This is an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while, and whilst I won’t prioritise building it just yet (I’ve promised myself ‘no new features’ until the new design is live), I could put some of the building blocks in place so it starts tracking things early for the inevitable launch.
I’m just going to ask if you think this is a good idea and if you’d use it. Please answer honestly!
So I often like to read reviews of stories that I have completed, and I’ll read them straight after completing a story, but then someone might come along and post an amazing review later that I just won’t see because I’m not constantly checking them!
So an idea would be that I start tracking which reviews people read (I’d use a simple measure - you opened the review and scrolled to the bottom or you ‘liked’ the review), and then offer a section on the site where it shows you unread reviews of stories you’ve completed!
The idea is if you felt like reading some reviews you could go to that page, have a cup of tea, and just scroll through reading reviews. They’d all be picked for you as they will all be stories you’ve completed.
I think it would be neat. It would also give more exposure to all the reviews already on the site, and future ones too! I could also show people stats about how many people viewed their review, and the ratio of views to likes
The only downside is that when it first launches, because I’ve not yet been tracking which reviews you read, it will show you things you’ve already read but have not ‘liked’. I think that’s not too bad an annoyance, and it will only happen once.
I don’t read that many reviews and is not the target audience for this. I sometimes read them at random if I complete a story and se that someone has written one but mostly I like more of the discussion format that the forum gives.
That would be a really cool feature! I always check out the reviews on things after I complete them, but don’t go back to see if there are any new ones since that would be kind of complicated, so this would be a perfect feature for me!
It does sound like a great feature, though I don’t think I’d personally use it much. There are just a few stories for which I’d specifically like to read reviews (usually when i have a strong opinion on the story myself lol), and for those I already check every now and then to see. For the rest I just read some directly after completing something, when the story is still fresh in my mind.
I assume you would add a ‘dismiss new’ button? After being inactive for a longer time, it would be nice to be able to empty the list.
Imho, a great feature idea. Maybe I would actually read more reviews this way.
Still, from a prioritization standpoint, I would see it as a delighter, not a must-have.
Sounds like a neat idea! I like to read reviews of stories I’ve completed and like the ones I think are interesting. But I won’t return to a story to read new reviews unless I’m also updating my score and own review or someone shared their review on a forum thread, so this is something I’d probably use quite a lot.
I think it’s a good idea and I can give you a real life example of where I would have used it. @Dontblink has been putting reviews of the Doctor Who Adventures comics up a week or so after I’ve read them myself. I was eager to see what they had said about the strips so a little alert telling me reviews I might be interested in were live would be really useful.
One thing maybe would be a button on a story which would allow you to be alerted for a particular story if new reviews became available. For example, I’d love to read reviews of Delta and the Bannermen (except if @Tian was writing it, obvs) but I’m not really interested in reading a review of Genesis of the Daleks despite having watched it a number of times.
And in just over an hour since I posted this, I’ve implemented the following on the test version of the new site (not yet live!):
When you open up a review, and scroll so that the bottom of it is in view, it gets automatically marked as ‘read’.
There is a little icon next to every review showing which are read and which are unread.
There is a link to “mark as unread” in case you want to come back to it later.
That’s it for now! ‘No new features’ I said!! But it means that when the new site launches it will start collating the read/unread status of reviews, allowing me to do lots of cool things with it later!
I generally don’t read that many reviews. Usually it is reserved for a 0/5 or 5/5. Either for confirmation of my opinion or to have some rage injected into my veins.
But seriously, I see the benefit, but it isn’t one for me.
I wouldn’t personally use this feature, I don’t think, but it would be cool to have. Maybe if you could track specific stories, like Delta said; I’d love to see whenever there’s a new review for Cyberwoman…
