So let’s say voting for your own game is allowed, just for the sake of discussion. You’d still score nothing more than a few points if you aren’t the author of one of those top 5 or 10 games. 
I guess I’m partly speaking for myself here, because I don’t expect to be the author one of those 5 or 10 games, but I’m also speaking for the other 20 or so developers that don’t have one of these games, I think. I hope I do 
if you read my original post, I said I’m doing two systems 
there is going to be a system where you can go to each individual game and rate categories from 1 to 5 stars. in addition to this system I plan on running the 72 hour “what’s your top 3 favorite” poll. I’m going to be interested on how different the results will be in these two systems
So you said - I basically suggested you skip the “top 3” one, because the other one will give a more balanced voting system. Also, you should delay the implementation of this 1-5 system until the contest is over.
EDIT: Modifying this system to be weighted isn’t hard, so I think you should.
I mean I like all of the input but Im still waaay against forbidding the vote of a popular game (I mean, if it got that popular, it deserves the vote). I know you argued that “creating the attention” shouldnt be part of the challenge but it is - and it DOES influence votes. that’s why I give everyone a chance to link to their own wesbite. there’s noting wrong with creating a fun story line or spazzy logos or anything. if you take the extra time to publish the game like that, the vote will show it.
I guess it’s kinda like the steroid issue in baseball. the only “100% fair” thing to do is let EVERYBODY use the steroid - since nobody would have an advantage then (of course I doubt MLB would ever consider doing that ;))
No matter what you say, there will be ppl who won’t type in their JGF pwd on your site, that is obvious. The idea that I suggested would allow them to take part. But you are right. Setting up a user system on your site for voting commenting (everything else open) might just be the ticket.
You missed my point. Lets put it this way then: one game gets 10 votes(ratings) and average of 4.9 another game 1 vote of 5.0. Should the game with 1 vote really win? This naturally only applies to the grading system and not the “top 3/5/10 games” (agree with Morre not a good idea).
Now we will have to add rules for how screenshots may be created. (4K game compo, all you need is notepad, java compiler, obfuscator, compression tool and raytrcing tool and massive marketing campaign…) : I’m not really concerned with winning the compo, but it would be really nice to see what game ideas are popular and so on, rather than who made best screenshot.
What about my suggestion then? It would be dead simple to implement, and it would result in a more fair competition.
[/quote]
I can’t see that preventing ppl from voting will improve things if we use average points (in one way or another). Did I miss something? Or is it meant to force ppl to vote on games with few votes?
I wouldnt call it a marketing campaign exactly… it’s publishing. and no matter what the opinion is of it, it’s natural law: the games that are posted with “play this game” or whatever with no working screenshot and no external website will most likely NOT get voted for. that one isn’t my fault 
I’m just giving you all a chance to compete fairly.
besides, it’s a bit too much politics for a contest with no prizes. save that for next year (yes, I am hinting at something)
Not so fast, Markus. It’s a nice twist of debate to claim that someone is agreeing with you, but Iet’s actually look at what each of us are claiming:
You are claiming that Woogley’s method lacks security and is likely to create a huge security hazard.
I’m claiming that Woogley’s method is no less secure than what already exists, reducing the security equation to a matter of, “Do you trust Woogley”? I give an affirmative on that, especially given that my password here was chosen to maintain my security even if it was compromised.
Your further argument over subnets is nonsense. The packets travel over an unknown set of subnets on their way from your computer to JGO. The packets travel over an unknown set of subnets on their way from Woogley’s server to JGO. What’s the difference? The consumer subnets your packets travel over from your computer tend to be less secure than the subnets between Woogley and JGO due to the fact that you are sharing subnets with any random user vs. the hosting subnets which tend to be secured against the system’s users running applications like TCPDump.
[quote]If both JGO and Woogleys site used https, I would trust this idea more.
[/quote]
Come on, you just made that up. You hardly pointed it out yourself, which makes it likely that you weren’t thinking about it when you made your statements.
[quote]The “highly sensitive password” is the password for my login on this site, and a bunch of other web forums I don’t consider important enough to give unique passwords. The worst a hacker could do is to post a bunch of posts in my name.
[/quote]
Which is not exactly much of a security hazard. You’re running the same risk with this as you are logging into JGO every day. Unless, of course, you don’t trust Woogley to not lie to us about his code. If you don’t trust Woogley not to lie to us, then you are an extremely paranoid individual.
“I’m not paranoid. Everyone IS out to get me!”
[quote]But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give you or anyone else my password.
[/quote]
Then change it. Use a temporary password like “god”, “love”, or “money” (sorry, a silly reference to Hackers used to obscure a real password choice), make your vote, then change it back. The world won’t stop spinning in that time.
FWIW, I’ve done a half-dozen or so Single Sign On implementations for various clients, each securing against information about billions of dollars in investments. I’ve even developed a new standard in Single Sign On that provides sophisticated features across a network of trusted systems while maintaining an easy-to-implement design. So trust me when I say this: there is nothing wrong with this design. Given JGO’s security (which you readily accept), the only way this could be improved is by JGO handling the password directly, then JU accepting confirmation without ever seeing the password. But the only reason to do that is if you don’t trust that Woogley is doing what he says he’s doing. If you’re worried about that scenario, then chose one of two options:
To save time, I’m not going to bother to quote you, but:
As for the outlandish slipperly slope that led to me being paranoid; grow up.
Woogley, it’s not so much the “marketing” I’m against - actually, if I had the time I would probably do this myself. I think it should be allowed. That has nothing to do with the votes in itself - just because you are allowed to expose your games on other sites, you don’t have to conclude that the voting system should reflect this.
Just by using an average, and letting people vote on all games, you could make the system much better. By implementing Donald’s idea as well, you’re not excluding people - you are strengthening this system. Whether it’s worth it or not isn’t up to me, and I stand neutral in this matter. However, it is my firm belief that some sort of weighted system using an average would be much better than the “top 3” system. The reasons for this are that an average system would make sure (and even more so if Donald’s system is used) that everyone get an equal chance, regardless of marketing skills - this has nothing to do with changing the rules, it’s just making things fair. Making this system weighted makes sure that a few people can’t just register and votes 5:s, and then a game with 3 votes can win over one with 400 (isn’t that the way you want it?).
Thus, it’s really about three things, that you should keep separate - all of these can be implemented at once, or you can select a few of them:
1) Average score or top score - that is, selecting favorites or being able to vote on all entires (both negative and positive votes). I vote for an average system.
2) Using a weighted system or not (this is only possible if it’s an average system). I strongly think you should, because it costs nothing, it’s easy to implement, and it don’t have any negative side effects that I can think of.
3) Using Donald’s strategy or not (this is only possible if it’s an average system). I stand neutral as to whether this should be used or not.
I think we should make a poll regarding what system to use in a new thread, to see what people think.
EDIT: I also think you should either let everyone use and just filter away double votes on the same entry from the same IP, or let people register on JU - that way, we won’t have this whole security issue. I don’t have a problem with the current system, but since it’s obviously not to everyone’s liking, just change it. I don’t think cheating’s that much of a problem, and if you do, just let people register. It’s not a big deal
don’t get me wrong, i am open minded, but … how can you cry “no fair!” on the top 3 system? not everyone is going to have the same top 3 favorites. the only way for every game to have an equal chance of getting votes would be to have every game be equally good. in which case, the contest would come to a draw with about 30 games taking first place
But it isn’t fair - don’t you see? Not everyone will have the same top 3, but everyone might have the same top 10 or so. The thing is we’ll see who won, but there will be no internal statistics on the other games, and since they’ll score around zero, the devs might never participate in such a contest again - I know I’d be demoralized. Even getting a “2” on average from 1 to 10 would be better than getting zero “top 3” votes, in my opinion. The top 3 system favorizes the winners, that’s what I don’t like about it
A weighted system IS fair without the games being equally good. Please consider it… or at least tell me what you like better with the top 3 system, because so far, you’ve said nothing against the average system, only saying you don’t want to remove the top 3 one.
EDIT: Also, see my edit on my post just above, regarding registering and security.
[quote=“Morre,post:49,topic:26013”]
But how should THAT poll work? I suggest we use donald’s strategy to vote for what strategy to use for voting for the games.
Great idea, Markus! However, I think we should vote on the system to use on the poll regarding the voting system, instead of just using donald’s system directly.
In my opinion even that is questionable. Is it a screenshot or an advertisement for the game? Is it an accurate representation of the game or an idealized abstraction? Is there a level field such that every entry will have a comparable advertisement for their game?
Just ‘adding text’ in this competition is a big deal because that (edit) gives the appearance you did more with fewer bytes than you actually did.
[/quote]
Its not a real screenshot to begin with… unless your game’s resolution is 100x100 pixels.
I experimented with a 100x100 region of several screenshots before, but that didnt work very well. Scaling it down left big unused borders on the left and right… shrug
Thumbnail and fullsize screenshot would be nicer.
oh don’t take it that way, I haven’t even coded the top 3 system yet, I’m still deciding on what to use. but you guys seem to forget Im running two parallel voting systems (the individual category and the overall favorite vote)
seems to be alot of garbage to deal with for only one function: voting. plus we’d lose a ton more voters that way because most people aren’t going to want to register
So let everyone vote - we’ll experiment, and if there’s a lot of cheating I bet we’ll notice
Also, I know you’re running dual systems, but as I understood it the top 3 system is the one you use to decide the winner - I’ll bet it won’t have anywhere near the same results as the average one… and people will get confused if both systems count when it comes to deciding the winner, so much so that even registration might be less of a problem. You say you don’t want to lose voters, so stick to one system (the average one! the average one! ;)). If you use two systems, make sure only one of them determines the outcome of the contest.
Does anyone have anything against me starting a poll thread just to see which system people prefer?
I’m not sure which system I’d use to claim the winner, I might display both. even the silly presidentail elections do that sort of thing (winner: bush; popular vote winner: kerry)
[quote]can’t see that preventing ppl from voting will improve things … Did I miss something?
[/quote]
We are only balancing the game voting using this way, so that each and every game will get ratings on its quality. The only limitation we set are the maximum difference in the number of ratings, so that not only 3-5 games will get votes and the rest be without.
I think that all games submitted should get ratings so that the developers will know how good their games are as they deserve to know (IMHO), this doesn’t mean that a bad game could win the competition. If the game you are really interested in giving a rate isn’t available to give a rating at the moment you visit the ratings page, just try out and rate something else and eventually it will turn up.
I’ll give an example.
An example using this algoritm:
`
Let MaxDifference = 6 // Changed to 6 now for example purposes, in reality 10 or 20 is better.
Let M = GetGameWithLeastAmountOfVotes(Games)
For each game G in Games
Let G.youMayVoteOnThisGame = false
Let G.showThisGameInTheListOfGamesYouCanVoteOn = false
If G.votes < (M.votes+MaxDifference)
Let G.youMayVoteOnThisGame = true
End If
If G.votes < (M.votes+(MaxDifference/2))
Let G.showThisGameInTheListOfGamesYouCanVoteOn = true
End If
End For
`
Example session using the above algorithm with its settings:
`
Games = { NinjaKiller, PowerBeaver, FunkyFrank }
Users = { A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H }
MaxDifference = 6
|Has the page | Presented as available when new pages | Rates a game | Stats for the |
|loaded, User: | are loaded by new visitors | User->Game | games (by initial) |
|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | by initial | N=?, P=?, F=? |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|A| | | | | | | | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | | N=0, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|A| | | | | | | | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | A->N | N=1, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |B|C|D| | | | | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | | N=1, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |B|C|D| | | | | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | B->N | N=2, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | |C|D| | | | | | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | D->N | N=3, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|A| |C| |E|F| | | | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | C->N | N=4, P=0, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|A| | | |E|F| |H | | | FunkyFrank | A,E,F->P | N=4, P=3, F=0 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |B|C| | | | |H | | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | H->F | N=4, P=3, F=1 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |B|C| | | | | | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | B,C->F | N=4, P=3, F=3 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | | | | | |G| | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | G->N | N=5, P=3, F=3 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | | | | |F|G| | NinjaKiller | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | G->N | N=5, P=3, F=3 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | | | | |F|G| | | PowerBeaver | FunkyFrank | F->N | N=6, P=3, F=3 |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
`
Wow, that example gave me a scare. I thought I understood the system well enough, now I’m all confused. Especially so since it doesn’t display properly in 1024, you need a higher resolution to view that table.
Also, letting “F” represent both a game and a system… wow
I think what you’re trying to say is: The system wouldn’t allow you to vote on the top few games IF you haven’t voted on the one with the least votes - vote on it, give it either a good OR a bad vote, decreasing or increasing it’s average, and then you’re free to vote on the top games, and thus there’s really no restriction, just something to give the more obscure games the exposure they need. They won’t get better scores this way, just more votes (which isn’t better in an average system). Also, if you use this system, there’s no point in making the system weighted, since all games will have roughly the same amounts of votes, so it’s either weighting, or donald’s system, not both.
And woogley, the presidential votes should’ve convinced you that a dual system can be troublesome. You’re saying that even that system uses double votes, but is it a good example, or is it something you should avoid in every way you can?
Hey, why not have judges?
Kev