Blocking a member should also remove their ability to rate your individual posts. Option to remove ratings from individual posts. Option for the mod uploader to flag reviews that they can then be given to power to remove the reviews themselves. Option to disable reviews completely. But keeping the main post "like" rating. Mod can then be judged worthwhile to the amount of likes, rather than meaningless opinions. Sort of like the youtube version of "comments have been disabled for this video". If the mod is either bad or good you will read about it in screenshots no doubt. Option to delete comments on personal account pages (not sure if this has already been implemented). Completely remove/permanently ban people who wear their sh-tposting as a badge of honor. Overall review and cutback of the avenues that trolls use to harass others. Any or all of the above would cut back moderation time and allow you guys to do what you're supposed to be doing, rather than running a daycare center. The nature of a troll is not to listen, you have to physically take the power away from them.
An idea: the ability to delete threads (your threads only) on your own. I've made so much mistakes in the past on a thread (even reconsidering) that i don't want to ask a moderator to delete my thread. I wish i could just delete it. I bet you that people would probably abuse this, but just an opinion or idea (whatever you want to call it), doesn't need to be taken seriously or taken at all.
Yes, I don't need to download skins from the repo to see that they're crap because that's what preview pictures are for.
To be honest, having preview pictures helps with reviewing a mod because anyone can immediately see the quality of a mod, and can therefore decide whether or not to download it. That's why I was initially deterred by @BarmyPark's Barstow Ute mod; I didn't want to see another picture of the front (which is the unchanged bit); I wanted to see what he had done to the back, and yet he didn't provide a picture of it. No pics of the changes, no clicks from me. Thankfully, @Gavril T85 stepped in and provided some pictures of the model and its JBeam structure, which encouraged me to download it. That's why many people are deterred from @Ngm's map mods; he doesn't provide nearly enough preview pictures of his maps, so I'm left wondering what they're like and not really encouraged to download them (and I don't want to have to waste hard drive space on mods which I won't like). You might argue that having to download mods before reviewing them is a good idea, and that's fine; it is a good idea for mods which are more complicated and such, especially mods that give more engine/engine tuning options. However, there's a reason why people are turned off from sound mod makers who don't provide videos; they want to hear how good that sound is before downloading, so they don't waste time downloading a (potentially-horrible) sound mod. EDIT: @OP: This is a nice idea to help improve the forums, but I'm not sure how effective it will be in the long run.
About tdev: You are more and more here with member Community: So... What to say.... Member are bad on discord and good on beam. Its confusing
I have to add a few thing to this essay: With the introduction thread, I feel like just to make sure that no other members start roughhousing with the newer members, only people that have been on the site for less then 10 days (after typing their posts). This would also somewhat halt disrespectful people right at the start, as mentioned. You could, for one, do that, but that still doesn't mean people won't read the reviews, download the mod, then without even testing it and posting a negative review on a good mod. I think that having the reviews invisible before you download the mod, then it becoming visible after the mod is downloaded and the page is refreshed, so then the mod could be replied to. (This would also affect the Discussion tab, as negative reviews happen there too...) Then again, who knows if that is even possible...
There are two sides to this argument, and both are entirely valid, but both also have issues inherent with them. However, the issue that I'm try to highlight isn't necessarily the reviews-requiring-downloading (although I still think it should), but rather reviews that are quite obviously nothing more than a "hurr hurr 1 star" circlejerk. Perhaps the best of both worlds... do reviews like Amazon does. People who actually downloaded the mod can be marked with a "Certified Review" or "Certified Download" or something, to show that they actually looked at the mod beyond a handful of pictures, while others are still able to leave reviews but if they didn't download the mod and actually look into it they aren't marked as "certified." It just isn't an easy thing to "fix." Preview pictures can help for the aspect of if you want to download it, but leaving a review based solely on a few pictures just seems like a bad idea. Maybe reviews should be a little more in-depth. Perhaps instead of just a straight 1-5 star review, reviews have 2 or 3 sub-sections that are used to create an overall average. For example, let's say we have a brand new car mod. When you'd go to review it, there'd be 3 sections (these are examples): Model quality, Jbeam quality, something else. and then the average of those three would be the overall review. Of course, the other types of mods would also have special sub-sections relevant to their mod type. Regardless, this would accomplish a few things: Reviews would now be more helpful for other users when deciding whether or not they want to download It would allow a greater insight into the quality of the mod It'd also discourage those who just spam 1-and-5 star reviews without leaving any constructive review messages. It wouldn't stop altogether, but it'd be better than nothing. This could also be a fair solution. It'd prevent 1-star bandwagoning, if nothing else. Although I don't know about the discussion thread, I think that should be left visible.
Huh... And What happenned if your A beta tester, and you rate the mod without downloading cause you already have it ?
Like I said, there's just no easy straight-cut answer. There's little issues that will always be found regardless of what method is used.
Either making the beta tester have to redownload it, as there might be something changed either way. Or letting ONLY the person creating the mod, be able to choose people via their usernames in a list, without the halt of downloading a mod. Though, I do see the former answer as a better one, not mean-proof though...
You know, how about this. I actually think your idea, Daniel, is better - not flawless, but better. Perhaps, when people upload a mod, they are required to post 4 or 5 screenshots (or a video in the case of sound mods). That, combined with hiding the reviews, would both force modders to adequately display their mods while also preventing other reviews from influencing the person who downloaded's review. Again there are a few little nitpick issues with this, but...
:| I got on today and saw this. The fact that the devs have to treat us all like children now is really quite disappointing. All of us should be more responsible than this on the forums, it makes me sick. I'm sorry @tdev you really shouldn't have to be dealing with this, though it's understandable why you are. When I joined I expected to be part of a more mature community than this. Instead, well, it has become a playground of things I was trying to get away from. The BeamNG devs have made an amazing platform for content creation that I will keep exploring, but I no longer feel like being part of this community for the time being is a very healthy thing for me mentally right now. The day we can have 2 simple ratings - a like and a dislike, decent and usable reviews from both a modders perspective and a users perspective, the removal of the site leaderboards, the removal of all groups, and halfway decent thought out posts from everybody again, along with other small things to make this a better place for everyone, I will be active again. ~Driv3r1142
He isn’t acting much better: Not sure if this is going anywhere good... The forums did need a better report system anyway. The old system was good for reporting alts, #unbandirectua/inertia threads and off topic posting but unresponsive when it comes to reporting certain troll posts or troll accounts like @cookieman whom I reported 2 to 3 times for off-topic posting, immature behavior and name calling: The picture in my pm post is his recent postings (as of last year) which were all off-topic.
Yes, I would. If I see cockroaches and rats running around in the restaurant, why should I be forced to eat something there to rate it?
Well, "don't judge a book by its cover". I can think of numerous mods that would look impressive in screenshots but actually are not... That's the equivalent of an apparently immaculate dining hall, with cockroaches running around in the kitchen where you can't see them... Some testing is needed for a reasonably argumented review IMO. A mod might look poor in previews but then be great fun to play and viceversa. Wouldn't that deserve at least 3 stars for the effort?
Forums would improve if everyone would learn to think bit differently, like "what I could do or write for that next guy, so he would be able to realize his dreams better" instead of this "me feeding my own desires" attitude which is bit too common. New rating system perhaps helps there, but there are always going to be those "uneducated ones". After all, it is thousands of years old problem (from the time first communities started after farming was invented), how to help people to work together instead of becoming destructive, I believe there are some 4000 years old texts trying to address this problem, although we are still at square one, humanity tends to have little bit thick skull I guess.