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Heya, this is the discussion thread for the "Scaling" blog post. Read it here: http://blog.whatthemovie.com/2010/08/01/scaling/
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CommentAuthorPalahniuk007
- CommentTimeAug 1st 2010
This is a moral issue.
The problem is: rejection.
Competition over cooperation.
People judjing you.
You judjing people.
So how do we scale?
I'm no mathematician (although I'm very intellectual).
SUPRESS THE VOTING SYSTEM.
That's it.
No more rejections.
No more frustrations.
No more pspan suddenly closing accounts.
ACCEPT 1 UPLOAD PER WEEK PER RESIDENT USER.
ACCEPT 2 UPLOADS PER MONTH PER NON RESIDENT USER.
Does it scale? -
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It's a shame but the only solution I see is to let people upload less shots. I myself love uploading but I also see that at the moment there are just too many uploads. Let the supporters upload 3 shots a week and the not-supporters 2 shots. Or less, whatever you find acceptable.
I hate the voting system, in my opinion it doesn't work. There are too many people voting low because of other reasons than the shot. Let there be a moderating team like before. There will have to be more moderators in that case of course, to check for bad quality, black bars, wrong aspect ratio etc.
It might also be an idea to have a maximum amount of uploads per movie. 50 Shots should be enough I suppose.
Well, this is my 2 cents, or 10 cents, whatever ;-) -
I don't see that lowering the amount of uploads does scale. As soon as the amount of users decreases by the factor 100 you will allow uploading only once a year and twice for supporters?
I like the idea of multiple WTMs. But it would be nicer to have them all in one. My thought (without having checked possible disadvantages):
* Shots are taken into categories. Categories could e.g. be the year of the movie, which is already in the database. So there is a category for the 70s, 80s and so on. But as this wouldn't scale forever the categories could also be the genre, b/w-shots, number of votes on imdb, ..
* Users can upload as usual with voting etc. But the more categories, the more shots can be accepted. Maybe they will have to give some more information depending on which categories exist.
* Now the scaling thing: the user can choose which categorie(s) he wants to see in NS and FF. So if he got much time to spend on WTM, he can choose to see all categories. Or he can just play in one. And nobody needs to be mad about old b/w-shots, easy lotr-shots etc. He can just disable this categories.
* There are several highscore lists for the categories. So you can be Top-Solver without spending many hours a day on WTM. There could still be an overall highscore list for the few hardliners.
* Only the Mods will have more work accepting more shots. But with more players you might find more volunteers to be Mod in a category.
Oh, one disadvantage may be that solving gets easier if you know e.g. the genre or decade of a shot. But as long as categories are not too special this is no problem i think. -
- CommentAuthorSunsetWalker
- CommentTimeAug 1st 2010
I'll second fnick with a difference. maybe he's just taken the year of the snap as example, but if you stick to the content of the image instead of the movie database it won't be easier or harder to solve the snaps - for example, a Landscapes/Views category, a animation category, those things that could fit any type of movie without giving necessarely the hint for the movie. And it could get easier for people who (like me) have some problem with particular types of snaps - I never solve gory snaps anyways, so I'd just skip them :P
And could be also fun to have a overall hall of fame and categories halls of fame :3 but now I'm just dreaming too loud I guess... -
I know my ideas don't scale a lot but at least there would be less shots :-)
I do like fnick's idea of categories. -
Before thinking about the number of submission per player, why not use again the old system of upload in NS validated by the moderators for the NEW PLAYERS - like as the begining when I made my first tries ?
The decisions have to be well explained : black bars, bad quality, not enough intersting.... It's a good way to understand the game. After a certain among of accepted shots (10 ? 15 ?), the player is allowed to upload alone in the NS section.
This first step would have one quality : avoid us a lot of very bad shots and of course decrease a little bit the number.
Of course, we need people of good will to suffer for us... -
From a mathematical point of view, no system scales !
The only way to scale is to adapt manually the rules when the input flow changes. It is now the case. The NS is far too large and is is time to narrow the uploading rules. 1 upload every 2 days for regular users and 2 for supporters should do the job. About 60/70 shots per day in FF (24 by votes and 36/46 pushed by moderators) seems to be reasonable and may be less frustrating for uploaders.
The bonus rating for old movies (5+ years...) having few shots in the database could also help in building a unique pictures database on the web covering all the cinema !
I agree with lnatbnf. A kind of purgatory for new users could be useful too to lower the number of deletion votes. -
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CommentAuthorLePaposaure
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010
I agree so much with efji !!
This is the exact way to improve the NS part, for me.
And I think it could be useful to raise the different steps to the access to NS :
- 200 Feature Film solves (and not 50 as now) to have access to NS.
- Then 1 or 2 shots uploaded by 48 hours, but NO votes !
- You can only vote in NS when you have uploaded 10 shots in FF.
So the low-voting will slowly desappear, and people will have time to understand what to upload and how to do it.
I don't like the "different categories" concept. That's why I play WTM so much, it's because I can find 40's and 90's movies, anime or w&b movies next to eachother.
And, to be scalable, just increase the number of FF per day, not 70 for now, but +5shots /100 new uploaders, I think it's good enough. -
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I agree with LePaposaure.
And multiple wtms is a horrible idea imho -
- CommentAuthorOberstKlink
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010 edited
Some good points were raised:
- 200 solves before having access to NS
- more shots should make it into FF, maybe every other hour the TWO highest rated go through?
- min 10 uploads before being allowed to vote in NS
I'd suggest:
- Having a shot in NS for 36 hours instead of 48. Most of the voting is done in the first 24 hours and shots would be approved/rejected faster, clearing the NS out.
- automatically reject a shot if after 20 or 30 votes the rating is below 6.5
- Only 3 instead of 5 votes are needed to delete a shot
Further restrictions to uploading would just ruin the fun. I wouldn't wanna mark in my diary for when my next slot is free. Makes it more of a chore, rather than a fun experience... -
- CommentAuthorPPKNHoneyB
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010
About the voting:
-i think we shouldn't be able to changed it after voting once, to avoid people from trying to manipulate the rate of the shot.
-We should be able to see the rating of our own shots(so we don't need to vote 10 on it everytime or go back to 'Home' page)
Just for the record,i think it's a wonderful idea:
-increase the number of solves to have access to NS
-minimum of 10 uploads i think it's awesome too(I, myself, took some time to really understand the process of uploading/voting on a shot)
-changing the upload to 1 for regular users, and 2 for supporters -
I definetly agree that's something is gotta change.
The snapshots that got accepted....let's just say that I can't understand some of the choices.
Maybe the mods should magically accept shots from less known films? Without any shots in database? Instead of LOTR?
I know that many people are mad about the rejections and slowly stop uploading, can't say I blame them I definetly see their point. -
Let's stay on topic please.
Scaling is about HOW MANY shots are uploaded/accepted. It's not about WHICH shots are accepted. -
Please....without caps lock.
If you stop m. accepting so many shots, because lately the rating because of unfair voiting or bizarre voiting I see don't exceed 7,5 a lot, you will have less shots accepted. That was my point therefore we're stil on topic :D Temporary fix, if you will.
First let's as other say change the rules how people vote, maybe this will help. There are plenty of new users lately and maybe it's the problem, maybe they really should be allowed to vote later on. -
Whether it be less automatically or magically accepted shots, it won't fix the mass uploading issue. And more rejections means more upset uploaders.
Plus magically accepted shots is what makes WTM interesting, because well-balanced. Without them, you'll get 90% PotC/LotR/HP/SW/... shots and 10% "different" shots.
By the way, mods can not push shots from less known films or from films without any shots in the DB. To do that, we would have to solve all the shots in NS *and* know how many shots are already in the DB. This kind of feature can only be done by a script. -
I'm not saying you should know all the films in NS but if you see that some shots are repeatedly from the same movie and if you are aware nothing ever goes through and the film is not represented in FF, then you might as well accept it magically instead of magically accepting Matrix or Star Wars or LOTR.
Now we are off top misterzob, so I'm done suggesting anything in this area :D -
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CommentAuthormikebozzio
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010
Perhaps if the mods had info like:
- Shots in the movie database
- Number of votes on IMDB
He doesn't need to know the movie.
For exemple: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077742/
I think it's a well known movie, high rating (7.3 - 6.425 votes), 5 oscar nominations and not a only single shot WTM. I tried one but it got rejected :-) -
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sati sayz: "If you stop accepting so many shots, [..], you will have less shots accepted."
sure? :P
I still prefer the category-thing or anything that gives the single player control about the amount of shots he can handle, but since some people didn't like it here is another idea:
As long as there is a fix amount of shots that makes it to FF every day, people will be disappointed about their rejected shots. The more people join WTM, the more great shots will be posted and it will be nearly impossible to get a shot from a movie accepted, that just doesn't have dragons, battlefields, hobbits or spaceships in it ..
Letting people upload less shots will just make them more sad, if their shot was rejected again, cause you would have to reduce the amount of allowed shots per user by the factor the uploaders are rising. This is the internet. Think big! The amount of wtm-users might rise by the factor 100 in a few years (cause wtm is great!)
So here the attempt: Stop rejecting snaps!
.. s i l e n c e ..
And stop accepting snaps as well!
.. fnick must be out of his f***ing mind ..
Just rename FF to "Deluxe Area" and the rejection hell to "Play Zone" (if that name is not already trademarked).
Keep the rating as it is (or change it to be fairer, but this is not the topic here). But instead of rejecting shots they will enter the Play-Zone (PZ) and people can still get points for the PZ Hall of Fame. Shots that would make it to FF now enter the Deluxe Area (DA) that has its own Hall of Fame.
So does this change the problem of too many shots? No! The amount of shots in NS might just decrease slightly (no more reposts necessary). The PZ will burst because of the thousands of shots. The PZ Hall of Fame will just be climbable for people who have a shitload of time (or for teams - again another topic).
But instead of thinking what they did wrong when a snap gets rejected uploaders can celebrate every now and then - when one of their shots is chosen by the community to enter the DA. DA will be like a collection of several snapshots of the day.
People who do not play wtm every day can just ignore PZ and do their solving in DA (like now in FF, but DA could even have less shots per day than FF has now).
Make the movie pages show DA shots and PZ shots (maybe seperated).
Maybe make it possible to reject-vote for shots that formally fit the criterias but are just crap (or automatically reject the lowest rated shot every hour).
It is just like sati suggested for the "utter nonsense" - give it another name and people will be more relaxed :)
Don't know if I forgot to wrote anything that is needed to understand the idea. But the post is already long enough :) -
sorry but it's sounds too complicated.
But maybe I'm just not in good shape today, I got headache since I had to rise the issue of "utter nonsense" again, and I will keep doing that:) -
Ok, let me try to explain it in another way:
* Every shot that is posted gets accepted (as long as its no dupe, no low quality, etc.) The shot can be solved for points and can be seen on the movie page. But this will be a very big amount of shots.
* So the most awesome shots are voted into another area (as they are now voted into FF). So people can just solve these beautyful shots, if they got limited time to spend on wtm.
The basic difference: today there is "yes" or "no". It would be changed to "absolutely" or just "yes".
Not much would change but the fact, that there is a second Hall of Fame for shots, that would now be rejected (But I don't like this point of view cause explaning it this way nowadays players would still be sad, if their shots are not labled as awesome. It is better to sell it as something completely new ;)
---end of easy explanation---
Now it gets complicated again: When I think about it maybe there would not even have to be *two* completely different areas. People could also decide for themselves a minimum rating of shots they want to see (maybe in predefined steps so the Halls of Fame (HoF) could be balanced easier). So e.g. you change your settings to just see shots above 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8 etc. and there is a HoF for each of those steps or maybe also one common HoF determined by some difficult formular.
But I think whatever solution will be chosen in the end - multiple Halls of Fame are a good way to make players happier since they got a chance to compete even if they can't spend several hours a day on wtm. (Be it a HoF per day, per year of the movie, per rating of the shot etc.)
For now I'll gonna stop thinking about it and make room for more "new users are the only problem"-posts :) -
- CommentAuthorPPKNHoneyB
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010
Fnick, i think your idea is just too 'shiny happy people'...it's sweet of you tryin to make everyone happy, but most of the time this is impossible.
Every shot getting accepted is boring...the fun of the game is to upload a shot, expect anxiously the 48 hours to see if people(or the mods) liked your shot enough to go to FF.Without that it would ruin the fun, it would be like everyone has unlimited awesome uploads.
i have an idea:
People don't get angry because a LOTR shot was accepted again(most of the times the shots are really excellent), i think people get angry about it because it decreases the chance of a not very known movie shot be accepted..so if we have a BUTTON to only allow people who solved the shot to vote it would do the problem.I don't know maybe i'm crazy, and this is a crazy idea...but it's just a suggestion. -
@sati
Do you really think mods spend their time approving shots from PotC/SW/HP/LotR/... ?
From what I've seen so far, I'd say 90% of those manage to reach FF without any help from mods.
We do try to approve more shots from unknown movies. But they need to be good enough nonetheless.
I've been doing this for like 2 weeks now. And trust me, this is not as easy as it seems. -
how about limiting the movie specific upload slots from "one shot a week" to "one shot every two weeks"? personally, i dont need another lotr, harry potter or corpse bride shot every week.
another thing i was thinking about is an "auto reject" function. the same way new submissions with the best rating are accepted into the FF, you could auto-reject the uploads with the lowest rating, thus reducing the total number of shots in the newsub section.
and my third suggestion: you could probably limit the uploads by time. at the moment you're basically able to upload up to 6-8 shots a week as a regular user and 9-12 as a supporter, probably even more (if your shots get pushed through fast). how about limiting this to 5/7 (regular/supporter) shots per week? by combining this with the restriction of 2/3 shots in the new submissions you could reduce the total number of shots and still keep them about equally distributed throughout the week. and 5/7 shots per week would still be a lot i think. -
Fabster, There will be something done already regarding "one shot a week" rule ;) Most likelly, it will be gradual: it will depend on the number of shot which already exist for that particular movie in the database. The more there is shots already, the more you will have to wait. Which is a good thing :)
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@PPKNHoneyB - I think your "button" idea is little unfair for those movies, which has only few solution. In that situation lot of shots will have only 20 rate or less. And what about shots which are aprove and remains unsolved ? I think I know, what you're trying to say, but I'm not sure if this is a good idea.
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@PPKNHoneyB and in addition to what @Talie said, since everyone knows the solution to the PotC/LotR etc shots the ratings of those movies will stay high. The only advantage of your idea is that the little more unkown movies may have higher ratings. But they'll have few votes so the rating can be based on like 3 votes and that isn't really a good average...
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- CommentAuthorPPKNHoneyB
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010
@Talie
That's exactly why it would be a BUTTON, so you could have the option to activate it or not when uploading a shot.If you wanted your shot to be voted to everyone you just don't activate the button. =)
@rulo
I know, it wouldn't change the high rating on well known movies, but it would give a chance to other ones(PLUS, it would make it easier to the mods, since they're the responsible to push these kind of shots to WTM)
Like this shot posted by julia furlani for example:
If you haven't seen Secretary, you would never know how important this moment is to the character on the movie.You would just rate it low cause it's not a fantastic landscape or something like that.The shot only got into FF at the time, cause one of the mods push it.But if this button existed, everyone who actually saw the movie would rate it high(i think) and the mods wouldn't have the work to guess that this shot is important. -
- CommentAuthorPPKNHoneyB
- CommentTimeAug 3rd 2010 edited
But like i said this is just a suggestion, don't know if it would work.
The major problem is the number of shots on NS and the most effective way of decrease it would be limiting our uploads(1 per regular user, 2 per supporter) and
changing the rule of '50 solves to have access to NS' for more solves, like it was mentioned before, imo. -
if the problem is really about users being upset, i don't know what is the right solution. less shots in the NSs, will decrease the amount of shots accepted. so, we are going to be sad anyway. more shots accepted, when shots are accepted people will upload more. and more shots at NSs.
in addition, i always thought that would be a good idea, only people who solved the movie be able to vote. but maybe a unknown shot would receive a very good rate, because the solvers would be proud to be one of the few who solved. -
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CommentAuthorLePaposaure
- CommentTimeAug 4th 2010
@Chrisy : that would be a lovely improvement ! :)
@All (again not about the subject) : the main reason shots from PoC/LotR/Har. Pot./etc... have a high rate, it's just because the shots are easy to solve. I solve the shot = I give a 10 !
Now let's focus on scaling propositions :) ! -
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- CommentAuthorWinterwolf
- CommentTimeAug 4th 2010
@oberstklink
to delete shots automatically after 20-30 votes if the votes are low or time out after 36 hours will be increase the mass of shots, because people can use faster his/her upload slot again. I think there are to much already in the NS, so i dont agree with this idea
@fnick: i think its a bad idea that all shots will be taken (in different areas) In the end most people dont watch for really good shots because its 100% sure it goes through, they take the first scene which is not a dupe and upload it. So many boring shots will appear in the NS. Ok most go in the just-for-fun area after, but i dont want see tons of bullshit in the NS. Another point: now many bad quality shots or shots with blackbars run of time in the NS. With your idea the mods must spend much time to delete all this shots (and tell the uploader why etc)
@PPKNHoneyB: the button idea i dont like too. I think its not good, if only solver can vote for a shot. What about an unsolved shot? What about a shot with 1 Solver and he give a 10 or 1. Or worsest scenario: 5 friends look for really unknown movies and give each other a 10, they rule WTM with many 10,0 rated SotD and if really one another know the movie, he still get a 9,xx rating. That will crash the votingsystem totally.
@LePaposaure: i like the idea with 200 FF Solves for Access to NS, maybe 500 or 1000 are better. But the other idea´s i think dont work. Many people here only solves shots, some got 10000 FF shots solved, but never uploaded a shot. They are not able to vote at your idea. And another point: people who not upload a shot, vote fairer then people who upload shots i think. People who upload shots vote maybe tactical, for example look maybe to get his own shots through. People who not upload shots can vote free, they have 1 point less to vote unfair. And another point: why should people who upload shots, not rate solved shots high and unknown shots low? I think both (uploader/none uploader) do that in the same way, so it doesn´t matter. Maybe a mod can tell me/us if my theory is right or not!
To get an fair vote, i think we need contrary of PPKNHoneyB or LePaposaure´s ideas. Need more voter to gain a fairer rating. 1 voter of 50 votes, he get 2% of the vote. 1 voter of 200 votes, he get only 0,5% of the vote. More people will slighty balance some unfair high/low votes. And people are in the NS, but they dont vote.
For example: saw a PotC shot with 360 solvers in the NS running out of time. But there are only 140 votes. Another example a unknown shot from me got 11 solvers and 38 votes.
Resume: there are 220 people who solves the PotC Shot but dont vote. Additional unknown shots get about less than 50 votes, about 300 people dont vote this shots. The question is, how to get this 200-300 people to vote. They need a bounty or something else... So you have still in the end only one unfair problem, that people vote solved shots higher. Here another idea to give unknown shots/movies a better chance: for movies with 25+ shots: the slot will be open again after 10 days, for movies with 50+ shots after 15 days, for movies with 75+ shots (think some movies will be need not much time get so many shots) the slot is again open after 20 days. So the PotC/LotR Shots will be slighty less and the free FF-Slots go to unknowner movies...
Additional idea to: take people 1 upload-slot away. that will be sad. Its always bad to take something that people are accustomed. Maybe people get 1-2 slots (normal user/supporter) as they are now. The 2nd slot (or 3rd for supporter) will be changed in another kind of upload: upload a unknowner shot. All the same like normal uploads, only one restriction: if it got 50 solves it go automatically rejected. So all people have to think about unknowner movie shots or if not they have 1 slot less. And in the end there are 25 shots accepted via rating, 25 normal shots pushed by mods and 25 unknowner slot shots pushed by mods in the FF each day.
I think this would give every uploader a better chance to get a well known movie slot, and give less known movies a better chance to pass the NS
Additional idea to: rejected shots make the uploader sad. Still because the uploaders increases and the rejected snaps still increase too. Maybe a small bonus will this equate: for each 20? rejected shots a uploader can get a joker, he can choose one of this rejected snapshots and can save one of his/her snaps like the mods do it now every day with 40-50 shots in the NS. So i think there are about 700 top rated shots, about 200 user saved shots and 1500 mod saved shots in the FF -
There are some interesting things in that last post.
But, once again, this thread is not to discuss (un)fair voting. And it's not about the balance between blockbuster shots and shots from lesser known movies either. It's about *scaling*.
Plus Chrisy already stated that something will be done to adjust the "one shot a week" rule, depending on how many shots are already on WTM. -
Offtopic but too lazy atm to find the right topic, give more bucks for voting... That way more ppl vote...
Have no idea bout the scaling problem, I think the best option is 1 shot a time for non supporters, 2 for supporters... -
- CommentAuthorPPKNHoneyB
- CommentTimeAug 5th 2010
Winterwolf, i like your idea of slots being available according to the knowledge(is this the right word?) of the movie.
Another idea came to me:
-I think there should be a 30 days period of uploading a shot.(please don't freak out, read what's next)
Example:you upload a shot from one movie.If this shot gets accepted on FF, then automatically you would not be able to upload a shot from the same movie on the next 30 days.I think it would not only decrease the number of shots on NS as it would give other people a chance to take a slot they're waiting for ages.
-There should be something to estimulate people on helping out the mods with the deletion votes, some kind of reward, or maybe WTM bucks for the ones who voted on deletion on shots that actually has something wrong.Lately i have seen some bad quality, dupes( according to the 5 golden rules a similar shots it's still consider a dupe, and i think there's too many similar shots on WTM) and the worst problem, the black bars(that even with deletion votes, still make it through FF sometimes)It would help out the mods and reduce the number of "unnecessary" shots on WTM. -
Hmm, difficult problem to solve. From what I understand, there's only one way to solve the scaling problem: less uploads. But if you reduce the number of uploads, of course you would want to keep the high quality and get rid of the crap. To raise the quality of the shots, I would suggest (as others have done before me): don't let just anyone upload, let people earn the right to be uploaders...
This could be done in the following way:
- Higher amount of solved shots before you can start uploading (like 500), to let people prove that they're serious about WTM
- Let everyone upload only one shot per week (or even less)
- You can earn the right to upload more shots per week if your previous shot(s) got accepted into FF (something like: your last shot got uploaded, you get 2 per week, last 2 shots uploaded, 3 per week, but this may be too strict and is open for suggestions)
- Now of course, this is where the voting system comes in. I would really prefer it if all shots got judged by moderators, but I can understand that it's not feasible (these people must have a life, too). I think the current voting system is unfair because a) people who have just uploaded a shot vote unfavourably for all other recent uploads and b) people vote favourably for easy shots because it means they'll get extra FF solves.
To solve a), you could not allow people who have un upload in NS to vote for any of the shots in NS. Of course this means you will miss out on WTM bucks, but this could be compensated by awarding people with bucks if their shot gets accepted.
To solve b), you could give shots with a high number of solves (say >150) a deduction in score. But this may be a little unfair to the quality of the shot.
They're just suggestions. Can't say I've thought them through very well. But I love WTM and will do anything to help keep this show running! -
i think maybe it should be a minimum of time (1 month, two weeks) here to start uploading. some people don't know still all the rules and start to upload as soon as they get here. some new players are uploading character's shot all the time.
i think only one shot for week is too few. we should wait some time before do this. the less the amount of uploads, the more users will get sad (i'm one of them). maybe we can find another solution -
The starting upload frequency and rules for increasing the frequency are open for debate, as I have no idea how big the problem is and how fast WTM is growing.
It's just an idea... -
My two cents:
A double selection round!
Uploaded shots enter the first round of voting. Users will earn double or triple WTM bucks for voting on shots here. Allow, say, 400 shots into round 2 where normal voting is continued.
This way we still have a large amount of uploads, but users can choose to weed out the least attractive shots when voting!
People feeling sad when their shots aren't accepted should just try harder, imo ;) They can however smell glory a bit easier than now by reaching round 2... before eventually getting rejected anyway. ;)
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