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ixquic
Posts: 73
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:39 pm

bullshit bad ratings

Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:26 pm

I'm seeing more and more perfectly good, in-sync subs rated with one star. Latest example is this one. Apparently two logged-in members gave it the lowest rating. It also happened to me once -- someone rated a subtitles file with one star immediately after I uploaded it. What's going on here? Do some people not understand the rating system or is it some kind of childish revenge game? Maybe people who give low ratings should be forced to leave a comment why they think the subs are bad?

Admin1
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Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:50 pm

ixquic,

The example you used was rated last year when anonymous ratings were still possible. There are a lot fewer examples of this now that anonymous ratings are not possible. I agree with you that there may be some confusion on the part of some users about how the rating system works. A few days ago one user made a comment like "good sub, but a few words missing" and then rated it a "1". I really think he meant to give it a good rating and figured giving it a "1" meant it was ranked number "1", as in best. I am going to recommend to 'os' that he change the legend on the rating scale to make it clear that '1' is worst and '10' is best.

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rogard
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Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:17 am

LOL, that would give all the "1" ratings I got a whole new meaning. Makes me feel better to look at it that way.

I honestly don't believe it's true though. Come on, do you really think on a scale from 1-10, anybody could think that 1 is the best?

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eduo
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Mon May 04, 2009 6:26 pm

Considering you don't rank by number but by filling out a graphic I don't think there can be confusion at what "1" means.

There is a larger problem with people being unable to actually rate anything more than 1,2,3. More than that and you lose all consistency.

I like what some sites are starting to do, simplifying ratings a lot by leaving only "Good, Normal, Bad" as ratings and let the cumulative votes speak for themselves. I wouldn't mind simplifying it even more (+/- or Thumbs up, Thumbs down) as long as there is always a way to flag the incorrect ones.

A "Bad" subtitle can be a badly formatted or badly translated one. An "incorrect" one can be a machine-translation, wrong language, wrong movie or badly-timed one. I would personally allow for "incorrect" subtitles (what's currently flagged as "BAD") to have specific reasons. I would also force "Bad" ratings to include an explanation of what was bad.
http://eduo.info/
[url=http://eduo.info/soleol/]OpenSubtitles from your desktop: SolEol for Mac/Windows/Linux[/url]
[url=http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=325&st=0&p=2480&#entry2480]My current episode processing work flow[/url].

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scooby007
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Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:12 pm

This is starting to happen again more often than usual. People download an out of sync subtitle, they complain about it and an admin removes the inferior subtitle. Up till here everything is fine.

The one that remains is the one that gets all the bad votes and unwarranted comments.

Do some users not remember what they downloaded?

I think admins should be able to reset this function, when need be.

And, yes! I think on a scale of 1-10 not everyone is aware of 10 being the best.

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eduo
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Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:54 am

The whole system is prone to errors, because there is no easy way to see what you've downloaded. If you use the web you might remember it was the "third result in the list", if you use an application like subdownloader you wouldn't even know that. Some users just search and input the comment without thinking it twice.

To me the whole subtitle storage, versioning and user feedback needs a revamp. But I can't blame this not happening. It wouldn't be quick nor easy. And it would mean changing things a LOT. We'd lose the stupid users, but we'd still be asking a LOT of patience from the smarter ones. And in that transition it'd be easy for someone to come in and sweep OpenSubtitles under the rug (internet users are not famous for their loyalty).
http://eduo.info/
[url=http://eduo.info/soleol/]OpenSubtitles from your desktop: SolEol for Mac/Windows/Linux[/url]
[url=http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=325&st=0&p=2480&#entry2480]My current episode processing work flow[/url].

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scooby007
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Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:17 pm

Well, if that’s the case, then why vote for a subtitle if you don’t have a clue if that’s the one you used or not?

I think its more than that. I think its more personal for some reason I can’t fathom. Maybe I wronged certain individuals in my previous life.

You see, when I questioned the bad rating, it was said that "one of my lines was out of sync for 1 second" (one second)? and he gave me a link to a apparently “better subtitle”, which I checked for verification, that was out of sync after 20 minutes into the show by 4,5,7 seconds and continuing to rise for the remainder of the show? When I pointed out this fact, no reply! Just as I expected.

He probably thought I wouldn’t check the subtitle. You can’t say that’s not personal. The faster OS can change the system (I hope), the better.

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eduo
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Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:26 pm

I'm not saying that's your specific case. There's pettiness and selfishness for sure(1) but I think the majority of the users are just clueless (that would be the rule in all communities, anyway). It's like in neighborhoods, for every 10 that throw the trash in the neighbours roof only one does it with bad intentions. The rest are just uneducated or clueless or anonymous.

(1) I'm still convinced we are provoking these behaviours with the current system. But that's a lost war.
http://eduo.info/
[url=http://eduo.info/soleol/]OpenSubtitles from your desktop: SolEol for Mac/Windows/Linux[/url]
[url=http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=325&st=0&p=2480&#entry2480]My current episode processing work flow[/url].

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scooby007
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Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:17 am

Love the allegory. It may be that your theory is sound, but the amount it’s been happening lately is atrocious. Delinquents are ripe every you go, I just hadn’t experienced or seen it in such abundance in such a short time frame.

I’ll be over the moon as soon as/if OS implements the suggested system, but as you said, it’s a big change so… I won’t hold my breath.

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eduo
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Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:31 am

The biggest problem, perhaps, is that OpenSubtitles is a repository. It's fancy and popular but it's just a repository.

The data is created elsewhere and there are no built-in control or tools in OpenSubtitles to help creators. So there is no incentive to create stuff yourself and post it to the site. There's incentive for uploading and, in a lesser way, for hashmatching.

The current system rewards people who behave badly (that's not the intention, but it's the effect), and the users are picking that up and running with the idea. I've seen people upload the same subtitle as 20 different languages so it counts 20 times (they change just enough for the algorithms to count it as different). Just today I flagged five subtitles for Alice in Wonderland that were in the wrong language and were almost exact duplicated of others uploaded by the same user before.

Obviously, admins can help with this, but controls need to be built-in as internet scales mean not enough admins can deal with the problems.
http://eduo.info/
[url=http://eduo.info/soleol/]OpenSubtitles from your desktop: SolEol for Mac/Windows/Linux[/url]
[url=http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=325&st=0&p=2480&#entry2480]My current episode processing work flow[/url].

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scooby007
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Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:53 pm

Well, what do you know. It’s been done.

davideisaura
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Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:52 pm

I suspect a LOT of people don't bother to come back and rate a subtitle on their own initiative.

Perhaps a reminder might encourage more people to rate, and thus make the rating system that much more accurate. (As in politics, it's apathy that allows those with an agenda to take over.)

Here's a suggestion. (I don't know how feasible it is, but it might help.)

Would it not be possible to send out an automated message to everyone who downloads a subtitle, saying something like: "Thanks for downloading 'xxx'. Please come back to THIS PAGE [link to the subtitle page] and rate it as soon as you can."

It would be necessary to ask non-members who want to download a title to provide an email address before they can do so, but would that be a problem?

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scooby007
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Tue Mar 16, 2010 10:15 pm

It would be necessary to ask non-members who want to download a title to provide an email address before they can do so, but would that be a problem?
Yes, it would. That action would drive people away as registrations have that effect.

I myself hope that people come back to comment and rate subtitles, but they seldom do, unless it’s a complaint.

ixquic
Posts: 73
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:39 pm

Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:46 pm

Hmm. The link is already in the nfo that comes with the subtitles. Of course when I download subtitles I delete the nfo rightaway, and I suspect most people do the same.

If I had to enter an email address just to receive some "Don't forget to rate" spam for every single file I download, that would sure as hell be a throwaway address and I'd never look into that mailbox again.

But for logged-in users or anonymous users with cookies, there could be a widget with the subs they downloaded recently and a one-click rating column. Same in software (OpenSubDownloader etc).

I also like the idea of detailed ratings. It's much more valuable feedback if it includes what exactly people think is wrong with the subs: out of sync, missing lines, bad translation, character encoding, formatting errors.... They should say that in the comments, but the threshold for commenting seems to be even higher.
Last edited by ixquic on Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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eduo
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Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:59 pm

Something that Demonoid did, and it's the only time I've rated torrents in demonoid, was to have a box where you could quickly rate recently downloaded files. The box was present in any page of the site so it was always present. And it was all ajax-y so you could rate without reloading anything.
http://eduo.info/
[url=http://eduo.info/soleol/]OpenSubtitles from your desktop: SolEol for Mac/Windows/Linux[/url]
[url=http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?showtopic=325&st=0&p=2480&#entry2480]My current episode processing work flow[/url].

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