Proposed Review System Change | Civitai

When we originally released the review system, the only people using Civitai were power users that kept up on the latest A1111 developments and cared deeply about the progress of each unique resource uploaded to the site. Fast forward a year and while these knowledgeable sages are still here, there are a lot more newbies who are still coming to grips with how these resources should be used, or are using them only on online generators like ours that have limited options vs. running locally and thus can’t use the resource in the way its intended.

At the time, the 1-5 star review system made sense, everyone using these resources knew what they were doing, and frankly there were a lot less ways to screw it up.

Now this star system makes less sense, and from the discussions we’ve had with creators, even receiving a 4-star review can have negative effects on the reception of a resource, leading to confusion and frustration.

To that end we’re exploring a change to a binary review system; did a user enjoy using a resource or not.

rough mock ups brought to you by my lack of talent

Concept is pretty straightforward; when reviewing a model you can either 👍 or 👎, no more stars. The total number of 👍 is displayed everywhere the current reviews are shown. You can still sort highest rated by the highest number of 👍ratings. Nothing really changes except that negative reviews are no longer counted. So a model is only rated by the number of positive reviews it gets.

What about the 👎?

Currently nothing. We’d store that data for potential use in the future like if we want to incorporate it into a recommendation engine, or use them as a private feedback system for creators.

What about current reviews?

We’d convert them. They’re basically binary anyway.
4+ star review = 1👍
3 star review = nothing
≤2 star review = 1👎

Text and images attached to reviews would remain.

V1

This would be an initial version of the binary review system. More features can be added as we get an idea of what creators find useful and what users want.

Your thoughts

This is an open discussion. Would love to get the communities feedback on this change. Are you for it, against it? Are there pros or cons we’re not considering?