Forum - View topicUser rating: Worst ever
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G. Zeus
 Posts: 26 |
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Anybody who lives in a free country would know that despite its advantages, democracy can sometimes be a b*tch. Anybody and everybody can and will share his/her 2 cents, and ironically, not all are of equal worth. Some people truly exercise their right to vote in a responsible manner but there are also those who simply go with the flow, pick whichever is popular, or make decisions based on impulses.
While going through the top 10 lists of anime and manga, I noticed that there will always be, without fail, a small percentage of people who rate some series as "worst ever". I often try to ignore the slim bars at the bottom but they really stick out like sore thumbs. In some cases, it seems rather sacrilegious, like wiping one's nose dirt on the Mona Lisa or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I am aware that no single person or action will be able to please everybody. But just take a look at some of a few cases: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (8 "worst ever" ratings out of 153 total), Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal (76/2186 ratings), Monster (12/314 ratings), Death Note (113/2476), Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (185/3549), etc, etc. In fact, (for the given examples) there are even more people choosing the lowest rating than people who gave the next 6 ratings ("awful", "bad", "weak", "not really good", "so-so", and "decent") combined. The purpose of this thread then is to point out the most probable reasons why some people would choose to give the "worst ever" rating even when (or should I say, especially when) they seem to contradict the opinions of the majority. Why not pick any of the 6 higher ratings instead? Are these people trying to go against the flow by pointing out that the emperor is naked? Or are they simply doing it out of spite like rabid fans trying to boost the popularity of their favorites by putting down other titles? Or are these really honest opinions, perhaps partly due to the lack of comprehension skills or maturity to appreciate these works of art? As an extension, how should one give a proper rating or review? Should we consider only our own satisfaction or should we try to judge from a neutral standpoint, remembering that there are different audiences for different works? Should there be an arbitrary point of view? Remove bias or "celebrate" it? 
Discuss. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18480 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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This should probably actually be in the Anime forum.
This comes up for discussion every few months, usually in conjunction with a popular title that is a consensus "quality" title suddenly being loaded up with negative ratings. The main thing it usually comes down to is just doing what my students would call "hating" on a title: for one reason or another a title that most everyone said was really, really good doesn't work for a particular viewer, so that viewer just arbitrarily gives it a worst possible rating to show their displeasure. In most cases such individuals can't or won't justify their rating, they're just acting on emotion. There have also, unfortunately, been a few cases of users trying to manipulate standings by pumping other titles up with "worst ever" ratings just to drag their average rating scores down. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6902 Location: Kazune City |
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Lee1981
Posts: 109 |
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I would say that you should rate and review anime titles based on your opinion of the anime and whether or not you enjoyed it and if you did enjoy it, how much you enjoyed it. I thought that was the whole purpose of ratings. I've never rated anything on this site as of yet but if I did, I would rate it based on what I thought of the anime with no regard to how other people rate the anime. For example, while everyone else loves Cowboy Bebop, I didn't really like it very much and if I were to rate it, I would probably rate it pretty poorly because my opinion of it is rather low. I did like about five or six episodes of it and a few others episodes I thought were okay, but overall I didn't think the series was all that great. And Neon Genesis Evangelion, while I like the series, I don't think it's this perfect masterpiece that everyone else makes it out to be and if I were to vote on that series, I'd probably give it an average to somewhat above average rating. Does that mean that people who rate those series are inflating the ratings of said series more so than they should be. Perhaps, or maybe the people who rate those series highly truly think that such series are worthy of the high ratings.
I'm sure that some people do vote something as the worst for the sake of manipulating the polls. But considering there are probably thousands of people who vote on these polls, one person voting something as the worst, whether he/she truly felt that the anime was truely that horrible or if they just wanted to bring the rating down probably wouldn't affect the overall rating of the anime all that much. And maybe other people who vote that way truly feel that despite how popular the anime is, it truly is a putrid, highly overrated pile of steaming crap. Its not a right or wrong assessment of the quality of the series; its an opinion weighed in against ten thousand other opinions. Whether or not an anime is any good or not is completely subjective; there's no way to be objective about it. Positive or negative, its a biased opinion. And no matter how popular an anime becomes, not every single person who watches it is going to enjoy it. And yeah, some people, whether their opinions are good or bad regarding a series, are naturally going to be extreme about it, saying that this series is perfect, the best anime series ever, or completely horrible and the worst anime series ever created. Or they might be more moderate about their opinions. In either case, its an anonymous online poll so it's something you should take with a grain of salt anyway because its not going to be a 100% accurate and reliable representation of the overall consensus people have regarding any anime series. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Well I personally reserve the very low and very high rating levels here for those that I think really deserve it. Anything I'd rate "Worst Ever" which I think is probabally only one or two titles is horribly bad and completely unwatchable for me. It's only a few because usually a show has at least one facet to keep me entertained.
I do have a lot more masterpiece ratings comparitively though, which I give based on two factors. The first is whether or not the show just clicks with me and I have a really good time watching it and the second is whether that show also was produced well and had all it's technical elements in order, storyline, characters, animation, music, that sort of stuff. Only the presence of both togather would earn it a "Masterpiece" rating only one and and it would just be "Excellent", or "Very Good", if it was just adequate but not really especially outstanding it would be rated "Good" or Decent", and so forth down the rating scale. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Another rating reasons thread. Yay
I just went through my ratings and discovered that I don't have any "worst ever," but that's also likely because I don't like to rate anything that I haven't seen entirely (or at least half) and something that I thought was the worst ever is something I wouldn't watch more than one episode of. But I do understand the need to counteract people going on and on about how great something is if you think it wasn't so good. To go with your example of Haruhi, I couldn't get through one episode. And yes, I know the first episode was supposed to be a joke, but that fact just turns me off the series even more. But since I only watched about ten minutes of the series, I wouldn't rate it. |
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SharinganEye
 Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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The problem with this rating system is the terminology of the system itself:
Masterpiece Excellent Very good Good Decent So-so Not really good Weak Bad Awful Worst ever They correspond to 0 through 10 on such a scale, but with subjective descriptors like "so-so" and "weak" there isn't really a clear cut line. One descriptor from another isn't really that distinct, and decent can mean "pretty good" for one person while for another mean "meh." I have maybe 2 shows tops out of the hundreds of titles I've seen that I'd really, honestly give a Worst Ever rating to. And a handful that I can count using my fingers a Masterpiece rating. But I have manga like Bleach with a Masterpiece rating because I really like it. As far as shonen series go, it has a lot of style and it does a lot of things well. I wouldn't consider it a literary masterpiece, but I gave it that rating because I feel it should deserve a worthy rating, or a "top bar" status. Series are divided into 3 categories: Good, meh, and bad. There doesn't seem to be just "average" anymore, and anything less than a suggested "Excellent" is not a good series is a commonly found mindset. But the problem with using a number scale is that it quantifies certain aspects of shows that can't really be quantified and judges shows based on a mean of all its parts lumped together. It also doesn't take into account the many variables and the ups and downs of series during their lifespan, though the descriptor rating now also has that problem. Series I'd give a 10 out of 10 would be excellent series, but a "perfect score" does not equate a perfect series, not for any medium. I'd give Shadow of the Colossus at least a 9, but on what grounds is that 9 comparable to? Because I'd also give Resident Evil 4 at least a 9, both are excellent games, but of wholly different styles and genres. I also hate Wander, but I love the atmosphere and mood of the world that he's in. The Naruto manga is a roller coaster ride for that matter. At best, a popular vote rating system just serves as a guide to the feelings of the general consensus. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Maybe we could remove those terminologies (but leave descriptions in place) so people would concentrate more on numbers alone. Thoughts? |
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jetz
 Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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I don't have any "worst ever" ratings either. The lowest rating I ever gave was "bad", but that's probably because I haven't seen anything that qualifies as "worst ever". In fact, I think it's impossible to say that something is the worst ever because that would mean that you've seen all the anime this world can offer - and I don't think anyone has accomplished that. Although in the end, it's still up to preference and taste. Maybe there should be a new rating system, with more clear cut terminology. Here's what I think: you have to rate a series by its story, characters, voice acting, art/animation and music, and for each category there's a scale of 1 to 10. then you get the average of all the ratings per category, then the average will be your over all rating. |
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Brand
 Posts: 1029 |
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But all of that is very subjective also. A lot of people might hate the art style for a show, while others love it. I think it just ends up being more work that way. I don't have any worst ever either, I have rated some as awful because I felt they were just awful. The worst ever does seem like a rating where it's the end all be all of knowing anime to use it. I just think some people put more emotion in to there votes then others and they maybe more tempted to vote on the extreme ends of the poll. I think over all that the rating system that is in place does a good job on giving you an idea of what is at least good and what is bad. Last edited by Brand on Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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It's not going to stop people some of the bigger problems with how people things (i.e. voting against something because its popular or vote spaming), but it probably wouldn't hurt and could potentially help some of the lesser problems (what ShringanEye mentioned). Sadly, it won't help people realize that they don't have to despise something just because its popular and doesn't particularly appeal to them. |
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SharinganEye
Posts: 402 Location: Les Etats-Unis d'Amérique |
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The main problem with any ratings system is in its range and its criteria for each division within the system. Since our system is popular vote, and technically based on a 0-10 scale, we'll still have bias with people taking the score 10 at face value as "perfect." One of my main hangouts is GameSpot, and they had a review system based on a XX.X scale, meaning scores like 2.6 and 9.4. The score would be an overall one with 5 subsections getting its own rating (1 through 10 by increments of 1), but unlike AnimeNfo, the final score was not an average of all its parts. They also had a gamer's rating subdivided into a popular vote rating and a gamers' review rating, also with a critic's rating. It's all complex and unnecessary for ANN, but back when the system was XX.X (now it's based on a half-point scale going by 0.5 score values) there'd be piss contests in "System Wars" about what upcoming games would get 9.0 and up, which would be AAA, 8.0 to 8.9 would be AA and anything below would be considered crap. I'm afraid this is what I might see happening based on a sole number scale because those gamers didn't pay attention to the descriptors where it was especially ambiguous on a XX.X scale, and still ambiguous on a half-point scale. All they cared about was "lolz teh flop!!11!!!" based on the margin of 9.0 deciding the nature of a "REALLY good game." Numbers were all they saw. Even the more rational ones generally considered 7.0 to be the final edge for a title. But a half-point scale up to 5 is not specific enough either. The bar graph system we have now shows everyone's votes and gives a general, visual spread of people's thoughts. I like it. But if the descriptors could somehow be changed it would be great. However, everything below 7 would start sounding very derivative of each other IMO. 
Like this: 6.0-6.5: Fair - Games that earn 6-range ratings have certain good qualities but significant problems as well. These games may well be worth playing, but you should approach them with caution. 5.0-5.5: Mediocre - A 5-range score refers to a game that's "merely average" in the negative sense. These games tend to have enough major weaknesses to considerably outweigh their strengths. There's probably a substantially better, similar game out there for you. |
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varmintx
 Posts: 1236 Location: Covington, KY |
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I try to be as objective as possible when rating, though what I consider to be quality is typically what I happen to like. Many series have benefited from me feeling they're of high quality, but just didn't click with me while only two have gotten a lower rating then their "entertainment value." Another thing skewing my ratings to the positive is that I don't rate shows unless I finish them, and I don't finish a lot of shows. The only exception to this is the only show to get a "worst ever" from me: Eiken. Though honestly, after reading the thread for it, I probably should remove the rating. |
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Kruszer
Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Looking at my anime I gave two "Worst Ever" ratings, Ninja Resurrection and the X movie, both of which I found pretty lacking in the all the things I'd consider qualities of good entertainment.
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ElementSun
Posts: 106 |
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I personally like Rotten Tomatoes system of rating, where there are only two options: Good or Rotten.
That way, 1 vote won't have a huge impact on a 10 point rating system. If you look at Rotten Tomatoes, even extraordinary movies with a 95%+ approval rating only have a point rating of 9/10 at the most. It kind of shows the flaws of the 10 point system. |
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