You know, eyebo, there's something to be said for the about of thought which you effectively translate to eloquence. Concision (which is a word) is not necessarily the best option, especially when you're explaining something so complex.

I also think that no one want to see the rating of their track fall into the red, so negative ratings may not be the best option. If there's an award, we can assume the track is good, and just how good is the judgment of whoever left stars on the track page.

But I do see your point that the system will fall apart when users let the current rating influence their own. I don't believe that there is any way around this ...

It's in our hands!
Registered users: over 2700
Uploaded tracks: over 5000
Best of the week: 4 tracks under 10 awards
MX: "Remember to award and rate the tracks you like!"
Think about it.

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PS:
I know it's supposed to be fun, but imagine how frustrating it must be to get kicked out of the botw by NadeoA1.

Hans Holo


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Edit:
Above I forgot the 17 pages talk about awards only in this thread. Sorry, but I have to mention that.

The more I read the more I don't believe a rating system is a good idea.

Especially Sriver, Bucky and also eyebo without intention, made very good points why a rating system should not be implemented.

First of all and most importantly - we all agree that a tracks quality is not measurable. It's a matter of taste.
That alone is reason enough not to have ratings, especially not an average rating.

Second, I think a rating system will be used falsely much more than the award system.
A lot of people will not vote what they really think of a track but they will vote what they think will influence the overall rating in a way that it will have an average rating that comes closest to their own oppinion.
Meaning:
A track with 10 ratings and an average of 8.6 (out of 10).
A player comes and finds it mediocre.. lets say he thinks its worth 5 or 6.
He will give 1 so the average rating comes closer to 6.
And there will probably more discussions about rating of tracks than there are discussions about awards.
Because a rating clearly says: Track X is worth Y points. Most people will have a different oppinion - in on or another way.

Third, we're all in a social network here and most authors do put effort into their tracks, no matter if you think the track is poor. Eyebo you said something interesting.

... says:
users shouldn't interpret a negative vote (or a negative comment on their track) as anything but an honest appraisal from a fellow player. And if they do, that's their own immaturity.

Immature or not, it hurts to get bad votes, and my point is, there are a lot of kids here on mx, they are immature, and I don't mean this in a negative way. They are kids and they are easily manipulable and vulnerable.
They come here, upload their tracks with a bit of proud and get punched in the face with low ratings.
You are an adult, you can handle critics (I know even adults who can't), but they are kids. Get my point?

Is it even mature to rate a track, especially to rate a track down?
Is it social? Is it ethical?

Think about it.

You make some very valid points SkunkY.

Omg my track got a single rating and the person voetd 1 omg i hate this game im never going to play again ever!!!!!111

as opposed to

omg someone commented something really negative about my track and he told me some bad words this is not nice at all i never want to play again /cry !!!!!11

It's less harsh to get a rating of 1, than getting a negative comment. It might spare people for some really negative feedback, because people just wouldn't care and instead just make a bad rating. Imo, that's better than receiving negative feedback.

Making it easier to make negative feedback through rating may become a reality, but at the same time it is going to be easier to make positive feedback through rating. All this really depends on how we are using the system.

I really don't think people will try to alter the ratings by voting lowest/highest and doing stuff like that. And that's really why I think it would be a better idea if only 50 % of the votes counted. It's more likely that the best and worst ratings are made by these people, and by only counting the middle 50 % of the ratings, we are more certain that these people would have made a rating without trying to manipulate it by voting highest/lowest. Of course this makes stuff a little more complicated, but I'm hope nobody would want to abuse the system, so I don't think this would be necessary.

SkunkY says:
The more I read the more I don't believe a rating system is a good idea.

Especially Sriver, Bucky and also eyebo without intention, made very good points why a rating system should not be implemented.

First of all and most importantly - we all agree that a tracks quality is not measurable. It's a matter of taste.
That alone is reason enough not to have ratings, especially not an average rating.

Second, I think a rating system will be used falsely much more than the award system.
A lot of people will not vote what they really think of a track but they will vote what they think will influence the overall rating in a way that it will have an average rating that comes closest to their own oppinion.
Meaning:
A track with 10 ratings and an average of 8.6 (out of 10).
A player comes and finds it mediocre.. lets say he thinks its worth 5 or 6.
He will give 1 so the average rating comes closer to 6.
And there will probably more discussions about rating of tracks than there are discussions about awards.
Because a rating clearly says: Track X is worth Y points. Most people will have a different oppinion - in on or another way.

Third, we're all in a social network here and most authors do put effort into their tracks, no matter if you think the track is poor. Eyebo you said something interesting.

... says:
users shouldn't interpret a negative vote (or a negative comment on their track) as anything but an honest appraisal from a fellow player. And if they do, that's their own immaturity.

Immature or not, it hurts to get bad votes, and my point is, there are a lot of kids here on mx, they are immature, and I don't mean this in a negative way. They are kids and they are easily manipulable and vulnerable.
They come here, upload their tracks with a bit of proud and get punched in the face with low ratings.
You are an adult, you can handle critics (I know even adults who can't), but they are kids. Get my point?

Is it even mature to rate a track, especially to rate a track down?
Is it social? Is it ethical?

Think about it.

"we all agree that a tracks quality is not measurable" Of course. This is why we want a rating system. Because it measures acurately what most voters think about the track. This is measurable. Not the track itself. (nice try on start a dialectic confusion XD)

All the rest you said, is also applicable to awards, and whatever system you want. All can be abused in some way.
Maybe we have to remove the award system. I don't want to create a trauma to a inmature kid if I don't award his track, or if I award other tracks and not his track...
Think about it: This traumatized inmature kid could go to his school and shoot everyone who apears in front of him...
Let's think also about stupids. There's a lot of kids and a lot of stupids. Any rational system will fail because of this... They can't use it properly! XD

Some of you are talking about the lacks of others systems. And this is great in order to avoid this lacks in some way... But it seem you forgot to think in all lacks that has award system. We must compare some systems, we will find lacks in all. So we must choose the one wich works better.

eie says:
Omg my track got a single rating and the person voetd 1 omg i hate this game im never going to play again ever!!!!!111

as opposed to

omg someone commented something really negative about my track and he told me some bad words this is not nice at all i never want to play again /cry !!!!!11

It's less harsh to get a rating of 1, than getting a negative comment. It might spare people for some really negative feedback, because people just wouldn't care and instead just make a bad rating. Imo, that's better than receiving negative feedback.

I once wrote quite a long comment on a newcomer's very first track, and this comment contained a lot of negative (but constructive) feedback. And guess what - the author was happy about my comment.

eie says:
I really don't think people will try to alter the ratings by voting lowest/highest and doing stuff like that. And that's really why I think it would be a better idea if only 50 % of the votes counted. It's more likely that the best and worst ratings are made by these people, and by only counting the middle 50 % of the ratings, we are more certain that these people would have made a rating without trying to manipulate it by voting highest/lowest. Of course this makes stuff a little more complicated, but I'm hope nobody would want to abuse the system, so I don't think this would be necessary.

As I said before, these 50% of the opinions - the most extreme ones - are the ones that tell the most about a track. So, by removing exactly these 50%, you get a rating that doesn't reflect people's opinions about the track anymore.

@DeMeNs It is a different thing if you get a bad vote or if you don't get an award. It's silly to say it would be the same.
If you don't get an award/feedback, that's of course not what you want. But beeing told your work sux is something different, don't you agree?

eie says:

It's less harsh to get a rating of 1, than getting a negative comment. It might spare people for some really negative feedback, because people just wouldn't care and instead just make a bad rating. Imo, that's better than receiving negative feedback.

Thats false and contrary to what you said before.
You alwys said you want constructive feedback. How is voting constructive? It doesn't help the author in any way. Only when you explain what you liked or disliked it can help the author.
With a voting system you will have less feedback, good and bad.
And you will have more critics (in a way of bad votes) than you have now when people have to say that they don't like it.

DeMeNs says:
This is why we want a rating system. Because it measures acurately what most voters think about the track. This is measurable.

It's not. Because of what I mentioned and because of what sriver said already. It's just an average number which tells us quite nothing about players oppinions, about the style, the ups and downs of a track.

I hear you saying the award system doesn't either, and you're right. Both don't.

@Sriver

I mean by ignored the top x% and bottom x% we would remove the haters and friend-ratings, because this is where their votes would be. You could have a track where 80% voted 5-8 and then 10 % voted 1 and 10 % voted 10. This would lead to an unnatural result if all votes were calculated, so instead it would be better to just ignore their votes. Their written feedback would still show.

@SkunkY

I meant negative feedback, like in "this track suck you should go die". Those people would instead just vote 1, since that would be easier for them. At the same time I'm thinking that we should ignore the extreme voters, so if people rate 1 instead of writing negative things to the author, we solve two problems. They receive satisfaction by voting low, while they're still not changing the rating of the track, and does not harm the author with a bad language.

Of course this is all hypothetical and I'm not sure if it really work that way. It might even be contradicting to something I said earlier (I cannot remember all the things I say ^_^), but I'm trying to look into the opportunities, rather than be negative all the time and say that no change is good.

If you remove 50% of the votes, the rating will not be 'more accurate'. It will be almost the same for every track! And it won't represent the players' opinions about the track anymore!

About feedback like 'this track suck you should go die': I never saw anything like that on any track page. But if I did, I'd report it to the mods rather than whining about the award system.