Wc3search ahs currently one of the largest resource databases in community, especially with models and skins, which has sort of been our selling point. This leaves an expansive variety of resouces at your disposal. Upload restrictions or submittion criteria has been fairly lax on this site. The reasoning for this is that it allows people of verying skill level to display their work, get feedback and improve themselves while giving a chance for their work to be seen, which could in the longrun create more talented mappers/resouce makers and lead to more abundant, higher quality resources in the future. And with the current influx of new resources, its almost guarenteed that there will be new stuff posted every time you visit.
Con's of quantity:
When people dont want to learn, but just want to use our site as a dumping ground for half-heartedly made resouces, it essenitally becomes spam. People often must go through entire pages to find quality resourses and experienced mappers/resouce makers get discouraged because of the work they put an incredible amount of effort on gets buried under works with a fraction of the amount of effort put into them relatively quickly.
Pro's of quality:
People who put extra effort into their work get recoginized more while those who do not put effort into their work have their resources removed, which can create incentive for them to put more effort into their work before submitting. Browsing becomes more worthwhile since it becomes more like a kid in a toy store as opposed to a kid in a thrift shop (digging through junk trying to find the toys). Veteran resouce makers arent alienated as much.
Con's of quality:
Beginner mappers/resource makers dont get the opportunity to get feedback on their work since it never makes it to the archive. The site would appear more elitist and catering to veteran resouce makers and not to those who's talents have yet to be polished. Resouce variety becomes smaller as there are less things to explore. After a while the influx of resouces becomes slower, and you often have to wait longer for new stuff to be posted.
1,009 posts if you can read this you don't need glasses joined
#3
VGsatomi....What?
Since when is this a debate? IMO, everyone on this site, with the exception of a few, would prefer this as a quantity site over a quality site.
1. Strict quality restriction gives birth to elitism.
2. This is a resource dump, not a gallery.
3. Usefulness over quality. Always. Some of the most useful models in here are not high-quality. Some dont even have a quality classification. Take, for example, Mecheon's terraining. A plateau. On top of this plateau is a small pond. How does he do this? A plane with an animated water texture. Extremely simple, yet useful.
People who put extra effort into their work get recoginized more while those who do not put effort into their work have their resources removed, which can create incentive for them to put more effort into their work before submitting.
Directors Choice.
Browsing becomes more worthwhile since it becomes more like a kid in a toy store as opposed to a kid in a thrift shop (digging through garbage trying to find the toys).
A great analogy. I think one that should be put into effect somehow.
Well, in conclusion, im only a models man. I'd like to see other's opinions, though i must say i am heavily against any form of quality over quantity purging.
as you all know i produce alot of skins models art that i often take down after a period of time this is to reduce the length of time it takes for me to get on this site and into account but also helps the site by reducing the space thats taken up.
i have always tried to produce things with a surten quality. i beleive this site would benifit from reducing the amount of junk that gets thrown on here and pay closer attention to it even if that meens going back and removing some old works thats become unused and stale. repeated skins, models and stuff with no entire use whats so ever. the final verdict should always be from the actual person who controls this site and all of its content other wise you will get a conflict of opinions.
623 posts Just above your head, in the big bad storm cloud.... joined
#6
i think the best way to solve this is to find a "half-term"
it might be dificul and polemic, but if we find this "half-term" i believe the probs will be solved
example, the resources dont need to be elite level to be allowed, they need to be at least "reasonable". if by some way we cannot find this "half-term", at least we should exonerate resources like (for example) this "MurlokMyrmidon", a naga mirmidon with a murloc face, ridiculous and not useful
I think VGsatomi adressed something that needs to be dealt with, and I believe that he was not smoking. I would also like to compliment his perfect timing on posting this as I was just about to post a similar topic (although not as lengthy and detailed). I do have an answer to this.
Raise the filtering notch a little higher; too often do I see skins that anyone (even the not skilled people) can make. DeadDogNoGoWoof has made an excellent point with including the usefulness factor. But I can argue, for example, that a Firelord skin that has been recolored blue and has added on white dots should not be allowed to be posted as an Icelord (althought it may be useful).
In dealing with the beginners (as I was once), I believe we can all point our fingers towards the skin and model forums (only to name a few types of resources), and I think the wc3sear.ch staff should emphasize the importance of those forums to increase activeness in that area.
And if the staff considers my perspective in taking a notch up, they should use good judgement on what the value of the skin has based on its (a) quality and (b) usefulness. And I think prioritizing one over the other can be different when judging the various resources. Although I already see a problem with resource givers debating with the staff over a skin.
So in conclusion, this situation needs to be addressed, not extremely, but just slightly. And you could occasionally delete a resource everytime one is added just to increase the quality and keep it progressively reaching towards being the cream of the crop.
If the site "goes quality", it wouldnt mean we'd be purging everything except the DC stuff or anything, just apply more submittion criteria or more strict guidelines. -VGsatomi
Im all for the quality bit, but i have to argue that that people have different oppinions on what quality modeling/skining etc is. I've found numerous models that seem reletivelly slack in design, but is excactly what I needed for my current map.
Even though quality would be good, it would make the chances of finding a suitable thing for your "project" much lower.
Idea! Maybe rate the models/skins, so if some one wanted the higher quality, they would simply limit their searches for higher quality, while the people looking for something that is of less quality, but still what they need, they can leave the search as it is.
1,009 posts if you can read this you don't need glasses joined
#10
What I propose is alot more strict classification to the sections. I will use the models section as an example. You could search by number of polys, anims, filesize, author, comments, skin size, skin filesize, lore category, etc. Everything that can be searched. all at the same time, if need be. a completely revamped search engine and navigation therein. everything is strictly classified. most of this can be done by the author, if not the script. No more of what is already in the search engine. not to mention the author drop-down box. that thing drives me nuts.
I will probably expand alot on this idea later. im kind of rushed atm.
That is probably the best idea because most people search for resources related to their maps anyway, not really looking for quality skins or whatever just to comment them.
The only problem is that the search engine would require more scripting. That would seem to require Darky, and from what I have observed, he does not make an appearance too often.
If the site "goes quality", it wouldnt mean we'd be purging everything except the DC stuff or anything, just apply more submittion criteria or more strict guidelines. -VGsatomi
I like some of the ideas being thrown around here, especially the strict classification for the section. And yes, I have seen a drop in quality resources lately. But I always love comming here and seeing 48 new resources.
The pros and cons of quantity vs quality are pretty impressive. If the new authors don't get feedback, they will never make better work. If new authors are let to upload whatever they want, it would take ages to navigate the pages.
So, in my opinion, I think that a new way to see the resources should be added. The veteran models, mappers, whatever; they get to upload their resources to the mainstream site. The new authors get to post their works on the site, and visitors have the option to look past their works. After a few good posts, they can post on the mainstream site.
I don't think everyone understands what VG is really saying. Currently the site allows the uploading of any resource, free of practically any restrictions. Unfortunately, this means that we also get huge amounts of resources that are basicly unusable because of their low quality. What we are proposing is to add some slightly stricter restrictions to limit these almost unusable resources. Resources that are usable to a certin extent and users would download are all going to be allowed, only the unusable extreme low quality resources will be not allowed.
Currently there are tons of resources. This is good, because with quantity comes some quality. Duplicates need to be deleted, because you can find some maps and 1,000 versions of it which causes the uselessness. The latest version needs to be the only available, which is hopefully quality. Also, if you look in the tools section, almost all the tools are old and can be updated by going to their website. If the system is properly upkept with only latest versions, the best choice would be quantity (currently not upkept well).
Btw, maps that are protected with vexorians optimizer cannot be submitted, this needs to be fixed.
