As it stands right now, the current system assigns "star priority" to maps based off kudosu the modders receive for modding maps, as given by the mapper. Modders are given incentive to mod older maps because a map with over two weeks since its last post is worth 2 kudosu.
Why this is flawed.
Currently, a modder gets 1 kudosu from modding someone's map. What this means, is that they can do one of two things after successfully modding a map and getting kudosu for it:
A) Spend it on the map they modded.
B) Save it for either their maps or someone else's map.
Why is this bad?
Because it forces the modder to make a choice between themselves or the mapper of the map they modded (we'll call him Bob to shorten this phrase, and we'll call the modder Alice).
Alice can get one kudosu on average for each map she mods. This is a nice basic number, and it makes sense. However, since she only has one, she cannot openly support Bob without sacrificing the kudosu she might want to use for herself. Inversely, she can't "be selfish" and hoard the kudosu for herself and use it on her own map because she'd be dropping out of supporting Bob - meaning he'd have a harder time racking up priority himself!
Of course, this could be solved by everyone deciding to go one way or the other - everyone hoards kudosu and spends it on their own maps, leading to kudosu meaning "the mapper has modded this many maps" which really tells us absolutely nothing about the quality of the map, or everyone is forced to spend it on maps they mod, making it "this map has received this many mods" (this also invalidates the 2 kudosu after 2 weeks - they didn't get two mods worth of kudosu by waiting a few weeks!).
Both of these are sub-optimal, clearly. The first tells us nothing about the map; the second tells us very little about the quality of the map, just the modding amount.
Brief overview of the old system. (just so we remember what we had)
The old system let any old player throw stars at a map to increase its popularity, and kudosu granted that map +2 per 3 kudosu spent universally, with BAT/GMT stars giving +2.
I won't go over the faults of the old system too much since everyone that cares can look it up or figure it out themselves.
It was sub-optimal.
How can this be solved?
We combine the strengths of the two styles and eliminate the weaknesses.
What I propose:
A two-layered system revolving around two factors: Modding, and Popularity.
This will practically throw the old kudosu system out the window.
At best, you could sort maps in the forum by both of these stats.
What a map will have is two statistics: Mod level, and Popularity level. (These will be called "+Mod" and "+Pop" for quicker reading)
Mod Level
+Mod will revolve around modding. Whenever a person (hello, Alice!) mods a map, they will tick a little box somewhere near the post form saying "This is a Map Mod". Only posts that have this box ticked will be eligible for "kudosu". When Bob takes a look over Alice's mod and deems it worthy, he will give her kudosu in the same fashion as we do now - except, when Alice gets a kudosu, Bob also gets one "Mod star", aka our Modding priority (+Mod). What this allows everyone to do is immediately see at a glance how many mods a map has had, especially for MATs and BATs. This will smooth out the process of people mucking through all the posts figuring out how many mods Bob has gotten.
Since this would label individual posts as mods, you would also be able to put a toggle that will show only mod posts in a thread! The inactive-map incentive of 2 kudosu should largely be thrown away - but since we can label posts as mods, we can change it to 2-weeks-since-last-mod, rather than last post! That might work.
Countering the counterarguments inevitably to come:
But Shiirn, this can be abused! No more than the current system. MATs and BATs will have the ability to revoke mods and kudosu given just like we can now.
What will modders do with their Kudosu?! We'll cover that in the popularity section!
I'll add more as they come.
Popularity Level
+Pop will revolve around the popularity of the map. Whenever a person (We'll call him Charlie. He's mostly a player and isn't experienced with mapping, but really likes Bob's map!) posts in a map thread, they can tick a box saying "Give this map a popularity point" or what-have-you. This will immediately give Bob's map a popularity point. This statistic will show modders and the mapper how many people support their map. A map's support and popularity have very little to do with how many mods its received, after all! This lets people who want to support a map but aren't experienced at modding / can't find anything a way to make them feel like they've contributed, even a little bit. It also shows lurking MAT/BATs how much the map has been looked at by people, even if it wasn't a mod!
Here's where Alice's kudosu comes in: Just like the old system, Alice can spend her kudosu to give a map a bit of a boost in popularity! A personal little thought I had was that Alice could give her kudosu to other mappers (Maybe Bob!) at a more efficient rate - for example, it takes her 4 kudosu to get 2 popularity on her own map, but only costs her 3 to give 2 to Bob. This will give modders an incentive to help other maps, and to get their own maps helped by making a big impression on modders.
Counterargument counters:
People use multis or inexperienced friends to farm popularity! There can be two ways to solve this: Multis are a bannable offense anyway, so ban them. And a better way is to require a minimum playcount to be eligible to popularize a map - let's say 1000.
People can farm popularity by telling people to "star their map" just like the old system. That's the entire point of popularity - if you can get someone to "star your map", then you've increased its popularity a bit. Overall, the popularity level is the "less important" statistic since it just gauges the amount of people or amount of effort a mapper has gotten into getting their map known, which is quite important already if you ask me.
Another idea:
Make bubbled maps automatically move to another place - Most likely a subforum in pending. This lets people still look through unbubbled maps easily and efficiently, and allows BATs to look through bubbles more easily as well. In this forum, we can sort by Last Modpost Date, allowing for old bubbles to be sorted easily.
Appended notes:
You can sort maps in pending/WIP by "mods" or "popularity".
A modder might be able to show that they support the map in the same post that they mod it - I'm not 100% sure on this, so give me opinions!
Converting old maps to the new system: transfer current SP into popularity, but allow mappers and modders to retroactively turn their kudosu'd posts into mods.
Thanks for reading!
peppy refused to read this based off of a demanded one-sentence summary, make of that what you will but stay on-topic
Why this is flawed.
Currently, a modder gets 1 kudosu from modding someone's map. What this means, is that they can do one of two things after successfully modding a map and getting kudosu for it:
A) Spend it on the map they modded.
B) Save it for either their maps or someone else's map.
Why is this bad?
Because it forces the modder to make a choice between themselves or the mapper of the map they modded (we'll call him Bob to shorten this phrase, and we'll call the modder Alice).
Alice can get one kudosu on average for each map she mods. This is a nice basic number, and it makes sense. However, since she only has one, she cannot openly support Bob without sacrificing the kudosu she might want to use for herself. Inversely, she can't "be selfish" and hoard the kudosu for herself and use it on her own map because she'd be dropping out of supporting Bob - meaning he'd have a harder time racking up priority himself!
Of course, this could be solved by everyone deciding to go one way or the other - everyone hoards kudosu and spends it on their own maps, leading to kudosu meaning "the mapper has modded this many maps" which really tells us absolutely nothing about the quality of the map, or everyone is forced to spend it on maps they mod, making it "this map has received this many mods" (this also invalidates the 2 kudosu after 2 weeks - they didn't get two mods worth of kudosu by waiting a few weeks!).
Both of these are sub-optimal, clearly. The first tells us nothing about the map; the second tells us very little about the quality of the map, just the modding amount.
Brief overview of the old system. (just so we remember what we had)
The old system let any old player throw stars at a map to increase its popularity, and kudosu granted that map +2 per 3 kudosu spent universally, with BAT/GMT stars giving +2.
I won't go over the faults of the old system too much since everyone that cares can look it up or figure it out themselves.
It was sub-optimal.
How can this be solved?
We combine the strengths of the two styles and eliminate the weaknesses.
What I propose:
A two-layered system revolving around two factors: Modding, and Popularity.
This will practically throw the old kudosu system out the window.
At best, you could sort maps in the forum by both of these stats.
What a map will have is two statistics: Mod level, and Popularity level. (These will be called "+Mod" and "+Pop" for quicker reading)
Mod Level
+Mod will revolve around modding. Whenever a person (hello, Alice!) mods a map, they will tick a little box somewhere near the post form saying "This is a Map Mod". Only posts that have this box ticked will be eligible for "kudosu". When Bob takes a look over Alice's mod and deems it worthy, he will give her kudosu in the same fashion as we do now - except, when Alice gets a kudosu, Bob also gets one "Mod star", aka our Modding priority (+Mod). What this allows everyone to do is immediately see at a glance how many mods a map has had, especially for MATs and BATs. This will smooth out the process of people mucking through all the posts figuring out how many mods Bob has gotten.
Since this would label individual posts as mods, you would also be able to put a toggle that will show only mod posts in a thread! The inactive-map incentive of 2 kudosu should largely be thrown away - but since we can label posts as mods, we can change it to 2-weeks-since-last-mod, rather than last post! That might work.
Countering the counterarguments inevitably to come:
But Shiirn, this can be abused! No more than the current system. MATs and BATs will have the ability to revoke mods and kudosu given just like we can now.
What will modders do with their Kudosu?! We'll cover that in the popularity section!
I'll add more as they come.
Popularity Level
+Pop will revolve around the popularity of the map. Whenever a person (We'll call him Charlie. He's mostly a player and isn't experienced with mapping, but really likes Bob's map!) posts in a map thread, they can tick a box saying "Give this map a popularity point" or what-have-you. This will immediately give Bob's map a popularity point. This statistic will show modders and the mapper how many people support their map. A map's support and popularity have very little to do with how many mods its received, after all! This lets people who want to support a map but aren't experienced at modding / can't find anything a way to make them feel like they've contributed, even a little bit. It also shows lurking MAT/BATs how much the map has been looked at by people, even if it wasn't a mod!
Here's where Alice's kudosu comes in: Just like the old system, Alice can spend her kudosu to give a map a bit of a boost in popularity! A personal little thought I had was that Alice could give her kudosu to other mappers (Maybe Bob!) at a more efficient rate - for example, it takes her 4 kudosu to get 2 popularity on her own map, but only costs her 3 to give 2 to Bob. This will give modders an incentive to help other maps, and to get their own maps helped by making a big impression on modders.
Counterargument counters:
People use multis or inexperienced friends to farm popularity! There can be two ways to solve this: Multis are a bannable offense anyway, so ban them. And a better way is to require a minimum playcount to be eligible to popularize a map - let's say 1000.
People can farm popularity by telling people to "star their map" just like the old system. That's the entire point of popularity - if you can get someone to "star your map", then you've increased its popularity a bit. Overall, the popularity level is the "less important" statistic since it just gauges the amount of people or amount of effort a mapper has gotten into getting their map known, which is quite important already if you ask me.
Another idea:
Make bubbled maps automatically move to another place - Most likely a subforum in pending. This lets people still look through unbubbled maps easily and efficiently, and allows BATs to look through bubbles more easily as well. In this forum, we can sort by Last Modpost Date, allowing for old bubbles to be sorted easily.
Appended notes:
You can sort maps in pending/WIP by "mods" or "popularity".
A modder might be able to show that they support the map in the same post that they mod it - I'm not 100% sure on this, so give me opinions!
Converting old maps to the new system: transfer current SP into popularity, but allow mappers and modders to retroactively turn their kudosu'd posts into mods.
Thanks for reading!
peppy refused to read this based off of a demanded one-sentence summary, make of that what you will but stay on-topic
