| Several suggestions on how to improve the review section of MAL: 1. Cleaning up the mess (organize stuff) -Totally remove the right to review an anime/manga if it's not completed I know there's the guideline which makes a detailed explanation what's an overview, but the problem still remains that when a show's hype level goes over the charts, useless "reviews" will flow. This is the most effective way to stop that. -Instead of 2 top reviews chosen by people on every anime/manga page, put 1 top review from two different tops, namely: "People’s choice" and "Critics choice" (obviously, you'll have to create the second top) A critic could be a status given to any person with an average score between 4.5 and 7.5 and a min of 100 anime watched. (Do note people, I am not talking about elitism. Because sadly, there is quite a bunch of anime that aren't as good as the masses praise them. And because of that, really good reviews are lost, just because the reviewer doesn’t have a good opinion about a 15 y.o. kid’s favorite animu. So the best thing would be to show the both viewpoints, right?) -One more filter for review posting would be again the same: “You’re forbidden to post a review if your average score is higher than 8” (=total lack of critical sense => not fit to write reviews) -Just remove totally the ratings in a review (yes, even the overall one). Not only that it’s unnecessary, but a lot of people click helpful/not helpful only by looking at the marks. So instead of reviewing, this section becomes more of an “opinion war”. Of course, that totally removes the categories (keep them only as a starting point in the guidelines). 2. Improving the quality of MAL reviews -Add a “ban this user from making reviews” function (if it doesn’t exist) and have admins simply ban people for flooding the review section with crap. If they want the ban to be lifted, let them write 2 acceptable reviews. -Guidelines First of all, it could be improved even further. Therefore add a third post about how to correctly make an analysis and what’s actual critique. Secondly, every time someone writes a review for the first time, redirect him to the guideline post (YES, people actually don’t even bother reading it. So, improve the odds of a person reading the guideline before submitting a review). -Put up a strict set of rules for reviewing, since your 100% abide rules are just the basic stuff and don’t tell people right in the face what a review is (apply bans here to get the required combo). Besides the mentioned above things, those rules should include things like “It is forbidden for a reviewer to include only his personal enjoyment in the review”. |
Valik93 said: It is forbidden for a reviewer to include only his personal enjoyment in the review. I laughed. This is satire of people who actually think you can be 'objective', right? I mean you can't be serious. |
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TallonKarrde23 said: Valik93 said: It is forbidden for a reviewer to include only his personal enjoyment in the review. I laughed. This is satire of people who actually think you can be 'objective', right? I mean you can't be serious. Of course you can. Not in the exact phylosophical meaning of the word 'objective', but objectivity is an essential factor in reviewing. |
Valik93 said: A critic could be a status given to any person with an average score between 4.5 and 7.5 and a min of 100 anime watched. Okay, I'll just add 100 random anime and rate them with "2". Great, I'm a critic now. Besides, average score on MAL is... broken. You for example are not qualified as critic, because you have "Mean Score: 9.0". Do you honestly believe that if MAL can't fix that simple known bug for years, they will implement something as complicated as this? Valik93 said: -One more filter for review posting would be again the same: “You’re forbidden to post a review if your average score is higher than 8” (=total lack of critical sense => not fit to write reviews) It's a good thing I already lowered my average score in order to be a critic :D Valik93 said: -Add a “ban this user from making reviews” function (if it doesn’t exist) They don't even have separate forum and list bans, if user is banned, he's banned entirely from the site AND doesn't even know neither the reason or duration of the ban until the ban is lifted. Bans are lifted manually btw, so if the mod forgets to do that, then you are screwed. Of course you can always come and bitch about it to the IRC All in all, another utopia. It's a good thing I can be 100% sure no one will ever implement this and hence can be restful |
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| First of all those are all suggestions. You can bypass anything if you want it and you should know it by yourself, Serhiyko. Well... In order to drop your score, you still gotta think which anime deserve a lower score. Something is still better than nothing. I didn't even add up here real changes that are kinda... needed. I kept it within the range of minimal changes (or those that were looking simple, from my own perspective) in order to take a step ahead. I didn't even go into an "Utopia" description, you know... Anybody who browses from time to time the review section knows that it's a TOTAL mess. |
Valik93Feb 25, 2014 2:41 PM
Valik93 said: You can bypass anything if you want it and you should know it by yourself, Serhiyko. Why should I? Valik93 said: Well... In order to drop your score, you still gotta think which anime deserve a lower score. I'll just choose the least popular to be sure I shall never stumble onto them Valik93 said: Anybody who browses from time to time the review section knows that it's a TOTAL mess. Anybody who browses from time to time the suggestion section knows that NOTHING there is ever implemented |
SerhiykoFeb 25, 2014 3:00 PM
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| Aaaaaand I also know that it's useless writting anything here. But I guess I have a reason or two. |
| The Review/Recommendation Mods are working on cleaning up the place, trying to remove all the crap reviews that exist. They are backed up though, since they just started and they had a whole of reviews flagged before they started. If you see a crap review (I mean a review that violates the guidelines, not a review you disagree with), report it and let the review moderator. Valik93 said: “You’re forbidden to post a review if your average score is higher than 8” (=total lack of critical sense => not fit to write review) Just because someone enjoys a lot of anime shouldn't stop him from writing reviews. What's the difference between someone who has a 6.5 avg score and a 9.0 avg score writing a review for an anime they enjoyed. They both write what they enjoyed, why they enjoyed it, what could have been improved and so forth. A person who enjoys watching anime and reading manga should have as much say as a person who purposely looks for plotholes and lack of character development. I think you are worried about reviews like... Fanboy said: Guidelines already says fanboying in a review is frowned upon and can be removed. You should focus more on the review itself rather than the users taste imo. (Reason why I will not be writing a review for Mekaku City Actors... gonna fanboy too much) |
ZelotFeb 25, 2014 3:32 PM
Valik93 said: TallonKarrde23 said: Valik93 said: It is forbidden for a reviewer to include only his personal enjoyment in the review. I laughed. This is satire of people who actually think you can be 'objective', right? I mean you can't be serious. Of course you can. Not in the exact phylosophical meaning of the word 'objective', but objectivity is an essential factor in reviewing. You factually cannot 'objectively' review this. Literally the ONLY objective factors in anime are framerate, audio quality (as in the bitrate, not the 'voice acting is bad to me'), and ...that's it. This is not up for discussion, this is not my opinion - you literally, factually, objectively, can not be 'objective' when reviewing this medium outside of the two things I already just mentioned. Not only anime, but ANY ENTERTAINMENT MEDIUM cannot be OBJECTIVELY reviewed aside from one or two very specific aspects (the only two that apply to anime I've already mentioned). You cannot objectively state the voice acting is bad, that is factually an opinion. There is no such thing as 'bad voice acting' aside what you personally consider to be bad. You cannot objectively state an art style is bad, that is factually an opinion. There is no such thing as a 'bad art style' aside what you personally consider to be bad. You cannot objectively state a story is bad, that is factually an opinion. There is no such thing as a 'bad story' aside what you personally consider to be bad. You cannot objectively state pacing is bad, that's factually an opinion. There is no such thing as 'bad pacing' aside what you personally consider to be bad. You cannot objectively state a character - or the entire cast - is bad, that's factually an opinion. There is no such thing as a bad character or cast aside hwat you personally consider to be bad. You cannot objectively state something or someone is unbelievable, that's factually an opinion. There is no such thing as unbelievable aside what you personally perceive. I can do this for literally every single aspect involved in anime aside from frame rate (Kill la Kill objectively has a bad frame rate) and audio quality (some older anime have some audio issues, while it's a game a good recent example is Tales of Xillia: the first couple hours were recorded on low-quality mics and you can hear the terrible audio quality during that period of gameplay very easily). You are creating your own metrics based off of your own personal perceptions and opinions to measure the quality of something. This is the VERY DEFINITION OF SUBJECTIVITY. |
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| I'll jump on the easy one. Valik93 said: -Totally remove the right to review an anime/manga if it's not completed So no one's allowed to review One Piece, Naruto, Detective Conan, and all the long-running shows now? |
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TallonKarrde23 said: This is not up for discussion, this is not my opinion - you literally, factually, objectively, can not be 'objective' when reviewing this medium outside of the two things I already just mentioned. Not only anime, but ANY ENTERTAINMENT MEDIUM cannot be OBJECTIVELY reviewed aside from one or two very specific aspects (the only two that apply to anime I've already mentioned). When you are subjective, you state your own opinion without considering that the majority may not agree with you. When you want to be objective, you try to guess what would the most of the most knowledgeable people say or think about the medium and you state it in their place Pond said: So no one's allowed to review One Piece, Naruto, Detective Conan, and all the long-running shows now? Why no, you can review one of the seasons of Naruto |
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| TallonKarrde23, please... if you have no idea about movie critique, that doesn't mean the rules to judge the story and characters do not exist. I won't even go into explaining to you what is what since I got tired of it already and this thread is not supposed to be a tutorial. Before stating your opinion like this, inform yourself better. Heredity said: You can never be objective when reviewing TV/film/theatre. The same goes to you. Pond said: So no one's allowed to review One Piece, Naruto, Detective Conan, and all the long-running shows now? From one point of view the series aren't complete so you can't really judge them. But, well... as Serhiyko said, if an arc of min 30 eps got to a logical conclusion, it's ok to review only that specific arc (or go for several at once). And it's still debatable, considering that there might be things that seem like plot holes even after 300 episodes and around the end they finally get at least something of an explanation (talking about Naruto now). |
Valik93Feb 26, 2014 9:12 AM
| If I'll share my point of view on this matter, it will be a tad rough, but accurate and realistic. At the moment, I feel like writing an essay on the matter I love (the reviews) won't do any good, nor have any effect here. Change my mind and tell me why I should join this (fruitless) discussion, and with a fair point made, I will. For now: People who watch anime are (usually) some over-hyped happy peeps. Do not expect any sort of objectivity from such a bunch, because in most cases, you are not going to get it. Ignore the heavily subjective reviews, and aim for the actual (and rare) good ones. Trust me, ignoring it and letting it be will only decrease the unwanted stress, as this whole idea of having a "stricter review overseeing and controlling" ends after the first sentence. In the matter of even thinking of it taking action, that is. No matter how good-minded the idea is, just looking at what the majority of the community is like, it fails automatically. |
| Like many here, I have tried to make use of the reviews when deciding whether or not to watch a series, and I have written a few reviews. I have come to the conclusion that the review system is fundamentally flawed, and that it can never be fixed, but that it is still useful. It is up to us to take the time and effort necessary to make it work. No system that accepts reviews from the general public will ever work very well. Although this site posts guidelines for reviews, individual reviewers will still do whatever they want, and it would take very active and intrusive moderation (which would be criticized) to counteract this. Many people simply don't know how to write a review, and many aren't good at writing in any situation. Even those who know how to write will differ greatly from each other in their standards. The only sort of review venue that will have a consistent style and quality is a venue that only accepts reviews from professional critics, and these will, of course, have their own set of problems. So how do we get something useful out of this flawed system? Those of us who read reviews must put forth the effort. The most important part of this is to completely ignore the review voting system and its effects. This system does not work, and even if reformed, it never will. Too many people vote based on whether they agree with the score the reviewer has given, or on whether they hate the reviewer. Getting rid of the negative vote option might help this a little, but it wouldn't solve the underlying problem. The only way to get around this problem is to actually go through all of the reviews and not stop at the two that the automated system features. Of course, for a very popular series with hundreds of reviews, this may not be practical, but most series seem to have no more than ten or twenty reviews. It is easy enough to pick out the bad reviews and ignore them while going down the list, and typically three or four good ones will stand out. I have so far refused to participate in the review voting system since it is fatally flawed. I'm considering starting to give positive votes to the better reviews, but I'll never give a negative vote since that option has been overused by the voting public and I don't want to contribute to the problem. If the voting system is completely abandoned at some point, I won't shed a tear for it. Then, maybe the system could pick two reviews at random to feature, although this wouldn't work too well either. It might be better if the moderators could go through the reviews and pick two good ones, but it would require far too much effort on their part and would be impractical. In conclusion, the only way for people who read reviews to get anything of value out of the system here is to take the time to scan through all of the reviews or at least a good percentage of them when deciding whether to watch a series. Yes, this takes time, and I know many people are too lazy or pressed for time to go to the trouble, but those who have limited time to watch anime and want to be selective about the series they watch should go to the trouble, because there are some excellent reviews buried beneath all the crap. Incidentally, my average rating for anime is rather high, but I attribute this to the fact that I am selective about what I will watch. If I watched series at random, my average score would probably be around 6, but since I seek out series that I am likely to rate highly, my average will naturally be high. Reviews and series descriptions on this website have certainly helped me to keep my average rating high because they have guided me to the series that best suit my taste and to programs that are among the better examples of their genres. |
| It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. |
Valik93 said: A critic could be a status given to any person with an average score between 4.5 and 7.5 and a min of 100 anime watched I wouldn't be able to be a critic with your rules, since I have a mean score of 3.92... I disagree with this lel |
| Subpyro, I gave really basic suggestions. Half of them won't even require a lot of work. Hell, redirecting to the guidelines is a piece of cake. The problem won't disappear by itself obviously, but even some minor changes can at least show some people what's a damn review. It won't remove the problem, but it'll reduce it and maybe even set a correct direction. There was also the idea of making the people "get the right" to write reviews through admins. Something of a "reviewer" rank. But you know... I really doubt something this major will be done here. If the admin team of this site wouldn't be so lazy, they would've been looking for ways to further develop the site and not only maintain a little bit of order. WeirdHeather, the rating system is something necesary in my opinion. A filter is required anyway, because (for example) even good reviewers can get on a hype train. This is where the 2 tops idea makes sense. Depending on what the viewer is looking for... Imagine for example the same Angel Beats series (took this example because I was talking recently about it). Someone gives it a 10 (which is totally absurd in reviewing actually) and the viewer can read what felt so... moving in it. But if our viewer is less casual and more of a critic or hater he looks at the second top to see reviews giving it 5 or 6 on the same level as reviews giving it a higher score. But in the current system, the reviews that give it a low score will be hidden by the mountains of "not helpful" given by every fanboy with zero ability to see things as a critic. Next... Heredity... I'll just ignore you... Robin6128, you're just a hater xD One more thing to note for everybody again. These are just raw suggestions. They can and even should be improved, that is only if some admin actually takes a look at this... =) |
Valik93 said: If the admin team of this site wouldn't be so lazy, they would've been looking for ways to further develop the site and not only maintain a little bit of order. Why do you blame admin team? Blame Xinil and CraveOnline |
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| This suggestion needs a lot more polishing. |
"I have been wielding a blade since before your were swimming around your father's scrotum." - Kurou |
Valik93 said: Subpyro, I gave really basic suggestions. Half of them won't even require a lot of work. Hell, redirecting to the guidelines is a piece of cake. The problem won't disappear by itself obviously, but even some minor changes can at least show some people what's a damn review. It won't remove the problem, but it'll reduce it and maybe even set a correct direction. There was also the idea of making the people "get the right" to write reviews through admins. Something of a "reviewer" rank. But you know... I really doubt something this major will be done here. If the admin team of this site wouldn't be so lazy, they would've been looking for ways to further develop the site and not only maintain a little bit of order. I hope you don't misunderstand. I know what you mean, and regardless if it is a minority or not, it will not get implented. Now only because of the all-heard "suggestions don't get listened to anyway" (which is true), but because the reviews were "meant" to be open up for every legit MAL user. And since the majority doesn't know how to write something that isn't on a shithole level, I guess that is as far as it goes. Again, focusing only on the reviewers you find helpful and ignoring others (unless you want to give them a chance) is very suggested. On the other hand, there is no "admin team". There is only one coder, who comes on the site for 10 minutes approx, once per week. There is only one Database Admin (Kineta), who oversees the whole site, and has 0% of time on her hands. What's the logic of having only one general overseer with some actual access? Don't ask me, I find it foolish as well. |
AsianKungFu said: This suggestion needs a lot more polishing. Do it then. Serhiyko said: Why do you blame admin team? Blame Xinil and CraveOnline My bad. But I think in case the current coders have no time, they should look for new ones >_> |
Valik93 said: My bad. But I think in case the current coders have no time, they should look for new ones >_> Why should they? They get the money anyway |
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Serhiyko said: Valik93 said: My bad. But I think in case the current coders have no time, they should look for new ones >_> Why should they? They get the money anyway /topic As soon as the regulars stay and perhaps some new members come in here and there, the money flow from the ads is big enough. If effort is not needed, but the money level is still reasonable, then doing extra work would be foolish. However, if something crucial comes by, that would possibly pose a danger of the regulars leaving, they take action. This idea is far from being one of them, so yeah, it isn't happenning. Although I'm not keen of speaking that way... If a suggestion is good, I love to support it. But at the same time, I don't want the one suggesting it to get his/her hopes high, because disappointment is assured. |
Valik93 said: TallonKarrde23, please... if you have no idea about movie critique, that doesn't mean the rules to judge the story and characters do not exist. I won't even go into explaining to you what is what since I got tired of it already and this thread is not supposed to be a tutorial. Before stating your opinion like this, inform yourself better. I for example have no idea about movie critique, and I'm pretty sure most of the reviewers on MAL have no idea about movie critique, and if you can't even explain one person what it is, how can you possibly hope to redeem the whole site with millions of users? Is that what you are going to "tell people right in the face" in your "guidelines": "please inform yourself better"? "I won't even go into explaining to you what is what"? "I got tired of it already"? And it was only the first page of the thread! This clearly shows all seriousness of your intentions, and the value of all your suggestions Valik93 said: Heredity said: You can never be objective when reviewing TV/film/theatre. The same goes to you. So why do you talk about objectiveness, if no one can ever be objective???? |
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| @Topic: Considering how repeated some of these suggestions are, I'd say that mods already have full understanding of all these things OP pointed out, especially the stuff related to guidelines, airing anime, removing the overall score AND banning users. However, changes like this demand a great commitment + staff, and if we all think about it, 'till some months ago we were under several DDoS attacks (again) and adms didn't even have the skills to fix that. Crave, at the same time, isn't helping at all. They forgot MAL and aren't giving a **** about this IMG code. For further record, I'd like to just leave this thread here: http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=521089&show=0 Those were suggested in 2012 and some are finally being applied now. Now, regarding the review restrictions, and the stuff around "how a review would be" I really don't think a topic about it is necessary. Judging someone by his mean score is no different from stupid discussions of "I've watched more animu than you". This will always fall in terms of personal opinion and what if someone likes to rate his anime different from the average but is an awesome writer? Besides, this is a open community for "organizing and discussing anime", so don't expect to see top class gourmet reviewers here, neither a strict pattern for reviews layout/presentation. Reviews here in MAL are intended to show users why/why not should they watch something, and the way it is now (still) servers its objective. Valik93 said: Besides the mentioned above things, those rules should include things like “It is forbidden for a reviewer to include only his personal enjoyment in the review”. It's already on the guidelines. Don't need to keep arguing over it. If you find a review that doesn't follow the pattern, report it. Quoting Kineta: "While reviews should be written with creativity and include your personal opinion, the review should ultimately deliver the evaluation as fairly and objectively as possible. This means your text should neither read like the gushing of a overzealous fan nor the raging of a cynical hater. Overly emotional commentaries should be restricted to friends and blogs." On the other hand, I'd strongly support the idea of having two different categories for reviews. The community chosen/ mod chosen. This would really help in situations like recent-aired hyped/popular anime, where almost all reviews are from either haters or fanboys and you have to scavenge though pages until something more realistic comes out. |
xbobxMar 14, 2014 4:25 PM
| People pay attention to those reviews? |
| Never forget, that if you post a topic, you're not allowed to post in it yourself, by order of MAL administration. |
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