This was the bane of Gmod Theater. Everyone who wanted to watch videos in Gmod Theater always had the queue tabbed open so they could downvote everyone else’s suggestions, then put theirs up at the last second so the player would prioritize the videos that gamed the system. The only way your suggestion would ever get seen is if you then also gamed the system. It was poorly designed and I am sad to see that system has been implemented here with zero apparent revision.
Upvotes already allow for videos to be distinguished by preference without being as prone to burying every other video in the queue because of a few selfish people. Maybe just keep those? What constructive purpose is giving a video negative points going to serve when everyone has access to that power, and the ability to react against those downvoting them?
The system of just having upvotes isn’t entirely perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than allowing people to bury other videos instantly.
I’d prefer to keep some kind of “vote to skip” feature in though, since we need some kind of system to counter theater trolls who would inevitably pollute the queue with shock videos.
People almost never use the plaza for videos for one. All movie sessions I’ve ever seen have taken place in condos which by design have to be moderated by the host.
As far as the plaza goes; while I think that people should be able to say anything they want, and watch almost anything they want, and that moderating what people do in a virtual social fantasy setting is fucking stupid, there were plans discussed a while ago for Tower Unite’s plaza to have the naughty words no fun allowed secret content gestapo.
A merit to that system could be that the secret police could check in on larger theater systems and check the queue, and players could alert them of the presence of thought-criminals and have them promptly taken away into solitary confinement.Of course this wouldn’t be necessary until around release where the devs begin actively encouraging large numbers of players to jump in.
All that matters in the context of this conversation, is that those measures are likely coming when the game reaches release, and those problems with administration you mentioned will be resolved to some extent when the game is appropriately populated.
That’s already possible. Also, condo hosts can just kick people if they don’t want to see their videos, or skip them automatically. Removing down-votes has no effect on this, asides from the fact that now those same three people won’t be able to give a video negative points as well.
It’s simple, just remove the watch priority system entirely. Keep a vote to skip option around in case of spam or inappropriate videos. Sure it can still be abused to force skip people’s videos but you would need a majority for that instead of what it is now.
I doubt this would ever happen as there’s already a swear filter in the settings that’s turned on by default. There doesn’t need to be moderation for ‘naughty words’.
A way to get around that (and have less moderation) is to keep the vote-skipping.