Rating

I think it's a very good idea!

I think he means just finished, have his/her name on the scoreboard. It would limit that some people gives hundreds of 1-star ratings, OK theoretically that would still be possible but I don't think many people, if any, have the stamina.

To demand that people have created a certain number of games would be a bit unfair to a lot of existing members who haven't created any or just a few games, BoboLo and Kathy to name a few of them.

Having played a number of games could be a good qualifier but once you have done that you're free to be a vandal...

I agree with Snavelaar. Non anonymous voting would be a start. If you think my game sucks, tell it and help me improve it with a comment.

And I even more agree with Snavelaar about games don't showing up in the main window, and I am probably the one with more games in it in the last period. But I'd like things to be fair. I have seen lately many high quality games by Silfurkex, Slaaty, Jthventura, Paulfunl, just to name a few, and i am sure there are many others. I think the main window should accomodate more games (of course not too many) and should scroll faster to give anyone the chance to be seen. With what i said, I am probably writing against my own interests but i would also like to publish more games and having them shown. I still have some 90 games to be published but i wait just to give to some of them some chance to be seen: a faster scrolling main window, with many authors having the chance to appear, maybe would be the solution to more than an issue.
Maybe instead of having a game pushed out of the MW by other 20 games it woud be better to have a game staying in the MW a fixed time and then disappear.
I don't know if this is a good solution and one of the reason is : i don't know how the MW exactly work. I have had 10 games in MW and some times a game is shown there for 2 hours and then removed, leaving only 5 other of my games.... i am just running experiments in publication ;)

While i am at it, a question: the game of the day. I almost always see the same games there rotating. Do you like it like that ? Is it meant to be like that ?

If a game is good enough to hold my attention long enough to play it all the way through, and for me to eventually get a 100% score, I really don't rate lower then a 5. A good game can take a long time to make. Games I don't play or am not into, I ignore and don't rate.

I personally am not sure if the existing system could be improved.

Lots of interesting commments you have here. Personally, I only rate five star games since many weeks. If it isn't is "worth" that, I don't rate it. I don't want to make anyone sad... A poor game isn't going to be played anyway, I don't have to write that in the contributer's face. But a game may very well be worth five stars with only eight, nine dots; e.g. a game created to learn Southern Africa countries. In that case, the purpose is achieved. And this is Purpose Games, isn't it?
I often look for games by Top Rated games. Once someone gets a three or even a four star rating, the game is pushed thirteen pages away. I don't think this is really fair. One game with one five star rating is thus higher ranked than a game with say fifteen five stars and one four star ditto.
Still, I think my suggestion is good - it will for sure keep lots of games clear from vandalism, and of course you don't have to have 100%. But you need to finish it. If you really want to tell the creator that this game was nice or well created or the like - well, tell him/her with a comment! I saw Itachi doing that with a game slaaty created - "This looks really nice, but I'll play it when I'm in the mood for it." You don't have to vote to show the creator your sympathy.
It would be interesting to hear David's comment. Is this realistic?

Thanks, Wentu! I agree, Icelandic learning is kind of a niche market. I don't know whether anyone on here is actually trying to learn Icelandic, but if anyone who is should ever stumble upon them I'd like to think they could be handy.
On this subject, I've only been here a short while, but I tend to only rate a game if I think it' s really good or really bad. If I don't care either way, I don't bother. But since the purpose of of this site seems to be to learn something from the games, I agree with others who've said that games which are just a picture pulled from somewhere on the internet with one dot are a complete waste of time. Or even with more than one dot, with labels like 'fence' or 'dog's head' or whatever. This is just lazy people making games for the sake of it, not trying to teach anybody anything. I can see that without actually playing the stupid thing, and I have rated such games 1 star without playing them. On the whole, though, since games like this take two seconds anyway, I think Paul's idea is a good one if it will stop people rating negatively games that don't deserve it on a whim.

This is a very interesting discussion, with several important questions and ideas. I want to share my opinion on some of them:

- I agree with Paul's suggestion, rating until you have finished the game is a good limit, if you played it you have some basis to rate fairly, and someone who is just being a vandal will have less motivation since they would have to finish each game, 1 by 1

- I, myself, rate games using all the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Each and every game I have played in the site I have rated, I think this is good for all of us, it's feedback for creators (I usually leave a comment too) and it's a notice for players. I try not to be extremely subjective. 1 star would be a worthless game, like when the whole info is wrong (not just a couple of mistakes), I rate 2 stars when the game has a big problem that makes it hard to focus or lean, like awful spelling all over or its concept it not coherent, I rate 3 stars when I think it's a fair game but maybe it's been done a million times, it won't teach you much, etc, I rate 4 stars for good games better than those, and 5 stars to great games (it's very fun to play, or too creative, or a nice challenge, or it teaches very well, great to look at, etc.. any of those will do).... I've given 5 stars lots of times... Anyway, I don't think people should give a bad rating just because they're not interested in the subject. Or all I'd be making would be geography games because it's what most people here seem to love. I want myself and everyone else to be able to create games of diverse areas, some of them few people will be interested on. And if only people who finish them (doesn't need to be 100%) are allowed to vote, then there's a standard and voting isn't so meaningless to them.

- But I also don't think voting should be mandatory. That'd make people not take it seriously, and maybe they'd rate a 3 or whatever in every game without thinking, just to get out of it.

- I also think it's important to say, I really disagree with some people that imply in several threads here, that the amount of dot makes a game better or worse than other. A game could have 3 dots and teach something important, or 100 dots and be worth to play. Or 20 dots and be awfully made.

Anyway, just the fresh opinion of someone very new to the site...

to paulfunl:

In this case, I think it might be political. I played your game, and as a game in itself it is not bad.

When I started playing it, it had 2 ratings and 1 star, and the only way that happens is 2 separate people rate it at one star (or one person with two accounts).

I rated it 5 stars, but that won't help much.

I think the bad ratings are from someone with a political axe to grind. A holocaust denier, maybe (you know the type: they claimed it never happened, and would like to do it again.)

Better luck next time.