New map judging system for parkour

BluePottwal

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#1
Hey guys!
Parkour has a big problem with maps. There are multiple maps (mostly insane difficulty) that have been in ongoing for about 6 months. This is caused by too few map judges and community judges actually playing the submitted (insane) maps. To solve this issue i came up with an idea:

Implement a system where players can submit their plot with /plot submit. These maps could get put into a list of maps that are to be judged. Now players that have a certain rank ( min God for example) or have built enough maps to judge the quality of the submitted map (Mapper ranks) can "judge" the map. Another way of putting these requirements would be to enforce limits: To judge easy maps you need to have done atleast 1000 easy map etc. to make sure that people that for example barely played insane maps, dont judge them.

The map could be judged in a couple of categories.
Step 1 would be for the player to give the building a rating. If the build does not fit Manacube standards a low rating should be given etc. Of course this evaluation should all be without knowing who built the map to keep it fair. If after a certain number of evaluations the map has over a certain rating, then it passes onto the next step.

Step 2 would involve the players actually playing the parkour and judging the style of parkour, the fit of the difficulty and the flow of the parkour. This could be done with the same rating process. If the rating is above a certain level, it would pass onto the next phase.

Step 3 would require a map judge to actually play the map and decide if it is acceptable. In this way it would not be required for multiple map judges to play the map. Occasionally this could still happen if the map judge is unsure or has a split opinion. Generally this would benefit the server because there is only ONE active judge on parkour at this moment that is actually judging maps. If the judge rejects the map it does not have to go through all the stages again, but goes directly into the third phase.

In this way the players could get themselves new approved content without needing to wait 5 months because barely any map judges are actually judging ( insane ) maps.
 

Dooble

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#2
There's alot to unpack here but I'll do my best to address the flaws in this
This is caused by too few map judges and community judges actually playing the submitted (insane) maps
To start the easiest fix is simply to just yknow... get those judges to play them, but it seems obvious from the timegap that's not the simple solution it sounds like because this is a conversation being had to begin with

The first issue with more public openings is obvious bias, it's framed as having players worthy of testing (high skilled players/map makers) be given the ability to also give an opinion for map judging. This can be obviously cheated by having alts or bribing people to mass boost your judged map positively and force a sort of "well if im the outlier for not liking it and everyone else does then its probably fine to accept" essentially creating a monopoly to get whatever map you would want through.
Step 3 would require a map judge to actually play the map and decide if it is acceptable
This is supposedly to remedy this but again if the judges opinion is an outlier in a sea of positives, that does not make the submitted map acceptable by virtue of public opinion as this can be easily fabricated so it is not a reliable system to gauge a maps quality if the results can be interfered with by the map maker.
Of course this evaluation should all be without knowing who built the map to keep it fair.
This is another one of your fixes to this but it can be easily bypassed by just... having the person who built the map be like "hey I made this go +1 it even if its not acceptable" which can already be done in forum replies to submissions already, but now they have actual weighting to get... well whatever they want with enough manpower really.

players actually playing the parkour and judging
This next point is about players judging the maps, assuming this is all legit players with the ability to play the parkour, how does tester bias factor into this? Before submitting the map I would hope you would of gotten players to test your map then taken on their feedback and tweaked things, how will those people judge the map with preconceived notions of what they already played and have that cloud their thoughts, what if you pull down the submission after one person judges it and retool it then the same person just gives the same verdict on it but the others give a wildly different one because it could play very differently depending on how much has been changed.
map judge to actually play the map and decide if it is acceptable
This again seems to you like a good idea on paper but it has the issue of can people (judges) be influenced by other fraudulent opinions to make it seem like a map is better than it is. As the judges are people, we all naturally have different tastes in what we consider "good" builds or parkour so it might be a case of a map not being our cup of tea, but being beloved by others so it still gets accepted, though this situation falls apart if the map in question is of a low quality, but everyones saying it's good so the judge is backed into a corner of either A. pissing off all the genuine people who like the map or B. letting through an obvious troll obliviously to make the quest to champion even more grueling than it already is.
there is only ONE active judge on parkour
This ties into a bigger problem that can be felt in game and also ties into how this entire suggestion feels like its a solution to a problem that was itself intended to be a solution to the same overarching problem.

This is just commjudge but opened up to more people, which is fair as commjudge itself was conceptualized to assist judges with judging maps faster by having more people around. This itself highlights a fundamental issue in the system of "if commjudge was made to pick up the slack of regular judges, what happens if the comms then arrive in a similar situation to judges" and the food chain just recursively goes down until EVERYONE helps because NOBODY is doing it, which doesn't seem like a proper solution to this problem as commjudge is so limited in the way it is right now due to a marker of trust being needed to be approved to hold such a position

So this situations alternative solution can just be... opening up commjudge applications again (or permanently) but that itself cause issue as applications were only reopened to help the current comm judges as it was felt more was needed, so it's a trust issue of will the new people taken on ALSO not be seen ingame or not and then the cycle just repeats.

So this solution while seemingly good as it does what you want (gets people to play your/other long running ongoing insanes faster) has a knock on effect of what it could mean for edge cases and other special circumstances (abuse or exploitation) if implemented, which is why im against it as a proper solution to this problem goes much deeper into judge systematics as a whole rather than just "lol be more active" or "lol ill do myself then" and is reflective of many faults and or strengths of the judging system as it is now

tl;dr seems like a good idea but has the overhang of just being a repeat of the system its complaining about with the same strengths and weaknesses just amplified by having more people on it, which doesnt fix the problem as much as it would probably just exacerbate it.
 

sophiaaah <3

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#3
good in theory, but it would take time to set that system up.
Step 1 would be for the player to give the building a rating. If the build does not fit Manacube standards a low rating should be given etc. Of course this evaluation should all be without knowing who built the map to keep it fair. If after a certain number of evaluations the map has over a certain rating, then it passes onto the next step.

Step 2 would involve the players actually playing the parkour and judging the style of parkour, the fit of the difficulty and the flow of the parkour. This could be done with the same rating process. If the rating is above a certain level, it would pass onto the next phase.
all of this kinda goes to waste because the whole idea of a community judge is players who are trusted enough to give ratings and decide if maps are deemed acceptable or not
Step 3 would require a map judge to actually play the map and decide if it is acceptable.
this is where the flaw in your plan comes in. If the whole problem is the fact that map judges and comm judges take too long to get back about insane maps but the thing is, it still ends up needing a comm judge or map judge to test and approve. This system you're trying to come up with is trying to combat the fact that it takes too long for insanes to be judged by adding in more steps. This doesn't work to improve what the issue is, it just adds to it. Plus what doob said