Iwaku Ratings (and Discord roleplays)

[Yatagarasu]

LMAO all the visual upgrades but the "Nice Execution" rating still has the same graphics

COME ON EMOJIS I WANT AN AXE-WIELDING EMOTE PLEASE

 

[The Mood is Write]

I know our madmins just want the best for the site. I think people just panic when changes happen unexpectedly.

Change is scary. It's always going to be scary.

However, most changes I've seen on Iwaku over the past year have been either positive or ended up being so unnoticed after a few weeks that they blended seamlessly.

I'm not saying we gotta trust them explicitly or keep from offering our thoughts, but phrasing is a powerful beastie. Keeping things positive and constructive when we comment on a thing we don't like will lead to happier admins who...

Damnit, Ozzie, your sig is really distracting. :rofl:

EDIT: This has been "Moody slept only four hours," and may be confusing.

 

[Red Thunder]

Change is fine. The responses in this thread indicate that people are more upset because this solution makes them feel like they were treated like children. When people abuse the system, they should absolutely be punished for it. Key word "they". This is why we have a security team and a report option, so that individuals get punished for individual transgressions and not the whole group. The solution to a few jerkholes acting up shouldn't be to just start ripping away parts of the site. It's reactionary and frankly immature.

I really hope this isn't a sign of what to expect with future complaints.

 

[Baddamobs]

I actually approve. The old ratings were a little on the vague side, and could sometimes feel like someone was being passive-aggressive when they weren't. Likewise, while it certainly SOUNDS simply to just ask what a person meant, I know a number of people who didn't want to risk rocking the ship by questioning a certain rating, and would thus just keep quiet, which in turn just made the issue worse.

Keeping ratings so they're just more straight forward can only be a good thing.

 

[Eru]

I don't have any comment to make on the emoji changes at large, I just wanted to also say that I keep experiencing the same thing as Tari did; maybe it's due to my zoom level, or a lack of defining lines on the emoji itself? Either way I'm sure I'll get used to it soon, just keeps throwing me right now. :p

however I would like to say I thought the like was a middle finger at first glance and was simultaneously very happy and confused about it.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

I really hope this isn't a sign of what to expect with future complaints

Oh man, I do though.

Maybe then they'll finally start listening to my suggestions about banning fucking everyone and burning the forum down.

 

[Effervescent]

Oh man, I do though.

Maybe then they'll finally start listening to my suggestions about banning fucking everyone and burning the forum down.

Well, that would be just silly! If you don't like the site, though, nothing says you have to stay, for sure.

I can barely see the thumbs up emoji though. Nice execution is my fav both in definition of image and in connotation.

 

[Elle Joyner]

>_> Another reminder to please be civil and keep the thread on topic.

 

[noodle]

I'd like to clarify that the sentiment that sparked this discussion was not just "the ratings are confusing", it was "the ratings are confusing AND abused". It's not just that people found the cookie condescending; people used it to be condescending, and people knew that, and some people refused to use it because of that. It's not just that no one could tell what the facehugger was or was unsure how to take it because it was a creepy facehugger; it's that people were using it passive-aggressively.

I half-jokingly proposed in the discussion that we just get rid of all ratings, but obviously that's not actually fair to you guys and would let a few assholes ruin everything for everyone. This whole discussion was geared with you guys in mind, both in terms of an easy to navigate, easy-to-understand Iwaku as well as one that doesn't encourage people to be snarky bitches without even having to post. I know it seems like we took away a toy and you're being punished for what other people did, but that's not really the idea here.

The other half of the discussion involved the fact that people were requesting more ratings, especially ratings like on Amor that could be roleplay-applicable. Unfortunately with the way our site is set up, implementing a split system like Amor's with forum-specific ratings would break stuff; a ton of your ratings would disappear, things might get borked, etc. In lieu of that, we decided to add just two that were applicable both to RP posts AND the OOC areas of the site: a laughing one and one to express sadness.

The bulk of THAT discussion involved ideas for how to express sadness without making room for it to be used passive-aggressively. I'm serious. We spent more time on that one conversation point than anything else, because the whole point was to try and avoid that in the first place. Spite ratings are a more frequent issue than you might think.

I will add that while I personally do not care much about having any ratings beyond "Like" and maybe "Thank", and was more a yes-man to this suggestion--although I do like streamlining, because less clutter IS more attractive to new people even when we all love and understand a thing--it is rather disheartening to see this kind of backlash to something that came from a long and thoughtful discussion to try and improve the site experience for our users, especially over a feature so relatively small and superfluous in the scheme of things. I'm not saying that anyone can't disagree with the decision or that you're not entitled to your feelings on the subject. Pleasing everyone would be impossible, and we know that! But I hope that you can all understand that this was not done because of a vocal minority bullying us into something, or because newbies are ignorant and we don't have resources to explain things to them, but that we genuinely care and strive to actively address site issues after comprehensively considering all the facts.

While I understand what you are trying to accomplish, I still don't really understand why the community couldn't be addressed and asked their opinions on such a site-wide issue- or, better yet, asked what they should be replaced with. I understand attempting to get rid of redundant/aggressive ratings (such as Drunk, or Cookie), but I still don't get why Hug was tossed, or, more specifically, why it was replaced with T_T.

Hug was one of my favorites. It was used only with sympathy in mind for me (and I get that other people used it differently, but I doubt it was all that huge of an issue? I've NEVER seen it being used wrongly, so this came as a huge shock). Therefore, replacing it with T_T seems like taking a step BACK from what you were trying to accomplish.

I, for one, will not be using the T_T rating and I hope no one uses it on my posts because it looks like the rating is calling you a crybaby/showing a "wah-wah" response to someone who is genuinely upset. I get angry when people respond to my heartfelt stuff with crying emojis, or really just yellow-face emojis in general because it seems less heartfelt and too flat. The hug solved that because it was more of an expression of "I'm here for you and I wish I could give you a hug". I get that the facehugger could be taken wrongly, so fine, change the icon, but why replace it with such a generic thing that does NOT show sympathy? If I wanted to use the T_T emoticon, I'd type it.

And as for :rofl:...It doesn't look like it's laughing. I would not guess from looking at it that it is a laughing emote. It looks too much like the generic :) yellow scourge of the nations. If it were more on its side or had tears, it might look better? I don't know.

There's another issue I have with the changes, and that is the new style. The old pixel art ones were not only cute but unique, and I truly enjoyed just....looking at them. It was like a fun collecting game- "let's see what cute lil pixel icon I get for this post!" and "what cute lil button can I push to make this person feel appreciated?" but now...they're generic, like something you'd find already downloaded into a phone. They're flat, emotionless, too small, and hard to see because of the lack of shading and depth. I can go anywhere and get emotes like those, but the ratings were cute. They were fun. And now they're not. Changing the style is the big thing for me- it feels almost like ripping the heart out of the site (I know that sounds dramatic, okay? But It's actually upsetting).

tl;dr: I understand WHY the changes were made in regards to Drunk and Cookie, and I understand no one bullied anyone into doing it, and I agree with that. However, I do not like HOW the changes were made (especially with Hug), nor do I appreciate the community not being informed beforehand/consulted. I feel as if there's more problems with this to be fixed now than there were before, and while yes I will get used to the new ones, they will never be as fun to look at or to give to people.

 

[Astaroth]

Change is fine. The responses in this thread indicate that people are more upset because this solution makes them feel like they were treated like children. When people abuse the system, they should absolutely be punished for it. Key word "they". This is why we have a security team and a report option, so that individuals get punished for individual transgressions and not the whole group. The solution to a few jerkholes acting up shouldn't be to just start ripping away parts of the site. It's reactionary and frankly immature.

I really hope this isn't a sign of what to expect with future complaints.

We do in fact punish people on an individual basis, but there comes a point where something is indicative of the feature itself being confusing and easily abused, and the mature thing in my opinion is to address this by taking away something that is a tiny, tiny part of the site and an easy fix rather than keep something out of nostalgia just because we are used to it and some people like it. Not every instance of spiteful ratings gets reported and we can't monitor everyone's posts all the time, and just from the instances that have been reported and noticed, there were a lot of instances. I respect that you disagree with the decision, but I am a little annoyed that you are leaping to accusing us of being immature just because you dislike it. That's not respectful or helpful and spits in the face of everything we have tried to do for the site.

I'm sorry that you feel you were treated like a child, but this wasn't about people being adults or children, this was (as I explained) about streamlining and removing something that was misused so that people can't misuse it.

Oh man, I do though.

Maybe then they'll finally start listening to my suggestions about banning fucking everyone and burning the forum down.

Dude, I love you but can you not. This isn't helping either.

While I understand what you are trying to accomplish, I still don't really understand why the community couldn't be addressed and asked their opinions on such a site-wide issue- or, better yet, asked what they should be replaced with. I understand attempting to get rid of redundant/aggressive ratings (such as Drunk, or Cookie), but I still don't get why Hug was tossed, or, more specifically, why it was replaced with T_T.

Hug was one of my favorites. It was used only with sympathy in mind for me (and I get that other people used it differently, but I doubt it was all that huge of an issue? I've NEVER seen it being used wrongly, so this came as a huge shock). Therefore, replacing it with T_T seems like taking a step BACK from what you were trying to accomplish.

I, for one, will not be using the T_T rating and I hope no one uses it on my posts because it looks like the rating is calling you a crybaby/showing a "wah-wah" response to someone who is genuinely upset. I get angry when people respond to my heartfelt stuff with crying emojis, or really just yellow-face emojis in general because it seems less heartfelt and too flat. The hug solved that because it was more of an expression of "I'm here for you and I wish I could give you a hug". I get that the facehugger could be taken wrongly, so fine, change the icon, but why replace it with such a generic thing that does NOT show sympathy? If I wanted to use the T_T emoticon, I'd type it.

And as for :rofl:...It doesn't look like it's laughing. I would not guess from looking at it that it is a laughing emote. It looks too much like the generic :) yellow scourge of the nations. If it were more on its side or had tears, it might look better? I don't know.

There's another issue I have with the changes, and that is the new style. The old pixel art ones were not only cute but unique, and I truly enjoyed just....looking at them. It was like a fun collecting game- "let's see what cute lil pixel icon I get for this post!" and "what cute lil button can I push to make this person feel appreciated?" but now...they're generic, like something you'd find already downloaded into a phone. They're flat, emotionless, too small, and hard to see because of the lack of shading and depth. I can go anywhere and get emotes like those, but the ratings were cute. They were fun. And now they're not. Changing the style is the big thing for me- it feels almost like ripping the heart out of the site (I know that sounds dramatic, okay? But It's actually upsetting).

tl;dr: I understand WHY the changes were made in regards to Drunk and Cookie, and I understand no one bullied anyone into doing it, and I agree with that. However, I do not like HOW the changes were made (especially with Hug), nor do I appreciate the community not being informed beforehand/consulted. I feel as if there's more problems with this to be fixed now than there were before, and while yes I will get used to the new ones, they will never be as fun to look at or to give to people.

We don't do things by vote, for a multitude of reasons, especially being that community votes tend to end up splitting the community with one side being unhappy with results and everyone fighting with each other because of the votes, and also being inefficient in terms of process. The only community votes we have are for things that aren't core aspects of the site. The one time we did let people vote on something that was normally an administrative decision, everyone hated the results of the poll and we ended up throwing them out and picking things ourselves and everyone was much happier. I totally understand not liking this, but... this is how we do. o__o So this may not be the site for you if you dislike that, and again I 100% get why you might not.

T_T was not really supposed to replace the hug emote, so much as be a new emote, as previously explained. A lot of various suggestions were made for how to make a sadness emote that people wouldn't take as passive-aggressive, before we settled on T_T because as I put it, "no one can take that wrong". I guess I was mistaken. I genuinely didn't think anyone would be offended by a crying face. o__o

As far as the actual look, I actually had no input on the visual changes here and have no problem tweaking them if people dislike them! I'm not super in love with them myself. We do want a consistent visual style, would be the only thing there.

 

[Effervescent]

I would like to present a visual of each version of the site background and how the emojis look on each background.

Midnight:

Dusk:

Evening:

Daylight:

Sunrise:

As you can see, not every emoji shows up well on the various background options. The options are there for member's personal preferences and therefore each should be considered when addressing the visual issues for each emoji.

 

[noodle]

We do in fact punish people on an individual basis, but there comes a point where something is indicative of the feature itself being confusing and easily abused, and the mature thing in my opinion is to address this by taking away something that is a tiny, tiny part of the site and an easy fix rather than keep something out of nostalgia just because we are used to it and some people like it. Not every instance of spiteful ratings gets reported and we can't monitor everyone's posts all the time, and just from the instances that have been reported and noticed, there were a lot of instances. I respect that you disagree with the decision, but I am a little annoyed that you are leaping to accusing us of being immature just because you dislike it. That's not respectful or helpful and spits in the face of everything we have tried to do for the site.

I'm sorry that you feel you were treated like a child, but this wasn't about people being adults or children, this was (as I explained) about streamlining and removing something that was misused so that people can't misuse it.


Dude, I love you but can you not. This isn't helping either.



We don't do things by vote, for a multitude of reasons, especially being that community votes tend to end up splitting the community with one side being unhappy with results and everyone fighting with each other because of the votes, and also being inefficient in terms of process. The only community votes we have are for things that aren't core aspects of the site. The one time we did let people vote on something that was normally an administrative decision, everyone hated the results of the poll and we ended up throwing them out and picking things ourselves and everyone was much happier. I totally understand not liking this, but... this is how we do. o__o So this may not be the site for you if you dislike that, and again I 100% get why you might not.

T_T was not really supposed to replace the hug emote, so much as be a new emote, as previously explained. A lot of various suggestions were made for how to make a sadness emote that people wouldn't take as passive-aggressive, before we settled on T_T because as I put it, "no one can take that wrong". I guess I was mistaken. I genuinely didn't think anyone would be offended by a crying face. o__o

As far as the actual look, I actually had no input on the visual changes here and have no problem tweaking them if people dislike them! I'm not super in love with them myself. We do want a consistent visual style, would be the only thing there.

I'll stay on the site. It's too fun to leave for a desicion making issue (and with the exception of this one, you guys have done a great job with site decisions)....but the fact remains that it's a lot less satisfying to rate poeple's posts now. *shrugs*

I get T_T being used for 'sadness', but I would ONLY use it for IC posts that made me feel sad. It's not good for use in day-to-day, OOC discussions and conversations, as it can very, very easily be taken the wrong way. I believe perhaps since we have gotten rid of Hug, replace it with some other sympathetic rating. Like suggested before, a band-aid? Something cute and pleasing, something sympathetic and healing that people can use when they otherwise don't know what to say and just want to support in silence. We've taken away that sympathy rating option and I feel like that was a huge mistake.

I'm glad that the new style might be changed, though...I just...don't like it. I understand consistency, and I'm glad we are trying to make them consistent, but I just really hope they change from these paper-flat, kinda boring and generic icons.

 

[HerziQuerzi]

Every potential sympathy icon will probably be easily misused. False/mocking sympathy is a very common thing in a lot of online communities, after all. T_T is crybaby, a Band-Aid is "aw do you have a boo-boo?" Etc. A hug is one of the harder ones to misinterpret, but also has a lot of visual info necessary that's hard to cram into an emoji.

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

I agree with @HerziQuerzi. Most sympathy icons could be used malciously. Also, with so many ratings removed ( and cookie being gone) if you liked it with the old system you got a black space and an undo rating button and it looks weird.

 

[Jays]

As long as we choose to believe that every rating thrown at us are positive messages and everyone's nice, we deflect any possible negativity aimed at us and thus emerge completely unharmed.

Although this requires some heavy doses of self-hypnotism and delusion, but honestly who lacks these things these days?
I choose to believe everyone loves me, because it is the truth :)

 

[noodle]

@HerziQuerzi @LuckycoolHawk9 Okay, but what if we renamed the icon? Instead of 'do you need a hug' it could be 'I want to give you a hug'. Instead of 'bandaid' it could be 'I wish I could fix this'. A lot of it lies in the name of the rating, and as long as people aren't being assholes about it, it will be fine. The fact remains that EVERY icon can and probably will be misued, either maliciously or on accident. But having a sympathy icon isn't going to make it worse- and as long as the icon and the name are not encouraging malicious or sarcastic use, it shouldn't be an issue. Sympathy icons have many more pros than cons.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

That face hugger was my baby! I birthed into this world!

I will not let this drunken act go forgotten!
*Angrily munches cookies*

 

[RAIN.cloud]

Tbh I'm kinda glad the 'you're drunk' rating is gone. I don't really think there's an instance where that wouldn't be super hard to read. And ik when I can across it I always felt like 'well screw you too' about it.

I really like the new ratings. Maybe bring the cookie back though. I did like that one and the star is kind of confusing. Since, yknow, it's a LITERAL gold star so I keep thinking it's a 'hey good job' instead of a thank. Looks like I'm in the minority for liking the changes though lmao

 

[Greenie]

Looks like I'm in the minority for liking the changes though lmao

I don't think so, to be honest? It's normal that people will remain quiet if it they're okay with it or it doesn't affect them. :3

 

[Reina]

I mean... the ratings are cool and an awesome add on but the reason we joined iwaku was not for its rating system. It was because we enjoy writing, we enjoy role playing, and the community aspect. In the grand scheme of things the ratings are minute. Lets try to remember that.

I don't mind the ratings honestly. I don't use them too often.
I would REALLY have to like a post to use it.