Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 30, 2005 22:20:41 GMT
I'm copy and pasting Wet Dog's words here... There's two (and a half) rating systems in use here. There's the Roger Ebert style "equal increment scale", employing half stars, where four stars is the best, zero is the worst and around two is 'average' or mediocre. I don't like this one at all. The second is a system of award. This is the one I and a few other members use. Here's what I wrote about it on the old board...
I've settled on a rating/recommendation system. I finally feel that I can apply this satisfactorily, ie; non-arbitrarily, non-prescriptively and, most importantly to me, sincerely and personally. The recommendations are tailored towards someone like me, who watches a lot of movies anyway. To someone with only a passing interest, obviously a film that merely contains some points of interest would probably not be worth their time (and they probably wouldn't care for my stronger recommendations anyway). We all watch a lot of films here, though. No StarsContains nothing of sufficient interest to make for worthwhile viewing. Though franchise titles, missteps by reputable filmmakers and big 'event' movies are often worth viewing for educational or cultural reasons regardless of their content, whether I deem them worth viewing or not depends solely on the merits of the films themselves, as I see them (which, of course, is not totally free of curiosity or culture).One Star Contains some interesting elements. Worth viewing. Two Stars A good film, for whatever reasons. Recommended viewing. Three Stars An excellent film, for whatever reasons. Essential viewing. Four Stars An extremely special film that sustains and rewards multiple viewings. A long-standing personal favourite, for whatever reasons. I love it. Life-changing. Four stars can be awarded no sooner than on the third viewing, and never retrospectively. This allows the slow, restricted creation of a very short, elite list of personal favourites.
So, now I've added stars to keep everyone happy, and to make it easy for members to see what system others are using. I would appreciate it if you guys using half-stars would go through your old posts and change the smileys. Green stars are now for you. Blue stars for those of us who use Wet Dog's system, with red to distinguish our special four stars award. You don't have to do the Proview thread backlog, but perhaps the Rate the Director threads. If you really don't want to, just say, and I'll do it over a long period of time. Better to do it now though, I think, and not when we have thousands of posts, like on the old board. It may also be a good idea if you reply to this thread telling us which system. Full stars or half-stars? I'm blue and red, full stars.
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Post by Vercetti on Dec 30, 2005 23:50:15 GMT
I don't use half stars, but I think my ratings differ to yours. I give a Zero to anything below decent. For instance, what would've been **1/2 on my old scale would be
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Post by Mike Sullivan on Dec 31, 2005 4:48:14 GMT
I use the half star system.
I suppose I'm too gratuitus with my system because I just really love what I'm watching. I just rate them as I see them. There isn't much of a system to me.
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Post by thug on Dec 31, 2005 5:35:23 GMT
Yeah, the half-star system for me, too. I see merits in the other system but am too used to this one to convert. I understand that if a movie is rated one star by Capo or Wet Dog that it is worth watching, but when I see a one-star I think of a bottom of the barrel movie. That's why I'm using this system. I guess one could say it is something akin to grades at school. 4 stars being worthy of a 100%, 3 75%, 2 50%, 1 25%, etc. And that me giving out many 4 stars is, like Mike Sullivan, because I love so many movies and rate them as so. Half-stars, to me, are extremely necessary because the difference between a 3 1/2 star movie and a 3 star movie is huge. That's because the rating system that I use includes all movies. Bascially the difference between the two rating systems is that one rates all movies, and the other only rates good movies. Neither one is invalid, but I chose the former.
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Dec 31, 2005 6:02:08 GMT
I stopped using stars bc when you expand your specturm to 0,.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, and 4 stars, you may as well just use a x/10 system. Its hard to distinguish a 1.5 from a two star film in my opinion. I usually go something along the lines of
4: great 3: good 2. average 1. poor 0. Complete Bomb
And like Mike Sullivan, I rate em as I see em. If they need changing after Ive thought about them for awhile I can always go back
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Post by Mike Sullivan on Dec 31, 2005 7:01:30 GMT
Exatly, jrod. That's the system I've most adopted, with the exception that I use half stars.
But I don't really sit there and add up everything and measure EVERY merrit of the film because in the end, a film that is great has some bit of magic that makes it work.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Dec 31, 2005 16:16:18 GMT
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Dec 31, 2005 16:16:37 GMT
Oh yeah. I don't think anybody here measures a film. I never give individual ratings to aspects such as direction, cinematography, etc. and then average it out. My stars are given on a gut reaction basis from what my mind thinks upon the end of the film. Then I write a short little Proview to put my thoughts into some coherent order.
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Post by thug on Jan 2, 2006 3:46:53 GMT
I don't like the idea of seperate colors for seperate rating systems. First of all, even if my rating system is similar to, say, Mike's or Omar's, it still is different. Second of all, this just leads to further confusion I think, especially for new members who don't understand the difference. It is odd for me to see a two-star film get praise, or a three-star film being "essential," when on my scale they mean mediocre or worth-watching, respectively. But this thread should clear things up for what we mean by our ratings. I must that, despite the fact I've gotten used to this rating system, and know who uses it, I still don't necessarily recognize that a three-star rating and want to go immediately and see it (likewise, I imagine my four-star rating doesn't seem to mean much because I love and award so many movies that rating). Colors won't help this; what will are reviews. Which gets to my third point, that this emphasizes the importance of star ratings, when what should be important are our words. Not that ratings are worthless; but they are a very brief summation of our feelings. Finally, there is an obvious bias to a rating system here that is generally a "minority," so to speak. Never before have I seen this type of rating system where only worthwhile movies get the time of day to be rated, and bad ones just get tossed to the curb. Not that that is a bad thing to have a different rating system, but this thread and different colors seem to me as an attempt to convert more members to this way of rating movies.
Not that it is really all that important, though.
(I'm sorry if this comes off as me bitching ;D.)
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Post by thug on Jan 2, 2006 4:03:35 GMT
Oh and a quick clarification of what my ratings are (I'll stick to green for now, even though I'm protesting it): I'll acknowledge there are flaws in my current rating system--most of all not being strict enough; too many four-stars--and this I hope to fix with some amendments to whatever I posted over at the original moviefan boards. Four Stars Simply put, a masterpiece. Obviously, a film of this nature must have an effect on the viewer and be resonant. Three Stars Flawed, but worth while film. For example, most films in the category either fall into one of these two categories: Many elements of the film fail but the film's overall motives suceed or many elements of the film succeed yet the film's overall motives fail. Though, as always, things can be different. Two Stars A mediocre film; usually the bad slightly outweighs the good. One Star Terrible, but with a redeeming feature to keep it away from being labelled among the worst. Zero StarsAmong the worst; either there is nothing redeeming or there is just too much badness. These are what the ratings are to me. But I rate based on the initial impact on me. Basically, I have a pretty good idea of what a three-star movie is, to me, and without consulting this list, I rate it as so. Obviously, half-stars are in between such: i.e. not a masterpiece but worth more than just watching--often or not "flawed" but essential viewings-- are . P.S. Another reason against the green vs. blue/red: individual greens instead of all together look really awful. If we're to do this, may I request at least the same type of thing being done with red/blue, and perhaps making yellow "our" four stars?
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Jan 2, 2006 5:24:43 GMT
While I acknowledge that everyone's understanding and employment of rating systems is going to differ, and fully agree that the words are more worthwhile, I don't think having seperate colours is a bad idea. The two systems are totally different, and if we use the same colours, then, as you said, when you see a one-star you think "bottom of the barrel", we think "worth watching".
My rating system is adapted, basically, from the Halliwell system (despite my disdain for that publication). It's not a newfangled concept, and we're certainly not trying to push it on anyone.
Also, I think, out of the 19 members we currently have, minus those who don't post and those who don't use star ratings, the division between the systems is pretty equal.
I'm not fond of the spaced stars either, it's ugly, as I said on the old board when we upgraded and couldn't place the codes side-by-side anymore. But your system requires 8 seperate images in order to look tidy. We don't have space for that. However, I have looked into opening up more spaces for images (despite not having a clue how to code ProBoards), and when I can manage it, then it'll be absolutely no problem.
Anyway, let's not have a gang feud over it... Greenie.
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Post by Vercetti on Jan 2, 2006 8:21:31 GMT
Excellent/Masterwork Great Good/Very Good Decent Zero - Mediocre or worse
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Post by Driver on Jan 2, 2006 16:51:59 GMT
Maybe we could have a different colours for dfferent things. Like, this basis is the same, on how good the film is, the structure, the effects, all the technical side to it, etc ... Excellent/Masterwork Great Good/Very Good Decent Zero - Mediocre or worse ... then the green ones could be for what you personally made of the film, just how much you enjoyed it. Because some films that I like I know aren't brilliantly made or anything, but I love them, so we could have something like - enjoyable for everyone - highly entertaining - worth seeing - hit or miss - don't bother! Just an idea. Feel free to shoot me down.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 5, 2006 15:19:21 GMT
Wet Dog: what's with the new system?
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Post by Michael on Apr 12, 2006 1:14:40 GMT
I actually love wetdog's new system. I'm considering switching over to it myself, if it's alright with wetdog of course.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 12, 2006 1:30:51 GMT
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Post by Michael on Apr 12, 2006 1:41:32 GMT
I like the way the stars look. ;D
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Apr 12, 2006 2:02:53 GMT
They took so long to design. The only image editor I have is MS Paint. :/
Anyway, I'd prefer you didn't use them unless you were actually using my rating system, as that would just be confusing.
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Post by Vercetti on Aug 8, 2006 4:24:10 GMT
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Post by Michael on Aug 8, 2006 5:08:32 GMT
This is basically the same thing as a /10 system.
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