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← view full thread · Lower Review Character Requirement
Reviews are often too short and low quality, lowering the current minimum characters would only make the situation worse. If you don't know what to say about a work, then you should probably avoid reviewing it in the first place. As others suggested, either post in the forum about it or write your opinion on your page.
I suppose so. The idea of "too short" strikes me as pretty subjective since some people value conciseness (or would even prefer a short review instead of no review), but if that's how a majority of the site feels, then oh well.
I always know what I want to say whenever I want to write a review.
And it's NEVER 2200 characters, and yet NEVER "low quality".
I can't comprehend how anybody can really need 2200 characters unless they are reviewing a masterpiece.
But unfortunately 3/4 of the stuff out there is barely mediocre.Reviews are not a place to logorrheically show off one's otaku knowledge, they are meant to effectively give an idea of why you liked/disliked something, and length is NOT a measure of effectiveness.
I agree that too short review are often unhelpful, but too long ones are imo worse.
I find that 1200-1400 minimum characters would be more effective.
Then you can post it as a status or write it as a list note.
Why are you suggesting I write a personal note instead of a review, when they have two completely distinct purposes?
I simply feel that 2200 characters is not only an extreme overkill to simply filter out unhelpful "it sucks / it's amazing", but it's actually even counterproductive.
Like I explained in another comment, tastes are subjective, therefore reading one review is rarely useful. Reading many reviews is still not an objective way to determine if you might like a story, but it's statistically more effective than reading one.
A minimum of 2200 characters draws a hard line that completely cuts off a LOT of people who have very interesting AND helpful things to say that don't need 2200 characters (and that won't fit in a micro review), and people who have a more concise style of communication and can't/won't write long, and it tips the scale towards a specific kind of reviews that I described as logorrheic and that are rarely helpful.
The result? Less people who write and who read reviews, = LESS helpful.I myself have extensive professional training and experience in dramaturgy and storytelling, and on top of that I watched/read more titles (comics, animations, movies, series, books, novels etc) than the average person would be able to in a dozen lives, and regarding manga/hua/hwa and anime I am deeply knowledgeable in the isekai and regression genres (arguably not a synonym of quality but it's my personal escapist sin after a long day of hard work) and also murim.
I am very confident that there is a lot I can say in much less than 2200 characters, which would be very helpful to others.
Whereas I can only reach 2200 when I am either in a state of delirium where I had a bad day and the stupidity of a story pissed me off and I go in rant-mode (= not helpful), or when something truly is an absolute masterpiece.
So, here I don't write any reviews.
And I can force myself to read ONE long review, but I have neither the time nor the inner Nirvana to deal with many 2200-characters reviews of why "generic isekai 100003" sucks.
So, here I don't read any reviews.And I bet my bigger testicle that I am all but alone in this.
My 3 cents, set it to 1200 characters and change the voting system so that people can clearly separate if they agree/disagree with a review from how helpful/unhelpful they find it.
I mean 4 buttons. One to agree, one to disagree, one to mark as helpful even if you disagree or unhelpful even if you agree.
This will at same time solve the trolling issue of fans of a story massively downvoting a genuinely legitimate and helpful review, and will give you a way to filter out reviews that reach a threshold of unhelpfulness.
At same time you will have more people who write and read reviews.
= much more helpful.I personally am too old to give a s... about your decision. If I don't like a website I go to another.
But as I like here more than MAL for a few things, I decided to try pushing for a change in this, despite your hardcore line of "we won't ever change it", which btw, my 3 cents, it's a not the best way to interact with what gives life to a website: users.Bye.
... did you just write a 3300-character comment describing why 2200 characters are too much? Basenji is correct that there aren't any plans to lower that requirement. The current number works well to uphold quality while still being easy to reach, and the people complaining about it are a small minority.
There might be an alternative to long-form reviews at some point, but it would be explicitly separated from more in-depth reviews.
- continue this thread →
Is that sarcasm what I smell in your answer?
Just because I propose a change? It's not like I am calling you names.
And I thought that coming here from MAL (where the devs/admins don't give a shit about what users want) would mean finding people who are more open and friendly.
My bad I guess :)How long I write depends on what I write to whom.
A review of "reincarnated as a vibrator in a world of sexy elves" (if such an abomination would ever come to existence) in a website where 4/5 of the users are experienced hardcore bingers, would hardly need more then 200 characters.
But when I believe I am directly talking to intelligent, mature and open-minded people who administer a website and are supposed to be interested in what the users think, I might use more characters.
Again my bad if my assumptions and hopes were wrongly placed.Anyway, the micro-reviews, the way they have been described until now, would not be compatible with what I am proposing.
Imo they would only complicate the structure, and would not solve the issue of people who would like to write a splendid review that's shorter than 2200 but longer than a micro-review.
You could solve the issue in an imo more effective way by following my proposition from the previous message and adding a filter system so that people can sort reviews by length, by helpfulness, by agreeing rate, etc.
I am a UX Designer btw, in case this can help you see my opinion under a different light.Good luck with this place, given your defensive/offensive reaction to an emotionally-neutral non-aggressive proposition, I don't feel you are much different from the people of MAL, so between someone who doesn't care about what I need AND imposes imo ridiculous restrictions, or someone who simply doesn't care, the latter at least feels less claustrophobic to me.
Oh, one last thing: RottenTomatoes.
THE golden standard for reviews.
I have never seen shorter reviews from both professional reviewers and audience alike, anywhere else.
Do with this info whatever you like.