Groucho

Somebody's already given the film 5 stars.

das Monkey

Keep it simple. 0-4 or 0-5 in whole number increments. If a professional reviewer wants to give a film 3.5 stars, that's one thing; but it's overkill in this context and spreads the voting too thin to be useful. The point is to get a general idea of how a group of people feel about a film at a glance, not perform statistical analysis on their opinions.

das

Trevor

Looks good Scott, except for the nine choice poll range. I really think we need to limit it to no more than six (if we do the 0-5 star scale).

Groucho

You just cock-blocked wendersfan.

Trevor

Copycat.

JPRaup

Looks good Scott! Except people are already started to cheat..It will eventually even out though obviously

and the vast number of options is NOT overkill. You will be able to see by the line graph what the consensus is.

Cellar Door

QFT (bolding mine)

The Bus

I think that's why we need to make the Poll Choices public. I also think that, in order, to not jump the gun, you should not make a Reviews thread until you've actually seen the movie. Otherwise the first few pages are just "can't wait" etc. until someone actually writes a review.

I also don't think every movie needs a "Hype" and a "Review" thread. If a movie's thread still has, say, less than 20 posts, I don't see why we need to have a separate review thread. If it has 40+ posts (2 or more pages, depending on your settings), then sure.

These are all guidelines, of course. I don't think we'd get anything from trying to "enforce" them aside from a mod maybe changing a title once in a while or adding the finalized "guidelines" into a Movie Talk sticky.

The Bus

Also, I figured making polls would be easier if you could simply type and have this appear instead:

And so on for , , , , ...

So if you like that idea, add your opinion to this Feedback Forum thread.

JPRaup

Great idea, that would be perfect.

Trevor

For DVDtalk consistency, I voted for this option as well.

Those threads have become "standard" in this community to a large extent. We use the 5 star scale in the book threads as well. (Yes Virginia, there is a book forum.)

OldBoy

yeah, that's trollish, unless someone did see an advanced and didn't post. is there a way to start polls at a given date, i know you can end them...

OldBoy

that's what i thought. when i rate dvd's on DVDSpot i like the 1/2 bc mostly i don't have solid 5's or 4's.

Trevor

I'm bored silly at work. Hope you all don't mind a rambling repetitive reply to a few comments. Should just give this thread a couple more days before posting more, but did I mention I'm bored?

As The Bus pointed out, 0-5 with half stars actually leads to 11 choices. Might as well do 1-10 at that point. And I agree with the others that have said that would be too many choices for this particular endeavor.

I think we agree that no enforcement is really necessary. If we put it in the FAQ, and all try to follow it, it will eventually catch on. But, in my normal impatient mode, how about this? If the current Movie Talk mods don't want the bother of "fixing" 5 or so threads a week, make another Movie Talk mod, someone with the sole responsibility of spending 10 minutes a day to edit thread titles, add poll options, merge these threads?

Exactly. And as others have pointed out, polls give the lurkers in our community the chance to be heard a bit.

Normally I think I'm against public polls. But I'm not sure why exactly. So ok, I'll vote for public polls for this idea.

True, but I could see it being beneficial for some of us to start the review threads a bit early just to push the new format. Just a few days before release, early enough where a few of us have probably caught a preview.

Agreed. Then of course we need Mods willing to edit threads to create the poll and make the thread title standard.

Great idea. If we get enough "votes" in that thread perhaps our tireless and under appreciated admins can make the smilies happen.

sundog

A pox on star/number ratings!

I will stick to reading the well-reasoned, civil discussions found... inside the many threads...

I just don't like rating scales.

You all can take your uniformity and consistency and... post it.

Trevor

I don't think the polls will stop the well-reasoned civil discussions at all. It will just provide an extra bit of potentially interesting information. If you're not interested in the "forum score", just don't vote. If you don't vote you won't see the score, so this new idea won't affect you at all.

das Monkey

Note to self: Read thread before posting.

das

wendersfan

One star to five stars is my preferred choice.

Trevor

We need to leave the zero star option for Wayan Brothers and Adam Sandler films.

But speaking of moderators, you're not a Movie Talk mod, right? Has anyone made sure that this sub-forum's mods know about this idea? It would be nice to get all of their input.

Edit to add: I did the report to mod thing, so maybe we'll get their input soon.

islandclaws

I like the IMDb scale. It's essentially the same as the restaurant scale, but I think it allows for a more precise rating.

sundog

Agreed.












Now we just need those discussions to start.

TomOpus

I voted 0-5 stars rather than 0-4 because that'll give a person a way to vote in the middle if they can't approve or disapprove of the movie. It's the Meh Vote.

Boba Fett

I've always rated films with the A+ through F scale; to me, when you rate something a 5/10 or 2 out of 4 stars, thats not average, thats crap, since 50% or below was always an F throughout my years in school and college.

wendersfan

No, I think all hell would break loose if I were a mod here. But I know this will probably be implemented soon.

The Bus

Does that mean we won't get ANOVA models on summer blockbusters vs. Oscar nominees, etc.?