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Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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 Posted - 09/30/2006 : 16:37:54
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I've tried to do this a lot less often than I used to but this time I really have to ask. My review of "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey" came back as "too generic."
I guess what I'd really like is an explanation of not what makes a review "too generic," but rather, the standard it has to meet in order to NOT be too generic. I always thought that the standard is that it has to be theoretically possible to guess the film from the review, assuming one had actually seen the film. But I guess I was wrong, because I'm pretty sure this one met that standard. Are reviews of obscure movies that most people haven't seen held to a higher standard? It's very frustrating that after several years and nearly 2000 reviews, this one rule is applied so (apparently) randomly that I have no way of predicting when I'll be affected by it.
If I could find out exactly what was wrong with that review, that would be nice. But it's more the rule itself I'm asking about. Is there an actual rule/standard at play here? Is it arbitrary or does it only feel that way?
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I've substantially rewritten this post because I didn't want it to turn into an appeal for the review itself, but that was exactly what I ended up doing, which was wrong. |
Edited by - Downtown on 09/30/2006 18:14:35 |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 17:21:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
I've tried to do this a lot less than I used to, but I've been trying to figure this one out and I really doesn't make sense to me. I'm not so much appealing a decline as I'm simply trying to understand the reasoning behind it.
I submitted the movie "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey" to be added with my review. It's a documentary about Bill Lee, former pitcher for the Red Sox who's gone by the nickname "The Spaceman" for over 30 years. The film visits many locations including Cuba, Vermont's Northern Kingdom, Los Angeles, et al, and the locations are actually labeled as "Earth" at the bottom of the screen, for example: "Havana, Cuba, Earth," or "Northern Kingdom, Vermont, Earth."
My review was "Spaceman tours Planet Earth," and it came back as "too generic." I really can't see how this is any more generic than most of the reviews here. Aside from the fact that it actually includes the name of the film itself, it makes a SPECIFIC reference to the subject of the film by his commonly-used nickname, while ALSO refering to the content of the film, which is him going to various locations around the Earth. I explained these references with my 100 characters, and yet, here we are.
I guess what I'd really like is an explanation of not what makes a review "too generic," but rather, the standard it has to meet in order to NOT be too generic. I always thought that the standard is that it has to be theoretically possible to guess the film from the review, assuming one had actually seen the film. But I guess I was wrong, because I'm pretty sure this one met that standard. Are reviews of obscure movies that most people haven't seen held to a higher standard? It's very frustrating that after several years and nearly 2000 reviews, this one rule is applied so (apparently) randomly that I have no way of predicting when I'll be affected by it.
I guess if I could find out exactly what was wrong with that review, that would be great. But it's more the rule itself I'm asking about. Is there an actual rule/standard at play here? Or am I really just relying on someone's mood the day my review came up for approval?
What if you put: Baseball Spaceman tours Earth. That should 'ground it' pardon my pun 
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 17:26:46
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| Thanks Bafta, but I editted my post because I shouldn't have made it about the review itself. And if that made the difference, I'd still be just as confused because I don't see how one of those reviews is really more "generic" than the other. Just how obvious do we have to make it? That's what I want to know. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 18:28:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
Thanks Bafta, but I editted my post because I shouldn't have made it about the review itself. And if that made the difference, I'd still be just as confused because I don't see how one of those reviews is really more "generic" than the other. Just how obvious do we have to make it? That's what I want to know.
Well, I'm only guessing here, but at a stretch [not the 7th inning kind] Spaceman tours Planet Earth could conceivable apply to some of 2001 ... or even Planet of the Apes. Whereas mentioning Baseball ties it more specifically to a film about a ballplayer who happens to be nicknamed Spaceman. I have absolutely no idea whether my suggestion would pass the FWFR test ... it was just a hunch. I think the rule of thumb is to make the review as film-specific as possible. It's not an exact science.
All the best
B.
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benj clews 
"...."
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 18:35:38
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Sorry Downtown- this was one of my declines, so I'll try to explain my reasons as best I can. (You're welcome to tell me wy I'm wrong if I've missed something)
Frankly, I can think of more than a few films about someone from space coming to Earth and exploring it. And if I can think of that many, with my relatively limited filmic knowledge, then there's a good chance it's actually a great deal more than I'm thinking of. I couldn't say the same about baseball and space visitors, but I can see nothing in the review to narrow it down from those many space visitor films.
The reason the generic rule appears so random is because there's no exact science to this- it's an artform, just like one person's favourite painting is another man's dogs playing poker. We're also dealing with the opinions of more than one MERP. I won't say I always agree with all their choices, but I appreciate there's a lot of borderline reviews which could go either way and I will generally side with whatever those MERPs decide on the issue. This review does not, in my opinion, fall into a borderline generic category though.
The rule used to be that a review had to apply to one and only one film, but I came to realise that this was being just far too strict and it alienated way too many reviews. By saying one review can apply to a handful of films, the standards have actually lessened up a little from how they were, say, four years ago.
Ironically, the original one-review-to-one-film rule would have been the closest we had to a hard and fast ruling, whereas allowing a little wiggle room for such reviews ends up leaving people confused as to why one review makes it and another doesn't despite the fact this is supposed to benefit them.
It's a hard line to walk and we're never going to keep everyone happy, but we will always try to consider people's explanations for resubmissions (at least up to the 3rd resubmission anyway).
EDIT: Another way of non-genericising this review (besides the baseball reference) might be to emphasise the word Spaceman as a nickname. Normally, you'd be fine with a capital first letter, but since this word is at the beginning of the review, it doesn't stand out as a name. Perhaps rearranging the words or putting Spaceman in single quotes  |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 19:05:58
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I appreciate the response.
But isn't that why there's a hint? To narrow it down? It seems most of the time it's okay as long as there's enough information in the review itself to possibly guess it right only from "What Film?," while every once in a while it's considered unacceptable if there's any chance of possibly guessing wrong because there's another movie somewhere in the universe that shares some major plot elements or characteristics.
The Spaceman is the subject of the movie. Touring planet Earth is exactly what he does. If someone saw the movie (dreadful bore that it was), there's a good chance they'd guess right if they checked the hint, because the cast are all sports personalities...including, of course, Bill "The Spaceman" Lee himself. If you can really say that's not enough, I'll have to accept that and I swear I'll never speak of this again, but I'd appreciate a moment to consider it.
Edit: I don't have a problem with his nickname being in quotes or even changed to "The Spaceman tours Earth," (which for some reason only occured to me now) so I guess this is more of a general question now. |
Edited by - Downtown on 09/30/2006 19:15:30 |
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benj clews
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Posted - 09/30/2006 : 23:17:58
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The What Film? bubble isn't the reason for the ruling of non-generic reviews- if anything, it's kind of a microcosm of the problems inherent in the concept of this site.
If the What Film? bubble contains a review that could apply to one of, say, fifty films then we're starting to have a problem: reviews by less scrupulous reviewers (after quantity rather than quality with no care about originality) that previously would have been declined as too generic will start popping up against any film that could possibly match it. Worst of all, MERPs will have no grounds on which to deny these repeated reviews.
Pretty soon, the site will have so many repeated reviews against so many films, visitors viewing the more popular films might start to experience a little deja vu. All of a sudden the site gets to feel a little too samey. Maybe this is me exaggerating, maybe not, but I really don't want to risk it and have to try and clear up the mess- after all, four years on, we're *still* cleaning up from the first couple of years of this site.
Not only this, but I think the community might suffer a little too. Already, some reviewers (me included on a few rare occaisions) take offence at similar reviews to their own (but slightly reworked) being used against other films- think how you'd feel if the review you spent ages working on was reused *exactly* by someone else?
Believe it or not, this ruling is in place to try and maintain some kind of balance here- without it, there's really very little point in having an editorial process or, indeed, any kind of impetus to write quality reviews. I've always thought of the editors as being here not to restrict what you can do, but to try and keep everyone's game sharp, to hone your abilities and to make us all the best we can be at this crazy thing we call fwfr. |
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 10/02/2006 : 00:07:09
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Thank you for the explanation.
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Sorry but I have to ask for an explanation
