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Psychopath
Affable misanthrope, common narcissist, incorruptibly amoral, aspiring arsonist, friendly neighborhood psychopath.

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Review Guidelines Change

Posted by Psychopath - October 1st, 2018


A couple of months ago, the Review Guidelines used to look like this:

1818741_153843367482_NewgroundsReviewGuidelines.png

Now they look like this:

1818741_153843373923_NewgroundsReviewGuidelinesNeutered.png

Every time I visit NG, it's as if another function of the site's been neutered. Now the rules for flagging reviews as abusive have been changed to be more vague. It no longer includes "Blam this!" reviews, backseat modding to the author that their content doesn't belong on the site, using the review space to reply to other users, ect.

How are we supposed to flag reviews with conditions this vague? "Make personal attacks towards the author" is too vague. If you follow these new rules to the letter, they permit you to reply to other reviews so long as you don't include any kind of insult.

Going forward, I need to know if the old rules the way they used to be written are still enforceable. I flagged a review telling the author to remove their video from NG because it didn't belong. As of now, this review has stuck for sixteen hours and hasn't been deleted.

1818741_153843439921_FlaggedReviews.png

The new rules do not prohibit Greenskullkid from doing this, but the old rules would have. What we need to know is if the old rules still apply, considering that the new set of rules appears to be a "boiled down" version of the old rules. The new rules are too vague and subjective to be followed objectively; calling for a movie to be deleted or inciting others to blam a submission does not a personal insult make.

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3

Comments

NOW i understand the new guide, lol.

I completely agree with you Psychopath, the new rules are really vague feeling.

They also don't cover things that have always been against the rules, like leaving a review soliciting people to blam a submission. Getting a mod's input, or @TomFulp, on whether or not they'd remove reviews according to how they offend the rules the way they used to be written is important to know, because we're effectively hobbled if we're to follow the way they're written now to the absolute letter because there are few objective ways, if any, to scrutinize a review that's been marked for abuse. It also broadens the definition of what counts as abusive when before it was narrowly bottle-necked. It both closes off and opens up whole categories of reviews that can be removed. If someone wrote "Blam this", you instantly knew it violated the rules because it was listed therein, not anymore though.

These new rules are literally fortune cookie length.

The mod tools are down at the moment. It's there still, but it doesn't mean it will be forever or that we approve of it. :/

Does that mean you and other mods will remove reviews that break the rules the way they were written before or does that mean the rules are so subjective now that you can just decide what is and isn't against the rules depending on how you feel? How do we determine what an abusive review is going forward?

More importantly, how do I determine, by review mod standards, what is and isn't an abusive review? You expressed that even though the review doesn't technically break the rules that it's going to be deleted once your tools are restored but that review only violates the old rules set, are you going by the old rules or is are you deleting it because the new rules simply allow you to because you feel like it and not because the rules mandate it? This information going forward for the Whistle Cow Crew is important to know, because I can easily see myself collecting old, one line reviews that read as "this sucks" only to have them brushed off your queue by a moderator who likes to play rule lawyer by pointing out that nothing marked for abuse by us technically counts as abusive, followed by everyone's whistle status bombing because said hypothetical asshole mod was feeling spiteful that day.

I know that before this rule change that review mods had their own hidden categories of reviews that you'd delete if you found them, such as reviews written in languages that aren't English. With that in mind, getting an idea of how review mods are going to treat this rule change is important, because now these new rules allow mods to scrutinize purely through their opinions. I really don't see how we can adjust to this with any measurable success.

Let's say I find a review like the one I described in this blog post, someone telling the author to pick up their shit and GTFO. If I were to flag it and then paste the old rules in the body of the message, followed by an archive link to the old rules, [which is exactly what I did] would a moderator abide by that or would they throw it out because it's no longer official?

Well simplification is good too, but I agree, the new set's pretty excessively slimmed down. Examples and flag cases would've been good to keep, or add new ones for when it'd be more relevant. For example I don't think the "Blam this!" example is that relevant any longer. I haven't seen a review with any reference to the blam system in years, and considering it's not even refereed to in the voting bar dialog any longer it seems having it mentioned in the rules might give this particular response more exposure than it has otherwise, and have some odd user use it again when it could otherwise be forgotten.

As for backseat modding, and using the review space to reply to other users - especially the latter, this doesn't seem directly abusive to me, and especially now that we can @ other users easier in all locations (if it shouldn't be possible within reviews why include this feature). The first bit could fall under 'personal attack' if it's phrased the wrong way, but if it's helpful and humble: why not allow it? There's a place and time for responding to other users too IMO, and both a community and academic aspect in being able to agree with others, or refer to previous user cases when relevant (for example someone noticed a bug - I could write that I noticed it too, and elaborate as to where and how it appeared). I'd rather have a point for anything 'useless/doesn't contribute anything new', regardless of context, so if someone just posts a generic 'I agree with ___' that'd be possible to flag, rather than relevant mentions. Even if all the other user wrote was 'nice', as their own comment that would still contribute something (encouragement), and be abusive only in larger amounts.

I feel the new rules are definitely easier to read, but they seem a bit rushed, edited down rather than really reviewed; considering all aspects of what should be abusive and how to best word it. Structure of the former was a bit more professional too... thanks for posting this too. Good reference to have regarding old/new.

I wouldn't allow users to use the review space to reply to each other because that's not what it's for, you're to stay on topic and review the content in question and not someone else's review. You're too hung up on "blam this" as a specific example, since there's a multitude of ways I could incite other people to zero bomb a submission, and declaring it doesn't belong on the site is one of them. The point I made with bringing it up is that it made it clear and concise that getting people to vote out of malicious intent to drop a submission's score was against the rules and the written example of "Blam this!" itself was an ironclad and indisputable offense that mods couldn't simply disregard because they personally disagree with our subjective definition of what counts as abuse.

Any forum I've ever visited with fortune cookie length rules like this usually end up descending into chaos because nobody can agree as to what the limits are when concerning their own rules, and they'll play fast and loose with their personal standards. Whether or not a review counts as abusive should not be a guessing game to the people reporting it and especially not to the people scrutinizing those reports.

Yes if they go off topic I agree, that could be a part of the suggested 'useless/doesn't contribute anything new' point, but if it's a response relevant to the submission? I like the idea that there can be a debate about a submission; that reviews aren't necessarily isolated blocks of text. It seems to go hand in hand with the addition of reactions to reviews too, though I'm a bit more dubious about that. It could be abused, and there seem to be no repercussions for it.

Yeah that's true. The 'feelings that this entry should be blammed' seems to merge well with the 'personal attacks' one however, and there's really no need to keep the BLAM THIS! tradition going, is there?

I agree with that. Elaborate guidelines show forethought as well, and give off a better impression from the get go. The earlier text was a bit blocky and long to read, but the new's overly thin instead. Would be good with a balance, or a structure that separates rules from examples, so it's easy to get the gist of it, then read up on what you did wrong if you get a notice/how to flag correctly when you get started with that.

Did they dumb down the guidelines?