larrymurk
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We are getting a lot of new holds from a lot of new architects. Many of them are fine, but unfortunately several are not.

What about making an architect need to get their first hold reviewed before it goes on the holds board?

Once they have at least one already published they can use the current process.

coppro
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I gave you my last rank point. Or just put the link to the submission page inside the READ FIRST BEFORE SUBMITTING topic. That way they have no choice.

larrymurk
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Thanks for the rank point, but it seems the WAIT 20 SECONDS and READ THIESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST just aren't getting the job done as well as a simple peer review would.

coppro
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Yes, but many people (myself included, don't get me wrong) completely ignore those kinds of posts. My suggestion is put it in the way, kind of like a lisence agreement. It helps. But a peer-review process would definitely be best, so long as Schik finds a way to avoid saboteurs who would just knock down everything. Either that, or just make a way to remove a hold from the databanks via some sort of "This is lame" vote or something. Some are just unadulterated piles of wasted XML. I agree with the need for criteria, I just don't want to put up an arbitrarily high difficulty/quality requirement. Even just having 50 meaningful posts on these boards would work wonders, as long as mods can mark one as spam and unmeaningful. That way they must learn through the community before they can participate, and learn that we're kind, but we really don't appreciate worthless clutter.

Syntax
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How about a minimum time-frame for how long a hold must first appear on the Architecture board before being released?

Then, some sort of poll amonsgt beta testers could decide whether, at that stage, the hold is ready or not.

Ravon
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coppro wrote:
Even just having 50 meaningful posts on these boards would work wonders

But what about people like me? While I read much of the posts on these forums, I only make posts very rarely (granted I've made more than 50 posts -- Thats why I said people LIKE me, not me), but my hold, if I ever finish it, would be, based on the responses from the architecture board, somewhat fun.

eytanz
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I think Larry's suggestion is great.

There are details that need ironing out (i.e., who gets to do reviewing), but it will cut down on a large amount of the non-playtested first holds and the "quantity, not quality" authors.

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michthro
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Excellent idea! I've been meaning to post something to the effect that people shouldn't be able to simply upload any old hold to CaravelNet before posting in Architecture. How about holds are submitted, rather than uploaded, and Schik then lets it through or not based on whether it's been given the go-ahead on the Architecture board? One way could be that at least three people who should know what they're talking about when it comes to DROD must OK the hold. (The top 20 and other well-known players?)

Banjooie
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Erik, as I've found, likes solutions that don't require the admin to be poking at things to make them go--my suggestion, therefore, would be simply to go for a 'mark as unsolvable' box, and it'd just warn people that there is a substantial chance, based on number of accounts claiming it is, that the hold is unsolvable. If it's got a ton and it's taking up 15 MB or something stupid, the admin might decide to frowny face and poke it with a pointy stick. But that'd be their decision.

michthro
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The system could be automated. When a hold is submitted, the reviewers get to vote on it. Once a quorum is reached, and the vote is in favour, the hold goes through, otherwise it's back to the drawing board for the author.

However, it's only so much better if someone on the Caravel team applies a little judgement as well. It doesn't have to be the already overworked Schik. Erik may just have to face the fact that at some point a more hands-on approach from admin will be in their own best interest.

Btw, there's a lot more to it than unsolvability. That's just one glaring definite no-go.

Oneiromancer
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Schik and I did discuss it a bit last night. Personally I've always pushed for not being able to upload a hold unless you're a registered member, which shouldn't be a big deal. I think everyone who's posted a good hold anonymously has registered afterwards anyway.

It's pretty tricky to think of something that is automated (i.e. the admins don't have to push a button) and yet isn't open to abuse. I mean, someone could open up 10 different accounts and vote an old and well-loved hold into being declared unsolveable if they really wanted to. One idea I had was if the votes just changed the title of the hold in the Change Location menu to denote it being unsolveable, and put a similar warning on the Holds pages (both on the forum and drod.net), which was removed when a new version was uploaded. But I don't think anything was really decided on just yet.

Game on,

____________________________
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michthro
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Oneiromancer wrote:
It's pretty tricky to think of something that is automated (i.e. the admins don't have to push a button) and yet isn't open to abuse. I mean, someone could open up 10 different accounts and vote an old and well-loved hold into being declared unsolveable if they really wanted to.

Yeah, that's why I think the best thing would be for admin to be involved. (Having a list of eligible voters would eliminate the problem you point out, but that's just one of many complications.) Would it really be such a big deal to be involved? How about you, Oneiromancer? Would you be prepared to read the Architecture threads and give holds the go-ahead or not based on what's said there? It's not as if holds are released at such a high rate. Either way, it's high time that some form of control is implemented.

Krishh
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This has been discussed before (2 links), and I still stand by my suggestion made in the first one. But seriously, this is the third topic about this isue, and that just shows how important it is, and it is about time a solution was found. Let's not let another discussion on this fade into obscurity. (Ok, so the master list is a sticky, and as such not so obscure, but the discussion again died out more than a month ago, and still with no definite solution.)

Oneiromancer
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michthro wrote:
Would it really be such a big deal to be involved? How about you, Oneiromancer? Would you be prepared to read the Architecture threads and give holds the go-ahead or not based on what's said there? It's not as if holds are released at such a high rate. Either way, it's high time that some form of control is implemented.

Well, actually, no, I don't think any of the admins really want to have to do this. That's why we want it to be automated and/or self-policed. Honestly, while it is annoying, it's not like we are only getting holds that are unsolveable on the forum. Wallu's unsolveable holds list isn't that long.

I probably wouldn't mind deleting holds that were unsolveable if enough people agree on it. But that is unfair to people who have already played and gotten legitimate high scores on the rooms that are solveable.

Well. I suppose one option is to upload a player file with the hold that has a victory demo for every single required room. (I have to say required because sometimes there are intentionally impossible rooms like in A Quiet Place). Then the spider can quickly check that hold and that player file, and if it matches up, then it gets uploaded. That would be a lot of work for Schik, I think, but it is the best automated solution I can think of. It doesn't even have to be the hold builder's player file, it could be a tester's.

Game on,

____________________________
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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:

michthro wrote:
Would it really be such a big deal to be involved? How about you, Oneiromancer? Would you be prepared to read the Architecture threads and give holds the go-ahead or not based on what's said there? It's not as if holds are released at such a high rate. Either way, it's high time that some form of control is implemented.

Well, actually, no, I don't think any of the admins really want to have to do this.

I'm not really an admin but I'd happily be in charge of this if Schik supports the idea.

I probably wouldn't mind deleting holds that were unsolveable if enough people agree on it. But that is unfair to people who have already played and gotten legitimate high scores on the rooms that are solveable.

Which is why we need a proactive solution, not a reactive solution.

That said, speaking as someone whose score benefited greatly from recent unsolvable holds and with highscores in almost all the old ones, I'd be happy to sacrifice my highscores for the sake of a cleaner hold list.

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jbluestein
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Speaking as:

1) A relative newcomer
2) A guy who pretty much only plays holds that have high positive ratings and have thus already been subjected to a fair amount of review (thanks for the beta-testing, guys!)
3) A guy who doesn't actually design holds

One concern I would have about a mandatory review process is that, well, I imagine the people who are doing the review right now on the Architecture board are doing so because they enjoy it. And they do it in their spare time. I would worry that instituting any sort of formal process would cause to be Not Fun (TM) for those stuck in the job of doing it. (I realize it would still be fairly informal and relaxed as these things go...)

Just my thoughts. Which are worth what you pay for them.

(Bill is in the mail.)

Josh

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Oneiromancer
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In general the problem is people submitting holds without going through the Architecture or Beta-testing at all. So first we have to decide how we are going to deal with them before worrying about how we deal with holds that actually do get tested.

Personally I haven't played a non-released hold in a long time, and I have barely touched anything besides TCB and SS holds since JtRH came out. So I'm really not the person to be doing that. I would suggest that it be someone who is playing all the new holds anyway and is extremely prolific. Stefan and wallu seem to be really on top of things already.

Perhaps another solution would be for there to be a way to directly upload a hold from the CaravelNet beta-testing forums to the Holds forum, and then for those that don't do that, to submit it directly to a "holding pen". If the hold was already on the Architecture forum, then the mod/admin can check to see if it was solveable pretty quickly and then confirm the upload. If not, then they can either try to do it themselves (meh) or ask for a set of demos or other proof that the hold is solveable (which is a pain). Whatever we come up with, the important part that people seem to be forgetting is that Schik has to code it up, and he has a lot of other cool things for the forum and CaravelNet that he should be working on.

Game on,

____________________________
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Schik
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Whatever we come up with, the important part that people seem to be forgetting is that Schik has to code it up, and he has a lot of other cool things for the forum and CaravelNet that he should be working on.

That's like a 2-for-1 guilt trip. Well done, One Eye. Well done.

Something like what Neil suggests sounds pretty good to me, but I need to put more thought into it before I fully back any suggestion.

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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Whatever we come up with, the important part that people seem to be forgetting is that Schik has to code it up, and he has a lot of other cool things for the forum and CaravelNet that he should be working on.

I don't think this is the case. People are trying to decide what a good solution would be, not complaining that one isn't implemented yet. No-one is saying it has to be done by tomorrow, only that we think something needs to be done and it's now the time to plan excactly what. Once the plan is agreed on, Schik can implement it at his convenience.

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Watcher
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I'm sure I remember this being suggested before, but I can't remember by whom or where. Anyway:

Currently, the Holds board has a much more prominent position than the Architecture board. It's near the top of the page, it's the first forum in the list related to building holds, and the Architecture board is so far down that it ends up below the fold on smaller screens. Perhaps some of the new players simply don't notice it.

Hence, it might be possible to solve the problem (at least partly) by switching around the Holds and Architecture boards, thus giving newcomers the impression that if they've made a hold and wish to share it, the Architecture board is the first place to go.

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michthro
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Well, actually, no, I don't think any of the admins really want to have to do this. That's why we want it to be automated and/or self-policed.

Frankly, that attitude shocks me. Caravel is not prepared to take a little extra trouble over the holds available on CaravelNet? Meantime there are many players, like myself, who gladly spend hours testing holds; eytanz volunteers for the job; wallu, Stefan and others have practically been doing the job...
All that's required is that users be prevented from uploading holds directly to CaravelNet. We then test holds in Architecture. Someone qualified, not necessarily an admin, looks at the threads, and, depending on whether it's given the go-ahead or not, and why, informs Caravel that a new hold is ready. An admin then lifts a finger, moves it at most 30cm, lowers it, and the hold appears on the Holds board. (Sorry. Btw, that's an example of sarcasm, as opposed to irony, with which it is often confused.)

Wallu's unsolveable holds list isn't that long.

How did it come about that it's all about unsolvability? That could very easily be dealt with. What about quality? The biggest problem is that a lot of newcomers have been uploading garbage. (Btw, newcomer as in new to the game, not the forum.) I can understand how it happens. Someone discovers this great game, there's an editor, naturally they want to make their own hold, and there you are. Most older people will realise that being on L10 of JtRH almost certainly means that there is a lot more to the game than they know. However, nine out of ten youngsters are going to make the mistake of thinking they're ready long before they are, hence the number of poor quality holds. (Of course there are highly talented exceptions.) Another consequence is the triviality of a lot of holds. Easy holds have their place, yes, but there's a difference between easy and trivial. A newcomer's idea of easy tends to be a more experienced player's idea of utterly trivial. Just look at the number of holds advertised as very diffcult that are found to be easy, and imagine a newcomer's idea of easy.

larrymurk
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My thought was more or less that when someone submits a hold who doesn't already have a hold published, their hold goes into a pending review list. Then there would be a pool of people (caravel employees and experienced testers such as Stefan and Wallu) any one of whom could verify the playability of the hold either moving it to the holds board or rejecting it.

Syntax
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Talkin' about vetting, we need to keep an eye on that Larrymurk fella. Always releasing quality holds and the like. Makes it near impossible for us new-comers to ever get a hold on the board

jbluestein
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Syntax wrote:
Talkin' about vetting, we need to keep an eye on that Larrymurk fella. Always releasing quality holds and the like. Makes it near impossible for us new-comers to ever get a hold on the board

I dunno...everyone claims that Larrymurk's holds are solvable, but so far I have very little supporting evidence.

(OK, not fair, since I have managed to beat Odd Jobs Novice and Odd Jobs Medium...but still. Difficult, difficult, difficult.)

Josh

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eytanz
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michthro wrote:
Frankly, that attitude shocks me. Caravel is not prepared to take a little extra trouble over the holds available on CaravelNet?

Neil doesn't speak for Caravel. Only Erik, Mike, or Schik can do that.

How did it come about that it's all about unsolvability? That could very easily be dealt with. What about quality? The biggest problem is that a lot of newcomers have been uploading garbage.

I'd be very wary about screening holds based on quality. That's what ratings are for. Bad holds get bad ratings, that's perfectly fine. The problem is holds that are:

A - Unsolvable.
B - Really buggy.
C - Contain unsuitable material.

Only in very extreme cases (say, if someone releases a hold that's all empty or something) should quality come into play.
easy.
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Schik
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eytanz wrote:

michthro wrote:
Frankly, that attitude shocks me. Caravel is not prepared to take a little extra trouble over the holds available on CaravelNet?

Neil doesn't speak for Caravel. Only Erik, Mike, or Schik can do that.

Correct, except for that Schik part. I don't speak for Caravel either. I have a fair amount of say in CaravelNet changes, but mostly because I'd be coding the changes.

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Oneiromancer
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michthro wrote:
All that's required is that users be prevented from uploading holds directly to CaravelNet.

Not to ignore the rest of your post, but I wonder if there is a bit of confusion here. The Holds board has been around for what, 2.5 years now? CaravelNet is barely a year old. No one pays a subscription fee in order to access all the holds on the website--they pay the fee to access them from in-game as well as the SS holds. Caravel is much more concerned about the quality of the SS holds than of those made by users (and rightly so, in my opinion). I have played many games now where there are user-made levels, and I can't think of any one that prevents people from contributing unbeatable or crappy holds. That is all taken care of by the community voting system--generally they would only be removed if they were offensive in some manner. (I'm thinking N and Ricochet as prime examples, but there have been others in the past like Lode Runner and some of the Boulderdash clones.)

Now, granted, we are unique in that we have the high score system. However, if a hold is unbeatable, everyone still has equal access up to the point where it is unbeatable, so while it is not an ideal situation, it doesn't affect what I think of as the benefits of a CaravelNet subscription. Look, we also thought a lot about anonymous users submitting holds. We finally decided that we didn't want to discourage people that didn't want to sign up for a forum from contributing a hold. So we have to make the decision whether we should be more open and friendly or more closed and exclusionary. One of the games I mentioned above, Ricochet, doesn't let you make levels without having bought the full version. DROD isn't like that...anyone can use the editor for free. It follows, then, that anyone should be able to upload their holds for free. Should we have separate sections for CaravelNet approved holds and generic holds? Would that be a good solution, and eventually holds can "graduate" into the CNet section once they get a high enough score or are proven to be solveable? It sounds like a good idea on paper, but are we sure that we can draw the line to everyone's satisfaction?

I'm sorry that you don't like my attitude, but you should realize that I don't speak for Caravel Games in any capacity. I just happen to be a DROD fan that got lucky enough to work on the dev team and get some responsibility around here...which has become less and less as I have moved on with my life by graduating grad school and getting a real job. 2 years ago I would have jumped at the chance to inspect every hold before it went on the Holds board. I can't do that anymore. I still moderate the boards, deleting duplicate posts and modifying profanity, moving things around, and taking care of other things behind the scenes, but that's about it. So yeah, if someone else really wants to do what you are suggesting, we can look into adding a new member in a new role, but I was mostly saying that the current admins don't really have the time to police holds like that suggestion.

Game on,

____________________________
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[Last edited by Oneiromancer at 05-08-2006 09:29 PM]

Tim
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Can I suggest a short term solution?

Please do not place a first vote until someone has finished the hold. Especially for CaravelNet purposes.

In that case, no one need to use the excuse that people have already invested time to score the rooms.

Besides, if you are uploading scores incredibly soon before someone verified the hold is finishable, you are taking a risk. If a hold proved to be unfinishable afterwards, the hold should be deleted as well as the scores. I think this is a healthy risk, because you are rewarded for being risky, if the hold proved to be okay afterwards.

Another point I missed in the discussion, is that if we removed scores from the bad holds, CaravelNet will have less demos to cope with. In that case, demo rechecking will become much faster.

-- Tim

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eytanz
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Tim wrote:
Can I suggest a short term solution?

Please do not place a first vote until someone has finished the hold. Especially for CaravelNet purposes.

In that case, no one need to use the excuse that people have already invested time to score the rooms.

That's not really a solution - it's just an added inconvenience, but people will still download the hold and import them manually (after all, someone needs to finish the hold first). And that might work for short easy holds, but imagine having to wait until someone solved a really tough hold. It may be possible, but it will take some time. Especially if Doom is on vacation or something .

Besides, if you are uploading scores incredibly soon before someone verified the hold is finishable, you are taking a risk. If a hold proved to be unfinishable afterwards, the hold should be deleted as well as the scores. I think this is a healthy risk, because you are rewarded for being risky, if the hold proved to be okay afterwards.

I agree with that. But whether or not you can download the hold in-game doesn't really matter much here.

Another point I missed in the discussion, is that if we removed scores from the bad holds, CaravelNet will have less demos to cope with. In that case, demo rechecking will become much faster.

I don't think that's a really important point. In most cases, the bad holds don't really have that many demos, since eventually word gets out and people don't play them, and normally they have less rooms you can get demos in anyway. A single player playing JtRH and KDD 2.0 from beginning to end probably generates more demos than all the players who played in all the bad holds combined.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 05-08-2006 10:15 PM]

Tim
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eytanz wrote:

Tim wrote:
Can I suggest a short term solution?

Please do not place a first vote until someone has finished the hold. Especially for CaravelNet purposes.

In that case, no one need to use the excuse that people have already invested time to score the rooms.

That's not really a solution - it's just an added inconvenience, but people will still download the hold and import them manually (after all, someone needs to finish the hold first). And that might work for short easy holds, but imagine having to wait until someone solved a really tough hold. It may be possible, but it will take some time.

Let me try to put it in another way: my personal policy is not to promote possibly buggy holds. I don't mind anyone else doing otherwise. And if someone thinks that a hold hasn't got a rating for too long, he or she can rate it. But it seems that this solution requires no scripting from Schik at this moment, which is something I prefer for the short term.

What needs to be happen in the long term is something for Caravel to decide. -- joke removed --

-- Tim

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[Last edited by Tim at 05-08-2006 11:40 PM]