Your input needed: what user review upgrades would you like?

[sothis]

For the last few weeks I've been working on a plan to raise visibility of the user reviews - the site reviewers unfortunately have mostly moved on to other things or don't have time to write reviews anymore, and the /reviews/ section tends to look a little barren because of it. Rather than getting you new site reviews once every few months, I'm working on ideas to make the user reviews more prominent and useful for everyone.

The user reviews will not change to visually look like the site reviews - it's a totally different publishing system, and since the site reviews will stick around (even if new ones aren't coming in), there does need to be a visual distinction between them anyways.

But, I'm open to any and all ideas on small changes you'd like for the user reviews, that would make them more helpful.

Things I'm already planning on:

-Adding a 'reporting' system for one liner reviews or obvious trolls, or obvious "i'm putting a bunch of garbage chars in to beat the min limit", or major spoilers. Note that reporting something because you disagree isn't why the tool should be used (and I'll have something built in to disallow reporting if users abuse it)

-Adding the <3 button. As with all other user content on the site, there will not be a </3 button. Good reviews will bubble to the top by using this button. Hopefully I oculd code it so the most <3 ones bubble to the top in the reviews tab, also

-I may also add the voting buttons in the site reviews (funny, helpful, cool) as another way to surface good content

-A reporting system for review comments. There's been way, way too many aggressive, rude or mean comments in reviews recently, and I have begun to enforce this more strictly. Review comments are meant to be respectful and should only be your own opinion on the anime or manga, not on the reviewer as a person. Judgement statements like 'you are misleading people' or 'you are trolling' (just for having a different opinion) aren't ok either - everyone is entitled to their own reviews. So I'll have a way to report individual comments as well.

-The /reviews/ homepage layout would shift around to focus on more frequently changing user reviews and stats, since they change daily

What else? While I can't dedicate a huge amount of time right now to big new review features, I'm interested in any little changes or upgrades you think would be helpful for you.

NOTE: this thread is asking for suggestions on the user reviews feature only, not general profile requests, site requests, etc ^_^

[DarkShadowBe]

Lol i just wanted to ask that myself .
If we could get more themes would be nice, or if you could give us the option to upload our own themes (like our profile picture) that would be awesome

Mvg

[sothis]

i'm confused, how do either of those suggestions matter for user reviews?

[Unforgiving]

Yes i agree with DarkShadowBe. Because I think it is nice :) .

mvg

Unforgiving

[sothis]

All, the thread is asking for suggestions on how to improve the user reviews feature

[DarkShadowBe]

background changes have different feel to the review .

Mvg,
D.S

[sothis]

perhaps - suggestions i'm looking for are things that are actually in the reviews feature though. voting, reporting, etc :) different site changes (themes, profile upgrades, etc) are outside of the scope of these changes

[ZoundX]

I think their trolling...

anyway What i would suggest (although I dont know how much it would interfere with your current plans)

somthing like the above, although you could prolly make it more pretty i just did it quick
and I dont know how your changing layout so you could implement it better

but thats my idea anyway, having a random review visible as soon as you go on the anime page

[BrainBlow]

*away with the above comments quickly*
Different themes just for user reviews is pointless. Done.

I can't really think of much on the spot. The things suggested in the OP seems perfectly fine for me.

[Shidira]

I actually like the ideas you've suggested, Sothis. A <3 button would be simple, yet effective in seeing what people thought of "x" review.