Changing the ranking system
Hi!
I've been registered to the site for only a couple of days so far.
Looking at the hall of fame I expected to be in there by now, since I've solved more movies than a number of the people in the list. This puzzled me a bit.
However, after reading the F.A.Q. I understand that the ranking system is based upon points you earn solely by solving movies that have been online less than 14 days.
Now if you think about it, this means that people who joined the site right at the beginning and continue to solve movies, will always be at a great advantage and the top 20 will change only slightly at the bottom.
I feel a clear difference should be made between a points ranking (solved in the first 14 days) and the all time ranking (how many you've solved out of the total).
"Top Solvers - films of the last two weeks" is in my opinion a strange statistic since it's all about that 14 day limit. It doesn't represent knowledge of films very accurately since the larger the site becomes, the smaller this 14 day movie-bank will become in comparison. I don't feel "the amount of points the player has earned" in combination with "the amount of points the player has earned in the past 14 days" is a very interesting statistic.
"Top Solvers - all time" is what in my opinion should be what statistic number 1 is. Movies you solved in the first 14 days after they were posted (thus the ones you earned points for). It's not all time, but more a statistic for people who are active always on the site rather than people who play once a month.
I suggest removing the first statistic, keeping the second, and adding a third:
- "Top Solvers - all time (without points)". This should just show the percentage of movies the player has solved out of the total. Regardless of any timer.
Right now, the players have no idea how many points they've acquired and with which movie they did so. This makes the hall of fame a very confusing feature, because the player has no idea how close or how far they are from entering it.
Right now a green bar means you've solved it, a red bar means nobody's solved it. You could add a yellow bar to movies you earned points for. (And a blue bar for the movie you solved first - but that's not so much the point right now)
Just to recap on the whole 14 days time-constraint issue:
If you create a hall of fame list of how many movies you've solved out of the total, you could work with 2 accounts and just ask the solution with one and fill it in in the other. So I don't think the idea of having an all-time hall of fame goes together with the 14 days system at all.
So remove the solution button and add a "which film was it again button" after you've solved it.
This way you could still add a timer of 14 days in which you can earn "points" for the 14-day hall of fame ranking AND simultaneously have a proper all-time total movies solved ranking.
In conclusion:
I think the concept of the site is mostly about "I know a lot about movies" and not so much about "I know a lot about the movies that were posted the past 14 days".
Curious to read what everyone else thinks,
Storm
Instead of removing the "show solution" button (which a lot of people demand, myself not included), I'd rather add a 3. statistic:
"Top solvers - percentage wise" (since sign up). It's still has problems, because you have to check out the site at least every 2 weeks (although I suggested raising the limit to 30 days in the vote thread), however, new members have no disadvantage to the "old-timers". This of course means that the difficulty level of the shots would have to stay the same over time, but I'll just presume this.
Thanks for your interesting and inspiring post Storm. I'll try to comment, as best as I can.
You are definitly right, saying that a 14 days statistic tells nothing about your film knowledge in total.
But again, what does the hall of fame in general say about your film knowledge?
The "show solution" button is the crucial element in the story. Without it, everything was easy.
We had one statistic showing the top solvers, that's all. Unfortunatly the majority of you guys voted for keeping it.
Let me explain, why we decided to have the hall of fame, the way it is now:
Last 14 days is for the people, new to whatthemovie. If you work 14 days really hard, you can make your way in the hall of fame.
All time is for those people, who are with the site for a longer time.
Your ideas only work without the solution button. Unfortunatly, you were'nt here, before we introduced this feature :)
Your ideas focusing around points and percentage are easily commented: We both have points and percentage for every hall of fame. Unfortunatly, the 14 days percentage is still broken. It should be around twice the amount.
Agonistes is right. New members have no disadvantage. They have their "own" hall of fame.
And we will raise the time limit to 30 days, because a lot of people demanded it.
Well to be honest I've only been on this site for probably 2 weeks or so and I managed to climb my way into the all time list yesterday. Granted it's going to take a little more time for me to climb my way to the top but if you're consistent you can definitely make some ground on people in a hurry. It also largely depends on if naut misplaces his keys. :-P
From my perspective I see the 2 week hall of fame as a sprint race that anyone can jump in on and place. No, it's not a great measure of film knowledge but it's an equal and fair way to do it. It basically shows that with the given 14 day window of movies you know so much more than then the next guy or vice versa. The nice thing about this is that it really can change from week to week giving everyone an opportunity for the hall of fame whether your a veteran or a newcomer. The only major disadvantage I see for newcomers is that they have much more ground to cover in a shorter period of time. But once you settle in you can stare at the new batch all day if you want and see if anything clicks.
Yeah, SatansLH, that was exactly our intention :)
Maybe we should remove the percentage in the all time hall of fame, because over time, it will only go down..
The number of solved movies should be enough.
What do you guys think?
And we have to fix the percentage in the last 14 days hall of fame. It is still broken ...
Okay I did a little bit of math. The site is now running a month right? Say the complete top 10 keeps on solving movies just like I do. Looking at the top 10 I will need to solve about 800 movies who were posted the last 2 weeks to become 10th. Let's say I work REAL hard and manage to solve 50 movies more than each guy in the top 10 each month. I would need about 16 months (800/50 = 16) to get into that top 10 right now. (After just 1(!) month). What would happen if someone joined say 3 months from now, and see the awesome Top Solvers have a lead of 4000 movies, which you can reach by the 3rd quarter of 2014 (4000/50 = 80 (80/12 = 6.6667 years).
Now I know this is an exaggeration, but it does illustrate the point I'm trying to make. The game seems to become increasingly less interesting to join on a later stage.
hi storm
I do get the point you are making but is it of such great importance to you to get in the highscore list? I just solve movies because its fun trying to remember a shot you are sure you have seen somewhere but cant remember where/when. and yes its a bonus to get points for it but you can get in the 14 days/30 days highscore so why not see the all time highscore as a list of people who have known the site pretty long and have been constantly solving. some kinds of veterans you show respect because of the time theyve been here but nothing else because you understand how the ranking works and you know that the score is no comparison to your own. why be jealous?
@ familyguy
yes that's why I don't like the "show me the answer button", I never used it, I like to keep trying to discover a movie, I always find them in a second view (or 3 or 4 or 5 or ... :P).
And I disovered the website 2 weeks ago, so many have been already posted.
but you're right, with this option it's useless.
@to starvey : that's the point of a score, it permit to show that you're not alone behind your screen, some people are doing the same game as you.
Joma, it's not being jealous, it's that this way I don't see the "Top Solvers" showing the Top Solvers, but just a list of people who were first to sign up to this website. It is good to show the "veterans" of the website being good at the game, but this way their position isn't in much danger and will be less and less, making it a weird competition.
ok guys. We came up with kind of a solution :)
The all time top solvers has to much focus in the hall of fame. We think the "last 14 days" (or soon the "last 30 days") is far more important, beacause everybody has a chance to climb up fast.
We're moving the "all time highscore" from of the "hall of fame dropdown" to another place. A "user and movie stats" page. There you will be able to find all different kinds of statistics, including:
top solved movies
most viewed movies
new registered users
and so on ...
Nothing final yet. If you guys have some ideas about statistics, let us know. We're willing to add anything besides "top first solvers" because we think this statistic is useless. Most of the time it's pure luck if you stumble upon a unsolved movie and have the first correct answer.
Sorry, if I have to support Storm a little bit (although I don't really care about the hall of fame, as it's not likely that my name will ever appear on it :).
But, Storm has an argument when he says "veterans" have an advantage over "newcomers", at least for the "all-time highscore".
I think the problem will be that over time less and less new entries will be posted.
This means the amount of "hall of fame points" that you can earn will decrease.
There are no consequences for the "14/30days statistics", but the "all-time highscores" will grow slower once the site gets older.
Hence, it will become harder to "catch-up" with the "veterans".
Maybe, I am mistaken and the amount of new posts remains constant.
However, in the long run contributors will have difficulties to come up with new posts, because:
a) only that many movies are released on DVD each month
b) nobody wants to post a movie for the 10th time (3 encounters of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" already seemed silly to me)
I know, at this point in time my argument may sound silly, but mathematically and socially (hype cycle for new Web 2.0 sites) it could make sense.
I like the "show solution" box so I'd like it if the expiration time stayed (it could be raised to a month, but I don't really see the point).
From there, obviously, the total score of players that came here at the beginning will stay way ahead of that of newcomers. However, the score from the last 15 days puts everyone on the same level (well... it will once it's fixed since at the moment it makes it easier for people who came to the site exactly 15 days ago, but that's another problem).
It is a representative set of screenshots and the ranking is only on those. If you just arrived, you only have to solve these to see how well you do compared to other players. On the other hand, good players will also do fine with these (there are enough so that you can show how well you can recognize movies) provided they keep coming (if you stop playing for a while you score goes down, but you can bring it back whenever you come back).
Even if you remove the "show solution" box and start counting all movies, it will be a pain for newcomers if they have to solve thousands of screenshots before they have a chance...