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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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 Posted - 06/06/2006 : 22:17:21
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
I'm sure the MERPS (and you!) all try their best to judge on objective criteria, as far as people can ie they are trying to follow a set of rules. Yes, it's influential, but it is not a privilege. Doubling their voting power would be a privilege because it is not necessary and a vote is a subjective, personal matter.
Like I said, it's controversial and of the two ideas it was the one I felt most dodgy suggesting. No feelings on the second suggestion?
I just don't see why a MERPs opinion deserves any more prominence than anyone else's. The principle of equality is very important to me and clearly to you too as you have adhered to that policy so far. Stick to it.
Actually, I get more annoyed by the repetitive puns than I do by bland reviews. How many reviews do we need on site punning on "Fonda", or "Depp"? How many more dick or cock puns? What can be less original than that? The very odd one might have something different to say but most of them are crushingly boring.
At least the bland reviews aren't trying to pretend to be clever.
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Edited by - Whippersnapper. on 06/06/2006 22:19:09 |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 06/06/2006 : 22:18:37
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I think it's worth noting, especially for relative fwfr newbies, that the standards of acceptance on this site have grown and changed over the years. Reviews which passed muster during the site's early days are routinely zapped now, and with good reason. You want to blame someone? Blame noncentz -- but check out his incredible reviews before you do it: they constitute a master class in FWFR FOR DUMMIES.
Sure, we're not all as verbally adept as noncentz. [In fact, none of us are, excepting noncentz himself.] My take on this thread is simply that benj is politely asking us to try and bring it up a notch...if we could all just think a little harder before we submit. To select instead of regurgitating.
I for one will try to accept benj's challenge. His criticism is definitely aimed at me, too: as a notorious accolade chaser, I've occasionally "given up" as that last review I needed loomed before me. But you don't need a triple-inverted-bilingual pun to amuse and entertain. Everybody contributing to this thread has written some corkers. You all have the ability. Personally, I'm thinking benj wants me to take a little more time with my 10-15 reviews per day, and I've already started to do so. |
Edited by - randall on 06/06/2006 22:20:57 |
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MguyXXV 
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 06/06/2006 : 22:58:44
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I joined this site 23 years ago, so I've seen it all. Well, it seems like 23 years, but let's not quibble about numbers.
VOTING SYSTEM: There was a time when there was a voting system whereby you could vote negatively for certain reviews (as I recall, there were about five different types of votes you could cast). That system gave way to the current like-it-or-don't voting system because, well, people got concerned about hurting other people's feelings. No gettin' around that, I guess.  (Warm fuzzies for everyone!)
THE CHALLENGE: I will not say that there is not a mundane review among my lot, but if you can find ten, I'll delete them all . . . which means you have to go through all of my reviews ("Mwahahaha . . . yes . . . my plan is working . . ." )
THE CRUSADES: I'm not going to search the archives to prove my point, but I have been harping on this consistently for as long as I've been submitting reviews. That's about four years in human terms.
I tried being subtle about three years ago, starting a thread that suggests various approaches to review writing, which garnered the contributions of all the heavy hitters on how they go about writing reviews.
I tried crying like a spoiled brat and telling the teacher, which resulted in one of the earlier iterations of the "Generic Reviews" thread. (I'm just saying I was the brat, not anyone else.)
I have tried impassioned pleas, which got some sympathy. Until the threads got archived. 
I have tried holding my breath until blue in the face, which got me a very expensive ride to the hospital (please: don't try this at home). What have I learned by all of this? That holding the breath thing is really not cool! 
PART OF THE PROBLEM: When I joined the site, there was only one oracle: noncentz. There was no such thing as a "Deity": it was then known as the "mystery level" because no one had reached it to unlock it.
I started by trying to condense some qualitative viewpoint into four words. For example, my first review was for Training Day (2001): "Denzel and Ethan supreme." Then I started looking at noncentz's reviews and noticed that he was one clever boy. So I started trying to be clever. I did notice, however, that sometimes noncentz was just making great puns, but the site rules made it clear that those were fair game. But it generally seemed to me that the reviews should say something about the quality of the film or some portion of it.
Quite unfortunately, I was dating this bimbo at the time who subsequently stole a bunch of my hand tools, which I just figured out a few months ago (LADIES: never fuck with a man's tools!), and she thought the site was fun too, so she started writing reviews. Well, it wasn't long before we were in a race to post the most reviews. This was a time when you could move up in the rankings pretty darned quickly! In fact, I remember my dismay upon learning that this #$%&* ("didn't he just say 'fuck'? What's with the symbols?") had gone behind my back and written an email to benj to convince him to slow down on approving my reviews so she could beat me to various levels (I somehow did not think this was funny). Benj, however, gave it no mind and even posted the matter as a funny observation on the front page. But I digress. 
The biggest problem in trying to post hulking bulks of reviews was trying to dredge up something creative or qualitative to say, and as you all know, this can be a struggle.
Well, eventually, the former so-wasn't-ever-going-to-be-the-future-Mrs.-MguyX (oh yeah: "bless her heart") gave up, and I started powering forward, trying to reach the same position as noncentz. Only, he started powering forward too. Soon, we were on a race to reach the "mystery level".
If I must say so myself, during some of those days I was in the zone, whipping out puns that also said something qualitative about the film, the story, the acting, whatever. (My Walter Kerr's penultimate, for you who still remember pre-digital cameras: "Me no Leica." for I Am A Camera (1955) [which, by the way, got rejected about three times]). There was no way to avoid sometimes using the same pun device (witness my review for Auto Focus(2002): "Hogan Leica the ladies." Hmmmm, something sounds a litle familiar).
BUT GOL-DANG-IT ("Funny: he said 'fuck' before, but now he says 'gol-dang-it'? Maybe he thinks he'll just go to 'heck' if he uses only certain curse words. Must be some evolving religious conversion. Hell, I don't know.") the simple observation that a scene happened in a movie drives me freakin crazy! It adds NOTHING to the site. But what's that got to do with noncentz?
Well, one of us eventually unlocked the first "Deity" level ( ), but I don't remember who it was (), and it took several months to do, but that meant we were posting sometimes a hundred reviews a day! And not all of them were brilliant (well, at least not all of mine were brilliant). I recall once writing a message to noncentz about a couple reviews that were so pedestrian that I felt there was no way he could have written them. (For those of you who have known only thefoxboy as top review dog, noncentz was the quantitative champion for several years, though he remains the qualitative champion by far.) So how does any of this have anything to do with the topic?
This: there are some films I've seen and even loved for which I have no reviews. I have no reviews for them because for some odd reason nothing's coming up. And instead of posting something just for the sake of posting something -- like a bare scene descriptor -- I'm just waiting for an inspiration. During the days of "The Greatest Race: noncentz v. Mguyx" I felt the urge to write barely passable reviews just for the sake of beating noncentz to the Deity level, and sometimes I did. Benj usually rejected them, and probably because he expected more of me as a dedicated contributor. But I feel the slight sting of defeat for even writing those reviews, rejected or not, because I have to ask myself "what do I want: praise for have a certain number of reviews, or the self-satisfaction of having actually created a legitimate review in four words or fewer?" I'll take the latter.
I have previously stated that I would remove my own mundane reviews -- and I removed BOTH of them! (ok, ok, maybe I missed a couple more.) But I have no problem doing that because it does my ego no good to put "Man needs bigger boat." next to noncentz's "Fin." for Jaws (1975) (Yeah, I know noncentz's review was for Jaws: The Revenge (1987), but I was on a roll.)
I know it's a bit harder to move up the scale these days, but the MOPES are doing an excellent job of compensating for the greater participation that the site has seen. Having been to the summit, it doesn't bother me that Tori -- who I remember seeing as a newbie -- has supassed me (and let me say that her reviewing skills have grown by leaps and bounds since she first arrived -- not to say she wasn't good then too  ). But the anxiety of reaching a level, or the fear of losing ground should not be an excuse to slack! Maybe I and some of us have set a bad example with the racing stuff. (Nahhhhhh.) The site is fun mostly because it is funny, or clever. If it's just a bunch of scene descriptors, then it's stupid.
Which is all just a longer way to say what Warzonkey just said above. It's unlikely that benj is going to weed through the dross, or bother correcting my mixed metaphors. Police yourself, so I don't have to continually risk getting fired for spending company time on some website making commentary that's got nothing to do with what I'm working on! If I lose my job and therefore can't pay to send my daughter to Princeton, it'll be on your head, and there will be heck to pay!
("OK: maybe he thinks no one is gonna notice he said 'fuck' before if he uses symbols and 'freakin' and 'heck'. I'm on to you, buddy!")
NB: therefore this is all noncentz's fault!
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Edited by - MguyXXV on 06/07/2006 01:47:13 |
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AC
"Returning FWFR Old-Timer"
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Posted - 06/06/2006 : 23:52:52
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| Damn I've missed you Mg. |
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benj clews 
"...."
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Posted - 06/06/2006 : 23:54:09
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| MguyX man... you really should have newspaper column or something... |
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Stalean 
"Back...OMG"
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 00:54:13
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quote:
Originally posted by MguyX
VOTING SYSTEM: There was a time when there was a voting system whereby you could vote negatively for certain reviews (as I recall, there were about five different types of votes you could cast). That system gave way to the current like-it-or-don't voting system because, well, people got concerned about hurting other people's feelings. No gettin' around that, I guess. (Warm fuzzies for everyone!)
My point exactly (see my previous post). When that system was in place, there were categories something like "Hated It," "Funniest," "Crudest," etc. Hence my suggestion of having a 1-5 or 1-10 voting system like IMDB (or, for that matter, FWFR) has for members to rate films. This way all reviews have the chance of being rated fairly and standing on equal ground, instead of "this review has X-amount of votes, hence it is in the Top 100-200-300-etc." It seems to me the 1-5 system would cause less hurt feelings or voting frenzies than the system now in place. It just seems fairer to me. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 00:57:50
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I thought recently that the fourum seemed to be lacking in something, and I've just worked out what was wrong. It was suffering from 'Mguyx-rant-deficiency-syndrome'.
As long as MguyX is ranting, then all is well in fwfr-ville. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:12:47
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quote:
Originally posted by Tori
It's been pointed out before that I write simple reviews. I'm not proud of it...
 Why not? You mean like this one here? I had a look at this page a week or so ago, I read the IMDb summary before reviewing it, and noticed that the most complete, concise plot summary for the 'movie' was on the bottom of the fwfr page and it was written by you! Needless to say I gave it it's first vote.
Some of the other reviews on the page are clever and funny, but there are also 'reviews' with votes that don't have a lot to do with the movie subject matter. So I'm glad someone writes four-word-film-summaries occasionally, anyway.  |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:22:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
I'd make this suggestion: any review which remains voteless for a specified period of time e.g. a year, should be deleted. Maybe some exceptions e.g. if the film has less than 5/10 reviews. It seems to me that any review which sits on the site for a year without a vote deserves little mercy, particularly if its for a film with loads of reviews. This way people can write their reviews, get them published if they meet the criteria but they don't hang around for ever if no-one sees any merit in them.
I don't think this would work at all. It would mean that regular fourumites who participate in voting rampages (FYCTH, Monty's idea, rank-attaining-votes, birthday votes etc) wouldn't have reviews with 0-votes if they didn't want them. There are users who go straight to someone's zeroes and turn them into ones when vote-swapping, it happens regularly. I recall reading that someone did that a week or so ago, although I can't remember who it was. I'd say this would become even more common if we know that our zeroes are kneeling blindfolded with hands tied and a pistol against their temples, just waiting for any kind of reprieve.
Secondly, I have numerous reviews from my most-crap period of reviewing (2003) that have up to 8 votes, that in my view deserve a big fat zero, all a result of voting rampages. I wish I could strip them back to zero, they're embarrassing.  |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:28:48
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quote:
Originally posted by duh
A simple appeal from Benj to hold myself to a higher standard is enough for me. 
I think this is perhaps the most useful comment in this thread (apart from MguyX's rant of course ). If everyone who reads this thread makes an effort to perhaps work a bit harder on reviews, or resists the temptation to climb the ranks by firing off multiple reviews for the same movie at high speed, then perhaps there's no problem. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:35:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Cheese_Ed
As probably the prime example of a user who writes multiple reviews per film, let me just say that it is possible to do so without sacrificing quality.
Couldn't agree more. Your 100 for Chatterbox (and the Monsturd pile) are among my favourites on the site, and are one of the major reasons for the site being the fun place that it is. And it's obvious from those reviews that some serious hard work went into them, not to mention a few kilos of cheese. quote:
Even in the two cases where I wrote 100 or more reviews for one film (and I warn you ahead of time, I have another batch brewing)
My voting finger is ready and waiting...  |
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MguyXXV
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:38:17
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quote:
Originally posted by MguyX
(My penultimate, for you who still remember pre-digital cameras: "Me no Leica." for I Am A Camera (1955) [which, by the way, got rejected about three times]) . . . .
DAMNIT RANDALL!!!
I've been outed (in private . . . whoa, that sounds kinda wierd). While I first admired you for being the only other person to recognize that if it weren't for noncentz none of us would have problems, you had to go and notice that Walter Kerr originated the review in 1951 about the same item when it was a Broadway play. (But I'm pretty sure I revealed this fact in a thread a long time ago when we were discussing using and reusing reviews.)
Here's the derivation.
Everybody likes it. Chris Boutet used it too in VUEWeekly. And noncentz's Review for Waterworld (1995) ("Fishtar.") was a well-known quip about the film for years. Hell: I remember chuckling when I saw it in a headline in the L.A. Times, even!
So ONCE AGAIN, at the bottom of each controversy: noncentz
So, like I was saying, thanks Randall for bringing this rapscallion to light. I, for one, am NOT the kind of person to take credit for someone else's work while people are looking!  Yeah, I know he clearly told us in some long-ago-archived thread that it was an already well-know quip: excuses, excuses!
BTW: I didn't write the big rant above. This guy did. You should vote for his reviews just to teach me a lesson.
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." (I just came up with that one.) |
Edited by - MguyXXV on 06/07/2006 01:55:01 |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 01:57:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
I'd make this suggestion: any review which remains voteless for a specified period of time e.g. a year, should be deleted. Maybe some exceptions e.g. if the film has less than 5/10 reviews. It seems to me that any review which sits on the site for a year without a vote deserves little mercy, particularly if its for a film with loads of reviews. This way people can write their reviews, get them published if they meet the criteria but they don't hang around for ever if no-one sees any merit in them.
I don't think this would work at all. It would mean that regular fourumites who participate in voting rampages (FYCTH, Monty's idea, rank-attaining-votes, birthday votes etc) wouldn't have reviews with 0-votes if they didn't want them. There are users who go straight to someone's zeroes and turn them into ones when vote-swapping, it happens regularly. I recall reading that someone did that a week or so ago, although I can't remember who it was. I'd say this would become even more common if we know that our zeroes are kneeling blindfolded with hands tied and a pistol against their temples, just waiting for any kind of reprieve.
Secondly, I have numerous reviews from my most-crap period of reviewing (2003) that have up to 8 votes, that in my view deserve a big fat zero, all a result of voting rampages. I wish I could strip them back to zero, they're embarrassing.
So delete them. Or let me have your password and I'll do it for you.
If people want to devalue their votes by voting for everything then thats up to them, although I don't think much of it. However, that doesn't mean that those deleted wouldn't deserve it, only that some that deserve it are getting saved. We don't not have laws because some criminals get away with it, do we?
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 02:35:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
So delete them.
Yep, that's been on the agenda for a while, I'll get a round tuit one day. It might mean Oraclifying Mr Smithee though. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/07/2006 : 04:57:01
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
I'd make this suggestion: any review which remains voteless for a specified period of time e.g. a year, should be deleted. Maybe some exceptions e.g. if the film has less than 5/10 reviews. It seems to me that any review which sits on the site for a year without a vote deserves little mercy, particularly if its for a film with loads of reviews. This way people can write their reviews, get them published if they meet the criteria but they don't hang around for ever if no-one sees any merit in them.
I don't think this would work at all. It would mean that regular fourumites who participate in voting rampages (FYCTH, Monty's idea, rank-attaining-votes, birthday votes etc) wouldn't have reviews with 0-votes if they didn't want them. There are users who go straight to someone's zeroes and turn them into ones when vote-swapping, it happens regularly. I recall reading that someone did that a week or so ago, although I can't remember who it was. I'd say this would become even more common if we know that our zeroes are kneeling blindfolded with hands tied and a pistol against their temples, just waiting for any kind of reprieve.
Secondly, I have numerous reviews from my most-crap period of reviewing (2003) that have up to 8 votes, that in my view deserve a big fat zero, all a result of voting rampages. I wish I could strip them back to zero, they're embarrassing.
So delete them. Or let me have your password and I'll do it for you.
If people want to devalue their votes by voting for everything then thats up to them, although I don't think much of it. However, that doesn't mean that those deleted wouldn't deserve it, only that some that deserve it are getting saved. We don't not have laws because some criminals get away with it, do we?
I still very strongly disagree. Best described with some examples from two reviewers:-
FWFRer 1
Jaws - "Victory: defeat of Jaws."
Blair Witch Project - "Booger Nights."
Armageddon - "Willis, comet: Close shave."
Easy Rider - "Jack hammered."
Babe - "Sheep tame, bacon rasher."
FWFRer 2
Pet Sematary - "Dead kid's evil resurrection."
Mississippi Burning - "Old cop tackles Klan."
Almost Famous - "Teen journo pokes groupies."
Alien - "Monster born through chest."
Jean de Florette - French rednecks ostracise florist."
So, which ones should be given the bullet? Well, the first five have mostly been on the site since last year and all have 0 votes. Repeat: the first five all have 0 votes! The second five have two votes each. So during a clean up of zero-voters, the first lot would disappear and the second lot would remain. IMHO that would be a crime against fwfr to do such a thing.
Incidentally, I chose the first five from the top of a page of zero-voters on that particular user, and he happens to have 700 such zero voters, almost all of which would have waaaaayyyyy more votes if he had ever poked his nose into the fourum and participated in vote-swapping. So, he potentially has 700 good, clever, well-constructed reviews ready for the chop.
(Sidenote: Wanna guess how many of noncentz's zero-voters would get the bullet? About 300-400. I wonder who could honestly go through those and say they don't deserve to be on the site.)
I picked the second five from a page of two-voters from a user who is active in the fourum, regularly participates in voting rampages, but apparently made little attempt to write clever reviews when he wrote those in 2003.
So, it just goes to show that voting, although a good way to sort some of the wheat from the chaff, is miles away from comprehensive, given the heavy lean towards votes for fourumites. So in my view, deleting old zero-voters would remove far too many good, clever reviews, and leave far too many 'pedestrian' reviews on the site, the success-strike rate would be far too low in my view. No court would use DNA as evidence if it only had a 50% success rate.
So Mr Whipper, even though your idea appears logical at first glance, after due diligence I will have to give it the biggest thumbs-down I've ever given any idea I've ever seen mentioned at fwfr. |
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Quality reviewing
