Slashdot Mirror
Gaming Netflix Ratings?
Nom du Keyboard writes "Not for the first time, I've noticed a new film that hasn't yet even reached the theaters, yet has hundreds of positive votes and/or reviews recorded on Netflix. This time the movie is Inkheart. For a movie that doesn't even hit the theaters until January 23, it already has 428 votes and a rating of 4.3 (out of 5) on Netflix. Seems more than a bit fraudulent to me. Also, it has a review that doesn't even review the movie, but instead says the books are great, therefore the movie should be too. Does the word 'shills' come to mind? With millions spent to promote a movie, are a few hundred of that going to phony voters? Or have that many people actually seen the film and just can't wait to rush home and log onto Netflix to vote? Just what is Netflix's responsibility here to provide honest ratings?"
... or usenet or wherever todays kids get their moviez from...
Ebay used to be a decent place to get deals, then a few years ago the scammers found out they can fake feedback, and you ended up with 2000+ "transaction" power-sellers who will take your money and run faster than the nigerian prince.
Leave any negative feed back and it's "i've pleased all these guys, there's always one troll to screw it up"
If you browse around a while on sites like ebay and amazon you'll notice the patterns these people have, the same people giving feedback to each other, it's disgusting really, but any peer contributed system is subject to gaming via astroturfing.
Just see the net neutrality debate, or swiftboat.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
... like just about everything in life, from Amazon.com to Slashdot, caveat emptor.
What is Slashdot's responsibility to provide honest moderation?
Both are just aggregates of random people who bothered to comment, and don't pretend to be anything more. If you want a "professional" movie rating, look at the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, where currently the Tomatometer for Inkheart is at 63%, based on 19 reviews.
Remember, however, that Netflix doesn't show you the rating of a movie; it shows you its best estimate of how well you will like the movie. And does a pretty good job of it, too, once you've rated a few hundred films. So there are a few problems with your reasoning, in addition to the painfully obvious "it's already been released elsewhere" point covered in previous comments:
- Is it even possible to make a shell account? Last I checked, you have to be logged in to rate anything on Netflix. And being logged in means you're a paying customer. I can't imagine paying $5 or whatever per single vote being cost effective, even at the cheapest service tier. Maybe there's a way if you abuse the free trial system, but that still strikes me as an awful lot of work.
- Say, for the sake of argument, that these ARE shill accounts. They signed up somehow, rated that one movie, and never did anything again. If they haven't rated any other movies on your list, Netflix's algorithm will have nothing to link it to your preferences. I.e. it won't affect the rating you see in the slightest.
- Let's even examine what happens if it's a multi-movie shill, perhaps kept up to vote highly for every movie released by a particular company. Again, the ranking system will almost certainly end up filtering out the result: unless you also happen to have given high scores to everything else that company has released, it's not likely to matter much in the final star value.
- Assuming that you're looking at the unweighted score - an inadvisable decision, given that the remarkably astute ranking system is the best part of Netflix - you have to account for the long-term balancing effects of opinionated Internet voters. See, for example, IMDB, where new movies often peak onto the top 250 only to be struck down by Godfather/Shawshank/etc. fans. If someone only sort of likes a movie that's unrated, they might give it a 3, whereas showing up to see it rated 5 is going to result in a 1 and possible an irate comment. The flock will detect the wolf in their midst soon enough and crush it.
- Who the fuck uses Netflix to get ratings for unreleased movies?
On a tangentially related note, I first read that title and thought we were going to see a Netflix-like weighted rating system for games. I'd kill for a way to heavily weight lovers of Dwarf Fortress while throwing out comments from Halo junkies when deciding what to play next.
Piratebay services also the U.S.
If the movie is out somewhere, there is a torrent of it.
Getting a link to a movie on Slashdot. How much did they pay you for that?
Seriously, even if the movie hadn't been released anywhere, there are still plenty of opportunities to see it. Producers hold previews all the time, and it wouldn't surprise me if they modernized things by encouraging those previewers to post their comments right at the theatre lobby.
This happens on Amazon.Com quite often, with products that are not yet released. Do I consider it fraud? Not necessarily. Once the masses weigh in, the law of averages will too.
-David
it's the date thing mate it said 4/12 on the American box, so they though April... that's all, they don't know we write our days and months backwards!
I teach 5th grade, and many of my students have read and enjoyed these books. I'll bet most of the reviews are kids who liked the books, and don't really think or care yet about whether the book does justice to the movie, if the movie is any good, if Slashdotters think that their rating is fair. They're ten... and they know how to use a mouse.
And really, do you take any kind of online polling seriously?
Then again, should we really be surprised to see this happen, with interviews for upcoming releases taking the form of "this will be the greatest thing EVER!" for absolutely any game or movie that comes out, especially those that turn out to be complete garbage? Don't believe the hype machine, folks, is what I'm saying.
...that everything on a retailer's site is advertsing? Is it that hard to find sites that rate stuff but don't sell it?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Not only this, but consider the various fanboys. Some people may like Brendon Frasier enough that they think any movie with him is great, so they vote. People - like the OP mentioned - might like the book so much, they vote the movie positive without having seen it. It's idiotic, but so are people often times.
The GP didn't say liking things is idiotic, he said that voting on a movie before actually seeing it is idiotic, regardless of whether you're familiar with the underlying story.
And yes, voting based on invalid data is stupid. Well, stupid or deceitful, but people are generally more in the former category.
Case in point: Catwoman. Anyone who would "pre-rate" this movie 5 stars because they're fans of the Batman universe and love Halle Berry is categorically stupid.