Comments on The Official Netflix Blog: In the Works

what about linking to the amateur video sites that...

2008-02-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

what about linking to the amateur video sites that link back to you e.g. YouTube or Justexpressing.com ? People looking at these videos would be tempted to rent from you

Is there way to create a list of movies by themes ...

2007-10-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

Is there way to create a list of movies by themes and then let others add their favorites or leave comments?

pdNewJersey

link to stories sites who link to you. You can po...

2007-10-02T20:29:00.000-07:00

link to stories sites who link to you. You can post summaries of your movies on, with your name, e.g., justexpressing.com and then readers will come to your site to rent - story reinforces movie and vice versa making it a much fuller experience.

Thanks. :)

2007-09-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks. :)

To see your lists as other people see them, go to ...

2007-09-28T01:07:00.000-07:00

To see your lists as other people see them, go to your list page and delete "&myprofile=y" from the url.

Is there a way, or will there be, to see my lists ...

2007-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Is there a way, or will there be, to see my lists as others see them? Will we be able to add our own text with each movie like we used to? (I’m pretty darn sure I used to be able to do that… ? )

Becky

It's been over a week since my reviews posted to "...

2007-09-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since my reviews posted to "My Reviews"...they're on the At-a-Glance pages but not grouped with the rest of my reviews. Off-topic, I know, but I'm just sayin'...

Thanks!

2007-09-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

Thanks!

I could put a permanent link on the sidenavVery co...

2007-09-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

I could put a permanent link on the sidenav

Very cool and very easy to find! But now you're going to be inundated with questions, I'm sure. Hopefully, they won't all be about missing or scratched DVDs. :)

Mom? Is that you?No... seriously, how do i keep a ...

2007-09-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

Mom? Is that you?

No... seriously, how do i keep a posting in a fixed position here? I'd be fine with it in the #3 spot give or take. I could put a permanent link on the sidenav -- i suppose that might work... let me experiment...

Please forgive one more digression, but it might s...

2007-09-25T22:55:00.000-07:00

Please forgive one more digression, but it might save too many more : Is "Ask Mike" still viable? If not, I'd totally understand with all that's going on, but if so, can it have permanent berth on the front page - say in slot #3 - so we don't keep messing up all these other threads?

Posters vs. Lists? : Posters (duh!)

One person one vote : Fabulous!

Multiple ways to organize reviews : Brilliant!

Michael Rubin : Fabulously brilliant!

Michael,Sounds real nice. I really didn’t expect y...

2007-09-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Michael,

Sounds real nice. I really didn’t expect you to be that ambitious with the sorting thing, that would be a real bonus if you guys can swing it. Real exciting…

Becky :)

Thanks, Michael. Sounds peachy. I look forward to ...

2007-09-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Michael. Sounds peachy. I look forward to the eventual addition of review sorting options!

I'd maybe have disabled a self-vote altogether as ...

2007-09-25T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'd maybe have disabled a self-vote altogether as some sites do, but this sounds both fair and practical. Of course the 'bad me' would have rather enjoyed seeing the number of times a person tried to vote for themselves show up on their profile, plus a 1,000 rank demotion per incident. But the 'good me' says "Time to move on, jerk". Thanks, as always, for being on the case, Michael.

We are not going back and zortching all the old vo...

2007-09-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

We are not going back and zortching all the old votes

Bummer. Gonna be some heavy gaming this week.

let em click away thinking they are making a difference.

Heh.

you should probably be able to sort on any number of variables

Cool.

No, we aren't planning on punishing those in the past who have abused this.

I wasn't suggesting punishing past abusers, just people who abuse the new system.

We can see who does what there, so while we won't do anything right away, if it looks like a problem, we'll be on it.

Fair enough.

So this is simple and clean and in effect this wee...

2007-09-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

So this is simple and clean and in effect this weekend: one member, one vote per review. Same with Flags. We are not going back and zortching all the old votes... and yes, some of them are likely gamed a bit... but going forward, you can only vote once. There won't be any messaging right away (ie "you have already voted for this review") but as you guys said, let em click away thinking they are making a difference.

As for changing the sorting of reviews, that is on the table now and we are working on a number of items that relate to this, so it won't happen immediately - but it is a good idea (i like sorting by Sim%, but you should probably be able to sort on any number of variables).

And finally, punishing the guilty. No, we aren't planning on punishing those in the past who have abused this. I sort of hope that with the increased difficulty (i'd never say impossibility) of gaming the votes, it will happen very rarely, certainly moreso than now. Punishing those who abuse the FLAGGING system, however, is a different matter. We can see who does what there, so while we won't do anything right away, if it looks like a problem, we'll be on it.

S'cool?

Yeah, I suppose that pointer is a bit of gaming. ...

2007-09-25T16:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I suppose that pointer is a bit of gaming. When I wrote it though, I was thinking more of icons that would suggest the person's favorite genre.

Yes, was just being defensive. Many of your sugges...

2007-09-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, was just being defensive. Many of your suggestions were very good - maybe it was just the (to unfairly paraphrase) "post a real cute pic of yourself" that I found a bit manipulative and off-topic (not unlike this whole thread, sorry Michael). No saints OR sinners here, I think. Just a bunch of people interested in making the site as good as we can possibly help make it.

@Becky I- did write a couple reviews on Saturday,...

2007-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

@Becky I- did write a couple reviews on Saturday, but they haven't shown up yet (or maybe you see them and I don't). I may get more into writing reviews once the new system is in, dunno.

@Pete - I'm not saying you (or anyone else in this thread) are a bad guy. All my reviews got 2 more positives today (I don't know from who). Almost certainly from people on here. Hopefully because they liked the reviews. I was simply requesting that people don't spend the rest of the week voting on my reviews just for kicks.

If everyone were to follow my pointers on how to increase their influence/rank, there would be a ton more aptly named lists and spoiler free reviews. Thats not gaming the system, thats using it how its meant to be used.

Thanks AngelMonkey! Suddenly I was the bad guy, ha...

2007-09-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks AngelMonkey! Suddenly I was the bad guy, having never consciously 'gamed' one solitary vote in over 4 years! And St. Baff, maybe ease up on that wagging finger of yours. You were happy enough giving pointers as to how people can boost their influence beyond just having good reviews and interesting 5 star movies, which to me is a form of gaming - so we all have our own different lines that we're uncomfortable crossing, don't we?

Becky said - "I’ve only voted, either way, on revi...

2007-09-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

Becky said - "I’ve only voted, either way, on reviews for thing’s I’ve seen."

This is so interesting, because is shows how different even our interpretations of helpful / unhelpful can be. Here's an extract from the FAQ explanation that Michael recently posted :

'....It asks whether or not you found the posted review to be helpful for your making a decision about whether or not to add that movie to your queue'.

So it's really not necessary to have seen a movie, fair and honorable as I think your intentions are.

@pete and baff - Oh, no. I wasn't encouraging gami...

2007-09-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

@pete and baff - Oh, no. I wasn't encouraging gaming either. I assumed Pete would only give me Helpful votes if he actually thought my reviews were helpful, go figure. It didn't even occur to me that he would give me multiple votes just for the purpose of doing so. But apparently it didn't occur to him either, so that's good. :)

It’s distressing but understandable why so many of...

2007-09-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

It’s distressing but understandable why so many of you aren’t writing more reviews Distressing, especially since you guys are so smart and funny, even when I don’t always agree with you. I hope this fix works sufficiently, or if not that it’s still going to be top on the list for man-hours, because once it is fixed I have a really, REALLY good feeling about the results.

I even hope that this new access will help correct the past over time, assuming the clean-slate option isn’t employed ofc.

The problems with using sims to order member reviews are pretty significant, as Eric pointed out very well, thus probably don’t meat the threshold for benefit over cost to develop. I don’t really know…

But what about adding to, or replacing, ‘Most Recent’ with random reviews from the other pages? In a way it’s not exactly fair that on less-reviewed movies ‘Most Recent’ can remain for months and perhaps years. Some of my first reviews from approaching a year ago were still listed most recent until I deleted them. Doesn’t seem fair to the reviews stuck below the first page. (Stay there long enough and when I’m finally knocked off I could conceivably jump right to the top of the list.) There would be no loss in quality for that section because after all, ‘most recent’ doesn’t even attempt to consider ‘quality’ anyway. Also… now that more people will be collecting fans, and thus a reason to keep writing, the reviews will start coming in faster. Perhaps especially for unusual, independent and classic movies that seem to be rather neglected by reviewers so far. So it will probably be even less likely that you or anyone will be able to catch your ‘most recent’ review as it flashes by that first page anyway.

Becky

PS: Baff, I’ve only voted, either way, on reviews for thing’s I’ve seen. But I haven’t seen any of your reviewed yet. :( We share quite a lot of top five’s you know… going to write more reviews? I’ll be watching one of those you got there right now, but not for awhile yet… Anyway… I’m watching, and ready whenever you are. ;)

well, I certainly won't be one of them, I promise ...

2007-09-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

well, I certainly won't be one of them, I promise you that. I feel no less strongly about this issue than you, and am sorry to have been so flip about it earlier. It just seemed ridiculous that someone as smart and articulate as AngelMonkey should be feel driven out of the process because of the way that it's been set up, so was just trying to encourage her so get back in there - and would NOT have voted helpful for any 'scratched disc (etc.)' reviews. But my timing and tone were both lousy. I'd be totally in favor of sever penalties - including termination of contract - for anyone that tries to mess with the voting once it's been updated at the weekend.

Posting a link to my page does not deny my right t...

2007-09-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Posting a link to my page does not deny my right to ask people not to game my reviews. I can't stop it, but I can ask.

People are welcome to read my reviews and mark them helpful/unhelpful as they think they deserve. But, I will not encourage people to blindly vote on my reviews either way. (Not that I am claiming sainthood)

I'm really getting the feeling that a bunch of people are already planning to ruin the new system as quickly as they can. Thats sad. I really hope Netflix takes a heavy hand on the abusers, its the only way this system will ever become useful.