To your first question, I gave quite a lot of thought. I’ve found that people like showing off that they have more than someone else. They like to celebrate milestones on post counts, on length of membership, on reviews (reviewers are sometimes very competitive, I have found). Inside the control panel, there is a small table that shows the top 5 raters. Those people have the most ratings on the site, with Count Orlock topping the chart with an impressive and amazing 645 ratings. I believe if this chart was a little longer, and perhaps individual rating counts were optionally included in the profile, then there would be more incentive to rate as many films as possible.

I have not yet given too much thought to the old films issue, but as I was writing that I believe I may have answered both questions with the one response. If people find themselves wanting to get their ratings count higher, they will not want to wait for more films to be added to the directory. Instead, they will work their way back through the older films to get their ratings. Hopefully, this will get most of the older films at least a slightly more accurate rating.

This is based on an assumption that most community members enjoy a bit of competition, but I’m sure it will have at least some effect on both the ratings volume and the ratings of the older films.

I hope these answers are informative enough

-Ladon

“SUMMER ’07″, aye?

Snarky Rebel.

Is it summer down under?

-Trill

fftopic: Regarding title: See, this was why I initially just left my title as 2008. Someone modified it to include “Winter”.

I think the issue with the ratings right now is that only a small group of people can rate, and while the group is small, paying a small fee doesn’t make someone a responsible rater. I’ve seen my films’ ratings plunge multiple times because one person gave unreasonably low ratings in some categories, likely in order to bring it down to where they feel it should be. I like the idea of having a separate set of ratings for the review panel, because I feel that the current ratings on many films provide little to no indication.

example: Bane of the Sith is below this in effects rating. Many of the older films don’t really match up with newer stuff in a similar manner. The film had great effects for its time, but it’s not really on the same level as many of the other films at the top of the list, at least in terms of realism. I suppose you could view it as a cgi brickfilm supplemented by some stop-motion. But I’m not sure about the reasoning for really high effects ratings for CGI films. The Inventor is on page 5 of the effects ratings, below several films that have little more than lightsaber effects or some masking. I think effects are a hard category to rate consistently, because if effects are very good then many people will mistake them for being in-camera (not saying this is the case in my own, largely CGI films of course.)

-Smeagol

I wouldn’t be opposed to a review panel rating system, though I agree that it may not be worth it given that many films might only receive one or two ratings with it. However, since it would have been implemented after the new rubric system, and only RP members would be able to use it, I think these ratings would be much more accurate.

A point that doesn’t seem to have been brought up yet is the idea of letting more people rate things. This has been an issue in past elections, I think, so I’m bringing it up again for consideration. You say that opinions are different from ratings, so would it be too hard to let the general Brickfilms community rate films as well? Smeagol said that just because someone’s a patron doesn’t mean they can rate a film well. There needs to be a system where everyone can rate a film if they want, not just paying patrons and higher officials on the site like the Review Panel. The majority of people who watch these films do not hold those types of positions. Sure, there would be more potential sabotage, but there should also be a system of banning saboteurs. Are you for/against this? Would it be too difficult to implement this type of system?

Well, either way, what you’ve said sounds good. I failed to realize that ratings films is one of the main perks for patronage. A Rotten Tomatoes system would be easy and would also give everyone a chance to see a more general opinion about the film from the community. Thanks for the explanation.