DinoToyBlog Star Ratings

[Faelrin]

@Crackington Well said. To add the Marx Moschops is still the best toy or plastic option after all this time, and despite its age still holds up. By the way Mattel is making a mini Nothosaurus that should be releasing this year. It is part of a two pack with a mini of this year's Elasmosaurus figure. I have a pic of it in the new for 2023 Mattel thread.

E @Eatmycar This forum has a thing against action figures (to put it rather bluntly). It's why the BotM figures do poorly in the yearly polls, despite being quality figures (occasional qc issue aside, but brand is perfect with that). A bit shocking the 93 classic Mattel T. rex got hatepiled on, since while it isn't their best sculpt, it's still a great homage to the original toy. The HC Concavenator is pretty screen accurate too. The weird thumb is part of the film's design so it would be weird to omit it, even if it was strange for them to add it to the film design in the first place. Way back in 2019 Mattel stated such in a twitter response as well. Like you said though, despite that weird thumb, it is a decent enough action figure, and until Creative Beast Studio releases one, it is a fine option for the meantime, as far as an action figure goes. It's still their only medium theropod to have wrist articulation too weirdly enough.

The fact the Mattel Nothosaurus has over 400 votes (regardless of the rating) definitely suggests to me that brigading in some form occured on this figure, if not more, rather from non forum members, and/or bots. Either that or a strange glitch occured with it.

I think a good solution for the rating system would be to make it (forum) member only so it can't be brigaded (like with Rebor's community in the past). While people could still make accounts for the purpose of voting in the polls, I imagine a lot less would go through the trouble of doing so. It would also hopefully cut down on bots voting too. Perhaps a captcha should be added too just in case.

[SidB]

There is definitely something fishy is going on with the Nothosaurus review. I don't buy for an instant that 408 different people voted on the exact same review.

EXACTLY. There's NO WAY 400 plus  different people have voted. There's something wrong with the voting mechanism. As I said previously, I was able to vote more than once on the same figure. THAT SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HAPPEN! Likely one individual or a very few are responsible for the 400 votes.

That's interesting because I can't vote a second time for the BoTM Triceratops (even though I voted for it once)... but I can for the Hammond Collection Concavenator.

I suspect something has to be toggled and the votes wiped entirely for these clearly over-voted figures.

Probably so. I can vote twice or more if I want ( I don't actually want to), but then apparently some has occurred to make that happen. Someone else, or a few others have either stumbled onto the fatal secret, whatever it is. This must be remedied.

[EmperorDinobot]

Some people on this forum also seem to dislike colorful dinosaurs, like the colorful BOTM figures, and feel they should be grayer.

But we do know what they look like now. Some of them anyways.

BOTM figures truly are the best thing since sliced bread.

[DinoToyForum]

The star ratings plugin uses IP addresses to minimise abuse. So, in principle, you shouldn't be able to vote multiple times, at least not in close succession on the same device. However, there are ways around it, which visitors may be doing unintentionally or intentionally. For example, using a VPN.

[BlueKrono]

There is definitely something fishy is going on with the Nothosaurus review. I don't buy for an instant that 408 different people voted on the exact same review.

EXACTLY. There's NO WAY 400 plus  different people have voted. There's something wrong with the voting mechanism. As I said previously, I was able to vote more than once on the same figure. THAT SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO HAPPEN! Likely one individual or a very few are responsible for the 400 votes.

I voted on the Concavenator and it wouldn't let me vote more than once, even after reloading the page.

[Gwangi]

Frankly, a lot of the Mattel stuff seems like it gets an egregious amount of votes. Negative votes too.

While I don't think it is a conspiracy, I find it odd that the Hammond Concavenator sits with 159 votes (https://dinotoyblog.com/concavenator-jurassic-world-fallen-kingdom-hammond-collection-by-mattel/) when it is a very well made, painted, and designed figure.

I don't think all of this accounts for the bloody thumb claw either. I sincerely feel like people vote down the Mattel figures by a wide margin. It's likely the only articulated Concavenator on the market and will likely remain such, so I don't understand why it is taking such flak.

To double post - I think the rating system should be revised or at least put on hold for a bit. In no way are some of these results reflective of a community's views on a figure.

https://dinotoyblog.com/tyrannosaurus-electronic-real-feel-jurassic-park-93-classic-collection-by-mattel/ 100 votes on this? Come on.

Meanwhile, one of the most anticipated action figures of last year... (this is a toy forum, I'm not sure why there is such a stigma against toys here) ...has only 53 votes? https://dinotoyblog.com/triceratops-118-scalebeasts-of-the-mesozoic-by-creative-beast-studio/

If anything should have more votes, it should be the Triceratops. Yet the Mattel rex has more votes, and they seem to be very negative. While I understand it's not paleoaccurate and it is an action figure (in a toy forum of all places?!), it's hard to understand the massive discrepancy between the ratings here and the glowing praises this figure has received in the Jurassic toy community without feeling as if some of these things are deliberately being shot down by people who dislike Mattel's creations.

I don't think it is unusual for a figure to get 100+ votes, there are quite a few of them that do. The Haolonggood Ouranosaurus and Safari Albertosaurus come to mind, they both have 100+. Likewise, although BotM is widely anticipated around these parts I don't find it unusual that something like a Mattel T. rex would get more votes. Mattel products have a broader appeal and more people collect them. Jurassic Park/World is popular and the T. rex especially so. And keep in mind that it's not just forum members that visit the blog. There are people that visit the blog but not the forum and probably bunches more that just stumble on it while Google searching a figure.

But yeah, there is a discrepancy between praise and rating. I always figured that most of the forum members vote low on all Mattel products regardless of actual quality. They probably don't participate in the Mattel thread, they just vote the figure down when they see it posted. The silent majority, if you will. Meanwhile, collectors of the brand that praise the figures vote high, which would lead to a rating somewhere in the middle, which is what we see on most of them.

Figures like the Schliech Ceratosaurus and AAA Utahraptor are almost certainly being upvoted by an individual or two who have a lot of love for the figure or are just taking the piss. In fact, I've seen one or two forum members admit to upvoting every Schleich product simply to balance out the negative votes.

Speaking of odd ratings. The Tim Mee set of dinosaurs has 24 votes and a 4.7 star rating. That's way too high (and I'm the one that reviewed them). Again, I imagine that a few folks that had these toys as kids refuse to see them get low ratings and repeatedly vote them higher. Look around the blog for awhile and you'll see tons of ratings that boggle the mind. People are weird and they do weird things.

EDIT: The reason something like the BotM Trike might get less votes than the 93' T. rex could also have something to do with the person reviewing it. For example, I often share my reviews in JP social media groups and on my Instagram which might generate a few more visits and votes than someone that doesn't do that.

[Halichoeres]

I think it's hilarious that somebody would go to the trouble of manipulating the vote on a toy (which seems plainly to be the case with 400 votes on the Nothosaurus). I mean, get a life.

My policy is that I don't vote on figures that are distant from my collecting interests. I don't feel I can judge them in a meaningful way. So I wouldn't vote on a Mattel figure, for instance, but I would vote on an Invicta (even though I own only one Invicta).

This is generally my approach too. I voted for the Nothosaurus, for example, because I'm fond of Triassic animals, but I generally ignore the other JW stuff since it's not really made for me.

Edited to add: I definitely voted higher than 2!

[Gwangi]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

[crazy8wizard]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

I get the sneaking suspicion that somebody on youtube or some other social media told people to go vote it really low but there's nothing actually supporting that.

[DinoToyForum]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

Hmm. It is suspicious.

[suspsy]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

I get the sneaking suspicion that somebody on youtube or some other social media told people to go vote it really low but there's nothing actually supporting that.

I have trouble believing that some JW fanboy on YouTube is that influential.

[DinoToyForum]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

I get the sneaking suspicion that somebody on youtube or some other social media told people to go vote it really low but there's nothing actually supporting that.

I have trouble believing that some JW fanboy on YouTube is that influential.

Equally difficult to understand why an AI/bot would target a single review on the blog?

[Gwangi]

The Mattel Nothosaurus reached 500 votes today. Something is going on here. Can bots vote?

I get the sneaking suspicion that somebody on youtube or some other social media told people to go vote it really low but there's nothing actually supporting that.

It's actually gone up since last week. Was 2 stars and is now at 2.1. If they want to downvote it, why not 1 star?

I feel like if someone on social media or YT had a hand in this someone here would find out about it. Also, why?

[DinoToyForum]

I've looked at the star ratings for the blog and it appears that one forum member (the IPs match so I know who) is abusing the system and voting for the same figures multiple (dozens  of) times. If this is you, please DM me so we can resolve this with minimal fuss.

[Halichoeres]

Why? Because of Nostalgia? Nostalgia is toxic...just like many of the toys associated with it. KICK NOSTALGIA TO THE CURB!
 

I've been thinking about this sentiment. In a lot of contexts I am pretty suspicious of nostalgia, when it takes the form of "Life was simpler when..." or "This country has gone downhill since..." That kind of nostalgia is often toxic and reactionary. But I guess I think toy nostalgia is one of the more harmless kinds. I don't really understand nostalgia myself--I appreciate the artistry of Invicta or Marx without having any particular attachment to the figures or desire to own them--but it doesn't bother me. Similarly, I think the original Jurassic Park was a very good movie, and I still enjoy watching it from time to time, but I don't have any desire to own figures depicting the characters or creatures in it. Clearly a lot of people do, which is fine, but I don't really relate to it.

[Crackington]

Whatever happened to nostalgia (sigh)....

I've been thinking about this too and examining my own feelings towards these older figures, books and other paraphernalia.

I've concluded that whilst I have some nostalgic feelings towards things from my own childhood (e.g. Aurora, Invicta, Inpros, Neave Parker etc), this doesn't translate to things I only encountered on rediscovering the hobby as an adult. Hence I do not feel nostalgia for Marx, MPC, Charles Knight etc. I rather have an undiluted historical appreciation for those things.

I do not have a science background, my degree was in History and Philosophy, which may help explain the direction I approach the hobby from. I simply prefer to (mostly) mine the hobby's rich history rather than try to keep up with an endless search for an elusive perfect iteration of a species.

I certainly do not view the past through rose tinted glasses and agree with Hobbes' dictum that life then was "nasty, brutish and short", as it still is sadly for too many people in the world today.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres Nostalgia is weird for me. I didn't have a particularly good childhood (I was abused physically, and mentally to put it short). I seldomly feel nostalgia (sometimes I even question if it is actually nostalgia I am feeling, and not something else), but when I do it's definitely for the few fleeting things I enjoyed growing up, and haven't kept up with growing older (or my depression). Certainly not of a life was simpler, or better, but because it was one of the few good times I had. I think it's why I'm still so drawn to toys as an adult (perhaps my autism aside), aside from how the market has evolved as the year's have gone by. It's like a comfort thing I guess.

Jurassic Park is a good example of this, although because of how present it is in my interests these days, I don't really feel nostalgia for it anymore like I did back when Jurassic World first released. However it was one of the first non cartoon things I have memories of watching, like as young as a toddler (having been born in '91), and I got to grow up alongside the original trilogy eventually. Aside from like whatever toys I had (such as recast Marx figures probably), and the Land Before Time series, and eventually Primal Rage as well, it was one of my first introductions to dinosaurs altogether. Thanks to the effects work from both Stan Winston Studios and ILM, I was convinced those were living dinosaurs until I started getting older, and learned how they were made (when JPIII came out on DVD I think). It's why Deinonychus reigns supreme as my favorite dinosaur, and why I love dromaeosaurids as much as I do to this day.

I mostly collect the figures these days for several reasons. The primary reason is because I have a fondness for those designs that I grew up alongside, thanks to the work of Stan Winston Studios and ILM. Although that's mainly after Mattel got the license (though were it not for them, I would have chased after Kenner's stuff, most of which I never had growing up, and didn't know about). When Jurassic World came out, and despite not being the most ideal offerings, I did get my hands on a few as it was the first time in over a decade there had been any real Jurassic movie, and toys on the shelves since JPIII, and I wanted to re-live that a bit. And thanks to them handling it so poorly, it went to Mattel. Granted I do criticize a lot of Mattel's offerings, as far as accuracy of the film designs go, because of my passion for them. Like I want them to do better, because I know they can. Still they are much better from what came from before in many cases, and unlike Kenner or Hasbro, we've finally gotten a chance to have a complete collection of species from nearly all films, nearly all in scale with one another, which is nuts. Like the Legacy Brachiosaurus (now the highly articulated Hammond one), and so on.

As mentioned before I didn't have many of the JP toys growing up (just like the raptor, TLW "Junior" baby T. rex, and the Chaos Effect Amargaspinus, and Compstegonathus), and now I have more freedom financially (at times) and otherwise. I also no longer have any of the toys I grew up with, as they've all been sent away to one of my parents numerous storage units during my childhood that have been auctioned off, so this is a way for me to rebuild again, even if from scratch. The only thing from my childhood that we still have is a particular table (seen in my collection thread that my 29 gallon aquarium used to be on) passed down to my father's family from his grandparents I think. Perhaps one of these days I'll get my hands on the old ones again, and relive some of those memories. I did that with the Primal Rage figures, and the JPIII fence set a few years back.

@DinoToyForum Back on topic for this thread, I wonder if there's a way to reset the votes that had been tampered with by this particular individual (or others)? Perhaps something can be implemented to prevent re-votes (or without one removing them first), like the forum polls do for example.

[SidB]

Why? Because of Nostalgia? Nostalgia is toxic...just like many of the toys associated with it. KICK NOSTALGIA TO THE CURB!
 

I've been thinking about this sentiment. In a lot of contexts I am pretty suspicious of nostalgia, when it takes the form of "Life was simpler when..." or "This country has gone downhill since..." That kind of nostalgia is often toxic and reactionary. But I guess I think toy nostalgia is one of the more harmless kinds. I don't really understand nostalgia myself--I appreciate the artistry of Invicta or Marx without having any particular attachment to the figures or desire to own them--but it doesn't bother me. Similarly, I think the original Jurassic Park was a very good movie, and I still enjoy watching it from time to time, but I don't have any desire to own figures depicting the characters or creatures in it. Clearly a lot of people do, which is fine, but I don't really relate to it.

I think that it it's quite appropriate not to understand nostalgia, whether of the positive or negative sort. It may have some rational aspects, either way, but IMO it's a supra- or sub- rational phenomenon. As the old-timer once said in a different context, it's "better felt than telt".

[Stegotyranno420]

What it says in the title. Just look at this Nothosaurus:
https://dinotoyblog.com/nothosaurus-jurassic-world-dino-trackers-danger-pack-by-mattel/

It only has two stars? Why? Simply because it was made by Mattel. It's not perfect, but it is the best Nothosaurus on the blog.
Meanwhile old junk like the Kenner Jurassic Park series 1 Stegosaurus, Inpros ( which clearly where not great even when first released ), somes Hasbros and even screamer type Cheaposaurs get much better ratings.

Why? Because of Nostalgia? Nostalgia is toxic...just like many of the toys associated with it. KICK NOSTALGIA TO THE CURB!

 

I do think the nothosaurus does deserve a bit higher rating, especially if it didn't have such teeth.
But I don't get the war on nostalgia.
These figurines are important since they are history. Theres a reason why a Old vase is more valuable than a modern one, why an ancient carving is more important than a recent one. Granted, we are talking a different timescale, but this hobby is relatively young, so I digress.

[Fembrogon]

I've always seen nostalgia as an extremely arbitrary thing. I've felt nostalgic many times, for many reasons, sometimes  unexpectedly.
There's nothing wrong with nostalgia, in my opinion, as long as one can discern personal fondness from objective quality. Some vintage toys are objectively (contextually) good in addition to any nostalgia; others, not so much.