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?"
CUPERTINO, California (NNN) - Steve Jobs, the polymath CEO and star evangelist of Apple Computer, Inc., publically announced a medical leave of absence from the company, but in private promised "the best AIDS death ever" from the affliction no one will publically recognize he has.
As HIV-positive test results leaked onto the web from the last five years of Jobs' fight for health and secrecy, former lovers raced to the clinics on Segways looking for solace. Unflappable as always, Jobs vowed to make the best of the situation.
"There's AIDS deaths, and then there's AIDS deaths," Jobs said in his strident baritone with a slightly ironic lisp. "As with all Apple products, my demise from pneumonia brought on by full-blown AIDS will be poignant, witty, ironic, aesthetically pleasing and have an interface that breaks new ground for the industry."
Turning to a reporter he said, "That's off the record. Officially, my hormones are unbalanced because I did not care enough about Darfur." On the news of Jobs' leave, Apple stock plunged $7.38 as people feared the cool had left their Macs, but then rebounded by almost four points once rumors of HIV-death leaked.
"If Christ were to die today, he'd die of AIDS," said Jared Hvitles, who has owned four Macs, three iPods, an iPhone and a Steve Jobs Picking Up a Quarter blow-up doll. "He's going out like he's lived, as a Christ for the new millenium -- with a better interface."
About ANUS:
The American Nihilist Underground Society advocates nihilism, or a removal of interpretive layers from our perception of physical reality, as a means of transcending illusion. Nihilism denies value and purpose, which are byproducts of the human desire to judge reality and make a consensual "social reality" that by seizing on a single material factor misses the intelligible, or design-based, knowledge we need to adapt to reality. ANUS has been promoting nihilism since 1987.
http://www.anus.com/
About Nihilism:
Nihilism is the belief that nothing we perceive has Absolute value; reality exists, but beyond its inherent meaning to us as the physical container of our existence, it has no significance outside of what we perceive. "The world is my representation," indeed. When we strip away all of the values projected onto physical reality and its outcomes, we are left only with personal ideal and natural ideal, and bringing the former into adaptation with the latter is the lifetime task to which nihilism is a gateway.
http://www.nihil.org/
Copyright © 1988-2009 mock Him productions
about niggers, but also about flamebaits.
But it isn't rare for there to be advanced screenings of a movie a week or two in advance of the public release date.
I wonder if we'll ever see movie cinemas with terminals or similar at them that let you rate a movie as you walk out after seeing it.
Maybe not released yet in the US, but there is a world beyond the US borders and the film has been released places there. It's actually quite a good film based on an interesting idea.
Wait. I must be lying because it isn't released yet... Or... Perhaps the world extends beyond American borders. What, Americans make up only 5% of the world population? (10% by body mass)
Deleted
kdawson is a drama queen.
Release:
Germany 11 December 2008
UK 12 December 2008
Brazil 25 December 2008
Iceland 26 December 2008
This happens everywhere. Why, even this very comment was modded to +2 before I even made it. You can't trust anyone these days.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
It's a North America based company, thus it should not allow voting until the film is out in North America. In a way Netflix is to blame for encouraging this by NOT blocking early reviews.
Granted people may get sneak peaks and such, but even then I think reviewing should be disabled until the official date hits theaters. It still won't stop people being paid to write reviews and people who have not actually seen the film to inject bias (post-release), but at least they will be diluted with genuine reviews at the time of release.
From IMDB:
Country - Date
Germany - 11 December 2008
UK - 12 December 2008
Brazil - 25 December 2008
Iceland - 26 December 2008
... 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.
As the MPAA often cites as one of their primary enemies, many movies get posted to P2P networks a noticeable amount of time before the official theater release. Then again, I wouldn't expect to that large an overlapping of frequent movie pirates and heavy Netflix users.
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.
a world beyond the border of your mind (or at least, your country):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0494238/releaseinfo
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Check out over two thirds of the listings on any 'odd jobs' website.
This sort of work under the name "writing" makes up the majority of what gets advertised.
Between those and the "Copy a Website in its Entirety" jobs there's barely any room left for the "scan and send magazines on the night they're released" work.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
You don't have to be a Shil to post reviews before the movie is out, you just have to be a fanboy. The 'I read the books' comment is definitely by a fanboy.
I used to see a lot of this crap on EBGames.com before they got smart and disabled reviews before the games came out. Now it's called 'Preview Buzz'. You see the exact same comments, but they don't get to provide a rating.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I have to wait till the DVD gets out as I didnt find the time to watch while the movie WAS out at the cinemas.
bickerdyke
Wait. I must be lying because it isn't released yet... Or... Perhaps the world extends beyond American borders. What, Americans make up only 5% of the world population? (10% by body mass)
But how many libraries of congress is that 10% mass you got there?
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and your father
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Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characterso
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Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characterso
Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characterso
Who's idea was it to post something this dumb?
It's funny that I had only recently been thinking and praying about these queerest of computers. It certainly is true that Apple computers are very popular amongst the homosexual communities, the fact that these computers are so popular indicates the depths to which our great nation has sunk to.
The Apple corporation logo is naturally an apple with a bite taken out of it. Is it not a coincidence that Eve tempted Adam with an Apple? The apple is a symbol of defiance against God, and was an obvious choice for a company whose primary objectives include the liberalisation of all media, and which activly finances the political party that hates God.
When I first saw an apple computer (called a Mac, after the popular fast food product) with it's "fruity" design, I had assumed that it was some kind of obsolete product aimed at latte sipping east-coast homosexual designers. This initial observation turned out to be only half true:
The apple computers are not as obsolete as their gaudy designs suggest - the Apple computer company, based in that Sodomite Central, Cupertino CA, have invested a great deal of money in keeping up with more mainstream American PC brands like Dell or IBM, however rather than compete on computing power, practicality or ease of use the Apple company prefer to emphasize "eye-candy". If you are the sort of person who loves nothing more than gazing for hours at an aquarium full of brightly colored fish, then the feeling of using an Apple desktop will be most familiar.
Note the oddly-shaped apple-mouse. Unike modern computer mice, the Apple product has only one button. This is because historically Apple computer failed to license the patent for including buttons on mice. Since most apple computers are used as children's toys, their homosexual owners have barely noticed this deficiency, they are too busy thinking about sodomy worry about their computer's obvious deficiencies.
Windows appear to swim around, distorting and melding into the "dock", with almost psychedellic fluidity. Parts of the desktop become inexplicably transparant, and then return to normal or else swirl into oblivion. Control over windows is achived not through familiar buttons (like Window's "X"), but candy colored blobs, which are designed to remind the user of "Extasy" tablets. I suspect that the Apple design team must have been doing more drugs than the average touring funk-band.
The Apple OSX platform is missing a large number of common and esential productivity tools commonly used on the Windows platform. For example the endearing BonziBuddy can only be found on Windows, and therefore will only run on a Mac that has been upgraded to Boot-Camp and Windows. I suspect that this is exactly what most Mac-owners will feel forced to do.
Naturally, the big question is, does the "alternative lifestyle" approach to computer design really pay-off for the people who count: The Users?
I think the answer is no. Having used computers all my life, I consider myself an expert in the day to day tasks of computing. The Microsoft Windows operating system makes installing, uninstalling, defragmenting, and removal of viruses and spyware trivially easy. It's a shame that the Apple company (who unbelievably are much praised for their interface design) had not thought to make these everyday tasks simpler.
As I have pointed out on a number of occasions both Linux and AppleMac fail to unclude a disk-defragmentor, a personal firewall, a standard method for installing or removing software or even a system repair utility. Microsoft introduced all of this in their epoch-making "Windows Me" edition. Linux users have had to get used to the lack of these essential productivity tools, however Linux is universally acknowledged as a cheap immitation of Windows. Mac on the other-hand is marketed as a full-price premium product.
Apple computers come preloaded with iTunes which only works with Apple's oddly-coloured iPod. The Apple Mac cannot run the more popular "Windows Media Player", and is therefore incompatib
but you can't take the jungle out of a nigger!
Pittsburgh police detectives are trying to identify a man who sexually
assaulted two women this week in Shadyside and Hazelwood by crawling
through open windows.
The rapist assaulted the first woman in the early morning hours
Wednesday and the second Thursday morning.
"I understand its been hot and humid and people leave their windows
open, but people need to make sure they do so in a way so that someone
can't gain entry to their house," Pittsburgh police Deputy Chief Earl
Woodyard said.
Police described the suspect as a thin black man in his 20s, between
5-foot-7 and 6 feet tall. He had braided hair and wore a do-rag, police
said.
In the first assault, he crawled through an open, first-floor window of
an apartment building in the 6300 block of Fifth Avenue in Shadyside
between 1:15 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. The woman living there was sleeping and
heard a noise but didn't get up to investigate. He entered the woman's
bedroom and sexually assaulted her before leaving through the front
door, Woodyard said.
About 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, a woman living in a multi-unit home in the
700 block of Hazelwood Avenue in Hazelwood awoke to find a man in her
bedroom. The man, who fit the description of the Shadyside attacker,
held a do rag over his face as he sexually assaulted the woman, Woodyard
said. The suspect had crawled through an open window.
When the suspect left the Hazelwood victim's apartment, she saw him
drive away in a tan, newermodel sedan. That victim told police her
attacker smelled heavily of cologne.
"Because the second victim didn't hear any noises, but awoke to find him
in her bedroom, we don't know how long he was in the apartment,"
Woodyard said. "We also don't know if anything was taken from the
victims during either assault."
In both incidents, the victims screamed once, and the suspect told them
to stop. But both victims screamed again.
Woodyard said the suspect didn't threaten either victim with a weapon.
"It's possible he may get more courageous and strike again since both of
these incidents happened so close together," Woodyard said.
"Particularly since the second assault happened at a time when it's
light outside and people are moving about."
Police are investigating whether the suspect targeted the women in
advance. The first victim is married, but was home alone, and the second
victim lived alone, Woodyard said. Both victims are in their 20s.
Woodyard said investigators are encouraging any other victims or anyone
with information to call city sex crimes detectives at 4123237141.
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
Of Slashdot founder and Head Nullo Rob Malda A.K.A. CmdrTaco!
"CmdrTaco" is a white male with a stocky build and a goatee. He responded to my ad to be interviewed for this article wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather vest. I could see that both of his nipples were pierced with large-gauge silver rings.
Questioner: I hope you won't be offended if I ask you to prove to me that you're a nullo. Just so that my readers will know that this isn't a fake.
CmdrTaco: Sure, no problem. (stands and unbuckles pants and drops them to his ankles, revealing a smooth, shaven crotch with only a thin scar to show where his genitals once were).
Q: Thank you. That's a remarkable sight.
(laughs and pulls pants back up). Most people think so.
Q: What made you decide to become a nullo?
(pauses). Well, it really wasn't entirely my decision.
Q: Excuse me?
The idea wasn't mine. It was my lover's idea.
Q: Please explain what you mean.
Okay, it's a long story. You have to understand my relationship with Hemos before you'll know what happened.
Q: We have plenty of time. Please go on.
Both of us were into the leather lifestyle when we met through a personal ad. Hemos's ad was very specific: he was looking for someone to completely dominate and modify to his pleasure. In other word, a slave.
The ad intrigued me. I had been in a number of B&D scenes and also some S&M, but I found them unsatisfying because they were all temporary. After the fun was over, everybody went on with life as usual.
I was looking for a complete life change. I wanted to meet someone who would be part of my life forever. Someone who would control me and change me at his whim.
Q: In other words, you're a true masochist.
Oh yes, no doubt about that. I've always been totally passive in my sexual relationships.
Anyway, we met and there was instant chemistry. Hemos is about my age and is a complete loser. Our personalities meshed totally. He's very dominant.
I went back to his place after drinks and had the best sex of my life. That's when I knew I was going to be with Hemos for a long, long time.
Q: What sort of things did you two do?
It was very heavy right away. He restrained me and whipped me for quite awhile. He put clamps on my nipples and a ball gag in my mouth. And he hung a ball bag on my sack with some very heavy weights. That bag really bounced around when Hemos fucked me from behind.
Q: Ouch.
(laughs) Yeah, no kidding. At first I didn't think I could take the pain, but Hemos worked me through it and after awhile I was flying. I was sorry when it was over.
Hemos enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he talked about what kind of a commitment I'd have to make if I wanted to stay with him.
Q: What did he say exactly?
Well, besides agreeing to be his slave in every way, I'd have to be ready to be modified. To have my body modified.
Q: Did he explain what he meant by that?
Not specifically, but I got the general idea. I guessed that something like castration might be part of it.
Q: How did that make you feel?
(laughs) I think it would make any guy a little hesitant.
Q: But it didn't stop you from agreeing to Hemos's terms?
No it didn't. I was totally hooked on this man. I knew that I was willing to pay any price to be with him.
Anyway, a few days later I moved in with Hemos. He gave me the rules right away: I'd have to be naked at all times while we were indoors, except for a leather dog collar that I could never take off. I had to keep my balls shaved. And I had to wear a butt plug except when I needed to take a shit or when we were having sex.
I had to sleep on the floor next to his bed. I ate all my food on the floor, too.
The next day he took me to a piercing parlor where he had my nipples done, and a Prince Albert put into the head of my cock.
Q: Heavy stuff.
Yeah, and it got heavier. He used me as a toilet, pissing in my mou
I had thought Netflix was a US only service. 400+ reviews for a film that's only been released overseas seems quite a lot - I guess Governor Palin has reignited the legendary American love of travel and curiosity about foreign countries.
Any theory that does not provide a method to falsify and validate its claims is a useless theory.
Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?
You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon. Therefore we can dismiss the theory of the blue interior of watermelons as being pure speculation and guess work, not science. You can not say something is true without demonstrating how it is not false, and you can not say something is not true without demonstrating how it is false. Any theory that can not explain how to both validate and falsify its claims in this manner can not be taken seriously. If one could demonstrate clearly that the watermelon appears to indeed be blue inside, without being able to demonstrate what colors it is not, we still have no absolute confirmation of its color. That is to say asserting something is the way it is, without being able to assert what it is not, is a useless claim. Therefore, in order for any theory to be confirmed to be true, it must be shown how to both validate and falsify its claims. It is circular reasoning to be able to validate something, without saying how to falsify it, or vice versa. This is the nature of verification and falsification. Both must be clearly demonstrated in order for a theory to be confirmed to be true or false. Something can not be proven to be true without showing that it is not false, and something can not be proven to be not true, unless it can be proven to be false.
Unfortunately, Darwin never properly demonstrated how to falsify his theory, which means evolution has not properly been proven, since it has never been demonstrated what the evidence does not suggest. In the event that evolution is not true, there should be a clear and defined method of reasoning to prove such by demonstrating through evidence that one could not possibly make any alternative conclussions based on said evidence. It is for this reason we must be extremely skeptical of how the evidence has been used to support evolution for lack of proper method of falsification, especially when the actual evidence directly contradicts the theory. If it can be demonstrated how to properly falsify evolution, regardless if evolution is true or not, only then can evolution ever be proven or disproved.
It will now be demonstrated that Darwin never told us how to properly falsify evolution, which will also show why no one can claim to have disproved or proven the theory, until now. It must be able to be demonstrated that if evolution were false, how to go about proving that, and while Darwin indeed made a few statements on this issue, his statements were not adequate or honest. In order to show Darwin's own falsification ideas are inadequate, rather than discussing them and disproving them individually, all that needs to be done is demonstrate a proper falsification argument for evolution theory. That is to say if the following falsification is valid, and can not show evolution to be false, then evolution theory would be proven true by way of deductive reasoning. That is the essence of falsification; if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true.
So the following falsification method must be the perfect counter to Darwin's validation method, and would therefore prove evolution to be true in the event this falsification method can not show evolution to be false. As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true. This would confirm the accuracy of this falsification method, which all theories must have, and show that Darwin did not properly show how evolution could be falsified, in the event that evolution was not true. In order to show evolution is not false (thereby proving it to be true), we must be able to show how it would be false, if it were. Without being able to falsify evolution in this manner, you can not validate it either. If
Inkheart is in the theatres here in Brasil for the last three weeks.
Maybe it just didn't hit the theatres in the OP's city/state/country??
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I gamed the rating of a movie on Netflix, just for kicks. King Kung Fu had a pretty low rating, mostly contributions of 1 star from a number of reviewers. So, to get a feel for the size of the denominator, I had about 6 or 7 friends rate it five star. Sure enough, it was enough to boost it a five tenths of a point.
Is the film any good? I dunno. It's 71 in my queue though.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
If dere iz anyone out dere who still doubts dat America iz uh place where all things iz possible, who still wonders if da dream o' our founders iz alive in our tyme, who still questions da power o' our democracy, tonight iz yo' answer.
It'sda answer told by lines dat stretched around schools an' churches in numbers dis here nation has never seen, by peeps who waited three hours an' four hours, many fo' da first tyme in they lives, cuz dey believed dat dis here tyme mus' be different, dat they voices could be dat difference.
It'sda answer spoken by young an' old, rich an' poor, Democrat an' Republican, black, whitey, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, salad tosser, straight, disabled an' not disabled. Americans who sent uh message ta da world dat we's gots never been just uh collection o' individuals or uh collection o' red states an' blue states.
We iz, an' always will be, da United States o' America.
It'sda answer dat led those who've been told fo' so long by so many ta be cynical an' fearful an' doubtful about what we's can achieve ta put they hands on da arc o' history an' bend it once mo' toward da hope o' uh bettah day. Video Watch Obama'sspeech in its entirety
It'sbeen uh long tyme coming, but tonight, cuz o' what we's did on dis here date in dis here election at dis here defining moment change has come ta America.
A little bit earlier dis here evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious page from Sen. McCain. Sen. McCain fought long an' hard in dis here campaign. And he'sfought even longer an' harder fo' da country dat he loves. He has endured sacrifices fo' America dat most o' us cannot begin ta imagine. We iz bettah off fo' da service rendered by dis here brave an' selfless leader.
I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin fo' all dat they've achieved. And I peep forward ta working wiff dem ta renew dis here nation'spromise in da months ahead.
I wants ta thank muh ma fuckin partner in dis here journey, uh nig who campaigned from his heart, an' spoke fo' da men an' biAtchez he grew up wiff on da streets o' Scranton an' rode wiff on da train home ta Delaware, da vice president-elect o' da United States, Joe Biden.
And I would not be standing here tonight without da unyielding support o' muh ma fuckin bomb nigga fo' da last 16 years da rock o' our family, da love o' muh ma fuckin life, da nation'snext first beotch Michelle Obama.
Sasha an' Malia I love ya both mo' than ya can imagine. And ya gots earned da new puppy dat'scoming wiff us ta da new White House.
And while she'snahh longer wiff us, I know muh ma fuckin grandmother'swatching, along wiff da family dat made me who I be. I miss dem tonight. I know dat muh ma fuckin debt ta dem iz beyond measure.
To muh ma fuckin sister Maya, muh ma fuckin sister Alma, all muh ma fuckin other brothers an' sisters, thank ya so much fo' all da support dat you've given me. I be grateful ta dem.
And ta muh ma fuckin campaign manager, David Plouffe, da unsung hero o' dis here campaign, who built da bomb -- da bomb political campaign, I th'o't, in da history o' da United States o' America.
To muh ma fuckin chief strategist David Axelrod who'sbeen uh partner wiff me every step o' da way.
To da bomb campaign team ever assembled in da history o' politics ya made dis here happen, an' I be forever grateful fo' what you've sacrificed ta git it done.
But above all, I will never forget who dis here victory truly belongs ta. It belongs ta ya. It belongs ta ya.
I wuz never da likeliest candidate fo' dis here office. We didn't start wiff much money or many endorsements. Our campaign wuz not hatched in da halls o' Washington. It began in da backyards o' Des Moines an' da living rooms o' Concord an' da front porches o' Charleston. It wuz built by working men an' biAtchez who dug into what little savings dey had ta give $5 an' $10 an' $20 ta da cause.
It grew strength from da young peeps who rejected da myth o' they generation'sapathy who left they homes an' they families fo'
My preferences are set to filter anyone below 1, but I still see all the garbage that the trolls are working so hard to post.
I don't see why this should be happening now, I used to be able to not see any of it, but with this new interface it seems its impossible to escape reading the first line of the troll posts.
It needs fixing.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
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?
The headline meant netflix style rating for games. I was thinking "yes please". I'm sick of sites that seem to rank on a bell curve 1 through 5 where everything is a 3 (or a 7). Anyone know of any sites that will take your personal rankings (like netflix) and correlate it to others rankings and recommend games? Yes I know this is offtopic.. just trolling for a reccomendation.
Saw it at my local Cineworld. I thought it was a good film, enjoyable, creative and a great villian in Andy Serkis.
I'd say it's certainly worth at least 4 out of 5. Infinately better than bedtime stories (which has a different twist on the same concept). It's been largely been ignored over here though which is a shame. Got almost no marketing.
I don't know how people can ever come to any conclusions. It's cases like this (original post and response) that make me question how anybody can reach any sort of authoritative conclusion. You think you've identified something, and something you never thought of blows it away. Maybe this seems trivial in this case, it's easy for Americans to forget about the rest of the world, or, more likely, not realize how different it is and runs on a different schedule, or realize that something (like Netflix) is global. But it seems to me like this kind of shortsightedness is much more diverse and often more inconspicuous than just forgetting about the rest of the world. Maybe that's an indication that people shouldn't hold conclusions with such authority? It points out a fatal flaw in that statement by Sherlock Holmes, something like, "If you've eliminated all other possibilities, all that remains, however improbable, must be the truth." There's no way to can enumerate all other possibilities, let alone eliminate them. "Oh, well, it didn't occur to me that an indestructible micrometeorite would have been landing at this point in time appearing very much like a bullet permeating this guy's skull! Maybe we shouldn't have executed the convict after all."
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.
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?
Actually, the word "fanboys" comes to mind. For any given fictional franchise, there will inevitably be enough people floating around the Internet who care so much about the movie being good that (in their minds) it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
While fraud may be a problem, I don't think it is. Pre-screeners get a copy of the films just for these sorts of things.
I know for a fact that if you look for it, you can get "Taken," "Defiance," and other movies on the internet in DVD quality over the internet "for free." I am further certain that members film community and/or MPIAA uploaded the movies to drive up viewership at the box office.
For instance, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" sucked, so the "screening" video is not out there. "Gran Torino" was an excellent movie and did well at the box office, and the screening video *is* out there.
My new criteria for seeing a movie in a theater is looking for the screening video on-line. If it is out there, its probably a good movie because someone put it out there.
I remember when "Dark Knight" was at the number 1 spot up against godfather and shawshank
Thankfully someone has fixed that, but it just shows how inaccurate internet polls are.
I see all these bewildered posts about how could there be reviews already when it's not even released, or how obviously it must have been released outside the U.S. and THAT's where the "reviews" must have come from.
Are you people new to this internet thing? Since when did people need to tell the truth? This is nothing new, nor is it even a good example of hype.
Netflix allows reviews and ratings to be posted about a movie basically as soon as it's been added to the public database (that is, when subscribers can put the movie in their queue, even if it's not out yet). Many people take advantage of this ability to spread the word about how they look forward to it, although some of course go a bit overboard and claim to have seen a "test screening" or such. If anyone's listened to two kids do the my-dad-versus-your-dad argument, it quickly escalates into absurdity. And some people never grow up.
The pre-release Netflix hype for the Harry Potter movies, for example, makes this "Inkheart" movie look boring and uninteresting.
So did some of the "reviewers" actually see the movie? Sure they did. But are the others some part of a movie producer conspiracy to artificially hype the movie? Of course not.
It's easy to get a high positive ebay score if you have a legit business that doesn't depend on reputation, like selling LED replacement bulbs for cars or something like that. The penalty for failure is low so people will buy from you anyway, and items are cheap so you have high volume and get a high score. The eBay score doesn't really tell you much on their own if they have 1 negative and 2000 positives, and the negative is for a thousand dollar item, and everything else was a buck, either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I clicked this link hoping there was some correlation between Gaming, and Netflix. Boy was I disappointed with this post.
Why not go by something like Rotten Tomatoes and word of mouth from friends? I've never really placed much stock in reviews on any site that is also "selling" me stuff at the same time, whether it's Netflix, Amazon, even Newegg sometimes.
It's probably crap. Just listen to the people on line at Blockbuster if you doubt this.
But are the others some part of a movie producer conspiracy to artificially hype the movie?
Insufficient evidence, perhaps. But "insufficient evidence" doesn't mean "of course not". There's insufficient evidence either way.
I pay people to leave me comments on Myspace to make it seem like I have friends, does that make me a "Shiller"?
Go on Amazon sometime and look at DVD ratings. People write "this was an awesome book!!!1!"
Of course, people also rate something with a zero because the book arrived damaged or their marketplace seller send them an Acceptable copy when they ordered a Like New ("I'm so mad about this poor customer service I want to rate this a zero but Amazon only lets me rate it a one!" Note that there's an entirely separate rating system for sellers and customer service.)
Look at Yahoo's movie reviews...people write reviews before the movie comes out ("I can't wait to see this! I loved the book! I give it an A+!")
And of course there are people who'll rate something as one star because their kid sister likes it and it makes them mad, or rate it five stars because they have a crush on a particular star, or have some strange "I rate everything I look at as one star - to hell with 'em!" mindset, or whatever.
Stupidity is a lot easier to prove.
Advice: on VPS providers
Plenty of people are able to find the movies on torrent sites and see it before it's theatrical release. Of course that leaves Netflix with a moral dilemma: Do they let people leave reviews knowing that they saw it illegally? (well not illegal, but you know what I mean)
For example, horror movie website, bloody-disgusting.com has recently disabled the user review area for movies that have not been released yet. One example is "Let the Right One In", where many users were able to get some glowing reviews in before the mods could turn off access.
I just wandered over to Netflix and looked up "InkHeart". It has one (1) member review - the one you refer to... Not the 400+ you seem to claim...
If I were someone in a position of authority at Netflix, here is how I would handle it.
When you rent a movie, Netflix has record that you rented it.
Don't allow anyone to review a movie that hasn't first rented it from Netflix!
This will shut out people who have seen it in the theaters, of course, as well as pirates. But it will also make it a lot harder to shill without first renting the movie.
But no matter how many times you rent it, your account only gets to review a movie once.
Fresh on the heels of the story of the individual from Belkin, does it surprise you that the online review fiasco delves into other industries?
Big producers such as Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, and others probably have thousands of employees in their marketing departments, and it would not surprise me in the least that part of their job is to go online and give positive reviews to thier films (and maybe negative reviews to competitor's films).
Personally I don't give much credence to any online review of product simply because the results are uncontrolled, I don't know the people giving the reviews, and there is no way of knowing whether they are competent or not (not to mention completely bogus).
...by stupidity.
I think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Many people here on Slashdot like to put on a tinfoil hat and shout "AstroTurfing" for almost anything. I'm harder to convince of that.
I'll put aside what many have pointed out here, that the film in question has already been released in places.
NPR had an interview a month or so ago with David Edelstein, a film critic who happened to be the first to go public with a negative review for Dark Knight. In other words, he was the one responsible for first knocking it down from a 100% rating on metacritic and similar meta-rating sites.
In the interview he said he regretted having been first because of the backlash he received, but that he stood by his rating.
He also went on to point out the deluge of emails he received from angry fans. Many of whom would go on to criticize him at length while prefacing the email with "I haven't actually seen the film yet, but..."
Fanboys are rabid. They defend movies, hardware, software, etc, often sight unseen, because they want their horse to win. Even if they don't actually know what it looks like.
In this case, the movie is based on a book. I don't doubt that many of the votes on NetFlix are folks who have rated the film sight unseen, because they WANT to like it. They're jazzed about it, and they want it to be rated highly.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
What is your complaint or concern with using Newegg or Netflix for ratings? Both of them sell multiple similar products, so artificially increasing the rating of a specific product has almost no utility to them. There are many other choices. What's more, you have already paid your dues to Netflix, so they have no incentive whatsoever to encourage you to rent another movie from them. Additionally it decreases the utility of their rating system, and perhaps their whole service, if they have disappointed customers that feel betrayed by the rating they read.
In addition to the fact that the specific film mention is already released in other countries, I think it would be much more likely that fans are the ones rating the films than it is that the film companies are doing it. If the film is based on a book, a play, or a remake, it already has a built in audience who will be fanatical about it and if it stars a famous actor then there will almost certainly be a group of people who will give a movie 5 stars site unseen because they love that actor so much.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Doesn't Netflix only service the U.S. though?
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
I don't believe this is a conspiracy. There are just alot of stupid fanboys out there. There are stupid fanboys for everything. There are definitely lots of stupid people in the world that wouldn't really consider what they're doing when they rate/review a movie they haven't seen.
However, there is also the fanboy-type that feels outcast and alone, probably picked on for reading those books, that thinks if he get people to see the movie and like it, then he will be cool instead of a geek.
Aside from both being incredibly dishonest, I see little connection between the net neutrality debate and swiftboating. They both involve making shit up, but that's about it. You don't have to look far to find examples of people making shit up in the US. It's legal, too. For example, see any Mickey D's television ads where the burgers look hot and fresh. The vast majority of advertising in this country walks the fine line between puffery and outright deception.
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.
How can you say it's idiotic to like anything? Taste, as always, is subjective... people are too quick to claim anyone who disagrees with them these days are idiots (or worse) without considering the validity of other tastes.
While it may be misleading to vote up a movie based on liking the book it's based on, it can't really be called stupid. It's just somewhat invalid data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The eBay score doesn't really tell you much on their own if they have 1 negative and 2000 positives, and the negative is for a thousand dollar item, and everything else was a buck, either.
But that does tell you a lot. If you look at the items sold for the first page or two of feedback you can see exactly that kind of thing going on, and adjust the bidding acordingly.
There are issues with eBay feedback but it's still the best system going in a world full of people with shifty motives for online sales.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
I don't see how that can work, since it costs money (paid to eBay) to list items and have them sold. I've had good luck with powersellers and eBay in general. Of course I wouldn't buy a big ticket item if all the positive reviews were for small priced items.
Probably most everybody knows about this site by now, but Toolhaus's Negative/Neutral Feedback is indispensable if you're still on eBay. Any volume seller will have problem customers, but at least you can tell if the problems are consistent.
Haida Manga
> 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.
Right, because there's never been a crappy movie made from a good book.
And Brenden Fraiser has never made a crappy movie, so it has to be good!
And I'm the tooth fairy! So floss every day or I won't bring you any candy!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So a site that allows posted feedback from any customer at all has less than perfect entries? The deuce you say! Next you'll be telling me that letters to the editor in the local paper might contain logical fallacies in their political arguments. No, I can't accept this! Such a chaotic world cannot be true! It's the devil's work!
The eBay score doesn't really tell you much on their own if they have 1 negative and 2000 positives, and the negative is for a thousand dollar item, and everything else was a buck, either.
Netflix had a contest for a "recommendation algorithm", can you image EBay having a "karma algorithm" contest? EBay is paralyzed because it might jeopardize profits. Netflix doesn't have that luxury due to all the companies trying to create/control content delivery.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
They're just trying to make the world a stranger place, that's all.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Sounds a lot more like rabid fans than actual shills. One fan mailing list could easily account for the observation. Is it actually news to anybody that fans of stuff will go and encourage other people to check out the thing they are a fan of, without waiting to really review the new thing objectively?
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
Remember that people that work in the movie industry will get free screeners or other promotional chances to view a movie before it comes out in the U.S.
Also, 428 ratings on Netflix is likely to correspond to much more than 428/# subscribers-percentage of people that have already seen it, because many people don't rate.
On Netflix, I'm not surprised to see thousands to ratings on some titles before they come out in the U.S. Usually the low hundreds pre-release indicates a smaller audience when it does come out.
Netflix is not a movie review site intended to help you decide what movie to see in the theater. There are plenty of those. But Netflix is a movie rental site. The reviews are there to help people decide what movies to order. By time a movie is actually available on Netflix, the handful of pre-release reviews will be swamped by many more reviews from people who saw the movie during its theatrical release. So it doesn't really matter to anybody whether those early bird reviews are from people who happened to get an advance screening (of which there are often quite a few) or from enthusiasts who are reviewing how much they expect to like the movie.
Some directors/producers love to test movies. They'll test a whole film, or just a particular scene, many times. They have an audience watch it and see how they react. The movie will often have been done over in a number of versions before it ever gets finalized. Others don't do that, they make it and it's done, but even then eairly copies almost always go out for review and there are some preview screenings.
What, Americans make up only 5% of the world population? (10% by body mass)
Yes, but if we don't like something, it suffers because we are the consumers of the world's resources. If it's not good enough for me to buy with my borrowed money off of my maxed-out credit cards, then it's not good enough for anyone else.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
Inkheart premiered in Berlin on December 6th.
Really? You are honestly trying to claim that it isn't stupid to rate a movie as being good even when you have not seen it? Really?
You only think about it from the aspect of the person READING the review. For you, such a rating is useless and thus (to you) appears stupid.
But for the writer, the review is motivated not by stupidity but (most likely) by loyalty to a writer and character(s) they love. Again, the true fault is with misinformation, not with the intelligence of the reviewer, who we already know to be an avid reader.
Think about it - are you REALLY claiming that all these people writing reviews are honest to god idiots who cannot actually function in life? Really?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All I have to say is Epic Movie's IMDB rating was 8.4 days after it came out. Now it's like 2.2. Someone even posted on the forum for that movie that there's a glitch where if you delete your 1 star vote, it registers as a 0. Obviously that was a lie to get people to stop rating it 1 star. Why would someone say that unless they worked for the movie company directly? It's absolutely proven that it happens and site owners are doing nothing to stop it.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Don't be a dumbass, we've had it on DVD from Shanghai street vendors for $1.20 since about 2 weeks ago.