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The General 
"Forty? What? Me? How?."
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 Posted - 01/26/2007 : 17:47:44
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Hi, all! I used to be dhannah and now am The Prof (reflects my real-life self). I used to be around more, but am less active now and one reason is I have trouble understanding the present standards for genericness. I've had several reviews rejected, some retroactively, for being too generic. Some of the rejections have made sense, but several others have puzzled me, and I've lost some reviews that I thought were good ones.
From reading over the site's rules and looking over my rejections, I've identified two competing possibilities for what the current test is for "too generic".
The first is what I call the "strict" generic test. It asks--could this review possibly apply to more than one movie? The strength of this test is its clarity. The problem with this test is that many, many reviews currently approved would not meet it, including several in the top 100. For example, "Icy Dead People" could apply to any movie where people are cold and icy, such as Alive and The Day After Tomorrow, and "The Great S Cape" could apply to any movie in the Superman series.
I call the second test the "loose" generic test. It asks--is this review clearly more applicable to this movie than to any other movie? For example, top 100 review "Said He'd Be Back" applies more strongly to Terminator 2 than any other Arnie movie. The strength of this test is its flexibility; its weakness is its subjectivity.
Personally I prefer the loose test, because I think the strict test would result in too many great reviews, like the ones above, being rejected. And if the strict test is the way things are going to go, this would make this site less fun for me personally.
Apologies if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I'd welcome any thoughts any of you have about whether (a) the current test for too generic is "strict" or "loose," and (b) which test you like better. |
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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/26/2007 : 17:59:07
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It's loose. But even if a review is only as appropriate for one film as for some others, it is probably O.K. It is a probably not O.K. if it fits quite a few others. Re: Superman, there is a convention that reviews applying to all of a series equally have to go on the first film.
Give us some examples and we'll see if we can come up with a bunch of equally suitable films.  |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 01/26/2007 : 18:37:06
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I've never really seen it defined here but in practice it tends to be the loose definition. I have also never seen a definition of how many other films it needs to apply to before it is considered generic. There's a vague idea that if it applied to one or two other films it would probably be OK, but many more than that and it wouldn't.
I would also add that the test is probably "Is this review clearly more applicable to this movie in the sense which the reviewer intends it (insofar as we can judge)? Therefore my "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" review "Redskins on the warpath" is not seen as generic, because of the sense in which I mean redskins, although otherwise it would apply to many other films.
The answer to "The Great S Cape" example is that a review for a film which is part of a franchise is not considered as generic in respect of the other films of that franchise if it is applied to the first film in the franchise but is generic if applied to subsequent films.
Many of the reviews in the top 100 are, by current standards, generic and would not be allowed as new reviews, including "Icy Dead People". However, they are still tolerated due to their votes, whereas similar old generic reviews would be deleted if reported.
Ultimately the generic rule is neither an art nor a science, more a matter of administrative categorisation, done by different people, with the necessary level of disclarity and injustice and some flexibility inherent with such systems.
Oh, welcome back!
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Edited by - Whippersnapper. on 01/26/2007 18:38:48 |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/26/2007 : 18:52:47
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
The answer to "The Great S Cape" example is that a review for a film which is part of a franchise is not considered as generic in respect of the other films of that franchise if it is applied to the first film in the franchise but is generic if applied to subsequent films.
Well repeated.   |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 01/26/2007 : 19:05:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
The answer to "The Great S Cape" example is that a review for a film which is part of a franchise is not considered as generic in respect of the other films of that franchise if it is applied to the first film in the franchise but is generic if applied to subsequent films.
Well repeated.
I felt I had to as, coming from you, it would have little authority. 
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The General
"Forty? What? Me? How?."
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Posted - 01/27/2007 : 02:53:50
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Thanks for replying, folks. But while I see you saying the standard is loose, my recent experience has been of a much stricter standard. For example, I just got "Bravetart" rejected for Joan of Arc. Generic by the strong test? Definitely. Generic by the weak test? Maybe? (Thoughts?)
Also, I thought this was an important comment from another thread (from Rozark?):
"I've just had a review from February 2003 dumped as generic. I think it only had 3 or 4 votes so the key here is obviously it has to have a certain number of votes to aquire immunity. 60 is safe, 5 isn't.
Any idea where the cut off is anyone? 20, 30"
An implication is that there are multiple standards out there for what is and is not too generic. An review with lots of votes is judged by a different standard than one with few votes. This doesn't seem fair.
If the test is "loose," that's great, but it should be loose for everybody. The same logic applies if the test is "strict." |
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Query about the test for "too generic"
