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YanagiTenks



Joined: 07 Mar 2006
Posts: 8
Location: Queens, New York
PostPosted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:36 pm Reply with quote
It'd be nice if we could have a feature for each anime we've seen, to review it, but as well as not spoiling anything, therefore, you can pick moderators to review the fan written reviews, whether they have enough detail, word count, etc. to be accepted.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10420
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:41 pm Reply with quote
I've been talking about that to Dan and Zac.

Right now we aren't sure if we want to do it or not.

Here are the cons:

1) Moderation - Impossible to get a staff member to do it, I'd have to pay someone a full time salary just to watch over the reviews, and they still probably wouldn't be able to keep up with them. We'd probably have to go with a user moderated system (voting on the reviews).

2) They may devalue the staff reviews. We pride ourselves on seeking out the best amateur and semi-professional reviewers we can for this site. This is something we want to remain at the foreground of the site.


On the pro side

1) More user interactivity on the site

2) More alternate opinions.

3) Reviews of titles the staff didn't manage to review.

Of course, #2 can also be a con. Too many opinions just makes things confusing, but I guess if someone choses to read reader submitted reviews, they accept the fact that most people don't know how to write an objective review.

-t

[edit added pro #3]


Last edited by Tempest on Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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one3rd



Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1817
Location: アメリカ
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 3:49 pm Reply with quote
Well, the My Anime section does allow for user comments. Perhaps some kind of user blog with a specific review category would be better. I don't think prominently displayed user reviews would be a good idea for ANN. I think one of the best parts about ANN is that the reviews are professional rather than 20 random people saying, "ZOMG, this aniem is teh BEST!"
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jgreen



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
Posts: 1325
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:42 pm Reply with quote
I think something like the way Amazon does it would work. If you have a legit, ANN-staff review, that would always get top billing, and get all the snazzy formatting and all that to make it look as official as it really is. The user reviews would then be in a (probably lengthy) list at the bottom.

Just my two pennies...
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one3rd



Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1817
Location: アメリカ
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:44 pm Reply with quote
I wouldn't even put fan reviews on the same page as the official reviews. Maybe somewhere in small text, "User reviews (n)," where "n" is the number of reviews in the database for the given release or title.
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Keonyn
Subscriber



Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Coon Rapids, MN
PostPosted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:26 pm Reply with quote
I'd say just tweak the "My Anime" comments section a bit, I already use it to sort of review what I have in there. I say "sort of" simply because I really put in why I felt the way I did regarding the title rather than trying to put in an unbias review. That is, of course, as close to a review as I'll get.
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
Posts: 9193
PostPosted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:59 am Reply with quote
It might not be a good idea because there will be people who use the poor grammar that you see on the forums. And like Tempest has said, that will just be more work for the staff to monitor these reviews.
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Malintex Terek
Guest




PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:06 am Reply with quote
tempest wrote:

2) They may devalue the staff reviews. We pride ourselves on seeking out the best amateur and semi-professional reviewers we can for this site. This is something we want to remain at the foreground of the site.


That's pretty pathetic. If "anonymousZOMG1337" can write an impartial and thorough that puts the staff reviews to shame, ANN should be proud, not embarassed, to host it. This website is well trusted and very prestigious; it attracts both the very best and the very worst writers autonomously, such that ANN need not be proactive in seeking "semi-professional" reviewers. Even with a name like "anonymousZOMG1337", if his/her review is on ANN, it's worth reading.

...which leads to the moderation problem. As such, though a noble idea to implement fan reviews (especially on developing series, notably, One Piece), accomplishing such a feat is likely as impossible now as it will be in ten years.
[/i]
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Number Six



Joined: 14 Apr 2005
Posts: 84
Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:30 am Reply with quote
tempest wrote:
I've been talking about that to Dan and Zac.

Right now we aren't sure if we want to do it or not.

Here are the cons:

1) Moderation - Impossible to get a staff member to do it, I'd have to pay someone a full time salary just to watch over the reviews, and they still probably wouldn't be able to keep up with them. We'd probably have to go with a user moderated system (voting on the reviews).

I think some sort of moderation is required. Just having all the reviews in list form like on Yahoo or Amazon invites the trolls out. Maybe you could use something like Slashcode, although I don't know how tough that is to maintain and if it would be difficult to integrate into the existing site.

tempest wrote:
2) They may devalue the staff reviews. We pride ourselves on seeking out the best amateur and semi-professional reviewers we can for this site. This is something we want to remain at the foreground of the site.

On the pro side

1) More user interactivity on the site

2) More alternate opinions.

3) Reviews of titles the staff didn't manage to review.

Of course, #2 can also be a con. Too many opinions just makes things confusing, but I guess if someone choses to read reader submitted reviews, they accept the fact that most people don't know how to write an objective review.

You know, one of the things I really like about the Internet is the diversity of opinion you get. I don't see "too many opinions" as a problem at all. If I am interested in something I want to see many different viewpoints. That way I can get a good feel for the consensus about a reviewed show. Also, since everyone approaches things from different angles, I can also get a feel for whether I agree with the consensus or not.

The main drawback is that you need a fair number of "good" reviews to make this a statistically valid approach. "Valid" meaning you get a good picture of how the ANN users feels about a show.

And yes, done well, it probably would devalue your official reviewer's reviews, at least for me. It wouldn't make them worthless, mind you, but personally, I would much rather know how most others feel as a whole about something rather than one person's opinion, no matter how "objective" they are.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:13 am Reply with quote
Malintex Terek wrote:
such that ANN need not be proactive in seeking "semi-professional" reviewers. Even with a name like "anonymousZOMG1337", if his/her review is on ANN, it's worth reading.
[/i]


This is not true.

This comment illustrates the fact that this problem is far deeper and more complicated than most people probably understand.
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Shorty22



Joined: 09 Aug 2003
Posts: 504
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:54 am Reply with quote
Now, I don't know if this is a good idea or not. The only pro I can think of is a variation off of tempest's pro #2; this might cut back on some of the topics in the forums. How many times have you seen a thread where the person is just asking for other people's opinions about a series? They (hopefully) read whatever was available in the encyclopedia/reviews on the site, but wanted more input. Personally, I want several reviews/summaries/information before I risk money on a new series that I know won't be aired on TV.

Maybe instead of calling them reviews, you could call them 'viewer opinions'. That's what people are generally asking for in the forums anyway. Under the bit about related reviews/releases, just tack on another link. By calling them opinions, you could probably just treat them like another forum, let most things go but get rid of stupid/pointless one-liners. I don't know if you'd be able to incorporate something to insure that they're at least, say 500 characters long to deter the pointless stuff. Of course, I realize that this is also what the 'comments' area of the 'my anime' section may be for, but I hardly ever view someone else's lists. I don't know about other users, but I generally just try to keep it updated for my personal use.
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joel_s95387



Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 1804
Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:22 am Reply with quote
I don't agree with the idea either. Like said before, another full staff member would probably need to be added to the ANN roster, and "if it aint broke, don't fix it". The reviews here are fine, although they are pretty much random titles and sometimes new reviews take a really long time.

What pre-requisites or experience would one need in order to become an reviewer?
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8459
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:28 am Reply with quote
Considering the multitudes of people who come here that can barely string together two sentences, I'm against it. It certainly does devalue the reviews given by the intelligent reviewers on the ANN staff. We can't have some "goku39393" with their poor language skills befouling the website with poorly constructed diatribes about how "eva rulz!!111one". It's absurd to give the same credence you would to this person's review as you would a member of the ANN staff.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:54 am Reply with quote
YanagiTenks wrote:
It'd be nice if we could have a feature for each anime we've seen, to review it, but as well as not spoiling anything, therefore, you can pick moderators to review the fan written reviews, whether they have enough detail, word count, etc. to be accepted.

It'd be nicer if you could have provided enough financial sources so each and every ANN staff can live and raise their families by reviewing fan-written reviews alone. Wink By the way, besides simple ratings, I haven't seen any "review" you have written in your My Anime. How about contributing some of your own ideas before asking more from others for free?

Seriously, the simpliest way would be this idea I've talked about almost two years ago: adding a "reversed" My Anime feature so one could find out who have watched a specific title and what's his/her opinion on it (written in the "comment" field of My Anime). I don't know whether this feature would be technically possible, though.
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