Recently I have been extremely frustrated by the prevolence of FP saves with 1 extra upvote while my save that took months to complete sits there getting votes, but not very quickly, and the result being it never gets FP. While I appreciate that the time spent on a save is not enough to get FP (also needs to do something new/cool/whatnot), It would appear that the original algorithm for how many/how fast a save gets votes needs to be revised. Once these single-vote saves gets FP, it immediately gets down-voted, comments turn to rants and firestorms of rage, and the save is nowhere to be found 30 seconds later.

My proposal would be an added sorting method on top of the current 2 methods.

1) By votes - Same as it is now, featured or 'FP' saves first followed by the most viewed saves, default upon opening TPT's save browser.

2) By date - Same as it is now, with recently saved saves first followed by the older saves, the recent update made it so you can only get here once per day.

3) Promoted - Here is where it gets tricky, keep reading.

Whenever you publish a save for the first time, you can choose how much to promote it. Every week or so you would get some number of promotion points on your account. Maybe you could even get an additional few points for avery FP appearence or something, IDK (NOT FOR SALE! NO PAY TO WIN ASPECTS IN TPT!). This way, if someone takes a lot of time on a save, they will have the option of spending something (the so-called promotional points) to put it in a location where it will be more visible. These saves will keep their promotional points until they are no longer eligible for FP (1 week). These points are non-refundable after use.

Hopefully, by implementing something like this, TPT users would have a way to distinguish their save if they have the time and are dedicated. Saves come and go off of the "By Date" section very quickly, leaving little time for them to be noticed, as a result, good saves and bad saves get the same amount of attention. With this system, if someone just puts up a ton of saves that they spend little time at all on, than their saves won't detract from the ability of saves with more effort behind them to be seen and duely judged by the TPT community. If you use these promotion points on a save that is not very good, you just wasted those points. If you use them wisely, it may help your save get FP and appropriate appreciation.

Obviously, what I just proposed has flaws that I have not seen yet, so PLEASE add your feedback. I just want a way for good saves to be able to distinguish themselves so people will see them, and vote accordingly.

Thanks,

Qwerty1

Like I said, there are problems. Maybe it is just because I am an American user, and don't post saves when the majority of users are online, but saves go from being first on the "by date list" to about 3 pages down in about 5 minutes. Yes, people will vote if they like your save, but they have to see it first, and it is easy to have a save that is really likeable go completely unnoticed, without up OR down votes. It is a matter of having them seen in the first place that is the problem. Like I said, it may be due to the time I am posting saves being 7 hours before most people are online.

To those saying it would give big token holders a better chance, well, that's kind of the idea. If you save up for a long time, you can make your save more easily visible. If you don't care about the save it can still be seen just as readily as any other save in the "by date" section. Because the user saved up, they can promote the save. If the save is not popular or not, they can not use the tokens over again. This will discourage people from constantly using tokens on saves they only spent a few minutes on, and instead using them for saves they think are very valuable and have a chance at FP.

And you can't deny thereare times when the first several saves are not just mediocre at best, but the votes are just not there. Just yesterday there was a save with 3 up votes (a total of 2 people up-voted the save). No matter what the quality you think the quality is, three votes should just not be enough.)

Whatever the change is, there must be some, and like i said, this is only an idea.

Well if this is so bad, maybe every user can have a single save of theirs to "promote" every month, regardless of tokens. To those of you saying that it is beneficial to better users, the reason you can't buy tokens is so everyone gets an equal oppertunity. My objective by using a system like this is so each user can chose a save he/she thinks has the best chance. This way you don't get the same result as the "By Date" sectio containing 5 saves from a single user all on 1 page. In a promoted section we could see each user's favorite save.

@Lokheedmartin - I don't know about you, but I have an education to attend to. This means that there is a 7-8 hour window that I cannot post saves. This includes the ideal time to have most people see my saves. If I post a save right after school, it is already 6:30 on the East Coast (I presume you meant US) and 10:30 GMT. This puts me as well as other users at a distinct disadvantage when trying to post saves. If I could put just a single favorite save on a smaller list that lasts longer, this would severely cut this disadvantage.

Besides, as I have said, this puts no user above others, everyone gets equal promotion abilities. If EVERYONE has tokens as you suggest, that proves my point to it being a fair system.

Not all saves have an equal chance at success. They need to be seen first.

Edit: And don't be lazy. You can't deny that there are many saves that should be FP and never were, as well as saves that were FP and the community decidedly didn't support. A change, however large, is definitely necessary.