In your opinion

In my opinon yes, I have only spoke for myself and that is how I judge, the most unique builds and effective builds tend to get higher votes. I am not going to argue how other people should judge, or start pointing and throwing ewoks around to get my point across any clearier, though a 40kg/50kg furball tends to be rather effective at getting the point across via aggressive nagosations. XD

Though whether I vote? Thats pretty much another question. I've not really looked at squads for a good deal of time simply because I don't really play enough.

And forgive me for the caps, for some reason the page won't scoll down in quick reply, so I was typing blind for the last part.

Exactly the problem. Most posters don't know this. It's not a natural expectation based on our life experience with ratings. The natural assumption is always that a rating means how good something is. Its misleading to people, plain and simple.

If you want it to mean what you suggested and said you were fine with, then we must change the system to one that more accurately reflects that. "Like it" buttons are the way to go here, as people are used to that kind of a system.

You point is exactly what I've been saying. Do you realize that the ratings don't even mean what you suggested? At least 50% of the people who rate according to this poll do so or would like to do so for competitive reasons, thereby rating in a way that is counter to your point of meaning.

I just don't understand how you all can't see that as a problem. Rating systems in the real world are never allowed to work like this.

People who want to rate according to competitive reasons (less than 50% according to the poll) like competitive squads. That fits exactly with what I was saying. Some people like squads because they're competitive. I would expect competitive squads to be highly rated because people like them. I would not expect competitive squads to be the only squads that are highly rated.

Rating systems work like this all the time. People rate what they like high. The fact that people often like things that are competitive does not conflict with the fact that they're rating them high because they like them.

If everyone voted according to competitiveness, would you be satisfied? I think not - after all people might give high ratings to squads that had not yet won anything. You specifically spoke out against that. And people might think a squad is strong when you think it isn't. Case in point: eszul's squads. A separate list of what squads have actually won significant tournaments is much more objective and useful than trying to impose a blanket rule about how to rate squads.

I voted No I Don't. Before I explain why let me say that I have not had the time to read every post.

Why can't we rate each squad in both categories. For example, I might build a squad that is super competitive (not likely) but is not much fun to play. The opposite could be true, a fun squad that is not that competitive. The goal might be to build a squad that could rate high in both categories. As a player looking for squad ideas it might be nice to search squads based on competitiveness or how fun they look to play.

I think it would be nice for the creator of a squad to have to rate his own squad in both categories before it goes public. That way people viewing the squad will instantly have an idea if the creator was going for a competitive build or a fun build.

The squad that I plan to use this weekend at the Kokomo regional I would rate a 5 in competitive and a 6 or 7 in fun.

That is just my 2 cents andt I know that doesnt count for much.

I voted the way I did because I could pick just one of the options. I liked them both. If I had to pick one then I would pick Fun. That is usually how I play.

I think this is way off the mark of reality. Ratings systems work exactly the same way almost everywhere they're publicly available. IMDB just tells you what movies people like, not what movie will likely win awards (ie tournaments). Shopping site ratings tell you which TVs people like, not which TVs have the best picture and sound quality. Restaurant review sites tell you where people enjoyed their meal, not which ones served the most nutricious meals. Every such rating system is rediculously subjective and unfocussed. But the better ones offer some transparency, accountability and occasionally moderation.

Getting back to the first paragraph, I think it's a completely natural expectation that "good" could be for any number of factors and few are misled into thinking it stands for tourney quality. (I'd like to see the evidence of this confusion because I've never really noticed it, in say evidence of highly rated squads being taken to regionals due to their ratings, or people expressing confusion into how to get a highly rated squad to do well--as opposed to just griping about a high rating which shows foreknowledge of the potential inaccuracy of such a system.)

I think we could put up another poll with a question like "Do you think that highly rated squads are rated highly due mainly to strong tournament performance and the rating number is generally a good indicator of how well they perform in a tournament setting?" and the vast majority will answer (correctly) "no".

(And none of the above should be translated as opposition to improvements or changes. I just think you grossly overstate that case that there's anything particularly anomylous about the current system.)

We agree on IMDB. But I've never read the definition and knew implicitly what it meant. I think people know implicitly what the Bloo ratings are and a little label below them stating "Rate your favorites. (ratings do not reflect tournement quality)" changes nothing. (I'm still waiting to see any evidence of people being misled.)

You chose Consumer Reports which is the complete anomoly rather than the typical case of say Amazon.com or Tigerdirect.com which use an open system more like Bloo.

Nutrition is just one arbitrarily selected element that someone might define as "good" like "tourney competive quality" is one arbitrarily selected element that one might consider "good" in SWM. Granted it's a bit more of a strech than the others, but you can choose any element of a meal review that one might consider good and the analogy holds up. Each individual's rating does not represent the same element as the reason for the "good" result.

Yep.

To me, the creative process of building squads is half the fun of the game. When I first started playing, I built squads out of what I had to work with, played them (lost a lot, still do ) and then tried to improve them. Not surprisingly, when I did start looking at squads posted online, I found quite a few similar squads - and I took notice of the differences. I learned a lot more (about squad building AND playing) that way than if I had just net-decked an optimized squad and ran it without the first-hand experience (losing) of how those differences make the squad better.

IMO the rating sytem is OK for what it is intended to be. As has been suggested above, if there is truly a need to clearly identify the cream-of-the-crop competitive/meta squads, then a separate section of the site would be the best place for that. It seems to be nothing more than differentiating what is popular (and successful) with the hardcore tournament players vs what is popular with the player base as a whole. I don't see why we need to rely on the rating sytem for this.

Agree with everything said by both guys.

@imyurhukaberry I think a not rateable option would be great also, most of my squads are not public, and I only make them public so my opponent on vassal can see the stats real quick of any piece they don't have to hand.

I also think that we need to be realistic here. As a fairly new member, I don't ever recall thinking the top squads were the winners. They are good ideas mostly but that is all. The comments could be a little more constructive sometimes, instead of bickering about the particular squads rating etc. It says that a squad gets on the top based not only on score but on the amount of votes which helps everyone realise that there will be top squads out there that hardly get rated so will never make it on the list.

Either the community rates, or not. As with any democratic vote, it sometimes boils down to popularity. Having a committee to delete "obvious" popularity votes would just cause more arguments and 1 bombing in return. It will always happen and whatever changes, will not go away.

If there are 2 sections to rate, does anyone think that will stop people from voting high on their friends squads? Honestly? I understand if Shinja does not want to make the rating transparent, because if someone does get a rating not to their liking it could cause even more problems.

That's not to say I don't think two columns would be a good idea, I am just getting tired of this debate and am fairly sure that if the system were to be changed it would not be long before we were having the same discussion about the same issues because people disagree about the ratings squads are given.

The solution is:

1. Exercise a bit of common sense as to whether or not the squad is intended to be competitive or for fun and rate accordingly.

2. Comment on squads and give reasons behind you rating. This will allow new players to understand the rating it has been given.

3. Remember that as with any statistical read there is room for abuse and manipulation and have the common sense to understand that nothing can solve this.

4. And finnaly remember also that this game is just that, a game. It is about having fun and if you can't play nicely then don't play at all (my Mama always used to say ).

Also a section on tournament winning squads etc would be cool

BOTH. Maybe seperate squad brackets, one designed for competitive play, and another for fun. I understand people trying to be helpful with suggestions and critique, but no, Dash Rendar RS does NOT need to be in my Gungan squad, because it's...a Gungan squad!

Hypothetical of course. I was not referring to any instance or person in particular, but my answer is quite serious.