NEW FEATURES: New 'followers' privacy level for lists, and new review options

Discussion in 'Site Announcements' started by sothis, Mar 9, 2016.

  1. sothis

    sothis Forum Moderator Anime-Planet Founder Developer

    Posted by sothis on Mar 9, 2016
    #1
    Today we've launched some big changes to the privacy levels for reviews and custom lists. This release aims to solve a few big challenges we have on the site right now, and will pave the way for future feature updates, as well.

    A little while ago, we launched a 'private' option for custom lists, and we asked the community to use this (default) level when making a list for personal tracking or other reasons that don't directly help the community. You had some valid concerns with this, because sometimes someone wants to share a specialized list with their friends, even if it wouldn't appeal to a wider audience.

    Additionally, we have an ongoing problem with reviews on the site - though we posted a set of review guidelines, most reviews being added still don't fit this format. And that makes sense, because not everyone has a ton to say about an anime or manga, and sometimes you just want to leave a quick impression for your friends to see. I know I personally use that functionality on Goodreads for normal books, and we wanted to launch something similar to that here.


    New privacy levels

    Today, we're announcing the addition of a third privacy level for custom lists, and all three privacy levels now available for reviews too.

    The three levels are:

    Share with:
    • People visiting my profile
    • No one
    • Everyone

    With the new level, 'People visiting my profile', your review or custom list is visible to anyone who visits your profile. Also, people who follow you will see it elsewhere on the site, such as linked from the anime or manga entry the review is associated with.

    If you'd like a full rundown of each privacy level and when to use them, visit the privacy thread, or, for a short time, expand the spoiler block at the bottom of the announcement to read inline.


    New "notes" feature and changes to reviews

    For quite awhile, many of you have asked for a way to add private/quick notes for an anime or manga. Now that reviews have a 'private' level, you can use private reviews to keep notes. We hope to add search functionality for this as well.

    One important point to keep in mind is that the default review level is now 'people visiting my profile'. We'll have a team of moderators start going through all existing reviews sometime soon, and they'll be changing a big percentage of reviews to this new default setting. If you've visited the site in the past year, you'll receive a profile comment about the change if one is made, and we encourage you to start changing private or follower reviews ahead of time so that we can get through this process faster.

    Thanks as always for your continued support of Anime-Planet, and if you like these or other features, please consider donating - all donations go straight into the server costs.

    :drinking:

    Full privacy writeup:

    Anime-Planet has three privacy levels for your reviews and custom lists.

    Share with:
    • People visiting my profile
    • No one
    • Everyone

    The privacy level you should choose depends on the type of review or custom list you're creating.

    Share with people visiting my profile

    With this option, your review or custom list is visible to anyone who visits your profile. Also, people who follow you will see it elsewhere on the site, such as linked from the anime or manga entry the review is associated with.

    For custom lists, this option is great for when you want to share a list of suggestions for a friend, are taking part in a group challenge, or when you have a list idea that isn't helpful to the broader community, but your friends might be interested in seeing it.

    For reviews, this level is the default. Use this level for reviews of any length that dont fit the review guidelines. We especially encourage you to use this level if you just want to write a quick impression or short summary of what you thought of the series. This way, people who follow you will see your impressions (similar to how Goodreads works), while leaving the site reviews to those that are longer and fit the guidelines.

    For current season titles, moderators will change public reviews to this privacy level if you've added an initial series impression and haven't updated the review once a decent chunk of episodes have been released.


    Share with no one

    These lists and reviews are 'private'. Only you will see them in your own profile; the public, and your followers, will not.

    For custom lists, this is the default, as most custom lists that are created end up being for personal tracking. Examples include:

    • Anime watched last week
    • Rewatch list
    • 2014 anime goal

    The above examples could potentially be marked "people who visit my profile" as well. It depends on if you think your followers might be interested in seeing these lists. If just for your own use or to remember your viewing patterns, keep this privacy level when creating a list.

    For reviews, use as a personal notes feature. We hope to add a search option in the future, so you could use this as a way to jot down notes or short impressions that you don't want to share with others.


    Share with everyone

    These 'public' lists and reviews should only be marked as such if they're helpful to the wider community.

    For reviews, this means it needs to fit the review guidelines, or have a good reason for not doing so. Moderators will generally change all reviews that don't meet these criteria to 'people who visit my profile'.

    For custom lists, only use this option if the list helps the community. For example:

    • Best anime for beginners
    • Anime with fantastic artwork
    • Best series to watch with your parents
    • Top horror anime
    • Anime that are so bad they’re good
    • My favorite anime **(with caveat; see below)

    Basically, an ordered list that will help people make decisions on what to watch or read next. They can be funny as well, or educational. For example, one of the most hilarious custom lists I’ve seen on another movie-based (non-anime) site is a list of all movies that including someone pooping on the toilet. It’s crude and ridiculous but also is hilarious. You could create your own lists based on factoids or info that aren’t taggable with our current tags.

    These lists should always have a reason for each item, because the person reading will want to know why it’s good (or bad). Titles should generally have “best” or something indicating what type of list it is, rather than just being titled “Artwork” and it’s about anime that have great artwork (better would be “Best anime artwork”)

    My favorite anime is a special case, and one that should be used sparingly if set to 'everyone'. For example, it’s useful to have a ‘my top list’ for all anime or for all manga if you also have descriptions or reasons why, but it should be set to 'people visiting my profile' if it’s just a list without reasons. If someone is looking at Naruto custom lists and sees ‘my favorites’ with no other info, that wont help them know if they should watch it or not, nor would they have a reason to look at the rest of the items in the list.

    You also could create ‘my favorite [insert studio or tag here] list”, but with the same caveat: you should add descriptions/reasons so it’s helpful to users.
     
  2. sothis

    sothis Forum Moderator Anime-Planet Founder Developer

    Posted by sothis on Mar 9, 2016
    #2
  3. Drahken

    Drahken Cross-eyed Cyclops

    Posted by Drahken on Mar 9, 2016
    #3
    With the reviews, is it possible to have more than 1 review per series/entry? ie, Can you have a private/notes review for a given series AND a public review, or just one or the other?
     
  4. sothis

    sothis Forum Moderator Anime-Planet Founder Developer

    Posted by sothis on Mar 9, 2016
    #4
    Just one or the other
     
  5. Armani

    Armani Member

    Posted by Armani on Mar 10, 2016
    #5
    I like this. Mostly for the ability to write down private notes for a series I read/watched without fear of the one-sided review system. It will also help remind me of what I thought of the series for when I do write a proper review. Nice, very nice. :D
     

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