by Zarxrax » Wed Jul 03, 2002 8:11 am
As many of you know, the current review system has quite a few faults. For example many people simply want to leave their opinion, yet dont want to write a lot, which causes lots of almost worthless reviews. Also there is the issue of people giving out reviews that are merely attacks on the creator, or praise, intended to hurt/help the videos position on the top 10% list.
So how to fix this? Well here is a proposal that I've made regarding one possible way to make things better. This idea seems to have a lot of support already. Please note that this is mostly not my own ideas, but I've merely consolidated the ideas of others. Please submit your own ideas to this topic too!
First of all, get rid of the top 10% as we know it currently. I'm sure Phade has put a lot of work into it, but it really is rather pointless, and it leads people to make reviews into these so-called popularity contests.
Next thing, LEAVE the current review system as it is, though put a disaimer on it saying that if you are going to leave a review, you MUST write something that is verbose and well thought-out. Now I don't mean you must write page long reviews or more, but at least 2 good paragraphs. There is the possibility of restricting only other creators to being able to post these reviews, but I'm not quite sure how much I like that idea. It would also be nice if there were buttons added on the reviews so the creator could send private messages or email to the person that left the review.
Finally, add a new type of opinion in addition to the current review system. This would simply be a thumbs up/neutral/down opinion, and maybe allow for a few lines of comment. Any registered member of the site should be able to post one of these.
Now regarding the top 10%, there could be a new thing similar to it created, but utilizing the thumbs scores. Essentially, all videos would start at a score of zero. Every thumbs up would add +1 to the score, while every thumbs down would add -1 to the score, and neutral would not change the score at all. Essentially, the higher a videos score, the more popular it is. Since it would be so easy to leave this sort of opinion, videos could easily get hundreds of them.
Now finally, I'll explain the purpose of these changes and how I think they would improve things. With the removal of the current top 10%, there would be absolutely no reason for anyone to write a pointless review. The ONLY person that it would effect would be the person that recieves the review. (Though they could still choose to make up to 2 opinions public) Even if someone decided they hate your guts and so they give you straight 1's, who really gives a damn now, it wont matter in the least.
Now the thumbs reviews, they would serve merely as a gauge of public opinion to your video. This would give people the ability to simply state their opinion of your video without having to give you a pointless review. Since everyone would likely recieve LOTS of these types of opinions, it wouldn't really matter even if someone did give you a thumbs down or something just because they hate your guts, as that 1 opinion wouldnt have much weight. Also this would make the people that never get opinions happier, as they WILL get some sort of opinions on their videos.
So now what does everyone think of this? Does anyone have any objections to this sort of review system? Do you love this idea? If everyone would be happy with this, then we could throw the idea to Phade and let it become a reality.
What ideas do YOU have? What I have mentioned above is but one proposal. There is certainly room left for other ideas! Let's all work together to make this site as good as it possibly can be!