Meet the New Ratings Sytem

I've just uploaded the latest changes to the ratings system on this site.  I've updated the two main areas of the ratings - the way in which ratings are displayed, and the way in which games are rated.

The biggest limitation of the previous system was that it only allowed you to give ratings out of 5, nor was there a way to match comments to ratings.  With the new system, both these have been fixed, with each game being given a rating out of 100 (i.e. a percentage) which is displayed with each comment as both a percentage, and a graphical star rating (each half star equating to 10%).  The overall Game score is also displayed in a similar way (but larger).  When actually rating a game, you now have the ability to use an HTML editor so you can format your post and include emoticons as you please.  Please note however that you can only rate each game once, and if you decide to change your rating, you'll need to delete your existing one and then create a new one.

 

Minor features also added are the use of Mario style stars across the site for star ratings and the ability to receive an email whenever someone makes a comment to a specific game

Great site Sledgehammer! I really love user generated content sites like this. While I will read 'official' review sites from time to time, I give user feedback reviews like these more weight in my decision to purchace a game or not. I like the ease of use and simplicity of your site. I think you nailed it by allowing precentage ratings up to 100 and no individual section ratings. While it would be neat to be able to rate every little section of a game (gameplay, graphics, etc.), it is really unnecesary. That kind of stuff can be explained in the text part. One rating per user makes the comments much more readable and clean looking 

I am having a problem with the comments though. It seems that I am able to comment on a game that has no comments yet. But, with the games that have existing comments, I am not able to comment to. Any ideas?

Thanks a lot, glad you like the site. 

That's very strange.  I see that is doesn't work for regular users on the site however it's working fine on the copy I have on my computer.  I've just reuploaded the files - does that make any difference for you?

Sledgehammer:

I've just reuploaded the files - does that make any difference for you?

That seems to have fixed it. I can now see a comment box for me to add my reiveiw for all the games now. I will add a few reviews to make sure it works.

Another thing that I am seeing is that the stars do not always show up. It seems to be a cache thing. I have to go to a forum post that has stars in it, before the stars will show up in the games review sections.

edit: I have added a review to Mario 64 and it worked fine. I really like that people can delete and re-add reviews as they please. You never know when a game may grow on you and deserve a higher score. I am assuming overall scores are re-calculated when reviews are deleted and scores changed?

Sharky:

Another thing that I am seeing is that the stars do not always show up. It seems to be a cache thing. I have to go to a forum post that has stars in it, before the stars will show up in the games review sections.

I'm not really sure what's happening there.  It's a known issue with the ratings on this software - usually refreshing the page should fix the issue.  My observations seem to suggest though that this is particularly common when browsing with Firefox but that may just be coincidence and I need to look at this in greater detail.

Sharky:

I am assuming overall scores are re-calculated when reviews are deleted and scores changed?

They are recalculated but depending on circumstances, it may take up to 15 minutes to do so.

Good idea.