PSA: Review Trains Fucking Suck!

[Nine Inch Heels]

Not gonna beat around the bush, I had a slight glimmer of hope that leading by example would finally sway people from dropping the umpteenth review on wow.wad...

 

However - just as it was the case with status updates way back when - people don't seem to appreciate or value a forum feature that could - and in all due honesty should - help visitors find something they might wanna play next.

 

And before any of you geniuses gets the fancy idea to make the argument that wow.wad needed more than half a dozen reviews over the course of a few days because somewhere out there might just be the one person who is interested in the mapping experiment of a 10 year old: Shut the fuck up and see things from the perspective of someone who is looking for more than a single cyberdemon in an illusio pit for a change. It's called review-section - not meme-section.

 

If you want to discuss that wad, and you really, really just can't help yourselves, go ahead and bust out a status update for that instead of pushing reviews that have at least a chance to be informative and helpful to others off the sidebar.

 

It's already annoying enough that the review section still seems to malfunction when it comes to the most recent uploads, and it should go without saying that shitting the place up on top those technical difficulties doesn't change anything for the better...

Edited November 21, 2021 by Nine Inch Heels

[dmslr]

ok

[Walter confetti]

Yeah, i don't get the review train that happens in these days with wow.wad (and earlier, with florceil and illusion)... Even if i been part for the previous two.

There's more wads that deserves more attention, guys, if you want to turn famous a wad make it for a wad that really needs more attention.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Walter confetti

[thiccyosh]

Yes.

 

And also: watch your language! We have toddlers that make wads like wow.wad here on this site.

[Major Arlene]

Gonna have to jump in and say yeah, the review system is not for jokes or memery. It's fine to give criticism but please make it legit critique instead of... whatever yall are doing. If you want to meme about a WAD (or anything, honestly) please do it in your status updates. Please and thanks. :)

[dew]

It's inherent to sheepish group behaviour and it's going to happen as long as latest reviews show up in the sidebar. Since you can't remove the stupid from people, just remove the reviews from the sidebar. It might be sad to see a potentially useful "engagement" tool go to waste, but here we are, already ruing its existence. PSAs will do exactly fuck all.

Edited November 21, 2021 by dew

[Shepardus]

I added a filter to uBlock Origin to remove the sidebar entirely from view, and haven't regretted that one bit.

[Morpheus666]

nvm, someone explained it for me

Edited November 22, 2021 by Morpheus666

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

18 minutes ago, Morpheus666 said:

Hi, can someone clue me into what the hell he is referring to?

People (one after another) posting unfunny "meme" reviews for shitty wads.

Edited November 22, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[leodoom85]

Wow.wad is like a bullied kid.

Seriously, that gets old and boring. Do yourselves a favor and make something productive instead of wasting time memeing such a wad, because there are other wads that deserve some feedback and constructive criticism. And love too...

[Morpheus666]

Just now, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

People (one after another) making unfunny "meme" reviews for shitty wads.

One of the reasons i'm taking a break as a playtester, got tired of booting up maps only to find unfunny, low effort maps, ones which the creator referred to as "shit"

[Morpheus666]

2 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

Wow.wad is like a bullied kid.

Seriously, that gets old and boring. Do yourselves a favor and make something productive instead of wasting time memeing such a wad, because there are other wads that deserve some feedback and constructive criticism. And love too...

Best advice? Ignore them, they make them for that exact purpose: publicity.

by ignoring the wad and not giving it attention, you will discourage that behavior and show that it's not welcomed on the site

Edited November 22, 2021 by Morpheus666

[leodoom85]

1 minute ago, Morpheus666 said:

Best advice? Ignore them, they make them for that exact purpose: publicity.

Someone here mentioned this:

 

Quote

I added a filter to uBlock Origin to remove the sidebar entirely from view, and haven't regretted that one bit.

Which, funnily enough, I have a similar filter extension to do it and forget that the section is there. So yeah...

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I certainly agree with what's being laid out here - almost every fucking time I see a new review posted, it's for dumb shit that everybody has been making fun of for the past 10-20 years.

 

It has become a place to repeat the same jokes over and over again, and it was never funny to begin with. If you insist on writing a review for digital excrement like wow.wad, can you at least pleeeasse come up with something better than "10/10 best wad ever lol"

 

The only thing worse than a shitty low-effort map is a shitty low-effort joke about a shitty low-effort map that gets repeated for the next decade in shitty low-effort "reviews". They're usually by the same group of people too, but I won't point any fingers.

 

I fucking hate meme culture because it leads to shit like this. I guess it makes people feel "included" or some shit. If you want people to pay attention to you for recycling stupid memes, go over to r/DOOM, they could really use your talent.

 

@Morpheus666, I agree with everything you're saying, but I think you might be confused. We're talking about people who hop on the bandwagon of posting low-effort reviews in the review section, not people who are posting low-effort maps (another problem, like I discussed in my Joke Wad thread). The authors of most of the maps getting "meme'd" (wow, floorceil, etc.) are no longer around.

Edited November 22, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Astronomical]

If I didn't know otherwise I would assume that the review section was intended for meme reviews and nothing else.  I have no clue how to find the review page for some wads other than to go to one that has a review listed.  Maybe joke wads should be banned from the listing? 

[LadyMistDragon]

If the File Reviews wasn't listed in a way that makes it look like an afterthought, maybe people would be slightly less tempted? I know we won't see changes to the format for some time still, but given that the section of the website is cumbersome to access if you don't know how, I can understand if not agree if why some people aren't taking it seriously. Banning jokewad reviews isn't a bad idea though.

[AD_79]

I'd love for some sort of system that highlighted good/worthwhile reviews to exist, which would maybe incentivize more people to put some effort in. That being said, I don't know who would oversee this, and it probably wouldn't make a huge amount of sense to implement until the files section is fixed up.

[Doomkid]

I suggested once that only 3 to 5 star reviews should be shown, mainly just to highlight good content that's having a moment in the sun rather than highlighting 1 star review bombs that are clearly just being done for the lulz.

 

This would mean people can still give whatever file any score they like, but only positive reviews make it to the front page. It would also mean the only potential for review trains would be positive ones, and I see no harm in that. (After all, why highlight content that people unanimously think deserves just 1 star? What's the benefit of that?)

 

Unfortunately, I asked Lut if there was any way to implement this suggestion, and there just isn't with this forum software. The only other alternative would be getting rid of the review panel altogether. The forums existed all the way up to 2017 without a review panel, so I don't necessarily think this would be a bad idea - at the same time though, the review panel has directed me towards good content I had no idea existed on a number of occasions. To me, there's a lot more weight to that positive side than the occasional annoying review train, which warrants a groan at most.

 

In conclusion: I personally don't think it's a big deal either way, and since there's not much that can be done about it.. meh. I don't want to see it fully gone because of how often it's been useful for me personally. Taking that away from me and others like me just because some memesters exist doesn't seem optimal (though I don't think that's what's being suggested anyway).

[P41R47]

I don't see any problem on this.

People likes to have fun, just let them have fun.

If someone comes here, see the good reviews train and then goes to try it, worst thing that could happend is don't liking it, and realising that the previous reviews were jokes.

As just very few suggested, the review panel brings more joy than problems to most people.

And if veteran members don't like it being used in some way to have fun by other members, just ignore it.
They are harmless and they aren't breaking any kind of rule as they are free to review as they want.

[Major Arlene]

8 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

And if veteran members don't like it being used in some way to have fun by other members, just ignore it.
They are harmless and they aren't breaking any kind of rule as they are free to review as they want.

There's a time and place for memery, reviews where actual critique is expected isn't one of those places. As mentioned by NIH and myself, that type of "reviewing" (aka joking about how shitty something from the 90s was) is better served in status updates rather than something actually attached to the file.

[P41R47]

1 minute ago, Major Arlene said:

There's a time and place for memery, reviews where actual critique is expected isn't one of those places. As mentioned by NIH and myself, that type of "reviewing" (aka joking about how shitty something from the 90s was) is better served in status updates rather than something actually attached to the file.

or post a review in the review section, as they want and as they like :)

[Bridgeburner56]

14 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

I don't see any problem on this.

People likes to have fun, just let them have fun.

If someone comes here, see the good reviews train and then goes to try it, worst thing that could happend is don't liking it, and realising that the previous reviews were jokes.

As just very few suggested, the review panel brings more joy than problems to most people.

And if veteran members don't like it being used in some way to have fun by other members, just ignore it.
They are harmless and they aren't breaking any kind of rule as they are free to review as they want.

It isn't harmless, it completely defeats the purpose of having the recent reviews panel, rendering it utterly useless because a few idiots have too much spare time and need a new hobby.

[P41R47]

Just now, Bridgeburner56 said:

It isn't harmless, it completely defeats the purpose of having the recent reviews panel, rendering it utterly useless because a few idiots have too much spare time and need a new hobby.

so member that likes to have fun between them are idiots.

Good to know!
;)

[Major Arlene]

5 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

or post a review in the review section, as they want and as they like :)

as a mod: no.

[pcorf]

Humanity has always found trash talking a pleasure (there are 3 kinds: silly mood trash, bored trash, disagreeable trash) in many ways or forms whether it is verbal, physical (including protests, etc) or electronic, it has happened for many years. So this is why the really infamous stuff such as wow.wad and Terry wads, etc gets way more attention unfortunately. Even Whispers of Satan got this released aimed at it's copy and paste.

 

Wow.wad was made by the author (Paul Thrussell) when he was a kid with his buddy nicknamed ice59. He was so proud of his achievement of getting a working Doom map together he wanted to make a point by releasing it into the Doom community. But the clever thing was the description in the text file on how the cyberdemon escaped the lab and was trapped inside an illusio-pit, a sector within a sector with untextured walls so when you fall in you see HOM so that is where it got it's name illusio-pit. This infamous map has probably gotten some of the most attention of all time and has even had some fanmade sequels. Even made fan art has been made in tribute for wow.wad.

Edited November 22, 2021 by pcorf

[P41R47]

6 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

as a mod: no.

different choices, different people, different likings

do you wanna tell other how they should like to do?

[Nine Inch Heels]

39 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

This would mean people can still give whatever file any score they like, but only positive reviews make it to the front page. It would also mean the only potential for review trains would be positive ones, and I see no harm in that. (After all, why highlight content that people unanimously think deserves just 1 star? What's the benefit of that?)

inb4 people slam 5 star reviews on whatever they damn well please, regardless of how good it actually is... if people can't abstain from using the review panel for blatant memery, do you really think that's gonna stop anybody..?

 

"5/5 dumbest shit I ever seen in a doom map would delete from hard drive again"

 

and there's that idea out the window...

 

5 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

different choices, different people, different likings

do you wanna tell other how they should like to do?

since you're clearly not the brightest candle on the cake... guess what? mods can tell people what to do, and actually enforce what they say with warnings, or even bans... and when you're being told by a mod that the review section isn't supposed to become "meme central", then you'd do well to listen...

 

besides, 6-7 people having fun at the expense of hundreds of daily visitors who get nothing but shit to read should be a simple enough problem to understand for anybody who isn't a troll on crack...

Edited November 22, 2021 by Nine Inch Heels

[Bridgeburner56]

13 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

so member that likes to have fun between them are idiots.

Good to know!
;)

When your """fun""" stops literally everyone else from using a function for its intended purpose, yes you fall squarely into the idiot subsection of society.

I will also accept moron, muppet and fuck knuckle as synonymous terms

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

27 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

People likes to have fun, just let them have fun.

If someone comes here, see the good reviews train and then goes to try it, worst thing that could happend is don't liking it, and realising that the previous reviews were jokes.

As just very few suggested, the review panel brings more joy than problems to most people.

And if veteran members don't like it being used in some way to have fun by other members, just ignore it.

1- I could agree with the "it's just people having fun" thing if anyone was actually having fun, but they're not. They're just repeating the same jokes over and over. Is it a crisis? No, but it turns what could be a valuable part of this website into a useless shithole where the same members parrot each other for attention.

 

2- As of right now, the review section doesn't bring anything to anyone because it is bombarded by the same jokes by (oftentimes) the same people over and over again.

 

3- If veteran members (the ones who actually contribute to the forum in one way or another besides just being irritating) don't like it, the ideal thing to do is to figure out a way to fix it. If it's a problem for people, why ignore it?

 

I'm sure the review section wasn't created for the purpose of new members parroting the same memes ad nauseam. Therefore it is being misused at this point.

 

Yes, different people like different things, but there are different places for different people. There are other places where they can have their "fun".  

[Grimosaur]

Is it possible to make it so a new review only gets added to the review section so long as there isn't a review for that wad already visible? So the review section could never have duplicates? Or maybe that's not possible either like what Doomkid said about filtering by the amount of stars.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Grimosaur