Right. And we as map makers can either say 'Hey let me upload my maps to this database' or 'I don't want my maps on that site, the creator is a jerk.'. I was of the former, and now I am of the latter.

Again IP, where have you been?
The reason I am always so up in arms is because I don't see anyone else getting upset over these things that are severely wrong with both SEN and Nibbits. I go on MSN and people tell me 'Damn Ex your right so and so is such a noob and I wish they'd go away' and I see topics about getting them banned which are almost ignored by you and Moose. It isn't that people don't agree with me, they do, but they aren't speaking up. And so I have to get upset and speak loud enough for all of us. If the community is unhappy about something, ANYTHING, it is your job as the admins to look into it, and you haven't been doing that.

He spiders other websites to get maps automatically ;o

That's just plain wrong. If a maker doesn't want his maps on that site he should be able to remove them.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 11 2009, 11:46 pm by isolatedpurity. Reason: removing stupid threat

Considerate in what way? You criticize his database as if SEN's database was any better when it's not. In fact, every criticism you make of his database can be applied to our database. At least nibbits makes some attempt at a ranking system that is actually based on statistics gathered from each map. And as KK said, those highly ranked maps may not fit your definition of good, but they apparently fit the standard of the majority of nibbits' userbase. Also note that it's called "popular" maps and not good maps.

If you actually consider the fact that the whole process is automated it's doing as much as it can. If you think maps don't fit your standard then you can do your part and rate them down which is what the rating is there for. You're blaming the database when you should just be blaming the users.

You can call me whatever you want, but the truth lies in the manner in which we post and that's all I'm basing my comments on. I'm sure others will agree that your hostile responses in this topic are unwarranted.

I remember when I pushed for the idea that one had ownership of the maps that one created. That one could say what others could and couldn't do with them. But, it's supposedly okay for him to do this so long as you retain original credit. The irony is succulent.

Honestly, I don't even see where he was being an asshole. If anyone was being an asshole to begin with, it was Dark_Marine. zeeg responded to his suggestions with perfectly reasonably logic.


Do you have access to the staff forum(s?) on SEN? Can you read minds over the internet? How do you know that Moose and IP aren't seriously considering what you're telling them? You don't, plain and simple.


He said in a previous topic he was going to implement a way for map creators to take their maps down. I'm not entirely sure whether or not he's done it yet, though. This is just about the only thing in this topic that I agree with you about.

I just wanted to make a quick response. I agree in some sense that authors should have control over their maps. However, and this is geared towards the spidering remark, when you release it out into the world, that's just what you're doing.

Originally I had built Nibbits as a simple search engine for these great things, but it turned out that many of the sites it was searching simply just were intolerable in that they were either down, or were filled with way too much advertisement. I then decided to turn it into more of a hosting service.

We do have have plans, however, to add in a lot of functionality for the actual map authors. As for simply removing a map I'm still up in the air about how we'll allow this (or if we'll truly allow this). One of the main issues here is verifying ownership. And again, releasing something into the world, despite how copyright laws work, doesn't give you much control. More importantly, most of this will be contained within a project management solution, which is one of the few aspects of the site that will be restricted to real, registered users.

And again, as for popular maps, most of you are correct in the sense that it really is up to the users what is popular. Nibbits is here to provide a means for your map to become such, as I know personally, the only reason I build things is so other people can use them. The easier it is for me to get other people to use what I build, if it is worth while that is, is to distribute it. That is where sites like StarEdit, or Nibbits really come into play. I want to do as much as possible to really say "this is a quality map, and may not be hosted all the time, but you should try it!". I believe the newly tweaked ranking algorithm in fact does that fairly well.

If you have suggestions to improve how the users can moderate things (to an extent), or how we can better help those users find quality maps, feel free to give me them. By no means though am I demeaning the authors of the maps, or any user of this site. I simply want to build a great platform for them.

In terms of your goals, your site accomplishes them well.
But I also understand where Excalibur is coming at, for I felt the same for your site - that it was "noobish"

It can be as easily stated as "if fastest maps are at the top, then the site is not worthwhile". What I mean is that people here look for quality UMS maps. UMS maps made by mappers that really worked hard on it, and have good knowledge of triggers. There're no set rules to which maps fit into the "good mapper" category, but we basically neglect maps such as Massing maps... When we see them on the top list, we automatically think that this site is dominated by ppl who don't know how to map. And especially when we see maps made by us, or people that are good at mapping, at the bottom of the list, it begs the question whether the ppl who goes to the site really know what mapping is about.

As exaclibur said. It is the "cancer" that is killing UMS. But I don't agree with that statement. It is somewhat true, but quality maps aren't always the most fun. The way that Starcraft works is that your map is most popular when more and more people replay it and re-host it.. It doesn't depend on the quality of the map.. Even if the map is the best map in the world.. for example, an RPG... when the person finishes the RPG.. it'll never be re-hosted again... People won't know about it, and therefore not download it.

Zeeg isn't being "hostile" or anything, and Excalibur is just trying to make his point. Nibbits is, unfortunately, useless for most of us SENers, because there is no quality maps, just popular maps (which could/could not be quality maps). And even if there are quality maps, they'd be too hard to find cause your database is so huge... What Ex is saying is that your site (and this in a way) don't cater to those maps that are good in quality rather than popularity. Incidentally, what's the point of a map database, if all the maps on it are just "popular-shit"? If they're so popular, they wouldn't be hard to find on B.net... See Ex's point now?

anyway.. I feel that introducing a category thing that seperates UMS from everything else will be good. As for your rating system, it is already beyond repair in the sense that it will not cater to us mappers no matter how you changed it. It is very effective otherwise...

I think an issue here is what people think the function of a database should be. Personally, I don't really go to a database with no idea of what I'm looking for. Most of the time I'm searching for a specific map I want to download or for information on a particular map.

However, a lot of people who are criticizing the database think that it should be a place where one could find "quality" maps they haven't played before and would download. The problem is that with an automated system this would be impossible to do, because not only is the idea of a quality map subjective, the maps that they seem to be looking for are those unknown ones that aren't popular and therefore have never seen. As a result, the popularity of a map wouldn't even be a good factor, even if the map was of good quality, because it's likely that they would have already known of the map before.

With any system based on ratings or downloads you're never going to get the kinds of maps Unholy and Ex are looking for, especially since there isn't even a set criteria for what a "quality" map is.

I think the only way to highlight the kinds of maps Unholy and Ex are looking for is to have some kind of user based recommendation system. Each registered user could have their own favorites page where they can just tag the maps they like. Each person could have their own personal "playlist" that everyone else can view.

Then the automation could come in. If one person is looking at a particular map the system might recommend them to other maps. It would be like on IMDB where at the bottom of each movie page there's a section that says, "If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends."

Such a feature would be focused on grouping maps that are similar to each other. This would end up serving the purpose of just recommending a "quality" map. If one can initially list specific maps they think are good, then based off of that and other people's preferences who also like that map it would be possible to then direct people to other maps that are similar.

Recommendations are a good idea. I built one of these at my previous job so I could whip that up pretty easily. I'd probably switch it up to just have a "Recommend This (thumbs up pic)" type deal. And then you just have a list of your recommendations.

I'll see when I have time, and I'll incorporate this. I believe I can even do this so anonymous users can recommend maps (same way comments/etc work), but I'm not sure on this one yet.

It takes a quality mapper to know others. And most people here belive ourselves as quality mappers if we can push at least one map to Map Showcase without it being spammed with comments of hate. And this is why I quote unholy...


He speaks truth.

I think there should be an option for authors that would allow them to redirect users that visit an old version of a map to the new version or at least make it clear somewhere on the old version's map info page that a new version exists.

For example, I recently became aware of the fact that my hold'em map no longer works in the latest starcraft patch, so I made a quick update to it and I wouldn't want people downloading the old version only to find that it doesn't work at all and without them knowing that a new version exists.
old: http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/125003/
new: http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/125190/

Although right now I am making use of the comment section in the old map, but I don't know if people will always see that.

I think it would also be nice if ratings could get transferred to new versions of a map if its just a minor update, or maybe just have an old version's statistics displayed on the current version alongside its own statistics.

Or maybe instead of having to make entirely new posts with the map, The map maker should be able to just "update" his entry in the database, and edit titles, and the files and such.

This is what the projects section is going to fix

http://www.nibbits.com/sc/projects/

Try it out (its very early in dev) and tell me what you think. I plan to add a lot of polish I just haven't really had much time lately to work on Nibbits.

Here's a good example from one of our big WC3 supports: http://www.nibbits.com/wc3/projects/enfosmt/#maps

With the way it works, you can create a project, and simply re-upload your existing maps and it will automatically detect them on the site, and simply link them to your project.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 13 2009, 5:16 am by zeeg.

I like what you've done with the projects so far.

However, I think it would be nice if someone clicked on a link to an older version of the map from one of the map listings it would take them to the project page first. That way they would see that the map is part of a project and that there's a more recent version available.

It would help increase the distribution of the latest version and decrease the distribution of older versions which would be good especially if the older versions are completely unplayable or have a fatal glitch/flaw. Older versions could still be made downloadable and their map pages seen for archival purposes, but only coming from the projects page first.

I quite agree with mmuch of what Ex has said. However, I also somewhat support this Nibbits that you speak of. I suggest having a SEARCH NIBBITS DATABASE function and a separate SPIDER SEARCH function.

It's really hypocritical to say that the SEN community is somehow better than the average b.net player when they do stupid shit like spam comments. Sure there may be intelligent users at SEN, but there are just as many immature and stupid people.

Anyway, please clean up the spam comments here.
http://www.nibbits.com/sc/maps/view/125190/

I also suggest some kind of anti-spam measures in the commenting feature.

If you could delete comments posted by "me" (Example), that would be spectacular. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to post under my name on your site. I would also like the IP addresses of the person posting comments under my name.

To ensure this does not happen any more, I have registered my name. I'm assuming registering my name blocks anyone from using my name anonymously.

Also evildesk is under the impression I did it, Id like to say Ive never posted a comment in my life on that site ;o