reason for the Avatar contest

[athena]

[I thought it best to shift this discussion out of the official contest thread]

Good morning boys and girls, here's the deal on the Avatar contest...

For the past couple months the profile for Avatar has been receiving about five times as many views as its nearest competitor... significantly more than any other profile on this site... and yet, for all the people coming to the site because of Avatar, there were TWO reviews--mine and Toonboy's.

If anything, I'm hoping that the contest will reflect the amount of interest the profile has been getting.

Can you win the contest by writing a two-star review? Yes--IF you expressed interest in being in the contest by posting in this thread. That's why I added that second step... if someone came along and added a one-star review to Avatar, they are still free to do so without being entered into the contest.

As for the natural progression of whatever... bottom line is there is no natural progression of reviews if no one is posting any reviews. We get an average of 1300 visitors a day and maybe one review--if we're lucky. There are so many things I want to do with this site, but a lot of them do depend on getting more active users... don't get me wrong, my current core group is great and I'm glad to have you... but don't you think it'd be a lot more interesting around here if the forums were more active? If I could bring in a few more editors for content?

So here's the deal... on February 11th Keyframe will be 7 years old. I tossed this question to Toonboy already, but I'll throw it out to you guys as well... I want to do something to celebrate--contest or something else--and I need some ideas.

[lupercal]

As for the natural progression of whatever... bottom line is there is no natural progression of reviews if no one is posting any reviews. We get an average of 1300 visitors a day and maybe one review--if we're lucky. There are so many things I want to do with this site, but a lot of them do depend on getting more active users...



Well I'm all for more reviews - you know that. But my point is that this particular method of attracting them will, IMO, lead to an artificially 'inflated' rating for one particular show which is going to probably semi-permanently propel it to the top of the top 5 for tv shows when you eventually get enough votes to have one. So, it's a quality vs quantity thing for me I guess.

I'm also quite in favour of competitions, as you recall I ran at least one myself (the one where nobody guessed who Precious Pupp was, and maybe another one I've forgotten).

Finally I have nothing against the show, as I've never seen it. It's simply that I don't TRUST a bunch of people telling me how great it is when they're trying to win a prize, and if I can't 'trust' the reviews, then I start having problems with the whole site, if I don't know how the reviews were attracted. So yeah, competitions are good; I'm not CRAZY about the idea of inviting people to review a specific movie though - even if they're all sincere, we're unlikely to hear from the people who sincerely didn't like it. But, whatever. I now regard the votes for that show as being distorted upwards. Is that worse than only two reviews I believe I can trust. IMO, yes. But that's just me, and it's not my site.

Loop

[Toonboy]

The hope is that all this traffic will lead to stayers who will become active members and start contributing to other reviews.

The numbers show that the show IS popular, exceedingly so. But nobody wanted to put in any effort for some reason or another. Now pretend that those reviews are there, but there is no contest. Does the contest make the opinions of the fans less valid?

At any rate, the show shouldn't go into the top 5 just yet. We still need enough competition from 4 other shows. The movies are getting all the glory, but there are more shows than movies, and I'm concentrating specifically on cartoons. I'm just now considering on adding another.

[athena]

IMO, lead to an artificially 'inflated' rating for one particular show which is going to probably semi-permanently propel it to the top of the top 5 for tv shows when you eventually get enough votes to have one. So, it's a quality vs quantity thing for me I guess.
Okay, but is this really any different than when you posted that 1-star review for Daria which was followed immediately by three 4-star reviews when someone alerted a Daria forum to your review?

Or the fact that on the previous version of Keyframe (pre-database) there was 37 reviews for Balto... most of them positive... because Keyframe happened to be a favourite of the Balto network at the time.

Or when someone on the (Un)Official Hercules site directed its users (also, on the old KF) to go post reviews to show what a great show the Hercules TV series was?


*shrug*... the Top 5 isn't perfect, largely because we don't have enough reviews in the system to create balance. If we were IMDb and the average movie had several hundred reviews, then the Top 5 becomes a lot more representative... but until then I have to work with what I've got and encourage people in the ways that are most likely to pan out.


But that's just me, and it's not my site.
True, but you know I value the opinion of my users. I can't always make everyone happy, but I do try to do what I think is best for the site.

[lupercal]

Sorry. Not long after my last post I got rushed off to the emergency ward in an ambulance and spent two days in the cardiac unit. Things are a bit out of shape for me at the moment. I might be stepping back from things. I might not. I'll have to see how this new upside down world works.

Loop

[athena]

Sorry. Not long after my last post I got rushed off to the emergency ward in an ambulance and spent two days in the cardiac unit. Things are a bit out of shape for me at the moment. I might be stepping back from things. I might not. I'll have to see how this new upside down world works.

YIKES.
Well, take it easy... hope you feel better.

[lupercal]

I'm sorry, but I'm now more convinced than ever that this competition is a serious mistake, and has damaged the 'rating' concept for TV series. I don't see any way you can fix it, short of running a competition for every other TV series. It wouldn't suprise me, if you ran a competition inviting reviews for something in the bottom 5, if it suddenly shot up to #2. Apologies, but that's just how I see it. About the only thing I could think of to restore balance to the reviews would be to award the prize to someone, and then delete all the reviews from people who haven't reviewed any other show.

Loop

[athena]

I'm sorry, but I'm now more convinced than ever that this competition is a serious mistake, and has damaged the 'rating' concept for TV series. I don't see any way you can fix it, short of running a competition for every other TV series. It wouldn't suprise me, if you ran a competition inviting reviews for something in the bottom 5, if it suddenly shot up to #2. Apologies, but that's just how I see it. About the only thing I could think of to restore balance to the reviews would be to award the prize to someone, and then delete all the reviews from people who haven't reviewed any other show.
A *mockery*? oh c'mon.
We aren't the Oscars. The reviews aren't going to determine the fate of the animation industry as we know it. This is a fan site and, last time I checked, we were all in this for a good time.

And I'm not going to delete the reviews because the fact they were added during a contest should not make them invalid. If the reviews were just a single line of "hey, I like Avatar" I might consider it, but these people spent time on their reviews. They deserve to have their opinion heard just as much as you do. And Avatar is hardly unstoppable at #1... 3 of the reviews that came in were 3.5 stars so it's got a star-rating of 3.83 right now. One more 4 star review for Tale Spin would knock Avatar right off the top.


Besides which, if you think that there is absolutely no possibility that any other TV series profile on Keyframe is ever going to get all of *nine* reviews, then you really don't have enough faith in the future of this site.

[Toonboy]

I'm seeing his point. Up until now the reviews have been stellar. Of course I would LOVE to see a counter review. :D But that last review seemed. . . childish. Like it wasn't serious about the show at all and more about the contest.

Of course I have no way of proving that. And like the person said, he or she ADD, or may be just a little child, or have trouble expressing his or herself in somewhat cohesive English.

[athena]

I'm seeing his point. Up until now the reviews have been stellar. Of course I would LOVE to see a counter review. :D But that last review seemed. . . childish. Like it wasn't serious about the show at all and more about the contest.
Well at the moment, she's not in the contest since she didn't post a 'hey I reviewed' message to the contest thread... the whole point of which was to allow people to continue to post any kind of review they felt like--including negative ones--and not get entered in the contest...


Of course I have no way of proving that. And like the person said, he or she ADD, or may be just a little child, or have trouble expressing his or herself in somewhat cohesive English.
Maybe I'm too blasé about all this, but unless we want a site where only designated people write reviews, you're going to see strange reviews whether we run contests or not.

My personal favourite was one off the old site (paraphrasing):
Bug's Life review--4 stars: "It's great! I've love a Bug's Life"
Antz review--1 star: "It sucks! It's not as great as a Bug's Life!!"

And again, one so-called 'questionable' review out of nine... I still say we've got a better batting average than most.

[lupercal]

And I'm not going to delete the reviews because the fact they were added during a contest should not make them invalid.

You're missing my point. I'm not nescessarily saying that the reviews themselves are 'invalid', but that the process through which they are acquired, IMO, ensures a higher median rating than all of the other shows will get. So the problem isn't nescessarily that competition reviews are artificially high (though I still think they probably are), but because we're deliberately inviting reviews from people who are likely to rate it highly - which we aren't going with, let's say, 'Mysterious Cities of Gold' or 'Cowboy Bebop'.



Besides which, if you think that there is absolutely no possibility that any other TV series profile on Keyframe is ever going to get all of *nine* reviews, then you really don't have enough faith in the future of this site.

But I thought you were asserting the other day that lack of reviews was why you needed the competition.

Also you can't judge whether an average rating is inflated by measuring its grade against the next highest graded series in the database. You can only compare it with what what it WOULD have got if the reviews had been acquired through the same process as the other series - which is unknowable.

Anyway, I apologise for getting back on this again. I obviously just see it as more of a concern than you, and obviously it's your call. I suppose I got yanked away before I'd gotten it out of my system. Anyway I'll shutup about it now.

[athena]

But I thought you were asserting the other day that lack of reviews was why you needed the competition.
Avatar was getting a lot of interest... and between that and the fact that there was a DVD coming out soon, it made it a good candidate for a contest. I had hoped that by encouraging people to write review for Avatar that they would want to review other things... which doesn't seem to be the case as of yet.


Also you can't judge whether an average rating is inflated by measuring its grade against the next highest graded series in the database. You can only compare it with what what it WOULD have got if the reviews had been acquired through the same process as the other series - which is unknowable.
Meehhh... I just spend my day working on a dynamic pricing system for a jewellery store (http://bhartijewellers.com/) website based on a crazy equation involving product size, cost of gold per gram and incremented weight by size... I can't tell you how much I really don't want to think about math right now... :ppbb:


Anyway, I apologise for getting back on this again. I obviously just see it as more of a concern than you, and obviously it's your call.
As you may have noticed I have a fairly laid back view of the site... I don't get worked up over things like fluctuations in reviews because my take is that if I can get traffic up to where I want it to be... and where I think it should be... then the impact of these kinds of fluctations become minimal.

And if I can't increase traffic... well, the discussion is all fairly moot, isn't it? The site becomes the representative views of about a dozen core reviewers... and the Top 5's are really about whether we 12 like Mysterious Cities of Gold or not.

[Magnus]

So here's the deal... on February 11th Keyframe will be 7 years old. I tossed this question to Toonboy already, but I'll throw it out to you guys as well... I want to do something to celebrate--contest or something else--and I need some ideas.

My impression is that one of the more daunting tasks for this website is that old thread about what animations still ought to be added. I don't know if this is possible, but perhaps there's a way this issue could be combined with a competition of some sort? Perhaps a contest in which competitors must not only list animations they think should be added (we already have plenty of those), but also write clear, concise synopses for the profiles of these animations, and maybe even come up with the preview images...? I have no idea how practical this is, though.

And one other thing: lupercal, this is about a week late, but I only now read your message about the trip to the hospital. I think I speak for many Keyframers when I stand by Athena in saying we hope you are doing all right (and if not, that you get better soon!). You should know that your reviews are always read and respected, probably by a great many people, and certainly by myself and the other Keyframe frequenters here. I think it's safe to say we feel an honest concern for your health and hope things are going well for you.

Anyway, that had nothing to do with this thread, so please continue on...just thought it should be said.

[lupercal]

Thanks, M.

[athena]

My impression is that one of the more daunting tasks for this website is that old thread about what animations still ought to be added.
It is a *hugely* daunting task... my problem is that there are a lot of things on this site that only I can work on or develop... whenever I dig into those things, then the content and news additions fall by the wayside... but if I don't do development, then we don't push forward with the new stuff like the search engine or this forum.

Don't get me wrong, I love hunting for content... it's just a juggling act for me... and I know the site would be a lot more active as a whole if content updates happened more regularly--and frequently.

I've already mentioned this to Toonboy, but my intention is to put out a call for more volunteer editors... specifically a 'general' animation editor--maybe someone who'd like to tackle the task of beefing up the TV series area... and also someone who could be our 'anime' editor... it's a genre that's not my forté and I've discovered that unless you watch a good chunk of an anime series you really have no clue what's going on... and anime simply isn't as readily available in Canada as it seems to be elsewhere.

And, in an ideal world, a news editor as well... having our last news article be from two weeks ago doesn't exactly put us on the cutting edge. :(


So yea, I was going to do a fancy "formal call" but maybe it's better to do a local one first... I believe there is so much potential in this site, but I can't do it alone... the administration system is already setup to handle multiple editors and you don't need to know a thing about code to add a profile. A graphics program doesn't hurt so that you can crop and re-size images, but Toonboy doesn't have access to one right now so I've been doing that part for him... just having him add profiles is a major help.

Like I said, this is volunteer... the best I can offer my editors is the occasional Amazon gift certificate... hehe, if you hadn't guessed by now, Amazon is the site's only source of income.

Anyways, I'll do a fancy formal call at some point too I suspect... mostly because I want to spoof the Uncle Sam (http://www.journeyforjustice.org/downloads/artwork/UncleSam.jpg) poster for my Volunteer Call page... but to my regulars, if you would seriously like to do more for Keyframe... I'd love to have you on board.


Perhaps a contest in which competitors must not only list animations they think should be added (we already have plenty of those), but also write clear, concise synopses for the profiles of these animations, and maybe even come up with the preview images...? I have no idea how practical this is, though.
It might work... a "find something we don't have" contest... I don't know though... my impression from the Avatar contest is that even a simple review is considered a lot of work by people. We've had *WAY* more hits on that Avatar thread from outside sites then we actually had registered users and new reviews... I'm guessing maybe a third of the people or less actually entered the contest.


I think I speak for many Keyframers when I stand by Athena in saying we hope you are doing all right (and if not, that you get better soon!). You should know that your reviews are always read and respected, probably by a great many people, and certainly by myself and the other Keyframe frequenters here. I think it's safe to say we feel an honest concern for your health and hope things are going well for you.
Hear, hear.
Lupercal has truly been invaluable. In addition to the 200+ reviews he's written, there was also the 50 or so profiles and the numerous articles he penned while he served as an animation editor. We may argue about what's best for the site, but those arguments are always hugely appreciated by me.


Anyway, that had nothing to do with this thread, so please continue on...just thought it should be said.
meh, I'm not much of a thread-nazi.
I was trying to keep this discussion out of the contest thread just because I don't want to miss any of the contest entries.

I'd rather have conversation that meanders off topic in places than perfectly organized dead threads throughout the forum.

[athena]

But my point is that this particular method of attracting them will, IMO, lead to an artificially 'inflated' rating for one particular show which is going to probably semi-permanently propel it to the top of the top 5 for tv shows when you eventually get enough votes to have one.

*sigh*
If anyone feels like saying, "I told you so, Athena" be my guest. :(

Seriously, I outsmarted myself this time... Avatar just hit 13 reviews and, given my past experience with contests, I figured it'd top out at half that.


live and learn I suppose...