Possible review section?

Comments, suggestions, problems, other board business, bring it here and drop us some knowledge
User avatar
Onslaught Six
Supreme-Class
Posts: 7023
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:49 am
Location: In front of my computer.
Contact:

Possible review section?

Post by Onslaught Six »

It's something I've noticed. We all review toys when we get them, with varying levels of thoroughness and opinions and the like. And I've been thinking, we should probably work on getting some more content here on the site--I know, it's mostly just here to be the forum and not much else, but if we're already doing this 'anyway'...

What if we open a dedicated review section? It keeps with the theme of this being TFViews, after all--a site dedicated to the varying views of the community. We long-before discussed the possibility of having a Dedicated TF Review Site long, long ago, back on Ben's last forum, but nothing ever came of it because we didn't have any webspace. Now we 'do,' and we've had it for about a year now, so I was thinking, let's 'do something with it.' Especially with the current movie line in full swing and TFmania ramping back the hell up. It'd be a good time to start doing something like this, I'd imagine.

Just thinking out loud.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
Image
User avatar
andersonh1
Moderator
Posts: 6323
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:22 pm
Location: South Carolina

Re: Possible review section?

Post by andersonh1 »

I'm all for it. I think it's a great idea. We ought to already have enough reviews in the various threads to have a decent selection to start off.
User avatar
JediTricks
Site Admin
Posts: 3849
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:17 pm
Location: LA, CA, USA

Re: Possible review section?

Post by JediTricks »

I've been thinking about that a lot since the site opened a year ago, but haven't really come up with answers.

Do you guys want to try just a "reviews" forum section of its own? Or should it be its own separate software system? I might be able to come up with something software-based separate from the forums, but none of it is tailored to our needs so I'll need to repurpose it. I of course could have a forum section up in the blink of an eye, but that may not be enough of its own thing.

I do want to set it up so the reviews are based on item, rather than on line the way our existing review threads are.

So, give me your thoughts, all feedback appreciated, and we'll come up with something.
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
User avatar
Onslaught Six
Supreme-Class
Posts: 7023
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:49 am
Location: In front of my computer.
Contact:

Re: Possible review section?

Post by Onslaught Six »

Pondering it over, we could either have a seperate Reviews section (which would basically be the News section but for reviews, I'm thinking) or we redo the way we do the review topics. Having just one seperate forum where We Review Stuff could get messy 'fast' so I don't recommend doing that, though. (Either all the reviews would be clumped into one ill-defined Hey Look Reviews section, or we'd have to be a buttload of new forums for each individual line, which would be redundant when looking at our current forum setup anyway.)

My point is, I dunno, I've thrown the idea out there, let's just throw a bunch of ideas up on a wall and see what comes sprawling down.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
Image
User avatar
JediTricks
Site Admin
Posts: 3849
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:17 pm
Location: LA, CA, USA

Re: Possible review section?

Post by JediTricks »

Onslaught Six wrote:Pondering it over, we could either have a seperate Reviews section (which would basically be the News section but for reviews, I'm thinking) or we redo the way we do the review topics. Having just one seperate forum where We Review Stuff could get messy 'fast' so I don't recommend doing that, though. (Either all the reviews would be clumped into one ill-defined Hey Look Reviews section, or we'd have to be a buttload of new forums for each individual line, which would be redundant when looking at our current forum setup anyway.)

My point is, I dunno, I've thrown the idea out there, let's just throw a bunch of ideas up on a wall and see what comes sprawling down.
Running a second news system would be a chore, installing another Wordpress would be quite the pain in the butt, and then every user would have to create another login. If I were to go with software, it'd probably be a heavily-modified Wiki system, or perhaps a light modification of the Photo Gallery system (transforming "user comments" into reviews). There are other alternatives like Pligg, a CMS I've never used before but can be easily installed on the server (though it may require a free server move, as I don't know if we're running PHP5 or not) - Pligg is good because it has a built-in rating system for reviews.

Any external system is going to require a bit of customization on my part, and someone's going to have to design its look.

As for a Reviews forum, we have an adequate search system, or I could create line folders as needed and hide them off the main page so it won't ugly the place up. But it won't have a stand-alone rating system like most of the other options. That said, we have everything we need for it right here, it's already installed and running properly, ready to go at any time, and users won't have to register a second login to use it.
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
User avatar
Onslaught Six
Supreme-Class
Posts: 7023
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:49 am
Location: In front of my computer.
Contact:

Re: Possible review section?

Post by Onslaught Six »

True enough. I'm just waiting to see what other people have to say to begin with.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
Image
User avatar
andersonh1
Moderator
Posts: 6323
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 3:22 pm
Location: South Carolina

Re: Possible review section?

Post by andersonh1 »

How about a section for reviews on the forum, with each actual forum within it for different lines? Right now there are three main sections on the forum, with each having subsections within. How about a fourth section for reviews, and within that subforums for G1/G2 reviews, the Beast Era, Animated, etc.?
User avatar
Onslaught Six
Supreme-Class
Posts: 7023
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:49 am
Location: In front of my computer.
Contact:

Re: Possible review section?

Post by Onslaught Six »

Thassright, I forgot we could probably do subforums. Hrmmm.
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
Image
User avatar
Dominic
Supreme-Class
Posts: 9331
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:55 pm
Location: Boston
Contact:

Re: Possible review section?

Post by Dominic »

One of the things we have been trying to do this past year or so is to build up the page beyond the forums.

So, I would support a dedicated reviews section, if we could build it up meaningfully.

(I would like to see line-dedicated sections of the page, with articles on both toys and content, but that is another story.)

But, as JT pointed out, this will require real effort to install more soft-ware and such. So, we need to be serious about it.

Dom
User avatar
JediTricks
Site Admin
Posts: 3849
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:17 pm
Location: LA, CA, USA

Re: Possible review section?

Post by JediTricks »

The one thing I'm not in love with about a review forum is that folks would have to go out of the section they're already in to see reviews, why go from G1 to Reviews > G1? Well, because of organization, but are they gonna get that?

The good thing about a reviews forum right now is that we can port out those reviews later, it's a LOT harder to cull them from the singular threads.

Any more thoughts?
Image
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
Post Reply