Iwaku Ratings (and Discord roleplays)

Disappointments are always okay and people being sad to see something change is normal. 8D But if people are getting actively upset by it, and it's not something that is actively fucking up the ability for people to roleplay and engage with each other, that's bananas. People should always take these kind of alterations in stride. Especially if the alterations are trying to remove something that has been creating issues, and the removal isn't hurting anymore. A community's features are constantly evolving, so changes are always gonna happen.

But then why doesn't this apply to the people butthurt over cookies or a hug? That's my question XD I'm not trying to instigate an argument. Just confused about where the line is ... why is it okay to be hurt/upset/offended by one ridiculous thing... but not another ridiculous thing?

Change happens, yeah... But I also always ascribe to 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. And while I understand people might've been confused, a simple explanation (or, hey... looking at the "ratings" resource) could easily solve that confusion. Adding NEW emojiis would've been fine... but just straight up getting rid of some to add mediocre alternatives is gonna grate a little on people. Will they get over it? Sure. But I'm not sure suggestion they're being overdramatic is the way to go to encourage them to move forward. There's no legitimately reason they can't feel that way - if they're not hurting anyone, right? Pointing out why it's wrong to care about change is just kind of... lemon in a wound.

At the end of the day, the admins are gonna do what they want. No one is gonna change that. But it's always fair to let people vent for a hot minute, so long as they aren't breaking the rules. I mean... if that's not something we're allowed to do, then these threads should probably just be locked right away, right?
 
Well, consider it like this... the admins's goal is to create the bestest, nicest, most wonderful Iwaku that they can! And over the course of time (days, weeks, and months worth), they listen to a lot of posts that get posted in suggestion threads, rant threads, announcements, random topics, etc. They are always looking at the bigger picture. When it comes time to update part of the site, all those things get taken in to consideration and they make a choice based on what is going to best convey the goal they're going for both in the short term and long term.

It's already been said by a couple people in this thread there's been issues with the Facehugger and the Cookies both being used as condescension or being mistaken for condescension. Sure, they're not intended to be offensive, and it might be a minority of people having issues - but why not still strive to do better ratings and for a community that always puts that sort of thing first?
 
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Y’all should probably get rid of the “go home you’re drunk” rating since that’s not very nice to rate people with that.
 
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I'll give some explanations (mostly personal opinion here, not necessarily the collective admin opinion on the matter) about the ratings changes since people are apparently bothered by them. I should note that I didn't actually take much part in this discussion in the admin chat, I just read what had been said and shrugged and agreed because it sounded good. I don't really care much about the ratings system so I didn't have any interest in going in depth on the matter, even in private, until this thread popped up.

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about the reason some ratings were removed. It's not a matter of "we can only have 9 ratings" or anything, it was a matter of us taking a look at the ratings and deciding independently whether or not any of them should be removed. The talk of removal and adding new ones were all jumbled up together and it just so happened that we ended up removing two and adding two (or in reality replacing one and then removing one and adding a different thing).

The "you need a hug" was alternately used to express sadness/condolences and for sarcastic/snarky ways of saying someone is being a shit and needs to stop. The new T_T is a replacement that retains the first use without being so easily twisted into a salt-inducing sarcastic rating, thus making it better for the general goal of giving people post ratings while minimizing uses that cause dumb problems. Also, this emoji makes it a lot more clear to newcomers what the hell it's supposed to be used for than the facehugger was.

The cookie rating was entirely extraneous. More than half of the ratings are varying degrees of "This is a good post, I like it," and when the cookie was there it was 2/3 of all ratings. Like is exactly what it says, love is more intense liking of a post, thank is saying thanks for the good post, useful is saying the post was good and useful, nice execution basically also says it's a good post, and bucket of rainbows is a generic positive vibes rating that can be used whenever the others don't feel quite right. The cookie served no real purpose not already fulfilled by the others, seeing as it had basically the same exact use cases as bucket of rainbows, but it also had some snark applications (ie the same way people say "what, do you want a cookie or something?" when someone talks about accomplishing something unimpressive). It was less obvious than the snarky applications of the facehugger, but still there, and I've seen many people complain about it being used on their posts in such a way (including some people saying they hate receiving cookie ratings on their posts because they can never tell if it's sincere or not).

The new rofl rating was meant not to replace the function of the cookie, but to fill a hole in the ratings system that has received tons of complaints over the years. "Give us some kind of laughter rating" has been the #1 requested thing in regards to ratings since... hell, since I joined the site I think. We've had no rating to say "that's funny," just varying shades of like to sort of say it, and recently the nice execution rating has sort of filled that purpose. It's a worthwhile thing to have, totally independent of the other changes made.

Also, now that I HAVE taken an in-depth look at the ratings, frankly I am of the opinion that we have too many. Were I given full control of the dumb things I would remove two or three more and not replace them. Bucket of rainbows is extraneous, the like rating can easily fill the role of generic positivity. The go home you're drunk rating is frequently used in a negative or insulting fashion, therefore it should probably be removed. Nice execution is now pushed into redundancy since we have a rofl rating, because now it's just another of the group of things that mean "I like this post" to some degree, so I would probably get rid of that one as well even though I like using it instead of the like or love or whatever. I definitely like the idea of keeping ratings to a minimum and telling people to just write a fucking post or PM to tell a person what they want to say if it's more nuanced than "I like this post" or "this post made me laugh," and chopping it down to 6 ratings that each have clear and functional meanings would be ideal.

You're all welcome for my lack of giving a shit about the rating system btw, because I didn't bother saying this stuff in the admin chat about the issue and I'm not gonna bother pushing for these removals now even though I think it would be a good thing. Writing this post has tapped all of the small amount of my give-a-fuck reserves that could be spared for this topic. 8D
 
Well, consider it like this... the admins's goal is to create the bestest, nicest, most wonderful Iwaku that they can! And over the course of time (days, weeks, and months worth), they listen to a lot of posts that get posted in suggestion threads, rant threads, announcements, random topics, etc. They are always looking at the bigger picture. When it comes time to update part of the site, all those things get taken in to consideration and they make a choice based on what is going to best convey the goal they're going for both in the short term and long term.

It's already been said by a couple people in this thread there's been issues with the Facehugger and the Cookies both being used as condescension or being mistaken for condescension. Sure, they're not intended to be offensive, and it might be a minority of people having issues - but why not still strive to do better ratings and for a community that always puts that sort of thing first?

If I'm reading correctly, the problem people have is that it's catering to a misunderstanding, instead of fixing an ACTUAL issue. It's the same effect of setting your couch on fire to heat the living room. All it does it cause more problems. What people are asking is why couldn't new ratings be added while keeping the other ratings? Or why not post a reminder PSA on what the ratings are intended to mean? This just feels like a BIG jump to fix a minor issue. I've said before, and I know what y'all will say (it's not a democracy:tm: XD), but these decisions being presented as some sort of vote BEFORE the decision is made might provide a little more understanding. Sometimes, asking the people's opinion isn't as disastrous as folks think it will be.

Right now, all we have is "we did this because we saw people complain"... but if no one is seeing the complaints or the general consensus after the fact seems to be disappointment, then is it REALLY the best thing for the -entire- site?

Yes. I want a nice, wonderful place to RP. But if ratings aren't a crucial part of the site as you said earlier... why are we so concerned with trying to make sure no one is offended by them, while not really considering that it might be more annoying to change something that people are used to. And on that matter... why on earth would we keep the drunk rating? Which IS actually 99% passive aggressive/antagonistic/sarcastic?
 
I'll add...

The reason people LIKE the multiple ratings is because it gives us the opportunity to say a lot with one click. Yes. There's a lot. Maybe they're extraneous. But who cares? So much on this site could be seen as extraneous to someone who doesn't use them, but to someone else, they're what make the site enjoyable. It's been explicitly stated that none of the ratings are meant to be used negatively (the negative ratings were removed, specifically to avoid issues with this) but people are always gonna misunderstand. You don't punish the majority because a small amount of people are confused and don't make the effort to look up the actual rating meaning. And the report system exists for abuse of ratings... this hasn't changed.

We're dumb. We like dumb things. Let us have our dumb things.
 
And on that matter... why on earth would we keep the drunk rating? Which IS actually 99% passive aggressive/antagonistic/sarcastic?

And on that note: why would we keep the rainbow rating, when it was also used as a "vague positive rating that could easily be replaced with like or love", just as much (if not moreso) than the cookie rating?

Personally I would've preferred to lose the rainbows and keep the cookie rating, if one of them was going to be removed for that reason.

Also, the rofl rating can just as easily be replaced by like and love, too. :/ The variations like the cookie rating, rainbows, and rofl all just have slightly different connotations to them. And people seem to like the connotations of the current vaguely-positive ratings more than that of the "rofl" rating, which to me feels even more bland and extraneous, and doesn't add much of a connotative meaning to what could be achieved with like or love.
 
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Honestly, the Go Home, You're Drunk rating gets used so seldom and is almost universally agreed upon as a negative rating that it slipped through the cracks. With the general lean away from negative ratings and that one having no real defined purpose aside from that, it should go and we agree! That should be finished and show for everyone shortly.
 
I wouldn't compare altering the ratings to avoid confusions to setting a couch on fire to heat a living room. That is not anywhere remotely an equal equivalent. XD

It's more like some people in family are lactose intolerant, so instead of serving up ice cream for dessert you serve pie. You don't want to force them to have the milk-poops just because they're out numbered, and you don't want to take away dessert altogether. So you adjust the dessert plans.

Why constantly keep posting PSAs to remind people of the real meanings when you can just alter the ratings. It's the legitimate fairer and more simple option. O_O
 
I think the best course of action might be to remove ratings all together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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I think the best course of action might be to remove ratings all together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly I don't... I feel that's just knee jerk reaction.
 
It's more like some people in family are lactose intolerant, so instead of serving up ice cream for dessert you serve pie. You don't want to force them to have the milk-poops just because they're out numbered, and you don't want to take away dessert altogether. So you adjust the dessert plans.
As someone who is lactose intolerant, I don’t expect people to provide milk free desserts. If they don’t have something I can eat, I bring my own stuff.

The best option is to provide ice cream & pie. Not only does that give people a choice, they go wonderfully together.
 
I think all in all there are very valid reasons to wanting to keep a positive environment for both new and veteran members, and if there are people hurt by something, it should definitely be addressed. I can’t fault the staff for doing their jobs in that regard and discussing solutions to the problem, because that’s shows they’re being attentive to the community they volunteer to keep going behind the scenes.

That being said, the same should be applied to feedback. At some point it may come down to compromise but it would need to be the final option after all sides are heard.

In the end, these are fun ratings to use on posts, but you’re never going to find one that can’t be taken negatively to someone. Every one of these ratings can be used negatively out of context, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
 
I wouldn't compare altering the ratings to avoid confusions to setting a couch on fire to heat a living room. That is not anywhere remotely an equal equivalent. XD

It's more like some people in family are lactose intolerant, so instead of serving up ice cream for dessert you serve pie. You don't want to force them to have the milk-poops just because they're out numbered, and you don't want to take away dessert altogether. So you adjust the dessert plans.

Why constantly keep posting PSAs to remind people of the real meanings when you can just alter the ratings. It's the legitimate fairer and more simple option. O_O

The point was, it's trying to fix a problem with an extreme solution, instead of just... say... explaining the issue/misunderstanding and moving on. Straight up deleting stuff instead of saying "Y'all. This is what it means."

One PSA, to remind people of the meanings, is just a lot less intense. I would argue there's nothing simple or fair about just... altering stuff a few people don't agree with/like..., No one generally gets ticked off by a PSA.

Anyway. Just going in circles, here XD Everyone's entitled to their opinions - at this rate, it won't be changed either way so there's no sense in arguing semantics.
 
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Wouldn't it be funny if we keep only 1 rating but multiply it 8 times so it's actually just 1 rating but also 8 ratings. You can choose which of these completely identical options you like at that moment (like that scene in movies where characters open their closet to choose clothes but it's just 18 sets of identical pieces).
 
The new ones are looking good :O
 
The new ones are looking good :O
They're honestly not quite my style, but they match now and I know I'm weird about emojis, so I'm happy in any case ^^