Introducing STEEMIT REVIEWS....
Background:
I was reading a post written by @cashbandicoot yesterday when this idea popped into my head. I liked his idea, which was in essence to create a tag that people can use to post music recommendations and find new music. This idea is simple and nice, and I would certainly participate in such a community, but I think it could be implemented so much better in Steemit's front end (as compared to simply adding a tag to recommendation posts.)
I have been a long time user of a web site called Metacritic. If you're not aware, they aggregate reviews for movies, music and video games and create an average score for each. I prefer it to any other review site, because it takes into account all reviews that any certain critic may publish and then combines it into simply one rating score (1 to 100). It is an easy way to get a general idea of what the critics' opinions are, and then I choose to watch/listen/play something or not watch/listen/play something based on this rating.
The Idea:
The epiphany here is that Steemit and Metacritic can be combined to form a Steemit user-aggregated review web site for movies, music, video games, consumer electronics, automobiles, etc. By implementing a clean front end similar to that of Metacritic, such a feature would create an alternative use for Steemit other than just blogging, which would be useful to people both inside and outside of the Steemit community.
Benefits:
- Adding different types of posts and front ends to Steemit widens its use from simply a social media or blogging platform to anything we can imagine. Competitive (read: aesthetically pleasing and modern) marketplaces, review web sites, etc...
- I posit that such a feature could bring in a ton of organic search traffic, and in turn more people into the Steemit community. This effect would be amplified with the more use cases that are implemented.
How It Works:
Profitable Reviews:
Posting reviews should be profitable for the user submitting the review in the same way that submitting a blog post is profitable. Each review will be up vote-able via a front end similar to what we have currently... something that displays new, trending, and popular reviews, while also being displayed on the separate front end created that was previously mentioned that specifically aggregates and displays reviews in a modern and competitive way (see below.) Allowing people to potentially profit off of submitting reviews is key to having an accurate review web site. Otherwise, hardly anyone would submit reviews and the reviews would in turn not be so accurate.
Differentiate Post Types:
Instead of simply clicking "Submit a Story" and being forwarded to a blog post page, the text should be changed to "Submit Content" which then forwards someone to a list of the types of posts someone can submit. The list would be short initially with simply two options... "Submit a Blog Post" or "Submit a Review". Eventually, there are many different use cases that could be added to this list, but that is outside the scope of this proposal. When someone clicks "Submit a Blog Post" they will be forwarded to the current template for submitting blogs, but when they click "Submit a Review" they will be forwarded to a different template that is intended just for reviews (herein-out referred to as a "Review Template".) When a user submits content using either template, it would be recorded on the blockchain which template was used, which allows the Steemit front end to differentiate the types of posts then organize and display them in different ways.
Review Template:
The Review Template would obviously be different than the currently existing Blog Template. Different templates would be created for each type of content someone could submit. Here are some basic suggestions for what data fields a Review Template might have for someone to post reviews:
- Main Picture (IE. a picture of the CD or movie cover, etc.)
- Synopsis (IE. a brief description of the item being reviewed)
- Category of Review (IE. Music, Movie, Video Game, Consumer Electronics, Cars, etc.)
- Sub-Category of Review (IE. For Music it would be something like: Rap, Rock, Pop, Country, etc.)
- Overall Rating (IE. On a scale from 1 to 10)
- Detailed Review Field (IE. Allow someone to write a detailed review or add a video review)
- Suggestion Field (IE. If you like this movie, you might like X, Y, or Z movie)
Aggregating and Displaying Reviews:
Navigation:
Navigation of the Steemit Reviews front end should first be navigable by the category of the review or via a search box. After a category is selected, reviews should then be navigable by sub-categories. After a sub-category is selected, each item that has reviews for it should show up. This list of reviews in each sub-category should be sort-able by items with the most recent reviews, the items with the highest reviews, the items with the lowest reviews.
Once an item is selected, each reviewed item's main page should look similar to Metacritic's design which contains an average score, a main picture, a synopsis, and a list of reviews. Users can then select any certain review to read more about any certain thing that has been reviews. The reviews with the most up votes should be aggregated towards the top. I suggest also aggregating similar things that other reviews have suggested on this same page (IE. If someone is interested in Breaking Bad, then they may also be interested in Sons of Anarchy, Weeds, Better Call Saul, etc.)
Main Picture and Synopsis:
How will the main picture and synopsis be determined for each item's main review page?
The main picture and synopsis that is displayed on the Review-specific front end will be determined by the review which has the most up votes for any certain thing that has been reviewed. This allows the Steemit Reviews front end page for each item that has been reviewed to look similar to Metacritic's design... each has a main picture, synopsis, an average score, and list of reviews for each item.
Average Score:
How will the average score be determined for each item's main review page?
For each review submitted that is for the same thing (IE. the same movie or the same CD), an average score should be aggregated and displayed which is derived from all reviews of that same thing. So, all "Ghostbusters 2016" Overall Ratings would be averaged from each review, which results in a STEEMIT aggregated average rating for each movie, CD, game, etc.
Just like blogs, reviews should be down vote-able as well to prevent abuse. If a review is down-voted enough, as judged by a SP-based metric (which is arbitrary to this proposal), then it will be excluded from the calculation used to determine the average score and will not display on the Review front end.
Suggestions:
I think the example for suggestions mentioned up thread explains the purpose of Suggestions well. If someone is interested in Breaking Bad, they may also be interested in Sons of Anarchy, Weeds, Better Call Saul, etc...
How will the suggestions be determined for each item's main review page?
The suggestions that are mentioned more often in all reviews for any certain item should be listed on each item's main review page. (IE. the top 5 most listed suggestions aggregated from all reviews would be shown). This allows readers to find things they might not know about that they may be interested. This should also be expandable to where someone could see everything anyone has suggested, sorted by whatever thing has the most suggestions.
Separate Reviews:
From an item's main review page, they should be able to click on a review to read the entire review. This should be sort-able by the reviews with the most up votes and user's with the most up-votes for all reviews. This allows people to get a more in depth look as to how the average score was calculated and more information on any certain item that has been reviewed.