Sup, fags. I'm not here to leave a one-line post like last time. This time I'm going to seriously kick some knowledge. I'm going to address a problem that has always bothered me, and explain how we, the users (or you, the administration) can fix it.

The Review system on Newgrounds is bullshit for three reasons:

1. Bullshit Moderation

When you write a review on a Flash, Audio, or Art submission, it is not moderated by a moderator. It is moderated by everyone else. Therefore, by definition, nobody is moderating the reviews.

So. Let's say a Flash Artist... Let's call him Bob... submits a flash to the portal. Now, Bob is already very popular and therefore his submission gets mad recognition, a high score, a couple of trophies, and a special spot on the front page.

By now, Bob should have a ton of fans who will do whatever they can to support him, so do you think that they want to see anyone leave a nasty review on his movie? Hell no! So these fans of Bob's camp out on the page where his submission is located, look through the reviews, and bomb every review that is negative. This way, Bob will always look like a "cool guy" because he technically only has positive reviews!

But, what if Bob was a serious artist and was looking for negative reviews to expose to him the flaws in his material? What if he was interested in learning about why he sucks and how he can get better? Would he get to read these important reviews? Of course not, because his asshole fans deleted all of them! That's right, boys and girls. His fans deleted them, not the mods. Why? Because there are none.

The way the reviews are moderated is as follows: you can either vote "good" or "bad" on a review. Alternatively, you can flag a review as "offensive" (Because people on Newgrounds really worry about being offended. Isn't this the site that originated "Club a Seal"? How wimpy has Newgrounds become in those fourteen years? Shit, I remember when there was porn on the front page! But now I'm rambling...)

So, basically, I'm assuming that if a review gets voted "bad" or is flagged a certain number of times, it is auto-deleted by M-Bot. the local (poorly programmed) automated Review Moderator. So, yes. Technically the people are the ones in charge of deleting reviews. There are threads on the BBS dedicated to maliciously voting down on any negative reviews they find. They're taking advantage of the system and it's allowed to happen.

I once actually left a bullshit review on a popular flash submission (I won't tell you which one) last night as an experiment. When I woke up the next morning, I found that it had been deleted just fourteen hours later. Record time? For me, yes.

My solution? Lose the M-Bot. He's really not doing us any good. There are still shitty reviews out there in spite of the fact that there clearly SHOULDN'T BE ANY just because they give 10's. Which brings me on to my next subject:

2. Bullshit Reviews

Recently the fine line between reviews and comments has grown thin. So now it's time for the old Grave Master to crack open the dictionary(.com) so he can give you a serious definition of both.

re-view
-noun
1. a critical article or report, as in a periodical, on a book, play, recital, or the like; critique; evaluation.

com-ment
-noun
1. a remark, observation, or criticism: a comment about the weather.

Now, you're probably asking me to get to the point, right? Well, I will in just a moment.

Based on the dictionary definition, a review should be a lengthly evaluation of the submission describing all of it's ups, downs, pros, and cons. Offering praise for what the artist did correctly, while simultaneously offering constructive criticism on how he/she can get better.

Lately, all I've been seeing is comments.

Yeah, you all know what I'm talking about. Bullshit reviews that say stuff like the following:

"Good job man I voted five."

"This sucks. I zero'd. Go kill yourself or something."

"Fuck, man for some reason the movie wouldn't load blah blah technical problems so I gave you a zero. Would have five'd tho"

"JEZUSSS MAN UR A GOD I LOVEZ UR SPRITE ANIMATIONZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

I could go on and on with the shit I've seen in my 6-year's experience of lurking (and trolling) this site, but you probably already get my point. The above are not reviews. They are COMMENTS. They do not tell the artist ANYTHING. And should be DELETED. As a matter of fact, if the Review moderation wasn't so shitty, I wouldn't have to see reviews like those, and thus, I wouldn't have to bitch about them.

Homework assignment: Go to Alvin Earthworm's latest SMBZ installment (or any other popular flash artist's work) and look at the reviews. Then come back and tell me how many comments you counted before reaching an actual review. This will help you understand my point better if your head is made of high density alloy.

My solution for this? Set the minimum number of words for any review to 100. This will discourage the brainless fools from writing short "cool story bro" type comments, and will encourage the more intellectual users to step in and write reviews with actual content.

On to the next one.

3. Bullshit Format

This is for all of my oldfags out there. Remember about four years ago when you could give seperate scores for different elements of the flash like audio, graphics, violence, and humor? That's right. It's gone. Apparently Mr. Fulp didn't think it was necessary to have such a bulky review system, but by removing that element, he has actually done the system more harm than good.

You see, when that was there, users were encouraged to analyze the finer parts of an animation. Now that it's gone, all they need to do is just a three step program: click 10, say something nice, and accept the tl;dr terms of use agreement that nobody reads.

I can't say much more on that subject besides BRING THAT SHIT BACK IT WAS GOOD, so my solution to this problem is to... bring that shit back, because it WAS good.

So there, you go. You've just been schooled on why the review system in Newgrounds blows. Who knows, maybe someone in the administration might read this and understand where I'm coming from. Maybe even reason with me if I said something completely wrong.

Anyway, see you fags later. Word is bond and I'm gone.

PS: RIP Michael Jackson. You taught me everything I know about dancing.

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