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Hi all,
the following text has been added today to the ratings system rules. It is not a change to any of the rules, actually, but I was asked to provide a better, more detailed overview of what is not allowed (and by extension: what is allowed) in the ratings system and user comments. So here it is. Given the nature of the subject and my own unhidden disdain for the trolling behaviour that has increasingly plagued the website and the internet in general, I fully expect some negative feedback and personal insults, both of which I have become accustomed to over time. To the silent majority, who is happy with the site and the ratings system, thank you and I hope you continue to be happy. If anyone does have some legitimate concerns or constructive criticism, please use the contact form to get in touch, as I prefer to use non-public two-way communication at this point.
2. Detailed Warning or Ban Criteria
The following lists describe the different criteria that the CAGEMATCH administration uses for issuing warnings or even bans to users of the ratings system. The lists may be adjusted and extended at any time at the discretion of the CAGEMATCH administration. Common sense, ethics and a constructive motivation are required by all users of the ratings system. We consider most of the things described here as common sense, but you should read it in detail anyway just in case.
2.1. Yelling, copying comments from other users and/or other behaviour detrimental to the community
- It is not allowed to YELL.
- It is not allowed to copy other user's comments and present them as your own.
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system as your own personal notebook or advertising platform.
- It is not allowed to promote hate in any form.
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system to promote your own or someone else's agenda.
- It is not allowed to comment in a language other than what is set in your account as your chosen comment language (either English or German only).
Recommendation: The ratings system is only a ratings system. It is not a chat room, a forum, Facebook, Twitter or any other form of media where you are more-or-less free to do whatever you want. Keep politics or any other topics to yourself. We want to be a nice, welcome community about wrestling and the database and ratings system to be interesting, informative and fun to browse for everyone.
2.2. Insults against other users
- It is not allowed to insult other users, either directly or indirectly.
- It is not allowed to insinuate the lack of intelligence of other users for disagreeing with your opinion.
Recommendation: The ratings system is not a forum. Focus on your own opinion on a database entry and whether you have something interesting to say. Do not interact with other users, unless in help helpful or constructive manners.
2.3. Insults against workers, promotions, etc.
- It is not allowed to insult, defame or otherwise criticize wrestlers and any other workers in the wrestling business on a personal basis.
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system for public slander, i.e. any non-public information only you have or think you have about a person is not allowed as a basis for comments or ratings.
Recommendation: Wrestlers are human beings. It is okay to not like their on-screen personas or work and it is also okay to disagree and even criticize their public behavior, e.g. publicly stated opinions. It is absolute not okay to use their race, gender, body shape, heritage, height, weight or any other sort of personal attributes for insults (direct or insinuated) or other forms of hate speech. This does not cover behaviour, both past and present: it is certainly allowed to disagree with a wrestler's past or current behavior in the public forum and include that as a basis into your rating or comment. However, keep it civil and stay on the topic of disagreement and do not transition into personal insults.
2.4. Rating of events, wrestlers, etc. that you (cannot) have not seen yourself
- It is not allowed to rate database entries on hearsay or based on reports you have read on the internet.
- It is not allowed to rate wrestlers that you have not seen perform just because you think they look cool/bad or have acted good/bad on Twitter.
- It is not allowed to base your opinion on having seen a wrestler only once or twice for a few minutes on TV or YouTube.
- It is not allowed to rate events if you have only seen highlights on YouTube.
- It is not allowed to rate promotions if you have only seen one or two events and have no idea of actual storylines.
- It is not allowed to rate titles just because you like or dislike the current champion.
- It is not allowed to rate wrestlers just because you heard that they are a "wrestling legend".
Recommendation:
2.5. Bad grammar, no punctuation or otherwise unreadable comments
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system as a chat room.
- It is not allowed to write comments in a "trail of thoughts" manner without punctuation or proper sentence structure.
- It is not allowed to try and format the comments as anything other than a single block of text.
Recommendation: The ratings system is aimed at high-quality content. While the quality of the actual content of comments is certainly debatable and very subjective, the syntactical quality of text is measurable and objective. Use proper grammar, punctuation and normal sentences. Do not treat the comments in the ratings system as disposable as social media comments, but rather as encyclopedia entries.
2.6. Imbalanced rating pattern (e.g. only 10s and/or 0s or close to the extremes)
- It is not allowed to use only 10s or 0s as ratings.
- It is not allowed to trend heavily towards extreme ratings (either close to 10 or close to 0).
- It is not allowed to overwhelmingly (70+%) use extreme ratings (10 or 0) even if you otherwise have used more balanced ratings.
Recommendation: Use the full ratings spectrum and try to use mode balanced ratings (4-8) than extreme ratings (9-10 or 0-3). The users of the CAGEMATCH ratings system mostly trend towards more positive ratings, thus the overall average is closer to 7.0 than to 5.0. That is fine and understandable, since most people tend to favour positive over negative viewpoints and also spend more time with things they like than with things they hate. On the other hand, users who tend to rate in binary patterns (everything is either "good" or "bad" and there is no gray area or proof of a balanced though process) are automatically detected by the system and are regularly monitored. At irregular intervals, users who show no signs of improvement or a balanced thought process are warned and repeat offenders may even be banned.
2.7. Systematic down- or uprating of wrestlers, promotions, etc.
- It is not allowed to downrate WWE wrestlers and content if you love AEW.
- It is not allowed to downrate AEW wrestlers and content if you love WWE.
- It is not allowed to downrate New Japan wrestlers and content, just because you cannot fathom that non-US wrestling can be more popular.
- It is not allowed to downrate any other wrestling promotion, its events, wrestlers, matches, titles or other content just based on your narrowminded view of what should be "on top" and what should not.
- It is not allowed to downrate wrestlers of older or newer generations other than the one you grew up with and think it was "the greatest ever".
- It is not allowed to try to manipulate the ratings system in any way.
- It is not allowed to register multiple accounts and use them to manipulate the ratings system.
- It is not allowed to ask your friends to give yourself 10s just because you are a small-time Indie or Euro wrestler who wants exposure.
- It is not allowed to sneakily rate everything else besides your beloved "home" promotion worse than the content of your "home" promotion.
- It is not allowed to rate wrestlers or other content based on their positions in the top lists and your own opinion on where they should be.
- It is not allowed to downrate a promotion because you dislike the owner.
- It is not allowed to downrate a match because "this is never 5 stars, Dave Meltzer is crazy".
- It is not allowed to downrate a match because you dislike one of the participants.
Recommendation: If you need to check the existing overall rating at any point during your thought process of deciding a rating for a wrestler, promotion, match or any other content, you are doing it wrong. Systematic manipulation, either purposefully or even unwittingly, is purged from the ratings system at irregular intervals and repeat offenders with no motivation for or sign of improvement will be banned.
2.8. Comments that do not focus on the database entry
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system as a chat room.
- It is not allowed to advertise websites or any other products in the comments.
- It is not allowed to comment on anything else than the subject of the database entry and its logical environment, i.e. wrestling.
- If is not allowed to base the rating of a title on the last title match.
- If is not allowed to base your rating of a promotion on the latest Twitter message of one of its vice presidents.
- It is not allowed to behave like a thirsty teenager by rating wrestlers based on their looks and how sexy you think they are.
- It is not allowed to address users or the CAGEMATCH team in the comments.
Recommendation: Stick to the subject that you are rating and stay on topic.
2.9. Comments that do not give sufficient reasons for a rating
- It is not allowed to write semi-random text just to cover the minimum number of characters requirements on comments.
- It is not allowed to circumvent the ratings system requirement for good reasons of uncommon opinions by complaining about having to write a reason.
- It is not allowed to try to game the system by writing a wall of text and rambling on and on about nothing in particular or talking incoherently about something unrelated to the subject or your disagreement with life in general, just to hope that nobody reads your bullshit and detects that really have nothing interesting to say and possibly do not even have a basis for forming an opinion on a subject because you only heard that it was good or bad and you really needed to support the cause of whatever inspired you to waste everyone's time by forcing them to read what you have written.
Recommendation: Yes, that last part was intended. You do not have to find it funny, as long as you get it. If you get it, good, you are qualified to continue to use the ratings system. If you have to ask, then maybe you are not.
2.10. Insufficient reasons for event ratings (match ratings are not allowed as event rating reasons)
- It is not allowed to use match ratings as substitute for actual commments in event ratings.
- It is not allowed to complain about being unable to rate every match on a card and then rate every match on a card in the event rating without any additional context.
Recommendation: This has been explained in detail in the general guidelines above: Nobody cares about seeing a long line of comments consisting only of personal, uncommented star ratings. If you cannot be bothered to write at least 1-2 sentences about each match, do not bother with a comment at all. We are irregularly purging users who do not seem to care about this rule at all.
2.11. Trolling behaviour
- It is not allowed to rate only highly popular or "in the news" wrestlers, promotions, events or matches every couple of weeks or months.
- It is not allowed to philosophize on the "state of wrestling" when rating the latest pay per view event.
- It is not allowed to start or engage in WWE vs. AEW arguments or any other fake promotion wars.
- It is not allowed to continuously proclaim the dominance of Japanese women's wrestling over American women's wrestling at every single opportunity.
- It is not allowed to behave like a know-it-all wrestling historian/genius who knows more about anything than anybody else.
- It is not allowed to play a "gimmick" in the ratings system.
- It is not allowed to organize or engage in uprating/downrating parties.
- It is not allowed to question the merits of the ratings system while commenting as part of the ratings system.
- It is not allowed to use the ratings system for attacks against wrestlers or promotions because someone on the internet said it's the right thing to do and you have no functioning personality or own opinion.
- YOU are not allowed to use the ratings system if you are offended by any of the sarcastic or cynical remarks in this guide.
Recommendation: This is a new rule, since the advent of AEW brought the return of promotion wars to a new generation of fans. No real recommendation here, because everyone who is using the internet is aware of what trolls are and how destructive they can be to any sort of community. We try hard to detect trolling behaviour and we are very strict in our reactions.
2.12. Backseat policing
- It is not allowed to comment on other user's rating behaviour in your comments.
- It is not allowed to "counter" a troll's 0 rating with a 10 rating of your own, or vice versa.
Recommendation: Write us an email (team@cagematch.net) or use the contact form if you think other users are misusing the ratings system. Do not engage in backseat policing, as otherwise you will become a target of our ratings system administration as well.
Final words:
Thousands of users in the ratings system are using it peacefully and sensibly and have never been warned or even monitored actively. We think the system is overall working very well, although there is certainly always room for improvement. If you have questions about any of the guidelines or rules, contact us and we will be happy to answer your questions and might even extend the guidelines/rules if you pointed out a loophole to us. But if you think that these guidelines or rules are unfair and limit your laughable idea of "freedom of speech" in this environment, our best advice is to not be part of the ratings system at all, because we do actively monitor the system and we do actively warn and even ban offenders, especially those of the hateful, trolling or manipulating variety. To all of those thousands of users who never had any problems and will most likely never have any problem, thank you very much!
