I'm just curious if any plans for a more advanced system are being given thought.

Also, Search wont turn up reviews.

I'd be on-board with this.  I'd really like to see this place become a prime review spot.  We not only have a lot of mainstream gamers on this site, but a lot of smaller-press resources and gamers as well (as well as such solid reviewers as C.W.!).  A search function would be fine, and maybe clean up how some of the graphics display (size limitation for book cover .jpgs, so they don't mess up the screen?).

Umasama is looking into it. He seems to think, that he will be able to do something to make it more user friendly.

Glad to hear it.

For what it's worth, I"m a fan of how RPG.net handles reviews.  So anything "more like that" is a plus to me.

theRPGsite still manages to beat out EN World and Gaming Report, though.

That'd be very good. Keep us informed!

If Umasama doesn't update you, I will make sure I do.


Make sure you come up with as many suggestions as possible, that way he know what everyone is looking for in the review system.

Recipe for good reviews :

1) Editorial control - Control for quality, control for spelling/grammar.  Work with the writers to make their prose clearer and make them devellop their ideas more fully.

2) None of this "I give it four flaming swords out of five" nonsense.  Write the review, if someone cares enough about your opinion they'll read to the end.

3) Pester book companies for free review copies (though this generally comes after you've implemented (1) and send them out to a pool of reviewers, thereby encouraging people to write for you rather than put stuff on their websites/other boards.

4) Quality first, quantity second.  You're better off producing two great reviews a month than fifteen shitty ones.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalRecipe for good reviews :

1) Editorial control - Control for quality, control for spelling/grammar.  Work with the writers to make their prose clearer and make them devellop their ideas more fully.

2) None of this "I give it four flaming swords out of five" nonsense.  Write the review, if someone cares enough about your opinion they'll read to the end.

3) Pester book companies for free review copies (though this generally comes after you've implemented (1) and send them out to a pool of reviewers, thereby encouraging people to write for you rather than put stuff on their websites/other boards.

4) Quality first, quantity second.  You're better off producing two great reviews a month than fifteen shitty ones.

well, this is more for the site structure than actual content and quality of reviews.

I think this place (as well as RPGnet) would benefit from a tighter editorial control.  There are too many people writing reviews that are little more than summaries of the books' different chapters and I think if you had a centralised system of editorial control and free-stuff distribution you'd wind up luring decent reviewers to the site (and developing those you have).

I mean, editorially I think that giving things marks is a bad idea and I also think that writing a summary of everything in every chapter is not a review.  I could go on and on about how to write a review but I 'm not really helping anyone by discussing how I like to suck eggs so to speak.  If you're going to edit this lot then you need to have a pretty good idea of what makes a good review and try to get people to write stuff of that kind.

As for the actual technical side of things... this site simply isn't fit for purpose.  It needs to be torn down and built again from scratch because it looks quite ugly and what isn't ugly is just funny looking.  Take a look at strangehorizons.com, it's a very simple website but is easy and pleasant to use.  I guess this place was conceived to be a bit like a yahoogroup but really...

i think that since both RPG.net and TheRPGSite are both fansites and not online magazines it does not make sense to have such a high amount of quality control.

Sure, we would like to have every review be the best on for that product, but if we were so strict, noone would submit reviews.

Also strangehorizons.com's design would not suite our purposes and the review section is no more useful than ours.

I summarize chapter contents.  I don't intend to stop.

The problem is that if you're just conforming to one person's idea of a good review then you're not going to have very many submissions.  Individual posters can easily judge whether the review is going to be worth their time with little trouble.

Just dump them in a big pile and let people pick through the rubble looking for something decent like Philipino street children.

:shrug: it's your site

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalJust dump them in a big pile and let people pick through the rubble looking for something decent like Philipino street children.

Yep.  If they stay on the same page for more than 20 seconds the page should move to a random review.  If folk aren't willing to invest hours into reading the reviews then they're not worthy.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalJust dump them in a big pile and let people pick through the rubble looking for something decent like Philipino street children.

:shrug: it's your site

FYI- fixing the organization is on the list.

I am repeating myself from another thread but I personally like robust rating systems. The body of the review breaks down why the critic came to his conclusions while informing of the product. If a person thinks said products sucks and then backs it, I won't fault them. Likewise if a reviewer is showering a product with praise with no (or very little) critical explanation, I assume bias on the critic's end.

And why a robust rating scale? 2 reasons:

1. If we are rounding up "3 out of 5" could mean anything from a 41% approval to a 60% approval. A good 3/5 is above average and a bad 3/5 is below average. Or it's just average. That's quite a difference of a critique for the same rating.

2. A game could be weak in certain areas yet absolutely shine in other areas. Joe Q Consumer might not care for art direction and fiction but wants tight rules with little need to houserule. Jane Q Consumer is only interested in an indepth and cohesive setting and could forgive weak mechanics(She likes to house rule). A reviewer can break this down with a robust and multiple rating scale. A single review scale would not immediately point this out.