Skip to main content

Top Clans Reborn

Top Clans Reborn

5th Oct 2020 - 7:47pm

Over the last few weeks, the LFC team have been silently working away on the promised revamp to Top Clans. As it stands, this feature is simply an eternal list of clans with the most votes. As it remains unchanged, it makes it extremely difficult for newcomers to catch up and get a slice of the action.

That's why we decided to make a few changes.

This week, we'll be deploying an update which will make the following changes to the feature:

  • Votes will reset on a monthly basis.
  • At the end of each month the votes will be tallied to decide the winner.
  • An article will be posted highlighting the top 10 clans.
  • Each of these top 10 clans will receive a temporary award in their profile.
  • A notification will go out to the wider community highlighting the top 10 list.

In effect, the changes are being brought in to create a monthly league, where the winners get highlighted and receive some extra exposure on site. The aim is to bring more meaning and reward to this feature.

One of many changes on the way, stay tuned!

Author

Comments

Freeseus

8th Oct 2020 - 5:51pm

Good to see you getting back into LFC development again, Matt.

I'm sure it must be difficult to be fair and balanced to LFC newcomers when showing a range of different clans: making sure some don't overshadow others, while also trying to provide the fundamental service of matching LFC players to healthy and successful clans. As you are aware, many LFC newcomers simply look at the top clans and join their respective discords in the order they appear on LFC, without reading any of their posted details - which creates a bias towards the clans ordered first.

While I certainly don't have all the answers, and you are likely already thinking about this, I do have a suggestion: perhaps there is a way to differentiate/distinguish significant & established clans from newer/less established ones; separate panes or viewed separately on the LFC website somehow.

Similarly to other clan leaders, I try very hard to make my clan a successful, fun and social experience for gamers. As clan leaders, we compete against one another for the recruitment of new members who fit in with our ideals, goals and strategies. While upvoting is good in concept, perhaps there are other ways to establish prominence. Larger clans and communities are able to corral their members and apply influence towards the new monthly voting system. And while this is certainly better than simply tallying the upvotes since the beginning of LFC, it is likely you'll have many of the same top 10 clans each month. I don't have a perfect alternative solution for that; I'm simply wondering if there's another way to give prominence on the LFC website to the more successful and active clans in a way where they are not able to influence the metrics. The smaller and newer clans should have an opportunity to grow and become established while the more prominent clans should also see the fruits of their labor.

Thanks for reading and know that clan leaders appreciate what you've built with LFC.

Matt

9th Oct 2020 - 11:35am

Appreciate the input Freesus. That's a really constructive and balanced case you've presented.

You're absolutely right in that larger clans will have an advantage in the current system. More members = more votes. Ultimately, we can expect that the top 10 will frequently contain the same clans with some minor variation each month.

I really like the idea of a feature that tries to highlight some of the lower/middle ranges of clans. I'll have a think about that.

One idea that comes to mind is splitting "Top Clans" into leagues based on size (e.g. Small / Medium / Large leagues) as well as having the overall global list.

A Bit Of Vodka

8th Oct 2020 - 3:08pm

This system is much better because it's always the same 24 clans on that page and it's preventing us smaller clans/communities from growing as we are not being seen.

FATE.Scythe

5th Oct 2020 - 9:41pm

Keep up the great work Matt & team.
Only thing that worries me are the clans that will try to cheat the new system and utilize scripts to try to upvote themselves w/ fake accounts.
If you or the team need any ideas on ways to combat this, both myself and the other IT heads that are apart of Fate will be here to help continue keeping this place on top!

Matt

6th Oct 2020 - 12:51pm

Hey Scythe,

I agree the current top clans page definitely has some problems with this.

While most votes are legitimate, there is a subset which unfortunately skews the results.

This hasn't really been tackled until now as being in the "Top Clans" list hasn't really meant a lot in the past.

With the introduction of rewards, we're going to be much more proactive in maintaining this.

For starters, we'll be cleaning up the current stats, and introducing some new measures.

But also, each month we'll manually review the voting list before we calculate the Top 10.

FATE.Scythe

6th Oct 2020 - 6:26pm

Awesome brother! Sounds like you guys are really on top of it.

One of the easiest give-aways for me if it helps was looking at member count + votes, giving a buffer for those that may have left.

Either way its greatly appreciated.