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SixFourian 
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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 Posted - 15/01/2011 : 23:10:12
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| I thought I would put these together. It's interesting to see the changes over time, and in particular to confirm my feeling as to what were the glory days of F.W.F.R. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 16/01/2011 : 15:49:09
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| Did anyone notice when we went past 1,000,000 votes? |
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Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 13:17:17
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Nice work.
Whole site highest number of reviews for a film 599 - Which film? |
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BiggerBoat 
"Pass me the harpoon"
London, UK
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 13:34:17
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That is quite interesting. So, nothing submitted after 2004 has ever garnered over 100 votes. In the last four years, only one review has managed to get over 50 votes.
I always wanted to get a review in the top 100 but I see that it's probably an impossible dream. In 2005, when I joined, there were only 68 reviews that got over 50 votes and some of those were mine, so there's probably not much else I could have done.
More interestingly, as Salopian alludes to, there was a 'Golden Age' when lots of users were voting on lots of reviews, between 2004-2006. There have been fewer reviews in the last few years but the drop off in votes is double what it should be.
So, what do we do about this?
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 14:05:52
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quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
Whole site highest number of reviews for a film 599 - Which film?
Hhmmm, well either it is a coding error or it is not in this list. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 14:15:13
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quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
More interestingly, as Salopian alludes to, there was a 'Golden Age' when lots of users were voting on lots of reviews, between 2004-2006. There have been fewer reviews in the last few years but the drop off in votes is double what it should be.
I think the main crux of it is that reviews just aren't as good now. It's no one's fault -- it's just that most good ideas have already been used. But then it's a vicious circle: fewer good reviews means people visiting less.
As for what can be done, I don't have any fresh ideas. Perhaps nothing. |
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BiggerBoat
"Pass me the harpoon"
London, UK
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 15:20:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I think the main crux of it is that reviews just aren't as good now. It's no one's fault -- it's just that most good ideas have already been used. But then it's a vicious circle: fewer good reviews means people visiting less.
As for what can be done, I don't have any fresh ideas. Perhaps nothing.
I think you're right to a degree. Admittedly there was more scope for new reviews when there were less competing reviews, but I think there are good reviews being approved still. The art of being creative is doing something different to what has come before. Yes, that becomes harder over time, but there's the challenge.
Have to agree though that, in general, the reviews that make the top twenty every day are of a much lower standard than a few years back.
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 16:15:41
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Several equivalent factors have converged to create the result. Not only were more of the obvious review-first-then-find-a-film ideas still unused, but the same applied to ideas for each well-known film from the previous century. In the latter case, as well as more ideas being available, they were then understood by more people: reviews for less well-known films get fewer votes. A larger proportion of reviewers were newer, so they applied the ideas inspired by their personality and experiences that no one had previously thought of. (For example, I recycled many of my own puns from my days working on magazines.) A factor not directly affecting the best reviews, but making them harder to find and thus the site less appealing to newcomers, is arguably that boring reviews are now deemed more acceptable than they used to be, as people chase (more and larger) accolades and address unreviewed films.
I have not been helping matters as for the last half-year I have been trying to complete all my Cine File accolades (not because they are accolades, but because I want to have reviewed all the films that I have seen at the cinema), although I do still only submit reviews with something to them above a plain summary. Once they're done I do mean to do some pruning and submit more restrictively: my average always used to be above 10 and now it is below 8. But the cap has always driven me to submit more, as if I must maximise my allowance because I might not have enough space later, and chasing these accolades has exacerbated that. It's going to take me some mental retraining now to not just submit everything I can think of. (To be fair to me, though, the unpredictable nature of what the MERPs will approve -- especially as a lot of my successes were previously rejected -- does complicate things.) |
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BiggerBoat
"Pass me the harpoon"
London, UK
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 16:52:40
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Maybe we get rid of the voting sytem and introduce a points sytem then? Reviews get marked out of ten and anything under a certain score gets binned. That'll sort the wheat from the chaff.
Obviously, I realise this just isn't feasible, but the site has gotten flabby with poor.average reviews. I never went down the accolade route for this very reason. I figured that if I couldn't come up with a quality review for each film, it would affect other achievements that I find more desirable.
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 18:39:24
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I vaguely think there used to be a different voting system, till about 2003. I can't remember the details now but I think it might have involved scoring. However, as I only visited briefly in 2003 I might have got confused with films being scored (especially as one had to score films when reviewing them then) and/or the recent change to YouTube voting.
I really like creating accolades (in terms of putting sets of films together) but I'm not into chasing them either (the current targets being a special case). Because there were a few years when I saw virtually all notable releases, I've started achieving accolades accidentally and I don't even like seeing them on my page. I wish that allocade chasers would at least only submit boring reviews as a last resort after more interesting ones have been rejected, but some people's post-cap pass rates are so high that that cannot possibly be the case.
The quest to reduce the number of unreviewed films has also for some reason encouraged some people not to try to write good reviews. I am immediately below Alan Smithee in total reviews, so I always notice when 'his' figure jumps up. I often look to see what the new reviews are: frequently there is a bunch of reviews for connected films (titles starting with the same letter of the alphabet, containing the same word &c.) which have only been approved that day. In other words, they have been disowned as soon as they have been approved (or before): the reviewer has obviously planned not to keep them from the start and so didn't bother to try with them.
But back onto ways to improve quality. The default ranking page should be total votes: since the cap has been in it has been patently unfair to continue to primarily laud those reviewers who submitted many thousands of (often boring) reviews before the cap was brought in with no notice. The top 100 reviews should not be highlighted as it just reinforces their unassailable position. And the thing I personally find most annoying is that the default sort order on film pages is by reviewer rank (especially given what ranking that still means). So all newcomers mainly see and vote on reviews by those people who have written more, however boring. Only more regular visitors (i.e. a minority) will bother to change their preferences. The default order should be either most votes downwards or oldest reviews onwards. Even when one clicks on the chronological option now, the default order is newest backwards. It's only regular visitors who will want to see the reviews written since they were last on that page (and they are the ones who will set their own preferences). More casual visitors will not have been to the page before and if they look at reviews by submission date it should be oldest first: at the moment they will just vote for the first version of a certain pun that they see, which will be the one by the reviewer with most reviews or (if they click on one of the other buttons) the one which already has the most votes, the one written most recently &c. |
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Chris C
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 17/01/2011 : 23:19:50
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
Whole site highest number of reviews for a film 599 - Which film?
Hhmmm, well either it is a coding error or it is not in this list.
It is in the list - it's "Titanic". And sorry, but the list needs updating. "The Matrix" has overtaken "Star Wars Episode 2" (355 vs 321 reviews) |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 18/01/2011 : 00:10:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
It is in the list - it's "Titanic".
Sorry about that -- I thought I checked them all but ironically I found the accolade by going to that film and then when I went through the others I must have thought I had already looked at it. 
quote:
And sorry, but the list needs updating. "The Matrix" has overtaken "Star Wars Episode 2" (355 vs 321 reviews)
You'd better tell Josh then! 
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[matt] 
"Cinemattic."
United Kingdom
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Posted - 18/01/2011 : 00:30:24
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This is really interesting. Nice one, Salopian. 
One stat I'm personally pleased with:
'Whole site total reviews with at least 20 votes submitted in 2010 � 30'
9 of them are mine.  But that stat really puts into perspective how sparse votes are at the moment.
quote:
Originally posted by BiggerBoat
I always wanted to get a review in the top 100 but I see that it's probably an impossible dream.
Me too. I suggested to benj a while ago that it would be good if there were lists of top reviews of each year and even each month, rather than just the all-time list. That would give us some more realistic goals!
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 18/01/2011 : 00:57:22
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Very interesting - thanks for the hard work Salopian.
The problem as far I can tell is that there are fewer regular members on the fourum, or specifically fewer members taking part in the FYC... back when there were in excess of 30 entrants twice a week a great review could easily pick up that many votes. With around 10, which is what we currently have, there's less chance for a review to really take off.
But I don't agree with Salopian that the reviews aren't as good any more. The English language has infinite capabilities and every new film offers new possibilities - I think [matt] is aptly proved that week in, week out. I think we all sell ourselves short to suggest otherwise - and I certainly don't think my first 1000 reviews are better than my last 1000. They just had the opportunity to get voted on by a lot more people.
So what to do? I think the only answer other than being more generous with each other is to try and get more reviewers to join us in the FYC to replace the regular players who we've lost over the last few years. Many of them are still on site but don't choose to play any more. Why that is the case would have to be asked of each reviewer. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 18/01/2011 : 01:43:50
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Sure, there are still some good reviews, but the numbers of good ones, very good ones, excellent ones, amazing ones &c. are each definitely lower: I just cannot ignore my eyes and be persuaded otherwise. [matt] is one of the very few new top-quality reviewers there have been in a long time, and he is still in his first 750, i.e. pretty fresh.
The number of well-known films is the thing that's most restricting, rather than English.
However, a factor I did neglect to mention is that a lot of the 50s from 2004 didn't have 50 votes within the year (but they did have a lot more votes than those from 2010 do now: my "A Merrick Unbeauty" had about 53/54 votes when it briefly made it into the top 100 compared to 71 today, and that was years and years ago now).
As for what to do, I have just been searching the archived Fourum from around 2004/2005 as I was looking for some stat instructions. Frankly it looks a hell of a lot more interesting and organic then: there are far more threads about different issues and ideas; nowadays the Reviews sections just looks completely monotonous, with regimentally titled threads all started by the same person. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 18/01/2011 : 01:52:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Chris C
"The Matrix" has overtaken "Star Wars Episode 2" (355 vs 321 reviews)
And something else has overtaken both: {f ,,,,,,355,} indicates that there are 11 films with at least that many votes. |
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