Separate rating lists by genre for more fair comparisons

If your goal is to make the rankings on MAL fairer, then you’re going about this in a really strange way. Why should shows in different genres be separated like this? I don’t see what’s unfair about pitting a romance show against an action show (or any other genre) in a list that literally aims to rank all anime.

If people that watch show from x genre think it deserves a 10 based on how good it is in its own genre then they rank it as such and it can beat shows from other genres, nothing unfair about that.

If anything, there are issues that actually do make the rankings less fair, such as established fandoms of the source material hyping and inflating scores (which is potentially a much larger reason for kaoru’s score rather than its genre), sequel score inflation, recency bias and so on.

But a lot of these issues could be used to argue against the rankings of shows like aot just as much and if MAL would act based on all of these claims, having a list would be impossible.

broski.... if a show took top spot with a score of 10, and lets say not 1, but 100.000 viewers, there's no way in hell it stays like that for even a day.

More people will watch it, realize it is not actually that good, and the score will go down. it's such a useless hypothetical, because yeah, people probably won't be ok with such a show being ranked 1st, which is precisely why they would change it by using the same system.

The current system is fair in what it's meant to be. You cannot actually point out a hypothetical in which this is not true. Try it, and like your "score of 10 with 1 viewer = ranked 1st" example, I'll dismantle it.

I think I understand what you are trying to say, I just don’t agree with your original premise. From what I can tell, you are arguing that romance shows like this having a higher score than a show like AOT means that this one is “better”. Instead of thinking of better or worse, I would say these ratings show on average how enjoyable the shows were. If we’re talking strictly about better, I’d say AOT wins, and it’s not even close. But if we’re talking about how enjoyable the show was, I’d say they are about equal. As much as I kind of agree that shows like AOT should get more recognition than this one, even though this one was fantastic, it’s not fair to put this show lower or give it less attention because the story is shorter or doesn’t have as much depth. Objectively, they are both about equally as enjoyable as each other, it just comes down the preference from there. I don’t think something like that would warrant a change in the rating system.

Scores are weighted precisely to avoid this scenario. If an anime is rated 10/10 by one user, its actual score would be (assuming that the global mean of all MAL users is the same as MALgraph, which may not be true):

(1*10.00+100*6.54)/(1+100) = 6.57

I get where you're coming from but I don't think it would be worth it in the end. I think everyone has a different rating system in their head and I think the rates that anime get is also affected by what standards people have for certain genres and shows. For example, romance anime have incredibly low standards for the most part. So when there's a romance anime that has a really pretty art style and maybe a plot that's slightly less generic than average, most romance fans are immediately gonna give it a 9. That doesn't mean that if they watched AOT and gave it an 8, that they think AOT would be a worse anime necessarily. They just have higher standards for anime that are more popular/have higher budget etc.

I think something that is worth noting is also how many people have rated an anime. The less ratings an anime has, the higher the chances that they're gonna be incredibly high/incredibly low. Let's use Fragrant Flower and AOT as examples. I could see some of the people watching Fragrant Flower as AOT fans as well, because AOT is incredibly popular. But if you forced all AOT fans to watch Fragrant Flower and then rate it, the ratings would probably be much lower, because it might not be a genre of anime that most mainstream anime fans would enjoy.

So, when judging what anime is better than another, it's not only important to look at what their scores are, but also how many people have rated them. And also take into consideration that certain genres are usually rated higher than others.

I think the rating system is imperfect but ultimately fine the way it is. If MAL wanted to improve it, maybe they could add guidelines for how to rate anime?

Sorry this ended up being kinda long lol.

You're talking about MAL ratings... which is ass. You see 6 score anime, but it's actually good, you see 9 score anime which is actually bad. MAL ratings just bad. If you wanna search anime, just put the genre and search... I personally never watch the ratings now...

Also please elaborate on why we should delete the current "global rank system" based on overall ratings to show the general opinion, instead of one person sucking it up and having to sort by genre if that's what you really want, because I don't see the issue of something ranking the highest recorded ratings on a rsring platform.

leaderboards exist everywhere, don't be pissed there is a global leaderboard here too

if there's a show with only 1 viewer, and that person rates it 10, more people will try watching that show. If they like the show, they will rate it high too. Some may deduct 1 or 2 points over some imperfections. Some might rate it low cuz they just didn't like it (different shows for different audiences). Some might review bomb it just because the show is rated higher than their favourite show (happens a lot here).

If most people who watched the show after that 1st viewer end up not liking the show, the show will receive a lot of low ratings.

With all that, the show's rating will average out to give a rough indication of how much its audience liked it or disliked it.
And that's exactly what is happening here.

MAL scores in particular are arbitrary and meaningless. Why do the rankings actually matter? Segregated leaderboards don't add anything over filtering by tags and sorting, and the tagging already isn't great so it would just be another thing for people to get angry about.

I see you still haven't given me a reason beyond those I mentioned lol

You keep saying 'this isn't fair' 'that isn't fair', but the only point you're making by saying all this is that you're hurt because something you didn't like, a genre you don't think much of, could fetch a higher score and rank above your 'greats'.

Even if you made a fair point, your entire reason behind making this 'fixed' list is just too whiny to actually make an impact. Emotional reasons can't make a difference. Bring some actual sensible reasons as to why something like this should happen.

Read your statement again. you still don't see anything wrong with it? 😭😭😭

A list that ranks all anime shouldn't exist, that's what I'm trying to say here

@Nirinbo I wasn't talking about practicality, I'm talking about fairness. it wouldn't be fair for a show like that to be up there

@B1G2B3N Global ranking system treat every anime the same. You won't treat horses and donkeys the same, would u?

That's why it's a bad system. Ranking it by genre will make it better system

@Mathi786

no, i don't see anything wrong with it, in fact i see things wrong with your argument that i've mentioned and were ignored.

and i understand that's what you're trying to say, but i don't see why one should accept that point, a great show is a great show, regardless of genre, a romance show that people agree that is better than a show in a different genre can exist, no unfairness here.

just to be clear, i actually agree that kaoru's rating is inflated and that there are substantially better shows than it lower on the rankings, but separating shows to different lists based on genres makes no sense and doesn't solve any actual issue of unfairness.

rather, it would just create other problems and frankly be unworkable, because people that don't like that some other show beats their favorite would just ask for more separate lists based on some thematic difference and it simply would not end considering how most anime are in multiple genres and
have some differences that anyone could claim makes comparing them "unfair".

but if your goal was actually about fairness, other actions would make a lot more sense, like adjusting scores of sequels or combining different entries of the same series to one list, waiting years to add a series to the ranking due to recency bias and so on.

No. I don't agree with you. My opinion on this issue , like several others who commented, is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

I can totally see why people agreed with you though. You're not the only one who can't stand the idea of your 'greats' losing to romance titles when it comes to numbers. Naturally, similarly hurt people will echo your sentiments.

These people who have agreed with you, don't speak up themselves, because they know their argument, and YOUR argument, is absolutely hollow, and based on your own hurt feelings over mere numbers, and being unable to see anything you don't like on top.

@Mathi786 I literally said that an anime rated 10/10 by one user wouldn't be "up there", but it would be rated 6.57.

@Mathi786 it's not better because what you introduced basically exists already (Filter by genre, then sort by score) except for the fact that you want to delete a Ranking that is currently standing. extra work for nothing, that is how I see it

With the advanced search function you can simply double check Genres / Themes to exclude and then sort by either score or members.
That way you got what you want.

I like that the top list includes the best from every genre so newcomers have a broader choice / anyone can find something for them.
Especially if they don't know which genre they might like as anime.

@Krautschi my thing should be by default. without any filters.

To discover anime, there can be a saperate page that can show ratings of every anime but rankings shouldn't be decided like it's decided currently

@Mathi786 so suddenly global Ranking is fine? but as an extra and should not be deleted? you jusg contradicted yourself

Umm, or just go:
- Anime Search
- Specific Genre/Theme
- Sort by Score

:I

@Nirinbo Talk about the system, do you think it works or not?
if not than why not. stop talking specific animes

@Krautschi my thing should be by default. without any filters.

To discover anime, there can be a saperate page that can show ratings of every anime but rankings shouldn't be decided like it's decided currently

@Mathi786 Well it will be like this...not many of us are fans of romance so I would doubt about the rating will change so drastically. Sadly...But yeah as in a comment mentioned above you can really check for the highest rated anime for a certain genre by tagging it...
If the rating system is supposed to be changed I think it will be better if it count in the no. of members who actually rated that anime is also taken into count...Just as an example since it is one of my favs, YLIA got a rating of 8.64 after about 1.4 million people rated on it but Kaoru Hana slipped passed it with around 100k members rating it...If the rating is also changed from the no. of people who rated the show as well as I think it will be fair...cuz that show is already well balanced in the community to the extent that you can't say that it isn't a biased rating. With that much of people rating there are bound to be both the type that loves & dislikes the show...
Thank You for reading that all btw...

@Mathi786
A poll would have been cool to see if more people would like the thing you want.

Like...
"Would you prefer top-lists that are separated by genre by default?"
- Yes
- No
- Other (specify in comment pls :) )

I can understand that it would be easier to just navigate to e.g.
https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php?type=airing
and then have a separate row beneath the "All Anime | Top Airing | etc." row with the genres.
Or just having a filter feature directly beneath it like in the advanced search.
Would be easier to discover than the advanced search.