Yesterday I had 4000 experience points. I needed 4010 to make it to level 20. Today, I got the final 10 experience points that would put me into level 20 range. Then I go to my user page, and I'm greeted by this:

"Level: 19
Exp: 4010/4040"

Are
You
Fucking
Kidding
Me

So since I've had reliable access to computers at home, I've always fiddled with music programs. And over the years I've been pretty successful in keeping all my musical abortions around. But I was like a magpie-just collecting them to have them. Then, yesterday I was shuffling through my iTunes library and they came up, and I figured, "I have suffered alone at their hands for too long. I must turn these on the world!"

Expect a constant stream of music of questionable quality in the coming months, with updates here.

In the eight years I've been on NG, I've seen a lot of movies, played a lot of games, and been through a lot of changes. I remember when Tom and Wade were pretty regular contributors. I remember when AYB first swept the internet. I remember when this site used to proudly link to the Assassin collection from the frontpage. The days before the art portal, and even the audio portal. The good ol' days.

But this isn't going to be one of those posts.

No, for all the growing NG has done over the last decade, I feel like it's been pretty good for the most part. From cultivating a culture of contribution via the many media portals and bulletin boards, to their reasonable level of success in the console world with Alien Hominid (and I think Castle Crashers too, yes?). But the one thing that really bothers me is this: number 1 on the portal changes nearly every damn day.

Back when I first was on NG, fives were treated as they ought to be, like gold. I, like I'm sure many other NG members who are of my era, give out about one five per week, maybe every ten days. A good movie when I first joined had a score of 3.2. Cripes, I had friends with batting averages of 2.7, and they were happy with that. Now, maybe that means we were all stingy bastards back then, but I think something different has happened. I think that people who join today feel like the voting system in NG is black and white, thumbs up or thumbs down-zero or five. What evidence do I have for this? Well let's take a look at an example:

As of this writing (21 July 2009), Portal Movie #1 is Bunnykill 4, submitted 9 July 2009. It has a total score of 4.47, with 12 702 votes cast and 212 116 views. For a movie to have a score of 4.47, the overwhelming majority of those votes must be fives, it's just a mathematical necessity. Now, this in and of itself isn't a problem. But the lowest score on the Portal Top 50 is 4.37. This means that all the movies in the Top 50 received mostly fives. Is this a problem? No, you want the Top 50 movies on a site as big as NG to have a fantastic score. But I think it's a sign that the scoring system here at NG may be getting too big for its britches.

There are two scenarios that can cause something that received almost all fives to get bumped out of its spot as number one. The first is (naturally) over time people vote on it and give it scores other than five. The other is a movie comes along with a smaller total number of votes, but with a greater percentage of those votes being fives (read: "the next big thing").

The first scenario isn't a problem, it's the right way for adjustments to the Top 50 to happen. Over time, as people watch and review, the average slowly gets chipped away. It becomes impossible for the average user to know how people are voting because changes in the average become infinitesimal as the total number of votes increases, and it allows them to view the movie critically and vote as they see fit. How? Imagine this: you watched the number one movie on the portal, and you didn't really like it. There are so many votes that if you vote five the score goes up 0.0001 points or if you vote zero it goes down 0.0001 points. If your vote has no perceptible impact, you can vote as you please. HOWEVER! Though you may think your vote doesn't matter, those thousandths or ten thousandths of a point add up over time, resulting in gradual adjustments to the score based on the will of the mass of voters. This is NG done right.

In the second scenario, people flock to a movie and give it fives with few exceptions. After a few hours, it may be 80% fives, thus giving it a score higher than the number one on the portal. The number of views grows geometrically, and the voting continues. Again, it is mostly fives. Then the next big thing comes along. The first movie is bumped off the front page, forgotten, as people begin the cycle again. They vote five, it bumps the first movie down a peg, another movie shows up, et cetera et cetera. It slowly, if at all, begins to be subject to the effects of time, as laid out in scenario 1.

The problem with this system is that the five begins to be devalued. I know that when I give a five, it's to a movie that I really like. Maybe it helps its score, maybe it doesn't, but it is more a trophy that must be earned rather than a tool to manipulate its placement in the portal rankings. There are three movies in the Top 50 from the year 2007. Twenty-nine of fifty are from 2009. Ten out of ten of the Top 10 are from the last three months. Is it really possible that of all the movies submitted in 2007 only three could be considered worthy enough to be collected in the Top 50? Maybe it is a statement on the explosion of NG and the seemingly exponential growth of movies submitted to the portal, but I'm more than willing to bet that lazy voting patterns has something to do with it.

You've got six numbers in front of you when you watch a movie here. Zero and five are the outliers for a reason. If you've got the time to watch a movie and vote on it, you've got the time to write a review. If you list what you liked and disliked about a movie, it makes casting your vote so much easier and so much more worthwhile. And, it's more helpful for the artist/programmer/collaborators.

We're a community people. It's in our best interest to try and grow our talents and to be supportive. Think before you vote.

fart

This is some pretty crazy stuff. I can't believe that this is what NG has evolved into.

Wow.

Go play Spectrum Genesis.