RFC - Review Shakeup

[BONES]

AWESOME! These are all really good ideas. My only reservation would be that it should be possible to rank your pro's and con's so that readers will get an understanding of whether its a big pro/con or just a minor one. I suppose that the detailed review should reflect that but you know what people are like and if it is necessary to find 5 con's, even if you don't think there are that many, it could distort the reviewers intent.

Maybe have 2 big pro/con's and 3 minor ones or something?

I agree totally that the ratings numbers have become meaningless and in no way reflective of the majority of instruments. Witness last year's incident when Scorpion rose to the top - that was clearly a distortion of the facts.

[Ben [Camel Audio]]

Hi,

I do understand why this shake up may be necessary - the way that marks have increased and increased over time has led to a situation where there's very little room for movement. Kind of like what's happening with GCSEs/A levels in the UK, but to a more extreme level

However, I do think that the ratings system in its current form does serve some purpose - the fact that synths like Z3ta, ImpOscar and Cameleon are in the top five, does reflect that they're all very well regarded round here. A newbie can quickly find that out by looking at the ratings, but may not necessarily pick up on that by browsing the instruments forum - since people tend to talk most about those synths which have just been released, or that there is currently a discount for etc. I think there is danger that the same may be true of the monthly voting.

Anything that can be done to reduce the 'flavour of the month' factor in voting, would probably be a good thing from the perspective of newbies who just want to buy a couple of good synths. I'm not sure if this was already suggested, but how about categories for the monthly voting - eg. leads/pads/rompler, etc

Of course, I must admit that I am biased, since its very nice to have Cameleon sitting at the number one slot, and a I'll be sad to see it lose that position

Thanks
Ben

[Caleb]

In short - don't worry about the rankings Ben (Camel), I don't think people will stop hearing about Cameleon in this forum.

Caleb

[quincy]

I think no number scores except a main score out of 10 would be fine. All the sub categories are often not applicable anyway.

If you read a few hundred words about something you get a better feel for the product than from a bunch of numbers, and also any clear bias may be more obvious, so you can ignore people who clearly haven't tried the product much before declaring the product crap or amazing

Monthly thing sounds good too, keep things up to date so that people know whats being loved and used NOW, not a year ago.

[Kraku]

I think that if the ratings are too precise (1-100 for example or even 1-10) people just always give something like 95%-100% for everything they review. It is the problem with current reviews. If people like the product, they instantly go bonkers and give it the top reviews. If the rankings went something like:

didn't like / good at what it does / great!

...it would be much more easier for people to give "lower" rankings for the product they are reviewing, since "good at what it does" doesn't sound bad at all. Just compare it to "5" on the scale of 1-10... Everyone will get the impression that it's awful, won't they? So I'd like to see a three scale ranking system and the middle one should not sound bad, but suggest that it still might be quite useful. With that kind of scale it is much harder for reviewers to "use it wrong".

[Spe3D]

I like the first post in this thread – well thought out Ben, particularly the dropping of ratings, and focusing on allowing the user to write more, content.

All it needs now is the ability to add a couple of screenshots if a user wishes – a max size limit of 250x250 just to emphasise an area of the synth/host/effect if the user wishes to add such a piccy

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[brok landers]

I think that if the ratings are too precise (1-100 for example or even 1-10) people just always give something like 95%-100% for everything they review.

isnt this what its all about ? peoples opinions ?
there are many users out there wich _use_ the plugs without the desire to allways have to tweak knobs too long, that means that they like/dislike plugins
without beeing too deep in the materia ... but that means that the software is reviewed by somebody who reaches his goal _fast_ in some cases, so thats worth to be mentioned, too.
so i pretty much do not see it your way, because if you want a founded review, you have to go for some place where _only_ pro`s in terms of powerusers are.
this here is the place of the _users_ opinions.
that of course doesnt mean that they are not here .

so finally, to give the users information about the reviewed plugs as detailled as can be imo is a very good decision.

reg,

[TheWall]

isnt this what its all about ? peoples opinions ?

Couldn't agree more. Well said, brok.

Do ppl really take the reviews - even those done by the so-called reviewers - beyond the weight of a reasonable reference? Even among those more serious reviews, only a very handful of them can actually provide some insight IMHO. So, why do we have to demand the general reviews here, at kvr, to be so serious?

Plugs should be categorized so the reviews don't compare apple to orange. I can see why this won't happen though. And the reasoning behind that doesn't seem to be about wanting ppl to do 'serious' review at all...

Having said that, agree with many others here, Ben's ideas for a change definitely sound good.

[BONES]

the fact that synths like Z3ta, ImpOscar and Cameleon are in the top five, does reflect that they're all very well regarded round here.

Even if you say so yourself.

[BONES]

Do ppl really take the reviews - even those done by the so-called reviewers - beyond the weight of a reasonable reference?

I imagine that most newbies would take them reasonably seriously.

Even among those more serious reviews, only a very handful of them can actually provide some insight IMHO. So, why do we have to demand the general reviews here, at kvr, to be so serious?

What's the point of reviewing something if you're not serious about it? Its a complete waste of everybody's time otherwise. The other thing is that the weight of opinion, once there are enough reviews, will make it easy to pick out the worthwhile from the overly subjective.

[Borogove]

How about letting any KvR member-in-good-standing, with or without a review, give a synth a rating on a two or three point scale? (Good/Bad or Good/So-so/Bad) I think finer-grain numerics are prone to inflation and to different reviewer's different scales, but some indication of whether a synth is generally liked or not would be helpful, especially when you're trying to figure out what's worth your time to evaluate.

[Rabid]

Over time you get to know the people here with opinions you respect, and who have simular likes and dislikes. At that point reviews by those people can be very helpful. It also means that there is no single reviewer that is the best source of information for everyone. You have to search out those that match up well with your taste.

Robert

[Teksonik]

Well since Ben asked for input.....I vote to scrap the reviews altogether. I never read them and they cause too much bad blood. Since this is the minority opinion there's no need to elaborate any further. Kind of like voting for Ralph Nader but it's every citizen's obligation to vote.

[xoxos]

[*]f**k Me!

just saw the thread - i applaud your use of common ('vulgar') but 'reprehensible' (exclusory) language.

[xoxos]

that was not a come-on.