Why don't people review?

[DroopyMcCool]

I prefer to think most people visiting this site are operating under good faith, so I realy hope nobody thinks I made this topic with the intention to cause guilt or anything like that. It was purely to reconcile my own feelings and potentially gain a different perspective. I hope everyone else feels the same ^^

I can't remember if I ever asked for your edit once it got approved, but when I review some other edits I will ask for yours. Sorry I didn't get back in time with your feedback. I'm trying to do better. I guess I'd feel the same way if no person reviewed my edit.

 

[tremault]

I can't remember if I ever asked for your edit once it got approved, but when I review some other edits I will ask for yours. Sorry I didn't get back in time with your feedback. I'm trying to do better. I guess I'd feel the same way if no person reviewed my edit.

I think I sent updated links to everyone, but it's no hassle, Please don't feel under pressure ^^

 

[Gieferg]

I've gave some feedback to a creator of certain edit - it turned out there was a technical flaw, first he said that edit is out for a year and nobody has noticed any flaws before, and then it turned out that this is not true - somebody pointed out earlier the same issues, but the creator responded that he didn't mean it to be polished, and he just wanted it out. So I pointed this out to him, and he said "then do your own version".

I'd say that this is, in fact, very disappoiting attitude (especially that it was a creator of first fanedit I've ever watched which started my interest in the hobby), and could be discouraging toward reviewing and giving any feedback to faneditors (for someone else, not for me, obviously). Luckily, I never came across such attitude here.

 

[tmihai20]

Some people don't know they can review. I have not yet reviewed any of the fanedits I saw.

 

[Wraith]

Some people don't know they can review. I have not yet reviewed any of the fanedits I saw.

Which is why I ask everyone if they have "a minute after viewing to please leave a review; it is always appreciated" and I include a link to the listing.
My hit rate is running at about 10/15% of which newbies are recently producing a good showing, which is especially nice...

 

[tmihai20]

Which is why I ask everyone if they have "a minute after viewing to please leave a review; it is always appreciated" and I include a link to the listing.
My hit rate is running at about 10/15% of which newbies are recently producing a good showing, which is especially nice...

I honestly did not read about faneditors requesting reviews in the threads that I looked into. It struck me as soon as I saw the pages for fanedits, but I did not give it too much thought. As some have already said, fanediting is quite personal and it is ok if not all people like it. Constructive reviews are hard to write. I will try to review the fanedits I watched.

 

[Wraith]

A review need not be constructive...

"I LOVED IT and thought it was soo much better than the original"
is just as valid as
"1000 discertaion on the technicals and areas that impressed and areas that could be better"
A review achieves many things :

• Validates or challenges the editor's intentions/objectives
• informs other editors of the quality of the edit
• gives potential viewers a sense of the edits accomplishments and how they prioritise their viewwing (scores)
• can provide editors with vauable constructive feedback (as you noted) which may lead to later versions with those improvements
• editors up their game when going in and acting on reasonable observations
• the site gets more visible and the reviews keep things current as well as being a resource for others
• and reviews also encourage other reviews to be posted, especiall if a reviewer though the additions were great, and someone else did not; subjectivity and discourse is acceptable and I would say, encouraged (though reviews should not be used to have a two-way discussion - PM instead)

So please everyone, never think that your words and thoughts are not worthy. I for one crave them especially if constructive...

IN FACT

I am making revisions to The Godfather coz ahead of posting a review, the reviewer PM'd me and pointed out some issues...
now THAT's a CLASS ACT!

 

[not_a_wizard]

A few reasons that come to mind:
- It's difficult to give a fair review. If the original movie is flawed and the fanedit improves it a little bit but the overall outcome is still flawed.. then what are you reviewing? Are you going to funnel your frustration of the original to the blameless faneditor?
- To make a fair comparison you need to watch the original "immediately" before. So you need to find twice as much time.
- On the other hand if you do rewatch the original then you risk creating some negative bias when you watch the fanedit. Therefore you avoid rewatching the original. Which in turn prevents you of doing a proper review. Am I overthinking this?
- Don't want to leave a negative feedback.
- Have downloaded it for safe keeping before it disappears from the internet.
- Have downloaded it but haven't seen it due to lack of time.
- Maybe not much else to say besides that "it was ok"


Recently I've been able to get access to a few fanedits but in reality have only watched two. One of them was maybe two years ago, a Prometheus fanedit. I don't even remember who fanedited it or from where I got it. The second one was Ghost in the Shell, just a few days ago. And I've reviewed it.
The reason for my swift review is that for about a year or so now I've started tracking and reviewing shows and movies I've watched. So the habit of writing down my thoughts has kind of become ingrained now.
Because of that I suspect I'll be able to leave a review for any fanedit I'll watch. My concern is that they'll be superficial as I'm oblivious to the technical aspects of fanediting. And another concern is that I'll be unfair due to being unable to keep in mind the changes from the original. The end result is my review being simply an enjoyment rating which is always constrained by the original.

BTW my approach to reviews is that whenever I find something noteworthy I pause the video, write a few words on my mobile and resume playback. It takes me 5 seconds. It doesn't break the flow. And I won't have to scratch my head about things later on.
The above is a tip for those lacking time.

Anyway after reading this thread (which I'm not allowed to post links) /threads/length-of-time-to-do-an-edit.15780/ I'm even more compelled to leave a review despite of any shortcomings it may have.


BTW some idea that just came to me. Why not have a new item in a user profile that includes number of "reviews" next to "trophy points"?
Maybe a positive feedback loop comes out of it.

 

[tremault]

That sounds like a great idea! I don't know if there is already a trophy for it, but it's not immediately apparent when just browsing the site or the forums.

Also, some fantastic points, those are some great explanations!

 

[DroopyMcCool]

A review need not be constructive...

"I LOVED IT and thought it was soo much better than the original"
is just as valid as
"1000 discertaion on the technicals and areas that impressed and areas that could be better"
A review achieves many things :

• Validates or challenges the editor's intentions/objectives
• informs other editors of the quality of the edit
• gives potential viewers a sense of the edits accomplishments and how they prioritise their viewwing (scores)
• can provide editors with vauable constructive feedback (as you noted) which may lead to later versions with those improvements
• editors up their game when going in and acting on reasonable observations
• the site gets more visible and the reviews keep things current as well as being a resource for others
• and reviews also encourage other reviews to be posted, especiall if a reviewer though the additions were great, and someone else did not; subjectivity and discourse is acceptable and I would say, encouraged (though reviews should not be used to have a two-way discussion - PM instead)

So please everyone, never think that your words and thoughts are not worthy. I for one crave them especially if constructive...

IN FACT

I am making revisions to The Godfather coz ahead of posting a review, the reviewer PM'd me and pointed out some issues...
now THAT's a CLASS ACT!

I make sure my revews are long, check out some if you are curious. Mine are like a paragraph or two long, and I guess that's why I take a bit because it can be a lot to write.

 

[Wakeupkeo]

Big shoutout to @Palandrin for a great first review. New to the community, and gave a quality before/after enjoyment assessment.

I think it just come down to the fact that people are different. This person just barely came to this community. I think everybody is different, and the lower your expectations overall, the more you can be impressed!

 

[Gieferg]

Some people doesn't review and some review TWICE as is the case with JL Remixed...

 

[DigModiFicaTion]

I'm trying out a new idea for my edits, adding a poll in the project threads to allow people to give a quick numerical review score, similar to IMDB. That way people can give quick scores if they don't have time for IFDB. I can see who gave what score so I can reach out for feedback if needed. Could be a new quick review scoring method we could all adopt.

HUGE shoutout to @Palandrin for a to of recent reviews! You're Amazing!

 

[Malthus]

That's a fab idea @DigModiFicaTion! I have been toying with the idea of creating a general feedback thread for myself. A place where viewers can post comments about the various "Malthus Fanedits" they've watched and discuss/critique them with other viewers. I don't consider myself a particularly adept editor but people do seem to like my content and it would be fun to engage with them on a different level. Socrates said: The unobserved life is not worth living.

 

[Gieferg]

And why I don't review?
Because I very, and I mean VERY rarely watch any fanedits other than mine. And that;s not because I don't want to. I just dont like watch movies alone (only once in my life I went to the thater alone and never wanted to do it again) and I don't even have time for it (i had, when my wife was working, but now she doesn't). There's always someone around who may watch something with me, but as no one beside me is able to watch movies in english without subtitles in my native language, there's really not much I can do. I've made some subtitles for some movies and it is just too much work, and after that, I can't even stand the movie that I've done subtitles for, so I'm doing it very rarely, mostly for my own edits (which Im sick of anyway ).

M4's hobbit has subtitles in my language so I'll probably show it to my daughter soon, but this is extremely rare situation.

 

[tremault]

And why I don't review?
Because I very, and I mean VERY rarely watch any fanedits other than mine. And that;s not because I don't want to. I just dont like watch movies alone (only once in my life I went to the thater alone and never wanted to do it again) and I don't even have time for it (i had, when my wife was working, but now she doesn't). There's always someone around who may watch something with me, but as no one beside me is able to watch movies in english without subtitles in my native language, there's really not much I can do. I've made some subtitles for some movies and it is just too much work, and after that, I can't even stand the movie that I've done subtitles for, so I'm doing it very rarely, mostly for my own edits (which Im sick of anyway ).

M4's hobbit has subtitles in my language so I'll probably show it to my daughter soon, but this is extremely rare situation.

could I ask what is your native tongue?
I wonder if it would be reasonably easy to retime some subtitles for my edits in future...
If I have english subs, I can cross reference and maybe automate it.

 

[Gieferg]

could I ask what is your native tongue?

Polish.

 

[Wakeupkeo]

And why I don't review?
Because I very, and I mean VERY rarely watch any fanedits other than mine. And that;s not because I don't want to. I just dont like watch movies alone (only once in my life I went to the thater alone and never wanted to do it again) and I don't even have time for it (i had, when my wife was working, but now she doesn't). There's always someone around who may watch something with me, but as no one beside me is able to watch movies in english without subtitles in my native language, there's really not much I can do. I've made some subtitles for some movies and it is just too much work, and after that, I can't even stand the movie that I've done subtitles for, so I'm doing it very rarely, mostly for my own edits (which Im sick of anyway ).

M4's hobbit has subtitles in my language so I'll probably show it to my daughter soon, but this is extremely rare situation.

Hey Gieferg! Two questions:

Do you use Premiere? Its been really helpful for me to release my edits with subtitles, as it adds it right to the timeline, so you can visually edit right alongside the dialogue track to visually line things up.

And since you are Polish, and I am not, are there any automated ways to translate subtitles to your language with little error, or is it a manual effort?

(Now I am wondering if I use an English SRT and line things up, I wonder if I can sub in a Polish SRT and get a suitable result... If you are ever interested in any of my edits I am willing to make some effort here!)

 

[Gieferg]

Thanks for that

are there any automated ways to translate subtitles to your language with little error, or is it a manual effort?

Automated translations english-to-polish are usually quite hopeless. Polish is much more complicated language than english (which, in fact, is the simplest of all languages I've ever tried to learn). So it works way better polish-to-english than the other way around.

Do you use Premiere?

Nope.

 

[ArtisDead]

And why I don't review?
Because I very, and I mean VERY rarely watch any fanedits other than mine. And that;s not because I don't want to. I just dont like watch movies alone (only once in my life I went to the thater alone and never wanted to do it again) and I don't even have time for it (i had, when my wife was working, but now she doesn't). There's always someone around who may watch something with me, but as no one beside me is able to watch movies in english without subtitles in my native language, there's really not much I can do. I've made some subtitles for some movies and it is just too much work, and after that, I can't even stand the movie that I've done subtitles for, so I'm doing it very rarely, mostly for my own edits (which Im sick of anyway ).

I'll watch @bbghost The Last Skywalker Awakens edit with you. We could watch it at the same time and share comments?