NWN2 Vault Voting FAQ
Added:2006-11-05 by Community Last Updated: 2007-05-29NWN2 Vault Voting FAQ
Below is an FAQ for public voting on NWN2 Vault. It provides more
detailed descriptions of what each score is designed to mean, as well as some
additional tips about voting on the vault.
Q. We didn't have voting standards for NWN1 files. Why do we have them for NWN2 files?
A. While the voting system served us well in NWN1, there were some noticable drawbacks in how they were used. First, there was often disagreement about the meaning of different scores among vault users. The lack of standards set up a situation in which a vote of "8" could be seen as a very good score by some users, while others saw it as a very poor score. Second, since there were no standards, modules were generally scored relative to one another. This set up a situation in which we saw substantial voting inflation. After four years of use, almost all new modules were being scored between 9 and 10, making those scores less informative about the quality of those modules than it could have been.
Therefore, for NWN2, we have decided to adopt a set of voting standards. These standards set up definitions of what each score means, and should help to reduce voting inflation over time by removing the need to rate modules against one another. Furthermore, they also should make the voting system easier to use, as the voting standards should assist with the process of translating one's overall impressions of a module into a numerical score.
Q. How do I vote on content?
A. It's easy. After registering for an account with NWVault
and logging in, simply call up the appropriate content page, and scroll down
until you see the voting interface. Read through the voting standards and
choose a score in the voting drop-down that most closely reflects your feelings
about the content. Next, type your comments about the file in the
comments box. Finally, click on Submit!
Q. Can you go into greater detail about the meaning of the voting
standards?
A. Hopefully, the following list should clear up any confusion you
may have about the intent of the voting standards:
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking Something you didn't think was possible before. Not only is it essentially
flawless, but it genuinely sets a new standard. Why is this person giving
this stuff away? A vote of 10 should be rare and reserved for very, very
special content. Please consider whether a lower score might be a better
match of your impressions before voting a 10.
9 - Outstanding, a Must Have Not just something you'd recommend to anyone, but a piece of content that
you consider an absolutely mandatory piece of any NWN2 library. Highly
influential; many builders/content creators will mimic it and they are right to
do so.
8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone There's a lot new. It can be an influential mod. If it has a restricted
target like a class-specific or niche module, you still would recommend it to
anyone because you had so much fun or you found it to be so impressive. This is
the kind of stuff that makes NWN2 such a great thing to have.
7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look Some elements of this content are unique and you enjoyed it without
substantial reservations. But you might be able to imagine some others
having complaints or just not enjoying it as much. Still, you think most
people should at least take a look at the file description and voter comments
to see if it sounds appealing.
6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation It does a few things well but maybe it's a bit routine. Or,
perhaps you found it enjoyable/useful, and something that you're generally
positive about, but also found that it has enough drawbacks that it's not
something you can recommend without a caveat. It's a good piece of content, but
it's a little hard to find superlatives for it. 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable It's not that it's bad, it's just not that good. Maybe parts of the
content are great, but other aspects of it bring it down. Or, perhaps the
whole thing is just thoroughly average. It's not that you feel cheated
with your time, but you can think of similar, better content. You
wouldn't discourage anyone from playing/using it, but you wouldn't go out of
your way to recommend it either.
4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements The "improvements" could be bugs, plot, encounters, whatever.
There is something good in this content, even briefly enjoyable/useful, but it
is buried under other problems. While you might briefly consider giving
it a positive recommendation, you just can't unless some serious work is put
into it.
3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized The author clearly set out to try to do something interesting, and may have
had a good idea or two. But s/he failed to produce a product that is
enjoyable or useful at this point. Perhaps it would be better to just start
again from scratch, rather than try to repair what is here.
2 - Very Little Appeal There really isn't much positive that you can say about this. The
ideas are poor, the execution is poor...everything about this is poor.
What separates this from a vote of 1 is that the author had some interest in
making something useful or enjoyable--it's just that they failed to do
this.
1 - Not Recommended to Anyone There's just absolutely nothing redeeming about this content. Perhaps
the author was intentionally trying to annoy, insult, or upset you. Or
maybe it's just an empty file. Maybe it's a module containing a single,
unpopulated room. Or a simple script that not only doesn't work, but even
if it did, it wouldn't actually do anything. Please note that 1's should
be even more rarely awarded than 10's--use them with extreme caution.
Q. What should I write in my comments along with my vote?
A. Comments are your opportunity to explain why you voted the way you
did. While they don't have to be long, the most helpful comments to both
content authors and other users are those in which people take a little bit of
time to discuss what they feel are the merits and flaws of the content
in question. All too often, users focus only on one or the other.
That said, please try to be constructive in any criticism you provide.
One useful guideline is to try to accompany any critique with a suggestion for
improvement. This can help you to keep your tone encouraging and
constructive. Remember, content creators often invest an enormous amount
of time and effort on their creations, and release them for free to the public
for little reward except the feedback they get from other community members.
Q. Can I see all the votes and comments for a particular piece of
content?
A. Yes. Click on the "View Stats" link underneath the
file score. This will launch a window that will show the names of each
voter, the score they gave the content, and their comments.
Q. How is the overall file score calculated?
A. NWVault uses a Trimmed Mean system to calculate all file scores.
In this system, the top and bottom 10% of votes are removed from the sample
prior to calculating the mean. This helps prevent outliers from
influencing a file's score.
Q. Can I change my vote if I later want to?
A. Yes, absolutely. Just re-submit your vote and comments like you did the first time, and the voting system will automatically update your vote!
Posted by Kerdul Fieldblood at 2010-10-13 13:21:42 Voted 9.50 on 10/13/10
A Must! Congratulations!
Posted by beyorn at 2010-06-24 07:13:26 Voted 9.00 on 06/24/10
i enjoyed it very much keep up the good work BEYORN
Posted by MpqX at 2009-09-18 09:01:14 Voted 9.00 on 09/18/09
Excelente hak!
Posted by AKICITA at 2008-12-22 13:11:21 Voted 10.00 on 12/22/08
Excellent MOD, fantastic atmosphere and ambience that allows players to immerse themselves fully into the adventure. Excellent storyline, as well as seemless flow of gameplay.
It seems I am starting to see more and more 10s around lately I even saw a 10 given for a compilation of old work. I do not see grouping things into one file as particular ground breaking imo. _________________________ Midgardsaga - Link
Posted by NecromanX2 at 2008-09-14 18:21:37 Voted 9.75 on 09/14/08
This mod is one of what I consider to be base must have mods. The work is high quality and updated at good intervals.
I am concerned that votes are not being attributed or counted correctly. I imagine many users will only look at a rating as an initial judge of whether to download a mod or not, hence feel they should accurately reflect the opinions of the community. However, in a recent case, after voting on a submission to the vault, I noticed that the final score attributed to a submission did not match the average score as calculated by (total vote score / number of votes). Now while I understand it may be necessary to discount votes due to people arbitrarily 'hate-voting' modules down, this should be dealt with very cautiously.
In my case, I calculated that my vote had been adjusted UP by 1 in order to obtain the current total score. Given that I posted a justification of the score that I gave, I feel that it is very poor form to (as far as I can tell) invisibly adjust my score up for the voting calculation while leaving it intact for my post.
If I'm mistaken or this has been done in error, then I apologize, but I feel I have voted in accordance with the guidelines of the boards, and so do not think it is right for those votes to be represented inaccurately. _________________________ AmstradHero Fate of a City Module Development Blog Fate of a City Blog
Posted by ioridracu at 2008-04-30 11:44:16 Voted 10.00 on 04/30/08
New castle is the best server I've encountered, running a character in Gardethia is something no less than a speldor. The game mechanics and overall gameplay rate a 10 on my list.
I want to let all those who have experienced a good server to give Newcastle a go. It is by far, in my experiences the most inclusive server with the most hands on DMs ever. It offers both great roleplay and action/adventure to fit every need. Newcastle brings a ton to the table, and always satisfies.
Posted by john s cooper at 2007-10-20 15:59:28 Voted 10.00 on 10/20/07
kristy. i say this is the bast room on all the rooms thay updat weekly most the time pl r helpfull and ez 2 get a lon with room rocks!
My take on it, as another user, is that the voting system is really only meant for modules that are more or less "complete." I'm not sure that it's appropriate or useful to be rating a module that is still in beta status. I can see some merit to the additional system you describe, but it sort of seems unnecessary to me.
I think a much better improvement would be to allow module authors to have comments posted to their download pages while not permitting voting. That way builders could get feedback about their alpha/beta modules from users and yet not allow voting until the their module (or other file) is ready to be considered "final." As it is, the only way to get feedback without voting is to close voting and then route users to another forum off-site (many builders have used the NWN2 modules forum for this)...that works ok, I suppose, but seems a bit clunky.
I think this latter idea has been suggested in the past to Maximus, but apparently it is difficult to implement using the Vault software. -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
This absolutely excellent! I do have one suggestion/ehancement request, however:
There seems to be a lot of great content out there, some of which is in varying stages of development. For example, there are many modules, etc. set to Alpha or Beta release status by the developer (which I must add is a very professional approach to development and highly commendable). As a result, I believe that the 1 to 10 system is unnaturally weighted to accomodate content that has not yet reached the fullest stages of completion.
Unfortunately, alpha and beta level content require a great deal of head-room in any grading system in order to provide informative feedback for the developer. When I worked as a software tester, we had a simple system for determining bugs during the development process that had five (5) seperate levels of impact for each bug we reported. If I recall correctly, the highest level bug (1) was a *show stopper* - in other words the project could not be released, and the second highest level bug was (2) was a bug that severely impacted performance, BUT was still acceptable for release. The third level of bug (the most common I believe) (3) was - if I remember correctly - was something along the lines of a non-urgent bug, but definitely a problem. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact classification for bug level four (4) - but bug level five (5) was essentially an "enhancement request," - a suggestion submitted by the testers or the end-user.
As you can see, there are essentially 5 different levels or grades set-up for evaluating alpha/beta stage development which can 1) serve to better facilitate the development process for the developer, but also which can take up or distort qualitatively any system set up to evaluate completed development.
While it could be argued that the existing 10 point system has room built into it to accomodate both alpha-beta stage and completed content, I would like to suggest that 1) the existing system could benefit aestetically from the separation of alpha/beta stage content from completed content by allowing a greater range for aesthetic evaluation than the upper 5 points (6 through 10 essentially), and 2) that the content developers could benefit perhaps even more by being separated off categorically into a separate voting system that could essentially reflect bug impact levels.
I'm not sure how difficult it would be for the websited developers to add an alpha/beta status for content, or more importantly, how difficult it would be to institute a separate voting system for the alpha/beta level content, BUT, I believe that some simple solutions are available.
The simplest solution, requiring very little implementation and having a very low impact on acclimation of voters, would be to add two boolean flags in the database - one for Alpha = 0 vs. Completed content = 1, and one for Beta=0 vs. Completed content = 1. It would go without saying that the combination Alpha=0, Beta=0 would be excluded by an appropriate filter in the php update/submit form.
After adding these flags, content could then be migrated by the developers themselves, and flagged for migration by the voters in cases where the developer has been absent from managing his/her content for some time.
Content then placed in Alpha or Beta stage review would then use *the same* 1 to 10 point system for voting (requiring no change on the web programmers' part except to exclude all Alpha and Beta content from Completed content searches) except that the 1 to 10 points would be used for the evaluation of bugs. The following system is suggested:
1 - Broken : the content is completely unusable
2 - Broken : the content is partially usable but unfit for release
3 - Major Bugs : the content is releasable but has SEVERAL bugs that severely impact its useability
4 - Major Bug : the content is releaseable but has ONE or TWO bugs that severely impact its useability
5 - Minor Bugs : the content is fit for release but has SEVERAL bugs that can be consistently reproduced and impact the enjoyment of its use
6 - Minor Bug : the content is useable but has ONE or TWO bugs that can be consistently reproduced and impact the enjoyment of its use
7 - Intermittent Bugs : the content is useable, and enjoyable, but has MULTIPLE bugs that cannot be consitently reproduced but will occasionally manifest and create problems
8- Intermittent Bug : the content is useable, and enjoyable, but has ONE or TWO bugs that cannot be consitently reproduced but will occasionally manifest and create problems
9 - Enhancement Requests : The content is useable, enjoyable, and bug-free but has ONE or MORE enhancement requests.
10 - Impeccable : The content is useable, enjoyable, bug-free and couldn't be better !
I suggest that spelling issues, while not technical performance issues, be categorized under "Minor Bugs" due to their impact on readability.
My alternate suggestion (which should involve sightly more coding) would be to use the same system outlined above, BUT to add a separate voting system (a duplicate if you will but using different field names and variable names) and to provide search filters based on Alpha, Beta, and Completed stages of development. This would allow completed content to continue to be seperately evaluated for Bugs/Enhancements while unencumbering the aesthetic evaluation of the content. In this scenario, the same Bug tracking system would be used, and the Alpha, Beta, and Completed boolean flags would be for information purposes only when doing searches for content.
I believe that the value of separating the voting system from the bug system will allow much more room to evaluate content and more accurately reflect standards with which we are more intuitively familiar (such as the grade point system: 10 to 9 = Excellent, 8 = Very Good, 7 = Average, 6 = Below Average, 5 and lower = Poor). This type of grading system, because it is accomplished by voting and NOT the subjective evaluation of a sole individual (such as a teacher/professor) requires a full range from 1 to 10 in order to portray an accurate composite score. In other words, if (for instance) we were to say that the *useful* scores need only be considered (10 through 6) and the other degrees of poor performance discarded, what would result from a composite of votes would be a much more compressed and less accurate evaluation of the presented content. However, if we remove the bias by adding back in the ability judge the content aesthetically on the full range of 1 to 10, there is now a much more rich and accurate representation of scales with which we intuitively identify such as the grade point system.
But all of this discussion about qualitative evaluation aside, I believe that developers would without any doubt enjoy the benefits afforded them by the implemenation of co-existent bug tracking system.
Great System ! Once again,
Respectfully and a new fan of NWN2 =),
Tuilan _________________________ <Note: This is not a 'real' singnature - but a signature place-holder, in case, I should decide to add a real signature at some time in the future.. which may or may not make silly references to trite little sayings by infrequently quoted personages, or perhaps blithe attempts at keen insights into the nature of humanity and the world, or perhaps otherwise completely unnecessary blather that goes on and on talking about nothing in particular and doing rather annoying things like cutting off in mid-sent... ...particular reason whatso- As I was saying, a signature of this sort (should one in fact be decidedly adopted, ahem) include any or perhaps even all of these things, but then again, it may very well n- >
Yes, I would like to be able to search on what I've voted on. For instance there was this really neat movie/cut scene that someone made with the new toolset before nwn2 was released. It was awsome, and I voted on it, but now after all this time, how do I find it? I don't remember any name, but if I could search previous voted, then I could find it. _________________________ Does this armor make my butt look big?
Is there a way to search on what I have voted on? There are a number of mods in here now where I thought I voted, but can't find anything in that particular thread indicating that I did, so I probably started to then got sidetracked. Going through them one by one worked for me this evening, but there must be a better way.
Wow, that's awful. Even in NWN1, if a vote is given in good faith for valid reasons, there's no good argument to remove it, even if it's substantially lower than other votes.
When I vote, I tend to include a preamble including the score I'm giving along with the text description that goes along with it (e.g. 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look). Helps illustrate why I voted the way I did. -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
From a NWN1/2 players perspective, I really appreciate the efforts that went into these voting standards. Its just a shame that most of the people who vote aren't paying attention and still just spamming 10 for the server they enjoy playing on most.
Whats worse is that I voted using these standards, and had some guy complain and lobby to have not only my rating removed, but my entire post as well.
First, you absolutely can change your vote at a later time. Just resubmit it like you did the first time, and it'll update for you! ;)
Second, the convention is to wait until you've "finished" playing a mod or evaluating a file before you vote. Not everyone does that all the time, but it's a good practice. No one minds when someone changes their vote to make it more accurate, of course! -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
Posted by segin at 2007-05-25 19:20:20 Voted 8.50 on 05/25/07
A couple of questions. After you vote can you change it? I feel hemmed in because I voted a little high on one mod, and now have to base others a little higher to reflect the bad I did on the other. Maybe thats a convoluted way of looking at it.
Are peeps allowed to vote more than once or change their vote to something they feel is a better representative of the product later on. Or should you just not vote until your sure of what you want to give it?
Redwell, I'm not sure how that reflects poorly on this voting system... That's more a case of people ignoring it completely.
It's still the case that the modules are really the only files where this system is explicitly being used regularly. But that's ok--that's where it's probably most important. -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
If you want to see how poorly this voting system works, just look at the Dasaria II gameworld entry. Dumbasses voted tens for it just based on the name and their experience from NWN1, not NWN2.
Posted by HowlingMouse at 2007-04-23 14:43:33 Voted 10.00 on 04/23/07
Excellent mod!
Posted by Zinnestro at 2007-04-23 14:21:05 Voted 10.00 on 04/23/07
I think you should do away with numbers. Just have - Don't Recommend, Recommend, and Highly Recommend. Maybe include a Highest Possible Recommendation. Numbers and decimals is not a good measurement. _________________________ Well, y'know... Sometimes you eat the bar, and..
Posted by PaulBlay at 2007-03-16 09:32:56 Voted 8.00 on 03/16/07
What this needs is somebody with no life to go out there and check that all the 10.00's have been posted by people who have really _thought_ about what score to award. :-P
Dr_Sascha, I think this is certainly true. Part of the problem might be that the other areas had a decent number of files, and thus votes, prior to this voting system making its debut on the vault. In contrast, there weren't any modules (aside from Faction Pig), so modules have always been subject to the voting standards. I also think people tend to vote on modules more carefully than other content for some reason. Any ideas on how to improve awareness of the voting system in the other areas? -B _________________________ My NWN Blog FRW Character Creator
Posted by Dr_Sascha at 2007-02-13 06:07:50 Voted 8.00
Maybe the people are Voting according to this for the Modules.
But if you take a look at other content the most people vote with 9 to 10 if they like it (or desired that kind of contet) and not on the quality of the Content
Posted by EtaYorius at 2007-02-07 10:08:47 Voted 10.00 on 02/07/07
GREAT MODULE, i love it... i hope you do the sequel soon.
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