Phantasmagoriat wrote:Basically, my point is that it's totally possible to leave a comment without including a rating, or spoiling a video,
Agreed. I don't think anyone is debating that.
PHantasmagoriat wrote:...and everyone will be better off because of it.
This is the big question. You keep assuming people want to improve or are obligated to improve. No one has to improve if they don't want to. Some people resist improving with all their strength. We're not the students in your study where we're all in this expecting and waiting to be given a grade that may have a profound affect on our careers and life after graduation. We're hobbiests, all of us having our own motivations and goals.
After a certain amount of time some people become happy with the way they edit. Their goal is to *not* improve because improvement means change and they don't want to change anything about what they do. Their motivation for posting announcement threads is to share what they've made. They may not even be interested in whether people liked or disliked the vid as long it's being watched. These aren't the high performers in your class, they're the cynical adults who've long since done their time in schools, and who roll their eyes at the thought of a bunch of kids striving for high scores likes dogs jumping for treats. They don't look at ratings, they look at who posted in their thread and where that editor falls in the totum pole of the org. The numbers they receive are meaningless because they're already far more skilled than most of the people leaving those numbers and they know it. They're beyond scores and have been for a long time now.
Others make amvs just because they can, they make no effort because they don't have to, they don't improve because they don't care to. Their motivation is just to make and share something they had fun doing. They may not resist improvement, but they make no effort because improving is meaningless to them and takes more time, time being more precious than anyone's approval. These aren't your low performers, they're the high school drop outs who are working in McDonalds because it makes just enough money to pay for their night life while they live out of mom and dad's house, and that's all they need to be happy. They don't look at scores, either, they look at views. The more people who clicked the thread, the happier they are. Scores are just things over-achieving "serious editors" fuss over because they're trying too hard. If those fussy people want to give low scores to their sub-ridden vids, that's their problem. It certainly won't stop these editors from getting their reward with as little effort as humanly possible.
Really, I think your study says a lot about academic settings, particularly in the US where schools have to meet state standards and kids are getting dumber every year. But it doesn't apply to amvs very well. We're not forced to do this like people are forced into public schools. We don't further our careers by doing this like people who go to college. We're not forced to have our amvs graded, or to pay any attention to the grades we do receive since most 'grades' here are a matter of opinion and not right or wrong fact. Some of us do care as much as the students in your study do, but a lot of us don't and have no reason to. You have to include all of us when you talk about amv fans who post in the announcement section, or amv fans in general. What's "better" for one group is a waste of time, if not an outright annoyance, for another. There are a lot of people here for whom scores are everything, but there are just as many people for whom the scores are random numbers that mean nothing and are only typed in because you can't watch a local vid or leave an op without doing so.










