| Hey people. My suggestion is like the topic says, a new place and perspective for reviews that would be more helpful for those who actually want to read them, and as a counter-attack for trolls and people who like to downvote for no reason. Why do this? Since a long time ago, for some stupid reason people have been mass downvoting reviews based on their own tastes and not what the review is saying itself. You can simply see the overall score, and say if you agree with it or not, then vote helpful or whatever fits your taste. That's how it works now. However, with the suggestions of this thread we can counter-attack trolls and unhelpful users with much more accuracy, making reviews gain their glory as it was in the first years of MAL (or so I've been told). What should we do? First, you can start by making a suggestion you believe will be helpful. Now, the best suggestions can be classified as following:
If you came up with something that has already been considered (posted here as a suggestion) or simply agree with it, make a post in the thread saying that you approve of [idea] and why. The "why" is very important because the more support determined idea has, more likely it will be accepted. Ya got that? Cool, keep reading. For now, there's major points that would help with the issue. Let's check 'em. Review guidelines. Approved. There is a review guidelines that is active 'n kicking. Not sure if our thread helped much since mods apparently already had this in mind, but it's very satisfying to see we going in the right direction. Using different styles of reviews. "Give the reviewers several optional templates to pick from when reviewing. For example: No score/all text, or the categorical dissection with no 'overall score' method of reviews you suggested, or the currently accepted 'overall score' method; Each person should be free to pick. It shouldn't be too hard for MAL to accommodate all of these different review styles at once." Suggested by RMNDolphy Limit upload of reviews per user in one day. It's not uncommon to see many reviews building up by only one reviewer. Although some of them may not be troll/unhelpful reviews, it's still an inconvenience having so many of them at the point of the entire page have new reviews of a single user. Making a limit of 3 reviews uploads per user in one day would help with the issue. Suggested by me and Stark700 Ratings with comments (aniDB system). Works similar to above, but in another way. You can only vote the review with a comment saying why you thought it was helpful or unhelpful. The comments would have about 500 word limit base. This system will prevent trolls ratings (if there's one, it can be deleted and the user suspended for example) and the ratio of downvotes will decrease, since there will be only legit votes. Merged with "Comments on the reviews" that was suggested by Stark700 Filters for the reviews. "Is there any way to sort the reviews for an anime (such as most recent, most helpful, lowest first, etc.) It would be a really helpful tool (in addition to the statistics) for determining whether to spend time on an anime or not." Suggested by T_Sakagami. Improving display of helpful/unhelpful vote. It's self-explanatory. Positioning the helpful and unhelpful votes at the end of the review, visible only after clicking 'read more' and scrolling down. "Reviews display the helpful/not helpful button at least 30 seconds after clicking "Read More" for all reviews. A base of +1 second for every 25 additional words past the 250 words mark is added." Suggested by VictimOfFate, extended by Nequam Moderating reviews before they are uploaded. Approved. Kineta bounced me saying this idea would be "very unlikely" to "impossible" to be implemented, but thankfully she and everyone else approved and we can expect moderation soon enough for reviews. Good bye one liners and my sincerest thanks to the mods and their efforts for making this idea a reality. Rules for upload of reviews for airing series/not aired yet. Approved. This is half-implemented. You apparently can still post a review in a show that has not aired or met the requirements for evaluation, but mods will delete them immediately... that's a start. Well, fukou da for not being able to voice my opinion in the thread (well, thanks laptop!) but it turned out alright. Add limit of days needed to be registered before uploading a review. "I would like to suggest that new users on MAL shouldn't be able to write a review until a month after they sign up so that it prevents people like the ones above from signing up the same day and doing troll reviews". "For reviews with arbitrary thresholds - within the first 96 hours, if the ratio of unhelpful to helpful was 1:20 (5%) where a minimum of 20 votes were casted, this review is put into moderation queue. (similar to NG portal)". Suggested by shadowtsunami, extended by Nequam Time limit before every vote. "Something like a time constraint should be necessary to vote (un)helpful. Spamming new accounts and mass voting is still a possibility, and I have no doubt that some people still abuse the system by doing so." Suggested by nil- What would this affect? Simple. People would start to take reviews more seriously, and the troll base would start to suffer too. While it's impossible to stop it completely, I believe it's already time for MAL itself to make at least an attempt to stop it. We can't just rely on the "Report" button anymore. Actually, was it even reliable to begin with? Declined ideas Majority decided that those below won't help too much with the issue or are not exactly easy/convenient to be used/implemented. They won't be taken into consideration anymore. I want to help too! What can I do? Simply link/advertise this thread (e.g your signature/profile so more people can see it) and make suggestions if you have too. The more people know about this, the more ideas we'll have to share and discuss, and more ways to work around the issue as well. Take your time reading and I'm open to any replies. |
NiyawaAug 4, 2013 4:46 AM
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| I wouldn't like it if we can see people's score in the story, animation, characters, etc. Because its still based on their taste and opinion no matter what since they are scoring. And francly a lot of people have bad opinions, especially when it depends on person to person of their taste. Because, lets say I love this anime and everything about it, and the anime is very popular for its story and characters (and its not overrated and deserves its position). - But this other person has his taste that he hates the characters and the story just isn't his cup of tea. ... see where I'm getting at? |
waalex11 said: ... see where I'm getting at? I know what you mean, but pick one: 1. Look at the overall rating, disliked/liked = unhelpful/helpful. 2. Look at the 5 ratings. Think a little and read a little before going to conclusions since you can't assume anything by just the 5 votes. THEN see if it's unhelpful or not. Not to mention that not everyone review based on tastes, but with a neutral point of view of how the anime could have been improved based in an average. While both of them aren't that good, the latter is much better for the obvious reasons. |
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| I see... but does that mean taking off the unhelpful/helpful, making MAL users unable to vote if the liked/disliked or agree/disagree with the review? or do you just want to add back the rating of story, characters, etc? |
| I'm not the type to read through reviews, but I like the idea. As a side-note, I think this is the first suggestion done right after a long time. |
waalex11 said: but does that mean taking off the unhelpful/helpful, making MAL users unable to vote if the liked/disliked or agree/disagree with the review? or do you just want to add back the rating of story, characters, etc? Nope, nothing like that. The main reason I'm making this suggestion is to make reviews more credible and to counter-attack the low ratio caused by trolls and by people who vote just after seeing the "overall" rating. I just want people to look that reviewers (at least the serious one) pass 10 hours or even one day looking for the right words to describe the show they're reviewing it. So if MAL doesn't do anything to make the trollbase recognize that, then this community is doomed to auto-destruction. koleare said: I'm not the type to read through reviews, but I like the idea. As a side-note, I think this is the first suggestion done right after a long time. Thanks! I really appreciate the compliment. |
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| MAL should also add a "comments section" on the reviews so people can write what they think about it. (with a limited 500-1000 words base). To avoid any troll, spam, advertising comments, I guess the option to let an author decide to "approve, remove, or report" comments can be added to the section as well. I liked your idea though but not sure if it will ever be enforced. I think MAL is taking one step at a time here on this site to improve its database for users as seen in the last few weeks of the new rule guidelines/forum remodeling. This might not be one of their priorities but it certainly should be considered imo. |
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Stark700 said: MAL should also add a "comments section" on the reviews so people can write what they think about it. (with a limited 500-1000 words base). To avoid any troll, spam, advertising comments, I guess the option to let an author decide to "approve, remove, or report" comments can be added to the section as well. That would be a great idea too. Though this way the author could remove any negative comments so we have to think more thoroughly about it. Edit: How about it, instead of remove, we have "hide". This way people won't have to bother with negative comments but the system won't help those afraid of criticism. |
NiyawaNov 20, 2012 10:26 AM
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Niyawa said: 1. A new interface for reviews. While presenting them on the page of the anime is a good thing, I believe moving it to the tab (just like for Stats, etc) would be much more effective. This way only those who actually want to read reviews will bother to check it, and it will be more organized too (page focus on more actual content of anime). I like kind of this idea, but I don't think others will. I get the feeling most people want a sample of the reviews, recommendations, news and forum posts all on the front page. Niyawa said: 2. Remove the "Overall" vote. I know it's important to summarize the review point of view. But I believe it's better to rely on the Story/Animation score etc. rather than one single scale. This way the review can gain depth (presenting it's good and bad points of the show in those 5 aspects) and giving more credibility. It would also be effective against the bad ratio of today, but that would be the after effects. I hate this idea. Really, I hate the idea of required review scores in the first place, but forcing you to dissect a show into separate ratings that way sounds even worse. It'll just cause more problems than it fixes, and I don't think it's a good way to view a show critically in the first place. I've never understood why some reviewers split the anime into separate categories as if they are all disassociated from each other. To review that way is to ignore all the interesting ways in which these elements work together to create a compelling whole. Also, anime is such a dynamic medium that always giving the same weight to each categorical rating would only be doing it a disservice. If anything, I'd like ratings to be optional. Niyawa said: 3. Moderating reviews before they are uploaded. Usually there's 2-3 reviews uploaded per hour, it's not that much I believe. So it wouldn't take less than 10 or even 5 minutes for a mod to give it a quick read and see if it's a troll review or not. Especially for those who write 1 line for everything without giving any depth or those who make it their own blog like "This is super 10!!1one". Your best idea yet, but one that'll probably never happen. I think it'd be too much work for the mods. But yeah, I hate wading through the inane two-line reviews just to find the few gems. The new reviews section is so rapidly polluted with this shit that it's hardly worth checking. |
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RMNDolphy said: Your best idea yet, but one that'll probably never happen. I think it'd be too much work for the mods. But yeah, I hate wading through the inane two-line reviews just to find the few gems. The new reviews section is so rapidly polluted with this shit that it's hardly worth checking. I wish they'd moderate both reviews and recommendations. Too much work for the mods? Let the users do it. Pick 10, 20, 50 users and let us metamoderate ala /. - no deleting, but burying the junk far underneath. |
| One of the reasons why I prefer AniDB's review system over MAL's review system is that you can only vote on a review (1, 3, 5, 6, 8 or 10) by including a comment with the rating, pretty much letting you know who are giving troll votes on someone's review. This also makes it better for the reviewer by getting feedback much easier. |
| I'm a douche. Deal with it. |
RMNDolphy said: I hate this idea. Really, I hate the idea of required review scores in the first place, but forcing you to dissect a show into separate ratings that way sounds even worse. It'll just cause more problems than it fixes, and I don't think it's a good way to view a show critically in the first place. I've never understood why some reviewers split the anime into separate categories as if they are all disassociated from each other. To review that way is to ignore all the interesting ways in which these elements work together to create a compelling whole. Also, anime is such a dynamic medium that always giving the same weight to each categorical rating would only be doing it a disservice. If anything, I'd like ratings to be optional. I know what you mean. But you're forgetting that reviews are the standpoint of someone in a critic point of view. While it's not harsh to a critic level, it still requires criticism. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm encouraging elitism. It's simple that while the overall score is necessary to summarize the point of the author, it's being used in the wrong way: as a helpful/unhelpful base. So if you have a better idea to deal with the matter, I'm all ears. Still, thanks for taking your time and commenting, it means a lot. Note: Seems like Xinil is aware of the issue but using IP to block multiple trolls accounts would mess up with MAL access in schools and universities. phnsr said: I wish they'd moderate both reviews and recommendations. Too much work for the mods? Let the users do it. Pick 10, 20, 50 users and let us metamoderate ala /. - no deleting, but burying the junk far underneath. That won't work. First of all, this is not something the users can deal with. It would be much as the same of giving moderator powers to unknown people. The democracy of the MAL system while flawed, is the best to deal with those issues. |
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Niyawa said: phnsr said: I wish they'd moderate both reviews and recommendations. Too much work for the mods? Let the users do it. Pick 10, 20, 50 users and let us metamoderate ala /. - no deleting, but burying the junk far underneath. That won't work. First of all, this is not something the users can deal with. It would be much as the same of giving moderator powers to unknown people. The democracy of the MAL system while flawed, is the best to deal with those issues. I find it hilarious that this is the most common response to that suggestion, despite the fact that it does work on numerous sites. But to be honest, I'm not sure if you've even understood what was the suggestion - and if you did, this bit about "democracy" needs explaining, for it no sense makes. |
phnsr said: I find it hilarious that this is the most common response to that suggestion, despite the fact that it does work on numerous sites. But to be honest, I'm not sure if you've even understood what was the suggestion - and if you did, this bit about "democracy" needs explaining, for it no sense makes. I was referring to the fact that changes in MAL to this degree are usually mod's job, since they are the "trusted" users. While the idea of letting the "normal" users vote which recommendation is worth or not, I don't know if the outcome would be exactly what he had in mind. But to be fair, I don't know which sites uses this system, care to give me an example? As I said, I'm all ears. |
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Niyawa said: I know what you mean. But you're forgetting that reviews are the standpoint of someone in a critic point of view. While it's not harsh to a critic level, it still requires criticism. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm encouraging elitism. It's simple that while the overall score is necessary to summarize the point of the author, it's being used in the wrong way: as a helpful/unhelpful base. So if you have a better idea to deal with the matter, I'm all ears. I think your suggestion would be fine as long as it's optional. Everybody has a different way of looking at anime critically and everybody wants something different out of the reviews they read; it only makes sense for MAL to accommodate those different outlooks. I see no reason why the current accepted 'overall' reviews method, the one you suggested, and no score/'letting the text speak for itself' can't all be accepted viable means of reviewing. |
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RMNDolphy said: I think your suggestion would be fine as long as it's optional. Everybody has a different way of looking at anime critically and everybody wants something different out of the reviews they read; it only makes sense for MAL to accommodate those different outlooks. I see no reason why the current accepted reviews method, the one you suggested, and no score/letting the text speak for itself can't all be accepted viable means of reviewing. Haha. I believe it is a suggestion for a reason. Also, it is accepted, but being used in the wrong way. Again, if you know a better method to deal with this, I'm all ears. What we can't is do nothing. |
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Niyawa said: phnsr said: I find it hilarious that this is the most common response to that suggestion, despite the fact that it does work on numerous sites. But to be honest, I'm not sure if you've even understood what was the suggestion - and if you did, this bit about "democracy" needs explaining, for it no sense makes. I was referring to the fact that changes in MAL to this degree are usually mod's job, since they are the "trusted" users. While the idea of letting the "normal" users vote which recommendation is worth or not, I don't know if the outcome would be exactly what he had in mind. But to be fair, I don't know which sites uses this system, care to give me an example? As I said, I'm all ears. And how is that democracy? That's why I said it makes no sense. Your original complaint is, essentially, about democracy - anyone can vote "Not helpful" on whim, and trolls can upvote trollish reviews. Transferring all the work to the mods is not feasible due to volume. Therefore my suggestion is a compromise - a number of (trusted) users get to "downvote" trolls. I've already mentioned an example, though I can't blame you for missing it - it was "/." - SlashDot. A similar system of moderation (with Trusted users) is also employed at the Metal Archives - contributing users are recognized as such and then given a small, limited amount of "power", just enough to keep trolls at bay. Like I said, burying them, not deleting. Further examples would include Reddit and Stack Exchange. All these do have different functions than MAL, but I do believe the general model could be applied here as well, and no amount of hand-waving is going to change that - only actual arguments have a chance of that. I understand you might care more about reviews, but consider the pathethic state of the recommendation section - there we don't even have the Helpful/Not helpful option, and the rules for Reporting are very lax on trolls (again, designed to lessen the workload for the mods -> which could be solved by Usermods, to call them so). |
Niyawa said: RMNDolphy said: I think your suggestion would be fine as long as it's optional. Everybody has a different way of looking at anime critically and everybody wants something different out of the reviews they read; it only makes sense for MAL to accommodate those different outlooks. I see no reason why the current accepted reviews method, the one you suggested, and no score/letting the text speak for itself can't all be accepted viable means of reviewing. Haha. I believe it is a suggestion for a reason. Also, it is accepted, but being used in the wrong way. Again, if you know a better method to deal with this, I'm all ears. What we can't is do nothing. Eh? That was my suggestion. Let me try rewording it: Give the reviewers several optional templates to pick from when reviewing. For example: No score/all text, or the categorical dissection with no 'overall score' method of reviews you suggested, or the currently accepted 'overall score' method; Each person should be free to pick. It shouldn't be too hard for MAL to accommodate all of these different review styles at once. |
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phnsr said: I understand you might care more about reviews, but consider the pathethic state of the recommendation section - there we don't even have the Helpful/Not helpful option, and the rules for Reporting are very lax on trolls (again, designed to lessen the workload for the mods -> which could be solved by Usermods, to call them so). I see, I see. Now I get better you point. Ignore the democracy thing then, I was using the word in a wrong way without noticing. I also didn't know what /. meant. But now everything makes more sense. I guess it's a good suggestion then. It might work. I'm more worried how we could implement that in MAL in a plausible manner (how to differ trusted users from others). RMNDolphy said: Eh? That was my suggestion. Let me try rewording it: Give the reviewers several optional templates to pick from when reviewing. For example: No score/all text, or the categorical dissection with no 'overall score' method of reviews you suggested, or the currently accepted 'overall score' method; Each person should be free to pick. It shouldn't be too hard for MAL to accommodate all of these different review styles at once. The way you wrote seemed more like a comment rather than a suggestion. Hm, that's not bad... |
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| hmm... well thats your view I guess. Though I kinda doubt they'll change it. Did they ever change something from a users suggestion? I still don't like but we'll see what happens. |
waalex11 said: I still don't like but we'll see what happens. I gave some long thinking and RMNDolphy suggestion seems more appropriate for me now. I'll put in the main topic. |
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| I've linked the other suggestion to this one. I don't think a merge could work since these two are two different suggestions, but I think it can be added to this suggestion's list somehow. I like the idea with the comments. It could prove very useful providing feedback, and perhaps this will encourage even more people to write reviews. I suppose there is a long way until MAL will become dreamlike, especially when Xinil is working solo on the code, but with good suggestions built by many people (like we're doing now) we're coming one step closer to it. [/visionary talk] |
koleareNov 20, 2012 2:26 PM
| I highly doubt it would take very much time for a single mod to be in charge of approving reviews. He/she would simply need to log on several times a day and approve or reject the handful that have been posted since their last visit. Only approved reviews show up to normal users. That's how it is on another site I frequent and you rarely read an especially bad review on there. Not to mention, such a feature would change behavior. People will eventually stop submitting one line reviews, reviews with horrible grammar, etc., because they will learn that their reviews get rejected every time. I would be willing to do it myself if such a system were to be put in place, and if Xinil (or whomever does that) would be willing to make me a mod, which I suppose is questionable. |
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
koleare said: I suppose there is a long way until MAL will become dreamlike, especially when Xinil is working solo, but with good suggestions built by many people (like we're doing now) we're coming one step closer to it. [/visionary talk] Haha, well. We need to work on something before knowing the outcome. I'll put that suggestion in this list as well. Nordhau5 said: I would be willing to do it myself if such a system were to be put in place, and if Xinil (or whomever does that) would be willing to make me a mod, which I suppose is questionable. My point is everything you said. Now for the mod thing. It's not impossible put you just joined this year, dunno if that matters but older users are most likely to be trusted. |
NiyawaNov 20, 2012 2:16 PM
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| A new interface for reviews sounds like a terrible idea. So basically you want to marginalise reviews even more so people who aren't immediately interested in reviews never read them? Putting them on the front page actually pushes them out and allows people to see them and means they're more likely to read them. I also think removing the overall vote to rely on the other categories is a bad idea too. I personally think having those categories is arbitrary anyway, since things like sound and animation often have little to no say on how much I enjoy the anime. Would I review Azumanga using categories like story/animation/sound? I do like comments on reviews, something similar to how rotten tomatoes does it. Also moderating reviews doesn't seem too difficult so long as you bring in ok people to moderate. I mean, if they're just getting rid of one or two line reviews then great, but if they're getting rid of unconventional reviews then it would be terrible |
The Cart Driver <-- My awesome anime blog |
5camp said: A new interface for reviews sounds like a terrible idea. So basically you want to marginalise reviews even more so people who aren't immediately interested in reviews never read them? Putting them on the front page actually pushes them out and allows people to see them and means they're more likely to read them. That's the downside, but it's up to the mods to decide. Either they find it unreliable or not. I also think removing the overall vote to rely on the other categories is a bad idea too. I personally think having those categories is arbitrary anyway, since things like sound and animation often have little to no say on how much I enjoy the anime. Would I review Azumanga using categories like story/animation/sound? Pardon my rudeness but that last part was a little silly. It's more than obvious that I was using the anime system as an example, of course the manga would be "Art" and would not have any sound. Also, refer that we're not talking about you. I do like comments on reviews, something similar to how rotten tomatoes does it. Also moderating reviews doesn't seem too difficult so long as you bring in ok people to moderate. I mean, if they're just getting rid of one or two line reviews then great, but if they're getting rid of unconventional reviews then it would be terrible That would be the most efficient method to reduce the number of bad reviews and stop the trolls ones. But other issue like the bad ratio by trolls and how to reduce it keeps without solution for now. |
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simnys978 said: One of the reasons why I prefer AniDB's review system over MAL's review system is that you can only vote on a review (1, 3, 5, 6, 8 or 10) by including a comment with the rating, pretty much letting you know who are giving troll votes on someone's review. This also makes it better for the reviewer by getting feedback much easier. Repost: The idea about assigning a rating system for scoring reviews from 1-10 is a good idea. Then using the Bayesian estimator to calculate which reviews are put on the main anime page. The idea of having moderators read all the reviews first then allowing them to be posted seems a bit too authoritarian and could be abused. I also like the idea of creating a tops critics criteria that people can click on to read some of highest rated reviews, with an extra tab. Top critics would be decided by which people have the highest overall meta bayesian score from the reviewed ratings. Also having a database link to who and what others are rating reviews might shed some light on mass down voting or up voting trends. |
Orion1 said: Repost etc Reply to the moderators idea. I believe having them are indeed risky, but as long they're trustworthy by the user base as well the site's administrators, it could be something reliable. Of course there are risks, but it's not worse than the current situation. So I still believe that we could take into consideration. I basically agree with you in the rest. I guess I should edit and put the simnys idea and yours + 5camp too. |
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Niyawa said: Why do this? Since last year, for some unknown reason people has been mass downvoting reviews based on their own tastes and not what the review is doing itself. You can simply see the overall score, and say if you agree with it or not, then vote helpful or not. That's how it works now. With my suggestion this could be counter-attacked and deal with more accuracy, and reviews would gain their glory as it was in the 2008-2009 times. I'd like to know when and why this troll downvoting started... I just get the feeling ppl used to be more "friendly" when I created my acc (2010), it was way "easier" to write reviews because ppl were supportive (I remember once this guy sent me a comment pointing out a grammar mistake, who does it nowadays?). If you write and gives a bad score to a popular anime, a mob of fanboys come in the rescue, but none of them have the guts to explain why they are downvoting. Niyawa said: "MAL should also add a "comments section" on the reviews so people can write what they think about it. (with a limited 500-1000 words base). To avoid any troll, spam, advertising comments, I guess the option to let an author decide to "approve, remove (or hide), or report" comments can be added to the section as well." Suggested by Stark700. Just like Youtube? I'd love to see this but I'm not sure if people would actually do it due to the amount of reviews that are made everyday... Niyawa said: Filters to the review. "Is there any way to sort the reviews for an anime (such as most recent, most helpful, lowest first, etc.) It would be a really helpful tool (in addition to the statistics) for determining whether to spend time on an anime or not." Suggested by T_Sakagami. Agreed. It seems to me that there's this idea of "the old reviews are the best". I mean, it's damn hard to hit the first page and when you finally do it, suddently all the "helpful" votes you recieved while your review was in the "recent" tab gets burried by those "not helpful" in a matter of hours. (e.g: I reviewed 5cm/s last week and in the first day it was 13of15, obviously it got to the first page and in the next morning... 13of31. ~_~ it's really discouraging... (or I'm actually that bad and I am the one who can't see it O_o) |
xbobx said: I'd like to know when and why this troll downvoting started... I just get the feeling ppl used to be more "friendly" when I created my acc (2010), it was way "easier" to write reviews because ppl were supportive (I remember once this guy sent me a comment pointing out a grammar mistake, who does it nowadays?). If you write and gives a bad score to a popular anime, a mob of fanboys come in the rescue, but none of them have the guts to explain why they are downvoting. I've been using MAL since the end of 2009, but I just registered on the start of 2011. But I just noticed this by the end of the same year. Well, as for the fanboys part, that's something that will not change while MAL doesn't take a stance about it. Especially because the current system was not made to prevent such things. Just like Youtube? I'd love to see this but I'm not sure if people would actually do it due to the amount of reviews that are made everyday... Not exactly. MAL would be more to focus on certain parts of the review or simply a comment about how good it was. Unfortunately like some mentioned, it may be a hard thing to implement not only for lack of time but maybe the servers aren't supposed to support it. Agreed. It seems to me that there's this idea of "the old reviews are the best". I mean, it's damn hard to hit the first page and when you finally do it, suddently all the "helpful" votes you recieved while your review was in the "recent" tab gets burried by those "not helpful" in a matter of hours. (e.g: I reviewed 5cm/s last week and in the first day it was 13of15, obviously it got to the first page and in the next morning... 13of31. ~_~ it's really discouraging... (or I'm actually that bad and I am the one who can't see it O_o) That's the troll line. Once the review is up in the main page, for some unknown reason it WILL be downvoted, and if the ratio doesn't go down about 40-30% you're lucky as hell. |
NiyawaNov 21, 2012 6:00 PM
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xbobx said: Just like Youtube? I'd love to see this but I'm not sure if people would actually do it due to the amount of reviews that are made everyday... I envision it being more like the system GoodReads already has in place. The comments shouldn't be visible until you click the little "X comments" button. Orion1 said: Also having a database link to who and what others are rating reviews might shed some light on mass down voting or up voting trends. I really like this idea as well. It would add some accountability to the currently anonymous "helpful" or "not helpful" system MAL has now. |
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| 1. No. I want the review where it is. 2. No. I am averse to dissecting an anime review that way. 3. No. need. 4. No. Just no. Enough seeing one line/retarded acronym reviews let alone getting comments of the same vein. Since it would be just a comment on a review, grammar is not expected on a comment (and won't likely be - grammar seems to be nonexistent on a lot of reviews themselves). I can see the page burning with flames fanned by fanboys. This is the one I heartily oppose. Helpful and Not Helpful still works for me. 5. I'm neutral on this. 6. ...was talked about before.This is the most sane suggestion but will need to be followed by constructive criticism on the part of the mod. No matter how asinine some reviews are, it's only fair to give the reviewer the reason. If some mods don't even bother giving a reason as to why a thread is closed or a user banned; how many of them do you think will try to give a reason for rejecting a review? What I want is an automatic rejection button for a review on an anime that hasn't aired yet. |
TsukikageRan said: If some mods don't even bother giving a reason as to why a thread is closed or a user banned; how many of them do you think will try to give a reason for rejecting a review? They are trusted users for a reason. What I want is an automatic rejection button for a review on an anime that hasn't aired yet. The only good thing about your post. Though the mods probably won't even consider, since it's not a "problem" itself. |
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TsukikageRan said: 4. No. Just no. Enough seeing one line/retarded acronym reviews let alone getting comments of the same vein. Since it would be just a comment on a review, grammar is not expected on a comment (and won't likely be - grammar seems to be nonexistent on a lot of reviews themselves). I can see the page burning with flames fanned by fanboys. This is the one I heartily oppose. Helpful and Not Helpful still works for me. lol. Said the guy who haven't made a review yet. It's already burning with flames fanned by fanboys ¬¬" Helpful and not helpful have become the Like and Dislike button of MAL. How come it still works for you? |
| The filtering reviews idea is a cool one. It would be nice to re-arrange 'em based on what ratings specifically appeal to you. So props and support for that idea. However, all your other ideas I either am adamantly opposed to, or already happen in some capacity. For example, I don't get why people care so much about the one-line reviews given that they always fall to the bottom of the reviews list quickly because people label them as unhelpful. So there's already a system in place to handle that. Now, I think you could amend that and maybe have a couple mods go through reviews at the end of the week and remove those that are just simple one-liners (this process could be easy for them if the database can sort based on review length and/or total number of Unhelpful votes). So that could help, but the basic functionality addressing this issue is already there. Also, I would hate if the top two reviews were removed from the anime page. I go to the page, read the synopsis, then if it sounds interesting, it's great to just scroll down slightly and see if the top-two reviews sound good. If so, I either add it to my Plan to Watch, or follow-up and read more reviews. Separating the two just adds extra time for me, and is a bit more poorly organized. For the same reason, I love the overall score rating. You can already click on this to see more specific scores by category, so I don't get the problem here. I value my time and so love just being able to glance down and quickly see if something worth more inspection or not. |
| I support: 3. I hate the division into a lot of subcategories and usually ignore reviews like this and go for the ones that just have text anyway. Never saw why having subcategories should be the default option. Would make point 2. not being needed though. 4. Why not? Sure, it will attract random comments/trolls but what on MAL doesn't? Just make the reviewer moderate his review comments. I disagree with: 1. No, people would still troll when they want to and reviews in general would become much less important. Also it would take longer to discover troll reviews. It only decreases the availability of reviews. 2. Would be included in 3. anyway. 5. With all the problems of random down/upvoting you really want something to use those votes to determine which reviews should be read and which shouldn't? I don't see that being helpful at all, on the contrary. 6. Nope, the current method works fine and forces the mods only to read reviews which got reported, which is what the job of a mod should be - not censoring before something even gets public. e: These points don't correlate with the numbering in the OP anymore since the last edit. |
AlcoholicideNov 26, 2012 6:39 PM
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| On #6, I think people would be surprised by how agreeable what constitutes a review is. Whether or not something is evaluating, or commenting on something in a descriptive way, is pretty obvious, and can be assessed quite objectively. I bet that 90+% of people would agree that all rejected reviews should be rejected, with the 10% mostly being those "reviewers" who don't have a good grasp of English and write one liners. I wouldn't consider having a basic standard of quality censorship by any means. They're called reviews, so they should be reviews. That's the idea. Say you want to read the reviews for a really popular show, like Clannad. Now there's what, hundreds of reviews? Imagine if we dropped all of those that aren't actual reviews, and there were like twenty left. It would actually be feasible to scan over them and look for a few that give different scores, or whatever it is you're looking for. You'd be wasting a lot less time, because you can be sure that any review can at least be vaguely described as an actual review. |
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
xbobx said: TsukikageRan said: 4. No. Just no. Enough seeing one line/retarded acronym reviews let alone getting comments of the same vein. Since it would be just a comment on a review, grammar is not expected on a comment (and won't likely be - grammar seems to be nonexistent on a lot of reviews themselves). I can see the page burning with flames fanned by fanboys. This is the one I heartily oppose. Helpful and Not Helpful still works for me. lol. Said the guy who haven't made a review yet.... Non sequitur. |
Higashi_no_Kaze said: 5. With all the problems of random down/upvoting you really want something to use those votes to determine which reviews should be read and which shouldn't? I don't see that being helpful at all, on the contrary. That's something that would be implemented after the necessary measures. Using the bayes estimator like Orion mentioned. 6. Nope, the current method works fine and forces the mods only to read reviews which got reported, which is what the job of a mod should be - not censoring before something even gets public. "Works fine." That won't work on this thread. If anything, everything on MAL works fine right now. We're trying to make it better. And moderators (trusted ones) would be a pretty efficient counter-measure for trolls reviews. Tsumayouji said: I don't get why people care so much about the one-line reviews given that they always fall to the bottom of the reviews list quickly because people label them as unhelpful. So there's already a system in place to handle that. Now, I think you could amend that and maybe have a couple mods go through reviews at the end of the week and remove those that are just simple one-liners (this process could be easy for them if the database can sort based on review length and/or total number of Unhelpful votes). So that could help, but the basic functionality addressing this issue is already there. While you have an interesting idea with this little part of your post, I should remember you that if we don't do something to prevent the appearance of one-line reviews, then it will keep coming. It's not a matter of they're there or not. But if they will come or not. Those reviews are useless to the database and this also supports the idea of having moderators. Since this type of review would automatically be rejected. For the same reason, I love the overall score rating. You can already click on this to see more specific scores by category, so I don't get the problem here. I value my time and so love just being able to glance down and quickly see if something worth more inspection or not. The "problem" would be that the overall score is the main culprit for most of the mass-downvoting. Of course, like a lot of people made a comment about it, seems like we having it or not won't change anything without changing the system that goes with it (someone recommended using something similar to ani.db). Also edited the post for consistency. Two ideas are now disregarded since majority convinced me that they're not that helpful. |
NiyawaNov 23, 2012 8:58 PM
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Niyawa said: Higashi_no_Kaze said: 5. With all the problems of random down/upvoting you really want something to use those votes to determine which reviews should be read and which shouldn't? I don't see that being helpful at all, on the contrary. That's something that would be implemented after the necessary measures. Using the bayes estimator like Orion mentioned. 6. Nope, the current method works fine and forces the mods only to read reviews which got reported, which is what the job of a mod should be - not censoring before something even gets public. "Works fine." That won't work on this thread. If anything, everything on MAL works fine right now. We're trying to make it better. And moderators (trusted ones) would be a pretty efficient counter-measure for trolls reviews. Tsumayouji said: I don't get why people care so much about the one-line reviews given that they always fall to the bottom of the reviews list quickly because people label them as unhelpful. So there's already a system in place to handle that. Now, I think you could amend that and maybe have a couple mods go through reviews at the end of the week and remove those that are just simple one-liners (this process could be easy for them if the database can sort based on review length and/or total number of Unhelpful votes). So that could help, but the basic functionality addressing this issue is already there. While you have an interesting idea with this little part of your post, I should remember you that if we don't do something to prevent the appearance of one-line reviews, then it will keep coming. It's not a matter of they're there or not. But if they will come or not. Those reviews are useless to the database and this also supports the idea of having moderators. Since this type of review would automatically be rejected. For the same reason, I love the overall score rating. You can already click on this to see more specific scores by category, so I don't get the problem here. I value my time and so love just being able to glance down and quickly see if something worth more inspection or not. The "problem" would be that the overall score is the main culprit for most of the mass-downvoting. Of course, like a lot of people made a comment about it, seems like we having it or not won't change anything without changing the system that goes with it (someone recommended using something similar to ani.db). Also edited the post for consistency. Two ideas are now disregarded since majority convinced me that they're not that helpful. I agree with Higashi_no_Kaze that censorship before the fact isn't necessarily something that you want. Also, even if there are only 2-3 new reviews per hour, that adds up, and would mean you'd either have to have a ton of mods with strict reading schedules, or else full-time mods who don't have other jobs/lives. It sounds like the solution you want is just to make a minimum word requirement for reviews. You'd still get spammers, but that would prevent many one-line reviews without putting extra burden on mods. However, in one sense, even this isn't a hundred percent ideal. To be honest, I have actually seen a couple of one-line reviews that I did think were helpful. For example, one that lets me know if a series was based on novels, or if the director changed half-way through production, etc... They are rare, but there are some out there that do give you a tidbit of info that is relevant. Anywho, I think if you're going to keep focusing on ways to get rid of one-line reviews, you should switch to advocating a minimum word requirement (you can figure out what a decent amount would be). As for the other stuff, I see the arguments there, and they aren't invalid. But for me, again, I prefer just quickly glancing at that overall and then investigating further. There's a fine balance between presenting relevant info. and information overload. You might be interested in knowing that in the past, the format did by default show all the ratings. Then it changed to just showing the overall score until you click it. So, that seems to indicate that the old system actually had some grievances that gave rise to the new, and you'll need to think of solutions to those old issues before moving forward. Maybe a solution could be a profile setting? So you can choose whether you just see overall or if you see all the scores all at once all the time? In any event, I do think what the others said is true. Massive down-voting won't be fixed by that alone. |
Tsumayouji said: I agree with Higashi_no_Kaze that censorship before the fact isn't necessarily something that you want. Also, even if there are only 2-3 new reviews per hour, that adds up, and would mean you'd either have to have a ton of mods with strict reading schedules, or else full-time mods who don't have other jobs/lives. It's not like we need full mods. We could strategically put the positions based on their time zone so that there's always someone active. I'm also aware that some of us are afraid mods will be biased and delete/not approve reviews simply because they didn't like it. But I believe there's a selection of trusted users in our community. We should put a little faith in them even if we're aware of the worst-case scenario, we didn't even tried yet, right? It sounds like the solution you want is just to make a minimum word requirement for reviews. You'd still get spammers, but that would prevent many one-line reviews without putting extra burden on mods. However, in one sense, even this isn't a hundred percent ideal. To be honest, I have actually seen a couple of one-line reviews that I did think were helpful. For example, one that lets me know if a series was based on novels, or if the director changed half-way through production, etc... They are rare, but there are some out there that do give you a tidbit of info that is relevant. Anywho, I think if you're going to keep focusing on ways to get rid of one-line reviews, you should switch to advocating a minimum word requirement (you can figure out what a decent amount would be). That's a wonderful idea. Putting a necessary limiter to how many words a review should have it's cool, but it also has it's downsides. The spammer could simply put blah blah until it gets in the limit and done. Of course, I still think it's a useful measure. I'll think more about it and see if I should put in the suggestion post. As for the other stuff, I see the arguments there, and they aren't invalid. But for me, again, I prefer just quickly glancing at that overall and then investigating further. There's a fine balance between presenting relevant info. and information overload. You might be interested in knowing that in the past, the format did by default show all the ratings. Then it changed to just showing the overall score until you click it. So, that seems to indicate that the old system actually had some grievances that gave rise to the new, and you'll need to think of solutions to those old issues before moving forward. Maybe a solution could be a profile setting? So you can choose whether you just see overall or if you see all the scores all at once all the time? In any event, I do think what the others said is true. Massive down-voting won't be fixed by that alone. Another wonderful idea. Settings to how you want to see the interface of the review would be really good. Though, I know it's literally nearly impossible to deal with all mass downvotings just with this. We need a new system, something more strict but also easy to use at the same time. Just like the ani.db rating system , whereas you can only vote up or down with a comment on it (to prevent those issues). The current counter-measures presented here are simply suggestions which can or not help the situation, it's up to the majority and the "high-ups" to decide and approve them. That's why we're discussing. So even if it's not so much helpful to the issue, it will make MAL one step closer to a solution. Also, thanks for the information about previous MAL reviews, it's really useful. |
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| I really don't see how 2-3 new reviews per hour (during the hours most Americans are awake) will add up. There has been only 35ish reviews since yesterday, but let's say that one mod logs on once a day and has to go through 50. He/she shouldn't have to spend more than a 1-2 minutes on each one, meaning it would probably take a bit over an hour. All you'd have to do in most cases is skim over the first paragraph; if it's like "dis anime is sooooo goood" then reject it, if it's like "this anime is a good addition to the mecha because blah blah" then accept it. Only if it's borderline review/not a review would you have to read further, which probably doesn't happen very often. If that mod (like most) logs on multiple times a day, then it would only take little chunks of time here and there. If there were multiple mods responsible for it, then it would be an absolute breeze. I can't speak for Niyawa, but I think a word requirement would actually be worse. All of the poor rants would just be longer and nothing else would change. |
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
Nordhau5 said: I can't speak for Niyawa, but I think a word requirement would actually be worse. All of the poor rants would just be longer and nothing else would change. That's the downside that I mentioned. I'm thinking about it now. The ratio of disadvantages/vantages of this idea. Also added aniDB system suggestion, seems a good one for me. |
|
Niyawa said: Tsumayouji said: I agree with Higashi_no_Kaze that censorship before the fact isn't necessarily something that you want. Also, even if there are only 2-3 new reviews per hour, that adds up, and would mean you'd either have to have a ton of mods with strict reading schedules, or else full-time mods who don't have other jobs/lives. It's not like we need full mods. We could strategically put the positions based on their time zone so that there's always someone active. I'm also aware that some of us are afraid mods will be biased and delete/not approve reviews simply because they didn't like it. But I believe there's a selection of trusted users in our community. We should put a little faith in them even if we're aware of the worst-case scenario, we didn't even tried yet, right? I see your point, but I still don't agree. I've seen a couple of reviews that mods would possibly classify as spam that I found more helpful than those long-ass reviews with a million subcategories and a lot of bla bla. There is no clear line, and as it is now it can quickly become obvious if one or two people report a review or if dozens of people do. It's just the more democratic thing to do, even if we trust all the moderators (which is not a given as most users won't really know most moderators that well). Additionally I think you underestimate the additional workload for the moderators that this would imply. If everything was more than smooth and I had the impression there isn't enough work to keep them busy I would agree (maybe), but as it is the new forum layout will take some time to settle in, threads still need to be moved and generally I think the mods are pretty busy already in areas where they are more required. It's not a bad idea per se, but the improvement would be minimal and not really efficient in regardas to the additional work/risks it would mean. @Nordhau5 - That is exactly what I don't want to happen - the mods doing the review-reviews so fast because they are overworked. IF censorship happens before something gets public then I expect the censors to put some fucking effort in it at least, which means definitely more than 1-2 minutes per review. And first and foremost it's always funny to hear people talk about the work of others, it's never 'much' as long as you don't have to do it. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
| I already stated that I would be more than willing to do it myself, haha. I'm quite confident that one can do a good job and be time efficient. The more time spent per review likely means the more stringent the regulation, which appears to be what you are against. Can we agree that, on sites where only staff members review things, reviews are held to a much higher standard? If we can't, then I don't know what to say. The rational for regulation, or "censoring" (I still don't understand why you're using that word in the slightest) is simply based on that. You allow anyone to write a review, but you only post those reviews that are of a vaguely similar quality to those staff reviewers would write. Everyone gets the best of both worlds. |
JoshNov 24, 2012 12:27 PM
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
| Calling it censoring is a little baffling. There's a big difference between censorship and upholding a standard. A word-threshold wouldn't really solve the problem. People could write 1000 words on something and still put little to no effort into it. I've seen long reviews that more or less just walk you through the story with no actual critique provided. And this wouldn't be the totalitarian system some of you are making it out to be. It shouldn't be much different from the way MAL currently accepts new anime and manga entries. You submit a review, it gets moderated, then it either goes up or it's turned down. When turned down, there would probably be a thread for it similar to this where they list the recently denied reviews along with a brief summary of why they weren't accepted. Then, if one feels their review was moderated unfairly or misinterpreted, they can appeal in that thread. For example: I recently submitted the manga 'Garden' by Yuichi Yokoyama, it was refused because they thought it was was an art book, I then explained to them why it was a manga, it went back up. Simple. Just imagine the same scenario being played out with a review instead of a manga and the system works just as well. The only legitimate downside I see and agree with is that it might be too much work for the current moderators. Simple solution, of course, being to get a new mod or two whose dedicated job is to moderate reviews, similar to the way they have anime moderators and manga moderators. |
NotDolphyNov 24, 2012 1:37 PM
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Nordhau5 said: I already stated that I would be more than willing to do it myself, haha. I'm quite confident that one can do a good job and be time efficient. The more time spent per review likely means the more stringent the regulation, which appears to be what you are against. If bad reviews can be detected so quickly anyway it shouldn't be a problem to sort them out yourself without much time lost, while you still let them stand there for people who might not find them as useless. Can we agree that, on sites where only staff members review things, reviews are held to a much higher standard? If we can't, then I don't know what to say. The rational for regulation, or "censoring" (I still don't understand why you're using that word in the slightest) is simply based on that. You allow anyone to write a review, but you only post those reviews that are of a vaguely similar quality to those staff reviewers would write. Everyone gets the best of both worlds. I personally value variety more than something subjective-ish like 'high standards', that's why I'm not disagreeing with your first sentence but still argue about the topic. Regarding the term censoring, any regulation that happens beforehand is some sort of censoring, though of course it doesn't imply any political or whatsoever criteria behind it. BUT I just don't see the need for those kind of regulations here. If only one review gets denied that I would have found helpful, it wasn't worth it. It just seems we disagree on how much everyone else would agree with what I/you see as a proper review. There's no such thing as 100% inter-subjectivity and the possible gain would be of minimal value to me and is not worth the potential loss of unorthodox reviews. For the same reason I can see the mods doing a dozen different things instead of this specific additional workload that I would care more about. I hope this time I made my reasoning clear. I don't disagree with the general point, but value the gains a lot less than you and the potential losses a lot higher. A minimal improvement is not worth an average risk. |
| I probably regret this post by now. |
Higashi_no_Kaze said: It just seems we disagree on how much everyone else would agree with what I/you see as a proper review. There's no such thing as 100% inter-subjectivity and the possible gain would be of minimal value to me and is not worth the potential loss of unorthodox reviews. For the same reason I can see the mods doing a dozen different things instead of this specific additional workload that I would care more about. I can't speak for the others, but I wouldn't want unconventional reviews denied either. My main issue is with the reviews that have clearly had very little thought put into them that are constantly and rapidly polluting the recent reviews section. It makes that section exceedingly tedious to browse and effectively worthless since the reviews of actual quality are so quickly buried underneath the inanity of the masses' lack of effort. That entire trend can be curbed with minimal moderation. I don't even mind "joke" reviews or the unorthodox reviews I think you're talking about (perhaps you could link to an example?) just as long as there is some apparent effort on the part of the reviewer to get that joke across. I'm curious to hear what the others consider to be acceptable and unacceptable though. |
NotDolphyNov 24, 2012 2:13 PM
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| I'm not sure if this is still 100% on topic but MAL should also do something about "downvote raids" that comes and often occurs these days especially this year. It's basically when you find out your reviews get hit with 3-10 unhelpful in the course of 2 hours, or even on reviews you've written months ago. I don't think that's some sort of coincidence. Lately, all my reviews can't seem to hit any ratio beyond a 15/30+. It doesn't matter how short, long, or comprehensiveness the content of the review itself anymore. No matter how much effort I put into them, the reviews themselves get hit by mass downvoting for reasons I'll probably never understand. It gets quite frustrating and I don't get why people do this. It doesn't seem to be the ratings or content anymore from my point of view but seems to be a person/group of people who seems to dislike reviewers who actively write these days than compared to those in the past. I've also noticed other people's reviews suffering this as it seems to occur at a sudden time period from my observations. Some of the reviews I've seen are very well written but in the course of 1-2 weeks gets hit to a ratio to something like 22/50. This never seemed to occur in the past (2007-2010) or as often. The reviews written then (some which I've found written poorly) has a higher ratio than anything that gets written these days. The system itself is still flawed and I hope there will be some changes to the reviews system. But this thread has been helpful so far and I hope MAL can seriously take into some considerations of these ideas. Speaking of, I think some of the ideas are good that have been posted particularly #3, #4 (not exactly sure on how this works), and #6. MAL should really consider these ideas imo. |
Stark700Nov 24, 2012 2:32 PM
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