03-26-2004, 01:30 AM
I think a reward scheme would be a bad idea or perhaps more accurately a not very helpful idea, particularly if it's for writing lots of reviews. I think that would lead to an increase of short, 'empty' reviews.
Let's face it there are plenty of bad reviews floating around at the moment. The majority are probably written with the best intentions, but are incredibly lacking in some areas making them nothing other "I like...because..." pieces. That's nice, but it's no help as a buying guide.
It takes me bloody ages to write a review, particularly if I didn't make notes during the series (usually the case when it's an engrossing series!) so I have to go back and review and record all the observations I remembered and half-remembered such as spelling mistakes, grammar, missing lines, etc. I'm particular when it comes to subs so I'm just as particular when it comes to reviewing them. Then it's a case of finding the scenes for screenshots to illustrate all the points I made in my review, e.g. spellings, font sizes, colours, etc. Quite often writing a review takes me an hour or more. My MI GTO review took me longer because I wrote in the style of a compare and contrast with the FX set.
Anyway, getting back to the point. What I think would be more useful than a reward scheme is focusing on the reviews as an altruistic act - that reviews should act as a Buying Guide. My ideas is that when you click to add a review you are first taken to a Review Guidelines page, which would offer some tips on writing a useful review. I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but it might be a way of making people more aware. It seems obvious some people are not reading the Reviews FAQ.
Now, these Guidelines wouldn't ask for intense technical detail - that wouldn't be fair - but suggesting that a reviewer includes simple, useful information such as what DVD player was used to watch the series on. Also handy would be a new Not Rated option for the Subtitle Rating to hopefully eliminate the useless reviews from those who watched a show in English and say: "I only watched five mins subbed. R1 perfect rip!" which personally pisses me right off.
I'm sure others could come up with more helpful tips to writing useful reviews, perhaps enough to get JJ and Schultz interested?
Let's face it there are plenty of bad reviews floating around at the moment. The majority are probably written with the best intentions, but are incredibly lacking in some areas making them nothing other "I like...because..." pieces. That's nice, but it's no help as a buying guide.
It takes me bloody ages to write a review, particularly if I didn't make notes during the series (usually the case when it's an engrossing series!) so I have to go back and review and record all the observations I remembered and half-remembered such as spelling mistakes, grammar, missing lines, etc. I'm particular when it comes to subs so I'm just as particular when it comes to reviewing them. Then it's a case of finding the scenes for screenshots to illustrate all the points I made in my review, e.g. spellings, font sizes, colours, etc. Quite often writing a review takes me an hour or more. My MI GTO review took me longer because I wrote in the style of a compare and contrast with the FX set.
Anyway, getting back to the point. What I think would be more useful than a reward scheme is focusing on the reviews as an altruistic act - that reviews should act as a Buying Guide. My ideas is that when you click to add a review you are first taken to a Review Guidelines page, which would offer some tips on writing a useful review. I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but it might be a way of making people more aware. It seems obvious some people are not reading the Reviews FAQ.
Now, these Guidelines wouldn't ask for intense technical detail - that wouldn't be fair - but suggesting that a reviewer includes simple, useful information such as what DVD player was used to watch the series on. Also handy would be a new Not Rated option for the Subtitle Rating to hopefully eliminate the useless reviews from those who watched a show in English and say: "I only watched five mins subbed. R1 perfect rip!" which personally pisses me right off.
I'm sure others could come up with more helpful tips to writing useful reviews, perhaps enough to get JJ and Schultz interested?