edit reviews

[athena]

The 'infinite' edit review function has now been disabled. You may edit a review for up to one full day after initially posting it, but after that you won't be able to edit it anymore--much in the same way that you can only edit a forum post for a limited amount of time.

Should you absolutely need to make a change to a review you've previously posted, send the changes to me directly and I'll see to it that they're posted.


thanks.

[lupercal]

In view of this policy, which I emphatically disagree with, I resign both as member and editor.

Lupercal.

[athena]

Alright, I didn't see your note in Editor's Lounge or my private mail before I saw this, so I am going to reply here... hell, every regularly-posting member of the site is practically an editor anyways...


Yes, this came up because KimbaWLion went in, deleted the content of his reviews, and then asked that his account be deleted. It's a fairly labour intensive process to remove the text from 25+ reviews so that... well, that takes a fair amount of initiative.

We are not IMDb. We do not have 50,000 members. I'd say that we have maybe... a dozen who regularly post reviews... any one of our main reviewers decides to pull up stakes, then they can conceivably take with them a huge chunk of the site's reviews.

That said... they are YOUR REVIEWS... I am NOT claiming intellectual property on them. I have not now, nor in the future am ever going to try and claim intellectual property on them... should you decide that they be removed, I will remove them...

I just want the opportunity, should you wish to leave, to please... PLEASE... leave the reviews that you have contributed to Keyframe... so that hours and hours of your time, don't get tossed into the void. I want the opportunity to beg for them... do you understand that? Do you understand WHY in heaven's name I would want that for this site?

But in the two times this has happened now, I was not given that chance... and you know, it's devastating to me when it happens... yesterday, when I discovered what had happened, it was the first time in the eight years that I've been doing this that I thought... "Good God, why am I even bothering? All of that contribution to the site and it means nothing... something to get tossed when someone is pissed off enough"... it's one thing to be constantly under seige by spammers... or to have the site brought down by hackers for sport... but when my own users, whom I would have thought would value their own reviews even more than I do... when they would come in and destroy hours and hours of their own work... you tell me how I'm supposed to feel about that...


You think this is me getting possessive about your reviews... that I think they're mine... but you have it backwards... I built this site to bring people here, to share their opinions... I pour my heart and soul into this thing because I want it to matter to you as much as it matters to me.

For God's sake, the words you write should be worth something... even if you disagree with me or whatever, the words themselves should still have value... a user might someday hate my guts, but if his reviews were eloquent and filled with incredible information I would still want them to be out there... begging that they be allowed to stay... so that that knowledge isn't lost... that those words are still out there somewhere even if that user never returns to Keyframe again.

We are not IMDb... we are a small community site...


Fine...
you win...

Frankly, I'm too upset to go another round on this again... but I swear, if I have to watch another user casually destroy their own reviews, the next person resigning as editor will be me.

[GrafSpee]

It's definitely nice to be able to go back and add/delete things to the reviews at various times in the future (point-of-view change after having seen something again). It does stink, though, to have whole reviews wiped out on a whim.

Short of having a backup copy of the data on the web site, maybe the only thing you can do in these cases is to place a generic message in a destroyed review (saying that the reviewer destroyed the review) and just keep the review around for its numeric value. In that case, the review is not as useful as it once was but at least it saves the amount of work you need to do.

[athena]

It does stink, though, to have whole reviews wiped out on a whim.

On this point, I couldn't agree more... :irked:


Short of having a backup copy of the data on the web site,

Which we actually do... however it's difficult to backup the site everyday and thus extracting those lost reviews probably wouldn't be worth the effort... besides, you could also argue that if the person didn't want their stuff on the site that badly that I should probably respect those wishes.


maybe the only thing you can do in these cases is to place a generic message in a destroyed review (saying that the reviewer destroyed the review) and just keep the review around for its numeric value. In that case, the review is not as useful as it once was but at least it saves the amount of work you need to do.

Well I don't want to see the review pages starting to look like swiss cheese on account of users who really don't want to be a part of the community anymore anyways.

I've thought a great deal about this topic these past few days and yesterday I coded in a 'Delete My Review' button... you can find it in the bottom right hand corner of the Edit Review page... I realize this is basically a reversal of my position and I can't say I'm particularly happy about the notion... as you say, there will be people who use it to remove their reviews on a whim... at least this way though the review is removed cleanly and the Top 5's reflect the change correctly. I just have to hope that people will use it with careful consideration.

[servewithchips]

Maybe you could allow limitless edits for a period of times, and then after that time, allow edits pending approval of an admin.