7 ms·

It’s absolutely dreadful and I think this behavior is shameful on the part of Amazon. What’s the point of a review system if you’re going to game it. Reviews me

It’s absolutely dreadful and I think this behavior is shameful on the part of Amazon. What’s the point of a review system if you’re going to game it. Reviews mean nothing anymore

ShamelessC 4y ago
Reviews havent been meaningful for as long as I've been alive (90's). Watch trailers, watch the show, make your own assessment, keep it to yourself, move on.
- exodust 4y ago
  > "Watch trailers" Trailers are not suitable replacements for reviews. They are edited and packaged to deliver hyped expectation via self-congratulatory endorsement. Reviews are better than trailers. You could stick to reviews from news publishers if you don't trust user reviews. Here's a snippet of the Washington Post's review of Rings of Power: "The performances are serviceable but unremarkable, while the dialogue is particularly corny and inartful... Rarely has danger felt so dull." washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/08/31/lord-rings-tv-show-review/ Reviews are great!
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    How could you possibly trust that statement without watching the show yourself first? The subjective nature of entertainment means that one reviewer's opinions are not universal. This means you basically have to go find a reviewer who agrees with your opinions on average - effectively telling you what you want to hear. How is that a useful system?
    - exodust 4y ago
      > subjective "Corny dialog" is rarely a subjective observation. It's either corny or it isn't. The rare exception might be when the dialog is deliberately corny for stylistic reasons or some kind of self-referencing theatrics. Corny dialog is easily identified... "I've got a baaad feeling about this". > How could you possibly trust that statement Because the statement doesn't sit in isolation. It's from a longer professional review where the show is deconstructed and analyzed. The statements are qualified, unlike user reviews. Of course there are subjective aspects too, but there are also strongly bonded criticisms across reviews that can't be dismissed with "subjective" counter-claims. If not universal, then near-universal qualities can be found. Take the recent James Bond movie. Even the good reviews were noting the "woke" themes. They specifically hired a writer to help inject those themes into the movie, such as anti-toxic masculinity etc. It turns out many people don't have much love for injected woke themes forced into their fictional movies. Many people wanted escapism from 007, not a social re-education lecture or some awkward comment about current world events.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      You described it pretty well—if the reviewer is good at identifying things you won’t like, then that’s useful.
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  My wife and I do check IMDB ratings before watching a show, but we apply some adjustments based on the genera. If its a super hero show you can subtract 2-3. If its scary film or indie sci-fi you can add 2-3. That kind of thing.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  The best "review" system I've ever come across was Netflix's DVD plan. You would rate a bunch of movies and then it would give rating estimations of other movies based on how people with similar taste to you rated them, which is exactly what I want from a review system. The general population, groups of trolls, review bombers, people who just didn't like the same kinds of movies as you, etc. would all be irrelevant.
denlekke 4y ago
have you looked at amazon product reviews recently ? while this particular approach (locking reviews at the outset) may not be the best approach, i would LOVE to see companies put some more effort into combating review "fraud" either by verifying watch time or restricting reviews per ip including captcha etc etc the exact same stuff that any social media platform needs to do to combat spam because for me personally reviews on the internet have lost almost all value as they no longer represent a collection of human opinions where each person gets only one review

It’s absolutely dreadful and I think this behavior is shameful on the part of Amazon. What’s the point of a review system if you’re going to game it. Reviews mean nothing anymore

ShamelessC 4y ago

Reviews havent been meaningful for as long as I've been alive (90's). Watch trailers, watch the show, make your own assessment, keep it to yourself, move on.

exodust 4y ago
> "Watch trailers" Trailers are not suitable replacements for reviews. They are edited and packaged to deliver hyped expectation via self-congratulatory endorsement. Reviews are better than trailers. You could stick to reviews from news publishers if you don't trust user reviews. Here's a snippet of the Washington Post's review of Rings of Power: "The performances are serviceable but unremarkable, while the dialogue is particularly corny and inartful... Rarely has danger felt so dull." washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/08/31/lord-rings-tv-show-review/ Reviews are great!
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  How could you possibly trust that statement without watching the show yourself first? The subjective nature of entertainment means that one reviewer's opinions are not universal. This means you basically have to go find a reviewer who agrees with your opinions on average - effectively telling you what you want to hear. How is that a useful system?
  - exodust 4y ago
    > subjective "Corny dialog" is rarely a subjective observation. It's either corny or it isn't. The rare exception might be when the dialog is deliberately corny for stylistic reasons or some kind of self-referencing theatrics. Corny dialog is easily identified... "I've got a baaad feeling about this". > How could you possibly trust that statement Because the statement doesn't sit in isolation. It's from a longer professional review where the show is deconstructed and analyzed. The statements are qualified, unlike user reviews. Of course there are subjective aspects too, but there are also strongly bonded criticisms across reviews that can't be dismissed with "subjective" counter-claims. If not universal, then near-universal qualities can be found. Take the recent James Bond movie. Even the good reviews were noting the "woke" themes. They specifically hired a writer to help inject those themes into the movie, such as anti-toxic masculinity etc. It turns out many people don't have much love for injected woke themes forced into their fictional movies. Many people wanted escapism from 007, not a social re-education lecture or some awkward comment about current world events.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    You described it pretty well—if the reviewer is good at identifying things you won’t like, then that’s useful.
jay_kyburz 4y ago
My wife and I do check IMDB ratings before watching a show, but we apply some adjustments based on the genera. If its a super hero show you can subtract 2-3. If its scary film or indie sci-fi you can add 2-3. That kind of thing.
MiddleEndian 4y ago
The best "review" system I've ever come across was Netflix's DVD plan. You would rate a bunch of movies and then it would give rating estimations of other movies based on how people with similar taste to you rated them, which is exactly what I want from a review system. The general population, groups of trolls, review bombers, people who just didn't like the same kinds of movies as you, etc. would all be irrelevant.

denlekke 4y ago

have you looked at amazon product reviews recently ? while this particular approach (locking reviews at the outset) may not be the best approach, i would LOVE to see companies put some more effort into combating review "fraud" either by verifying watch time or restricting reviews per ip including captcha etc etc the exact same stuff that any social media platform needs to do to combat spam because for me personally reviews on the internet have lost almost all value as they no longer represent a collection of human opinions where each person gets only one review