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I Tend to Be a Stickler. (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Just give me the facts. Then, draw conclusions, if you wish.
James Frey and now San Francisco darling JT Leroy are proving not quite what they seemed. Not at all what they seemed, in fact!
Yet, I remember what my main man Orson Welles concluded in his charming meditation on fraud in the Arts, F FOR FAKE:
"We do not know the names of the masons and builders who created Chartres. What does it matter if we don't know the singers' names as long as we go on singing?" [Paraphrase]
The question of attribution remains a bedeviling one, does it not?
Alex
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Feb 05 '06
4:40 pm PST
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Re: Re: Well done, pear (Reply to this comment)
by Joyfulgirlfan
I think that that system was written tongue-in-cheek, but it also struck me as an attempt to move away from overanalyzing the rating system.
Your article is very well-written though and I'm sure will help to clarify the ratings for many new members.
Have a great day,
Meagan
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Feb 01 '06
7:24 am PST
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Re: Link pop up (Reply to this comment)
by pearannoyed
All I did was the code you have there. Maybe there's something wrong with the way you've typed it out before? I can't post the code here, but I'll email it to you so you can see the whole syntax.
Amy
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Jan 31 '06
7:40 pm PST
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Re: Off-topic (Reply to this comment)
by pearannoyed
Stephen -
An additional comment - clearly the book you reviewed is NOT just another binding or different edition of the main title. I do think that that book should have a listing of it's own and you should be able to post separate reviews of both the book itself and this 'book to movie' commentary.
Amy
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Jan 31 '06
1:03 pm PST
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Re: nice (Reply to this comment)
by pearannoyed
I think if the spelling, grammar and writing quality is bad enough that the average reader would have trouble deciphering the meaning, it should be bumped down from H to SH. Each review, after all, represents the site as a whole. But if there's good information I'm likely to give the review an H despite poor English skills - I'm not their 4th grade teacher. I am concerned with a review being useful to people.
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Jan 31 '06
12:59 pm PST
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Re: Off-topic (Reply to this comment)
by pearannoyed
Hi Stephen -
If you look at the review of Frey's book that brought this all up, you'll see that I have, in fact, changed my rating to H. Furthermore, I never thought it belonged in the writer's corner - my suggestion had been to put it in the books advice category for Oprah's book club.
As to allowing some additional flexibility, I do wish that unique editions of books could be added to the database such as your example of Brokeback Mountain. Ideally any different editions would be searchable separately, but would link to the same file in the database (as when they merge reviews of 'in theatre' and 'on dvd' movies). That would allow your review to come up on the particular edition you reviewed while preventing unscrupulous types from posting reviews for 8 different versions of The DaVinci Code.
Thanks for your comments.
Amy
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Jan 31 '06
12:52 pm PST
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nice (Reply to this comment)
by underdawg
I think all raters should keep in mind that Helpful reviews can be shown to the public and Somewhat Helpful reviews can't. Thus, any review with at least one good point that no one else has brought should be at least a Helpful (given that it's not completely vulgar or written in Spanish).
How do you account for writing filled with spelling and grammatical mistakes or is just plain bad?
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Jan 31 '06
8:57 am PST
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Off-topic (Reply to this comment)
by Stephen_Murray
I think that allowances should be made for the huge-scale inaccuracy and many lacunae of the database. This is especially the case in travel for old reviews before the leads could add categories, but is currently very prominently the case for listing best movies of 2005 (which the leads would like to add, if they could). And I had to place my review of Brokeback Mountain: From Story to Screenplay (which was #16 on Amazon sales that day and probably at least as high today) in the slot for an edition only containing the story (though I think I reviewed it in contrasting the editions).
I do not agree with you that everything that does not fit your very narrow conception of what a review should be or into the slapdash database should go into Writer's Corner. Especially with many 5-star ratings, a posting about the fictiousness of Frey's supposed memoir if at least helpful (which is how I rated it).
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Jan 31 '06
8:34 am PST
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Re: Well done, pear (Reply to this comment)
by pearannoyed
The problem with that system, Meagan, is that the options are vague. How do you determine where the line is between 'Helpful' and 'Somewhat Helpful'?
I'm not asking anyone else to adopt this system - as I said more than once this is for my own clarification more than anyone else's. But if it helps someone understand a rating I've left, or if it helps someone decide how to rate when they're on the edge, so much the better.
Amy
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Jan 31 '06
8:21 am PST
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Well done, pear (Reply to this comment)
by Joyfulgirlfan
I also love the system used by at least one member here:
VH - I found your review to be very helpful.
H - I found your review to be helpful.
SH - I found your review to be somewhat helpful.
NH - I found your review to be not helpful.
It's a pleasantly simple alternative for me when I've got a borderline review on my hands.
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Jan 31 '06
7:43 am PST
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Thank you. (Reply to this comment)
by pestyside
This is helpful information for relatively new reviewers like myself. While I've read other advice on the topic, your guidelines will prove valuable as they succinctly clarify the choices. Goodness, how I've struggled on some opinions and am glad to see those of you with more experience also grapple with ratings.
PS
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Jan 31 '06
5:47 am PST
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