What are all these Discovery Students?
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I think a school has decided to use the free version of Hyperpad, rather than buying the 'School' Pack. And if you think about it, it's actually better to use the free version than the paid package. Are these all students though? If so, it's a bit 😒 When they upload hundreds of random apps to the hub.....
Does anyone have any idea? Maybe they are just people who decided to 'discover' things..... and maybe they are just students in the same school or something.
I'm sorry if I sound like I'm just over exaggerating something but I'm just finding it very odd.
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@Evolution i think it is a school. I agree it is a little annoying when newest is full of their projects lol!
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They are students... and technically not breaking any rules. We do offer an educational option, but it's not required. Only the free version is not allowed in the class environment, so if they are indie or above it's fine.
Now that being said, I agree there is a problem. We've had a few ideas submitted on solving it and we're going to try them before it gets out of hand.
But the best thing you can do is just dislike the projects you don't like. This tells our algorithm that these are not liked and will not show up in the "hot" section.
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@Murtaza but people still have to play them to know if they're good. Maybe make a "basic project" option when uploading that uploads to a separate section for people who have bad/incomplete projects or are still learning to use hyperPad, where people cannot dislike projects, but they don't appear on new/hot either?
You could then manually move projects there that don't meet the standards of the hub but don't break the rules either. It'd also be a good place for people to publish incomplete projects for other people to draw inspiration from or complete.
Maybe this isn't a good idea, since it'd just be like the new section of gamepress, and nobody would go there, but I think the problem is that it's unfair to completely remove projects of people who put at least some effort into them, but it's annoying for everyone else to see yet another generic joystick control + jump with button platformer.
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What we want to introduce is a "probation" system. Where your account is under probation for x amount of days (longer for free and student accounts)
Anything you submit while under probation goes to a filtered "under review" section. Then the community gets to approve the project. Once it receives enough approval votes it moves out of the review section and shows up as normal.
If it doesn't receive enough, the project will be removed from the hub (and the submitter is notified).We'll also be making this an option where a user can be put on probation later (ie. violating the rules, submitting too many incomplete or no effort projects).
Basically we're putting the power in the communities hand so you guys get to decide what you think is good enough to be allowed or not. I don't think it's really fair to project creators for the hyperPad team to say what does and doesn't belong. We can create rules, but quality and effort is subjective and should be decided by the others who are contributing.
I was hoping to have this live as part of the next update, or shortly after. But we're a bit behind right now. But this is what we want to launch as a short term goal (it also shouldn't require an app update).
And if this doesn't help, or reduce the content. Then we'll continue to iterate and try to figure it out. But I think it's a good first step.
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@Murtaza that sounds like a great idea! How would a user be put on probation?
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@iTap-Development to be honest, I don't know yet. Probably to start off we'll leave this part how it is now. Based off warnings/reports.
Maybe eventually make this based off a reputation system where comments, forum replies, and project like/dislikes all weigh in. But I don't know yet. -
I don't think placing student projects on probation is a good idea. Although I see how it can be annoying, the student's are "learning" programing more than likely. I think that there should just be another section for "In-Progress" projects that don't show up in the main feed.
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@TutorialDoctor
Projects that are work in progress, demonstrations, samples, proof of concepts, just interesting ideas etc. Are all ok in the main hub feed. That's not the issue, and I don't think that's the complaint here.The issue is these "classroom" type projects are often very simple (in the grand scope of hyperPad) and not something the community wants to see. It's one thing to share your first project and then asking/accepting feedback on how to improve etc. But that's not the case here. Where I see people getting annoyed, is when the students come and treat the hub like it's their own personal classroom.
The probation system is in place to let the community decide what belongs and doesn't belong in the main hub. Students are not being discouraged from learning and experimenting. But they should be aware that the green spaceman with just a joystick controlled behaviour isn't what the rest of the community wants to see (unless it is, then they can just approve it).
Additionally, we offer schools and classes a private server/hub. So if the teachers and students don't want their projects removed/downvoted from the main hub then they should contact us about getting their own hub.
Now, like I said this may not be the perfect solution. We're always iterating and trying to improve. The last thing we want to do is alienate students (our largest user base). BUT, students are not the largest users of the hub.
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It's nice to see that more people are coming to hyperPad, hopefully they will get better. If you go to my hyperPad profile you will see that lots of my games are terrible (you should have see my game press games.) but I got better over the years. now lots of my games are in hot projects and I have 4 apps on the App Store. They will get better as everyone else did.
