ because I think the person deserves better.

So I think the issue swings both ways, really. Any \"established\" member of the community will have both snipers and fanboys; some people will give you more than you deserve simply based on name recognition and some will give you worse for the same reason.

I know I\'ve seen some minis over the years that I really didn\'t think were up to the artist\'s usual standards, but they\'re still right up there in the 8-9 category simply because of who put the brush to the pewter. Some times I get annoyed by it, but then I realise I probably have a few people doing the same thing for me, so it\'d be hypocritical to make a big fuss about it.