26 replies to this topic

[foxyeisenhower]

keep it simple, text box option to review a manga, try to stay away from numerical grades because those are wildly subjective
Currently, giant comments are discouraged just because they tend to be annoying to look at with the tiny font, not because of their content. if someone has a lot to say about a manga they don't really have an outlet, other than the manga-specific "forum" which nobody seems to use (still not sure why, maybe because it gives the impression of a tech support when it's stuck in the middle of the description)
it'd encourage user contribution and hopefully usher in a typing-more-than-one-line mentality

[PhoenixAUS]

I like this.

Like what Manga-access does.

[Arlo]

That'd maybe be good, but I have some doubts.

There are a few important bits of information that should accompany an entry for a title, and some sort of reader reviews of the title is one of them. People are going to want to know what the title's about (which the description tells them), then they're going to want to know if other people think it's any good or not. That information is important to people, so it should be out there somewhere easily visible. That should be treated as a given.

The comments sections could serve that purpose, but they're apparently not going to. They're going to be forum ghettoes - the home for stupid memes, tired macros, insipid comments, spoilers and flame wars. But the fact that the comments sections are doltish ghettoes entirely devoid of useful information doesn't change the fact that readers want to see useful information - it just means that that's not where they're going to find it. So yeah - maybe the only alternative is to add another section for reader reviews and put it above the comments section.

The problem I can see though is that it's not unlikely that that section would fall prey to the same idiocy that ruins the comments sections. Without fairly active moderation, I can see the review sections quickly filling up with garbage. As noted, we should try to stay away from numerical grades and such, but without moderation, that's certain to be what will be there, so it won't be useful information. It'll just be the fan-dumb fighting with the hate-dumb over whether it's "God tier" or "shit tier."

One alternative would be to make the comments section akin to the description - wiki style instead of forum style. That cleans up a lot of the riff-raff right there. It seems that most of the people who can't manage to post anything more pertinent or intelligent than "lol pwned <insert jpg>" won't, or don't even realize that they can, edit a wiki-style page entry. The problem there though is that wiki-style opinion pieces invite edit wars, which, since they happen in the background, are not as visible as open flame wars, but can be at least as destructive. Reader reviews are probably better handled cumulatively - everybody gets to say their piece and readers can then skim them and get an overall feel or skip the doltish ones and read the well-reasoned ones or whatever. If there's just one quasi-official review, that then becomes a point of contention and edit wars are guaranteed. But if anyone and everyone can add their own reviews, then we're likely to end up with idiocy, macros and open flame wars.

Dunno, but since the comments sections seem to be a lost cause, I do like the idea of some sort of reviews section. Somehow...

[foxyeisenhower]

wow that's pretty condescending to like 95% of the site
when you use a tone that critical without being specific nobody will listen to you because they'll all think you're talking about someone else

personally I think flame wars would be preferable to the deadlock we have right now on series that aren't in the top five
I'm not sure I understand your point, are you saying differing opinions are bad or circlejerks are good

[kdom]

Why not make a dedicated forum for reviews ?
That is simple to do and you would have all the reviews centralized in one place making them easy to find.

[Arlo]

Thinking about it, a forum might be the way to go.

Again, I think we can take it as a given that reviews are a piece of information in which at least some prospective readers would be interested. They'd be helpful and serve a purpose, so that's an argument for them being here. I still think though that if the reviews are posted through a text box on the main page for the title, the reviews section will suffer the same fate as the comments sections - they'll be too easy to access and thus too inviting and thus end up filled with memes and macros and nonsense instead of actual reviews. We'd want actual reviews - pieces written by people who are willing to go out of their way to write something with some meat to it, and one dependable way to limit it to people who are willing to go out of their way to write is to make is so that they have to go out of their way to post. However, that also means that prospective readers have to go out of their way to read the reviews.

On the one hand, I would think that people who want to write or read reviews of a title would be willing to click a link that says "Reviews." On the other hand, we already have forums for the titles, and they're mostly unused, apparently because so few people are willing to click one little link. Though it would seem that reviews are a specific enough thing that those who are interested in them - either writing them or reading them - are only a subset of readers, and arguably with a fair amount of overlap with the subset of readers who are willing to click a link before they get about the business of reading and writing. So it might just work.

For that matter, anyone so inclined could start a clearly named "Reviews" thread on any of the existing title forums, so it wouldn't even need any action by Batoto to get it going. Though it's arguably likely that any such threads would be just as ignored as the rest of the forum threads - at least a separate and well-marked "Reviews" link on the main entry would probably be better, even if it only links to a subforum or even just a thread on the existing title forum.

Hmmm.....

[MezzoParody]

I wouldn't object to having reviews in the forums - my only concern is that no one would notice or use them, since the forums get so ignored. I'd rather have reviews be something that feels accessible to everyone rather than some niche thing that sits by the side.

As for the "if it's too easy to access it'd get flooded with useless stuff" concern, what about a "usefulness" ranking? Like on Amazon, people who read the reviews can rate them by how helpful they are. Then even if some people do add stupid things, the good stuff would remain most visible.

Edited by MezzoParody, 27 October 2012 - 06:41 PM.

[Arlo]

Yeah - some sort of usefulness ranking might work. A similar suggestion was made recently for the comments sections, and I thought it was a good idea then, and for the same reason - to keep useful information visible and bury the nonsense.

The whole thing, to me - in my own experience - I see a title and I'm interested in it, I look at the description and it seems promising, and then I wonder if it's any good. And that's when I want to see... something. When I first started hanging out here, that was the point when I'd scroll down to the comments section to see what other readers thought, but it didn't take long to figure out that that's a waste of time at best, and potentially ruins any desire I might have to read the manga when the first thing I see is a spoiler. And I'm sure I'm neither the only person who wants to see reader reviews nor the only person who's figured out that the comments sections, as they stand, are useless at best. So there's really no good way to just find out what other readers think of the title.

It's possible that a "usefulness" ranking on the existing comments sections could at least help, but I tend to think the comments sections are a lost cause. Like it or not, just as there are people who want to read and/or write reviews and other useful pieces of information, there are people who want to read and/or write "lol mc got pwned <insert /b/ macro>". So maybe the solution is to just let them have the comments sections and put another section in for useful information, and yeah - to make sure that it's as useful as possible by having a "usefulness" ranking.

Might work...

[Kalladin]

This was alot to read and process in my half dead state I'm in .


Review section
Dedicated Review Forums
Comments Purpose
Review open to the eyes of the reader.

Is that it, not trying to abase you or anything.

I like where this is going. Frankly atm I'm too lazy to make any reviews. If you would like to make a review I'm sure something can be worked out.

I got some ideas that can solve some problems. But the problem I forsee is even if we had a location to put reviews... who is going to review the manga? Maybe I'm wrong with this, maybe there are plenty of people willing to review I don't know.

I liked the idea of a seperate forum, but as MezzoParody brought up no one will notice them or use them.

So not much of a big idea, I just want to grow the reveiw community somewhat. We could choose a manga, recent or old, perferably short and new. We make a forum post somewhere, title it: Review: Manga by Author. We post our own reviews in that thread and to solve the issue of being seen, we edit the description to be the review that we have chosen or include it.

So we have some choices, we can write the description, write a review, or do both for a certain manga. If people like to do this kind of stuff, we can possibly request a seperate forum, and maybe even a site format change.

Because at the moment, whatever change we would like to come won't appear for awhile.

If you like to do this message me, and with a manga or three, short one, long ones whatever fits your taste. We'll decide on which one later on, so don't exclude the longer ones just yet. If I get 2-3 people we can do something I guess.

[hero]

if the reader can rate a review then the problem with it getting spammed is solved, because the reviews that have a good rating (given by the readers) would show further up, that way if there are reviews that are totally useless they would be at the bottom and it wouldn´t need any moderation.

[A.I.]

Maybe even create a review spotlight? Choosing the best reviews, that could help advertising some good but not so well known mangas out there.

[foxyeisenhower]

Maybe even create a review spotlight? Choosing the best reviews, that could help advertising some good but not so well known mangas out there.

this could potentially be horrible but it seems to work for amazon and youtube

[Kalladin]

I want to emphasize, the fact for any of this to work. People have to make reviews first.

[Grumpy]

Personally speaking, I'd prefer to see reviews simply inside the forum. I think it's a perfect place both in context and we have it already. If someone wanted to write a review, there's nothing stopping them from making short or long reviews in the forum.

Comment was never meant to hold reviews and I don't think it ever can. Because, it's comments... You don't expect to see reviews of things in comment area; you'd expect to see a one liner.

I think something like a visual direction may be of biggest help to achieve using forums as where the reviews belong.

[foxyeisenhower]

duh the forums are better for longform writing but people like to use the comments more so you got to cater to that if you want them to ever produce content. whether you do that by overhauling the way manga-specific forums are presented, changing how comments are displayed, or adding some sort of medium between the two, is up to you but until something happens people are going to keep being awkward

Edited by foxyeisenhower, 31 December 2012 - 10:11 AM.

[hero]

you can´t rate a review in the forum, you can just give it a like. I think if there was a rating system for review it would be better.

[mhh]

This is a little off topic but personally think a way to rate comments would be nice as well.

[Kalladin]

hero, there may be no feature/mechanism to rate reviews in forums, but even without it, there is a way to rate it.

Make a reply, and well rate it. You can even add indepth ratings. But rating "reviews" is not a bad idea. Rating comments is not a bad idea either mhh.

[hero]

hero, there may be no feature/mechanism to rate reviews in forums, but even without it, there is a way to rate it.

Make a reply, and well rate it. You can even add indepth ratings. But rating "reviews" is not a bad idea. Rating comments is not a bad idea either mhh.

its more about, will people really read a reply to a review? and you would have to read more than one reply to see what people think about it. If you have a rating system it is much easier, you just look at the stars (or whatever there would be) and you would get an impression.

[Derek]

I like the idea, but reviews of a manga would only have a point if they were obvious on the page to readers, and easily accessible. Having a forum for them isn't really a bad thing, it's just that if people don't know they're there, then they won't read them, and people won't write them.

I personally rather like how MAL does their rating system. Something like theirs would work here.