This is just an idea for which I’d like some feedback if possible.
There used to be a lot of spam in comments, from phishing site links to ‘meet Bob’ chains, but most of that seems to have gone down recently (especially the former) due to the time limit and a link filter being put on the comments, however there still seem to be some chains and requests to join groups and places that aren’t helpful to anybody who is trying to get an opinion on the item, perhaps before they purchase it.
What would you think if a user could only comment on an asset once they have rated it? To be able to rate an asset, you need to have played or own a copy of it. This would cut down the amount of people that can comment on the item and the people who can have ‘experienced’ the asset so they hopefully have something interesting to input.
Something else that could be added in with this is that people who have rated the item can only comment on it once, which could help with the spam on hats that a lot of people own, such as the Shaggy, or popular places that a lot of people have visited, such as Dued1’s Work at a Pizza Place.
Of course for this to work on most - if not all - assets, it would have to be possible to rate them.
The real problem isn’t really the spam itself… but that there’s nothing to replace the “spam”. Arguably the entirety of everything posted in comments is pretty much “spam” if you look at it the right way with the sole exception of “this doesn’t work” comments.
That said, if we were to try implementing a solution anyways I think something like this is the best feasible one.
I agree, this is a good potential solution to the spam issue. Before we implemented the link filter, spam was significantly worse. Currently, it is bad but not intolerable. Do you think it is really bad?
I was thinking about other solutions, if we did threaded comments, do you think that would help?
Anyway, we have a story in our backlog to address this problem, one day.
No, I agree that it has gotten better and I don’t think it is really bad or even bad for that matter, but I do believe it could be made better.
Threaded comments could help with the organization of the comments, rather than seeing somebody say “@tone I agree,” and then having to scroll down to see what tone said.
[quote] I agree, this is a good potential solution to the spam issue. Before we implemented the link filter, spam was significantly worse. Currently, it is bad but not intolerable. Do you think it is really bad?
I was thinking about other solutions, if we did threaded comments, do you think that would help?
Anyway, we have a story in our backlog to address this problem, one day. [/quote]
Perhaps creating a review system, where users are asked to write a review if they own the asset with both a Minimum and Maximum bound for text entry and a rating. Or even, comments could be liked and disliked and then you can rank them based upon that.
Spam has been cut down quite a bit, but this method could help filter things out a little more so that comments can be used for their intended use. Feedback and thoughts on said asset.
Threaded comments I also support for better discussion organization. You could opt in to get PM notifications of a reply to your comment and a link would take you to the comment so no matter how much the comment gets buried you can view it.
Taking some inspirations with YouTube’s system being able to apply the thumbing system to comments may help. You could choose different comment sorting options with one being top rated.
This could help developers see what kind of feedback most players agree on so that the developer can receive the feedback more easily.
Make it so that instead of the comments being in a linear order, you are shown a random snapshot of recent comments. Instead of going to the next page, you refresh to see a new random set of recent comments.
Perhaps a filter to set a time window (so you can see if theres any recent issues, or you can see if the game is good overall)
Benefits:
-Eliminates usage of the comments section as a place of extended discussion (which should be somewhere else, even if that somewhere else doesnt exist yet)
-Gives you a better picture of what the place is like I guess.
-Allows easily reducing visibility of some comments that are deemed not important (you can sell moar BC by making BC comments stand out xP)
