| Hello, guys and gals. Before going any further into commenting, I would like to ask you to truly read the thread fully and try to understand it. This way, we can all avoid possible attacks that would be totally off-topic. I've seen it too many times already in this section, and it contributes towards nothing. That said, let's proceed. The reviews rating system has always been quite an unfair setting overall. The "Helpful" and "Not Helpful" options, which a user can pick to rate what he/she thinks of a review, could not be more abused. It ranges from troll down-votes, to huge down-voting raids, which totally destroy one review in the terms of its position on the scale for one series, regardless if the review is good or not. The raids are either achieved by random trolls doing an attack together, or what's more common, by a user that posses various alternative/duplicate accounts, just for the sake of abusing the system. The latter is trying to get dealt with as we speak, with Kineta trying to receive the power to look-into the reviews and see who has voted on them. From there, she could find the alt/dup accs, remove their votes, and delete them. However, that system takes time and it is far from making sure to prevent the cheating 100%. Adding up the fact that all the votes are annonymous, we can get the picture of just how brave the abusers are, them either being trolls or actual cheaters. Now, is there really nothing that can be done to prevent both? At least, to prevent the alt/dup acc voting raids, as well as heavily lower the troll votes? Well, I've came up with a system that is based on private comments that could just do the trick, but do read to the end. Getting right to the idea, how about if when a user would rate a review as either "Helpful" or "Not Helpful", he/she would be asked to fill out a form to state their reasoning on the vote. To be certain, the comment/form would have to include at least a specific amount of words (which we would decide via discussion and find the most appropriate) to be approved and vote counted. Indeed, commenting on reviews has already been suggested before, nothing new, but this is where things get a little bit more interesting. The user would actually have to write a comment with *value*+ words for the vote to get included, otherwise he/she would have to leave the review as it is. I find that as only fair. I mean, voting for reviews holds no power as we speak. Still, if we were to implement this, every vote would actually mean something, and the reviews with higher rating could really be something of a quality-written reviews. Not just some hypered peeps disagreeing with the Overall Score shooting down what they dislike to see in that second, and wooting up the numbers they like, as well as not giving a darn about the actual review. Now, if the one writing the review would find one or more of the users' reasons fishy, he/she could report those comments. Note that disagreeing with the reasoning would not be something to report, but if the comment would include something like: "bangbangbang~", then we can get the general picture. This way, the dup/alt accounts could all be spotted, as one could easily see if the text is copy-pasted as well. In that case, the user could just report all of those same comments. I seriously doubt one would be willing to write 10 different comments with the length of *value*+ words just to deal a smaller raid of 10 down-votes, so we've got the cheating covered. The trolling could be easily spotted as well. If those words in the comment would at least make some sense, we would leave them as they are. We would not expect professional criticism on reviews, so that's that. I haven't finished yet, just in case your fingers are itching. Next to this would also be the matter of who could see these comments. I was thinking that the user that owns the review, Kineta & Xinil, as well as possibly the Rev/Rec Mods could see these comments, no one else. They would be strictly private and not public. Moreover, not everyone would be seeing the same thing. The main difference is that Kineta & Xinil would see the usernames of each user that has written one specific comment, while the user who has written the review wouldn't. The user who has written the review would only see the comments, with the senders still being anonymous. We could also include the option to pick whether you want to be anonymous or not, but the main point is that you would have the choice whether you want to put your name out, or not. I really think this would help big time on a long run of the votes actually holding some quality and power. However, that is just my point of view on the matter. Please, do share yours, I would appreciate it. |
SubbedAug 27, 2014 10:08 AM
| Mods should be able to rate without any restrictions |
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| Why does rating matter so much anyway? It's just a number that's there. It makes no sense as to why put so much effort into something that doesn't make much of a difference. However, if the mods do attempt to fix this, imagine the people to complain about a word limit. The lazy will become the grumpy and whiny, and the elitists will try to push themselves more above others. I don't know about you, but I personally think we should just ignore the ratings as is and follow our own judgments based on what WE thought when we watched it |
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| There was already a similar thread about this in the first page. As much as I may dislike the forced comment in order to vote on a review, having to write 80+ everything I find something Helpful or not is quite a big limit. For example, if someone mostly just wrote a plot summary, I'd need to go in depth about how that isn't a proper review and/or need to quote the guidelines in order to fulfill that word limit. |
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| Amazon has the same restriction, when you want to rate something, you have to write a certain amount of characters. That leads to either no reviews at all or reviews like "Good, since Amazon prohibits short reviews: ________________ _______________________ _______________" Or similar crap. There you got the comment of a review being good and the rest is garbage. How to deal with that? It got one a "helpful", will one report it now? One should, since the person commenting like that circumvented the minimum amount of characters to write. But one probably won't - since "helpful". Another Problem: What if you, the reviewer, edit your review several times over some days or even weeks? Will those (not) helpful be reset? All comments that were made by others would be completely worthless then. If not especially the "not helpful" might be wrong after the change as the reviewer improved points that were criticised. Does he have to report them as "wrong"? He could abuse the system this way now. Not that MAL will ever do anything with the shitload of good and bad suggestions but I am against commenting why something is helpful / not helpful. That crashes this system even more as it is already and I don't see the point anyway. It adds more work for everyone involved for what? One point more helpful or not helpful. Great. Punish the majority cause of the minority that abuses the current system. I'm still for making the helpful/not helpful only visible when you access the review and not the overview on an anime page. Other than that, be it a troll-not-helpful-fest for all I care. When I see an anime that is hyped beyond any reason and one guy that reviews it as that, a hyped but other than that mediocre show at best gets more not helpful in opposite of someone who agrees with the majority, even if his review was great. This alone should show how pointless helpful/not helpful is for most if not all reviews. It might work as an indicator for a rather good or bad review, that's it. Hence I doubt writing a review anonymously would bring any benefits either but that's the only thing I'd say is argueable useable. The suggested work is far too great for far too less to gain. Really. |
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| No one gets punished. Just the votes' potential increases. The way it is now, the votes mean nothing. And if they mean nothing, there are two things that can be done: Either fix the system for it to have a meaning, or remove it completely. The way it stands right now is bad. Corrupted. Unwanted. |
| I understand that you're not happy with the helpful/not helpful system and I acknowledge it's flaws but forcing people to justify their opinion about somone else's opinion seems like a step in the wrong direction. Populist reviews will still reach the front page no matter how you change up the voting system anyway, because popular opinions will always get the positive attention. It's not ideal but not even mandatory 80word explanations per vote would change this. |
Subpyro said: No one gets punished. Sure people get punished. All people who use this system as intended because of the "few" who abuse it. Subpyro said: Just the votes' potential increases. I strongly disagree and say the opposite as I brought up with the Amazon example, they decrease because "no one" wants to give an opinion why you rate it how and you leave it rather alone than write something. Subpyro said: The way it is now, the votes mean nothing. And it wouldn't change with your suggestion. It's still a ratio based on factors like: - what kind of anime is reviewed (hyped, niche) - who reviews it (ie. a known troll, otherwise (dis)liked user) - when is the anime reviewed (ie. half through and review didn't address the major revelation) and so on. Making it an indicator to begin with. Subpyro said: And if they mean nothing, there are two things that can be done: Either fix the system for it to have a meaning, or remove it completely. The way it stands right now is bad. Corrupted. Unwanted. You really shouldn't care that much about this. It is for you unwanted and corrupt, it's okayish for me but far from optimum. Rather remove it than making it overly complex as suggested. Although I don't even agree with the sentiment in that narrow-minded statement for personal reasons (no offense, though). |
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| It's become clear to me that certain people troll my reviews, but I don't find it frustrating. I offer objective reviews. If someone reads it and it helps them, good. I can see where the down voting can be frustrating for people who enjoy blogging or reviewing as a livelihood, and how down voting can not only be trolling but a form of cyber bullying. Anyway, I would prefer if someone who honestly found fault in the review talked to me about it (but that's asking too much from people who want to remain anonymous lurkers, right?) |
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jealousghost said: It's become clear to me that certain people troll my reviews, but I don't find it frustrating. I offer objective reviews. If someone reads it and it helps them, good. I can see where the down voting can be frustrating for people who enjoy blogging or reviewing as a livelihood, and how down voting can not only be trolling but a form of cyber bullying. Anyway, I would prefer if someone who honestly found fault in the review talked to me about it (but that's asking too much from people who want to remain anonymous lurkers, right?) I didn't imagine someone bumping my thread after approximately 3 months and a half. Regardless, yes, troll voting could be seen as a way of cyber bullying, due to the rating having quite a psychological effect on the ones that submitted the review, especially newer reviewers at MAL. Even though they give their best, they get shot down. What kind of an impression does that give about the community here? Not bright, if you'd ask me. From your last statement, I can assume you (partly) agree with the thread's main idea? nantuko, I never got to reply to your message. I hope you're still reading this, because I would like to discuss those points you've named in your last post in this thread. You've told me "do shouldn't bother about it". Done. I do not bother about it, but that is not the point - I'm not suggesting this for my own benefits only. People really get hurt when they try their best and get trolled. You may say that they shouldn't bother, but it's a psychological effect that you cannot deflect from their heads and unless something is done, it will remain as it is. When saying vote's potential, I meant how much power one vote would hold. The sorting system would be the same, I never argued that which appears you thought I did, but the votes themselves indeed would lose in quantity. Still, I believe those few would hold a meaning. Sure, I cannot force constructive criticism out of the community, since most aren't intelligent enough to handle it. Yet, trolls could be blocked. And that is the main thing that hurts, not being ran over by fanboys/fangirls. Even if you are ran over, you still get a reason why you were ran over, whether it's a solid reason or not. And I still do not agree that this would include too much work. Code-wise, that is. A comment pop-up would be rather easy to input. I cannot foresee how things could go moderation-wise, though. It might indeed end up in a terrible mountain of work. Same with you, Perisher. Just read the title, and you'll see where you have misunderstood me. This idea does not try to perfect the system and clear it of any sort of overly subjective votes. It tries to clear it from the extremes - trolls and alt/dup accounts. |
SubbedJul 9, 2014 10:36 AM
| I think if you only wrote your review to get other people to look at it and like you then you wrote your review for the wrong reason. |
SolviteSekai said: I think if you only wrote your review to get other people to look at it and like you then you wrote your review for the wrong reason. That's not the point. When I access some series in the database, I want the first two reviews on the list to truly be the best to read. I'm suggesting this from both point of views, the reader's and the creator's. You've only looked at the creator's side. |
Subpyro said: SolviteSekai said: I think if you only wrote your review to get other people to look at it and like you then you wrote your review for the wrong reason. That's not the point. When I access some series in the database, I want the first two reviews on the list to truly be the best to read. I'm suggesting this from both point of views, the reader's and the creator's. You've only looked at the creator's side. It really isnt feasible to regulate who can and cant up/downvote reviews. Having just the mods do it isn't a realistic option either because their ability to become mods doesn't equate to objective taste. Short of implementing crazy requirements for making an account, theres nothing they can do. |
| Your latest post doesn't have any sort of connection to my previous one whatsoever. You skipped from one topic to another, and I'm supposed to follow even though you have quoted a third-part post? At any rate, I'll have to re-read the thread again, since I've already partly forgotten what I've written anyway. I might edit some parts if they don't sound reasonable. Oh, and I hope you realize that it wasn't me who has bumped the thread, so please don't assume this is something fresh from my mind and my way of thinking in this right moment. But to try to keep on-topic with your latest post, there are no restrictions to who can vote. Everyone can vote. I don't know where you got an idea of restriction from. As long as some sort of back-up comment is submitted, every member of MyAnimeList.net can share his/her vote on a review. |
SubbedJul 9, 2014 10:34 AM
Subpyro said: At any rate, I'll have to re-read the thread again, since I've already partly forgotten what I've written anyway. How fun |
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| How did I end up here? I was lurking between Airing series threads lol ...anyway: Actual "reviewing" in MAL is dead since 2010. Now this is only useful as a place to store your texts online as a backup. As you said yourself (lol pleonasm), 2010 was when the downvoting raids started ...and somehow from the past 4 years this site is continually luring 10yo kids with a attention spam of less than 5 minutes. Nobody cares for reading your stuff anymore. Therefore, from the tons of problems and issues needing a fix this site has, reviews are on the bottom of the list. Just not to be completely one-sided, we did have "some" suggestions from Niyawa-kun's thread applied last year: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=521089&show=0 If you lurk a bit in the thread, you'll notice yours is one of them. Making kids write in order to vote won't work. Basically because it would reduce the average "voters" (which is... what? Five?) to near-zero. Which means: we would end up with first-pages full of 2/2 helpful reviews. One vote from the writer and another from his buddy. It's already happening with Clannad, take a look at the first page: http://myanimelist.net/anime/2167/Clannad/reviews Now open the reviews from 2014. It's all 1-paragraph'ed vague stuff. I seriously doubt mods still reads this threads anyway. This thread is like, 4 months old and... nothing. -Say hello if you're there mod-kun! And if they actually did read, I'd promptly ask the following: Do you guys still care for the "review section"? 'cause if not, just shut it down, please. If anyone needs more reasons to why, I have a .txt full of it. @Edit: Oh, Subpyro-kun, just noticed you're the OP. Not sure if I told you this or someone else but I (and lots of others here)'ve being writing stuff for Amazon and AniList for a while, and you should do the same. Use MAL just as a backup. Things are just going downhill here. |
xbobxJul 9, 2014 3:39 PM
| I pmed kineta about this on IRC and she said there isnt much they can do unless someone comes up with a non code based solution. The mods read these threads, the just cant respond to every suggestion every time. |
SolviteSekai said: unless someone comes up with a non code based solution. Quoting my own stuff because I'm too lazy to write again: Kineta (just like every mod I ever talked to regarding reviews) is pretty dense when it comes to it. in case she ever reads this - no, I'm not being offensive, sorry if sounds like that - Asking for a "non code" solution is the same of saying "let's all be polite, helpful and organized over the internet!" I know the reason is probably "Crave won't let us" or "Crave won't implement it", however, if you guys could at least show the script DONE and say "we're just waiting for crave" it would be a hell of an advance. There's a reason why communities have mods and mods hand out bans: you can't thrust ppl's common sense. The only two possibles solutions that doesn't involve coding, IMHO are: -Telling everybody to read the guidelines. (already done, is useless) -Kill (ban?) everyone who doesn't follow it. (...) Just shutdown the whole thing and bring it back when it's improved. I doubt the masses of the community reads it anyway. Taking it down is still better than the shameful 1-paragraph biased "culture" we are supporting here. |
| I was going to type a lengthy reply, but I thought I'd throw this out there first: Mods don't code for MAL. This includes me. I asked Xinil to implement changes for me in January. Unfortunately those changes still aren't made, and for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss, I really have no ETA on when they may be. If I could do anything at all to get the changes I discussed in my post pushed faster, I would. (And note: Xinil would, too.) Even still, the staff and many other users on the site still contribute to MAL because they care for it and want to make it better in the ways that they are able. So, I am open to discussing suggestions you may have for non-code based solutions to your grievances. We can also discuss your grievances in general in case others may form suggestions from the discussion, if you could list them again while keeping in mind that mods - and me - don't code (anything aside from userscripts). |
| Thank you very much Kineta, I really appreciate your hard work. Can you make few worthy reviews as an example for everyone? |
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Serhiyko said: Thank you very much Kineta, I really appreciate your hard work. Can you make few worthy reviews as an example for everyone? As kineta's manager I can't allow her to respond to personal requests. You'll have to submit your request to me in writing, in triplicate. |
Serhiyko said: Thank you for your kind words.Thank you very much Kineta, I really appreciate your hard work. Can you make few worthy reviews as an example for everyone? This is getting off-topic so I don't want to really get into a discussion about it, but it's something I've been asked before. I don't write reviews/recs mostly because my MAL time is usually a constant juggle of priorities for me and I only have so much time. I've thought recently about possibly penning a few reviews for unloved manga entries to contribute to the comprehensiveness of the database/site. But when I think of all the things that only I can do vs things that others can do (like writing reviews), I usually end up deciding it's better if I don't. |
Kineta said: Serhiyko said: Thank you for your kind words.Thank you very much Kineta, I really appreciate your hard work. Can you make few worthy reviews as an example for everyone? This is getting off-topic so I don't want to really get into a discussion about it, but it's something I've been asked before. I don't write reviews/recs mostly because my MAL time is usually a constant juggle of priorities for me and I only have so much time. I've thought recently about possibly penning a few reviews for unloved manga entries to contribute to the comprehensiveness of the database/site. But when I think of all the things that only I can do vs things that others can do (like writing reviews), I usually end up deciding it's better if I don't. Like my my heart go doki doki. |
Kineta said: But when I think of all the things that only I can do vs things that others can do (like writing reviews), I usually end up deciding it's better if I don't. You won't be able to do every thing anyway. But those reviews we are yet to see, only you can write them, and unless you write them, we shall never see them |
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Kineta said: Even still, the staff and many other users on the site still contribute to MAL because they care for it and want to make it better in the ways that they are able. So, I am open to discussing suggestions you may have for non-code based solutions to your grievances. We can also discuss your grievances in general in case others may form suggestions from the discussion, if you could list them again while keeping in mind that mods - and me - don't code (anything aside from userscripts). Well, we can always bring up again those old necro threads... I, as a single individual, don't see a lot of ways we can improve it without coding magic but perhaps new ideas can surface - if people still wander around suggestions board. I'll take a time to recycle those old suggestions, hopefully subpyro-kun will check this out as well. Thx for the reply. |
| Hey, xbobx. You have solid points over there. I did skim through Niyawa-kun's thread shared months ago. His idea and mine differ, mainly at the point that mine doesn't include rating from comments, but comments only being there to assure and deflect possible troll and alt/dup acc votes. Due to that not preventing fanboys/fangirls and other less mature audience from voting and sending in an unreasonable comment, I still do not think only 2 votes would be shared if someone were to actually read the review. Here comes the issue that you've pointed out: people don't even read reviews anymore. The number would probably even decrease a little if this would take action, but that is only as far as we look at people smelling the reviews, not reading them. What do I mean by that? Currently, people only look at the review's length and score given for some series, and share a vote by that. What does that contribute to? Most people don't even read it. If this idea were to take action, I believe the audience surrounding reviews would lower even more, but those who would stay would truly do what expected, read the reviews. Everything else is useless. Partly examining and sharing your opinion on something you didn't even understand fully is not the right way. And that is what's currently happening. I cannot say that people would suddenly start reading reviews fully if comments were to come around, but it would still prevent the trolls and alt/dup accs, which are the extremes of the rating system abuse. I've examined my idea over and over again, and I do agree that it could be better. Still, it's rather hard to think that with only one change, we would make people write more than just 1 paragraph, prevent trolls from voting, make the rating system more accurate, as well as while keeping all those in mind, having more than just 2 votes be cast. Because I do agree, if I imagine all this taking action, there would be a high chance for the number of voters to fall to 2-3, which is sad. In any situation, as long as this rating system exists, it seems a work-around for it to serve its purpose without major draw-backs is near impossible, especially if we must limit ourselves to something that keeps the code as it is now. Thank you for posting, I strongly agree with everything you've said. Unfortunately, that doesn't bring any bright news to the idea overall. Yeah, BasedGodzilla. And what's more, if you are rating the series with some sort of criticism on your mind, you'll most likely get shot down by the fan community. However, that is not the worst path it can get to. Therefore, I wouldn't like to discuss that in this thread, as it is not directly connected to the topic. I'm witting replies chronologically, so back to you, xbobx. I'd like to touch this part a little: xbobx said: The only two possibles solutions that doesn't involve coding, IMHO are: -Telling everybody to read the guidelines. (already done, is useless) -Kill (ban?) everyone who doesn't follow it. (...) This doesn't connect directly to this topic, but I've suggested something like that in a matter of one different suggestion already: separate bans. In that thread, I've requested an existance of different bans over the site. From site bans, forum bans, all the way to restrictions from writing reviews, both temporary and permanent. If someone would fail to follow the Review Guidelines, the "review ban" could be issued. But in the end, that sort of thing currently doesn't exist. It would require coding to input, which seems impossible. Still, let me tell you something guys and gals right now, with the community this big and active, the site has to upgrade contact/code-wise as well, there is no way around. As much as the moderators might be ready to perform their duties, it's meaningless if the administrators cannot form out the correct source. Greetings, Kineta. I'm in agreement with xbobx when it comes to the matter of some actual effect - we require the change in code. Please, do read this post fully, or simply the underlined parts. It's most excellent to hear that the moderation team is giving their best, which is nothing new, but it just cannot do the trick if you don't have the right plate to work on and moderate. I could use countless references right now, but I'm pretty sure you see the picture. It's most wonderful to have you request the changes to be made code-wise as well, but as long as they do not happen, we've got nothing. Until then, even your reply and word means nothing when we come to this specific topic. We'll simply have to keep this topic in cold for as much as needed, until someone decided to bring it down to the wire. With the change in code, we could think this issue out and find a normal solution. On the other hand, if we have to only rely on the moderation, we literally have to work magic. Here goes... mahou shoujo and mahou shounen, unite~! |
SubbedJul 10, 2014 2:40 AM
| I found Subpyro's suggestion to be very insightful, not only would comments in response to reviews drastically improve their quality on MAL, but it would also allow for constructive criticism to take place for the creator of the review, which in my opinion is lacking on this site. As a person who has written reviews & read some very underrated ones, there seems to be a detachment in what kind of response you will get (in that there is little to no feedback). Unless a person reading your review has an epiphany and comments directly on your user profile page, which usually results in positive remarks made. Subpyro is pointing to the right path. Not only would the quality of reviews on MAL and in general the community see a benefit from a word count. Such a suggestion would allow the true gems amongst reviews to rise to the top. It would stunt the wave of anonymous trolls that crash over this site with an unserious attitude. Sorry if I'm just "necroing" a thread that was wrote a while ago, I just wanted to make it clear to Subpyro I agree whole heartedly. Perhaps the methods used to evaluate reviews may change in the future; if so I hope your idea gets serious consideration. |
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Gantsz said: Such a suggestion would allow the true gems amongst reviews to rise to the top. It would stunt the wave of anonymous trolls that crash over this site with an unserious attitude. And no more misclicks |
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shadowtsunami said: I've always agreed and welcomed this suggestion. However, just like in Niyawa's previous thread here http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=521089&show=0 our group ran into the same exact problem, which is a non-code based solution. I also agree with xbobx that there's no way this can be done without changing the code. Indeed. That's pretty much what my entire post tries to point out. Although I would want to clear up that Niyawa's suggestion and this one differ slightly, so it would be good not to equal them, but rather compare them if anything. |
| It would be really helpful if Subpyro's suggestion gets implemented, but the vibe I'm getting from reading this thread is that it's going nowhere because it will require coding. That is sad. BTW, I think Subpyro's 80 word limit will hurt the review section by drastically reducing number of voters. A much lower word limit should suffice. After all, the goal is to kill trolls and capricious votes, and not to force regular voters to analyze reviews. |
| Well, yeah, I believe I've said that 80 words is only an example set. Naturally we could change it to whatever we would find most appropriate, that's the least of an issue. The main question is whether this suggestion would ever be considered code-wise, which is something you've pointed out as well. |
| LMAO http://myanimelist.net/anime/25777/Shingeki_no_Kyojin_2nd_Season/reviews This is what reviewing has turned into. It appears this individual just created an account to troll Attack on Titan. |
| Wouldn't stopping the trolls from making accounts go a long way. I haven't seen the tactic used recently, but back years ago some sites had IP restrictions. If an IP is not allowed to have 5+ accounts then it would prevent the entry level trolls from making 50 accounts to upvote, downvote and give all their loved/ hate animes skewed scores. It wouldn't stop serious trolls, but Im sure there are less of them and more of the people who just abuse the system because its easy. I also think making restriction on new accounts would be beneficial. Giving new accounts a temp status to stop them from writing reviews/recommendation, or upvoting reviews for a week seems reasonable and doesn't sound like it would have a negative consequences on new users. My last thought, maybe less doable, but shouldn't it be possible to purge the site of alt accounts. Its sometimes pretty obvious when an account is a troll account. They typically only have activity on the day of activation. Yet there is nowhere, at least that I can tell, to report accounts that are clearly abusing the mal system and braking guidelines. anime_papa said: LMAO http://myanimelist.net/anime/25777/Shingeki_no_Kyojin_2nd_Season/reviews This is what reviewing has turned into. It appears this individual just created an account to troll Attack on Titan. That is a prime example of an alt account made by a troll. |
TyrelAug 25, 2014 11:29 PM
evilchris said: Wouldn't stopping the trolls from making accounts go a long way. I haven't seen the tactic used recently, but back years ago some sites had IP restrictions. If an IP is not allowed to have 5+ accounts then it would prevent the entry level trolls from making 50 accounts to upvote, downvote and give all their loved/ hate animes skewed scores. It wouldn't stop serious trolls, but Im sure there are less of them and more of the people who just abuse the system because its easy. I also think making restriction on new accounts would be beneficial. Giving new accounts a temp status to stop them from writing reviews/recommendation, or upvoting reviews for a week seems reasonable and doesn't sound like it would have a negative consequences on new users. My last thought, maybe less doable, but shouldn't it be possible to purge the site of alt accounts. Its sometimes pretty obvious when an account is a troll account. They typically only have activity on the day of activation. Yet there is nowhere, at least that I can tell, to report accounts that are clearly abusing the mal system and braking guidelines. You have made troll and alt/dup accounts equal in your statement. That's not always the case. Some people can troll with just a single account, not breaking any rules, but forming groups that end up in waves. On the other hand, downvoting raids by a single person with multiple accounts could be seen as trolling, but it's more than that. They directly violate the rule of having one account per user, excluding the cases of having an extra hentai list account and a few more rare examples. Regarding the IP restriction, it has already been brought up before, naturally. I do not exactly know what the response was, but the idea ended up in being denied. I believe the reason was because some Universities have multiple users access MAL from different accounts but via the same router. Having IP restrictions set to one only would discriminate the said users in the ability of casting a vote, registering in the first place, and more. Also, if we were to go with the idea of allowing five accounts per IP address, I would see no profit from that. It would indeed lower the number of alt/dup accounts used down to 5 (assuming the user doesn't use Proxy for whatever reason) but that's not our point. We want to nullify the abuse if we are going into this. That means that Proxy work-around is not an option, only one vote must be cast by one user, and trolls that downvote without many times even reading a single paragraph must be blocked. To put those three desired factors into action, I'm still thinking every day how it could be done and enforced with moderation access only. Unfortunately, I always find the answer in the code and its change. I'll keep on thinking about this, but ideas like this are very appreciated in the mean time. Just try coming up with something that rounds the three highlighted parts up. |
| Often times, if I'm going through a specific anime's reviews, and I don't agree with the score they gave it, I will click on the score to see what they rated each section, and if I still don't agree with it, then I'll vote "not helpful", since I got a general gist of what they thought (even if I didn't read their review). I enjoy this kind of speedy rating, and having to write 80+ words would just bog things down. Also, wouldn't this just tend to start up semantic arguments over people's opinions? If I disagree with their opinion, I disagree with it, simple as that. It doesn't mean they're wrong. Having to explain my rationale about why I disagree with somebody's subjective opinion is kind of a pointless argument, and delves into the world of teenage bullshit. Thus, forcing users to write 80+ words of teenage bullshit, describing why they think somebody's opinion is wrong, is just... stupid and pointless... and it reminds me of high school. I do agree that there's probably a whole bunch of un-just votes from duplicate accounts on this kind of stuff, but I don't see any kind of reasonable solution to that matter, aside from getting rid of the duplicate accounts entirely (and that's a bit difficult to weed out, by itself). |
::End of Transmission:: What have I been watching? Click here and find out on my viewing blog, "Vigorous Viewing" |
| The review of any kind is meant to be as objective as possible. Before proceeding into the discussion, I highly encourage you to read the Review & Recommendation Guidelines. This is only my personal point of view, but I find it sad that you're confident that you know what the one reviewing wanted to say based solely from the score they've given. It's also visible that you have totally misunderstood the purpose of reviews and voting. You don't vote how you agree or disagree with the score someone gives to some series. You vote the reasoning they have shared for it. In other words, you cannot do that without actually reading the review. Imho, if you do not plan to read the review as a whole, you have no right to vote on it. Still, it is your call if you want to vote or not. Therefore, if you simply disagree with the score, feel free to select the option you feel appropriate. The 80 words approx comment you would have to fill in would not stand for the purpose of you explaining why you disagree with the reviewer, but for the sake of you proving that you are not using an alternative/duplicate account, or are a troll that downvotes everything on his/her path. As said, fanboy/fangirl votes are still legit votes, which are basically the ones you've named. Since that is the case, it's visible that you haven't gotten the thread's point across correctly. |
Subpyro said: The 80 words approx comment you would have to fill in would not stand for the purpose of you explaining why you disagree with the reviewer, but for the sake of you proving that you are not using an alternative/duplicate account, or are a troll that downvotes everything on his/her path. You would get the same effect without the word limit, though. Requiring 80 words minimum is, to be honest, just silly. I can't think of a single time when I've voted either 'helpful' or 'not helpful' when I would have actually been able to write 80 words to explain my vote whilst still using succinct language. An 80 word limit is basically asking you to review the review (and indeed a lot of reviews are not 80 words in length), and would just result in people waffling, or perhaps copy/pasting responses. A lot of the time, a perfectly valid reason for downrating a review can be expressed clearly and concisely in just two or three words - for example 'insufficient information/detail' or 'hard to read' or 'bad English' - or even one, as with 'troll'. Often, the fewer words you use to put across your point, the better. I deliberately never use more than 7 words when reporting posts on the forums, as I feel writing more than that is a waste of the moderator's time. And I've never felt a need to use more than that. Why should I have to write 80 words to describe why I'm voting 'helpful' or 'unhelpful' on a review, when the optimum number of words to express it is usually between 2 and 5? It may seem like I'm just focusing on the one detail, but that's because I would borderline support this idea if it weren't for that one part. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
kuuderes_shadow said: It may seem like I'm just focusing on the one detail, but that's because I would borderline support this idea if it weren't for that one part. Then you better read my responses fully next time. ;) Subpyro said: Well, yeah, I believe I've said that 80 words is only an example set. Naturally we could change it to whatever we would find most appropriate, that's the least of an issue. The main question is whether this suggestion would ever be considered code-wise, which is something you've pointed out as well. Adding up to the "Naturally we could change it to whatever we would find most appropriate", the "most appropriate" count could even be 5 words if we were to come to that conclusion. If even a single thing is bothering you about the suggestion, feel free to point it out. But fortunately, what doesn't appear to work for you is a minority. |
| I did read them, albeit only by skim-reading - so I may have got the wrong impression. I still think you should change the post. Even with it only being an example, it still gives the impression that 80 words is somewhere in the right sort of range for minimum length, whereas it is actually completely inappropriate (to be honest, I think 5 words is still too high, although it might be just about bearable). Incidentally, this post contains 80 words. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
| I have updated the first/opening post on the matter. Truth be told, it's been a long time since the thread's creation, so I might completely update the opening post as a whole, now that I see a few mistakes in it and points shared not being precise enough. |
| I even suspect the "helpful" and "not helpful" has spontaneous bug. A while back, I remember that a review I rated went from 15/41 to 16/42, which is normal and will usually return to the initial rating after refreshing the page; but about three hours later, it was then showing 15/42. I know it takes some time for the value to permanently update, but after three hours it should definitely have updated. I searched the forum and found a thread that implied this problem was not uncommon back in 2011/2012. |
| Hello, anime_papa. I highly recommend you to click the link in my forums signature and check the club out (Subpyro's Review Suggestions). In specific, check the Handy Review Tips, Hints & FAQ sticky thread. The matter of how and why is explained there. Look at the question no.5 for the matter at hand, "How can I see the correct current rating my review has?" The main point lies in a vote being stuck. After you've voted on the review, that previous vote got pushed through but your vote is the one stuck now. |
SubbedAug 27, 2014 10:36 PM
Subpyro said: Hello, anime_papa. I highly recommend you to click the link in my forums signature and check the club out (Subpyro's Review Suggestions). In specific, check the Handy Review Tips, Hints & FAQ sticky thread. The matter of how and why is explained there. Look at the question no.5 for the matter at hand, "How can I see the correct current rating my review has?" The main point lies in a vote being stuck. After you've voted on the review, that previous vote got pushed through but your vote is the one stuck now. Thanks for directing me to your FAQ page. I kind of noticed that "my reviews" page updates the fastest by observing the votings on my only two reviews, but I haven't seen any vote that took longer than an hour to update on every other place where it's visible on MAL. Besides, since the review I was talking about was not mine, I can't know how things changed on their "my review" page. I don't currently remember the particular review that this happened, but I remember checking back on it some hours after voting and it was still 'bugged'. The only explanation would be that my vote was stuck there for hours (which I have not witnessed with my own reviews) or it got counted wrongly. |
anime_papa said: The only explanation would be that my vote was stuck there for hours (which I have not witnessed with my own reviews) or it got counted wrongly. Votes get stuck for days if they are not pushed forward by another vote. Also, you can never really know that hasn't happened to you. Even now, a vote can be stuck that has been cast on one of your reviews, yet the result isn't displaying. But it's not big of a deal, they all appear at one point. One thing's for certain, the count doesn't count incorrectly. There were quite a few topics open on that matter, but it was always proven to be the matter of votes being stuck and pushed onward. I've done hours of examinations on that matter (have to brag). shadowtsunami said: Yeah, I'm just saying it sucks that we have to think of a non-code based solution. I'm still doing that, daily. As silly as it may sound, it has yet to deliver any fruit. Therefore, yeah, "it sucks" might be a good way of putting it. |
Subpyro said: Votes get stuck for days if they are not pushed forward by another vote. Also, you can never really know that hasn't happened to you. Even now, a vote can be stuck that has been cast on one of your reviews, yet the result isn't displaying. But it's not big of a deal, they all appear at one point. One thing's for certain, the count doesn't count incorrectly. There were quite a few topics open on that matter, but it was always proven to be the matter of votes being stuck and pushed onward. I've done hours of examinations on that matter (have to brag). Oh, now I understand what you mean. I thought "getting stuck" meant appearing on "my reviews" page without updating everywhere else on MAL. |
anime_papa said: Oh, now I understand what you mean. I thought "getting stuck" meant appearing on "my reviews" page without updating everywhere else on MAL. It would be great if you could read the thread in my club, it's explained down to detail about how things are and run there. |
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