| A new feature has been added to MAL's reviews and recommendations sections. You can now 'favorite' reviewers and recommendations. For instance, say you liked a review I wrote recently. Simply click "Add to favorites." Now, when you visit your own profile, click 'favorites' in the top tab (these are new) and click 'Reviews.' You'll now see the last review I wrote. If you add more than 1 person, you'll see the last review for each person you add. A maximum of 20 favorites (for each) can be added. Also, as mentioned, all profiles now have "tabs" up top. These house the user's Reviews and Recommendations (these two sections have been removed from the bottom left side panel). Furthermore, the reviews display has been completely redesigned to offer better readability. BBCode is no longer allowed (no more silly bold/centering/italics). Please post any bugs or questions you might have. Update: There may be a slight bug when editing reviews. It's possible it could cut off some of your review. Please take caution and save your review in notepad/word before editing it. If it does truncate your review, please provide any information on why or at what part it did. |
XinilFeb 18, 2009 11:21 PM
| Interesting. I don't read reviews or recommendations, but it's nice to see the layout change. Will certainly be handy for some people. |
| I was just noticing the reviews were different... it's an interesting change. I kind of miss the detailed scoring for the reviews though. |
770312Feb 18, 2009 10:39 PM
| left-aligned tabs = excellent. thank you! |
| nifty feature. thanks Xinil! |
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| spiffy :3 |
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| BBCode taken off of reviews makes it harder to read imo. (Well, for tier-based reviews at least) Edit: Well, as I was editing one of my reviews to make it more readable with the new format, I guess it got eaten up by the system. Is there a size limit or something now? |
LemonLymeFeb 18, 2009 10:57 PM
meonlyme775 said: BBCode taken off of reviews makes it harder to read imo. (Well, for tier-based reviews at least) Thank Haruhi-sama that i love WOTs. I can't say the same for the others.. |
| Should at least put the scoring for each category again....its nice to see what people rate for animation, sound, story, ect. Some people will watch an anime just for the story or just for the animation. But that's my 2 cents. |
spineslayer said: Should at least put the scoring for each category again....its nice to see what people rate for animation, sound, story, ect. Some people will watch an anime just for the story or just for the animation. But that's my 2 cents. Yeah, I miss this feature, too. :( |
| Just noticed the changes. Have to say I like the new look so far. |
| Shameless Blog Plugging: animetics.net |
| I don't like the new changes. There's no longer an obvious way to see of all users reviews on their profile page, and when clicking the less obvious blue "Review" link at the top it shows reviews in the order they were posted and not highest rated first. I also noticed that pound signs no longer appear for some strange reason. And as for the new look of reviews, they're far more messy and the lack of ratings for all aspects lowers the quality. They were fine how they were before, so why change? The eBay mentality is present here. I hope as well as making a mess of the review system that the admin also fixed the issue that stops people being able to view newly posted anime and manga reviews separately. Edit: Oh, and reviews appearing at their full length means long reviews will be voted against just because some people hate lengthy reviews. |
| Looks nice. |
| I just noticed these changes as well, and I don't like them at all. :-| Except for the "favorites recs/reviews" thing, that's nice, even if quite useless. forlacik said: I don't like this new look of my (and everybody's else) profile. My feelings exactly. I also preferred how the reviews and recs were on the left, under the favorites. It looked better. For me they don't look good at all on the top of the profile, above the user's details. Also... Plate said: spineslayer said: Should at least put the scoring for each category again....its nice to see what people rate for animation, sound, story, ect. Some people will watch an anime just for the story or just for the animation. But that's my 2 cents. Yeah, I miss this feature, too. :( Same here. The "overall vote" is non-sense! Where are the "animation, story, characters, enjoyment"? Lots of people already write bad reviews, but this new thing surely doesn't help at all. People will probably simply give a semi-random vote to the anime/manga being biased only on their liking or disliking, not considering the other aspects above mentioned. Seriously, first the "top friends" thing, now this... D: Aionic said: And as for the new look of reviews, they're far more messy and the lack of ratings for all aspects lowers the quality. They were fine how they were before, so why change? I agree completely. |
RenaPsychoKillerFeb 19, 2009 12:01 AM
 hugging six rabbits and having pink nightmares |
| Nice new look =D |
| Hmm, I kinda liked it the way it was before when it showed a thumbnail of the last anime I reviewed/recommended underneath my favorites. Now people are less likely to take notice. :( |
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| I like the tabs... I think you could do some pretty cool shit with those. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| Ught sorry but it's terrible now. No partial scores in reviews makes them more useless. It was really good to be able to figure out after short glimpse what ppl think about "technical" side of anime/manga. BBC removal was probably 'coz of unclosed tags problem? Now readability is much worse. Just wall of text, you can't bold themes of review, you can't underline what's important. Again, it makes reviews more useless. As for profile layout. I think it was much better previously. First - recommendation and reviews on the left side with icons looks better and allow you to see what user reviewed/recommended lately. Second - those new tabs just make profile "longer" and force users to scroll down more. And finally this favorite feature. The only pretty good idea in those changes. Might be useful for some people but button for it stands out to much. It was better to add helpful/not helpful option for recommendations ;] Please, oh please Xinili revert those changes except favorite reviewer/recommender. |
Ii tenki desu ne... |
| i think it's pretty cool! thanks! |
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| My thoughts: 1] I liked having recent reviews and recommendations on the lower left hand side of people's profiles. Now, a visitor has to click on a link to see someone's reviews, and we all know in the 21st century of internet, that is way too much effort. If the profile page could let people know the most recent review, that would be swell in my opinion. But, having said that, its no biggie, just a thought. 2] I like having no scores for 'animation' or whatever. A lot of people simply downrate a review just by a quick glance at the scores given. At least this way they have to actually READ the review before rating it. 3] On anime/manga pages, having a small thumbnail next to the review (on the right )is a bit pointless and wastes space. |
BeatnikFeb 19, 2009 1:05 AM
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
| I actually dont mind the tabbed view and everything but i agree with this guy as to the individual scores: teriyaki said: WHY remove the "story/animation/etc." individual scores?!? This is madness! The overall score is now too dependent on people's whimsical decisions. The scores in my animelist are not fair, they're just down to my personal reaction. In terms of how good (ooh look, the italics we can't use in reviews any more) an anime is, it's much better and fairer to have the score And this I beleive is certainly true: Cihan said: 3] On anime/manga pages, having a small thumbnail next to the review (on the right )is a bit pointless and wastes space. Its just the main picture thats used for the anime and then links to the Pictures section of the anime. Its not needed. The individual scores might be better placed here |
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teriyaki said: Aye. These changes seem crazy and unnecessary. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! :( Removing the category specific scores makes it harder for me to determine just how the anime/manga excels in certain aspects because numbers are easier to compare than adjectives if you're browsing through a person's list of reviews. Also, I've never really had issues with people using BBcode. In fact, it often makes reading easier (not the other way around) since you can easily tell which points are being emphasized. If people will abuse it, their reviews would probably be pushed down and out of sight with "not helpful" votes anyway. |
YuunagiFeb 19, 2009 2:12 AM
| ....WHAT?! Seriously? I'm so incredibly disappointed with this update. 1) It's already been mentioned, butt WHY was the score breakdown removed?! Having one score doesn't tell much at all when there are so many factors to consider! It didn't take up much space and I don't see how this new system is better. 2) And why was the BBCode functionality removed?! Formatted reviews are so much easier to read because they're often better organized and clearer. Now everyone is just one straight block of text. Great. Wonderful. Way to take away any interest in reading the longer reviews. As a frequent reviewer, the removal of these two items is almost enough to make me abandon MAL as a review platform altogether. Call me fickle, but I thought those two things were what made MAL better than a score of other sites. |
| Also, I've always disliked that the only way to reach the individual page for each review is by clicking the links to your two most recent reviews because that's the ONLY place they're linked after they're bumped off the two most recent reviews sitewide. But now there's no way to access them at all! And when you do put in the URL for it because you just happened to know what it is, there's still a button for "read more"? If you're already on the page of the review, it should be pretty obvious you want to read the whole damn thing! |
| Xinil, you screwed up! Just what exactly made you think that it's a good idea to remove BBCode? And giver back score breakdown too! And while your at it, you can keep enjoyment. there is no need for that nex to an overall score. |
Plate said: spineslayer said: Should at least put the scoring for each category again....its nice to see what people rate for animation, sound, story, ect. Some people will watch an anime just for the story or just for the animation. But that's my 2 cents. Yeah, I miss this feature, too. :( Same here... I don't mind the lack of BBCode (even though it makes my Full Metal Panic novel review less readable) but I want the individual scoring back. |
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Cihan said: 2] I like having no scores for 'animation' or whatever. A lot of people simply downrate a review just by a quick glance at the scores given. At least this way they have to actually READ the review before rating it. Read my thoughts exactly. Rating those are very subjective, people have different ways to judge things, and words describe them better than numbers. |
| Yes 'coz review itself isn't subjective at all... |
Ii tenki desu ne... |
| It still is easier to understand how they actually felt about an anime or manga than just glancing 5 or 6 numbers. |
Cihan said: 2] I like having no scores for 'animation' or whatever. A lot of people simply downrate a review just by a quick glance at the scores given. At least this way they have to actually READ the review before rating it. I don't think that removing the scores for subcategories would really fix that problem. If they're not critical enough to be objective and fair when going through the scores given by the reviewer, would making them read the entire review change that? Most of them would probably be the die-hard fanboys/girls or haters anyway. Retsu-kun said: It still is easier to understand how they actually felt about an anime or manga than just glancing 5 or 6 numbers. There are times when numbers are useful too. I often go through reviews of certain members when looking for shows to watch or manga to read, and the scores make it easier for me to find what may be good without spoiling myself by going through the text. If the intention of the writer is to indeed be "helpful" rather than to accumulate positive votes from other members, I believe that the full scoring system would enable them to be more helpful. |
YuunagiFeb 19, 2009 2:40 AM
| I agree with Yuunagi -- the kind of people that will pass quick judgments based on numbers aren't the sort that would really bother with reading reviews, especially if they're longer and in-depth. I make a point not to write spoilers in my reviews, but I understand that some people just assume that enough reviews have them that they'd rather not risk it. As such, it's nice to have something less long-winded to look at when looking at reviews. |
| I, for one, do like the tab system. Although I didn't have any problems with reviews/recs being under favourites, this looks nice to me. I certainly don't like the changes in the reviews. Removing the individual scores for animation/sound/whatever seems like stupid to me. I mean, did you really have to remove that? I'd like to know the weak points of the anime I'm watching. Just because the overall rating is 9 doesn't mean that it's "sound" part is 9. Edit: On a side note, you can just place the individual scores inside your review. Yeah, that'd work. And about the BBCode, I don't see a reason to remove them. I have yet to see reviews containing unreasonable amount of BBCode, and if they rarely do, they can easily be reported. Bold and italics are always useful in writing. |
| This does not affect me in the least, since I don't make reviews or recommendations, and I also don't look at any. I'll have to go with the majority view though, that this new stuff sucks big time. |
 My Anime List | My Video Game Collection Discord ID: KidRyan89 | Telegram ID: KidRyan |
Yuunagi said: I often go through reviews of certain members when looking for shows to watch or manga to read, and the scores make it easier for me to find what may be good without spoiling myself by going through the text. Reviews still have an overall rating, so you can still know who liked what they reviewed. |
| I'm genuinely surprised at the flak over scores, especially from reviewers. Look at most conventional review mediums like magazines and whatnot and they get by with a simple score out of 5. As mentioned earlier in this thread, words carry more weight than a bunch of numbers. I hate numbers, and so should any reviewer worth their salt, we're wordy people not mathematicians! I'm getting used to the revamp, it looks better, I like that member profile pages on the left looks a bit cleaner at least, but those review thumbnail pics do need to go. |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
| Tabs on profiles are pretty cool. Removal of BBCode is not cool. |
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LolitaDecay said: Removal of BBCode is not cool. Oh yeah, I didnt realise that. I like to italicize other anime works, but now thats gone! Gone from me! :( |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
| That MAL used to have a categorical breakdown of ratings was what made it stand apart from the crowd for me, and I appreciated it. I very rarely reference the scores I give in the text of my review because you're right -- in-depth opinion isn't easily assigned a number, but at the same time, I love assigning numbers to things, even if it's difficult. I think it helps emphasize the words sometimes. I mean, I can tell you that Advent Children had amazing animation and music alongside shitty story and characters, but somehow, despite the wordy explanations I give, it's never as clear as it is when you see scores of 10 for animation and music alongside 5's for story and character. |
kiriska said: That MAL used to have a categorical breakdown of ratings was what made it stand apart from the crowd for me, and I appreciated it. I can see the attraction of numbers, but I still feel a reviewer has lost their way if they rely on numbers like a crutch. I hate this extra dimension of figuring out what score to give for whatever facet of an anime/manga that has been arbitarily assigned for us. Its annoying and detracts from the actual art of reviewing...art. Or to reiterate my last post: Cihan said: we're wordy people not mathematicians! However someone suggested putting the scores inplace of the thumbnail image on the right, and I could compromise with you there. But I'd still rather not have scores at all. |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
Cihan said: Haha. True, words carry more weight than numbers, but it's not like throwing in a few more numbers should stop you from writing down what's on your mind. Incidentally, I think there were even a few reviews that had blanks for the other scores so perhaps we're not even required to assign numbers if we feel like it. As a reader though, I still found them useful.As mentioned earlier in this thread, words carry more weight than a bunch of numbers. I hate numbers, and so should any reviewer worth their salt, we're wordy people not mathematicians! |
Yuunagi said: Haha. True, words carry more weight than numbers, but it's not like throwing in a few more numbers should stop you from writing down what's on your mind. Incidentally, I think there were even a few reviews that had blanks for the other scores so I don't think you're even required to assign numbers if you feel like it. As a reader though, I still found them useful. I admit sometimes I skim reviews and my eyeballs head straight for one number, that would be the overall score. Everything else is peripheral and non-essential. At the end of the day I just want to know what the person thought of the whole thing, and if I want to know more, like animation or music, then the reviewer better damn well tell me himself in the body of his review! For example, a review with a score of '8' for the music is absolutely meaningless to me, it doesnt tell me anything! What kinda music? Good? Mediocre? Often? Sparse? What? TELL ME!!! |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
| I've never really noticed whether the other scores were required or not, but if not, then great! Best of both worlds. Let the reviewer decide whether they want to assign the numbers or not. As it is, even though reviews are still assigned those numbers by the reviewer, there's no way for a reader to actually see any of them. Oh, also. I think the numbers being options there for reviews encourages reviewers, especially newer ones, to touch on all of those subjects in the body of their review. |
Retsu-kun said: Yuunagi said: I often go through reviews of certain members when looking for shows to watch or manga to read, and the scores make it easier for me to find what may be good without spoiling myself by going through the text. Reviews still have an overall rating, so you can still know who liked what they reviewed. How can there be an overall rating if there is just one rating now? |
| By the way, manga recomendations seem to have broken. The linking to the mangas in the recommendation page is wrong, the first manga is always linked to the manga page of ID 0 (invalid page), the second one of ID 1 (Monster) and so on. I'm not sure if it's a general problem, but happened in every recommendation page I checked: Nijigahara Holograph, Pluto, 20thCB and FMA. spineslayer said: How can there be an overall rating if there is just one rating now? Well, I never wrote a review, but when I tried doing so now, I could still give ratings to story, art, etc., including "overall". So the overall rating that shows up now is either the average score of those, or just the overall score while the others are ignored. |
anonyFeb 19, 2009 3:29 AM
| I don't like any of the changes. I preferred them at the bottom left side panel on your profile, and being able to use BBCode was actually a real help. Now I'm unable to put my quotes in italics or bold something I want to emphasize. Plus why am I only seeing the overall rating given in a review? Why can't I see ratings for art, characters, enjoyment, sound and story? I'd often just look a those and decide whether to watch a series or read a manga, now I can't. Retsu-kun said: Well, I never wrote a review, but when I tried doing so now, I could still give ratings to story, art, etc., including "overall". So the overall rating that shows up now is either the average score of those, or just the overall score while the others are ignored. The overall rating isn't the average score with all the others added together, otherwise nothing would be rated a 10 overall unless all of the other scores are also 10. None of my overall ratings have changed, which they most probably would if the overall score was averaged. So that means the other scores are just being ignored. |
ToukaFeb 19, 2009 4:07 AM
| I miss the individual scores being shown I miss the BBCode because sometimes I like to italic the important words I think the whole favourite thing will just turn into a popularity contest and more bad reviews will be produced, lowering the quality of this tool I like the new layout, though. Now nobody will ever read my reviews for sure. ^^ |
 Waratte Oemashou Sore ha Chiisana Inori |
Cihan said: we're wordy people not mathematicians! speak for yourself.. |
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