User Reviews Section

Discussion in 'Site Feedback and News' started by arn, Jun 1, 2009.

  1. arn

    arn Administrator
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    Apr 19, 2008
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    Hi guys,

    We opened up a User Reviews Forum for regulars to post their own reviews on games.

    The forum has some very strange posting rules for you should read this

    - You can only start a new thread in the forum
    - You can not reply to a review
    - We want all game discussion to still happen in the main discussion forum for games. Feel free to link to your review from the main thread.

    We had been meaning to do this for a while, but just kept putting it off. I went ahead and started it tonight.

    arn
     
  2. pharmx

    pharmx Well-Known Member

    Jan 29, 2009
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    This is an awesome idea. I kind of wish Albie (and some others like dogmeat) could have their own section though. I guess searching from within the forum is an option...but grrr, that search button! Also, rating the reviews using the star system could help filter "good" reviews, I suppose.
     
  3. snow_mani

    snow_mani Well-Known Member

    Oct 20, 2008
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    I don't think this is such a great idea

    While I generally enjoy Touch Arcade and appreciate the efforts made by and all the hard work put in by the site owners/admins I don't like this change and I don't think that it is a very good idea. What is the purpose of this change? Is the purpose to only have official reviews and discussions? What happens when someone wants to ask a question about the review? Or to discuss the issues the review raises? Or perhaps you don't agree with the review? What do you do then - do you have to do your own review in a new thread or send a PM to the reviewer? I can only see this killing constructive discussion and feedback, not generating it.

    And on a related issue - I was recently surprised to learn through another thread on this forum - that Touch Arcade purchases apps for Big Albie to review. I think that this should be made clear to all forum users. Perhaps instead of Senior Member the title for Big Albie should be Touch Arcade Reviewer. Or something that alerts the average forum viewer that Big Albie acts in an official capacity when posting reviews here.
     
  4. arn

    arn Administrator
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    Apr 19, 2008
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    Interesting perspective. I think the purpose is to pull out reviews out from the discussion threads. Big Albie amongst others are posting a lot of reviews in the middle of discussion threads and some are creating new threads for them. These reviews are hard to spot otherwise, as they are generally buried in page 10 or 20 of a thread.

    The purpose of the section, which is still being fleshed out, is to give them an easy "at a glance" location. I would expect that either reviews or links to the reviews would still be posted in the discussion thread and issue can be further discussed there.

    that make sense?

    As for albie's official capacity, yes... I've meant to disclose his role here more formerly, but I just haven't had a chance. I think this forum will help a bit as well as once it's up and running more smoothly, we'll have an announcement of it.

    arn
     
  5. markx2

    markx2 Well-Known Member

    Dec 28, 2008
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    #5 markx2, Jun 1, 2009
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2009
    Excellent addition to the forum - thanks :)

    Actually - I think posting ability there will probably end up restricted. Someone could make a post there as their first post and how do we know who they are? I'd go for access to be earned by contributing consistently to the forum first.
     
  6. soup

    soup Well-Known Member

    Feb 5, 2009
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    Are you at least going to add a reply with link to the game review in the game discussion and / or game thread ?
    Otherwise its going to get really confusing if for info you are forced to look through several forums ?

    and while i am at it what is the difference between Games and Game Discussions ?

    This site is now starting to become confusing, Games is just about games, but no reviews or discussions there ?
    Discussions = no info or review ?
     
  7. arn

    arn Administrator
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    Apr 19, 2008
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    Games = on specific game releases
    Discussion = questions or other issues. 'what should I do with $5'

    The separation for those two forums is pretty clear I think.

    arn
     
  8. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
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    If you read the rules thread I posted about the forum, posting an information block is part of posting a review in that forum.

    Unfortunately, it seems that Big Albie is the only one doing this.

    General Games Discussion was created so people would have a place to post their "wat games shuld i get" threads. What was happening in the main games forum was people would post threads for games, they'd get some discussion going in them, then would inevitably get bumped off the first page with threads created asking what someone should get with their remaining $1.66 in iTunes credit.

    Not seeing the threads for games that are now on the second page of the forum listings, things get re-posted, then people come in and flame the poster of the second thread for not searching, everyone reports the thread 20 times, and it just goes downhill from there.

    Like it or not, games are being released on the App Store at an alarming rate compared to how things used to be. Six months ago we'd see a dozen games released in a week, now we have a dozen or more games released a night. This forum was also a very different place six months ago when it comes to overall user activity. There was just simply too much going on for one forum. Prior to the general game discussion forum mods were forced to either close or move threads that didn't target a specific game just to keep things under control. With the two forums, we can have a dedicated thread for each game and people can post their game recommendation threads.

    The review forum was created also in part because of the increased traffic we're seeing. This way, if you want to read some user reviews for a game, all you need to do is either load up that forum, or do an advanced search, select the user reviews forum, then type the name of the game. With the amount of posting we're seeing on Touch Arcade recently it has become very difficult to follow most threads if you're not actively reading it throughout the day, and many high quality reviews were getting lost in the clutter.

    People are also really in to linking their own reviews as many places as possible on Touch Arcade, and obviously by participating in the user reviews forum and linking your threads there you effectively sidestep all the self promotion rules.

    I know TA veterans don't like it when things change, checking out the social groups this morning was more than enough evidence of that, I'd just like you guys to give this a chance before sharpening the tines of your pitchforks and firing up your torches. Whether or not you'd like to believe it, all of the changes the forums have seen recently have been discussed to amazing lengths between Arn, Blake, and myself. They wouldn't have been made if we didn't think the changes would be positive.
     
  9. arn

    arn Administrator
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    Apr 19, 2008
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    I expect the current threads won't change. People post their reviews in them. This will just make them easier to find if they also post them in the user review area.

    arn
     
  10. superbad

    superbad Well-Known Member

    Nov 6, 2008
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    CEO. Reviewer. Beta Tester.
    You need to stalk me?
    Arn,

    Maybe reiterate that writers for various sites can post reviews WITHOUT acknowledging or linking to the site where it was first published.
     
  11. dannys95

    dannys95 Well-Known Member

    Sep 29, 2008
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    I understand snow_mani's point, but I like the idea.................

    As arn said, reviews by Albie and other users get buried in the official thread. So this new section should be useful................keyword="should".
     
  12. soup

    soup Well-Known Member

    Feb 5, 2009
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    why are there now less uses reviews in the new section than before ?

    seeing as no one is posting there up til now, so its only reviews that have been moved there - this seems difficult to understand
     
  13. Kumulus

    Kumulus Well-Known Member

    Nov 1, 2008
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    personally i think that the decision to separate the reviews from the games forum was a really bad one.

    reviews were a useful component in the games forum and lively discussions were going on there.

    the new reviews forum looks kind of dead......like a zombieforum with no replies and sometimes biased reviews cannot even commented on anymore.

    don't like it......
     
  14. HJJ

    HJJ Well-Known Member

    Dec 2, 2008
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    I don't see how this is a "bad" idea. As far as I can tell, Big Albie (for example) is still posting his reviews in the main threads (see the recent thread on "Blimp"). So the potential for discussion still exists. The new Review Forum is simply for people who are looking for a review, but don't want to wade through pages and pages of a main thread to find the one solid user review. The forum seems "dead" because replies aren't allowed. What kind of action do you expect? There were 4 new reviews posted yesterday. The people who take the time to write these detailed reviews have their own lives and budgets. Give the forum some time to grow.
     
  15. worldcup1100

    worldcup1100 Well-Known Member

    Feb 2, 2009
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    Not to mention if he actually read the rules, he would have seen that you aren't allowed to post a reply to a user review. They are a single review and only that.
     
  16. Boardumb

    Boardumb Administrator
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    Apr 14, 2009
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    I like the user reviews section, it makes sense to compile them all in one spot. As long as they're still able to post those same reviews in the games dedicated thread. My one suggestion would be to lump multiple reviews for the same game into just one user review thread for that game. Eventually, the user reviews forum will be all filled up with tons of members who have written reviews, and if I wanted to check into a particular game, I don't want to have to weed thru all the other user reviews for other games trying to find the ones for the game I'm interested in. Then you could also post some of the "semi reviews" that people post in the games thread as well. Sometimes people don't write a full blown proper review for a game, but they do a nice little write up for it that's maybe a few paragraphs. These type reviews could also be helpful to anyone who's checking out a game, you could post these together with the full blown reviews in one dedicated user review game thread.
     
  17. worldcup1100

    worldcup1100 Well-Known Member

    Feb 2, 2009
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    I agree with what you are saying, but I think that Arn and Blake don't want to include those smaller reviews in the user reviews section since they are not full blown reviews. I think that the reason to create that forum was to single out the complete reviews, not include the basic discussion of games that can be found many times in the original thread.
     
  18. Eli

    Eli ᕕ┌◕ᗜ◕┐ᕗ
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    Basically this, we were having all these people post really great reviews in the games' threads and they would just get lost in the noise of "Should I get this?" "Any first impressions?" and "Waiting for the Albie Meter." Also, the VBulletin post search doesn't work as well as the thread title search, so it was really hard to search for a particular review.

    There's nothing stopping you from posting your review in the thread AND in the review forum if you really want to. ;)
     
  19. Boardumb

    Boardumb Administrator
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    Apr 14, 2009
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    I see what mean, and I don't mean post every little impression someone has of a game. But there are some very good posts related to games that give a really good synopsis of what that game is like, without going into all the specifics of what the options are and control layouts etc. Basically just good snapshots of what the game is like, without following a verbatim review guideline. But I do like having just actual full blown reviews be in there, it's just nice to get different peoples opinions instead of just relying on one persons review, whose tastes might vary from yours. But what I'm really interested in seeing is the reviews for one game being lumped into one thread. For instance there's 3 seperate reviews for Blimp right now, all very good reviews, but it would be nice if they were in just one thread. As time goes on, there will be more and more reviews to sort through while finding the ones for the game you're looking for. It just seems like things might get hectic.
     
  20. Kumulus

    Kumulus Well-Known Member

    Nov 1, 2008
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    btw.....why can't one reply to a review?....

    thats somehow feeling weird, that you cannot comment on something you don't agree with.
    atm the reviews are feeling completely isolated. it is even on large review sites possible to comment on their official reviews so why cant we comment on USER-reviews here?^^

    i don't get it.
     

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