Template talk:Main Page/Builds

These colors are meh... &mdash; Victoryisyours (talk /RfA ) 16:43, 4 January 2008 (EST)
 * There's an editcopy. -- Armond Warblade[[Image:Armond sig image.png]] 19:13, 4 January 2008 (EST)


 * Yes, there is. I already suggested mine, as mine were the first set of colors. &mdash; [[Image:ViYsig5.jpg|19px]]Victoryisyours (talk /RfA ) 21:50, 4 January 2008 (EST)

Meta in PvE
As a follow-up of the discussion about the meta in PvE over on the Real Vetting talk page I decided to temporarily remove the meta categories for PvE builds (except for that of speed clears) from the pain page. That change may be permanent (perhaps with a few more tweaks to the layout) if the feedback is positive; if this change is disliked, it can be reverted. Here's the reasoning for the change, copied from mentioned discussion: This is not a removal of the meta tag for PvE builds. Now that the vetting templates have been replaced by Real-Vetting which keeps meta as a descriptive bonus information it is no longer as visually dominant as it used to be, but it's still there and the question which builds actually are to be considered part of the meta remains as troublesome as ever. However, people will now search builds based on quality rather than popularity, which can only be beneficial to the community. At least that's my view. I hope to see a lot of feedback on this decision so we can find the best practical solution. --Krschkr (talk) 19:21, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Our take on what the meta is (popularity, not quality) does not match how the majority of players understands this term. Time and again I see people using it to describe the best builds, which is the build quality.
 * This means: The current usage of the meta tag in PvX is deceptive for a large share of its casual (by this I mean non-contributing) users.
 * We determine build quality through vetting, resulting in a great or good rating, based on tests by community members. Tagging a build as meta invokes the incorrect impression of outstanding quality, which devalues the meaning of vetting.
 * The meta tag de facto reduces build diversity.
 * Among the most frequented pages in PvX are the meta category pages.
 * These cover only a fraction of the stored builds. Some of them even are most questionable, such as Archive:Team - 3 Hero Spiritway, which was in meta until few months ago and is now archived because it was horribly outdated and out of use for years or Build:Mo/Me Unyielding Aura Hero which is far away from a great rating.
 * PvX is still the place where most people go to find builds. What's presented in here determines what people try ingame, especially less experienced players which are afraid of already making their own builds. If they are presented with a small array of apparently outstanding builds they're much less likely to test other builds, which they might find more enjoyable or builds which prove more effective.
 * Thus, due to the meta tag and meta category, PvX promotes a couple of builds of which some are, by our means of determining build quality, far from optimal. But it does not only promote non-optimal builds, it also disencourages people from playing good or even better builds just because they aren't already popular. In my opinion we should not only document builds, but offer the service to show people more builds that are good and possibly enjoyable. What we recommend should be solely determined by vetting results.
 * If we keep meta as a means to indicate popularity, we're running into trouble. As the spiritway example showed the pages featured in the meta category are sometimes questionable. For years, no one seemed to administer this category – and nowadays the ingame activity is so low that we can't even easily (or at all) determine what's most popular. Most things we put into the meta category or which we remove from meta is, by a large share, based on intuitive decisions – to avoid saying arbitrary decisions.


 * Thank you for the detailed explanation! As a newbie I'd never realised that the meta tag didn't refer to quality. In light of the information above I really like the reform. My only feedback is that it would be nice to see the (preferably the broken-down) rating of various builds at a glance in the list of builds, instead of having to open each, and go to the ratings page. (Btw the ratings page isn't accessible without logging in, as it's the same interface where people can give ratings. It could be useful for visitors to be able to see the detailed reviews of builds without having to create an account.) -- kazerniel (talk) 19:32, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * “people will now search builds based on quality rather than popularity”: I support the change for largely this reason. Also, kazerniel’s suggestion would be nice if implemented. Juniper real (talk) 21:32, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Alas I don't know how to change this. I fear that this would have to be done by the folks from Curse as they manage the extensions, and as they don't currently seem to find the time to fix a bug related to RealVetting I doubt that they'll have it to perform accessibility changes to it. But I think that a better way to present the builds is possible. There could either be an approach based on perpetually curated navigation pages or some sort of automated magic which I don't understand anything of. I think that Toraen is doing tests to do the latter. --Krschkr (talk) 00:47, 1 October 2019 (UTC)