| This is a big site with a large number of users. The MAL review guidelines aim for what kajia correctly refers to as popular entertainment reviews - the kind that doesn't or at least try not to spoil the show. These reviewers essentially write for readers who have not yet seen the movie/series. It is meant to entice or caution the reader as to the level of entertainment the reader can get out of the show. That is the reason why they carefully avoid any spoilers that may ruin a potential viewer's enjoyment. The kind of reviews that you, pleochroic and ZiharkXVI are referring to have a different audience/reader in mind. These reviewers are writing for people who have seen the show and want to share their opinions and expound on points as to why they come upon that conclusion. That is the reason why a carefully crafted review of this kind would have spoilers in them. In truth though, if the reader has seen the subject, the term 'spoilers' is superfluous. This is my personal opinion on the kind of review pleochroic and ZiharkXVI have in mind. Because I have theoretically seen the subject in question, I do not want anything under spoiler tags. As someone who has seen the show, doing tags is unnecessary. It is just that we also have a responsibility to the other users who have not seen the show. |
| I'm not sure why you would think people who have seen the subject "do not want anything under spoiler tags" - they don't bother me, nor do they bother anyone else that I know of who read those reviews. I've never heard of anyone claim "man I wish they'd get rid of those superfluous spoiler tags in reviews!" We simply don't care whether they're there or not, but we recognise the need for some for the two types of reviews to co-exist. And I'm sure those who read both types of reviews appreciate them because it allows them to distinguish which is which. Why you would want to limit the reviews on this kind of site to those "product reviews" when the user-contribution review system is perhaps uniquely placed to do so much more? With such a large pool of reviews on so many shows, only having "product reviews" is detrimental to the diversity of opinions you can get - even the same opinions can be expressed in so many different ways if you allow people to dig into the details. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
I thought the Episode Discussion board was created solely for that purpose. If they were, then they're not really fit for purpose. They might give in depth discussions of episodes (though in truth, from what I've seen of them, most of them barely scratch past the surface), but they don't give an overall impression of the series. And since they're forums threads, people don't approach them with the same mindset - someone who wants to write a review is likely to put more thought into their writing than someone who's just casually posting in the forums. The majority of what you find in the episodic discussion is little more than variations of "I really liked this episode". You wouldn't be able to get away with that if you're writing a review. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
| kajia, my dear, which part of 'my personal opinion' did you not understand? I'm referring to your first sentence at post #104. Looking at my previous post (#103) I can not see what can justify that sentence of yours. I know there are 2 types of reviews (#103). I acknowledge that. The question is how to make the two coexist with the current guidelines in place. Obviously the type of review you are arguing for will be not be allowed. I do not have a definite answer for this. As DarkMorpher has said Episode Discussion is one avenue but it is not an adequate one for an actual review. The other one that I know of and has been used by a lot of reviewers here is the personal blog. Of course, 'foot traffic' in blogs is not as considerable as in the actual anime page. A thread in the anime page marked 'In-Depth Reviews' could be another solution - I do not know if this will be allowed. It seems to be the most feasible. This thread is for the users to get to know the current guidelines although the discussion has shown that some users who have seen the anime also wish for more thorough reviews. |
TsukikageRan said: kajia, my dear, which part of 'my personal opinion' did you not understand? I'm referring to your first sentence at post #104. Looking at my previous post (#103) I can not see what can justify that sentence of yours. Your opinion just struck me as a little odd, as I've never heard other people raising this issue. I apologise if my response seemed excessive. TsukikageRan said: The question is how to make the two coexist with the current guidelines in place. Obviously the type of review you are arguing for will be not be allowed. I was under the impression that one of the purposes of this thread is to get feedback on the modified guidelines. Some of us are obviously not happy about certain changes, and are making our opinions known in the hope that the admins will reconsider them. Perhaps I've missed something, but I haven't come come across anything that suggested that the community was consulted over the updates to the guidelines. Certainly the first I've heard about it was from this thread, so I would be disappointed if these changes were already set in stone without giving us a chance to respond to them. |
| Take off every SIG!! |
| Ahh...no problem then. I hope we can get to some compromise as you have mentioned earlier in this thread. |
| thank you, good job :) |
 [/url] |
Kineta said: Just a bump for anyone that may be watching this thread for this point. It's been four of the five weeks, and this thread has only received two responses.3. The guidelines on previews were too ambiguous for many users and they wanted a distinct line for when they could start writing reviews for currently airing series. To address this concern, I have posted a new thread in the Suggestions board: "Review Guidelines: Currently Airing Series". For the next 5 weeks, we will be looking for feedback from the community on this proposed solution. Is this all the community has to say on this issue? |
| Imo, the reviews that should be removed immediately would be reviews that aren't actual reviews at all such as one-two episodes reviews, poems, one-liners, or a review that has nothing to do with the anime/manga. Reviews with a large amount of spoilers should also be deleted or at least notified for a change. I don't really have much to add to this other than the fact that reviews these days are all viewed differently from a perspective various from person to person. Regarding ongoing series, from my viewpoint, they should be removed unless a user has dropped the series half way, an ongoing series that has no definite finishing air date set, and if there isn't enough reviews there (or potential future reviews written by other authors). |
Stark700Jun 26, 2013 11:54 AM
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| I was wondering if a new rule can be added to the reccomendation guideline, like preventing users from recommending prequels/sequels? I mean if users really like a certain series then wouldn't they just check out the prequels/sequels if they want more of the series? Edit: By prequels I mean the those that are published/aired after the original like for example: Star Wars episode 1-3, Ga-Rei:Zero Stark700 said: I agree completely with this.Imo, the reviews that should be removed immediately would be reviews that aren't actual reviews at all such as one-two episodes reviews, poems, one-liners, or a review that has nothing to do with the anime/manga. Reviews with a large amount of spoilers should also be deleted or at least notified for a change. I don't really have much to add to this other than the fact that reviews these days are all viewed differently from a perspective various from person to person. Regarding ongoing series, from my viewpoint, they should be removed unless a user has dropped the series half way, an ongoing series that has no definite finishing air date set, and if there isn't enough reviews there (or potential future reviews written by other authors). |
RX-782Jun 30, 2013 12:07 AM
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| I fully agree with the ZiharkXVI and kajia on the fact that a review is indeed something that should provide specifics as it is pointless to review a piece of fiction without it. Given the fact that a lot of the likes/dislikes a review gathers stem from the overall score it is imho safe to assume that reviews on MAL are seen as reassurance as well: People want to get confirmation that "their" piece of fiction had merit in different aspects, which leads me to believe that a lot of people who look at reviews here are finished with reading/watching a specific series. Forcing down vague reviews to everyone on this site seems like the wrong approach then, as uninformed users can get a big part of the information they receive from synopsis, recommendations (which are usually in terrible shape because imho a lot of users are not able to actually use this site's features to their full extent) and previews. This is a site about personal ratings, comparing ratings, etc. Advertisements are not inclined to help me better my score or discover flaws/other aspects I might have overlooked. Yet, it is possible to describe flaws and problems in later parts of an anime/manga without spoiling too much: The key point here is abstraction. If we look at the review of Harukana Machi-E our club has written, it is obvious that lines like Although expected and understandable, the rather abrupt ending and resolution may feel anticlimactic and will probably leave some readers with a slight feeling of dissatisfaction. will not spoil too much for new readers while being specific enough for informed readers to get the criticism. However, this takes a certain amount of skill. The ideal solution would be some kind of message that allows us to discern between the two kinds of reviews, like a prominent [CONTAINS SPOILERS] displayed somewhere in the header of the review. Reviewers could toggle this in the editor and some kind of button would displayed afterwards. I still doubt that this will help a lot though, because most reviewers who are responsible for the bad one-episode reviews imho lack the intelligence to use these features appropriately enough (the misuse of the rec subforums and recs in general is a good example). |
NidhoeggrJul 1, 2013 4:47 AM
| Steel Ball Run anime when? |
Nae_Gevurah said: 2) Reading many reviews on MAL, I get the sense of an undercurrent of elitism. If MAL is about an open community of reasonable people sharing their love and thoughts of Japanese still and motion artwork, why must one be squashed into a professional-reviewer-looking box? Doesn't it tend to exclude people, rather than bring them together? Isn't the "Did you find this review useful?" tool designed for such a purpose, to present feedback as to how other members feel, rather than a bureaucratic notion of an ultimately correct way to review things, in spite of members' own votes of opinion on reviews? The rating and displaying system of reviews is totally corrupt on MAL, that's been known for a long time now. I, alongside with many other, have begged and requested many changes. In the end, none took action, since I guess they wouldn't bring any profit and it would just be extra drag for them to in-put. |
| No issues, I like the problem being pointed out. Here are only a few threads out of many that are requesting changes: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=674999 http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=668107 http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=670621 http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=667781 http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=637329 http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=521089 - This one only wanted some simple things to be added, not the system changed, hence why these few ideas were included. |
SubbedOct 22, 2013 8:29 AM
DarkMorpher said: I'm not sure of these "other sites", but considering the state of our review system, I highly doubt that. Please don't speculate without any concrete proof or you'll confuse other users.Crave is planning on monetizing on user written reviews like other sites. Nae_Gevurah said: If you click on "Overall Rating" on reviews, you can see those category ratings. It just isn't visible by default:Also, has anyone else noticed how, oddly, the review interface has the MAL user select numerical scores for different categories, but never actually displays those numbers anywhere, except the Overall score? Who exactly are those scores for? http://puu.sh/5hZyg.png http://puu.sh/5hZzg.png |
DarkMorpher said: Crave is planning on monetizing on user written reviews like other sites. They aren't planning on doing anything, especially anything review-focused. |
DarkMorpher said: What's the policy on duo-posting a review in English and another language? Like in here by Alpharon As long as the full source of the review is written in English, it should be fine, even if the exact same meaning is written in another language next to it as well. Anyway, these are more Rules than Guidelines on how to write reviews. I'm planning on writing some guidelines myself, will see how much users will grab for them. |
| Where are the new review/rec mods? This is getting pathetic, you know... |
| Steel Ball Run anime when? |
Nidhoeggr said: Where are the new review/rec mods? This greatly interest me as well. Also, is it just me or are no reviews that get reported being taken down anymore? I've noticed this to be going on for a month and a half now. And it's especially problematic with users who write dozens of spam/troll reviews. |
 |
| I don't think I've ever seen a review actually get taken down... including the ones ranting about the lack of review mods. Seriously? :/ |
 |
| Question; When clicking "Add to favorites" on a review; where do I find these 'favorites'? Been looking for a while. |
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