itch.io

I my experience, public reviews encourage dog piling and bias. When I uploaded my game on Newgrounds where reviews are public, there is a system where newly uploaded games and movies are "under judgement" where everything is hidden (ratings, reviews) until the game reached like 50 votes. My game passed with a decent rating (3/5) perhaps because people used their own personal judgement. But then right after a negative review shows up complaining about random things, suddenly a bunch more negative reviews started to pile in and as people  enter my game page, all they see are negative reviews so they too, left negative ratings until my game was reduced to 2.0 at 150 votes and almost got kicked off the platform.

Also no I'm not saying what game, not gonna let you guys come over and finish me off.

I'll sell my kidneys to pay for this feature

I'll be honest, I don't think its an issue worth reporting someone over so i didn't make a report.

However as you probably need a reference, I made the report R-57841

Let me be clear: my aim is not to instigate punitive action against the creator in question. I genuinely value the contributions of all creators to our platform and have no desire to see them penalized for their content production.

The main focus of my report is not the content itself, but rather the frequency and repetition with which asset packs with identical names and themes are being posted. My concern is that such practices could inadvertently lead to a less diverse and engaging browsing experience for users on our platform, especially on the 'Most Recent' page.

Inspired by your question, I made a suggestion post here: https://itch.io/t/2904956/suggestion-implement-a-submission-cap-to-mitigate-spamming#post-7921349

It appears that certain users are exploiting the allowance for AI-generated content by posting an excessive number of similar, if not identical, backgrounds in the 'Assets' category. This behavior monopolizes the visibility on the most recent page, diminishing the diversity and overall quality of content accessible to other users.

While I appreciate the site's openness to AI-generated content, I believe some form of moderation is needed to maintain a balanced and varied content ecosystem. I propose implementing a stringent limit on the number of submissions one user can make within a given time frame. This would encourage contributors to thoughtfully collate their content into larger, more diverse packs rather than inundating the platform with a myriad of standalone items.

By introducing a submission cap, we'd be fostering a culture of quality over quantity. This would mean, for example, that users couldn't simply submit one or two backgrounds at a time; instead, they would have to compile them into a comprehensive background pack. This not only provides users with a wider variety of content in one submission but also declutters the Recent Assets page, making for a more enjoyable browsing experience.

With the current spamming trend, there's a potential risk that our platform could become saturated with repetitive AI-generated backgrounds, thereby hindering the exposure of other unique, creative submissions. Let's preserve the rich diversity that has always been our platform's strength.

I implore the platform administrators and our community at large to take this concern into consideration. Let's work together to ensure that our forum remains a vibrant, varied, and spam-free environment. Thank you for your attention and for your shared dedication to maintaining the quality of our community. 

Post made by me & Chad P. T

I'm sorry but I procrastinated too much and have a ton of work to catch up for the next few days :(

We could make a thread on the feedback forum section to propose the change to the Itch.io ToS (and also better enforcement). Hopefully, we can form a constructive discussion around this issue with the mods and also other Itch.io users on how to modify the rules to properly single out problematic submissions. 

> By “participate” I think it means “take part”, actively involving for a cause, not just mentioning a topic for educational purposes

I had the same definition in mind for the term "participate". I'm not talking about works that only mention sexism or racism from an offhand remark, there are works that go extensively into detail. To sufficiently tell its story, a game may need to "get down and dirty" with its imagery and scenes. To Kill a Mockingbird had many openly racist quotes and violence stemming from racism. If we strictly enforce the rule that prohibits content that takes part in openly showing racism then we are also banning works like To Kill a Mockingbird.

> It’s clear when a game is just depicting discrimination to tell a personal story, and when a game is presenting sexual abuse for the gratification of the viewers.

You are right that it is clear, but currently, the rule you quoted only prohibits the games from participating in sexism and racism, the rule makes no distinction between depicting this content for the gratification of the viewer and for a different purpose so enforcing it strictly will result in excessive censorship.

I recommend the proposed change to an extensive revision of the rules rather than excessive censorship.

I want to offer a counterpoint, the overzealous enforcement of the stated terms will result in excessive censorship that will cause more harm than good. For example in this case, if you strictly follow the rule that prohibits "content that participates in racial intolerance" then this applies to games that portray racism to tell a story or to educate (such as a visual novel about the life of a minority in a very hostile, racist environment). And "content that participates in sexism" will also ban all games that do contain such events but is no way centered around it. Such as an LGBTQ Visual Novel depicting how a trans person is treated in society. So you are saying by strictly enforcing this rule, let's ban even educational content or just games that use such elements to show a point/tell a story.