I have a new idea for map publishing:
(sorry for my bad English)

There are maps on WarLight, wich can be improved or on wich things are missing.
My idea is:
A few players, who made good maps themself, will look at the map (with or after Fizzer looked at it) and decide what can be done better. Of course on a lot of maps things can be better, but they have to do the things as:
-Border improvement
-Bonus improvement
-Size of the map
-Playability
-maby a few other things.
-They can vote for the map (They vote: Publish it! or Do not publish it, it needs to be improved)

You might think: These things are already done on the Forum

I`ll give you some examples:
http://warlight.net/Map.aspx?ID=6170 <---- no offense, it is a good idea, but the Cheddar cheese is not looking very well and also the Provolone can be improved.

http://warlight.net/Map.aspx?ID=215 <---- Sorry, but this map is useless.
Quadruel, Yin and Yang, Truel

http://warlight.net/Map.aspx?ID=5650 <---- No place for strategy.

^No offense to all of them.

What will this group of players do?
They contact the map maker if something isn`t right/ can be improved/ it is complete useless

They can`t say this about;
-They (don`t)like the "topic"
Europe or something. It doesn`t matter if you like it or not as long as it is playable.

-How they think about the Map maker
Because of that it is a group, if one of them doesn`t like the maker it doesn`t matter, but if he looks at the map maker he will be removed from the group.

-The map can go on public
only Fizzer can put a map on public and even if the group thinks the map won`t do well, Fizzer can decide if it goes on public or not. This group can however decide a map is not playable and they can report this to Fizzer and Fizzer has something to think about :)

It is a basic idea, it has be improved, but there are 488 maps on WarLight and some of them are rarely played on, so I think something has to be done.

Fizzer, no offense, you are doing great, but I think some active WL players should look at the maps before they go on public. They play WarLight a few times a week (some maby a few times a day) and they know well, what can be improved.

I think the players should be voted to be in this group (Fizzer can also decide who can (`t) be in this group. You can also unvote them if they do something wrong (like they don`t vote for your map because you are Blacklisted by them)

Again sorry for my bad English,

I hope you like the idea and think about it.

Cheers [REGL]Min34

its not a bad idea, i'l agree with you that some of the maps in WL are not so good and rarely played, but it will be hard to organize this group, as most just not have the time to bother looking at new maps everyday.

Adding on to this, what if fizzer marked certain maps as ther went public as "needing improvement" and there was a specific group of people who were given the right to download and edit the svg files (with the creators permission of course.) then, once they have improved the map, the update gets checked by both fizzer and the map creator, and if approved by both, the update becomes public.

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I offer to be part of this group, and I've always offered to help smooth out maps that need it.

good idea and if does get used i would like to be one of the group however i feel people might be discouraged from map making especially beginners.

I don't think censorship is a good idea, and if someone really insists on making a map that this group doesn't like, I don't think they should be censored. This is assuming, of course, that it meets the map requirements specified at http://wiki.warlight.net/index.php/Map_requirements.

However, I'm all for encouraging the map quality to increase. Most of the suggestions here are all binary - i.e. the group approves or disapproves, or the needs improvement flag is on or off.

I'd rather have a sliding scale that encourages really great maps rather than a binary one that only punishes the really bad ones. I think the map rating system that's already in place does a decent job at this - the maps in the first couple pages are all good maps.

Honestly I don't understand what the problem is you're trying to solve. You say:

there are 488 maps on WarLight and some of them are rarely played on, so I think something has to be done.

Are they causing you some harm in some way? If it's just clutter you're worried about, the game is already set up to filter out maps you've rated lowly. If you don't like a map, just rate it low and it won't show up for you anymore.

@BBB: THat is also a good idea :)

@Ironheart: that is a bit of a problem indeed. This group can not have to much "Power" over the maps.

@Fizzer: The most maps are good enough, but if somebody made a map and worked on it very hard. Then he publish it, but nobody plays it. That is a shame. So if we make this group that tells him what he can improve so people will play it, then his work won`t be useless.
It is NOT censorship, this group will give suggestions to the map builder. As I said this is a basic idea. It needs improvement for sure, but it seems a good idea to me and at least 3 others.
488 is a lot, I`m sure I don`t even know how half of them looks like. As I see when I look at the ratings, some maps are rarely played on. If they get improved, they`ll be played more, that is also better for the map maker.
You still have al the power ;), but this is a kind of group, wich gives you and the map maker advice about what can be improved. Just to make the maps better and give more fun to everybody.
They are giving advise, the map maker doesn`t have to change anything, but than he knows what can be improved to make his map better. The Forum does not always do this, and a selected group will maby make this change.

Once again, sorry for my bad English.

I think that the suggestion is a good thought, but I don't think that it actually needs to be implemented. I think the current system is working pretty well as it is with the rating and reviews. I think that although the forum does not always give advice on improvement, but I think that it is pretty much covered by the reviews. There is also a direct feedback to the map creator feature currently in place, which also fills that niche. If a change to the system were to be made, perhaps it would be making that direct feedback visible to the public so that other people can give feedback on the feedback to keep opinions in check.

All I was suggesting is that I would be willing to be part of a group of people who is willing to clean up maps if I am approached by the map creator who wants it fixed up a bit.

And min, your English is better than most people here, so there´s no need to apoligize.

@BBB: The group you want is not a bad idea, but I think Fizzer doesn`t want that group.

@Moros: Ok then

Not sure I'd want other people to modify my maps (even though I am quite sure I don't have errors on them), even a committee of some sort. I think the rating system allows for bad maps to be filtered out when choosing one to play.

Perhaps the author should be notified when they have a poor rating on their map for so long (and that it could be removed from the site)? They can fix it up and resubmit it if that happens.

I would like to see maps that are broken (bad links, territories that don't touch) fixed. Some are subjective though (do territories that only touch corners/one vertex border or not?). There would need to be a standard set on that rule (and maybe others) before you could determine, by committee or otherwise that a map had issues. IMO, territories that only share one vertex are not bordering (unless a link is drawn between them), but a poll is probably the best course of action there. It should be standard for all maps though IMO, and part of the wiki on map making. Why not have it standard?

To Fizzer:

"Are they causing you some harm in some way? If it's just clutter you're worried about, the game is already set up to filter out maps you've rated lowly. If you don't like a map, just rate it low and it won't show up for you anymore."

They do cause harm though. Vets will simply filter out bad ones as you mentioned. But, for noobs to the site, they probably don't even know how to filter by rating. They end up playing crappy maps and possibly quit the site because they think the whole site is filled with bad maps.

It also encourages spamming of bad maps. What is the incentive for them to make better maps if they are public regardless? Sure, they may have a bad rating, but it is still out there and getting them credit (for better or worse). People like that don't care if publicity is bad or not, they just want more of it. That is why people run onto the field at sporting events. The only way to stop it is to not show their stupid acts (then they have no incentive to do dumb things). If you let bad maps drop out of the rotations (like I said you'd need a period of warnings so they have a chance to improve them), then you encourage better maps.

Why should D work be tolerated? I don't think it is too much to ask for 2 stars or better on all maps. I give people 3 stars even if I don't really care for it if it works.

ChrisCMU: IF there are any broken maps, this group can warn (<- is that correct? I mean give a warning ^^) the map maker. The map maker can than decide if he wants to fix it, or he wants the group to fix it.
This should however been done already, because of the map rules, but unfortunaly this isn`t always done.

Sorry for my late response ^^

min,

While I recognize the situation you describe and while I agree there are maps which have room for improvement, I think your proposed solution wouldn't really improve matters.

In your proposal you essentially have four groups (you don't specifically mention the last one; you'll see in a moment why I include it anyway):

• Fizzer
  
• The person who made the map
  
• The "advisory board"
  
• Everyone else
  

This list is ordered by who "outranks" whom: if Fizzer decides a map will not be published, it won't be published (in its current state), end of discussion. The advisory board can suggests improvements to the map maker, but the map maker decides whether or not to follow up on that advice.

Now, I completely agree with this ranking, except that I do not want to make the distinction between the advisory board and "everyone else". Does it really matter whether a certain piece of advice comes from a 12 year old who discovered WL two days ago or from Troll / Moros / Domenico / someone who's account has been marked "Great map maker, listen to this guy!" by Fizzer? Isn't it much more important whether it's good advice? Sure, there will be the occasional exception (*ahem* bonus values *ahem*), but wouldn't you usually able to tell whether it is in fact good advice just from reading the advice itself?
I also believe that "four eyes see more than two". When feedback comes from both "approved" and "regular" people, it is very easy (and just human nature) to glance over or even disregard the feedback from regular people and only really pay attention to the feedback from approved people. This could quickly lead to only the approved people bothering to give feedback. No matter how good those people are, they will miss more things than a far larger group of people. Also, allowing (and encouraging) everyone to give feedback won't do any harm: a little bit of "bad" advice here and there is not a catastrophe; other people can explain why they disagree with it, thus preventing any harm from being done.

If a map maker wants advice, that's what the Map Development subforum is for. Small mistakes which slipped through can also be pointed out through the Map Feedback system. Creating a whole new system would require extensive changes to the site and I suspect the only real difference would be to give a few people a "stamp of approval" from Fizzer.
Note, if you think such a mark would indeed help (maybe to guide new map makers whom to listen to?), there are probably far easier ways to accomplish the same goal. For instance, just look at any post made by Fizzer and you'll see it says "WarLight Creator" right below his name; I bet it wouldn't be too difficult to give more people such a "title". While I am not advocating that solution (see above) I think it would be a more practical (and maybe better) solution to the problem you are aiming to solve.

(Sorry for the wall of text... short-and-to-the-point is not my strongest point...)

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Regarding your "is warn the correct word":
I think "notify" or "let them know" would be better in that case. As you're well aware, English is not my native language; on the other hand, sharing your native language might be an advantage. I feel the English "to warn" is much more about giving an actual warning ("something is about to go horribly wrong") than being just a heads-up ("you might want to look into this"), as opposed to the Dutch "waarschuwen" which, depending on context and tone of voice, can have both meanings.

RvW: First of all. That post is damm long (since it isn`t my native language, it takes a while to read it all ;)

Sure, also "Everybody Else" can give advise, but map makers (who made good/many maps) know more about mapmaking than somebody who joined WarLight two days ago. So you said: `Isn't it much more important whether it's good advice?`. That is accually very important, of course you`ll get more advise if Everybody gives you advise
(so the change to get good advise increases), but the map makers know what is important in a map. I suggest that both "groups" can give advise, but if you see a feedback / advise from the "advisory board" you`ll take it more serious than other advice. Even if it is already said by someone else, it could be that the map maker hasn`t changed that. Than this group can point this out for the map maker, so he`ll still change it.

It is however own risk for the map maker if he decided not to follow all the advice (some is bad, so I wouldn`t follow all). It is also own risk to not look at feedback, wich are not given by the "advisory board", cause you`ll miss a lot of information about what everybody thinks about your map.

This must not become a totally new system, but a new system alongside the old, already excisting, system. Your suggestion about the title under the name is also a very good idea and maby a bit easier to create ;p

About that `warn`, I already thought that warn was to "extreem" in that situation.