Suggestions for Improving the r/Minecraft Linkflair Categories #7
Description
Below is a list of the suggestions made in the "We need a 'Maps' Linkflair" post (http://redd.it/2sb56w). I'm trying to include all suggestions, even those I don't agree with, but I may allow some of my bias to make its way into the manner in which I summarize them. Since they come from multiple people, some of these suggestions are contradictory or mutually exclusive.
All upvote totals are current as of 15-Jan-15 at 3:00 AM EST:
1. Add a "Maps" Linkflair (292 total upvotes from the main post + supportive comments within it): Maps are a major category of content that users have a high level of interest in and actively seek out. Creating a flare for that category would allow users to search for that type of content in a manner that takes advantage of Reddit's powerful system for organizing information.
1a (3 total upvotes, or more, since this was implied in the original proposal, which is currently at 253 upvotes). We should use this custom icon to represent this the "Maps" flair because it's clearer than the item texture used to represent filled maps in-game: http://i.imgur.com/G07b84A.png
1b (7 total upvotes). We should use the item texture used to represent filled maps in-game because it's more recognizable than the image offered above: http://i.imgur.com/lmoYGHD.png
2. Add a "News" Linkflare (11 total upvotes): News is a major category of content that users have a high level of interest in.
2a (7 total upvotes). We should use "a paper or something else" to represent the "News" linkflare.
2b (3 total upvotes). (conditional upon not using the item texture used to represent filled maps in-game to represent the "Maps" linkflare) We should use the item texture used to represent filled maps in-game to represent the "News" linkflare because it looks like a piece of paper with writing on it, like a newspaper.
2c (1 total upvote). We should call this flare "Mojang News", and represent it with the item texture used to represent golden apples in-game.
3. Add a "Textures" Linkflare (1 total upvote): ?
3a (1 total upvote). We should make this a larger category, like "Mods, Plugins, Resource Packs".
Counterargument 1 (1 total upvote): Adding such a flair might focus this subreddit overly in the direction of sharing the type of content that Planet Minecraft already serves as a very good tool for sharing.
Counterargument 2 (1 total upvote): Adding such a flair might take the focus of this subreddit away from other sorts of sharing that make this the main place in which Minecraft players can have a collective voice and create a sense of community identity.
4. Remove the "Let's Play's" linkflare (30 total upvotes): "Let's play" video posts have been unpopular on r/minecraft for years, so keeping it as a category would be unrepresentative of the community's interests. Inclusion of a "Let's Play" flair may also encourage people to spam "let's play" video posts without otherwise contributing to the community, which violates this subreddit's rules, and the anti-self-promotion values of its community.
Counterargument 1 (11 total upvotes): Including a "Let's Play" flair category may provide a way for users to filter out that type of content and discourage people from posting that type of content in other categories.
Counterargument 2 (6 total upvotes [1]): Including a "Let's Play" flair category may provide a way for that type of content to actually become more useful to users, by providing users who are interested in finding that type of content with a means to search through it and easily see how others have rated it.
5. Remove the "Help" linkflare (6 total upvotes [1]): When a post is a request for help, that is typically already self-evident from its title alone. There are also few reasons one can imagine that a user would want to search through past posts with this flair.
Counterargument 1 (6 total upvotes [1]): Implementing a "Help" flare may help to serve the interests of the community by implicitly communicating to users that posts in which people are looking for help are encouraged, which could help those who need help to feel more comfortable asking for it, and others to feel more accepting of them doing so.
5a (6 total upvotes [1]): We may wish to include a "Help" linkflare category, to address the counterargument above, but simply not include a clickable link to search through "Help" posts in the subreddit sidebar, to address the argument in the primary proposal.
6. Relabel the "Creative" flare as "Landscapes, Structures, Models" (6 total upvotes [1]): When a build was not created in Survival mode, users tend to care less about what tools may have been used to create it than its contents. A "Creative" flare is vague. It doesn't add any useful information that we don't already get from from the build not having the "Survival" flare. It also arbitrarily excludes those builds created primarily or entirely with 3rd party tools. A "Landscapes, Structures, Models" flare is a more clearly defined category, and it does communicate useful information about a post that its applied to. It also fills a gap in the group of build flare categories that are delineated by those builds' content ("Redstone", "Command Blocks", and "Maps").
7. Relabel the "Art" flare as "Art in Other Media (drawings, machinima, etc...)" (6 total upvotes [1]): So far, users have applied the "Art" flare to both artistic builds, and to out-of-game works of art. This category would be more useful to people searching through if it applied to only one of these types of submission. If we add a "Landscapes, Structures, Models" linkflare category, all artistic in-game builds should be able to fit in at least one other linkflare category, which frees us up to limit the "Art" category to just works created in some other medium, which makes this category more clearly defined, distinct, and useful.
8. Relabel the "Tutorials" flare as "Useful Videos" (16 total upvotes [1]): ?
Counterargument 1: What constitutes a "Useful Video" is a matter of personal taste. "Useful Videos" is a more vague category than "Tutorials", which makes it less useful.
9. Use the compass item texture for the "Survival" flare (6 total upvotes [1]) (conditional upon us removing the "Help" linkflare): The compass image more clearly represents the concept of "survival" than a gold pickaxe item texture.
10. Use the heart texture used to represent player health for the "Survival" flare (3 total upvotes): The heart health image more clearly represents the concept of "survival" than a gold pickaxe item texture.
Counterargument 1 (1 total upvote): The image of the heart also symbolizes the concepts of "life" and "love", which may make it confusing and less immediately recognizable to people as a symbol for the concept of "survival"
10a (1 total upvote): To address the counterargument above, we may wish to instead use an image to represent the "Survival" flare that includes both the heart health icon and the meat shank hunger icon.
11. Use the Book item texture for the "Tutorial" linkflare (4 total upvotes) (conditional upon us not removing or re-labeling "Tutorials" flare): The Book image more clearly represents the concept of "Tutorials" than an Enchanted book item texture, which extraneous and irrelevant information to the symbolism, making the interpretation of that symbol less intuitive.
11a (1 total upvote): The Written Book item texture (which is a slightly redder version of the "Book" texture) could be even more symbolically appropriate, since in-game that image is used to represent a structured collection of ideas created by a real person.
[1] It should be noted that 6 of the upvotes counted toward for Suggestions 5, 5a, 6,7, and 9; Counterargument 2 of Suggestion 4; and Counterargument 1 of Suggestion 5 came from the same comment, and it may be that not all people who upvoted that comment necessarily intended to show support for all 5 proposals/arguments. Similarly, the 16 upvotes counted for Suggestion 8 came from a comment that also indicated support for the main proposal and Suggestion 4):