Philosophy of Reviewing

[kaind67]

I have sat down and for about 2 hours read reviews for various series like KGNE. As I went through each of them, there is a general pattern that I have noticed that I believe others have noticed and not cared about. The score that a review gives has a correlation to the reviews length. The shorter a review is, the more likely its going give a score of 1 or 10. These reviews generally lack substance and provide a reader who has never watched it little idea as to why the show should or should not be watched. They tend be nothing but short rants about their greatness or the shittiness of the show. (I also am annoyed by the fact that they say something along the lines of "I loved the character development... except for so and so characters... but I'm still going to give it a 10 for character.")The review rating system does little to weed out bad reviews. People tend give high scores to reviews that match their opinion and low scores to those who don't. In my opinion, reviews should only be rated by people who have seen the show AFTER they have read the review. But this would be impossible to keep track.

Hearing what I have to say, I give the staff of AniDB a proposal: Make one of the requirements for submitting a review be that there is a 500 word minimum.

I'm not asking for scrutinizing assessment of each and every review because that would be a waste of time and it's just plain unjustified censorship. But if a person does believe that a show deserves a perfect or horrible score then they should explain the reasons why it does.

[Rar]

I disagree, there are some very handy short reviews. In fact, if we were imposing limits, I'd be voting for a 2000 word max, not any kind of min.
Note, we have a system for scrutinizing assessment of each and every review that is submitted anyway, exp could just finish the job and not count the 'red' reviews towards average scores displayed.

Rar

[kamenoko]

I can't remember what I gave KGNE, I think it was around 5 or so, but I'm curious, if you stll have the dats, did my review follow the curve?

But that aside, lenght, to a point, means shit. Because I could make every review I have on the database twice as long, with very little effort. A bullshit sentence here, a connecting sentence there, and it suddenly looks like I have a lot more to say, but I don't. It's called regurgatation, and it sucks.

Here's a better experiment, take the 16 or so reviews of KGNE and rank them in terms of quality of writing. And see if you get a correlation then

[Antono]

In my opinion, reviews should only be rated by people who have seen the show AFTER they have read the review.

I've thought of that too! Or, to rephrase it backwards, "only allow people who HAVEN'T watched the anime yet rate its reviews". Let them vote on how much the review helped them pick their next show.

That way, they won't be tempted to give a bad mark if the reviewer's opinion differs from theirs... I admit it, no matter how hard I try, I can always sense a little hostility towards a review that burries my favorite anime. That's why I haven't rated any reviews up to now.

However, I really can't see how the AniDB staff can implement this. A user can easily mark the show UNVIEWED, rate its reviews and then restore the VIEWED status.

[DarkGod5]

However, I really can't see how the AniDB staff can implement this. A user can easily mark the show UNVIEWED, rate its reviews and then restore the VIEWED status.

Simple. Remove the ability to unview a series. Afterall, if it isn't a possibility in reality why make it so virtually?

[Antono]

However, I really can't see how the AniDB staff can implement this. A user can easily mark the show UNVIEWED, rate its reviews and then restore the VIEWED status.

Simple. Remove the ability to unview a series. Afterall, if it isn't a possibility in reality why make it so virtually?

If you do, you don't make any allowances for mistakes. I bet everybody has marked a series WATCHED by mistake at least once (I know I have, especially when using the "mark all as watched").

[egg]

Simple. Remove the ability to unview a series. Afterall, if it isn't a possibility in reality why make it so virtually?

Also, remember the viewed status goes along with the files, not the eps or the anime. All someone would have to do is to remove the files from mylist. There are various legitimate reasons for removing files from mylist, you could have a higher quality file (or a v2), or you could have lost something (I lost a CD from a particular anime, so I removed those files from mylist). Also, yes, I prefer to remove files from mylist rather than mark them as deleted, it makes finding the things that I don't have easier (for instance with the hint or AOM filters).