 We have released the first step of a series of improvements for our review section, aiming to:
✅ Released today 🔜 Coming soon 🔖 Important notes More feedback options beyond "Helpful" ✅ Over the years, the helpful button has become a "like" button. With the prevalence of social media, it's not really surprising. Thus, we have added a selection of new feedback options with both the casual and dedicated review reader in mind:
🔖 Readers can now cancel their vote or switch to a different feedback option 🔖 We will be monitoring how the new feedback buttons are working and may make adjustments in the future, as necessary 🔖 Notifications for review writers are being considered for the future New review categories/tags ✅ Different users have different scoring tendencies, and it is difficult to tell from an overall rating alone whether the review writer is recommending the anime/manga to the reader or not. To make it easier for readers to find and compare contrasting perspectives ("You should watch this", "Don't go near it"), we have categorized reviews into three groups:
🔖 Writers can edit their existing reviews to adjust the tag (as necessary) without needing to modify their score. To help find reviews written with a specific style, we have also added four categories/tags which will be based on reader feedback:
Updated "Write a Review" page ✅ In the process of increasing the textbox area and improving the display of the write a review page, we removed the old score sections (Story, Art, ...) There were two main reasons for this: (1) these scores weren't visible on the main view of the review (unless you knew the trick to make it appear), and (2) we found it gave writers the impression that they were required to break their reviews down into these sections, which we wanted to avoid. 🔖 If you entered scores in the Story, Art,... sections on old reviews, these scores have been appended to the end of your review text. New "Suggested" sort option ✅ Since the different feedback options have different implications, "Most voted" is not really an accurate assessment of a review's reception. Thus, we have added the sort option "Suggested" to account for this. 🔖 There are some reeeeally strange bugs with the "Suggested" ordering which slipped through testing... they will be fixed shortly. 🔖 In the future, "Suggested" will continue to be improved with better algorithms and may become personalized. Update which reviews display on the Anime/Manga details page 🔜 To increase the variety of reviews and support new review writers, the logic for which reviews are displayed on the details page will change in next release. At this time, the number of reviews written for each category (Recommended / Mixed / Not Rec'd) will also be displayed so readers can easily check for discrepancies in the overall reviewer feedback vs the overall DB score. 🔖 As part of these efforts to shift focus away from most review votes, the Most Helpful reviewers page has been removed. Show who has voted on a review 🔜 The main reason for showing the username list of review votes is to make botting easily visible to all members. Understandably, negative reactions more easily incite anger in the community, so this was the reason the updated list of feedback options do not contain noticeably negative responses. 🔖 Clicking the area which displays the total review votes will bring up a pop-up with the username list. Mobile web version 🔜 Coming soon! |
| This update has just made it worse |
 _______I like rocks__  |
Kineta said: allow review readers to give different types of feedback to the review writer beyond "helpful" well yeah that's sweet when will we be allowed to express disagreement with reviews in any way whatsoever at all because all you did was add various forms of praising the content like, a hi five is still a hi five no matter if you want to go up top or down low I'm not even asking for downvotes to return just let there be some kind of way for people to say "I don't think this guy does a good job representing the series at all" literally anything would suffice at this point, like just letting us criticize specific reviews when the topic comes up without calling it harassment/trolling, there's not even a need for a button if that gets a pass there is such an incredible fear of any negativity touching reviewers at all that it leads to suffocating and punishing civil expressions of disagreement and it is absolutely ridiculous, can we just revisit that in some way |
ManabanAug 1, 2022 4:46 PM
 |
| i heard there is a reviewers cartel here on MAL lol so they will not like this update at all, no wonder reviews here are monopolize by a few names only |
Manaban said: deg said: i heard there is a reviewers cartel here on MAL lol so they will not like this update at all, no wonder reviews here are monopolize by a few names only yes the review cartel is quite infamous. they have upvote mules and everything. viscious tbh i did not know but im not surprise it exist since clout chasing and all Kurisutina04 said: Soooooooo what do we do when we dislike a review click "confusing" emoji or ignore the review |
Kurisutina04 said: Soooooooo what do we do when we dislike a review Sit down and shut up, like it's been for years now. Don't even try to express disagreement politely or else you'll get the axe. |
|
Gippy said: deg said: i heard there is a reviewers cartel here on MAL lol so they will not like this update at all, no wonder reviews here are monopolize by a few names only Good. Everyone was getting tired of KANLen09 and RebelPanda pre-writing walls of text, then posting them up 1 second after the show ends to monopolize the main page of each seasonal anime. They were clearly doing it for the clout. YO BE CAREFUL, YOU MIGHT HURT SOMEONE'S FEELINGS AND GET BANNED Reviewers are sacrosanct. They are above you and I. They must exist in a state where any and all disagreement with their perspective is shut out. Don't upset the status quo. |
|
| WHERE WERE U WEN REVIEW DIE i was at house eating dorito when phone ring "review is die" "no" In all seriousness. I am split with this update. On the one hand, the unhealthy grassless reviewers that cheat and cause cancer to the site would fade out and be put to rest, but on the other, the update is very much CLEARLY what happens when you let people who have zero site experience control everything and bring in shit updates regular users wouldn't dream of. >give review readers more options to find reviews they'd like to read Why? People don't want to read what they don't want to read. If a Demon Slayer fan sees a 2/10 review make it to the top, they are going to come crashing down and throw whatever insults they may have because someone had a slightly different opinion. Are you pandering to them or am I misled by your words? It doesn't seem very ideal to cater to specific tastes, what would be the point in reading something that is biased to you, you'd already know what to expect lol. >add more diversity in available reviews and improve exposure for new review writers Idk if this is working. I've checked my own reviews since idk anyone who reviews old anime and I've stumbled to find that none of these reviews makes it to top. It would be nice to see recent reviews on old anime have their spotlight. But I will wait to see what more comes from that. Anyway, this is clearly just the beginning. I will wait to see what is in store. Maybe this could all be beneficial. It takes time to used to some things I guess. deg said: i heard there is a reviewers cartel here on MAL lol so they will not like this update at all, no wonder reviews here are monopolize by a few names only some of these people grow by time. some others external reasons. more time it is just people growing over time lol, you won't see them for a few years even when they start around that time but as shit goes on they become more popular. that's how it goes for most ppl |
StephAug 12, 2022 6:08 PM
NextUniverse said: >give review readers more options to find reviews they'd like to read Why? People don't want to read what they don't want to read. If a Demon Slayer fan sees a 2/10 review make it to the top, they are going to come crashing down and throw whatever insults they may have because someone had a slightly different opinion. Are you pandering to them or am I misled by your words? It doesn't seem very ideal to cater to specific tastes, what would be the point in reading something that is biased to you, you'd already know what to expect lol. . Idk but this seems more related to the obscene amount of reviews filter that they added |
| i do not read much reviews but i hope you change the guidelines to make more constructive criticisms rather than destructive criticisms |
| Please bring back the thing where you could rate characters, animation, music etc. you can make it optional but it was useful. These emojis are cringe, the rating by words is enough, also add some kind of negative reactions. |
| https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2034550 a very controversial update it seems I personally prefer the old review style like a lot of people seem to think. Not a fan of the removal of the numbers being replaced with emojis and just a simple not recommended/recommended I do believe it has potential with modification but for now, it's not the best and I don't think I'm alone on that |
ManWildAug 1, 2022 5:02 PM
 |
| Thank fucking god for this. Is this overhaul perfect? No. Does it need sharpening? Yes. Is it for the better? Absolutely. Seeing all these fraudulent, clout-chasing seasonal reviewers and their little cults on suicide watch truly does put a (Joker) smile on my face. Based MAL, keep doing what you're doing! Please never stop! Make them seethe more! |
 |
Gween_Gween said: NextUniverse said: >give review readers more options to find reviews they'd like to read Why? People don't want to read what they don't want to read. If a Demon Slayer fan sees a 2/10 review make it to the top, they are going to come crashing down and throw whatever insults they may have because someone had a slightly different opinion. Are you pandering to them or am I misled by your words? It doesn't seem very ideal to cater to specific tastes, what would be the point in reading something that is biased to you, you'd already know what to expect lol. . Idk but this seems more related to the obscene amount of reviews filter that they added ehh still catering to tastes lol. seems kinda crazy. |
| I think the update is an improvement once its fine tuned. |
 • AMQ: StephWeeb • Discord: drsteph • Join me on AnimeMusicQuiz! |
| I really just wanna know what the mental process was to make yall think this was needed or requested? Like there's so much shit that needs to be fixed on this website, like the block system, the LN database, favourites needing to have a separate LN and manga section, decimal ratings etc etc. Just a joke of an update and shows how out of touch y'all are |
 |
| With new ways to react to reviews wouldn't it make sense to include negative reactions too? Every reaction available right now is positive aside from confusing, which isn't necessarily negative. If we're being given more options to express thoughts on reviews, surely it makes sense to have negative reactions no? No point in reading reviews as it stands if the only feedback you can get from the quality of the review is positive. Friendly Neighbourhood Shrek |
 |
| I wish there was an option to downvote reviews tho Otherwise I like this |
 |
| even youtube removed the dislike button due to vote brigading so maybe copy what youtube did that the dislike button is expose but not public although behind the scenes the amount of dislikes will serve as a downvote to remove the review from the top page |
| The funny and confusing aren't being used as intended, as evidenced by reviews being bombarded with funny/confusing whenever they disagree with one. Instead of going through this major overhaul just to get rid of vote brigading/massive upvoting without reading reviews, I would have preferred a dislike option and a comment section where people could provide feedback. Being able to see who has voted on a review would be a nice addition at the very least. (Given the dissatisfaction and flaws in the new review system, I would have preferred that they allow us to use either UI, with the old UI as the default and the new UI as beta testing.) |
GG-WPAug 1, 2022 5:10 PM
  |
GG-WP said: The funny and confusing aren't being used as intended, as evidenced by reviews being bombarded with funny/confusing whenever they disagree with one. Instead of going through this major overhaul just to get rid of vote brigading/massive upvoting without reading reviews, I would have preferred a dislike option and a comment section where people could provide feedback. same with me I think removing front page reviews could be somewhat beneficial too, then there's no incentive to have people shotgun for that position if everything is on a reviews section in itself. kinda like anilist system. that is a perfect platform. |
| I like the idea of being able to react to reviews but I still wish there was a way or reaction to express disagreement with the reviews. A lot of reviews are just low-effort or only meant to incite a flamewar so it'd be nice to be able to downvote them instead of allowing them to make it to the top reviews uncontested. |
 |
| while this is a good idea in practice, it might be helpful to add a disagree/negative option to the reactions like there's a good amount of reviews on the site which are contentious at best and completely baseless and point-missing at worst. get enough people to agree with it and someone can make a really bad 2/10 review of fmab where the sole complaint is that there's too much chibi in my war drama which ends up being the most popular review. there's a lot of people who like being negative for the sake of being negative and think that their intellectual superiority over media allows them to rank it arbitrarily low and a bunch of people who want to reaffirm that they're "better than this anime" would flock to that review because it's popular and therefore it sucks despite them being a very vocal minority. this also happens with a bunch of meme reviews which haha laugh funny review gets to the top of the charts because people think it's funny or creative (which are now rankings), but this mainly happens to things like shitcom. either way, having this would let people know if the review they're reading is generally understood to be popular or contentious; there's a difference between 150 helpful reactions and 50 negative reactions vs 150 helpful reactions and 300 negative reactions; given the way it stands now, they'd both register the same way with this update. |
GG-WP said: The funny and confusing aren't being used as intended, as evidenced by reviews being bombarded with funny/confusing whenever they disagree with one. Instead of going through this major overhaul just to get rid of vote brigading/massive upvoting without reading reviews, I would have preferred a dislike option and a comment section where people could provide feedback. Being able to see who has voted on a review would be a nice addition at the very least. A dislike option is really all it needs to avoid stuff like this, Reddit has down votes and that works perfectly fine, no need for 101 things to say the same thing, it's good or it's bad. Christ, even Steam has multiple choices but still offers a no to the "Was this review helpful" Makes no sense why MAL wouldn't and shouldn't include something like this |
|
| Im going against the circlejerk here, dont even think about giving people the ability to downvote reviews Manja_Warior said: A dislike option is really all it needs to avoid stuff like this, Reddit has down votes and that works perfectly fine, no need for 101 things to say the same thing, it's good or it's bad. |
| is there at least a way for the number reviews to be optional per person? Since we can still rate anime I like to see what the reviewers have rated it. |
Gween_Gween said: Im going against the circlejerk here, dont even think about giving people the ability to downvote reviews Manja_Warior said: A dislike option is really all it needs to avoid stuff like this, Reddit has down votes and that works perfectly fine, no need for 101 things to say the same thing, it's good or it's bad. I mean calling out Reddit is one thing but downvotes have worked fine across the board for the majority of Reddit. A single example hand-picked from a game which is known for toxicity anyways and used in a youtube video doesn't prove much. Steam has had 0 issues with it's option of offering a no option to reviews being helpful, even something like that here would work perfectly fine. |
|
| The new review system is a step in the right direction, but we need a system where we can provide all types of feedback, including negative feedback. We cannot limit MAL users to only positive feedback reactions and isolate some of the salacious reviews on certain animes from the feedback system. I ask how I can provide the appropriate feedback to these kinds of reviews. There is no way at the moment to provide my discontent with certain reviews. Implement a system to give negative feedback!  |
TheSaltyGamerAug 1, 2022 5:23 PM
 |
| Pls no dislike button. It goes against intellectualism and is made 4 ppl who hate free speech. |
| I think we need a comment section in reviews to express what we think of the reviews.. While we're at it, bring back the "not helpful" I presume MAL had it back then. We are big boys reviewers can take a little criticism right? |
NextUniverse said: Pls no dislike button. It goes against intellectualism and is made 4 ppl who hate free speech. Not allowing people to express they don't like a review also goes against free speech, no? |
|
| Give me the ability to give negative reactions |
"Perfection is perception. For me, humanity's imperfections is what makes it perfect"  |
| why would u do this to us |
Manja_Warior said: Gween_Gween said: Im going against the circlejerk here, dont even think about giving people the ability to downvote reviews I mean calling out Reddit is one thing but downvotes have worked fine across the board for the majority of Reddit. A single example hand-picked from a game which is known for toxicity anyways and used in a youtube video doesn't prove much. Steam has had 0 issues with it's option of offering a no option to reviews being helpful, even something like that here would work perfectly fine. Downvotes normally work well because you are participating in communities that are aligned with your views or have some sort of quality control. Reddit's downvote is misused in niche/hobby/political communities to shutdown opposition, which would be the same effect on this platform |
| they actually said why they did not add a downvote/dislike button but still add a dislike button but just hide in it public view like youtube does Show who has voted on a review 🔜 The main reason for showing the username list of review votes is to make botting easily visible to all members. Understandably, negative reactions more easily incite anger in the community, so this was the reason the updated list of feedback options do not contain noticeably negative responses. |
degAug 1, 2022 5:34 PM
| NO DISLIKE PEASANTS |
 |
Gween_Gween said: Downvotes normally work well because you are participating in communities that are aligned with your views or have some sort of quality control. Reddit's downvote is misused in niche/hobby/political communities to shutdown opposition, which would be the same effect on this platform Honestly? I don't even think they need to count towards anything other than giving expressions of disagreement visibility. People who don't agree with the first opinion MAL is presenting them with have some kind of a platform to clarify that they don't think this is a proper representation of the work in question, lest we get some review calling all fans of the show incel virgin pedophiles that goes unmoderated filling that role without any ability to contest that kind of labeling. We can't report this sort of stuff, MAL has a one report limit on reviews, which denies us even as much as an explanation. We can't challenge those kinds of notions without getting in trouble for it ourselves. Least we can have is a little button to show people "We don't think this review is a fair representation of the series in question" if they pay attention to anything other than the upvotes in the first place. |
|
Gween_Gween said: Downvotes normally work well because you are participating in communities that are aligned with your views or have some sort of quality control. Reddit's downvote is misused in niche/hobby/political communities to shutdown opposition, which would be the same effect on this platform That's something you should face anywhere by giving any option for public interaction with reviews and feedback on media, it's no different to people review bombing shows that take the number one spot from FMAB and MAL doesn't care about that one bit. I like to think people signing up for a website to review, list and interact with the anime community are probably fans of anime, people are going to abuse anything they're given to an extent, as people have stated before with the funny and confusing reaction in place of a negative reaction. If it carries on being used for negative reactions then it won't mean it was a funny review anymore same with confusing, it'll just be widely accepted as a negative reaction. The negativity is there it's just not given a direct outlet as it should be. |
|
More topics from this board
» [Challenge] You Should Read This Manga 2024 ( 1 2 3 4 5 )Kineta - Feb 23 |
214 |
by Veredus
»»
10 hours ago |
|
» Try MAL's New Mobile Site! ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page )Xinil - Feb 15, 2015 |
424 |
by Jeniferu4edy
»»
Yesterday, 12:58 PM |
|
» Moderators Wanted! Accepting applications for all positionsKineta - Apr 26 |
0 |
by Kineta
»»
Apr 26, 6:46 PM |
|
» Planned 5hr Maintenance, Thursday April 25 @ 1am-6am PTKineta - Apr 22 |
0 |
by Kineta
»»
Apr 22, 8:10 PM |
|
» New Site Update: Peak Anime 🗻 ( 1 2 3 4 5 )Kineta - Mar 31 |
213 |
by Lancelot73
»»
Apr 21, 4:28 AM |