Public Discussion: Map Showcase Submissions

Egan

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Feb 14, 2010
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Recently we changed the map showcase submission process to: at the end of every month we would put that month's 'Map Showcase Submissions' into a vote, the top 50% of those maps would then make it into final inspection by the staff, maps that pass final inspection go into the showcase. This method was manifested with the intentions of 1) Making the process more well known and obvious. 2) Better determining the quality of maps needed to get into the showcase. 3) Making the process easier for admins (because evidently - 2 year hiatus - we are lazy). We, from admin perspectives, agreed this was a decent solution. However, upon hearing public opinion, we now think this is a potentially bad way of getting maps into the showcase; this sort of system creates arbitrary decisions of when maps are 'not good enough'. For instance say there were two fantastic maps submitted in one month's vote. In the current system we’d only allow one to make it through to final inspection. How excited do you think the author of the map who didn't pass would be to resubmit his map? How unfair is this system!? Anyway, we think we should change the process again, and we think asking the public for help would be good since you guys have convinced us it was a bad decision before it went into full effect (August 1st).

For the record, we think having a vote is important because the public is pretty good at determining what's good or not, more so than just admin decisions it seems. We also think that the submission thread was a good change since it's in the place people look to get their map showcased (the map showcase), and it keeps things organised. We think that the 50% overall cutoff rate is harsh, it should probably be decided for each map somehow, or be less intense. So what do you guys think of this process? What would you change? What do you think would be fair for all maps submitted? And could you fit our aforementioned intentions into the end result?

These public discussions of topics relating to the community will probably make more appearances in the future. We would like to include all of your perspectives into the decisions that shape this community, since you guys are, again, good at pointing out our bad decisions (that’s a good thing).
 

Idolon

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Feb 7, 2008
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For the public voting, you could have it so people can vote for as many maps as they want. Then, accept maps that get voted for at least 50% (or any other arbitrary percentage) of the time get in (or moved to staff review). That'd probably be the best way to go, since the number of maps that get moved to the next stage could fluctuate independently of how many maps are candidates.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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The problem with it now is that it makes the map in competetion with each other. Which is wrong. I don't see the point of the 50% cutoff, barely 1 map makes it to RC every 6 months in this community, only the first month will be a bit of extra work.
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
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The problem with it now is that it makes the map in competetion with each other. Which is wrong. I don't see the point of the 50% cutoff, barely 1 map makes it to RC every 6 months in this community, only the first month will be a bit of extra work.

I agree with this. I think you guys could probably just have a little backlog, play catchup on some maps that got overlooked since the last time the showcase was updated, if something doesn't make it but still meets all the standards just put it up for next month, no resubmission. The first month is going to be a little competitive and get a lot of entries, but as time goes on it will mostly just be a matter of "author submits -> is this decent or did they just slap an RC on the end hoping we'd put it on the showcase? -> Nah it's pretty good"
 

Egan

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Feb 14, 2010
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@YM: http://forums.tf2maps.net/forumdisplay.php?f=65

@Crash & Ido:

A 'Yes or No' option per map would be the same as a 'maps that get voted for by at least 50% of voters' method, and judging by the results of the Mini-Detail Contest poll, that probably wouldn't work:
YAG4db6.png


Having the number of votes needed to 'pass' per map put lower or even be there at all, I think would end up becoming a competition of maps, which Aly mentions is wrong - and what ends up with these complaints of arbitrary decisions of what's 'not good enough'.

I think ideally (but not so for admin work amount), keeping in mind that public opinion is important, there should be final inspection done on all maps. And part of the final inspection score would be dependent on how well a map did in the public poll. This is a similar system to proportional representation which is to "ensure that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received". So for example, 30% would be for gameplay, 20% for aesthetic, and 50% for public poll result. And then ask if a map gets past X% in the final score then it makes it into the showcase (60%? 50%?).
 
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Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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That contest, and this is a *little* bit different though. Different enough that it might work with this. With a "needs X% of votes" there isn't any competition between the maps, the only competition the map has is itself. We can adjust the % needed to move forward to increase/decrease competitiveness. Based on that contest, 25% wouldn't be a bad milestone to start with.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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I don't like the idea of a public vote at all.

No matter what you do, a vote is going to be an arbitrary cut off and with the way mapping, enjoyment and quality of a map actually works, that's always going to be a bad thing and unfair in almost all circumstances. What's the difference to the audience of the showcase between a 49% map and a 51% map? Arbitrary!

I said this back when it was originally being discussed, and I'll say it again now. Get rid of the vote, have people actually discuss the maps. Make your decision based on what people actually say, not an empty yes/no vote. Sadly, of course, this relies on people actively participating in the community, which is a rare thing these days, but then so does voting, and I think comparing the two this is the better method.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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Oh it's hidden away in a specific forum? That's ok... I guess, but here's some PRIME real estate going to waste:
primerealestate.JPG


I'm not sure I like a public vote either. Why not have 1 member of staff who regularly curates the list, have a thread for submissions, as well as reaching out to authors who seem like they're at that point but haven't put anything forward themselves?

Imho, get geit (or whoever does forum layout these days) to get randomised links in the forum flanks where there's nothing but uniform brown pixels now, that way everyone who isn't viewing on a tablet/phone sees at least one map per page they load.
 

Egan

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Feb 14, 2010
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Why not have 1 member of staff who regularly curates the list

Before the latest change, when we only had some staff regularly curate the list, it felt more like a place for maps that had hit RC than maps we actually thought were good and would want to point server operators to. This could have been an internal fix where the staff simply had better judgement of what got into the showcase and discussed the maps more, but we felt like our opinion of what was good was very subjective, and that a public vote before our inspection would have been better.

Get rid of the vote, have people actually discuss the maps. Make your decision based on what people actually say, not an empty yes/no vote.

That does seem like a better decision all around.
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
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May 28, 2009
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Imho, get geit (or whoever does forum layout these days) to get randomised links in the forum flanks where there's nothing but uniform brown pixels now, that way everyone who isn't viewing on a tablet/phone sees at least one map per page they load.


I tried this last year at some point, the main issue is that it's really difficult to design for that space: Consider that if you want to use both sides, then 75% of the image is blocked by the forum itself and it looks visually noisy.

The alternative is to have a set of tiled screenshots on either side, which looks pretty awful imo.

z77_.jpg
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
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Sep 8, 2008
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This could have been an internal fix where the staff simply had better judgement of what got into the showcase and discussed the maps more, but we felt like our opinion of what was good was very subjective, and that a public vote before our inspection would have been better.
A public vote allowing people to freely select yes and no solves 1 issue already.
Bad maps will show alot of no votes and decent/good maps alot of yes votes.

Especialy with both yes and no as option you can exclude trolls that just vote yes on every map (or a mapper who creates 4 accounts just for 4 yes votes - after all the no votes is something he cant hide).
And if someone decides to add alot of no votes it should be possible to detect that aswel.

But that might take some work on the poll system. Its however a system that can work and is capable to give the judges an indication of which maps seem to be popular.

Discussions might work, but then i still have the idea that some maps are going to be ignored. Or some are going to be turned down on parts that dont realy matter, although that probably will also become a part of the discussion if that happens.

Still, a good old system of: Post your map if you want to have it reviewed isnt a bad idea on its own. Troll maps are easy to spot so of those you dont have to worry in the first place. And for all good maps its worthy to have it get through such system.
Even if a map takes 3 attempts to reach that showcase all 3 attempts might be worthy. The first time he might be turned down due to major detail flaws which he fixed later on. The 2nd time could be because the packing process went wrong. Some mistakes can easily happen and remain unnoticed. So multiple chances isnt a bad thing.
Obviously that only works with attempts that already were close. In some cases you just have to tell them it wont get in with its current state. It can be harsh but thats simply how it is. You can just put all maps in or the showcase loses its feature of showing higher quality. And in the end, being turned down doesnt have to mean they will stop its process. If it takes up to rc16 before its worthy then its still worthy. But obviously in that case the map might already be called poor and get on the lower possible priority for such tests, but even then, if after 4 months there is a gap of no maps to test its still good to test it then.
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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I tried this last year at some point, the main issue is that it's really difficult to design for that space: Consider that if you want to use both sides, then 75% of the image is blocked by the forum itself and it looks visually noisy.

The alternative is to have a set of tiled screenshots on either side, which looks pretty awful imo.

z77_.jpg

Can't we jsut use the top of the forums, like we started to do a while ago?
 

EArkham

Necromancer
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Aug 14, 2009
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Speaking of the showcase visibility, it'd be nice if on each page reload, the featured maps list would be randomly chosen.

Or maybe a mix. Like, 2 of the latest ones in the past year + 3 randomly selected from the entire list.
 

Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
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Jul 22, 2009
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a vote for getting into showcase would be different from a contest vote since instead of one map that is the bestest people would pick all maps that are good enough

tho since people seem to understand the idea of showcase and dont spam halfassed betas i think vote is kinda unnecessary altogether and staff can be trusted with deciding if the map is showcase material. unless sudden surges of perfectionism among staff happen that is.
 

YM

LVL100 YM
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Dec 5, 2007
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I tried this last year at some point, the main issue is that it's really difficult to design for that space: Consider that if you want to use both sides, then 75% of the image is blocked by the forum itself and it looks visually noisy.

The alternative is to have a set of tiled screenshots on either side, which looks pretty awful imo.

-Vertically cropped screenshots that are snug against the forum sides and disappear off the screen edges if the screen is too narrow
-Align text left/right separately to the images
-Force browser to only show scroll bar when window is less than the main forum width

Ninja edit:
The screenshot you posted looks pretty rad, the only problem is it's the very sides of the image.
 
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Idolon

they/them
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Feb 7, 2008
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We could also do something like MapCore does, and use a wide crop screenshot as a banner background. It'd add a bit more space to the top of the page, but it'd be more visually appealing than a full page background (I think so, at least). I'll do a mock-up in just a second.

EDIT: Mockup
showcase%20mockup.png
 
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seth

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May 31, 2013
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We could also do something like MapCore does, and use a wide crop screenshot as a banner background. It'd add a bit more space to the top of the page, but it'd be more visually appealing than a full page background (I think so, at least). I'll do a mock-up in just a second.

+1, I really like those wide angle shots. Maybe we could expand the forum to extend over the empty brown space? Just seems kind of useless and slapping random map pictures across the sidebars would be a bit noisy as Geit said.