Talk:Wikireview

A flaw with Wikireview

Wikipedia is supposed to be a refernce site as I understand it, so it's not clear to me that reviews are appropriate. I like the idea of offering user edited reviews - possibly on wikia.com and then linking back and forth to the right wikipedia information. Is that too simplistic?

I think that Wikipedia can include a neutral summary of the book/issue/thing, as well as a summary of critical reviews, including links to reviews. It seems that Wikireview is proposed to allow opinion to be added, but then how are contrasting opinions going to be handled in a coherent manner? Since coherent prose may be impossible when opinion is added, this proposal may be nothing more than Wikibate focused on a narrow set of topics. If a person wants to write a review of a book, they can set up a blog. AdamRetchless 01:09, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Someone could easily start a blog, but it probably would not get that large. However, if we have many people from around the world working on it, it can become a very large index of opinion, rather than many smaller ones. You certainly do have a point that Wikireview requires a NPOV part in each article, however. I'll be sure to add that. Messedrocker 14:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Not totally agree, there's several variations on 'review'-subject, think about these ..

(I'm sure a non-exhaustive listing):

• Formal reviews, among a board, similar to RFC and IETF, with a pre-determined set of members and limited in time with fixed form of feedback comments. This can be elaborated to types covered by what is known as 'Document Review and Approval' in traditional Document Management area.
• Informal reviews, among a wider community, but limited in time, useful for Project Scoping (in 'Open Software' projects), necessary to be scoped prior to initiation.
• Feedback reviews, much like a debate where everyone has their own opinion (this is the one form, I believe, you suggest can be used at all times).
• Document Approval (covered slightly above) for retrieving formal acceptance (by proxy, perhaps) to a fixed set of members in a community, such as a approval board, again within a limited time frame.

Well, there is definely more to it than this, but I suggest to 'design' the information model behind WikiReview, before starting a development. For example, for a given document type (media type, I suppose), review feedback has to be moderated if the feedback is meant to be incorporated into the object being reviewed. A talk of Roles is also important (Reviewer (Feedback Evaluator), Editor (maybe not the Author), Moderator, Bureaucrat (as Wiki defines it, I suppose) and so on.

So I warmly suggest the WikiReview to be progressed. Regards Peter Rosenberg IT Consultant

Reviews Wikicity

As a "pilot project", maybe people could start some reviews at the Reviews Wikicity. --Memenen 15:18, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipinions

My idea might be a subset of the Wikireview concept, or maybe it could just be a different name for Wikireview.

I would like to see a wikipinions.org site set up. The idea would be that people could freely post their opinions on products, companies, institutions, and possibly even public figures. Like epinions.com but better because it would be wiki and not a commercial site.

Jonathan Kovaciny 15:38, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid about legal implications though. I vividly remember when BrickBay was threatened by eBay and changed their name to the less cute BrickLink. Certainly I think the name sounds great as it has that catchy wiki project ring to it, but I am worried about epinions becoming angry. Garrett 03:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Allowing reviews of personal work, a bad idea?

I think allowing any idiot to publish something and expect people to review it is opening up a real can of worms. With Wikipedia we have a heap of trouble keeping nonnotable things out of the wiki, but what safeguards would there be if you're explicitly allowing people to add their own stuff?

I don't think we should allow that, there needs to be some sort of standard of quality or notability or something. Of course the "will never get reviews" proviso covers a lot of this stuff, but I'd like these things to be able to be "shot on sight" by admins instead of dragged through a Vfd with all of its inherent problems.

Of course this is all my own opinion, but then again that's what this wiki is all about isn't it? :) Anyway, see what you think. Garrett 03:24, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikireview example

I've drafted a sample at User:Garrett/Wikireview example. It's missing a packshot, but other than that you get the idea.

Each product type would of course have its own unique rating categories, but the head rating box design would be made universal by using a parent template.

Anyway, see what you think. The sooner we actually make a start on this project the better. Garrett 04:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE: the sample review is now on Wikicities. This is now entirely table-generated with a cut-n-paste list to fill in, meaning the user doesn't have to fiddle with tables and images or anything like that.

Now the next thing to do is work out the hierarchy. For now I've gone with main-level pages like Wikipedia does with each review being on a subpage of the master description.

Anyway, see what you think. Garrett 10:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Awesome. Great job, and thanks for putting some legs on this project.

I see what goes on the Review by Garret sub-page, but what goes on the "Payback (game)" page itself? Just links to reviews by individual users, or some basic information about the game? Jonathan Kovaciny 17:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Well I think we should have a generic profile and vague description for each project being rated, along with release info, different platforms, editions, ISBNs, whatever. The reviews would also be there, as well as a giant "from X reviews" total average score that would be recalculated each time a new review is made.

That way people can find similar editions of that product even if they aren't reviewed (yet). Anyway, that would all go in the first level, with /Review by XYZ as the subpages. That also solves the problem of each reviewer having to write an NPOV description of the item, as the description can just be left there and transcluded (once MediaWiki 1.5 is up and running that is).

I spent a long time trying to decide what subpage hierarchy to go with, but I couldn't decide--for example if Payback is a subpage of Game Boy Advance would it then be subpaged under the Action genre or the letter P? And what about the Mac and Amiga ports, how would it be cross-linked to them? And so forth. I think cats are going to be the way to go, at least until something better comes up.

Oh and "(game)" in brackets is not part of my proposed organisation system but rather future-proofing just like Wikipedia does, because there's also a movie called Payback. Garrett 21:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Related Idea: Wikisummary?

This is a related idea, which I was thinking could be aimed at books& articles (with a particular academic focus maybe?), to provide a space for summaries of works. This could be hugely useful in academia - as a student myself summaries of articles (often twenty plus pages long - and often when I finish them I feel like it could have been written in a couple of pages) would be hugely useful and I would be more than happy to submit summaries of articles that I'd read myself.

• This could then provide a base for links to reviews (which would be more opiniated).
• It could also link somehow to wikiversity, which seems to be flagging somewhat.

This would be a way for wikipedia to get the more academically inclined involved a bit more as well! I would be up for trying to cement this into a proposal with wikireview, or making it as a separate proposal if anyone would be interested in working with me to do that give me a shout... Iamsorandom (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I've created a proposal page for wikisummary, see [here]