My positive feedback on GameSpot's new website

After listing over 15 things wrong with the new site, I figured "feedback" should also include the things you're doing right. If nothing else, it will serve as a "pep talk" and add my vote to keep doing these things. The following is just my opinion, of course.

1 - Stacks. Much better than the old collection, especially for people like me who already had over 300 games in the collection, which forced me to filter things if I wanted to find something. Stacks (once they work right) are definitely something I'd like to see kept on the site, and improved upon (filters, sorting, etc).

2 - Visual design (not to be confused with layout, which does have some issues yet). This is subjective, for the most part, but I like the fact everything looks more modern. As long as it doesn't get in the way of functionality (the layout issues mentioned before), then this is a step in the right direction, and kudos to the people who designed it.

3 - Video player. Other than the fact we still can't watch older videos, it's overall a better player. I like the option to stretch the screen to fill the browser, without actually having to go full screen.

I suspect, as things in my "negative" thread get addressed, this list will also expand.

I think your other thread isn't so much about negative features as it is about the bugs in the features. the features taken by themselves are mostly positive, but the bugs within the features are the negative parts. just my opinion as well.

@leon2365: There's a mix of both, I believe. Some features like "auto-follow" in comments is clearly negative, IMO, while "inability to unfollow a game" is just a bug and will become a non-issue once it's fixed.

This thread is more the result of a pet peeve of mine, regarding the fact people usually only bother to give feedback to a content producer if something breaks or is wrong. Doing things "right" is, usually, just greeted with silence, which is a shame.

Part 2:

4 - Highlighting the most useful "positive" and "critical" user reviews. This was actually a suggestion I made back in the old site, and I believe it was Sophia who responded favorably to this, so I'm very satisfied to see this implemented so quickly. There's finally a good reason to rate user reviews, and actually promotes writing a decent review, rather than just a single paragraph with rubbish, or a list of random opinions that don't really help the reader decide for himself. It can still be improved, but I'd rather see "fixes" before "upgrades", so I'll leave it at that.

5 - Streamlined ratings (1-10 scores). I've published a whole blog entry, last year, where I addressed this, and even had a brief debate in a previous thread (in the old site) when this was first announced, so I'll refrain from repeating myself. Bottom-line is that the new system is far more professional and does exactly what a score should do.

6 - Socially "healthier" moderation rules. The old site was a cesspool of insults between users because the rules were far too lenient. From what a moderator directly told me, recently, swearing and expletives are still acceptable, but users can no longer aim words like "idiot", "stupid", "moron", "retard", and so on, towards other users. Personally, I find this encourages people to actually have proper conversations and debates, so I welcome it, and thank whoever made that decision. As you can see, I have this account for over a year, but only 60+ posts because, frankly, the old rules drove me away from even trying to communicate (there was no point).

As an improvement over this, I'd simply ask for these new rules to be placed on a "sticky" thread, for easy access. I still find way too many people being offensive and insulting each other, especially in comment sections, and judging by the reactions to the new "karma" system, I'd say many hesitate before marking messages for moderation because they're unsure of what, exactly, is an offense under the new rules.

More to come later.

couldn't have said it better myself. no one thinks to say thank you for what gamespot has already done. only pointing out the bad. truly tragic.