JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • Remember the 'karma' idea? 2010-11-07 19:32:23 I'm still obsessing over imdb. Every time I watch a movie, I hop over there to see what people have said about it. It's just...fun and interesting and sometimes I add my own two cents. The idea of having the org anything at *all* similar to this level of engagement and interractivity is very appealing to me.

    So here's the new spin:

    1) All reviews are public. (Ops, not Qcs)

    Pros: You can read what people have written and if you think they left something out, or if you disagree with them, you can add your own two cents in your own op. You can see where you fall among the people who've watched this video. You may watch the vid again just to see things people have pointed out that you never noticed or thought about yourself. The vid suddenly occupies your mind a lot longer than it would if you simply watched it and moved onto the next one. You're not alone in watching this vid. All these people watched it as well, and here's what you have in common with them and how you're different from them. Yes, amv fans are as real as you are and they're not watching vids in a vacuum any more than you are. This is a hobby with real life people.

    Cons: Some creators don't want public ops. Feedback is a private discussion between viewers and creators. Reviewers shouldn't even be able to see what other viewers have said to the creator. It's like listening in on someone's telephone conversations. It's none of their business. Reviewing amvs is a private exchange between supplier and consumer. If viewers want to know what other viewers think, let them make their own vids and see what those viewers say to them in their own private conversations. It's none of their business. If they don't like watching vids in a vacuum, let them go to conventions or watch vids with friends at their own homes. Or go to some website like the tube and chat with each other about the vids they like and dislike. This is my op page, ops about my video, and no one should see it except me. It would involve coding, maybe a lot of coding.

    2) There are two boxes next to each review, Useful and Useless, and any member of the site can check the box they think best fits that particular review.

    Pros: Creators get additional feedback because they now see what other people thought about those ops. Even people who don't review can still say something to the creator and the creator can see that in the number of Useful/Useless clicks. Viewers can respond to reviewers by giving their support or disdain. They're interracting with those reviewers, they can counteract the shameless spammers and flamers, they can applaud the well thought out reasonable reviewers, they can make a difference even if they're not great editors with a ton of tips to give to that editor. They can be useful without posting an op themselves and revealing the fact that they have very little to say because...well, they just liked it and don't know why.

    Cons: Some creators don't want public ops. [See the 'it's mine and mine alone' bit in #1.] It may be possible to easily cheat the system by clicking useful over and over in which case it's no more useful than counting the number of views. [I'm not sure about this. I assume it's not possible since you'd have to make dupicate accounts and people already do that, so what difference does it make? But this is cons, not pros to counter the cons, so I'll shut up.] People may choose to simply go through the existing ops, marking useful/useless, and then leaving without making an op of their own. People who leave one-liner ops may stop because they don't want their honest 'loved it' ops being marked useless. Reviewers who think feedback is a private telephone conversation between supplier and consumer may stop leaving ops if they know outsiders can read them. It would involve coding, maybe a lot of coding.

    3) Ops with more useful clicks are considered more useful and those with more useless clicks are considered more useless. This weight is used to generate the 'top 10% lists' and super search by ops results.

    Pros: Useless spam ops don't count, blatant sock-puppet ops don't count, off-topic flaming ops don't count, so the ops that do count mean more. Thus the results are a better reflection of how well receive that video actually is. The 5 ops cut off now works better. At present anyone can make 5 accounts to get their vid onto the list pretty quickly and easily. If those ops can be judged useless (for being blatant sock-puppet ops), then they don't make the list.

    Cons: Some creators and some viewers want to keep ops private. [See cons #1.] People can make duplicate accounts to mark their blatant sock-puppet ops as useful. [Though I'd argue those who would do it will do it, and this way they have to make a lot more duplicate accounts than they do with the current system - and members have a chance to counter their sock-puppet activity, which they can't do at present.] It would involve coding, maybe a lot of coding.

    ...

    I like this idea. Now give me a week or two to see if I start coming up with some *serious* cons and it all falls apart. Right now it looks like it would improve things with no drawbacks to anyone except those people who want to keep ops private. We'd have to make an 'opt-out' option to keep them happy and - as usual - that would involve coding, maybe a lot of coding. 
  • Hall of Fame or International AMV Database? 2010-11-06 15:51:02 AMV Hall of Fame:
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=102082

    This thread set my imagination spinning. I'd love to see this expanded and incorporated into the org.

    If the idea is to introduce newcomers to videos we feel every amv fan should watch at least once, then why make a strict cutoff on how many can get in or how recent they can be?

    I'd like to see something like this done the way a reviewing site would (like the international movie database). Any vid that receives a serious well-written recommendation gets added to the list. The list is ranked by year, oldest to newest. People (all people, not specially chosen judges) are free to read over the recommendations and click a button if they agree or disagree with that recommendation. They're free to add their own recommendations to that video or counters to the existing recommendations. The videos with the most positive recommendations are at the top of the list for that year. The recommendations with the most 'agreement/useful' clicks are shown first for that vid.

    Editors with at least one vid on the list can be listed in a separate section. There people can make recommendations for that editor's body of work, with others 'agreeing/disagreeing' to the comments and adding their own. Again, it would be listed by date - earliest first - with the most 'agreed upon' recommendations showing first.

    Some vids would end up with negative comments having the most 'agree' clicks. In that case a cut off could be set so that after enough negative votes that vid is removed from the list (workable for a 'hall of fame'). Or they could be left at the bottom of the list for that year (better for a 'database'). The idea is that all recommended vids would be considered worthy until proven otherwise.

    Newer vids would be at the very end of the list, easy to ignore for those who are more interested in the old greats, but still there for those who just joined the scene and don't realize what came out last month.

    It would be very interesting to see something that treats amvs the way IMDB treats movies. And since it's all interactive, it would be something for newcomers and oldtimers to be involved with. It would let new people find the old greats quickly, while also leaving it open and alive for anyone interested in discussing amvs.

    A closed list, chosen by unnamed "secretly chosen" judges and given as something final, would be no diffent from the top 10% lists, which can already be sorted by year. The idea is to have the reasons these vids are considered great given publically for all to agree or disagree with, to expand upon or counter. And for the question of 'worthiness' to remain open to discussion. There's a visibility involved since the people recommending the vids are listed right next to their reviews, they're accountable and real and there's no question of behind-the-scenes circle-jerking going on the decisions of which ones are good enough to be included because anything given a well-written recommendation has its chance to rise or fall on the list.

    Something like that would probably involve a lot of time and effort (and coding, blargh), but it would be hugely entertaining to read over and participate in. And considering there aren't many active people around to recommend vids (with well-written serious recommendations) for the list, it wouldn't start out as huge as it has the potential to become.

    ...

    Just imagine if the org's database had started out like this instead of the library-shelf collection it is now. People never get tired of talking about movies, old or new, over at IMDB. Imagine if they could be just as continuously involved with amvs. It's a great thing to imagine. Until you realize it's way too late, way too much work, not enough hands and active people to recommend these vids (especially since they don't even bother to leave a one-line QC these days). Still, it would have been very cool. Something like this on a small scale could be do-able, though, couldn't it? I wish that idea had been suggested in the 'org redesign' threads. It's definitely something that would revitalize the hobby and involve all fans, editors and viewers alike. 
  • Nya nya... [ego stroking] 2010-11-05 23:13:48 So I'm lurking around the 'org redesign' threads and someone made a comment about 'so-and-so' not editing so I clicked their profile to see if it was a joke. And I noticed a small number of ops received. Out of boredom and curiosity I started looking at the profile of everyone who'd posted in that thread. The number of ops received all seemed really low. I got all the way back to Zarxrax before I saw one with over 1000 ops received and he had AMV Hell 3 counted (great vid, but not as many ops as I expected). So I keep paging back, looking at the join dates and then at the number of ops received on the profiles. Most don't break 100, the highest after Zarx is 330 or thereabout. Then I get to DokiDoki and he's got 1565, which is frickin awesome. Senshi on Springer looks like the big one, one of the first amvs I ever watched and still classic, beating out another AMV Hell vid. But even with him in the thread, I beat all 10 pages of them with my 1745 ops received.

    The most ops I ever got on a single vid was 61. I have a few vids in the 50s, but two of them are the two I always used in op exchanges when I first joined because I figured they were the only 'safe' ones for general audiences, and the other one is Ego Trip which was a con whore (I only sent it to yaoi-con and take no responsibility for it trolling at other conventions without my knowledge). I have two vids with 0 ops, possibly because they only had download links for a few months before I got them removed (eheh, forgot to upload the re-encodes, oops?). The rest average 10 to 20 each. My scores are all in the yellow, even lip sinc which I bomb at so badly it's not even funny. There's something to be said here. Yes, it's better to have a single one-hit-wonder vid than to have a profile full of average to sad quickie vids. But when you have a 20 op per vid average, you can't exactly be bad. No, I was frickin prolific and considering what sort of vids I made it's amazing the sort of feedback I got.

    Yeah, amvs are dying, the viewers have moved on, I can't edit anymore without relearning the entire guides by scratch (I've installed the amvapp three times and each time I'm missing something - last time it was lame.exe so I can't even rip my cds on this computer), but look at this. Three years later and my impact in shere numbers still beats out a lot of the forumites. Once you consider the ops I wrote, well, I was active. Damn active. Give me a gold star to go with my shit-eating grin. 
  • state of the org 10-13-10 2010-10-17 19:31:43 Wow. What did I miss? o.O

    I don't know what happened, or what the serious (recently overwhelming?) problem is. It sounds like the site is upset that youtube is becoming the place for amv fans to congregate. So what if it is? Most amv fans are people who like watching vids but who will never make one themselves. What good would it do the org if those people came here instead? They're not going to donate when the tube and megaupload host and stream the vids they want to watch for free. That's all they get out of the org, and the only thing the org gets out of them is a QC once in a while. The org has no use for them, so why would it want them?

    As a community, the org is almost exclusively for editors. The forum *is* exclusively for editors. Viewers join and download/stream and leave an op/qc now and then. But the forum isn't for them.

    "This community is dedicated to the creation, discussion, and general enjoyment of fan-made anime music videos." That should read: "This community is dedicated to the creation of fan-made anime music videos, for the discussion and general enjoyment of those who make them." That's an odd mouthful, but it would be more accurate.

    Just look at the forum. There's an anime section where anime fans can talk about what they like and dislike. There's a music section where music fans can talk about what they like and dislike. But there's no section where non-editing amv fans can discuss the videos they like and dislike. You know, a section where these amv fans can discuss and share their general enjoyment of amvs.

    The General AMV section is full of topics, but they're about editing, made by editors for editors. When a non-editor posts there hoping to share their love of a particular amv with other fans, they're directed to the Recommend AMVs section - which doesn't allow discussion between posters. Or they're directed to leave a review/QC if they like the vid so much. Neither of those options gives viewers a place to talk to each other and share their enjoyment of amvs with fellow fans. At best they can make a journal entry and hope fellow fans of that video see it and respond - and that they in turn catch that journal entry while it's still on the front page.

    To me, it's clear that this site puts a wall between viewers and editors. Those who do both can come over into the forum. Those who only watch amvs are a quiet majority only seen in their feedback to the individual editors and their one-time posts in the recommendation threads. They make up the huge member count, but they're not a part of the community. In comparison, youtube lets reviewers talk to each other, they can reply to other reviews, have actual conversations and arguments and back-and-forth with fellow viewers. They can join channels (social groups) where fans of particular genres of amvs get together and share their enjoyment/annoyance. That's discussion, that's community, a place to get together and have an exchange, that's what fans want when they join a forum. They want to talk to people who like what they do. The org works great as a community for editors to share with fellow editors. As far as the viewers go, it's just a collection, a library, and a school if they ever decide to move from being viewers to editors.

    I don't see any point trying to recruit people from youtube. Most of them are viewers and they don't need the org 'library collection' when they already have a huge collection where they are. If you offered them a place to hang out together and talk to each other about the vids, then they might find a community to join here. As it is, the recommend amvs section is the only place for them, and in that section they're just adding their names to a list. They can't respond to other people's recommendations, so there's no communication involved in that.

    As simple as it might seem to just allow fans to post "I loved this vid, did you??" threads in the GenAmv section, I know that's not feasible. They would drown out the editor topics, they'd encourage praise toward poorly-edited vids, and they might even cause some editors to lower their standards knowing they can hang out with their fans right there on the forum while other editors seeth and complain about the "spam." Because that's what viewer-made posts are here. Spam. An excuse for editors to dogpile the unsuspecting viewer with spam until they get the hint and go away. What kind of amv community is this where posting about your enjoyment of an amv is considered spam if not 'off-topic'? It's an amv community for editors, that's what. So recruit fellow editors from conventions, maybe a few from youtube who show a lot of potential, and leave the viewers to join communities made for them. The org isn't one.

    Since I see the org as a place for editors, I think the elitist reputation works in its favor. Serious editors come here. Those who can't cut it go away. If that means the org is eventually populated by very few editors who still edit videos, that's fine. We don't need new vids to keep the oldtime editors happy. Just talking about the old greats and the low standards of the new generation will keep them around. As far as costs go, just eliminate the aspects of the site that appeal to viewers-only. The viewers aren't part of the community, so there's no need for expensive options catering to them. Get rid of those aspects and maybe the member count will reflect the members in the actual community itself. Editors know how to make vids, so I'm sure they can handle downloading and playing vids without needing a streaming option. They know how to upload vids with ftp, so I'm sure they can create their own websites to host the vids (assuming they don't like megaupload and its kin). The VCAs wouldn't be very interesting, but the editors have always complained when fan-favorites won because the silent viewer-only majority picked them despite the glaring flaws in the eyes of fellow editors. And since the editors have the very costly equipment necessary to make good videos, I'm sure they can afford to donate whatever is needed to keep the forum up once the viewer-only aspects have been removed.

    This would certainly help counter the legal problems the org might be facing. With no download links, they aren't breaking any laws. And editors smart enough to make amvs should be smart enough to pm a fellow editor if they want to download one of their vids. With megaupload and the tube, they could still have the downloading and streaming abilities they have now, they just have to ask for it instead of having it handed to them on a platter. Since org editors are used to taking a little time and doing a little work to make, get, and distribute their vids than the tube generation, I doubt they'd mind the added inconvenience.

    What problems does that leave?

    Lack of feedback? Editors have been complaining about the silence from viewers since before I even left. They won't miss having no viewers on the site at all. They always considered a review from a fellow editor as more important than a hundred from viewers, anway.

    Lack of fresh blood? Well, if the fresh blooded editors have low standards, the org wouldn't want them, anyway. Most of them still think like viewers, so they'd come here expecting to chat with their non-editing fans and be put off when they discover the forum doesn't allow posts like that. And since it's the non-editing viewers who get inspired to *become* the next generation of editors, the org has no chance of recruiting them to begin with. They'd come here, realize they're not allowed to talk to each other about their favorite vids on the forum, and then they'd go back to the tube before ever ripping a dvd. The org doesn't want fresh blood, wouldn't enjoy lowering its standards in order to appeal to fresh blood, won't make room for the viewers who become fresh blood, and so it won't be getting much fresh blood. So what? It's the oldtimers who donate the most and they'll continue to donate so long as they have the forum to talk to their long-time friends and mock/complain about all that's wrong with the hobby and how eternally annoying non-editing idiotic 'fans' can be with their dumb opinions and fan-favorites, which no editors would take seriously. The heart of the community are inactive editors who entertain themselves in the forum, so they don't need or want fresh blood coming in and messing things up.

    As for me, I like the org. I like the *idea* of the org and just the fact that it exists and continues to exist. It's got the same crunchy type people it did before, though some have different names and faces now. They're basically the same as the older members they've replaced. And I can count on the org to highlight the best editing possible with the newest technology available at any given time. I still don't like those videos as much as I do my old (simple, poorly done) favorites, but I respect them. I like looking into the forum and knowing it hasn't changed, won't change, and I was actually an active part of that once. It makes me proud, in a wistful fond way.

    So I'm on the org's side. If the org has monetary problems, I'll donate to help keep it around. But if the problem is lack of viewers (the non-editing viewers who populate the tube), then I don't see the problem. The org is not a community for viewers, so why worry about the lack of them? And if the problem is legal issues, being true to itself would settle those pretty quickly - the purpose of the org was to list not host, it's by/to/for editors so there's no need for the streaming and download links aimed at viewers. Get rid of those things and the legal problems go away along with most of the cost to support the site. As a viewer I'd hate to be stuck PM'ing editors who quit years ago and will never reply to my request for a download link, but I'd deal with it. I'd still have the tube and google to offer me streaming copies so at least I'd be able to watch them. And with the org listing the vids, I'd know what titles to google when I go looking for a copy. I'd adapt. It would be worth it in the long run and better for the editing community, since only those who 'know where to go, :winkwink:' would be able to share vids easily. Isn't that what the amv community used to be like? And according to the editors here, those days were way better than what we have now.

    /semi-subject change

    Vid announcements are subject to a moderated queu now? That just blows my mind. ^^;

    And there are threads on the first page of the Op exchange with zero replies that are months old, with free op threads having barely three pages of responses. Lack of editors or lack of viewers? Or lack of new vids made by active editors?

    I've been streaming a lot of vids lately. It really does leave you next to no reason to leave a review. Having to wait to download a vid made that vid worth something. You put time into acquiring it, so you might as well put some time into sharing your enjoyment of it. With the 'preview' it's quick, no effort necessary, you're not keeping it, and the quicker you pick a star number and click the 'send' button, the quicker you can watch the next vid. I wonder if anyone gets unsolicited reviews at all anymore. 
  • nice 2010-07-22 10:00:27 They fixed the Paypal donation glitch! Or maybe it's because I had the amount taken from my checking account instead of a credit card... I've never been able to follow the paypal links back to the site before. I always had to wait and hope they read the email and credited me before I was defaulted.

    Either way, I really like getting instant donator-status instead of having to wait two to three weeks. The donator privileges in the super search might seem minor, but they make a huge difference when you're trying to find a good vid out of tons of crap. ;p 
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