Dear mod users,

We don't think the acceptance and approval of mods has reached its final form, but we can do better with the current system while we consider how mods will be initially submitted, accepted and approved in a sustainable way.

We are currently looking at the system that allows the community to approve mods by use of the ratings on each mod's page. We have been a bit slow to get this system working as designed. Of course, for a while after it was first implemented, there weren't enough community ratings to produce reliable results.

It's now clear that a lot more mods should pass 'APPROVAL' and be visible on the approved mods list. But a lot of mods still don't have enough ratings for our algorithm to produce a reliable result.

So please can you visit the web page of some mods you have tested and if you have reliable knowledge about each category, go and give the mod a rating in each of the categories.

https://www.lfs.net/files/vehmods -> Show: All

• Overall
  
• Technical
  
• Graphical
  
• Physics
  
• Animation
  
• Engine sound
  

We need a good number of ratings in each category, before our algorithm will be able to reliably select mods for approval.

Info from our Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/LFSracing/status/1476641049946869767

Yesterday, with the help of an algorithm based on community ratings, we manually approved four more high quality mods today, that now appear with the default "approved" setting.

Two more approved this morning! We are currently using quite strict parameters while we get a feel for it. We could allow more to be approved, but we can't go too low on "minimum number of ratings".

Thank you for the ratings!

Keep it up!

Could the overall rating be automated by just rating the sub categories and removing the ability to give overall rating? The overall rating would then be the average rating of the sub categories.

Thanks to your ratings, 8 high quality mods approved in the last two days!

- Schanke T16
- P4 ATN 2017
- Shark C
- RC Minis
- FT28R
- Form07
- Cammera 730 Turbo
- Tommy28

You can see them on the files page: https://lfs.net/files

Thank you!

Four more mods approved today!

- Cavallo 570S (from Speed Dreams simulator)
- Formula RC6
- Dorito-FD7
- Mosquito - 150cc (a bike)

You can see them at https://lfs.net/files

Keep rating your favourite mods!

Approved two more mods:

- Formula 60
- UF Pickup Truck

Thanks to community members for the ratings.
Please thank mod creators by rating good mods!

On FT28R the force feedback under 30 or 40kmh is feeling extremely strange to me. It can be even dangerous on a direct drive wheel set on high forces... This mod has high potential, but it does not feel right at all currently to me. Rating is not "oh I like this fiat" bam 5*.

P126 being a derivative of p165 deserves some good votes to get approved.

KRT CR is pretty interesting IMHO. So anyone might feel free to take a look!

As a social scientist by education, I'd suggest not being so open about algorithm, because this leads to mob voting. Any indicator that is used for judgement soon becomes manipulated.

I know the effect of manipulation to pass targets, it is a terrible social problem. Here in the UK, targets set by governments produce highly questionable results in huge institutions, such as social health care and education.

But here in our tiny corner of the world, our algorithm for approving mods is by no means settled. At the moment I am simply trying to encourage people to do the right thing and actually give ratings to mods they like. I find it a bit disappointing that a mod can have over 4000 downloads, yet not even 20 people bothered to give it a rating.

Other people seem to just want the developers to spend their entire life examining mods, rating them in detail, checking them against a long checklist and passing those that pass on all counts. It seems there are more people saying we should do a better job examining mods, than there are people actually rating mods! Well... that's not going to happen. Developers have to develop and our volunteer reviewers aren't going to spend all their free time looking at mods, so there will have to be more community involvement if we will have a workable system in the end.

But I never just blame everyone else. If people are too lazy to give ratings, I say "what am I doing wrong" and have to divert my attention away from developing other things and start looking into how to solve this. Either think of an entirely new system (again) or perhaps improve this one. I was wondering today if it might help to put rating stars in the garage screen. To save people having to click the button that takes them directly to a mod's web page. But is it that extra click they don't like, or is it the mental effort of having to choose a few numbers between 1 and 5?

To anwser your last question, i think many enjoy the mods, but don’t want to go out and vote via website, maybe it breaks there gaming experience or they don’t think their votes make any difference. In the end of the day we’re all human and some have other priorities

Yes, I believe that making the ratings more prominent and easy to access would get more (and therefore more reliable) ratings on which to base approval decisions.

For now, mods reaching approval will remain a bit slower than we might hope. But it's OK.

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, I believe that making the ratings more prominent and easy to access would get more (and therefore more reliable) ratings on which to base approval decisions.

For now, mods reaching approval will remain a bit slower than we might hope. But it's OK.

I think the system is great currently Scawen, I agree with timdecnodder's thoughts on that the general players, from my experience in online races and even friends who I play with, just use the cars without giving any thought into reviewing it. Mainly I've found that since the system only works on the LFS site, a lot of the guys didn't even know they could review the car or didn't know where to go which was surprising.

Not sure if a little comment in-game on the side of the mod selection screen could be a couple tips like:
"Remember to give feedback by leaving a comment and star rating!"
"Leave a review by giving a rating from 1-5 using the star icons!"

and then allowing them to just give a review in-game or maybe even a comment if possible.

Just a suggestion, thought i would share my thoughts on the subject since it does seem weird that many cars have high download numbers but almost no reviews.

Would be better to be able to rate mods from in-game, rather than on the website.

Quote from Evolution_R :

Would be better to be able to rate mods from in-game, rather than on the website.

Yes, it's a good idea to evaluate the mods through the game itself, right after testing it on the track.

Quote from timdecnodder :

To anwser your last question, i think many enjoy the mods, but don’t want to go out and vote via website, maybe it breaks there gaming experience or they don’t think their votes make any difference. In the end of the day we’re all human and some have other priorities

Doubly so in VR. When the mods first released you could rate them ingame and I did, but once multiple rating categories were soon added it took me a bit to realise that pages were opening in my browser window, since I'm not staring at my physical monitor when in LFS.

Good to know your pov Scawen. About your last question, i think ingame rating ll help to have more reviews for each mod. Anyway i belive in future Staff ll have to increase the base rating to approve mods. Anyway ll be alot better so i support this new feature. Tnx

Quote from Scawen :

I find it a bit disappointing that a mod can have over 4000 downloads, yet not even 20 people bothered to give it a rating.

That might be a normal ratio. It is in line with the ratio I have seen in other games with user created content.
Even on youtube or facebook:
It is super easy to give "likes" but only a small fraction does it. Even fewer write a comment.

Quote :

is it the mental effort of having to choose a few numbers between 1 and 5?

For me, partly yes. I have written some comments on mods but not rated anything yet.
Many mods are still in a WIP stage.
Realistically, such mods would "deserve" a low rating because they are missing details or have unfinished physics etc.
However, most likely the creators are already aware of that. So a low rating would tell them nothing new and just be discouraging. And if the problem is not so obvious, then one should write a post and explain it in detail rather than downvote.

Quote :

Other people seem to just want the developers to spend their entire life examining mods, rating them in detail, checking them against a long checklist and passing those that pass on all counts.

To be honest, I see no way around that.
Ratings are an important tool for filtering the growing mod list.
But they should only be one (of several) factors for approval.

Some factors can be automated:
-Are the ratings good?
-Does a skin template exist?
-Do all LOD-level exist?
If all those checks are okay, then a human team can invest their time to make the final decision.
(If one of those basic checks fails then they do not need to bother)

A mod might have good ratings but if there is one comment that discovers a serious flaw then that negates all ratings. That is something only a human can decide.

Quote from loopingz :

On FT28R the force feedback under 30 or 40kmh is feeling extremely strange to me. It can be even dangerous on a direct drive wheel set on high forces... This mod has high potential, but it does not feel right at all currently to me. Rating is not "oh I like this fiat" bam 5*.

Yes, good example. Mouse users might not notice that and give good ratings without being aware of the FFB.
Another example would be the UF 1100T with good ratings but imo questionable aerodynamics: https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1976394#post1976394
No offense meant to either of those mods.
Physics are tricky to get right and not easy to judge. Few people really have the knowledge to give really informed ratings. (for example I do not, beyond my gut feeling)
That is something where I would rather trust a small team of experts rather than the broad masses.

Thanks for the feedback. We will add the ability to do multiple ratings in game.

Two of the approved mods have been added to "Staff picks"

- Tommy28 (by Tomfuel)
- Cammera 730 Turbo (by Jake_Blasted)

Well done!

could be usefull if the review team let the creaters know when they go through approval check what still can be improved, because community feedback is sometimes minimal, now looking at 2 versions of my original mod that recieved ratings but zero comments.

Schancke T16 WTCC -> https://www.lfs.net/files/vehmods/507793

Schancke T16 WRC -> https://www.lfs.net/files/vehmods/E4FCAB

if that could be included in the approval process it would help some modder get the most out of their creation

Quote from timdecnodder :

could be usefull if the review team let the creaters know when they go through approval check what still can be improved, because community feedback is sometimes minimal, now looking at 2 versions of my original mod that recieved ratings but zero comments.

When mods have, due to community ratings, come up for approval we have checked them and if they don't make approval due to checking, we have told the users about that.

We are not considering mods that do not have enough ratings. We need enough ratings in all categories, as we are operating a community approval system. But community participation is not very high yet, so it can take quite a while for good mods to get approved.

I meant for mods that did get approved, got mayor updates ready for all 3 models, but didn't get any feedback on Schancke T16 -> https://www.lfs.net/files/vehmods/256B6A?information

About what could still be improved. Even small things could help creators get better and deliver more quality mods in the future.

I think that's for the development discussion thread. I don't think that is something reviewers could do.

The reviewers are just a few volunteers. Remember we are a tiny team and cannot afford to hire employees to check mods and give tutorials or advice. It's just not possible. It's not even anywhere near the realms of possibility. If we would hire staff to review mods we would need to charge an on going subscription. It's not the kind of business that LFS is.

The reviewers are already overworked, trying to deal with the huge number of mods that are submitted.

Advice or tips from developers or reviewers will come occasionally, maybe just as reasons why something was not approved, or what could be changed to make it a staff pick.

Knowledge and discussions about quality or mods and how to improve them, will have to be done by discussion with community members.

Quote from Evolution_R :

Would be better to be able to rate mods from in-game, rather than on the website.

yes becouse when i wanna vote, i need go to lfs forum and find the car, but i have 2 monitors so i can open lfs page and lfs at same time, but im sure most people need to minimalize their game log into webside and vote

Quote from jujek :

yes becouse when i wanna vote, i need go to lfs forum and find the car, but i have 2 monitors so i can open lfs page and lfs at same time, but im sure most people need to minimalize their game log into webside and vote

If you click the star rating in game, it takes you directly to the mod detail page.

i know and this is like in android apps when ask for rating then when You click it it just opening play store