Survey posted 2004-03-05 08:48 by Morgan.

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Hmm... strange... I am the first who posted it. Anyway. I think it would be not a wise idea to make the file pending even longer. With the rating function bad programs could be filtered out. But it is important that files who are new should show for a month or something and when the files are rated enough (like 10 times) it should go through the filter. Further more it's the question how often 'old' files will be rated? I mean games like mine Minesweeper are very good games, but they are not downloaded often, because there are so many minesweepers out there which a badder than mine. Will anybody even rate this or will it be cleared away trough the filters? (Altough it will be on the site still, but nobody will find it...)

"I am the first who posted it."

People are getting even more creative on how to say "first post"... >:(

What the heck... it only was strange cause there were 7 pages of comments in the news item and noone voted?! So don't get mad... and if you don't have to say something ontopic, please don't reply :S

Nah, it's all good...you at least had a decent amount of content to go along with it.

My guess is that nobody had voted yet because the survey didn't go up at the same time as the news item.

The rating system works perfectly on Newgrounds. But I like the idea of there being a time where a program is "new," although it should be around twenty votes before it is filtered. Perhaps making it so that if half the votes are saying the program is bad and half are saying it is good they can be looked at by some sort of committee. Because that would be rare, pending time would not be increased... speaking of which, does this mean it's going to be a long time before my new game comes out?

Yes, we should do like newgrounds and blam crap programs.

I haven't seen the Newgrounds rating system.

If ticalc were to have a rating system, I'd have to say that a simple 1-5 star setup just won't do a program justice. Perhaps various aspects of a program should be taken into account here: it's speed, graphics, RP quality, et cetera.
More to the point, I'd like to see a rating system like PC Authority's one for software.

Sub-directories are a must when we're talking in THOUSANDS of files.

I think subdirectories are a quick and easy way to solve this problem. Possibly add in a rating system afterwards. But subdirectories won't increase pending file time or anything, the only problem it creates is moving all the current programs into their respective categories...

For some, re-organising their archives with 10s of thousands of files is just all in a days work, ie: mp3 collection. =P

I think categorizing everything further will help everyone find the programs they want; however, it would probably be more effective with a ratings system in place.

The best thing about the rating system in my opinion is that everyone can keep theri files and everyone can still upload their files as it has been done since the creation of the site. However, given a rating system, you could chose the level (quality) of programs you would wish to display on the directory pages.

As to the first comment above, you bring up some good points about files that need to be rated a certain number of times before they take effect. I had originally never though about that, but it was brought up and would be addressed if we did implement the rating system as a way o only viewing files that have such a rating.

I think that the rating system would be absolutely the best idea, however I also think that there should be some low level of "trashing" programs...the multiple "QuadForm" programs for example. However, I do think that some of those ARE good programs. I'm not saying that if you've written a quadratic formula program that it isn't good...there's my $0.02

A while back I removed quite a few "fake garbake collect" programs and quite frankly was kicking myself in the ass for ever allowing the one through that I did. That is not a bad idea about getting rid of the completely useless programs...

Why can't we just not upload REALLY useless programs, have better organization, AND have a rating system?

I remember downloading a "memory expander" for the 86, I think, that gave it 1MB or so of RAM. All it really did was switch out the normal memory page with one that had a bunch of random numbers for each category.

That's a really pointless prog!!!! >:O There should be a ticalc.org programmer's code of ethics, with things such as "test a program and fix any bugs before distribution", "don't upload if there is another program that does the same thing as yours", etc.

--test a program and fix any bugs before distribution
Sometimes it can be hard to fix every single error in your code, and some programs state that it's early in development and may have errors.

--don't upload if there is another program that does the same thing as yours
So you're saying that if someone were to make, say, a Zelda game, but this game was very poorly made, then no one else should attempt another? I think that if someone's made a program but you know that you can make a better one then go ahead. Just because someone's already made that program doesn't mean that it can't be improved upon. However, for certain things such as the Quadratic Equation Solvers there's only so much you can do.

Oh yea, and about that program being pointless. It might be pointless, but it's still pretty funny. Like all of those programs that shift the screen halfway down.

Oh and another thing that there are quite a few of are all those fake memory clear programs.

I thought that Fake Memory clear programs were "specifically designed to cheat", and were not allowed (see web page for details)

That is correct. Report any you see with the inappropriate file form.