Perfection... do we give a serious vote to an episode?

[Mewberries151]

But that's exactly the point I'm making. At least at LF, because the polls can be about anything, even if they're in an "episode thread", and because they can have "sub-selections" attached to each number (ie. "William Returns" 10 = Yay! XANA got William! or the like ), they're not very reliable polls to begin with, so the whole arguement about voting honestly falls apart if the poll doesn't say anything really important about the episode in the first place.

Hmm just looked at the Teddygodzilla one and I see what you mean there. Still, I don't see why people shouldn't vote honestly for a fun poll. Otherwise they're just not playing properly. And what's fun about that?

*sweatdrops* But the original debate wasn't about the fun polls. It's about the polls where a person is voting a "10" of "Wow 'dis episode was teh best eva!!1!" without thinking about it first, and how that reflects on the episode as a whole and how much that's going to help a person decide whether it's a worthwhile episode or not (and in a grander scale, give MoonScoop useable feedback). In this respect, the fun polls do little to none of this since a poll about whether or not the "underwear sequences" were awesome (for dubious reasons), is not going to help anyone understand how good the episode was as a poll.

Therefore, the fun polls are not the issue here, and I'd have to say that it would be even more impossible to encourage people to take the fun polls seriously, when they're not serious polls in of themselves. That's like walking up to a bunch of people playing their own variation of Frisbee and telling them, "No no no, that's not how it's done. You have to play it this way.".

At any rate, the fun polls weren't the original issue. It's the polls dictating the rating of the episode as a whole, and how well they help someone determine the overall quality of an episode...and honestly there aren't a lot of them that seriously give a wide array of options that would make for an honest poll like that.

That's why I don't see why there's any point in making a big deal out of someone voting a 10 or not an episode, unless you're talking about season 4 and beyond. Most of the polls made previous to this whole debate were not made with the intention that the votes be taken seriously. Teddygozilla is not the only one...a quick scan of several of the polls will show you that.

Well, given Rodri brought this up after William Returns aired, Season 4 and beyond are probably relevant, yeah. So the rest of the polls over season 4 are going to be serious ones?

Because basically you're using polls which aren't about how good the episode is to counter an argument that people aren't voting honestly in polls about how good the episode is.

That depends upon whoever makes the episode thread and the poll options, which at the moment, I think only the Admins can. Now we can make a 10 option poll with scores 1 through 10 and leave it at that, and hope people vote the number they think the episode actually deserves but that's about it. We can't really "encourage" people to vote "seriously", since they can easily say, "Yes, I thought it deserved a 10." And that's that. It's on their own conscience.

If you want all the polls on Episode Discussion to be like that, with no fun polls or silly "comment options" added in, and be completely serious about giving a critical review of the episode in the poll, we can do that from now on if that's what everyone (or at least a majority) agrees to.

Sounds rather dull to me, since I like the silly options that get tagged onto the ratings and seeing people come up with creative options for each episode (ie. William Returns: 1 = "Grab your torch and pitchforks." and the like) But if a serious poll is what the majority wants...then, alright. ^^

As for TV.com, their poll system is a 1-10 system (with all of the numbers counted and no addition "sub-comments" attached) that takes an average of all the scores given. Meaning that, while a 10 can boost an episode's score, it will likely only do so by a .01 or .1 percentage, in which case, it's minimal and the 10 really becomes obsolete in the grand scheme of things.

Now, that's just ignoring the wood because of the pretty trees. A poll result is the sum of it's votes. And those 10's can add up pretty fast.

Kudos on the metaphor. ^^

However, the polls here don't have the "averaging" feature though, just a number of how many people voted for what rating.

People have eyes though. If one category has 30 votes, another has 26 and the rest have 4, people can figure it out for themselves from there.

As you said earlier though, this is the Internet. There's no room for underestimating or overestimating the populace. ^^;

And yes, while those 10s could add up pretty fast, I'm willing to bet that the sheer mass of people that frequent TV.com would make it so that any amount of 10s given would have to be a large one, in order to make a clearly significant difference. What's more, I'd imagine the random CL haters that frequently haunt that site and that poll a 0 or 1 would cancel out the random thoughtless 10s. And a member can only vote 1 time, so there's no double submissions of votes (unless of course the person creates a second account or something, which in any case could happen anywhere).

While it's true Blind 10's and and Blind 1's can cancel each other to an extent, they still exist. And as you said, we don't have the averaging feature, so five votes are still five votes. And I'm guessing we're a smaller auidence than TV.com, so any votes stand out that little bit more

True, and a valid point, but the original post I made was in response to a comment Rodri made about me bringing up TV.com (XD ...if that made any sense ^^; ).

The original point was that, while I loathe to admit, TV.com's episode and show polls are more better designed to give an honest reflection of an episode or show's quality, than LF's since we don't have the averaging feature and we're a smaller audience so that "extreme" votes stand out more. That's why, in my very first post, I said that, if I were someone looking for a serious, and less biased poll review of an episode, I'd go to TV.com (or IMDB), because of the wider selection, the averaging feature, and the grander ratings scale (1-10) as opposed to a devoted fan forum where the selection is smaller, and polls would either have a smaller ratings scale, or have nothing to do with the episode to begin with.

And still, like I said, what everyone is forgetting is that, unless we're going to try and be "honest" for season 4, which is again going to be an impossible feat in itself, there's no point in trying to require people to vote "honestly" on the polls we have now. A lot of them weren't made for that purpose, so there's no point in requiring someone to vote seriously, if the poll was made for laughs to begin with.

Again, you're using non-serious polls to argue a point about serious polls. And again, if people aren't voting honestly in a fun poll, what's the point?

^^; See first quote response for that point.

On top of that, there is no way that we could "require" someone to vote in what we would feel an "honest" way, because it's impossible.

First off, only the Admins and Mods would have to have the authority to do it, because otherwise it'd cause too many fights. Second off, I really doubt that any of the Admins and Mods would enjoy trying to figure out who voted a 10 so that they can ask them if they "really honestly believe" it deserved that mark. Third, we can't force someone to vote "honestly" either, because honesty and perfection are completely up to perspective. And fourth...the comments will still be a much better way of judging an episode than the polls.

Ok, we can't force anyone into anything. Not important; the basic points still the same: a Well-thought out vote from someone who can actually be bothered to leave comments is going to be worth more than a 10 vote with no comments left (without which, your fourth point becomes rather moot)

Fair enough, however the problem is still getting people to do that without either harassing them and/or second guessing every single vote that looks "extreme". And the problem still remains that it's on their conscience to vote "honestly", because they can always turn around and say, "Yes, it deserves a 10 and that's how I feel."

Even if the poll is "Doesn't he look daft in that hat" or somesuch, then we should still vote honestly because that's what a poll is for: collating peoples honest opinions.

Like I said before, it's on their conscience.

And what's more, the fun polls aren't going to help a person decide whether an episode is of high quality or not, particularly when they're tagged onto an episode in episode discussion (which was the original focus of this thread), so whether or not they're voted on seriously, is not going to help someone decide how good an episode (or the show as a whole) is.

That's what my original point was trying to say: That's there's no point in trying to get people to vote "seriously" on the present episode threads because half of them don't give any room for honest review anyway. That's what I found most ironic about this whole issue...at the moment, there's no way a person can give a real serious review of an episode or the show other than through comments because the polls don't allow much room for it.

And again, like I said before, we can make all the episode thread polls "serious polls" from now on (for the duration of season 4, and whatever missing season 1 episodes we have), if everyone wants to hop onto this "episode review" idea.

Or we could do away with polls entirely (or just make them all nonsense polls); That's the other extreme. It's up to all of you, really (and I do mean a fair majority, not just one or two people ^^; ). We can even take a vote on it, if it comes to that.

We can't force anyone else to vote honestly, but we can vote honestly ourselves and hoopefully encourage others to do the same.

And there's the rub. How are we going to straddle that fine line between "encouraging" and "harassing" a person about voting honestly, without making ourselves nervous stressed-out wrecks, or making this forum less fun to visit. It's impossible...or improbable...take your pick. ^^;

It's up to the individual, and that's it. It's on their own conscience to decide whether they want to vote honestly, or not. And there's no way to prove a person didn't vote "honestly", unless of course they turn around and say, "Yes I voted 10 cuz I am teh hyper lolz"...which...isn't completely unlikely, but probably not going to happen too often. *sweatdrops*

There's nothing else to be done about it really.

[MY85 offline]

I'll get more into this b**chfest debate tomorrow. I have exams. D:

Hey Mew, I know you said something about me hating lond, deatiled debates. While you pointed this out and it's something I have truly told you before, I forgot to mention you that I despise the dull ones (LTT-style, to mention one example) and I can enjoy long detailed debates as long as I have an interest on it and I am not bored on such debate. Just to remind you...

[Cassius335 offline]

Hope we're entertaining you then.

[MY85 offline]

Hope we're entertaining you then.

Haha. Regardless of how you and I get along on LF, I do like your posts on this thread.

Now, back to this... endless b*tchfest (sorry, but I can't think of a better word to describe this thread, lol).

Oi, this might take a while to post out. I find it terribly ironic how you guys are asking for "Freedom of Opinion" and yet are automatically assuming that anyone who gives an episode a "10" isn't thinking about the episode critically.

10 means perfect, top of the top, inmortal, whatever you want to say about it. Yet, I have seen that many give all of the episodes 10 out of 10 and don't even explain why it deserves such rank, which annoys me. I'm sure that if they view such episodes again, their views will change and they might even laugh at how they voted before or what they thought about it. You and I may be thinking about different things, but you didn't got my message yet.

The poll options in of themselves don't often express an accurate view of why something was given a 10, or a 7, or what have you. Just look at "Teddygozilla's" poll if you don't know what I mean. What are they supposed to gain from a poll with options like that? It barely even has anything to do with the episode at all!

Nice jab. I'll give you that. But... what do we gain from the poll of A Fine Mess? How can comedy be the one thing to measure if a episode rocked or sucked? The rest of the polls I've seen from yourself have the same pattern: low, medium or high. Is that accurate enough? Think about it.

The VA Boards are for Q&A sessions with the VAs. That's not the place to critique there performances and tell them how badly or how well they did their job.

So, if it's not in their own threads that they can get criticized, then where else it can be? Oh, I know. "If you don't have any nice to say, then keep it to yourself." The typical Lyoko Freak fashion of dealing with things.

And no, we don't have to give critical honest review, because none of us are professional critics anyway (at least I don't think so ^^; ). What we can do is give as honest a review as possible, and even then, it's still up to them if they want to take the time to think about an episode like that.

We can agree on this.

I'm well aware of your opinion of the VAs activity here, Rodri, and honestly, you're welcome to hold that view if you want.

I mentioned probabilities as to why the VAs may not post on LF anymore. I never said those reasons were true.

And I don't think any of the Admins here would allow a person to make a thread in CL Discussion, with the title "The VAs are lousy" or something like that. That's just rude, and shows very little consideration towards the VAs, who again I say, are now also Mods, and should be given the same courtesy.

As long as they give an explaining as to why they don't like the VAs, I'd have no problems reading the thread. But I see how the filter works here. TB3 sees it and it goes away quickly. And personally, I think that giving the VAs Moderator powers is a waste of time since they don't go to this forum with a lot of frequence.

If I recall correctly...you used to dislike, or at least weren't very fond, that people would type elaborate, long, but well-thought out posts, and participate in lengthy debates. I find it funny that you think of them now as a positive attribute to the forum (which they've always been).

That aside though, I too remember the debates and serious reviews as I participated in most of them. I miss them, but, as there haven't been any good debate topics lately (other than this one, apparently), there's not much to be done about the lack of them on the forum. Things change.

For the first paragraph, read my previous post. It depends o if it entertains me, in short. For the second paragraph, yes, this thread is actually a good way of debate. I try to get my point across and suggest something, which a few are agreeing with me, while you forget that my thread is some form of suggestion to the community and you choose to support the view of freedom of opinion, which significance may vary according to the situation. It takes two to tango for a debate, but you're having the tango with Cassius, Piper and myself.

By the way, I am fully aware of the poll systems on TV.com and IMDB, but with the slight difference that at forums on tv.com, you can create a poll, but you can only put five options. Another point in favor to Lyoko Freak... again.

And fourth...the comments will still be a much better way of judging an episode than the polls.

True, but the polls, regardless of what you may say, can still hold more power than just a bunch of comments, it reflects the entire view of the forum in regards to an episode. Remember, we see the one-line hyper style post in several of these threads and both you and I have made these kinds of silly hyper posts more than once.

At any rate, the fun polls weren't the original issue. It's the polls dictating the rating of the episode as a whole, and how well they help someone determine the overall quality of an episode...and honestly there aren't a lot of them that seriously give a wide array of options that would make for an honest poll like that.

Bingo! And yet, we keep to continue the endless b*tchfest!


Really, the more this debate goes, the more in circles we'll be going. I think I made my point and a few agree and disagree.

If anything, I would volunteer to do the polls for each and every episode... that if no one has any objection to such thing. Problem is that I'm no longer a Moderator due to personal decisions, but I think I'll talk to you privately about something later.

[Mewberries151]

Oi, this might take a while to post out. I find it terribly ironic how you guys are asking for "Freedom of Opinion" and yet are automatically assuming that anyone who gives an episode a "10" isn't thinking about the episode critically.

10 means perfect, top of the top, inmortal, whatever you want to say about it. Yet, I have seen that many give all of the episodes 10 out of 10 and don't even explain why it deserves such rank, which annoys me. I'm sure that if they view such episodes again, their views will change and they might even laugh at how they voted before or what they thought about it. You and I may be thinking about different things, but you didn't got my message yet.

And you're not getting mine. There's no way to enforce people to do what you're suggesting. It's an improbability.

The poll options in of themselves don't often express an accurate view of why something was given a 10, or a 7, or what have you. Just look at "Teddygozilla's" poll if you don't know what I mean. What are they supposed to gain from a poll with options like that? It barely even has anything to do with the episode at all!

Nice jab. I'll give you that. But... what do we gain from the poll of A Fine Mess? How can comedy be the one thing to measure if a episode rocked or sucked? The rest of the polls I've seen from yourself have the same pattern: low, medium or high. Is that accurate enough? Think about it.

Read my previous posts about why there's no point in making people vote "seriously" on the existing episode threads. I even said that half of the polls either aren't serious, or don't leave room for a truly serious and honest consideration of the episode as a whole...because they weren't made with that original purpose in mind.

The VA Boards are for Q&A sessions with the VAs. That's not the place to critique there performances and tell them how badly or how well they did their job.

So, if it's not in their own threads that they can get criticized, then where else it can be? Oh, I know. "If you don't have any nice to say, then keep it to yourself." The typical Lyoko Freak fashion of dealing with things.

It's in the Rules, Rodri. You know it and I know it. No flaming and "be nice". You all agreed to follow the rules when you signed up for membership here, so don't complain to me about that.

And no, we don't have to give critical honest review, because none of us are professional critics anyway (at least I don't think so ^^; ). What we can do is give as honest a review as possible, and even then, it's still up to them if they want to take the time to think about an episode like that.

We can agree on this.

Woot.

I'm well aware of your opinion of the VAs activity here, Rodri, and honestly, you're welcome to hold that view if you want.

I mentioned probabilities as to why the VAs may not post on LF anymore. I never said those reasons were true.

Semantics. The game never gets old. Fine then. You're still welcome to hold your opinion and your reasons. Kindly let me hold mine. Thank you.

And I don't think any of the Admins here would allow a person to make a thread in CL Discussion, with the title "The VAs are lousy" or something like that. That's just rude, and shows very little consideration towards the VAs, who again I say, are now also Mods, and should be given the same courtesy.

As long as they give an explaining as to why they don't like the VAs, I'd have no problems reading the thread. But I see how the filter works here. TB3 sees it and it goes away quickly. And personally, I think that giving the VAs Moderator powers is a waste of time since they don't go to this forum with a lot of frequence.

I've already said that the VAs are a non-issue in a thread that was originally about "rating episodes". If you want to further debate the VAs and your dislike for the way things are run here than PM me or take it up somewhere else, because it's not the issue here.

If I recall correctly...you used to dislike, or at least weren't very fond, that people would type elaborate, long, but well-thought out posts, and participate in lengthy debates. I find it funny that you think of them now as a positive attribute to the forum (which they've always been).

That aside though, I too remember the debates and serious reviews as I participated in most of them. I miss them, but, as there haven't been any good debate topics lately (other than this one, apparently), there's not much to be done about the lack of them on the forum. Things change.

For the first paragraph, read my previous post. It depends o if it entertains me, in short. For the second paragraph, yes, this thread is actually a good way of debate. I try to get my point across and suggest something, which a few are agreeing with me, while you forget that my thread is some form of suggestion to the community and you choose to support the view of freedom of opinion, which significance may vary according to the situation. It takes two to tango for a debate, but you're having the tango with Cassius, Piper and myself.

What do I care? I don't care how many opponents I have on this, I'll gladly debate this with you until we're all blue in the face. And it still won't matter, the only people who can create threads and polls in Episode Discussion anyway are the Mods and Admins. That's why I suggested in several of my previous posts that if everyone, or at least a "majority" of everyone, wants to be serious about the way episodes are rated, than from now on we can have serious polls.

So go gather up voters or something because if that's what you really think people want to do, then go make sure you have a large amount of support for it.

By the way, I am fully aware of the poll systems on TV.com and IMDB, but with the slight difference that at forums on tv.com, you can create a poll, but you can only put five options. Another point in favor to Lyoko Freak... again.

Have you been to TV.com recently? Kindly check the "official" episode and show page polls (the ones with the colorful meter and percentage numbers), and tell me those aren't better than the ones we currently have here.

And fourth...the comments will still be a much better way of judging an episode than the polls.

True, but the polls, regardless of what you may say, can still hold more power than just a bunch of comments, it reflects the entire view of the forum in regards to an episode. Remember, we see the one-line hyper style post in several of these threads and both you and I have made these kinds of silly hyper posts more than once.

It still doesn't change the fact that if a person is looking for a well-thought out, critical and serious review of an episode and what was liked or disliked about it, they should read the comments. Even if some of them are hyper, or have a hyper tone, a few of them, even then, will have a well-thought out analysis, at the very least, of what was liked.

Comments are better than a poll for serious critical analysis by default, because one can say in greater detail what was liked or disliked in even the most high calibur poll (not counting the ones that include a space for "additional comments"...it's still a comment).

At any rate, the fun polls weren't the original issue. It's the polls dictating the rating of the episode as a whole, and how well they help someone determine the overall quality of an episode...and honestly there aren't a lot of them that seriously give a wide array of options that would make for an honest poll like that.

Bingo! And yet, we keep to continue the endless b*tchfest!


Really, the more this debate goes, the more in circles we'll be going. I think I made my point and a few agree and disagree.

If anything, I would volunteer to do the polls for each and every episode... that if no one has any objection to such thing. Problem is that I'm no longer a Moderator due to personal decisions, but I think I'll talk to you privately about something later.

If you want to become a Mod again, you'll need to talk it over with <u>all</u> of the Admins. Not just me. In addition, I'm sure the Admins are perfectly capable of creating polls with 10 options with numbers 1-10, which would be best suited for a clear analysis of how well the episode was liked (getting rid of the likely misleading "add-on poll comments" ).

Incidentally, when everyone's done bickering over this (and sure, I'll include myself in that statement) kindly let me know so that I can lock this thread for serving its purpose.

[Cassius335 offline]

The poll lines for William returns actually helped me pick between 6 and 8.

EDIT: And don't lock it. Someone else might want to chip in.

[MY85 offline]

Have you been to TV.com recently? Kindly check the "official" episode and show page polls (the ones with the colorful meter and percentage numbers), and tell me those aren't better than the ones we currently have here.

I DO know about those page polls. Yes, it's more accurate as you say. I'm not an idiot, if that's what you think about me. I mentioned the other polls that you can make when you do a thread at tv.com, just in case.

It still doesn't change the fact that if a person is looking for a well-thought out, critical and serious review of an episode and what was liked or disliked about it, they should read the comments. Even if some of them are hyper, or have a hyper tone, a few of them, even then, will have a well-thought out analysis, at the very least, of what was liked.

Comments are better than a poll for serious critical analysis by default, because one can say in greater detail what was liked or disliked in even the most high calibur poll (not counting the ones that include a space for "additional comments"...it's still a comment).

And some of these people came to... Lyoko Freak! Yes, it's true. Compare LF to TL and this is what people like Rob (remember him?) used to do: do all his debate and talking in LF and do the other things in TL with no CL debate, but that's another story.

People have come to this forum and regardless of what I think about this forum, it's still the best place where to debate about Code Lyoko. The rest of the forum are filled with either younger members or inmature fools that don't seem to grasp the concept of rules or rape the English language. Not to forget the flamewars that happen in other places.

I will agree with the other point, but please don't ignore the power of a poll. Many newspapers use them to reflect an opinion about a certain subject, A poll isn't entirely worthless, really.

Incidentally, when everyone's done bickering over this (and sure, I'll include myself in that statement) kindly let me know so that I can lock this thread for serving its purpose.

I'd rather keep this unlocked. If anyone other than Cassius, you or me and add something else to it, welcome then. The only conditions I'll have this locked is when some idiot comes around and necroposts on it without a good reason or when I request for it to be locked.

[Mewberries151]

The poll lines for William returns actually helped me pick between 6 and 8.

EDIT: And don't lock it. Someone else might want to chip in.

Eh...fair enough. No one else has chipped in thus far (although understandably...they might be a little intimidated. ^^; ), but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen, I admit.

Have you been to TV.com recently? Kindly check the "official" episode and show page polls (the ones with the colorful meter and percentage numbers), and tell me those aren't better than the ones we currently have here.

I DO know about those page polls. Yes, it's more accurate as you say. I'm not an idiot, if that's what you think about me. I mentioned the other polls that you can make when you do a thread at tv.com, just in case.

I'm not saying anything. I was simply saying that the polls you were pointing out were not the ones that had been the original focus of my post and that I said were better than most of the current polls at LF. The 5 option forum polls at TV.com were not.

It still doesn't change the fact that if a person is looking for a well-thought out, critical and serious review of an episode and what was liked or disliked about it, they should read the comments. Even if some of them are hyper, or have a hyper tone, a few of them, even then, will have a well-thought out analysis, at the very least, of what was liked.

Comments are better than a poll for serious critical analysis by default, because one can say in greater detail what was liked or disliked in even the most high calibur poll (not counting the ones that include a space for "additional comments"...it's still a comment).

And some of these people came to... Lyoko Freak! Yes, it's true. Compare LF to TL and this is what people like Rob (remember him?) used to do: do all his debate and talking in LF and do the other things in TL with no CL debate, but that's another story.

People have come to this forum and regardless of what I think about this forum, it's still the best place where to debate about Code Lyoko. The rest of the forum are filled with either younger members or inmature fools that don't seem to grasp the concept of rules or rape the English language. Not to forget the flamewars that happen in other places.

I hardly see what any of this has to do with making "serious poll choices".

It still doesn't matter what a person came to LF for (although hopefully in some small part it relates to a liking for Code Lyoko ^^; )...if one is looking for "serious/critical/well thought-out" analysis of an episode or a show in general, then one should read the comments, and not just glance at the poll. You have to be serious about searching for serious information. You can't just take an easy route and expect perfect quality.

I will agree with the other point, but please don't ignore the power of a poll. Many newspapers use them to reflect an opinion about a certain subject, A poll isn't entirely worthless, really.

It isn't worthless, but it's not what a person should go by if they're hoping to find a well-balanced and thoughtful critical review. Comments are still better and will continue to be better, in that case.

[MY85 offline]

I got up the newest episode's thread on LF (CB moved it to ED) ... this is something to see:

9 - Brilliant episode! I'm proud of being a Code Lyoko fan. ^_^
1 vote. It happened quite quickly after I hanged the thread.

Who the f**k voted for that? Unless they already saw the episode (avaiable on at least two sites)...