level ranking / gamification / popularity / likes / etc

[auburnsummer]

General discussion, I don't have any direction on implementation yet.

#pharmacy discussion is:

• it would be nice to have some way to play "good levels" if it's your first time on the site

• Peer Review / setlists / manual curation is not sufficient

• sorting by download count / direct "likes" etc will cause misaligned incentives with level creators (bad, don't do it)

• SO: the site just honestly feels far too overwhelming

• SO: [additional level ranking is] clearly good for players, especially new players, streamers etc, but bad for creators, or at least for the current ecosystem of the rd levelmaking community

• Donte: handle this mario maker style and try and make it "fun" to find levels? Nudge and mess with things so it doesn't feel super algorithmic?

• what if we added ranking in a gamified impersonal way?

• Donte: like instead of simply having a rating box we have a "rating" game where it gives you 3/5/10 random levels and asks you to rate them, this way we avoid the undertale song problem and the buried level problem

  • auburn note: the "undertale song problem" is mediocre levels being "the most popular" bc they have songs from popular IPs

• and said ranking doesn't need to be public facing either.

  • might still be exposed in api.rhythm.cafe but I can expect people won't go to that