I agree that we shouldn't totally redesign TMX. Change is good. Changing just for the sake of it is not.

eie says:
I also think that if we keep awards as the measurement for "Best of the Week"(BotW), we should instead rename it to "Most Popular of the Week"(MPotW). Or we could use rating, because that's a far better way to tell if a track is good or bad.

I don't think this would fix anything. "Most Popular" still sounds good, so some people will still be complaining when their tracks don't make it on. I'm not suggesting we rename it to "Shittiest Tracks of the Week," but some people are like that and there's not much we can do^^

... says:
Lastly, I think we should be able to give awards without text. These wouldn't appear on the trackpage, but still count. On the trackpage, only awards with text would appear. This could work as a motivation for awarders who want their award to be noticed, while people who didn't really care about it, would just not be visible. This would make it more convenient for the authors, because s/he would be able to see only those who cared to write something on their awards, instead of having to read through pointless awards with no real feedback. (Such as an award with only a smiley would be better if it were invisible, than wasting precious space for more meaningful awards.) All awards would still be visible from a list at the bottom saying "View all awarders" or something similar.

That is a little interesting, but I feel like I'm on idea-overload after following this thread for so long..

Jet777 says:
That is a little interesting, but I feel like I'm on idea-overload after following this thread for so long..

Couldn't agree more, but hey, I got an idea, what if...
Nope, just kidding - But I still think we should have more ideas, even if they're utterly useless. Everybody should be able to tell their own opinion and ideas ^_^

About the naming of the "Best of the Week", what if we called it "Most awarded tracks of the week". It would be technically correct, the best kind of correct. Seeing that we certainly don't have any systems that would really show the best tracks, it would just be easier to call it what it actually is. It's just confusing as it is

eie says:
Or we could use rating, because that's a far better way to tell if a track is good or bad.

Even a rating system can't tell if a track is good or bad. It only tells how much the average user likes a certain track. But if you know yourself well, there are better ways to find out which tracks you might like and which ones you probably won't. And that's why I think a rating system is useless.
Newcomers, who have yet to find out their personal preferences in track styles, would probably use rating as a crtiterion for which tracks they try. But imo, it's better for them if they try some of the old classic tracks first because these tracks are the most helpful for learning the basics of track building. And they'll find these tracks by searching for the most awarded, not the highest rated ones.

About the term 'Best of the Week': No matter if we have the award system, a rating system or even both, this should really be changed as 'good' is completely subjective (as explained above).
What about 'Most Successful of the Week'?
[Edit: 'Most Awarded...' sounds perfect. ]

@ SkunkY:
Well, if most people like the BotW, then it's certainly a good idea to keep it. I was mainly trying to say that it's neither the only nor the best way to 'discover' unknown authors.

eie says:

About the naming of the "Best of the Week", what if we called it "Most awarded tracks of the week". It would be technically correct, the best kind of correct. Seeing that we certainly don't have any systems that would really show the best tracks, it would just be easier to call it what it actually is. It's just confusing as it is

Wait and see..
Changes always need a bit of time.

..

I'm not saying rating is the best way to tell if a track is good or bad, I'm just saying it's a better way to tell if a track is good or bad than awards. Both are subjective, but ratings give a more accurate description of the tracks quality. Remember, if the same people rate on all the tracks, we would have a fair rating system, because even with their personal opinion of how one rate a track, their ratings combined would still make a pretty fair rate compared to other tracks. I know it's not the same people rating all tracks, but we might see a similar effect, because it would count the average, and that's far more accurate than a system that makes it possible to have unlimited points.

Lets call it "Tracks random people enjoyed this Week", or "Track with a high quantity of an entity called awards of the last seven days". I know the options aren't very good, but calling them "best of the week" seems unreasonable because we will never know if they're actually the best.

As I said above, a rating tells you how much the average person likes a track. But there is no average person!

Imagine there are 2 tracks - 1 that half of the people absolutely love while all the others totally hate it, and 1 that is fun for everyone but nothing special.
Both tracks would have quite a similar rating although they're completely different.
But the amount of awards would not be the same - the second one would probably get twice as many awards as the first one because twice as many people like it.

In this example, the rating does not at all (!) reflect the people's opinions about the track!
I mean you have people who love it and people who hate it. But what does the rating tell you? Something like '50%' or '3 out of 5 stars'.
Nobody (!) voted something near those 50%. The rating mixes two different opinions that can't be mixed. And it produces a third 'opinion' that has even less to do with the track.

You may now say that awards don't reflect everyone's opinion. But that's why they're useful! At least, they do reflect about half of the people's opinions. And that is probably the more interesting half.

Of course, through the award system, the more 'specialized' tracks never get as much attention as the 'allround' tracks. But isn't that good? Don't we all want to have playable tracks on top of the 'BotW' or 'ATF', tracks that everyone can enjoy and have fun on?

I like the idea of using stars instead of numbers, as eie suggested. Numbers are more ambiguous. Stars are also ambiguous, but they seem to carry more meaning that you liked it on some level. That would seem to be in line with what MrA wants.

But the problems I see with ratings is that no matter how much we tell people to use ratings in a certain way... people will inevitably use it the way they see fit... myself included.

MrA said something on the order of... a rating of 1 would still be a good track. A rating of 5 would be an amazing track. There are no "bad" ratings.

The problem I see is this. Imagine this scenario:

I see a track with 5 awards and a rating of 5.0 (or 5 stars). I think, wow... that's probably going to be good. So I try it, but I'm very disappointed with the map. Clearly the 5 votes were people who were probably biased about the track, or at the least had a very different interpretation of good track design from my own.

I don't think the track is worth even 1.0 (or 1 star), because as I see it... the track is actually quite bad. It's not fun to drive and really frustrating because of the bad design. I certainly don't want to award it or recommend it to anyone. But I do want to vote on it in order to give my opinion about the track. I may even write a comment saying why I voted it down... in a constructive way of course.

But I can't vote 1.0 because that's supposed to mean the track is good. But 1.0 isn't as good as 5.0, so I'll end up voting 1.0 in order to balance what I see as a biased rating. And this begins a new mindset in which I vote all tracks that I see as "bad" with a 1.0, even though the rating is supposed to mean "good". So in my mind I'll start thinking of this number as being used for bad tracks. 3.0 for mediocre tracks. 4.0 for very good tracks. 5.0 for amazing tracks. You get the picture. I'm fairly confident that this scenario will play out in the minds of many users across the site.

If you're to vote honestly, there needs to be a number for the tracks that are bad. Because, you'd be kidding yourself to think there aren't bad tracks. And they do get awards and they will get ratings.

I know MrA wants the ratings to be friendly, and not to discourage anyone.. but inevitably it will happen if it's introduced. Even builders themselves will interpret a low rating as a hard hit and may take it quite personally. I know users who take each and every dislike vote they receive on youtube as a personal affront.

But, I mean, we put this stuff out there online. We should be able to take a certain amount of criticism. I don't think youtube, mx, or any other kind of social site should shield it's users from the honest opinions of its userbase by depriving them of a feature that lets them vote in a negative way.

People shouldn't vote with malice of course, but likewise... users shouldn't interpret a negative vote (or a negative comment on their track) as anything but an honest appraisal from a fellow player. And if they do, that's their own immaturity. You really can't do anything about that. Even now people can give negative comments about a track that might bother the author, but as long as it's done with a certain level of respect, it's allowed. And this is the price we pay for being part of a social game. Not every part of "social" can be roses and dandelions.

--

My criticism isn't meant to suggest we shouldn't have ratings. I actually love the idea. But I think in order to do it, all sides should be reflected in the scale. And you should also be able to vote without awarding.

Maybe if you were going to vote 5.0, it would require you to award.

eyebo says:
But I can't vote 1.0 because that's supposed to mean the track is good.

With the system MrA suggested, it would be even worse: You'd have to award the track in order to vote 1.0.

So, if an additional rating system is going to be introduced, it has to be independent from the awards, and it has to reflect positive and negative opinions.

Yikes. So we'd get a ton of false awards by people seeking to balance the votes on tracks.

and.. lol, thanks for distilling everything I said into 1 sentence.

I should learn to be more concise.