It would be really cool if there was a place where users could vote and place a rating on weapons and items. The user rating number would be chosen from a drop-down menu of numbers 1-10 (probably put below the current User rating) and the average user rating number would be posted below the official IDB rating number.
Also, it would be nice if users could comment on weapons (especailly on unrated, uncommented weapons we've used) and though it would mean that the user posts will need to either be checked before or after they're put up on the site, there would be a lot more ratings and many more points of view which could be very helpful for people considering a certain (especially unrated) weapon.
If users could rate weapons, then the raters' opinions will be less significant. Raters are chosen because they have experience. If several less experienced players blindly give 10s to weapons such as Scarab Ring, Obsidian Dagger, and Greater Healing Scroll, they are not evaluating all aspects of the weapon, but simply the positives.
User comments may work, but if comments like "ONG! DIS WEAPON IS DA BEST!!1!!!11" show up, the comment box will have to leave. Please note that both ideas are prone to abuse.
If someone was trying to sell their weapon they would try to jack up the rating, and then... yeah, you know >_<
sycthos Wrote:If users could rate weapons, then the raters' opinions will be less significant. Raters are chosen because they have experience. If several less experienced players blindly give 10s to weapons such as Scarab Ring, Obsidian Dagger, and Greater Healing Scroll, they are not evaluating all aspects of the weapon, but simply the positives.
User comments may work, but if comments like "ONG! DIS WEAPON IS DA BEST!!1!!!11" show up, the comment box will have to leave. Please note that both ideas are prone to abuse.
That's why the user comments shouldn't be posted until someone looks them over. They can be just kept aside, in line, where the moderator can click to say "yes, add it" or "no, trash it". It could be a feature avaialbel to loged-in people ONLY or people with certain IDB board level and up to help prevent noobness.
However, user opinion is still user opinion. Not everyone agrees, even the old ones, and user rating would just be common man's overal oppinion of a weapon and people can take it as they will as just an alternate oppinion from another viewpoint. Also, having the user voting option would make updating a bit easier as older weapons (and weaker weapons) get ignored because it would be a constantly-changing number.
eddie Wrote:If someone was trying to sell their weapon they would try to jack up the rating, and then... yeah, you know >_<
That can be easily avoided by just having the IDB keep an updating cookie (perhaps stored on your IDB account) to make it so people can only vote on a weapon once every month or two. Also, one vote won't make much of a difference in a count of 50, so it's fairly impossible for one person to "vote up" a weapon.
People could deliberately or mistakenly introduce false information. If raters would evaluate the opinions (especially for crap r99 weapons), wouldn't it be better if they would just rate the weapon itself?
By the way, the cookie is also used for the iDB article ratings. I used to rate the old articles with low scores, but was able to vote again in the next browser session.