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Does putting some random lettersas a review count as abusive, even if they are rated 10

At 11/16/08 07:36 AM, CSanimations wrote: Does putting some random lettersas a review count as abusive, even if they are rated 10

Yes, because that isn't related to the submission, and therefore is not an acceptable review.

At least a word or three regarding how the reviewer felt about the submission is needed, e.g. "I liked it".

However, with low scores, users should always motivate the low scores and not only rate 0 and review with something like "It was bad".

Would putting down what your voting did for a title then writing in 4 random words count as abusive.

ZiggyZack99 has a shitload of these and I wanted to know the answer before i begin flagging

At 11/16/08 04:19 PM, shadowchaotailsevil3 wrote: Would putting down what your voting did for a title then writing in 4 random words count as abusive.

ZiggyZack99 has a shitload of these and I wanted to know the answer before i begin flagging

Checked out his reviews, looks to me like the words are actually related to the submissions, and those reviews I saw were only positive comments and fair scores, so those aren't abusive.

You might perhaps mean some reviews that I didn't read, if so, provide some examples.

Some free advice:

why we have reviews and not comments;

OK, thanks for answering my previous question.

Now, what about this:
I remember some time ago when if you forgot to choose a score, the review score was 0, so the following question is about new reviews, which give a 0 on purpose.

What if a review says something like "I like it" or "this is awesome", but the review score is 0?

And, if for example, the review is long, (several lines), and everything the reviewer says is that the flash is awesome and he likes it etc etc without pointing out any mistake, but the review score is 0? Would that, for example, depend on the submission? I mean, if the submission is just crap would it look as if the reviewer makes fun of the author and his submission? And if the flash is good, would it be considered a mistake?

This is just to be sure, and I think I've seen people asking this before too. Thanks for taking time to answer all the questions :)

At 11/16/08 07:30 PM, Ismael92 wrote: What if a review says something like "I like it" or "this is awesome", but the review score is 0?

an honest mistake isn't going to get your review deleted.

And, if for example, the review is long, (several lines), and everything the reviewer says is that the flash is awesome and he likes it etc etc without pointing out any mistake, but the review score is 0?

These types of reviews are perfectly fine if the reviewer obviously didn't mean to leave a 0 for the author.

Would that, for example, depend on the submission? I mean, if the submission is just crap would it look as if the reviewer makes fun of the author and his submission? And if the flash is good, would it be considered a mistake?

it's sort of hard for us to interpret a reviewer's intent since we only see one review at a time...so we can't really tell what the context of the review is aside from the content and score.

This thread is a nice idea, thanks for creating it. Now here is my question.

If a reviewer writes all his reviews in a foreign language without taking consideration of the language of the artist, can we flag his reviews ? I think an expemple would help.

I think that when I reviewer leaves a good review in a foreign language because he knows that the artist speaks this language, the review is not abusive, though, I had some of my reviews deleted because they were written in french and I left them on the songs of a french buddy.

Thanks.

At 11/17/08 12:52 PM, sonofkirk wrote: If a reviewer writes all his reviews in a foreign language without taking consideration of the language of the artist, can we flag his reviews ? I think an expemple would help.

Reviews in foreign languages are abusive on this site since there is no way to make sure that there are people available that can properly moderate reviews of other languages than English.

However, in some cases, single words or very short sentences written in other languages can be okay, depending on the situation.

At 11/16/08 07:30 PM, Ismael92 wrote: What if a review says something like "I like it" or "this is awesome", but the review score is 0?

I delete those since they're assumed to be mistakes. Plus, users have tried tricky stuff like praising the submission in a review but leaving a score of zero in order to maliciously lower the submission's review score. This has happened to submission that are close to winning review crew pick before.

If a user is doing it constantly, then he or she will probably be banned. If it's a one-time error, I'll delete and send a PM explaining why. This goes for both long and short reviews as long as it's obvious the review score doesn't match up with the review.

I have, however, cleared without penalty on review written around the release of the redesign (July 2007), since it was easier to make the mistake of not putting a score.

At 11/17/08 12:52 PM, sonofkirk wrote: If a reviewer writes all his reviews in a foreign language without taking consideration of the language of the artist, can we flag his reviews ? I think an expemple would help.

Yes. This is an English site, and the reviewer should at the very least run his reviews through a translator website or program.

I think that when I reviewer leaves a good review in a foreign language because he knows that the artist speaks this language, the review is not abusive, though, I had some of my reviews deleted because they were written in french and I left them on the songs of a french buddy.

I agree with your view here to an extent, although it's more of my own rule I follow rather than an actual rule of the site. On the BBS, for example, all posts must be in English so post content can be properly moderated.

This also goes for reviews, since the moderators might not speak whatever language you're using, and you could be insulting the author for all we know while masking the insults with a high score. Hey, it's possible.

In my opinion, though, I find no reason to delete short positive reviews in another language that the author clearly speaks (ie: the author responds to your review in the same language, the Flash's description is in that language, or the author states he speaks a certain language natively other than English). Once you start leaving longer and more detailed reviews, foreign language reviews become difficult to manage for the moderation staff, and are usually deleted as a result.

Remember that the review is also supposed to help the viewers decide whether a submission is good or not. By writing a review in a foreign language, you're alienating the general user base and are only having a dialogue with the author. If you want to talk to the author in another language, use the PM system.

At 11/17/08 03:50 PM, absent wrote: In my opinion, though, I find no reason to delete short positive reviews in another language that the author clearly speaks (ie: the author responds to your review in the same language, the Flash's description is in that language, or the author states he speaks a certain language natively other than English). Once you start leaving longer and more detailed reviews, foreign language reviews become difficult to manage for the moderation staff, and are usually deleted as a result.

Here's a good shady area that we can elaborate a little more on, since we do have some discretion and different mods may do different things.

Absent may delete foreign language reviews whereas another mod may leave others.

If I see a flash in Spanish and the reviewer leaves a longer Spanish review, I try to run it through a translator before I make a judgment on it. Since the submission is clearly in that language an dthe author understands it (In some cases an author may not understand English as well, especially if somebody is offering advice on flash).

Typically I will leave reviews left for submissions that are in the same language regardless of length as long as a simply translator doesn't pop up with some obvious abuse.

If I find a user who is making a habit of leaving reviews in another language, I may delete those for flashes which aren't made by authors who seem to speak the same language and I'll try to send them a PM explaining our English-only policy so that they understand why we need to do this.

I'd recommend PMing a review moderator if you find a user doing this rather than flagging all of the reviews they have made (unless you want to do the work for us and run them through translators and make sure the submissions aren't in the same language ^_- )

Since a review can be deleted if marked "abusive" by many, can a review get deleted if many people mark it "useless"?

At 11/17/08 06:51 PM, cantbefaded wrote: Since a review can be deleted if marked "abusive" by many, can a review get deleted if many people mark it "useless"?

No. Reviews can only be deleted if they are marked "abusive"

and even then, that does not mean that it will be deleted. Review moderators have to judge whether that review really is abusive or not.

Marking a review as "useless" has no effect on it other than telling the reviewer that they aren't a very good at reviewing. If you want to flag something you need to click that little "X"

Hello Malachy, let's discuss some review politics.

One of the big rules (it might be unwritten) suggests we do not flag reviews before 2006. Personally, I believe in the ideology that a spade is a spade, and that an abusive review is an abusive review, whether it was made before the whistle system even existed or not.

While I do try to follow the rule (sometimes shit happens and I flag something in 2002), it still annoys me that a lot of abuse and hatred still exists and will not be removed.

Now I know what you're thinking: if they were to make all reviews flaggable then everyone would take advantage of all the abuse dished out by kids before the whistle system was implemented, thus giving everyone gold or diety whistles. What would be the harm in deleting these reviews, with no difference to the flaggers whistles?

I heard someone once say that ancient reviews were considered a part of NG history but I disagree completely. I mean, who would find something along the lines of "GO SUCK YOUR DAD'S COCK AND THEN SHOOT YOURSELF YOU BASTARD" anything but appalling?

I was going to suggest this to be highlighted in the Evolution Mk3 thread, but I wanted to see what the review moderators would like to contribute to this matter.

One more question: do you find yourself clear the flags for the same review multiple times, and having to penalise the same user(s) as a result each time you do so?

There isn't much info on what actually happens when you blow the whistle, do you have a list with the highest whistle status right at the top?

At 11/20/08 01:08 PM, sirtom93 wrote: There isn't much info on what actually happens when you blow the whistle, do you have a list with the highest whistle status right at the top?

Unless I'm out of a huge loop, there isn't a list. Simply because, everyone who is a deity is treated the same.

Unless, are you talking about whistle rankings as in Garbage, Normal .... etc? Just bit confused on what your asking.

At 11/20/08 02:28 PM, kidray76 wrote:

At 11/20/08 01:08 PM, sirtom93 wrote: There isn't much info on what actually happens when you blow the whistle, do you have a list with the highest whistle status right at the top?

Unless I'm out of a huge loop, there isn't a list. Simply because, everyone who is a deity is treated the same.

Unless, are you talking about whistle rankings as in Garbage, Normal .... etc? Just bit confused on what your asking.

I was just thinking, I know you get more "power" the higher the whistle you get, but why does this matter if you flag the same struff as people with high whistles like deity.

At 11/20/08 02:41 PM, sirtom93 wrote:

At 11/20/08 02:28 PM, kidray76 wrote:

At 11/20/08 01:08 PM, sirtom93 wrote:

I was just thinking, I know you get more "power" the higher the whistle you get, but why does this matter if you flag the same struff as people with high whistles like deity.

Because more flags a review has, the faster it gets to our attention.

For instance, if a deity and a normal were to flag a review and at the same time, two deities flag a seperate review, we would see the review that was flag by the two deities before the review with the normal and deity.

Another example is, if two deities were to flag a review, and then the same deities were to flag a completely different along with a person with silver. We would see the review flag by the two deities and silver before the review just with two deities.

So, in a sense, it matters if you want someone to get the spotlight faster. The same can also be applied to flashes (sorry mal, figure give complete information sine going into depth). Overall, more whistle, and strong whistle, faster admins/mods will see it.

At 11/20/08 12:58 PM, Black-Ops wrote: Hello Malachy, let's discuss some review politics.

this thread is here to help people write reviews primarily, not for you to complain about why our jpeg in your userpage isn't what you want because you find it necessary to flag ancient things and you get no points (positive or negative) if a particular review mod is of the persuasion not to delete old reviews.

One more question: do you find yourself clear the flags for the same review multiple times, and having to penalise the same user(s) as a result each time you do so?

Generally if a review which is acceptable and worthy of being cleared with penalty (and there are few that actually make it to our attention via the flag system), if it pops back up on the list it probably means totally new people (unless you're real fucking stupid and feel like flagging the same thing over and over again) and thus each new group of people will be penalized. yes.

If I see the same gray-area review pop up more than once where I can see why people may flag it, but it's not actually abusive and I don't deem it appropriate to delete somebody's review, I will continue to clear without penalty...and if the same review popping up bothers me all that much I can easily go find it in Rage's thread and delete the post it's mentioned in.

At 11/20/08 12:58 PM, Black-Ops wrote: One of the big rules (it might be unwritten) suggests we do not flag reviews before 2006.

Actually, such a rule doesn't exist. As a suggestion, yes it exists; you should try and concentrate your flagging on more recent reviews. Most moderators become annoyed when they have to constantly plow through old reviews when new reviews are the more relevant ones to deal with.

As an actual rule, though, you can flag any review from any date. There isn't much disagreement over this issue; reviews moderators constantly delete older reviews.

One more question: do you find yourself clear the flags for the same review multiple times, and having to penalise the same user(s) as a result each time you do so?

This has happened to me before. It usually only occurs when someone links to a non-abusive review in Rage's thread. I've had to go into the thread and tell the users that the review was non-abusive so people would stop becoming penalized.

I have some questions for you mods.(Can´t remember half of them though lol)

Would these count as abusive(NG FAQ review guidelines: "Do not post TONS and TONS of crappy reviews just to get high in the rankings.")?
Almost all of his reviews are the same and only a few have more than 10 or even 5 words.
Also, who do you recommend pming questions like that one(as you said, you only see one review at a time, so contacting a mod is necessary in a case like this)? And what to do with alt accounts, who should we contact about those?

And I have a question about blowing the whistle on flashs as well, ok if I ask about that here or should I PM wade about that?

At 11/24/08 11:17 AM, DalleDallesson wrote: I have some questions for you mods.(Can´t remember half of them though lol)

Would these count as abusive(NG FAQ review guidelines: "Do not post TONS and TONS of crappy reviews just to get high in the rankings.")?

Yes, I'll take care of those shortly. And I figure this a good time to remind everyone that Rages thread is where you will report people: http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/7426 4

Also, who do you recommend pming questions like that one(as you said, you only see one review at a time, so contacting a mod is necessary in a case like this)? And what to do with alt accounts, who should we contact about those?

Any review mod. Just some more are more active than others. Best thing I would tell you is post in the abuse thread, let people flag it. And then pm a mod. So that way, when we look at it, we can go ahead and take action. Of course, just IMO, other mods might want a different procedure.

Now, if you see a spam alt, go ahead and pm a mod before or after posting in the abuse thread.

And I have a question about blowing the whistle on flashs as well, ok if I ask about that here or should I PM wade about that?

Wade is a busy busy guy, so best to post in the abuse thread and ask there. Anybody who knows about the whistle can answer you there.

Are people who rate movies/games 0 because it didn't load/function for them properly abusive? I've never taken action on them because it doesn't seem to fall under the abusive guidelines but imo it's unfair that someone gets a 0 because the reviewers computer is a piece of shit or they don't know how to play the game. For instance, a movie like Mastermind does really well, but some douchebag with an ancient video card can't render the flash and he leaves a review "Didn't even work for me" and rates it 0. And I see alot of games that get a 0 rating with reviews like "i don't get the controls so i didn't play it" and shit like that with a 0 rating.

So if a flash works for 99.9% of the community should some guy who admittedly can't view/play the submission in its entirety be able to review it negatively?

Also, thanks for this thread. It's nice to see definitive answers for the grey areas in abusive reviews.

At 11/26/08 01:20 AM, MattHarty wrote: Are people who rate movies/games 0 because it didn't load/function for them properly abusive? I've never taken action on them because it doesn't seem to fall under the abusive guidelines but imo it's unfair that someone gets a 0 because the reviewers computer is a piece of shit or they don't know how to play the game. For instance, a movie like Mastermind does really well, but some douchebag with an ancient video card can't render the flash and he leaves a review "Didn't even work for me" and rates it 0. And I see alot of games that get a 0 rating with reviews like "i don't get the controls so i didn't play it" and shit like that with a 0 rating.

Definitely abusive. It's like reviewing a book saying "It was sold out in the bookstore, therefore I couldn't read it, 0/10" or whatever, so that's definitely abusive.

Does this count as abusive -
(rated 3/10)

YOur R not krinkel and your message suck !! FCK U FAG

( But good luck for make good flash animation ^^ )

2/5

I'm really confused about this.

At 11/30/08 12:06 PM, CSanimations wrote: Does this count as abusive -

Yes, insulting alone makes the review abusive, no matter what the rest of the review / score is.

Flag it up.

Is NEWGROUNDER10105's review on Picoday 2008 Spam?

At 11/30/08 12:55 PM, JOHNNY29 wrote: Is NEWGROUNDER10105's review on Picoday 2008 Spam?

Yes, any review with excessive letters like that, no matter the rest of the review. I deleted it, so it's farewell on that one now.

At 11/30/08 02:38 PM, AllReligiousDrunk wrote:

At 11/30/08 12:55 PM, JOHNNY29 wrote: Is NEWGROUNDER10105's review on Picoday 2008 Spam?

Yes, any review with excessive letters like that, no matter the rest of the review. I deleted it, so it's farewell on that one now.

A long time ago I flaged it and it was only deleted becuse you just did, I might of lost whistle stats.

At 11/14/08 10:03 PM, Malachy wrote: well, that review is flaggable because if it's a spam submission, clearly they aren't reviewing the quality of the submission.

You got me confused on this.

Let's say, on spam flashes (normally Turd of the Week), that all the flash is, is some blinking lights and random text. If someone writes a review saying something along the lines of "I loved the voice-overs, the artwork, ect, ect.," would that be considered abusive?

I guess a better way to word my question is: Are misleading reviews considered abusive?