Treat Opinions as Forum Threads

[badmartialarts]

If there was a way to engage a creator is a personal one-on-one dialog about their videos (other than them PMing me a link to their video page, which has happened a couple of times), I would really prefer it to the "I write boring ass long explanation of my opinion of your video, you never put anything in the 'Comment' box" system that has pretty much burned me out on opinion writing (as well as the "I recieve tiny 'WOOHOO' or 'Eh?' op for a video, reply with an equally curt 'Thanks for the opinion' comment and roll out none the wiser on my videos effect on them as a viewer...not that I ever really cared what other people thought about my videos to begin with but at least it's nice to know my thought patterns aren't totally abberant to at least a slim population of this server).

Anyway, this is a good idea...probably difficult to implement, but something to at least drop to the far bottom of the to-do list.

[Arigatomina]

I think one of the main benefits to the system would be the benefit to the community of being able to see for a particular amv why the creator made the decisions to do things the way he or she did. The creators response to criticism and then explainion of why they chose to do things the particular way they did should be made public rather than it would be with simply a forum PM. And furthermore I'm sure not every single amvc visits the forums at all. I certainly dont.

You do realize this isn't a proposal to make reviews public, right?

The only ones who'll see this are the ones who've reviewed that particular video. Unless the creator makes a 'conversation-review' one of his two public reviews, no one will benefit from this but himself and curious reviewers. If he wanted to make his process known to the public, he'd have to put it in the vid description (which is all about how and why he made the video he made - many people do this already).

I agree with you, though. It would benefit the site if creators explained why they chose to do what they do. That's sort of what the vid description page is for - to describe the video. If more creators did that, they wouldn't need to explain the same process over and over for every review they get. They'd only need to repeat it for the people who don't read the description. ^_^;

[donone]

I think one of the main benefits to the system would be the benefit to the community of being able to see for a particular amv why the creator made the decisions to do things the way he or she did. The creators response to criticism and then explainion of why they chose to do things the particular way they did should be made public rather than it would be with simply a forum PM. And furthermore I'm sure not every single amvc visits the forums at all. I certainly dont.

You do realize this isn't a proposal to make reviews public, right?

The only ones who'll see this are the ones who've reviewed that particular video. Unless the creator makes a 'conversation-review' one of his two public reviews, no one will benefit from this but himself and curious reviewers. If he wanted to make his process known to the public, he'd have to put it in the vid description (which is all about how and why he made the video he made - many people do this already).

I agree with you, though. It would benefit the site if creators explained why they chose to do what they do. That's sort of what the vid description page is for - to describe the video. If more creators did that, they wouldn't need to explain the same process over and over for every review they get. They'd only need to repeat it for the people who don't read the description. ^_^;

I believe the system is not only that the public can see only public reviews, but if you've reviewd a video you can see all reviews for it? So if someone was interested to know why a creator did stuff the way they did, they'd have to write a review themselves, or maybe ask some questions of their own.

Why I think it'd be supeior to just the notes on the video information page is because I think the question-answer, or critisicm-reponse format is gonna provida a) more, and b) better, information about the video than the creator just wanking off in the notes.

[jethropr]

I think it's a good idea... it will help "lesser" known edittor, like myself, to get their name out there.

I have to say I don't follow your logic here. For that, there's AMV Announcements, contests, generically socializing hereabouts, etc., but I don't see how an expanded opinion system would promote lesser known editors.

It will promote them. Some ppl wont even give a video a chance for a download unless there is an X amount of opinions/views on it, or unless someone who is well known in the community says "Check out this vid guys!".

By bringing in this system one good opinion could spark the interest of other editers/downloaders. Thus an unknown gets recognized.

[Arigatomina]

Why I think it'd be supeior to just the notes on the video information page is because I think the question-answer, or critisicm-reponse format is gonna provida a) more, and b) better, information about the video than the creator just wanking off in the notes.

It's a definite bonus for the creators. Want to know how I made my video? Well, get started on my review and I'll let you read what I wrote to this other guy.

Yeah, in that case it's definitely better for the creator not to bother explaining upfront. This way he can give out the explanation in return for a review. And the better his conversations are, the more people who'll want to review his video to read them. In that case jethropr may have something about this being a good promotional gimic. It'll certainly encourage people to leave more reviews.

[badmartialarts]

It's a definite bonus for the creators. Want to know how I made my video? Well, get started on my review and I'll let you read what I wrote to this other guy.

Yeah, in that case it's definitely better for the creator not to bother explaining upfront. This way he can give out the explanation in return for a review. And the better his conversations are, the more people who'll want to review his video to read them. In that case jethropr may have something about this being a good promotional gimic. It'll certainly encourage people to leave more reviews.

You seem very bitter about this...I think you are completely misunderstanding this. Or maybe I'm completely misunderstanding this.

Of course this is good for the creator. Are opinions something that is supposed to be good for the opinionator? What does me telling someone what I think of their righteous (or sucky) video do for me?

Oh wait...actually, it does a lot. When I first started out here at this site, I decided that the best way to figure out how to create videos would be to watch a lot of other people's videos, and pick them apart with reviews. That way, I could see what I liked (i.e. off-the-wall lyric syncing), and what I disliked (i.e. strobing colors), and use that in my own creation process. But at the same time, my opinions (hopefully) helped them out as creators, at least in the sense that they could make videos that pleased ME more, rather than themselves. Once I realized this simple truth about opnions I more-or-less stopped writing them as I find it baseless to tell other people how to make their videos appeal to me. They should learn how to make the best videos they can, and my opnion really shouldn't matter, save perhaps on technical issues which I'm learning the basics of myself.

But if I was allowed a real dialog with the creator, then perhaps I could write things like "The transition at 3:23 did nothing for me. I found the overuse of strobes and additive dissolves distracting" and then have the creator reply "How so? Are you perhaps a retard with no sense of beats?" to which I could reply "Well, actually, yes...and on further thought, maybe that was a bit harsh. However, perhaps slightly less bright strobes..." and we could have as meaningful and/or flame-filled a conversation over the merits of the video as possible. Yeah, I could take it to PMs, but by actually promoting the idea of dialog exchange within the format of the opinion system itself would allow creators and viewers to really butt heads and either create more satisfying videos for the viewers, the creators, or in the most happy circumstance, both sides.

Or it would be just another ignored feature. Whatever. I'm so cynical at 2:29 am.

[Flint the Dwarf]

Honestly, I don't see why anyone would be against this (aside from the potential difficulty in implementation). All it's proposing is a convenient way for reviewer and creator to discuss points of the creator's video in a timely, organized fashion. Sure you can discuss your video outside of reviewing, and that's fine and dandy, but this puts more emphasis on the actual reviewing of the video. It wouldn't function that way 100% of the time, but it doesn't need to. But I'll stop now, because BMA summed it up nicely.

At the very least I'd be happy with the PM button as a concession.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

I hate to put a dampner on what has been an interesting conversation but I think the difficulty in adding this makes it a very low priority in comparison to the other things the site needs.

If we were putting in an opinion system for the very first time, this wouldn't be all that hard to do. However, modifying the current opinion system to allow a chain of replies is hard because of the way the opinion system was set up.

At the moment I can't think of a way of doing this without totally breaking the 108137 opinions that have already been left.

[Arigatomina]

At the moment I can't think of a way of doing this without totally breaking the 108137 opinions that have already been left.

But a link is do-able, right? Some people have proposed a link to 'PM the member' on the reviews - as an alternative to the forum idea. That should be much easier to set up.

Though, people would have to be logged into both main-site and forum so they don't have to relog when they go from one to the other. I don't see any other drawbacks from a PM link.

[AbsoluteDestiny]

A link is possible, yes.