Am I the only one who thinks this was a weird idea? Or a weird application of an otherwise good idea? I mean, reviewing reviews by stating whether they are useful or not is a good idea, but I don't think there should be an option to show negative values. It should just be like in Amazon, where the reviews with helpful ratings are shown as having positive votes, but there are NO negative votes.

Basically I disagree with there being negative points on the "Useful Rating". Why? Because, as far as I can see, there are instances of it being misused or people just using it to say that they disagree with a reviewer, which has nothing to do with its usefulness.

I have seen some very well-written and thoughtful reviews receive negative ratings just because of disagreement. This is not fair and it discourages these good reviewers from expressing themselves - plus it discourages the shyer people from reviewing at all, because seriously, who wants to risk being cut down by "negative" ratings? There's no guarantee that if you write a proper, thoughtful review, that you'll actually get positive ratings. You might, but you might not, depending on which doofus decides that simply disagreeing with you is just cause to call your review "not helpful".

In my view, a one-line review like "omg I h8 this manga!!!!" or "love it, fun reading" could be called less useful, but anything that isn't a flame and that genuinely comments on some aspect of the manga in detail is still a useful review - EVEN IF I DISAGREE WITH IT. I mean, at least it tells me something about the manga and about thoughtful readers' reactions to it, right? So I never vote such a review down. Actually, to date, I haven't voted a single review down. Most people on this site are actually pretty decent reviewers. Lol. Or maybe I'm just lucky that I keep seeing the decent ones...? 😀

Anyway. I think taking away the possibility of "negative" ratings will make this system a lot more useful, constructive and in fact even truthful. Good reviewers will then be credited by positive useful ratings, without risking being voted down by eedjits that can't even be bothered writing a proper response, but instead use the ratings system to show disagreement.

Then again, maybe I'm misunderstanding things... I mean, it IS a good idea and in fact even a GREAT idea so long as negative ratings are not allowed... I don't mean to diss the very idea, which is pretty awesome w/out the negative points. I mean, major community websites always have usability/helpfulness ratings, and I think Baka-Updates should, too... I just think it shouldn't have negative ratings, is all. 🙂

Thank you for your time! This was probably unnecessarily long, lol. 😀

You had me confused when you mentioned "reviews". O_O Thought you meant this. But you're referring to the comments, I see~ Mehh, maybe? I don't really mind either way. Two of my comments got minused below 5. ;-; And I only have 3 in total! A curse, I tell you~ Dx<

It doesn't really affect me though. Last thing I'll fret about is some anonymous entity thumbing me down. 🤨 When I make a comment, I do it to state down my thoughts at the moment.

-9 ;~; It wasn't really useful though, granted. O_O

...

Actually -- on second thought -- I agree with this suggestion, because people are going to minus comments just because they disagree with them and it conflicts with their own tastes. An eloquent comment doesn't deserve that treatment, really. I get what you're saying now. o.o Basically, it turns into a popularity contest and how many fans the series has.

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Agreed. o-o

Useful Rating should probably only be given to actual series reviews.

Quote from tartufo

I have seen some very well-written and thoughtful reviews receive negative ratings just because of disagreement. This is not fair and it discourages these good reviewers from expressing themselves - plus it discourages the shyer people from reviewing at all, because seriously, who wants to risk being cut down by "negative" ratings?

Yes. _ I doubt it'd discourage some reviewers from actually reviewing, but it might discourage them from given well thought out reviews. I've read long reviews that highlight all the keypoints of a series (i.e. characterization, plot, art...) and they were given low ratings obviously because of disagreements when even I, who disagreed with certain parts of the review found it useful.

The only problem I have with this feature is that all comments are looked on as reviews when most, if not all are just personal comments. Like the one-liners: "I love ", She's so annoying!", "The art is amazing!" do these really deserve ratings? ._.

Basically what Doc said. It does seem like a popularity contest.

I think just the "Yes" or "No" and order of usefulness (well maybe not) was fine the way it was before.

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Quote from NightSwan

I have to thank you again. It's been a while since I've had this much d**k on my computer. :'3

Yeah I see what you mean. It's pretty much the whole rating 1-10 thing again. E.g You notice yaoi titles have 1s because it's yaoi, not because of the story.

So yeah, people forget what the system is there for and merely use it as a "like" or "dislike" button instead of "usefulness".

The idea is good, it's just how it's used that seems to be the problem.

I'll take this into consideration.

Finally I've found this! I have the same problem when it comes to reviews, everytime I find a manga that I like/dislike, people literally shoot me down with huge negatives, and I've come across intelligent and well-thought out reviews where even if I didn't agree with them, I found them to be insightful being shot down negatively.
There is no voting for usefulness happening at all! All I see is people thumbing reviews or comments down because they disliked/liked the manga, I mean that is what the ratings poll is for!
I hope somebody does take this into consideration because it really is an issue also can we do something about people bashing each other's reviews in their own reviews, such as 'the user below me must be really blind..','the users below are all stupid','this user makes no sense', why do they have to be mean like this? 🙁

I took out the text for now ...

Thank you!!!!
I kind of realised this while reading a review and was thinking there was something wrong with my computer 🙄

also, I think if someone really wants to read a useful review then they can click the order by usefulness button instead, which is what I normally do, and it's less humiliating. 😀

Don't confuse reviews with comments. Reviews are a whole different story than just posting your mere opinion about something. I very very veeery rarely see comments in the commentsboard that actually could get through as a review. Reviews have its extra section here.

Tired of unzipping and unraring mangas? Try Quivi (open source) and read your manga directly from the packed archive. :3 Alternatively: Manga Reader.

Thank you, Manick! <3

@Lillian, I do get what you're saying, but... comments act like mini-reviews, right? In the sense that most people deciding whether or not to read the manga will probably glance over the comments and make a decision if not based entirely on those comments, then at least informed partly by those comments. For example, if I click on a manga and see 70% of the commenters deploring the plot, then I'll probably not read that manga if a good plot is what I'm looking for. There is a "review effect" here, even if a comment isn't technically a review... At least, I think so! 🙂

I actually confess that I rarely read "comments" 'cos sometimes, they're either too critical and trying to look for something that's just not there(been trying to tone down mine too) or if not, all about fangirling/fanboying.

Not to mention there're those which are being over-favourable with a genre/demographic like endless praising a manga just 'cos it's of a certain genre/demographics. "It's ____, so it must be awesome!"

Or if not, being too cruel with a manga(ruthlessly ripping into say... a certain genre/demographics just 'cos it has too much or too little sex, violence or other "undesirable/unfavourable" elements which are more of a personal preference than something that's really "wrong" with the plot structure/other manga elements, etc).

And I agree with PoshSam about many good, thoughtful comments being shot down just 'cos they criticize or comment on certain things other reviewers don't like. I'd always wondered if that's why certain folks delete their comments or why certain people stopped posting insightful comments after a while.

Previously, I wondered if instead of using a "Yes" or "No" button, if it would be good to have a "meter scale" sort of rating that goes from 0% to 100%(or a 1 to 5 stars sort of voting system). However, thinking over it... mm, wouldn't the result be the same? Like people totally voting a comment 0%/0 stars just 'cos it's something they disagree with.