In Which I Discuss My Opinion of the Opinion Sheet.

[Tryptic]

I am sure that I am hovering somewhere between attempting to push the wind and attempting to piss into it by even bothering to mention this stuff, but I figured I'd bring it up anyway.
I further admit that I've only done about 40 of these things, and that the Opinion Form has worked nicely for most everyone up until now. And I'm also sure that making any alterations would probably be a big pain, so all I'm probably about to make is a very polite rant. But I still feel parts of it are out-of-date or could use updating, so I'm going to be a contrarian and do it anyway.
With that out of the way, let me mention my complaints one-by-one, and my reasons/ideas.

#1) The easiest to comment on. Reviewability is not factored into the final average when we make opinions. Now, as I try to be an objectivist in my opinions (scoring based on the technical merits of the video, rather than whether I actually liked it), I'd originally been planning to use Reviewability as my "Personal Rating" and Overall as my "Objective Rating." I've kind of stopped doing that. After all, Reviewability is essentially a meaningless score, if it's not going to affect anything.

#2) Why are Video and Audio Quality still two separate categories? Why could they not be combined under one category? I realize that back when the sheet was made (2000? 2001?) high video and audio quality were actually fairly(?) rare. But it's been 8 or 9 years since that was developed, and I've got to say, I find that even videos made from fansubs tend to be pretty high quality nowadays. With the exception of a couple of first vids, I think the lowest Video Quality score I've given lately is a 5. Same with Audio. I almost never find I'm scoring lower than 6. (And 8 is usually my maximum.) If these were combined to one category, it would again, lower the weighting of Quality from being 2/6 of the total score (2/8? if a video has lip sync and effects). And really, I think that source quality isn't important enough to be worth 1/3 of a video's score.
If they were combined, this would reduce them to being only 1/5 of the video's total score. Which I personally feel is about right.

#3) I also find that "Originality" is a vague word choice, because it has 2 completely different meanings. Originality could mean "The concept was handled in a unique and creative way" or it could mean "The source material and song are not frequently used". The creators of the guide seem to me to hedge their bets by saying it can mean both.
Again, this worked fine in the earlier years, but it's getting tougher to use Originality to mean "I've never seen this source before". And as time goes on, less and less original sources will show up. Think about it. Let's say there's oh, 1000 animes out there (I think that's an exaggeration, but it's a nice round number). There's 131,000+ videos on this site. That means if each anime was used equally (yah, right.) there's about 131 videos per anime. Even with 131 videos, there's likely to be some overlap of songs. And let's be honest, out of those 1000 animes, prob. 100 have 75-90% of those videos. Making it more like 1,000 videos for each of most of those animes. Again, very likely, in theory for there to be overlap. (And proven by the reality of the situation.)
The point I'm making is that source material overlap is a given. Therefore, deducting points from Originality scores FOR source material overlap isn't really fair. Therefore, I find that Originality really should be handled more like "Creativity" in that it's scored based on how well the concept itself is handled. (And some people do this now, but I find many people use it solely as "I've seen lots of videos with this anime, -3 points.)

4) The weighting seems lopsided. I mentioned this somewhat before, in that Source Quality is 1/3 of the score. Which, in theory, means that a High Quality source (a 10 in video and audio) is just as important as it being Original AND Well Synced (a 10 in Originality and a 10 in Action Sync). Now, I don't think this is true.
But, if you test it (and I did) giving a 4 in Audio and Video and a 10 in Action and Creative, it scores exactly the same as a 10 in Audio and Video and a 4 in Action and Creative.
This, to me, seems like bunk. As already mentioned, I personally think that quality scores should be combined under "Source Quality", but I also think that perhaps the Overall score should count double. This would up Overall from being 1/6 (or 1/8) of a video's score, to being 1/3 or 1/4 of a video's score. I feel this is a much more accurate reflection of how it should be. After all, how good a video is overall, in my mind, is much more important than its separate parts. (less so, perhaps, if you're of the objectivist mindset when reviewing, but for a subjectivist reviewer, the video as a whole is much more important than its individual parts.)

The big one:
5) The blank fields. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can find those very intimidating at times. I mean, I LOVE reviewing. I review animes, AMV's, books, public speaking, anything I can get my hands on, really. But I get intimidated by the setup here. For instance, when I review an anime, I have a basic formula: Quick blurb, short summary, highlight some strengths, highlight some weaknesses, talk about character/plot development, give some numbers. (I feel it's important to explain this for a reason, bear with me.) When I review public speaking, I find a similar strategy works. Quick blurb, highlight some strengths, couple quick weaknesses, offer improvements.
The thing is, with both of those, strengths and weaknesses are easy to find comparisons for (e.g. this anime's pacing is better than DBZ, but not quite at the level of Akira, so it's about a 5). Improvements are easy to offer (you have verbal tics, try doing this). Why? Because guidelines are given within which to work. The Opinion forms do tell you "Give us some good and bad points" (which most people ignore) but they don't really give you any idea of HOW. Neither does the guide. It offers tips, and a couple of examples of what's good and bad, but there's no real "If you're stuck, do it like this" (In fact, no offense meant, but it doesn't do ALL that good a job explaining why the model reviews are actually good.)
The guide/form also doesn't help people who may not be technically skilled (myself included) know what to look for in technical videos. I, personally, have a very hard time reviewing dance/technical videos (anything without a fair amount of plot) because I have no clue what to look for. Give me a story, I can handle it. Likewise, I'm sure some people with a more technical bent are probably like fish out of water when it comes to story videos.
I think this is a major reason why less people do opinions now, if you want the truth. The above are my own gripes, but I definitely think that if even just the fields are fixed, or we were given an updated guide with suggestions or formulas or whatever for reviewing, I think a lot more people would find it easier.

And, as I said at the outset, perhaps I'm paddling upstream on this one. But I wanted to get it off my chest, and since I've got a few more days till I can actually write more opinions, I thought I'd spend the time putting down my thoughts.
And I don't mean for any of this to be taken as complaint about the work put into the guide and forms, or the people who did them. I'm sure there was quite a lot, and to change it would mean more.

[Vax]

Nice arguement.
Something I saw that you said..

Why are Video and Audio Quality still two separate categories? Why could they not be combined under one category?

I think it's better that way. What if you had some really clear video quality and suckshit audio. It won't really balance each other out in my opinion.

I might as well put this in since this is about the opinion form. I'm not too fond of the "effort" category. You can't really judge the effort somebody puts into an AMV. Mostly depends on their experience and blah blah blah. I know of alot of people who think the effort category is stupid.

I also find that "Originality" is a vague word choice, because it has 2 completely different meanings. Originality could mean "The concept was handled in a unique and creative way" or it could mean "The source material and song are not frequently used". The creators of the guide seem to me to hedge their bets by saying it can mean both.

I just portray both of those meaning into my opinions, but after than convincing paragraph, I think something should be done about this one too.



I'm bored, I'm going to resume my science lab.

[BasharOfTheAges]

While the idea is noble, the system, as it stands, serves a purpose that's rather tangential to the one you see. Helpful, useful critique and feedback exists independent of scores and will continue to be just as useful regardless of how a score is computed - that's all that matters for real feedback. The videos that rate high on the point scale are the ones con-goers download and give all 10s to the most. Fixing how honest people leave scores isn't going to alter anything that makes a difference to what shows up on the top 10% list when you have a huge number of people that don't care to put time into giving out scores in an objective and comparative manner.

[Tryptic]

Nice arguement.
Something I saw that you said..

Why are Video and Audio Quality still two separate categories? Why could they not be combined under one category?

I think it's better that way. What if you had some really clear video quality and suckshit audio. It won't really balance each other out in my opinion.

Well, I had been mentally imaging like dividing it in two and just using 5 and 5 for a total of 10, (audio sucks give it a 1, video decent give it a 3, total of 4). But I definitely take your point on this. So I can definitely at least understand now why it's like that.

And Bashar, I don't really care about bringing down people who're on the top 10 list (and I'm well aware some people are just going to drop "all 10's" I did it myself once, back when I was still new). I just feel that people who ARE going out of their way to make honest reviews (or want to start but are just intimidated) could use some more assistance in seeing how to do it, and maybe having some things clarified for easier understanding.

[Vax]

Well, I had been mentally imaging like dividing it in two and just using 5 and 5 for a total of 10, (audio sucks give it a 1, video decent give it a 3, total of 4). But I definitely take your point on this. So I can definitely at least understand now why it's like that.

That's a really good Idea.
If anything, the opinion form should stay the same. I would only get rid of the effort catergory.

[Tryptic]

Sorry, I can't seem to edit my posts.
I also wanted to point out that I don't know how other people do it, but I have a vague idea of how good an AMV is compared to other people's AMV's. For instance, I might think a video by Frank is better than Jeff's video, but worse than Ralphs. When I do my scoring, I try to score it so that video winds up there on my list, based on its average. This can be tricky, sometimes, though.
I find that using this relative scoring system actually makes it easier, rahter than having to say "all right, that syncing is definitely a 7/10. I can just tweak the numbers a bit until Frank scores better than Jeff.

[JaddziaDax]

good editing =/= perfect sync all the time... (I've been rated low on "editing/action" for a sentimental because it had no action in it O.o its a sentimental it's not supposed to have tons of action in it)

i think leaving the form fairly vague is a good thing because it leaves it up to the person leaving the opinion to interpret what the different categories mean to them...

taking your originality as an example:
while for a good chunk of the people out there originality = new anime + new song... others use the category to mean high score = i like it, low score = sucks butt... and yet others will look at a different aspect to see if the sources were used in a unique way... yet for others effects = originality because they created some of the visuals.

for me is a combination of several factors including the ones i discussed.

as for the visual/audio scores i do believe they should be separate, I've seen high quality videos with low quality audio and vice versa.. therefore they should be separate..
~~~~~~~~

and not everyone has to leave a helpful opinion, I think that should be up to the person leaving the opinion as well...

for me I tend to do a standard of leave a little good, leave a little bad, use the general to explain my scores...

if someone really wants more in depth than that I would assume that they would ask me for more, but at the same time I usually don't want to waste too much effort on someone who isn't going to use the advice.

[godix]

If all you want to use the opinion system for is to leave feedback then use the opinion system for that. Drop semi-random numbers on the categories you don't care about and just mention the stuff you do care about. That can't fuck up the system any worse than it already is.

That said I do agree with some of what you said. I'd like to see audio and video removed and replaced with a 'technical' category. The technical basics really shouldn't be broken out so much. Effects should be removed and combined into 'technical' as well.

Lip should just be removed. Let people comment on it under sync or technical, whichever they prefer. At one point lipsyncing may have been a big deal, these days it's so common why bother? We don't have a lens flare, piano key, etc. category after all.

Originality should stay. There's no other category that it would fit under to be combined with

Effort should go, no one except the editor themselves can really judge effort. Besides, it doesn't matter a bit from the viewers point of view. If I like an AMV I like it regardless if it took 6 months or an hour and a half. If I don't like it then the fact it took six months isn't going to change my mind any.

Re-view is fine but should be out of the final average. There are many good videos that deserve being seen even if they aren't something you'd put on loop.

I'd also suggest an entirely new category, 'pain'. The name should be obvious but this would cover how much physical pain seeing the video put you in. Make it optional, there are one or two vids a year that don't cause me pain but it should definately be there for the majority of them.

[The Origonal Head Hunter]

Effort should go, no one except the editor themselves can really judge effort.

I never really understood why Effort deserved its own ranking. You can't (always) tell how much effort went into a video just by watching it. And when I'm leaving opinions, that usually just ends up being "looks like you put/didn't put effort into it."

[Tryptic]

good editing =/= perfect sync all the time... (I've been rated low on "editing/action" for a sentimental because it had no action in it O.o its a sentimental it's not supposed to have tons of action in it)

If this is in reference to my point about:

The weighting seems lopsided. I mentioned this somewhat before, in that Source Quality is 1/3 of the score. Which, in theory, means that a High Quality source (a 10 in video and audio) is just as important as it being Original AND Well Synced (a 10 in Originality and a 10 in Action Sync). Now, I don't think this is true.

Then let me say that I merely used those two scores as examples. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that, based on the way scores are computed now, a high Video Quality is (numerically) worth the same as having a good Overall video. When, I think, Video Quality shouldn't be that quite important. Should it have some importance? Yes. Should it be equally important to something like Overall or Originality? Not in my mind.

However, I want to touch on your point about judging for action sync in a sentimental video because that's sort of what I was talking about in my 5th suggestion. (And while the others are simply my preferences, I think #5 is something actively lowering the number of reviews.)

The guide/form also doesn't help people who may not be technically skilled (myself included) know what to look for in technical videos
...
Likewise, I'm sure some people with a more technical bent are probably like fish out of water when it comes to story videos.

Things like your example is what I'm referring to with this. Why do most people judge action sync? Because that's what one usually looks for-- because it's specifically on the numerical form, which tends to frame how most people write their actual Opinion.
Which is why I think that something laying out "When reviewing a 'sentimental' video, these are some ways you can tell if it's good or not." and "When reviewing a dance video, here's how to tell whether it's right or not" (and so on) might be helpful.

And yes, again, this is of course only for people who WANT to make use of these resources. I'm not saying someone has to leave any type of an opinion, especially not one that's detailed, etc. All I'm saying is that people who aren't leaving opinions now, or maybe aren't leaving ones that are detailed may simply be doing it because they're not sure how to go about doing it right. In other words, it may be ignorance, not apathy that's keeping more Opinions from being written.

Actually, godix, I have to admit that your idea sounds decent to me. (Pain and all, though a politer term might be better. It could fit in where "effort" is now.)