Quality control

So I was wondering, why there is no quality control on the guides posted here?

It really makes the site WAY less credible. I mean look at this ****:
http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/the-true-guide-for-poor-nerfed-enchantress-26448








This is only the start of the guide, it's false and garbage. Hell people are even writing in the comments how awful this guide is.

Then there is this guide:
http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/enchantress-gg-25306

August 2016, still in here. I have no idea what you guys are doing but there is literally no point going on this site unless you guys start doing some quality control. This is actually awful.

Hey danishblunt!

Everyone is free to craft guides as long as they respect the rules of our website. There will always be good guides and bad guides, however people are always free to vote guides and post criticism in order for people to know how good the guide is and also to help the author to improve his content.

I've removed the second Enchantress guide you've linked, as for the first one, the author of that guide is known for refusing criticism and for not trying to understand the perspective of others in order to improve his guide.

People can simply ignore the guides they don't like, and for the guides that are totally pointless or just don't follow the website rules, you can always report them and it'll be taken care of, if needed.

Thank you for caring and for joining our community in order to share your opinion, we appreciate it! :)

There still should be some standards. I don't mind oppinions or "different" guides, but if you start writing **** like " I DON'T LIKE CRITISM" or downright lying about stuff, that should be enough reason to delete guides.

What's the point of making guides if people can just write complete nonsense. I like the option of being able to craft guides, but there should be some sort of substance to it.



If you're aware of the fact that the person is not able to write good guides, mainly because of his personality, then why allow him to do so in the first place? I mean all his guides are complete nonsense and are, in my oppinion, ruining the purpose of the site alongside other VERY questionable guides.

I honestly think this site would gain a lot more life when people would start doing quality control, think about it, if a newcomer is coming on this site for information and guides, but realizes that some guides are downright detremental to their learningcurve, what reason would they have to stay here in the first place?

According to your signature, you're 5k, meaning you are able to see the horrendous things people write in their guides.

Look at the popularity of gameleap, there are countless lower mmr players who are hungry for guides and information. If you could do the quality control so that higher MMR people can start recommending the site for good content, then this site will gain a much bigger playerbase.

just my 2 cents

Hey!

I see what you're saying, but the comparison to GameLeap doesn't really apply here.

For one, GameLeap guides are made by pros and ex pros. That's your quality control there. Here at dotafire, anyone can make guides and it's up to the reader to determine whether a guide is credible or not (the rating helps).

Second, you have to pay for GameLeap. Dotafire guides are made either out of consideration for the community or out of boredom. Obviously the guide quality is going to be worse if it's volunteer written.

Third, if a guide starts with "I don't like criticism" then just don't freaking read it :D

Finally, the best way to learn is to ask questions. If you have questions about sketchy guides or just info in general, the dotafire community will be glad to help you with your stuff. And that applies to everyone here!

Thanks,
Sofa

@danishblunt

I agree with you, but we've always encouraged a friendly environment where people can share their views, content and so on freely without being flamed and treated badly, like on other communities.

I'll discuss this matter with the other staff members and see what they think, maybe we'll start doing what you've recommended or find a way to handle this matter.

I agree that there are terrible guides here, but you still don't have a point.

1) Guides are classified by rating. You're literally ranting about the lowest rated guide on ench, at the bottom of the list. I don't see how we could be clearer to a new player that this is a very low rated guide.

2) Thinking something is bad does not give us the right to remove it. You know, free speech and all.

What exactly is your problem with bad guides staying on the site with low ratings?

I think danishblunt still raised an important question here, one that's deeper that it could seem and worth thinking about.

Dota Fire right now, as it stands, has a double personality:

- For people that aren't a part of the community and are a bit distracted, it looks like a very official place, as far as they know the only official place, where you can find written guides for every hero in the game.
This means these players trust the content here more than they should and become very disappointed and confused when they realize 60% at least is out of date, or that some guides have no quality at all (I was one of these many years ago, so I remember).
If they are serious about the game they will try to interact more and more with the site to figure out how to help/how to keep track of the good guides (yes I know we've talked about this before, but there's still no favourite button since requests from years ago, so users have no practical way of keeping track of the guides they like - and they end up not bothering).
If this deeper involvement happens, that random user gets on the other side of the personality fence.

- The Dota fire user explores the site, the forum and the guide posts, and he realizes this website is actually nothing more than a community of Dota players like any other - a Reddit of sorts, with the difference that you can actually have more developed content. But there's no quality rewards of any kind, or quality insurances. It's in no way an "official good guides for the heroes page". When he realizes this, he knows that you will have, like everything in life, really good guides from people that made an effort, but also guides from kids that were bored, like Sofa mentioned. Is there a problem with this? Not at all.

Thing is: most users don't actually pass from the first stage to the second, and they never realise this page is not to be taken up as a reference as much as they would like, since it's based on gratuity and freedom, and everything that's based on this naturally won't protect quality - because for quality you need control, and for control you need time - and no one is willing to waste that time if they aren't paid for it.

So, TL DR: It all depends on what this website really is supposed to be/Wants to be, and the degree of investment the Admins and whoever owns it is willing to make.

Continuing like it is now, a completely free funny community, is just as legit as trying to be a more serious one, but maybe if there's some interest in stopping hearing complaints how about trying a mid way? Starting by eliminating all guides that clearly do not meet some minimal quality criteria? Not talking about bad salty guides like Diox's here, more those that are some chunk of badly written text from two years ago that clearly no one will miss.

Some ideas that don't defeat the freedom purpose but would automatically improve the quality of the site, although they involve work (and why not get more of this out of our interested users and really implement them?):
- Searching and eliminating all the guides that don't fit those minimal criteria
- Separating very clearly the guides that are updated - everything that has the number of the meta on the title for instance - from everything else. This in an actual clear way, instead of the current list that's based on the voting and still allows for way too much necroing.

I mean, speaking against myself here: great that my guides have views and are up on the list, but I would have no qualms with them being sent down some list that has caps lock NOT UPDATED so that new people can easily recognize it.

Why is this all important, asks Hamster. Very simple: Low rated guides staying on means the website loses value, no one takes it seriously.

Do we want them to, or not? If not, all good, no changes are needed. But if we want it to keep growing, then change is needed indeed. In order to have participation and more people involved, you need incentive. Right now, to be completely honest, there isn't much at all. Going through all the trouble of writing a really good guide isn't rewarded if it stays up in the same place where so many bad and outdated ones are, with no clear distinction. Meanwhile, the only active users on the forums are always the same, with very rigid opinions on Dota that aren't always the greatest but hey - what's the point in debating those further on a dead website with those same exact people again?

I have no doubts that many old users feel like this - and that's why they stopped being active almost at all here, including me. Discord is just an easier option but it doesn't offer the same possibility of more complex and deeper content - but why post that here if there's no people to appreciate it/no interesting discussoins coming out of it?

Sorry for the long text, as always, but I wouldn't have written it if I didn't care. Dota Fire is a really nice place that's trying to do something invaluable, offering a respectful and interesting place for all Dota players, but intentions might fall short if there's not a bit much of an involvement sometimes, with things that really matter, especially on an era where there are many other sites that offer indeed much better quality (even if they are paid, and it's because they are paid that they offer that quality, in the first place). If, however, growth is not the objective here, no need to do anything. In that case, however, it would be nice to know it, to see that clearly stated, and that offers the actual best answer to people's complaints, an honest one that finishes up the subject.

Generally I agree with ChiChi.

While freedom of "writting guide" is important, we cannot deny that there are a lot of people who treat this site as "free version of GameLeap". IMO new learners have 2 ways to find guides in DotaFire:

1. Typing "Enchantress dota 2 guide" in google search.
If they happen to see a low quality guide, they may have a bad first impression on DotaFire.

2. Actually use the search function provided by DotaFire.
These people should have a better basic understanding about the site, and they would probably know there is something called "rating".

To satisfy everyone's need, shouldn't we provide an easier access to the type-1 new learner? Like adding a section of the side of every guide showing relevent guide in top 3 ranking in rating. Not only new learner can see the high-rating guide, but also it encourage people to write high quality guide.

Completely agree with ChiChi.

It's very hard to strike a balance between freedom (everyone can write guides) and quality (all the guides are good).

It's actually very hard to get quality guides for every hero in general. The only way we can do this is to find all dotafire-staff guide writers and assign them several heroes that Sando hasn't done and get Sando to update all his guides :)

Guide contests like the one we had are a good step toward this. Recognizing the authors who spent loads of time on a quality guide is a way we can improve quality. People need to know the difference between a quality guide and a troll guide. I know it didn't work on MobaFire, but something akin to their voting/scouting system could be effective in these matters.

I gotta confess something. I was, and still am, very disappointed when the discord server was introduced. Here's why: At first glance, our community seems dead. Very dead. Minimal activity on the forums and half of them are people posting videos of the latest Miracle game. People don't see the thriving community that lives in our discord and get turned down.

Discord has also lowered the amount of serious discussion we have here at dotafire. Like ChiChi mentioned, the forum gives people the opportunity for complex discussion. Discussions here will also show the answer to the viewers. If you answer a question in Discord, at most 10 people see if before it gets buried. But if you have a discussion here on the site, many many more people can see it. You have to realize how many people benefit from discussions on the actual forum even if it's only ChiChi and I talking about the latest CM fetish. People will see it, and though they may not participate, the will learn what to do (or what not to do).

I'll be honest I haven't been posting as many hero discussions and such as I'd like, because again, we are all volunteers and we have lives. I'll try to create a sense of community over the summer when I have time with quizzes and discussions and maybe even the tournaments that are rumoured to be coming out (you heard it here bois). There will also be a forge of creation soon.

I love dotafire. It got me started on dota, I asked questions here (2000 posts in a year), I felt a strong sense of community when I first arrived (again, thanks to Bunkan, ToF, Pory, Yzreel, Unscathed, kkoop, etc). That sense of community is lost in my opinion, and it's up to us, as dotafire staff, to restore it.

With lots of love,
Sofa

I did start once...OMG it takes forever. Especially the large ones take a long, long time to edit. Have got 2 new ones in the pipeline though...they're far more fun to write :).

Seriously though, I think there are things that could be done to improve the usuability of the site around search/staleness/votes. And even old guides can still have value - I remember some top Medusa guides that took you through a whole bunch of builds...they still inform discussion now, even if they're "defunct" in the sense of being easy to follow cookie-cutter stuff.