Topic: Movie reviews.

[Touti]

I was catching in reading Jimmy's thread this morning as I was far being.  I was astonished by the amount of work he's done, until just now I had no idea he had added posts to separate our reviews alphabetically.

I was very surprised by the amount of reviews that we have and I think it's time we make it more easily manageable so I'm of adding a movie review system to the forum.  I'd like to have your opinions and suggestions on this.

I am not clear on what I want exactly and to be honest when the design is done I could use help in programming it if anyone who know php would like to help.

So here's what I have in mind.

I like the way the reviews are in the form of posts in the forum and I'd like to keep it that way so what I'm thinking is to first come up with a standard format for reviews where we would define what information we want and how we'd like to have it displayed.

Then we would have a "Post Review" button in the forum. This would be in two places so it can be used to post reviews either as replies in an existing thread or as a new topic. This button would bring up a window where we would enter the information.  Then, on saving, the post would be displayed as a "Review Post" which means that we wouldn't be able to edit it directly as we do now, clicking the edit button would bring back the window to change the information.

These reviews would be stored in a database containing all the fields that we want as well as the ID of the review writer and a link back to the post.  This database would be used by a "Reviews Manager" (Also know as Jimmy  ) to do the management.

Once we have that, we can make the reviews database fully searcheable by any of the fields we decide to include.  This review system wouldn't be mandatory to use to write reviews on the forum, anyone who prefers to keep writing the reviews as regular posts would not be forbidden to do so.

Fields I think we should have.

Title
Studio (At least one)
Actors (Just the most important ones, we would not allow full cast entry)
Director
Summary
Writer's toughts
Writer's score

That's it, I'm ready now, you can throw anything you want at me 

[Najemikon]

Excellent idea. Jimmy has been incredible on his project and it has proved to be invaluable. It makes sense to expand it, but I have one concern: I enjoy writing reviews, but as dedicated topics, not as part of marathons. But I've come to think that I am part of the minority there, because some of you are putting a huge amount of effort into your marathon threads.

Therefore, Eric, can you think of some sort of linking system, perhaps via a key field? Maybe you'll need a special marathon function that can link related reviews and display them in order they were watched. I've always thought an important part of any review is a pointer to similar movies, and marathons with a theme will do this automatically. This way, people will still have their hard-work marathon threads, but the reviews will also be readable and indexed.

The other thing I'd like to see at an individual review level is more interaction. We aren't writing a reviews book or magazine, so it shouldn't be a single voice/opinion. I know we can post comments, but those currently get lost in the middle of the conversation. It might be nice for users to have the ability to add their own summary/rating/marathon name/position to the original post and also display an average rating. That way you wouldn't end up with multiple entries for one title.

Like the other day, I wrote a review for The Assassination of Jess... oh, you know the one! Some of you said you were going to order it. Eventually you may add your own comments, but they deserve to be near the original post, not lost on page 4 or whatever. If you disagree with my enthusiasm, casual readers deserve to see that contradiction.

In fact (I'm thinking now! Somebody stop me!), perhaps you could have a three-way display? Top half of screen for synopsis/summary/rating, bottom half split in two; one side for additional summaries and ratings from other users, the other side for discussion.

You could post a review of Get Carter, rate it 2 stars if you're feeling generous. I would then add my summary, with the correct rating of 5 stars, and not call into question anything you wrote. No, I'd save that for the discussion side, where I would use phrases like "blind pillock" and you might call into question my parental heritage. Either way, our amusing banter covering 8 pages would not distract new readers from our brilliantly incisive critiques.

Have you seen Facebook at all? It's a "social networking" site. Not sure where it originates from, but it's pretty popular here in the UK. I'm on it, but only in a casual sense as it's far too silly overall. However, when you've set up a profile, you then plug-in chosen applications. I do use Flixter which is for movies. You can add reviews alongside others and it pulls up an average rating. Friends can add comments and if they also review it, I think it shows their ratings alongside yours.

By the way, why do want an Irish theme for the layout? ("Writer's toughts")

[Touti]

First a note about Facebook.  No I don't use it and never will, this is the most dangerous web system of the last 10 years.  It got so big so fast that the developers stopped thinking of security. No later than 2 weeks ago I read an article where they showed how a team of 4 programmers took less than 1.5 hour to write a Facebook application that will send them ALL your personal details when you install it.  That is whether or not you made those details public.

I think Facebook is becoming the #1 source of data for identity thieves.  Facebook is beating Microsoft and Google in so many more ways than we can imagine.....

Back to the topic.  I've already started programming it and threw the first lines of code to normalize the ratings as follows.

if userid = 'Jon' then rating = rating - 3 

I like what you're asking but it would be very difficult to implement it as part of the posting system which would already require lots of changes for what I had in mind already.  I was already concerned about that and how it would affect the future installation of updates and upgrades to the forum.  I looked at it from a different angle and I think I came up with a better way of building that system.

I'm now thinking that it would be best to build it completely outside of SMF's forum, it would be a separate application that I would host on the server.  Instead of using the forums posting functions to write reviews, we'd go to the review system.

The only integration with the forum would be in two ways.  First, there would be a users system and one wouldn't be able to post reviews unless he has an account on the forum, that can be done very easily has SMF already offers what the call SSI which allows forum integration into a web site.  Second, I would create a new tag that we'd use to post a review.

Example:

You go post a new review in the review system which gives you back a ReviewID number.  You can then post a message in the forum and use the [review][/review] tag to post it in the forum.  This way, the reviews could be posted anywhere in the forum as a single entity but in the reviews system we could categorize and hierarchise (is that a word  ?) them.

We do however have to think and discuss more about your idea of allowing people to add their own reviews and ratings to an already existing movie.  This will all depends on whether we limit this to being Movie reviews or DVD Reviews.  If we want to make it DVD reviews then we'll have DVD specific information on each entry and there will be differences in versions so my review of "The assassination of the British forum user by the coward forum administrator" may not come from the same DVD. If we add reviews of features, packaging and any other dvd release related information it could become a problem.

[addicted2dvd]

Sounds like a pretty good idea Eric... but I admit I will not fully understand till I see it in action for myself.  One thing you don't have listed we always use... the front cover image... can't forget that! 

Another thing... if you want to use a smiley type icon for scores like many do now... I would suggest if possible find some sort of a ½ icon... as there is many... many times as I feel a movie will fall right between 2 ratings (why I don't use such a rating system now)

[addicted2dvd]

For the record I would definitely rather do the review for a DVD then just for a movie itself. But that is me personally.

[Najemikon]

Ah, you see I'm more interested in content, so I was going to say the reviews should not be too concerned with the DVD. Then Birthday-Boy threw a spanner into the works and scored a direct hit!

I'll say this much, that I still don't think the DVD details matter. Post a review, add your local cover image, and then mention if your DVD edition/region extras. I wouldn't be bothered about fields relating to the DVD only.

I understand the problems with meshing reviews to forum posts, but your compromise should cover it anyway, using the ReviewID key. Also, it wouldn't be difficult for the more conscientious reviewer to add a footnote to say "Reviewed as part of Weekend Dirty Slappers Marathon, see [forum link]".

Note that I haven't had a Dirty Slappers Weekend. Mores the pity.

Also, I did mean to say that I am very suspicious and untrusting of Facebook. When I said casual user, I meant it! It is useful for catching up with casual friends, but those friends are always asking me why I don't post photos on or use more apps. Your note is the same reason. I first found Facebook because users at work were wanting me to allow it through the firewall. I took one look, and said "erm... let's not". So it does have it's uses if approached with caution, but like all of these type of apps, it attracts people who are not aware of how careful they should be. Like the classic problem "I Love You" virus. Most victims opened the email because of that subject line, without stopping to wonder why it got there.

[Touti]

I guess you're right, those who want to add specific DVD information can do it in their reviews, it wouldn't be any different than what we do now anyway right ?

Question about the images, should we force upload of an image or strongly recommend it but allow for links ?  We will of course have support for the whatyagot tag but I'm concerned about linked images because if the link is broken the image is lost.  On the other hand, we could as a post-live addon run an automated validation of the links and report all broken ones.  It wouldn't be a high demand on the server if we use the review date and check each review once every few weeks.

[addicted2dvd]

never thought about that Eric... I always use the images from dvdprofiler and know they are not going anywhere any time soon. but if something that test the links is doable it sure can't hurt.

I would say I wouldn't force the image on anyone but would strongly recommend it.... as it does look better with the image.

[Touti]

Searching on internet for a turnkey solution I found a product that I could get for a reasonable price.

Here's a demo of it.

http://demos.built2go.com/movie%20reviews/1/


I still have to see if it comes with full source code and if I can integrate it with the forum.

[addicted2dvd]

Definitely looks interesting.

[lyonsden5]

great idea Eric. The moviereviews template looks pretty good to me. But as you say it would really be great if it were integrated in the forum.

[Achim]

First a note about Facebook.  No I don't use it and never will, this is the most dangerous web system of the last 10 years.  It got so big so fast that the developers stopped thinking of security. No later than 2 weeks ago I read an article where they showed how a team of 4 programmers took less than 1.5 hour to write a Facebook application that will send them ALL your personal details when you install it.  That is whether or not you made those details public.

I think Facebook is becoming the #1 source of data for identity thieves.  Facebook is beating Microsoft and Google in so many more ways than we can imagine.....

I was not aware of this...

I didn't want to use it but then someone kept inviting me over there so I caved in. I am, similar to Jon, using it very casually, but after what I have read today, I'll make it even more casual. I do like that Flickster app they have anduse it with at least one other guy from the DVD Profiler forum.

Thanks for "waking me up".

[Touti]

I spent a few minutes trying out the Demo of that movie review system.  I created an account but I can't find any place to add a movie to the list.  It seems users can only post reviews of movies that are already in the database.  Looking at the list of administration features, it seems that the idea of that system is to allow one to make money by having sponsored links.

It's something a web site owner would use to create a marketplace where sponsoring vendors would add the movies they want to sell and then users can post reviews about them.

It's not what we're looking for although we could use it if it allowed users to add movies but it looks like we're back to the drawing board and that we're gonna have to build this ourselves if we want it.

[lyonsden5]

Sorry to hear that Eric, although with the talent I've seen from many of you on this site creating something might not be a problem.

[Touti]

The first part is really not that complicated.  It's basic database management, I'm sure we could have something functional fairly easily and rapidly.

Integrating it with the forum may be a bit more complicated but I'm sure I can get help from the SMF's community forum if we run into something difficult.