Forums > MobyGames > MobyRank sources approved then later removed.
Scaryfun (20370) on 10/27/2010 9:08 PM · Permalink · Report
www.onrpg.com was approved on Jun 17, 2010 and then I started to submit reviews from it only to have it rejected while several ranks were in my approval queue. The reason given was varying quality of the reviews - yes, there were a few that were subpar as I started submitting the oldest ones from when site first started -
http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/articles/newToOld/review/any/any/1
but their standards are quite good since and are more detailed than a lot of sites which only do one-paragraph reviews. I defy you to go through randomly any of the 42 pages and to pick a review and see whether it isn't detailed and worth being added. It also covers a category of games (MMO's) that are seldom reviewed elsewhere.
This has happened also recently to me with hentaineko.com which was approved and I submitted most of the reviews on it then it was removed due to it being a single reviewer site (which to me isn't reason enough as one person can be an authoritative source especially for a limited genre like it covers).
So there is obviously something broken in the site's chain of command if a source is approved then over-ridden after the fact. It is very demoralizing for a contributor like myself who is submitting content free of charge and spending hours and days on their work only to have it negated by bureaucratic decisions.
So, I'd like this decision reviewed and assured that some procedure is in place where MobyRank sources won't be second-guessed in the future. Thanks.
formercontrib (157510) on 10/27/2010 10:18 PM · Permalink · Report
Personally i had nothing to do with this one.
But various approvers proved this site, and come because of:
1.) Lots of USER-SUBMITTED reviews + 2.) SCORE DOES NOT FIT MOBY-STANDARDS: Because it's an AVERAGE OF ALL REVIEWS (Staff + User votes!)
To the final conclusion, that this site does not fulfill the Moby-Standards for beeing included into the professional Moby-Rank(ings).
So, you do know now, which arguments you have to push aside, if you're interested in having the source back again.
Those 1.)+2.) arguments are most times, those ones - that won't end finally here. I don't know exactly how many ranking sources we do have overall actually, but damn' lot that's for sure. This explains why f.e. from time-to-time admins approve such sources without the option and the time to check them detailed at this moment. Many sources "hide" their "origins" like Staff or user-rated well. But sooner or later will be recognized and rejected afterwards.
I can feel with you or others in such cases, if you're unhappy about losing them and losing points much to late. We'll see if this can be optimized earlier in the future.
For this onrpg.com site now, you do know what and why this has happened. Feel free, to bring your arguments - why it should be included again.
Scaryfun (20370) on 10/29/2010 8:13 AM · Permalink · Report
Thanks for the reply. There's only a few reviews from page 30 onwards that I saw as not being from an Onrpg journalist or Onrpg reviewer. The ratings I was submitting are only shown on the game summary page, for example - http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/Bounty-Bay-Online it's 8.0 while the review page itself http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/Bounty-Bay-Online/review/Bounty-Bay-Online-Review has a percentage of site visitors who like or don't like the article.
But my main complain is that a source rank should be verified by more than one person before being approved so that a site isn't revoked later on.
vedder (70822) on 10/29/2010 8:28 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
In this case what happened is, Patrick Bregger looked at the pending source and looked at a bunch of reviews which were all just fine.
Then you started submitting a lot of their reviews, after approving some, I noticed that many were of very questionable quality. Not just very short and user submitted, but also full of spelling and grammar errors and definitely not checked by an editor whatsoever.
So then I escalated the rest of the pending submissions (if I'm not mistaken) and made a post on the approver board for reevaluation of the source. And suggestion it should be deleted for the following reason:
Not all reviews show their score, but an average score of all reviews is shown. Some reviews are user submitted while others are not and they are hardly distinguishable. And on consideration Patrick agreed.
I think that allowing the site, but not allowing all their reviews would only add to more confusion and aggravation, but I'm open to suggestions. If the site would clearly state their reviews' ranking and which were staff reviews and which were user contributed there wouldn't be any problem.
So what went wrong here is that, when looking at the site, by pure chance, Patrick just clicked a bunch of 'good' reviews, but later we found out there's a lot of 'bad' ones as well. So there isn't really anyone to blame here.
Patrick Bregger (301035) on 10/29/2010 11:22 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
I didn't approve this source but I probably would have.
Additionally there are games with multiple reviews by "journalists", e.g. four for World of Warcraft. The site score can't be assigned to one official site review.
Patrick Bregger (301035) on 11/1/2010 7:33 AM · Permalink · Report
Yes, we had a few arguments about that source in the approver's forum. My stand: with so many reviews this guy has to make a living from this site which makes it a professional site. Or he wouldn't have the time to play all these games.
The other alternative would be that he plays the game for five minutes or so. Which would mean the source should be rejected better sooner than later. Because the quality of the reviews are definitely no reason to keep it.