GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

TVtally V1.5 - episodic reform

POSTED BY: LEADB
UPDATED: Saturday, April 14, 2007 04:24
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VIEWED: 1180
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Saturday, April 7, 2007 3:42 AM

LEADB


Greeting fellow firefly fans;
I'd like to chat about TVTally.com. I'm going to risk the "excutive summary format" for this posting.

Summary: I rate tvTally as a "point of fair indifference". If you decide to rank episodes there, I would ask that you ignore the "inter-series" competition/ranking aspect there or at least do not particpate in "down voting" 'competing' series. For -show- rankings, I recommend TV_Vote. For obtaining fairly objective episode rankings, I recommend www.tv.com (which is careful to avoid inter-series competition).
---
Ok, now to the rambling part of the post ;-)
TVtally has recently significantly modified their episode ranking systems... radically.
Folks who have followed the various tv_vote threads have probably noticed in the past I "came down" pretty hard on tvtally; in fact, I had previously recommended boycotting the entire site because I felt that, intentionally or not, that the episode ranking system they used would engender a lot of bad feelings. In fact, time proved it did. Various posters there described it as a "blood sport". Folks complained about people "1 spamming" entire series' episodes. Toward the end of the "old" ranking system, there were wild fluxuation where folks were ... well, I don't know what the motivation was. Flocks of episodes would pop to the top with "perfect 10's" only to be completely shreaded by "one spammers" a day or two later. About three days ago, the tvtally folks removed all the old votes for episodes and started a new system.
The new system will be much better at blocking what I'd call "abusive" episode ranking. You must register with the site. A registered owner may only rank an episode once; they may later modify the ranking. The site owners have made it clear they expect a human to only have one registered id; and thus for a person to only make a single ranking for an episode ever. They list recent voting activity against episodes; so if someone is "voting down" a "competing" series, it can be painfully obvious to the community. One person has already been caught "one spamming" and has had all his rankings deleted; and has been "warned". The site reserves the right to suspend an id's ranking privilege.
Unfortunately, the "home page" still lists the "Top 5 Episodes". While this revision has removed much of the 'means' to commit "blood sport" havoc to "opposing seriers", it has not removed the -motivation- to do so. By publicly ranking episodes, I'm concerned that folks will be motivated to attempt to bypass the safeties TVtally has implemented; and, especially if the site becomes so popular that supervision of the rankings becomes overwhelming, could degenerate again into a blood bath.
So, I will ask my fellow brown coats; if you rank episodes on this site, please put "honor" above "victory." These are the guidelines I intend to follow:
1) Honestly rank your series; in our case Firefly. Favorite episode, give it a 10 (btw, you are only allowed to award 5 10's; choose wisely)
2) Do not fall into the temptation of ranking an "opposing" episode solely because it is ahead of a FF episode. If you haven't watched -that episode-, please don't rank it. If you cannot, from your own memory, remember enough to -also- write a short review stating a supporting opinion, don't rank it.

Keep in mind that recent rankings you have placed will be visible. Don't kid yourself; if folks see a "7" come in against a massively popular episode, they -will- go look to see what else you are voting; if they see you have cast your 5 10's for FF, they will notice; and it will sully the reputation of Browncoats. Let's take the high road here, if we travel this path at all.

BTW the "show" rankings here are as "harmless" as any. To wit, I will only say I perceive this portion as redundant to TV_vote; which has much higher visibility and usage. Other than a personal bit of "vote fatigue", I really cannot knock TVtally any more/less than any of the other places that are doing vote collecting. So far, FF is clearly #1 here... so, if you are amused to vote for the show here; have at it! But I think this is mostly Firefly and Buffy fans voting primarily, with other shows getting "2nd and 3rd" votes from said fans.


====
Please vote for Firefly:
http://richlabonte.net/tvvote/index.html

Consider $5/year to support FFF: http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/pay/T39WWCGS4JYCV4


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Saturday, April 7, 2007 3:43 AM

LEADB


(edit: delete double post)

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Saturday, April 14, 2007 4:24 AM

LEADB


TVtally V1.5b was "announced" last week; you can read "here" about it.

http://www.tvtally.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=71

It does seem to eliminate the last of the motivation for any of the "blood sport" aspects of the episode rating system; episodes only "sort" by ranking within a series, thereby removing the incentive to down-rank an "opposing series" episodes to make one's own look good.

The front page now lists "most talked about" episodes; this is basicly a count of the number of reviews an episode has gotten. Interestingly enough, this might act as bit of a brake to negative reviews in that if an episode had one positive review and 3000 negative assessments, it would clearly rate #1 most talked about.

Of late; firefly continues to rate high on the site; having #1 in total votes; votes for the week; and "most talked about" episode (currently "Out of Gas")

So, [s] the [/s] site has eliminated all fundamental concerns previously voiced.

I guess I'd re-cast my summary as:
Summary: I rate tvTally as a "point of fair indifference". For -show- rankings, I recommend TV_Vote for having higher traffic, and general "recognition". For obtaining established episode rankings, I recommend www.tv.com . If you want a relative "blank slate" to express your opinion of rankings, tvTally is a good place to state your case.

===

Consider $5/year to support FFF: http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/pay/T39WWCGS4JYCV4


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