Suggestion For The Dispute System

[damon8r351]

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and I have an idea how to make the dispute fair, impartial, and most importantly, anonymous. Instead of the demeaning public spectacle it is now. Then you can discuss or pick it apart as you see fit, and Sly can figure out if his software can even make it work. Or whatever.

 

First, this is an example of how I've seen a dispute system work, elsewhere on the internet. Years ago I used to participate in a relationship advice forum. People would post a question, other people would respond. The original poster would then rate their responses based on how well they thought those responses were. The ratings would be -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, and +3. Each person's profile would have two important stats: a total number of points accumulated, and an average rating. The previous ratings would affect both those stats, because the ratings were assigning a point value. Of course, people would get rated unfairly all the time, so there was a dispute system you could submit your response to. This was a queue that anyone with a certain total number of responses, total points, and average rating could access provided they displayed good community behavior (I forget the prerequisites, but let's say for argument it was 500 responses, 1000 total points, 2.00 average rating). The queue displayed the disputed response and the question it was originally to. No screennames were displayed at all. You could then vote on how to re-rate the response, the response would then be re-rated permanently after three people voted based on the average of the three votes.

 

So here's my idea:

1. Create an anonymous queue that the disputes go into. As before, the disputer has to write in why they think it should be changed. The queue can only be accessed by Staff, and people with a certain amount of forum reputation. Eliminate forum reputation from statuses and forum games, to prevent "like" farming to gain access to the queue. Or some other criteria, like having Premium Access.
2. The individual dispute can only be accessed by Staff, the person making the dispute, and people who have the game on their profile (not hidden), and have earned the trophy in dispute.
3. The decision to keep the flag or remove it is put up to a vote by people and whatever Staff is concerned. I'd say, best of 10 votes, and Staff has the power to overrule if necessary. A simple yes or no vote. The disputer cannot vote.
4. Of course, questions will need to be asked; make this a temporary forum somewhat like a gaming session's comment section. Again, make this anonymous and use generic screennames: "Staff", "Disputer", "Voter1", "Voter2", etc. The person whose trophies are in question will not be anonymous. People can post questions, the disputer can respond, Staff can add their two cents, and make their ruling as necessary.
5. Staff makes whatever changes to the disputer's profile that the discussion resulted in, and clears the dispute from the queue. Games that are found to be cheated during the dispute cannot be discussed in the dispute, but can be flagged and possibly discussed in a different dispute.

Edited April 16, 2017 by damon8r351

[Conker]

i Personally like these suggestions 

[MesopithecusUK]

I could definitely get behind these suggestions, sounds like a well thought out and logistically sound approach.

[- Deleted -]

Sounds like a great idea to me. Just having grimy do all the decision making isn't exactly the best of options. Not saying he's bad by any means, but a voting system sounds a lot more appealing than "oh yeah it's up to this guy".

[Saionji]

Nice ideas but I think if we make those disputes so annonymous no one from the "outside" of staff can actually help the disputer with their knowledge of the game. Staff may not always know every exploit games has to offer.

[damon8r351]

14 minutes ago, Saionji said:

Nice ideas but I think if we make those disputes so annonymous no one from the "outside" of staff can actually help the disputer with their knowledge of the game. Staff may not always know every exploit games has to offer.

 

Read it again. Up to 10 (or whatever number of) people who (think they) have knowledge of the game would be allowed to vote, as well as commenting and asking questions to clear up the dispute. Staff would take the accumulated votes and comments to make their final decision. The anonymity is so that people concentrate on the task at hand instead of how awesome they look while doing it with their screennames exposed. If need be, the disputer can be the one person without anonymity, so that you can look at the overall trophy list to make a clear decision.

Edited April 16, 2017 by damon8r351

[DaivRules]

I support all of the suggestions here to make the process much more fair. The only point I'm considering is weak is point #2:

 

46 minutes ago, damon8r351 said:

The individual dispute can only be accessed by Staff, the person making the dispute, and people who have the game on their profile (not hidden), and have earned the trophy in dispute.

 

Don't the people who want to be higher on the Leaderboards have a vested interest in removing any others and so may vote negatively out of self interest? If the point is to limit interaction, is there another criteria that could be used? Just because I haven't loaded a game and or achieved a particular trophy doesn't mean I can't evaluate the facts and/or provide input that either absolves or supports the flag fairly.

 

Lastly, a suggestion: A way to track a ratio for the number of times someone votes to keep a flag versus the number of times those flags have been absolved. To identify those who consistently unfairly evaluate disputes and suspend those voters for a period of time once the ratio gets sufficiently low, to keep people who evaluated the evidence fairly participating and deter those who just vote to keep

flags on all disputes. 

[Sly Ripper]

I'd rather work on other things.

 

Anyone that is wrongfully flagged can easily point out the method to obtain the trophies (in that order or speed) either via videos/forums/guides.

[damon8r351]

I'd like to reiterate that the dispute system could stand some improvement in some way, shape, or form, and do not appreciate that this topic was closed without allowing further discussion.

[BlazingCat83]

The disputes shouldn't be public. It's just turning into a point and mock board.

[- Deleted -]

Just now, Torracat83 said:

The disputes shouldn't be public. It's just turning into a point and mock board.

 

I agree.

[Sly Ripper]

4 hours ago, Torracat83 said:

The disputes shouldn't be public. It's just turning into a point and mock board.

 

It helps verify the report. Report posts that "point and mock".

[damon8r351]

6 hours ago, Sly Ripper said:

 

It helps verify the report. Report posts that "point and mock".

 

Problem with trying clean up the dispute forums by reporting abusive people is twofold:

1. The moderators themselves. I've personally reported things that were grossly out of line, things that completely would not have not flown before, multi-user, muti-post flame wars in, of all places, a community event thread. I reported every single post as off topic and abusive. Watched a moderator go in, look around for 5 minutes, and leave without changing anything. I don't know if the mods are overworked, don't care any more (because God forbid, I have the greatest amount of respect for both Stevie and Parker), or just some different standard that's unclear to me is being applied. I feel bad for saying it. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.
2. The people in the dispute forum. They're following the rules to the letter in regards to behavior. Dancing on the line of what's inappropriate without actually being inappropriate, so that there's technically nothing you can report them for. And it's blatantly obvious to anyone who has stepped foot in a dispute forum that to these people, it's not about doing a good community service by clearing the leaderboard of legitimate cheaters, it's about having their sick little measure of power over people. I've once heard them described as hyenas, and that sums it up perfectly. And this sort of thing is going to continue to happen until a real functional change to the dispute system is made. Otherwise, it's going to keep chasing away the good members that the community should want to keep.

[iAlphaSoldier]

I'm guilty of having been one of these dispute hyenas myself. 

 

The current system definitely needs improvements and the suggestions here are thought through well. So why not try this out for a couple of disputes (be it actual ones or dummy ones for testing reasons) and see if it works?

 

If it turns out that it's not working then so be it but I doubt that would be the case. A lot of people by now have agreed on the fact the disputes should be made anonymous so why not give it a try?  

[thegirlruka]

27 minutes ago, damon8r351 said:

I don't know if the mods are overworked

I've made the suggestion multiple times over the past two years to add more mods (this is the most recent one that wasn't deleted) and Mango got mod powers... but komp also lost them. 4 forum mods (if mango and sly count) to 200k members does seem a little thin though.

[B1rvine]

I have a suggestion -- this might not work for every game -- or every person's situation -- but should help some people.

(Perhaps this already exists but I've never seen it)

 

Allow everyone the opportunity to send their save to @grimydawg to review it.  Everyone's should be unique, right???  For games that keep scores, times, tracks various data, this will help some innocent people.  It should be obvious too if they tried to build upon the original save, like that Ninja Gaiden thread that was opened recently.  

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by B1rvine

[turpinator1986]

I like your idea @damon8r351 well thought out. Alas I think yours and everybody else's suggestions are falling on deaf ears. The powers that be clearly have no interest in changing something which I think is the worst aspect of this site and is actually pretty shameful at times. 

 

How would you decide who was going to vote? A first come first served type thing or a dedicated team of say 15-20 people who have powers similar to staff? I do think it's unfair for just one person to always be doing it. Not a comment on that person's performance, it's just a lot of work for one guy I feel. 

 

@B1rvine in principle I like this idea with the saves. But perhaps a lot of people wouldn't want to send data to a stranger. Maybe screen grabs/pictures etc of leaderboards or in game stats could suffice?

[damon8r351]

23 minutes ago, turpinator1986 said:

I like your idea @damon8r351 well thought out. Alas I think yours and everybody else's suggestions are falling on deaf ears. The powers that be clearly have no interest in changing something which I think is the worst aspect of this site and is actually pretty shameful at times. 

 

How would you decide who was going to vote? A first come first served type thing or a dedicated team of say 15-20 people who have powers similar to staff? I do think it's unfair for just one person to always be doing it. Not a comment on that person's performance, it's just a lot of work for one guy I feel. 

 

@B1rvine in principle I like this idea with the saves. But perhaps a lot of people wouldn't want to send data to a stranger. Maybe screen grabs/pictures etc of leaderboards or in game stats could suffice?

 

My idea was if you have the game on your profile, had the trophy in question, and a certain other criteria. Either a certain level of forum reputation and length of time in the forum, or if you were a premium member, or some other criteria determined by the owner. If it was forum reputation, I'd have eliminated being able to get forum reputation from forum games and statuses, make it something you actually had to work for by being genuinely helpful or a good community member. It's similar to the example of a dispute system I'd seen work in a different forum (not gaming related). Says it all in my original post. That way it splits the difference between privacy, and allowing the public to give their expertise. It'd be separate from the forum so it's not a public shaming spectacle, but anyone who has experience in the game can submit their opinion on its legitimacy without it being left up to a permanent team that may not have experience with it. Staff members would have unlimited access to make final decision, the 10 voters would be first-come-first-serve, whoever is qualified to help with the game (have the game and trophy, meet the other criteria). Conceivably, if no consensus could be reached between 10 community members plus present Staff members, more qualified people could be let in one at a time until one was reached.

Edited May 21, 2017 by damon8r351

[turpinator1986]

8 minutes ago, damon8r351 said:

 

My idea was if you have the game on your profile, had the trophy in question, and a certain other criteria. Either a certain level of forum reputation and length of time in the forum, or if you were a premium member, or some other criteria determined by the owner. If it was forum reputation, I'd have eliminated being able to get forum reputation from forum games and statuses, make it something you actually had to work for by being genuinely helpful or a good community member. It's similar to the example of a dispute system I'd seen work in a different forum (not gaming related). Says it all in my original post. That way it splits the difference between privacy, and allowing the public to give their expertise. It'd be separate from the forum so it's not a public shaming spectacle, but anyone who has experience in the game can submit their opinion on its legitimacy without it being left up to a permanent team that may not have experience with it.

 

Yeah I got all that as I read your original post. What I mean is, younsuggestt around 10 people could vote. Well how would you decide who? Because on a lot of disputed more than ten people have their say currently so you couldn't just allow anyone who rocks up and fulfils the criteria to vote as that would result in too many people. 

[damon8r351]

5 minutes ago, turpinator1986 said:

 

Yeah I got all that as I read your original post. What I mean is, younsuggestt around 10 people could vote. Well how would you decide who? Because on a lot of disputed more than ten people have their say currently so you couldn't just allow anyone who rocks up and fulfils the criteria to vote as that would result in too many people. 

 

Made some updates to what you quoted, maybe that answers your question. Also, it doesn't have to be "10", whatever number is reasonable. The whole thing was up for discussion.

Edited May 21, 2017 by damon8r351

[turpinator1986]

2 minutes ago, damon8r351 said:

 

Made some updates to what you quoted, maybe that answers your question.

 

It sure does, I like it! 

[damon8r351]

This idea still hasn't went away. And now people are unknowingly cribbing ideas from it:

 

So what I'm saying is that this should continue to be under consideration as a valid idea.