| Last August, we released a set of updates to our review system to provide members of our community with a broader set of tools for both discovering and writing anime and manga reviews. This update included the addition of new review categories: Recommended, Mixed Feelings, and Not Recommended. As a continuation of this previous round of review system updates, we've released a new display for the Reviews section on each database entry's Details page. 1. Stats Summary The bar at the top of the Reviews section offers a quick glance at the overall reception of a work among our community's reviewers. Clicking on each of these categories will redirect you to more reviews of that particular type of opinion.  2. Diverse Perspectives In addition to the graphical changes to the Reviews section, we've made a few changes to the logic for selecting the three reviews to display on the details page. Previously, only the top three reviews by total reactions were selected, regardless of which category they fell under. With the new system, one review per category is selected for display, allowing for readers to more easily access a diverse set of perspectives. 3. Diverse Voices We've also introduced some new logic for selecting reviews that are representative of each category of opinions. The new logic consists of a rotation between three of our existing sorts: Most Voted, Suggested, and Newest. The goal of this change is to provide our community with more opportunities to encounter a diverse set of voices, ranging from prolific veteran reviewers to those new to writing reviews. Upcoming Review System Revisions: In the feedback for the previous review update, many of you have expressed concerns about the current selection of review reactions. We are aware of these concerns and will be evaluating possible alternatives for our future review system updates. |
firefractalAug 23, 2023 8:12 PM
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| So the review section is going to be similar to the review section of Play Store now? Bruh... The rotation system is so pathetically laughable. If you're going to do that, remove the pathetic emoji reacts. That update is more abusive than the old ways. It would seem very more convenient in that way. MAL is evolving... just backwards. |
Natsuki_SanJuanAug 23, 2023 8:59 PM
 “Once you've been loved once and have loved once, you cannot forget it.” ― Natsume Takashi |
| How about you get rid of the silly "react" system underneath reviews. The entire system to "rate reviews" is abused and manipulated by briganding friends and clubs anyway. At least provide a neutral Upvote/Downvote feature instead of your silly Facebook reactions. They're immature and mean nothing. |
| These are good changes, and I'm glad MAL is planning on improving the system. Though I still believe the original system of reviews was the best one. |
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| i do not care about reviews much but that review stats summary bar is cool to have and the top reviews will not be based on who writes first the review eh thats cool too |
| "where were u wen review die" "i was at house eating dorito when phone ring" "Review is kill" "no" Doesn't this make the vote system invalid? Like, why? The review system is already broken, why breaking it more and act as if it was fixed? |
| I feel like the more we look into trying to "diversify" different opinions, the worse ideas get implemented. I'm confident that average people aren't dumb and they will look for different perspectives in reviews. Claiming that you're trying to "diversify" is just an excuse at this point to avoid the problems at hand. Wasn't the original motivation and whining by the community for review changes were to fix the bot and rat race problem? Cause last time I checked, that still hasn't been fixed. At this point, who are you even fooling? Y'all learned nothing. |
LordSozinAug 23, 2023 9:20 PM
| Checking this in practice... some bad reviews are now visible just because instead of most positively voted ones. I like the bar though. |
| MOKUSHI KUSHIMO SHIMOKU KUMOSHI MOSHIKU SHIKUMO. |
| I think point 1 and point 2 are good. I'm in favor of those. Point 3 I'm not so sure about. I think the use of an automatic rotation is kind of strange. Why not make it a toggle? How is what review is "suggested" determined? I think there's definitely room for something better than just the most liked review being on top, but the devil is in the details. I think something based on affinity would be best, though the affinity system needs to be redesigned to take mean and standard deviation into account before that would be effective. Having the newest review on the front page I don't think makes much sense as that's definitely just going to result in reviews that aren't very useful coming to the forefront. At the minimum, I think it should be in it's own slot and not take up one of the main three slots, though a toggle would be best imo. |
| Points 2 and 3 are questionable imo, it really invalidates the vote system basically. I think people are smart enough to read and like the reviews without this need for “diversity”. I hope you all work on reducing bot upvotes and reviews instead of changing this system yet again. |
| This is better than nothing, but i feel like something like this should've come out a lot sooner. The review system has been under scrutiny for a while now. firefractal said: Upcoming Review System Revisions: In the feedback for the previous review update, many of you have expressed concerns about the current selection of review reactions. We are aware of these concerns and will be evaluating possible alternatives for our future review system updates. And i'm guessing this is also going to take another year? |
| Nice changes, I like them. They won't favor the most popular reviews in the first place, but rather all reviews in general. If someone wants to check reviews with the biggest number of reactions aka upvotes, then it won't be hard to do. Just turn on certain filter option, and voilla. Oh, and the bar looks also good. The only thing left to do is to return to "old but gold" system of upvoting reviews without emoji reactions, hehe. ;p |
| So you didn't fix the problems and just slapped even more stuff on top of it? I checked some top reviews and they are all still funny and confusing and that Panda guy's botted reviews are still at the top everywhere. Well it wouldn't matter since almost every review gets deleted by gaussian anyway so why would anyone bother to still write reviews here. I can just recommend everyone here to use the reviews on Anilist, they are much better sorted, you can use markup and pictures, and they have le thumbs down button that MAL has yet to discover. |
| >Stats Summary great >Diverse Perspectives sure >Diverse Voices pls no |
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| Good, but diverse voices is not so helpful, I think. |
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| Highlighting negative reviews primarily because of the fact that they are negative in order to showcase a more "diverse set of perspectives" will likely encourage people to write the "best" negative review on well liked series just to get their review seen by more people. That seems really unhealthy for a review system. I really dislike seeing nonsense contrarian reviews and this update makes that kind of review much more visible, so now I'd rather just not see the review section at all. Rate Your Music has a feature where you can "customize" certain kinds of pages to show or not show certain things. For example, on album pages, you can hide the review section or the comment section of the page. I would love that feature for MAL so that I could hide the review section (and also the episode videos section since a good amount of those thumbnails have spoilers). EDIT: The new stats summary bar is cool though, so good job on that. |
| I don't know about #2 and #3 but the stats summary looks good. Still. Please get rid of the emoji reactions. Emojis are cringe and that's reason enough. |
wizdom224Aug 24, 2023 3:47 AM
| Hope so Hope so |
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| I actually really like the stats summary though! that is the step forward. I might need to explore the rest more to form a proper opinion, but hey a hat off for trying and working on it! |
I am out with lanterns looking for myself. -- emily dickinson -- |
LordSozin said: Wasn't the original motivation and whining by the community for review changes were to fix the bot and rat race problem? Cause last time I checked, that still hasn't been fixed. No point to bot or race if when you posted a review has no significant bearing on if it shows up on the front page. Only thing I would personally add is a tick box letting me permanently select suggested and leave it as my default, but otherwise I am happy with the result. Stats page is great to, if a series has a ratio of 98% recommended reviews, I already know that almost everyone actually liked what they watched. |
ACasualViewerAug 24, 2023 4:56 AM
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| It's for the better. But not that much. Just use Amazon review system. You can see one part : the positive reviews on this show . The other part : negative reviews of this show. People will then compare what's can be good or not. Imo it's way better. And people will not use club etc to force a review ( i guess ...? ) |
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Neo: What truth? Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. |
| Imagine going to Boku no Pico reviews and see someone actually recommend the anime? Please reconsider this update. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| No matter the overhaul in the review system, all users are effed up anyways because the adage of "What works for one, may not work for another" isn't on the management's minds. No matter the "evaluating possible alternatives", the emoji system, like the movie itself, sucks ass. Simplicity isn't what occurs in the minds anymore... Also, the "progress" bar on wanting to see the good, the decent and the bad, that is a good change, but it doesn't really solve the botting problem (like a certain Rebel that has once again returned to infamy)... ateks said: Exactly my thoughts. At this point, I would be happy to even have the old system back, just without pictures.So you didn't fix the problems and just slapped even more stuff on top of it? I checked some top reviews and they are all still funny and confusing and that Panda guy's botted reviews are still at the top everywhere. Well it wouldn't matter since almost every review gets deleted by gaussian anyway so why would anyone bother to still write reviews here. I can just recommend everyone here to use the reviews on Anilist, they are much better sorted, you can use markup and pictures, and they have le thumbs down button that MAL has yet to discover. Natsuki_SanJuan said: Yeah, it's so pathetically laughable that reviews, which were once a part of the reason why MAL is revered so much, becomes an afterthought, a joke.So the review section is going to be similar to the review section of Play Store now? Bruh... The rotation system is so pathetically laughable. If you're going to do that, remove the pathetic emoji reacts. That update is more abusive than the old ways. It would seem very more convenient in that way. MAL is evolving... just backwards. We reviewers pour our brain cells and time out for the content we consume, and this is what we get? No thanks... |
KANLen09Aug 24, 2023 8:37 AM
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| Regardless of any system, if gaussian is still mod reviews will be removed arbitrarily if he personally does not like it |
| If you want to reply to my posts, come up with valid arguments instead of ad hominem HIGHER LEVEL THINKERS ONLY |
| Thank you for continuing to work on the review system. firefractal said: With the new system, one review per category is selected for display, allowing for readers to more easily access a diverse set of perspectives. … We've also introduced… a rotation between three of our existing sorts: Most Voted, Suggested, and Newest. To clarify, here are the nine reviews that can be promoted to the front page of a series each time that page is loaded:
Most Voted is just like the system we had before, with the same potential for bots and brigades, the race for first, and the feedback loop that others have mentioned. Suggested is just like the default sorting on the full reviews page, with the same problems as Most Voted, the difference between Most Voted and Suggested being that Confusing reactions are good under Most Voted and bad under Suggested. Finally, Newest is basically random noise. Random noise mode already exists — on the site's home page, as "Latest Anime Reviews," where I see that someone who created an account today has just posted the same line repeated twenty times to evade the word count restriction. This seems like a good idea: hexashadow13 said: I think the use of an automatic rotation is kind of strange. Why not make it a toggle? I disagree with those who think that the new system will solve the following problems: ACasualViewer said: No point to bot or race if when you posted a review has no significant bearing on if it shows up on the front page. cipheron said: If you ONLY show the top-voted reviews, there will be a positive-feedback loop causing them to pull even further ahead of the pack, so it gives bots or brigades even more leverage than they would otherwise. The race, the feedback loop, and the potential for bots and brigades are still present. Early or botted reviews will still collect reactions by being on the front page under the Most Voted sort, if not under the Suggested sort. The new race might be to post the first contrarian review in order to grab the top slot for the least represented category under Most Voted sorting, as suggested here: Sleepteiner said: Highlighting negative reviews primarily because of the fact that they are negative… will likely encourage people to write the "best" negative review on well liked series just to get their review seen by more people. I think the best way to promote clear, concise, informative, well-written, helpful, entertaining reviews to a larger audience is the opposite of crowd-sourcing: select a team of competent, unbiased review moderators, and let them curate a hand-picked list of the top reviews. |
| At least there is a possibility it will prevent trolling reviews, such as the ones made for famous series last year and this current one. Anyways I'd prefer if you guys removed those emojis. They aren't helpful by any means. |
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LordSozin said: wrong. just wrong I'm confident that average people aren't dumb and they will look for different perspectives in reviews |
9cycle  cycle9 |
| still no downvote or dislike option? why? i saw this thread and was feeling hopeful. i mean there's a like option so it makes sense to have a dislike too. |
 The end of an era. Thank you Wit, Mappa and Isayama. Feeling half happy, half sad. Kawaii waifus and precious best girls <3333 |
| This finally ends the rat race that is submitting reviews ASAP after an anime ends to farm reacts. Hopefully people will soon learn that and stop rushing in all the time as it won't matter anymore. |
verbinflection said: Thank you for explaining the system so I can see that it makes no sense. Who thought it would be a good idea to reward confusing reviews? Why would anyone want to read "most voted" reviews if they might be confusing?To clarify, here are the nine reviews that can be promoted to the front page of a series each time that page is loaded: a third of the time, the most-reacted Recommended review, the most-reacted Mixed Feelings review, and the most-reacted Not Recommended review: this is the Most Voted sort (simply the total number of reactions) a third of the time, the highest-rated Recommended review, the highest-rated Mixed Feelings review, and the highest-rated Not Recommended review: this is the Suggested sort (basically, non-Confusing reactions minus Confusing reactions) a third of the time, the newest review in each category: this is the Newest sort Most Voted is just like the system we had before, with the same potential for bots and brigades, the race for first, and the feedback loop that others have mentioned. Suggested is just like the default sorting on the full reviews page, with the same problems as Most Voted, the difference between Most Voted and Suggested being that Confusing reactions are good under Most Voted and bad under Suggested. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| Most people don't seem to care anymore, lol. The ugly, stinky, gargantuan truth about MAL's review system is that there was no winning with it in the first place, it's a lost cause. The initial system that was replaced by facebook emojis was most subject to botting and one can see that for themselves with all the front-page reviews of that era that were botted (whether by a third party or the reviewer). The system that replaced it made botting transparent but still became the most exploitative due to people unable to think collectively and refrain from spamming negative emojis on undesirable reviews instead of just pushing them down with favourable ones. And the new system's attempt at randomising promotion is feeble because despite its attempts at quelling familiar faces from taking the front page, it arguably just makes it worse; now you can write a well-written, successful review with engagement in the hundreds and it will have no chance of seeing the front page because some popular reviewer happened to share one of three recommendation tags as you. It also has no answer to the 'Most voted' and 'Suggested' picks from being manipulated by positive botting. You should honestly just do away with reviews on the details page entirely like AniList and IMDb effectively have instead of the Frankenstein state it's currently at. It fixes any and all problems and no one cares for diversity quotas anyway because unless they're looking at an obscure title, the only thing that matters is what the colour and number of the review is; not its "perspective". You can't do anything about that because it's just human nature. KitsuFrost said: I guess this is really the best thing to come out of this update (even if the front page for most seasonals still looks like a mess). No more inarticulate, flamebaiting preliminaries by empty accounts hogging up the top 3 like those atrocious ones people had the misfortune of witnessing for Bleach Sennen Kessen-hen last year - especially those two most (down)voted ones, one of which was written by a bot account.At least there is a possibility it will prevent trolling reviews, such as the ones made for famous series last year and this current one. kinotabii said: Oh damn, I just realised. No wonder the new system looked inconsistent when I was checking a couple of pages earlier. Hopefully it's just a bug (which I unfortunately doubt [UPDATE: it's actually completely intentional by them]), otherwise the mods couldn't be more transparent with their biases.Edit: I take back calling this update almost decent. It's actually complete garbage because spoiler-based reviews are not only hidden from the default review page but also the front page now. I guess the bold red "Spoiler" tag for such reviews weren't enough because we can't read and have no cognitive control over our sight. If you want to go into plot-specifics when writing a review instead of making generic statements, you've already lost. Mods never considered the fact that some people don't care about spoilers, that anyone who's already watched the anime obviously doesn't, and that people who do care about spoilers can just look away after seeing the red tag or just refresh the page. |
AntithesisAug 24, 2023 11:15 PM
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| The bar graph is interesting. Regarding the point about Diverse Perspectives, I think there should still be some minimum threshold for reviews to reach, otherwise, there will be people leaving low quality negative reviews on things just so they show up on the main page. |
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Also, looks like the new system has empowered a certain someone the mods have been playing an eternal game of Whac-A-Mole with. Bravo MAL, lmfao. |
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| To be honest, I wasn't expecting this update. The bar looks good, and it's great seeing suggested sort get some love. However, a lot of problems that haven't been addressed as the replies on this thread show. The rotation system is weird, and I'm not sure how it would function in the long run. I doubt it would kill the rat race since most voted and suggested sort still heavily promote older reviews. Showing newest sort a third of the time probably won't change much. It's also a little annoying to reload the page over and over to get another sort. Also, showing the newest reviews will certainly not cause any problems.  |
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| question - is commenting here about the review section's updates really can change the mods mind? because i actually wanted to make my opinion on this, but if it won't effect, i won't waste my time writing lol i just would say that - i work pretty hard on my reviews, using my time and my brain. so why now that i'm checking anime pages i'm encountering some hot fans reviews or hot fans hater reviews, instead of those who really invest their time, like me, in them? |
Kwanthemaster said: I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I think a minimum reaction requirement for newest sort would work well. However, one problem would be that the minimum might be low enough to easily bot.Regarding the point about Diverse Perspectives, I think there should still be some minimum threshold for reviews to reach, otherwise, there will be people leaving low quality negative reviews on things just so they show up on the main page. |
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| This is a good update. |
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| I still think that the "confusing" button has no place on this website. It only serves to mock people you don't agree with while rewarding them because MAL ranks reviews based on total votes, which in turn gives them more visibility and more likely to get even more "confusing" votes. This vicious cycle makes it so most top reviews these days are there because of these votes (e.g. Jujutsu Kaisen S2). |
| mal back at it again with changing shit that doesnt need to be changed |
| I also like 1 and 2 but 3 is questionable. I guess we´ll just have to see how this one works in the next couple of weeks/months. But yeah, emojis still need to be addressed. |
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ANTITHE5IS said: I guess this is really the best thing to come out of this update (even if the front page for most seasonals still looks like a mess). No more inarticulate, flamebaiting preliminaries by empty accounts hogging up the top 3 like those atrocious ones people had the misfortune of witnessing for Bleach Sennen Kessen-hen - especially those two most (down)voted ones, one of which was written by a bot account lol. Took the words out of my hands here. The front page of Bleach review section is full of dumb trolls, and this kind of behaviour encourages more and more people to do the same. Just take a look at Jujutsu Kaisen 2 reviews this season. Completely atrocious. |
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| Sounds good on paper, let's see what happens on practice. I would like to know if there's a way to display the reviews with spoilers without having to change it everytime. |
User-Name said: question - is commenting here about the review section's updates really can change the mods mind? because i actually wanted to make my opinion on this, but if it won't effect, i won't waste my time writing lol i just would say that - i work pretty hard on my reviews, using my time and my brain. so why now that i'm checking anime pages i'm encountering some hot fans reviews or hot fans hater reviews, instead of those who really invest their time, like me, in them? I think you're highlighting the big problems with these review changes for the past year or so. These updates are solely driven from the eyes of trying to please everyone and solving a problem that's unsolvable without making stupid additions like emojis and reactions instead of just simple upvotes or downvotes. I think these updates just add more mess to what's already there. I mean, look at it. Reviews are out of order in terms of "reactions"; when refreshing the page, it shows the newest over the old ones that have been there for reasons more than just dislikeness. Why can't we just keep things simple? I don't get it. |
| Could've been a decent update if it weren't for "3. Diverse Voices" I've been looking at the front page of numerous titles for a while now and the new review system already seems to be barely functioning. For many titles, there are only one or two rotations + some of the reviews being displayed aren't even the most voted/suggested reviews like they're supposed to be. Is this a work in progress or no? Why implement such a major update in such a half-assed, haphazard manner? Or am I misunderstanding by assuming the new review system works under a rotation of three and all three reviews under them adhere to that specific category like the original post seems to imply? ACasualViewer said: What even is this "suggested" feature you guys have set as the option default for reviews and now want to further promote on the front page? It was announced in the previous update thread but you never bothered to explain how it actually works:Only thing I would personally add is a tick box letting me permanently select suggested and leave it as my default, but otherwise I am happy with the result. Kineta said: 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. Edit: I take back calling this update almost decent. It's actually complete garbage because spoiler-based reviews are not only hidden from the default review page but also the front page now. I guess the bold red "Spoiler" tag for such reviews weren't enough because we can't read and have no cognitive control over our sight. If you want to go into plot-specifics when writing a review instead of making generic statements, you've already lost. Mods never considered the fact that some people don't care about spoilers, that anyone who's already watched the anime obviously doesn't, and that people who do care about spoilers can just look away after seeing the red tag or just refresh the page. |
-KinoTabiAug 24, 2023 4:51 PM
LordSozin said: my most problem with this new system is for the middle-popular reviews, such as i have myself.User-Name said: question - is commenting here about the review section's updates really can change the mods mind? because i actually wanted to make my opinion on this, but if it won't effect, i won't waste my time writing lol i just would say that - i work pretty hard on my reviews, using my time and my brain. so why now that i'm checking anime pages i'm encountering some hot fans reviews or hot fans hater reviews, instead of those who really invest their time, like me, in them? I think you're highlighting the big problems with these review changes for the past year or so. These updates are solely driven from the eyes of trying to please everyone and solving a problem that's unsolvable without making stupid additions like emojis and reactions instead of just simple upvotes or downvotes. I think these updates just add more mess to what's already there. I mean, look at it. Reviews are out of order in terms of "reactions"; when refreshing the page, it shows the newest over the old ones that have been there for reasons more than just dislikeness. Why can't we just keep things simple? I don't get it. i actually went and checked most of the anime i have review on. only if i had the most popular one or the new one, is actually appear. initially, even on refresh, it shows only 3 different reviews on the different definiton. where is option 3 "variety of voices" promise? i would prefer an entire random review upon every refresh, but it's limited to such narrow tags of "most reacted" "most popular" or "newest", and now that it's shows only three reviews on different definition, it does the opposing of encouraging people to write reviews. |
KANLen09 said: The front page of the review section just looks ugly. Who's gonna look at that and want to read it with so many distracting emojis, colors, and what have you plus troll accounts that write crap but they show up on the front page because MAL apparently wants to promote "diversity" of opinions.Yeah, it's so pathetically laughable that reviews, which were once a part of the reason why MAL is revered so much, becomes an afterthought, a joke. We reviewers pour our brain cells and time out for the content we consume, and this is what we get? No thanks... |
LordSozinAug 24, 2023 3:44 PM
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