Hello everyone,
I just wanted to announce a few things that some of the more active members on delicious-fruit have been asking about. I'll give you our opinion/decisions topic-by-topic:
Regarding reviews of your own game
You are allowed to review your own game. We had many reports come in on multiple game makers stating that "they shouldn't review their own game." At delicious-fruit, we are not willing to ban anyone from reviewing any game, unless they have explicitly broken the Terms of Service (harassment is an example). In fact, game makers are typically harsher towards their own games than the majority of the community, with a few exceptions! All in all, game makers should not feel afraid to review their own game. Any report against that individual will not yield any consequences. For those that report game makers: please do not report them. You may not agree with it, but this is how we wish to run the site.
Exceedingly high/low reviews of certain games
There have been a number of reports towards individuals that have rated games as low as 0.5 and as high as a perfect 10, stating that it "must be" a troll review. Once again, similar to the previous topic, this is something that you may not agree with. However, these individuals that rate extremely high/low may have good reason to do so. Even if they do not have a good reason to do so, they are allowed to cast their vote any way they wish. This is not violating the ToS in any manner. We only intervene in these reviews if they personally attack others.
Compare it to this: You eat at a restaurant, and the food was absolutely terrible. The service was terrible. The atmosphere was atrocious. You are so offended, that you decide to head to a popular review site (such as Yelp) to review this restaurant as "0/5, wouldn't go there if it was the last place on Earth." But just the other day, another individual sat in the same spot you just did and ate a wonderful meal, had a great waiter/waitress, and enjoyed a lovely atmosphere. That individual liked it so much, they felt compelled to give the restaurant a "perfect 5/5, I love this place!" on the same review site. Looking at these two reviews, you would think these two guys/gals ate at completely different establishments! But they didn't, and it happens all the time. This is no different towards fangames, and we wish to embrace this.
Purposely boosting ratings
This ties in closely with the topic just covered, and I received a few complaints regarding certain individuals "boosting" games that they like/made. This is an extremely gray area for moderation, and we have decided that we are not taking action against those that are "suspicious" in boosting ratings (or, in the opposite effect, tanking a rating). Reading this, the average viewer may say "well I'm never using this site again, then!" These rating "boosters" are impossible to confirm as actually boosting (or tanking) anything. We, nor you, can completely determine if someone is purposely giving a game an extremely high/low rating to move it along our average ratings list.
Still worried? Don't be! The power of statistics saves this quite well. Let's take an example:
I make a game called F A T T E R B I R D S, and I give it a 10/10 stating that "it's the best bird game you will ever play."
Now my game is at the top of the review list! My evil plan is working!
But now Klazen comes in and says "I played through this game, and I didn't really like the visuals or any of stage 2 and 3. I'll give it a 5/10."
Uh-oh. Now my game is at a 7.5/10, and plummeted down the rating list. But it's still pretty high above what the "average" community member thinks about the game, right? Wrong.
A 3rd person comes in, World, and he says "I really did not like this game, but music = G O O D, so I give 4/10."
Now my average is a 6.3/10! This is already now much closer to the "majority" of opinions about my game, even though only 2 others have voted so far!
A 4th and 5th person come in and give the game a 5.5/10 and 6/10, respectively. Now the average is 6.1/10, and is incredibly accurate to the majority of voters.
What happens now? Well, my plan had failed. My 10/10 score has done next to nothing to the rating, and the majority will always prevail, no matter what. This is the very basics of statistical averages, and is in full-swing on delicious-fruit. If you truly disagree with someone giving a game a 0/10 or 10/10, you can accurately rate the game yourself to start balancing out the score. Even after 5 reviews, the average will be very close to the "overall" average that the community sees fit. This is just how reviews work! (Note: 5 reviews, on a larger scale, is extremely small. For a community of our size, 5 is sufficient. It is much better to take 15-20 reviews' averages before finding a 'true average' of something.)
Let me know if anyone has any questions about anything I have clarified here. Nothing has been changed, nothing has been updated. We are still the same review site that we have always been.
Thank you,
TJ&Klazen