Stars Vs. Opinions (disconnect?)

Kristyrat · Post by **Kristyrat** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:15 pm

Well, first of all, I'd like to say I'm not starting this thread to complain, I'm perfectly aware that many people will or will not enjoy my videos for various different reasons, yadda yadda, on to the issue.

Basically, on my newest video (I won't bother linking to avoid the accusation of pimpage) I've gotten some great feedback. Many of my friends and fellow studio members feel that it's my best work yet. I've gotten some pretty sweet opinions on it so far, with an average that blows me away (too good to be true almost, for me anyway).

My problem is that my star ratings (and yes, I do realize that both op scores and stars are pointless, blah blah, averages out of whack etc. I like many other editors, at least as far as I know, go for the feedback and critisism more than the actual scores) anyway, the star ratings for this particular video are almost lower than my worst video. I honestly don't see how this makes sense. I realize that my friends are obviously being kind by saying my vid was good, but I've also received feedback from people who would not be inclined to "pillowcase" it that was really positive.

What I would like to know/ am wondering, is if this is a common occurance for other editors. You get good, if not great opinions, but the stars seem to contradict those opinions. I may just be out of my mind, but I dunno, any thoughts?

[Kristyrat]

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:47 pm

First, wait till a video gets to 100 stars before you put any weight on the score. The score may fluctuate wildly before settling into a 'average' score. After 100+ the score probably won't change that much.

Second, look at who is downloading your video. People who liked your previous vids, people who like the anime, and people who like the music. The ones who liked your previous videos will (whether they mean to or not) compare the new one to your old vids. They're likely to see improvement and score accordingly. People who like the anime are a mixed bag - either they'll love your video or they'll hate it. The ones who hate it will give star scores, the ones who love it will give ops, the ones who don't really care will delete the vid and put a 'filler 3' so they can download more vids. Then we have the song fans - unless you used a really popular song, there won't be many people getting the video just because of the song. Those who do will score similar to the people who got the video for the anime - love, hate, impartial.

People rarely review videos they hate because they have nothing positive to say. You should couple criticism with helpful tips and encouragement. If you hate something, it's really hard to see anything positive in it. Then there's the anti-flame policy - you can't give low scores if you have nothing positive to say becuase you come off mean and hateful, and then the review will be counted as a flame and removed. So they don't review and you get stuck with a few low unexplained star scores. The people who were impartial might review your video - some review everything - but it's pretty rare, and they're less likely to give really low scores than the motivated haters would.

Most of the people reviewing will be the fans who are happy to find something they like for a less popular anime series, and the ones who like your editing style (who will notice improvement over your other vids, leading to even higher scores).

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The only times I've seen videos get really high op scores and really high stars scores are A)using really popular anime and/or character focus, or B)using some story/effect/crazy-loot-skilz that make everyone who downloads it love it enough to not only give high star scores, but to leave praising ops as well.

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:51 pm

Since when is 3.73 bad for a star rating? Not to mention there are only 26 star ratings on that video at the moment. Hardly enough to give an accurate average.

Kristyrat · Post by **Kristyrat** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:53 pm

Arigatomina wrote:First, wait till a video gets to 100 stars before you put any weight on the score. The score may fluctuate wildly before settling into a 'average' score. After 100+ the score probably won't change that much.

Actually, that's a good point, I do realize that stars fluctuate quite a bit, and that the only "real" star rating is one that comes from a massive amount of stars, but I still find it odd that there be such a difference between the two. Sure they are different means of reviewing a video and there's the fact that people will leave threes so they can download more vids, but I still feel there should be some corelation between the two. I guess what I want to know is if this happens a lot (with the more experienced editors being the target group for this question I guess, me being only around since September of '04) and if so, has it at all affected you? (lol, I know, corny question, but has it caused you to rethink the "validity" of a video, or made you want to remaster it?)

Kristyrat · Post by **Kristyrat** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 8:56 pm

Corran wrote:Since when is 3.73 bad for a star rating? Not to mention there are only 26 star ratings on that video at the moment. Hardly enough to give an accurate average.

I never said it was quote unquote bad, just that it was a lower average than some other videos I've made that, in my (and others) opinions, were much worse than my new one. And yeah, I realize that 26 stars isn't much to base it on, but this disconnect has happened to me before, even being the exact opposite with another video of mine that has a higher star rating (on average) than op ratings.

(and how did you know those numbers? Is there a spot where you can see that, besides the "edit videos" of course?

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:00 pm

Kristyrat wrote:how did you know those numbers? Is there a spot where you can see that, besides the "edit videos" of course?

If you donate you can see them on the member pages and the search for amv pages.

Kristyrat · Post by **Kristyrat** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:05 pm

Corran wrote:
Kristyrat wrote:how did you know those numbers? Is there a spot where you can see that, besides the "edit videos" of course?
If you donate you can see them on the member pages and the search for amv pages.

ah, incentive to donate then isn't it

anyway, back to the subject, as I asked before

I guess what I want to know is if this happens a lot (with the more experienced editors being the target group for this question I guess, me being only around since September of '04) and if so, has it at all affected you? (lol, I know, corny question, but has it caused you to rethink the "validity" of a video, or made you want to remaster it?)

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 9:19 pm

Kristyrat wrote:I guess what I want to know is if this happens a lot (with the more experienced editors being the target group for this question I guess, me being only around since September of '04)...

In my experience, it's perfectly normal and expected when your amv is being downloaded by people who are likely to have a wide variety of opinions on that video. Unless you've modeled the video to fit a certain fangroup to the point where others won't touch it with a ten foot pole (and so...they don't download and you don't get their low star scores), you're going to have a mixed bag of viewers. The fewer people you have getting your vid, the more pronounced the difference between lovers and haters - reviewers and low stars. And remember, as long as those middle people are giving 3 and we're counting 3 as 'bad', they're on the 'haters' side lowering your score even more.

A 3 is average - better than 1/4th the vids on this site (not half because the distributiion *does* lean to the high side).

...and if so, has it at all affected you? (lol, I know, corny question, but has it caused you to rethink the "validity" of a video, or made you want to remaster it?)

Heh, I don't remaster according to stars - I do it according to reviews. If enough people would like to see a higher quality version, I'll get around to remastering it eventually.

It does affect me, though. I know the moment I upload a video about what star score it should get if I made it 'good' according to my standards. When I put out a YYH vid, assuming it uses a pretty female singer or a funny comedy theme, I expect it to score much higher than my better-edited but not-so-popular videos. Likewise, when I put out a very well done video to a very unknown anime (or an unpopular theme), I expect a few very high reviews (from the rare fans with similar taste to mine) and a majority of low-to-medium scores from the rest. It does confirm the pattern when the videos get just the scores I predict (and expect) them to get. I wouldn't say it validates me, though. Reviews validate me. If one person likes it the way I do, that's reason enough to share it. I'll make the vid whether anyone else likes it or not.

...I do get confused when videos don't score what I expect them to. Usually it means I've missed something and have to adjust the 'pattern' - like if I think an anime is more popular than it really is, or if I misjudge who will be downloading the vid - the target audience, or a wider group.

Org Profile · Post by **808-buma** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 10:08 pm

Hmm, then I think that I got a lot of points wrong on my first AMV then...
1. used a not-so-popular and old anime
2. used a not-so-popular song
3. don't have any other vids to compare it to

so I don't now if I'll ever reach 100 stars to actually compare it to. Curse of the noobie, I guess.

Anyway, I think that, as Arigatomina stated, the reasons that people give stars (fast, easy and ever-present when you log into a-m-v.org) vs opinioons (time consuming if done correctly, and few and far inbetween) all come down to if an AMV passes that personal threshold of 'is it worth my time'. And, since a lot of folks don't really want to spend the time (unless they get something back), stars will fall where they may (with 3's being the 'safest' response).

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Thu Jun 02, 2005 5:15 am

If you can all make such long-winded posts, why does everyone complain about getting such short OPs? Spend more time writing them, just not to me. I'm sick of OPs that point out the obvious.