DinoToyBlog Star Ratings

[DinoToyForum]

I have to wonder even if it isn't malicious botting, how much of this could still be bot activity. Perhaps voting based on keywords to try and mask themselves by simulating user behaviour from the IP?

To what end? I don't think this is likely. It's more likely a troll trolling, or someone who has a very specific personal dislike of the figure or some element of it (e.g. the plates being, in their view, inaccurate), or it could even be an accidental click. I wouldn't read too much into the occasional one star rating. When there is unusual mass voting, like we had recently, that's when something is amiss.

[stargatedalek]

Fair enough, I meant the mass voting situations though.

I've definitely had situations where it seemed to count my vote twice, often because I would tweak it after reading the review.

[DinoToyForum]

Fair enough, I meant the mass voting situations though.

I've definitely had situations where it seemed to count my vote twice, often because I would tweak it after reading the review.

The mass voting situations are not bots, the people behind it have come forward to me in private to apologise.

[ceratopsian]

It's good that they took that step.

Fair enough, I meant the mass voting situations though.

I've definitely had situations where it seemed to count my vote twice, often because I would tweak it after reading the review.

The mass voting situations are not bots, the people behind it have come forward to me in private to apologise.

[Gwangi]

Some interesting perspectives here that helped me understand people's predilections a little better. Thanks, and sorry I've taken us off topic (not sorry enough to stop, though). Collecting things, especially useless things like dinosaur toys, is a thoroughly silly hobby, maybe even a mild form of mental illness. Sometimes I think we forget there is no sensible way to participate in it. I don't always succeed, but I try not to stumble into thinking that someone else's way is somehow sillier than mine.

I don't know that I would call it mental illness. Most people seem to collect something of some sort. Baseball or Pokémon cards, stamps, coins, sports memorabilia, Funko Pops...you name it. Seems like a natural thing for humans to collect stuff. 

Really interesting thoughts. I sat and tried to remember seeing JP for the first time. I know that I saw it in theaters the year it came out, since I was already a prehistory-obsessed kid. But I don't remember anything about the circumstances, not even which theater we went to--and there were only two to choose from! I think it must have been me, my brother, and my mom, because my sister would have been a bit young for it. But I don't remember that, I'm just reasoning that it must have been so. I DO remember getting the first book as a present from my older brother when I was 10 or 11, and how tattered and dog-eared it got. I guess people remember different things. I have a great memory for names, like I'll learn a new class of students within two weeks, but unless I've seen a movie three or more times I wouldn't be able to give you a plot synopsis.

I have a really vivid memory when it comes to movies. They're like memory anchors for me. Because I can remember seeing a movie I can then remember the circumstances surrounding it. How old I was, what was happening in my life, who was in my life, etc. With Jurassic Park I can remember collecting beer cans and stashing them away to save up to see the movie, because I foolishly thought no one would take me. I remember my mother being apprehensive about me seeing it because she had read a negative review, she wasn't thrilled about me seeing someone get eaten off the toilet by a dinosaur. I remember my father seeing it without me and trying to convince me that I wouldn't like it because it had "dinosaurs I never heard of" and they didn't have a lot of screen time. And because I can remember THAT I can remember sitting in a diner talking about it with him, but I can't remember what I ate, just where I sat in association with the rest of the family.

And then I did see it. My step-father's sister and husband took me and my sister. And I remember what it was like to see the Brachiosaurus for the first time and the emotions it generated. I remember leaving the theater for the bathroom during the Dilphosaurus scene because I was scared. I also remember coming home after the movie and looking at our pet Canada goose with brand new eyes because, thanks to Jurassic Park, I felt like I was seeing a dinosaur. It forever changed how I looked at birds, like Grant said. Then I remember going to see it a second time, with my step-father's sister's husband again (he liked it) and the neighbor kid, and actually sitting through the Dilphosaurus scene that time. We ate Twizzlers. Then AGAIN when I went with my grandmother and we got there a little late, during the dig sequence. Never did need those beer cans. But yeah, that's how it works for me. I also remember seeing The Land Before Time in a theater and that came out in 1988, I was 4.   

[Halichoeres]

I don't know that I would call it mental illness. Most people seem to collect something of some sort. Baseball or Pokémon cards, stamps, coins, sports memorabilia, Funko Pops...you name it. Seems like a natural thing for humans to collect stuff. 

Well, I think it's a continuum. For some people I really think it can become a mental illness, an addiction, a compulsion, something that interferes with the rest of their life.

Interesting you mention Land Before Time. I actually do remember seeing that one, because it was a school field trip and that was a big deal. It was just far enough that we took the city bus, which was a first. I sat next to a kid named Shaun (Shawn? Sean?), who shared some of his Hot Tamales with me. So I guess there are some movies where I remember the experience itself! Thanks for the reminder!

[Gwangi]

I don't know that I would call it mental illness. Most people seem to collect something of some sort. Baseball or Pokémon cards, stamps, coins, sports memorabilia, Funko Pops...you name it. Seems like a natural thing for humans to collect stuff. 

Well, I think it's a continuum. For some people I really think it can become a mental illness, an addiction, a compulsion, something that interferes with the rest of their life.

Interesting you mention Land Before Time. I actually do remember seeing that one, because it was a school field trip and that was a big deal. It was just far enough that we took the city bus, which was a first. I sat next to a kid named Shaun (Shawn? Sean?), who shared some of his Hot Tamales with me. So I guess there are some movies where I remember the experience itself! Thanks for the reminder!

I agree with you. There's a fine line between sustainable sensible collecting and unhealthy hoarding. And while I don't think that most collectors suffer from a mental illness I do think collecting is attractive to those afflicted with one.

Happy to help you unlock a memory!

[EmperorDinobot]

If you saw my collection, and the current state of it, well...at this point it's mental illness and I will likely die buried under all of them.

My toys, especially the older ones, they serve as anchors for memories. Memories in a bottle, but a lot of the new stuff is meaningless. Some exceptions exist though.

[laticauda]

Some interesting perspectives here that helped me understand people's predilections a little better. Thanks, and sorry I've taken us off topic (not sorry enough to stop, though). Collecting things, especially useless things like dinosaur toys, is a thoroughly silly hobby, maybe even a mild form of mental illness. Sometimes I think we forget there is no sensible way to participate in it. I don't always succeed, but I try not to stumble into thinking that someone else's way is somehow sillier than mine.

Whatever happened to nostalgia (sigh)....

Some interesting perspectives here that helped me understand people's predilections a little better. Thanks, and sorry I've taken us off topic (not sorry enough to stop, though). Collecting things, especially useless things like dinosaur toys, is a thoroughly silly hobby, maybe even a mild form of mental illness. Sometimes I think we forget there is no sensible way to participate in it. I don't always succeed, but I try not to stumble into thinking that someone else's way is somehow sillier than mine.

Whatever happened to nostalgia (sigh)....

I see what you did there.

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.

I'm interested in history, too, just with special emphasis on a much more remote stretch of it! But in seriousness, it's possible that different academic and professional backgrounds play a role, I'm not sure. I wasn't always a science major; I started in art, but the truth is I didn't really have the chops. Anyway, I definitely have an appreciation for some (not all) vintage figures, although the hunt for those can be nearly as quixotic as the one for up-to-date ones! The prices on things like Lanier and Chialu, yikes! To some extent I sympathize with your distaste for a fixation on accuracy, but maybe in maybe a narrower, more specific way: I am not very interested in tiny incremental updates to perfectly adequate figures of taxa that have already been done well many times, which is why I've stopped buying new e.g. T. rex and Spinosaurus figures (except when the latter is a byproduct of a fish). I'm trying to represent as much of Earth's history as possible on my shelves, and new taxa advance that goal much more than a 2% refinement to an animal I already have.

I think I've made this analogy before, but I'm reminded of George Carlin's classic bit on maniacs and idiots: an idiot is anybody going slower than I am on the highway, while a maniac is anybody going faster. Likewise, anybody more concerned with accuracy than I am is a joyless pedant, while anybody less concerned with accuracy is an ignorant lout!

@Faelrin it's interesting how differently people sometimes respond to similar circumstances. Like you, I had an extremely unpleasant youth, and for the most part I prefer to forget it. I came across some crockery identical to what my family had at a craft fair this summer, and experienced visceral revulsion. I had the same reaction to some blocks I saw at a toy show a few years ago. But somehow things like movies and TV from the same era don't elicit those responses. To the extent I experience nostalgia, it might be for music--I would probably not like Nirvana if I were introduced to them today, but I liked them when I was 14 so I'll probably like them forever.

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.

When it comes to things like dinosaur toys or movies I am definitely nostalgic but I'm not one of those "life was simpler" kind of people that I frankly find insufferable and potentially dangerous (MAGA). With something like old dinosaur toys or movies they feel like a direct link to another time in my life that I cannot get back. They help me more vividly recall the people, places, and events that are gone and I cannot have again. But a toy or movie that connects you with those things is something that I find powerful and meaningful. When I watch a movie I have nostalgia for and have seen before it ties me to other times when I experienced it. Example...

When I watch Jurassic Park I feel connected to 9 y/o me sitting in the movie theater seeing it for the first time, the 16 y/o me eating an entire watermelon half while watching it on VHS on my bed in the middle of a hot summer day, the 21 y/o me eating chicken wings with my brother-in-law while watching it in my first house, and the 29 y/o me watching it again in the theater in 3D with a group of friends that I'll never have again. I have a vivid memory, I'm not sure that most people can remember where they were and what they were doing when they did something as simple as watch a movie, but I can. Similarly, I collect vintage dinosaur toys because my father collected them when I was a kid, and it was a passion we shared. He's gone now but having Marx dinosaurs around my house feels like a connection to him, an honoring of him. My avatar is actually a childhood drawing of my father's.

But yeah, that's just me and why nostalgia is both a blessing and a curse, because it is often as painful as it is anything else. Maybe other folks don't reflect on the past like that, maybe they haven't lived long enough or experienced enough changes, or maybe they're happy to be rid of the past and only move forward. I can't speak for them but I both envy and pity the people that don't feel the effects of nostalgia and effects of their own lives previously lived. All that said, nostalgia is never much of a factor when it comes to rating dinosaur toys. The age and historical importance of it is though.       

Really interesting thoughts. I sat and tried to remember seeing JP for the first time. I know that I saw it in theaters the year it came out, since I was already a prehistory-obsessed kid. But I don't remember anything about the circumstances, not even which theater we went to--and there were only two to choose from! I think it must have been me, my brother, and my mom, because my sister would have been a bit young for it. But I don't remember that, I'm just reasoning that it must have been so. I DO remember getting the first book as a present from my older brother when I was 10 or 11, and how tattered and dog-eared it got. I guess people remember different things. I have a great memory for names, like I'll learn a new class of students within two weeks, but unless I've seen a movie three or more times I wouldn't be able to give you a plot synopsis.

Nostalgia can be nice and wonderful, as well as dangerous and mean, because it is all based on feelings and experiences.  If someone treats a toy, story, music, etc. that I have connection to in a positive way, it can make me happy.  Of course, it can be true the other way as well.  Each person is allowed their opinion.  I grew up watching movies from 30's on up.  Black and white shows in my house was as popular as color shows.  Music was the same way.  To my mind as a child, Beethoven was just as relevant as Madonna, or Glen Miller compared to U2.  When I talk to my students, most of them have little knowledge beyond what is current.   They know the latest Rod Wave song but have no idea who the Beatles were.  Everybody has a reason to why they like or dislike something.  I enjoy exposing people to ideas or things that they haven't heard or seen.  In the end it is their choice what they want to do with it. 

Here's my long-winded point is.  The rankings are nice, and I enjoy putting my opinion in.  If the score is different from what I expect, I don't care.  Maybe I am the only person who likes that toy, or the opposite, I am the only one who dislikes it.  It has no further effect on me.  I am a firm believer in looking into the facts, and not stopping at whatever a ranking tells me. 

Interesting you mention the Beatles. I know that they're important, and on an intellectual level I recognize their talent and their enormous contribution to 20th century music. I like them fine and I'm content enough if I'm at somebody's house and they put on a Beatles record. But if I'm choosing music to listen to myself, it would never occur to me to play one of their records, because I have no connection to them. In that way, for me, they are to music what Marx is to toys: interesting, important, sure, but not what I seek out.

I see what you did there.

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.

I'm interested in history, too, just with special emphasis on a much more remote stretch of it! But in seriousness, it's possible that different academic and professional backgrounds play a role, I'm not sure. I wasn't always a science major; I started in art, but the truth is I didn't really have the chops. Anyway, I definitely have an appreciation for some (not all) vintage figures, although the hunt for those can be nearly as quixotic as the one for up-to-date ones! The prices on things like Lanier and Chialu, yikes! To some extent I sympathize with your distaste for a fixation on accuracy, but maybe in maybe a narrower, more specific way: I am not very interested in tiny incremental updates to perfectly adequate figures of taxa that have already been done well many times, which is why I've stopped buying new e.g. T. rex and Spinosaurus figures (except when the latter is a byproduct of a fish). I'm trying to represent as much of Earth's history as possible on my shelves, and new taxa advance that goal much more than a 2% refinement to an animal I already have.

I think I've made this analogy before, but I'm reminded of George Carlin's classic bit on maniacs and idiots: an idiot is anybody going slower than I am on the highway, while a maniac is anybody going faster. Likewise, anybody more concerned with accuracy than I am is a joyless pedant, while anybody less concerned with accuracy is an ignorant lout!

@Faelrin it's interesting how differently people sometimes respond to similar circumstances. Like you, I had an extremely unpleasant youth, and for the most part I prefer to forget it. I came across some crockery identical to what my family had at a craft fair this summer, and experienced visceral revulsion. I had the same reaction to some blocks I saw at a toy show a few years ago. But somehow things like movies and TV from the same era don't elicit those responses. To the extent I experience nostalgia, it might be for music--I would probably not like Nirvana if I were introduced to them today, but I liked them when I was 14 so I'll probably like them forever.

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.

When it comes to things like dinosaur toys or movies I am definitely nostalgic but I'm not one of those "life was simpler" kind of people that I frankly find insufferable and potentially dangerous (MAGA). With something like old dinosaur toys or movies they feel like a direct link to another time in my life that I cannot get back. They help me more vividly recall the people, places, and events that are gone and I cannot have again. But a toy or movie that connects you with those things is something that I find powerful and meaningful. When I watch a movie I have nostalgia for and have seen before it ties me to other times when I experienced it. Example...

When I watch Jurassic Park I feel connected to 9 y/o me sitting in the movie theater seeing it for the first time, the 16 y/o me eating an entire watermelon half while watching it on VHS on my bed in the middle of a hot summer day, the 21 y/o me eating chicken wings with my brother-in-law while watching it in my first house, and the 29 y/o me watching it again in the theater in 3D with a group of friends that I'll never have again. I have a vivid memory, I'm not sure that most people can remember where they were and what they were doing when they did something as simple as watch a movie, but I can. Similarly, I collect vintage dinosaur toys because my father collected them when I was a kid, and it was a passion we shared. He's gone now but having Marx dinosaurs around my house feels like a connection to him, an honoring of him. My avatar is actually a childhood drawing of my father's.

But yeah, that's just me and why nostalgia is both a blessing and a curse, because it is often as painful as it is anything else. Maybe other folks don't reflect on the past like that, maybe they haven't lived long enough or experienced enough changes, or maybe they're happy to be rid of the past and only move forward. I can't speak for them but I both envy and pity the people that don't feel the effects of nostalgia and effects of their own lives previously lived. All that said, nostalgia is never much of a factor when it comes to rating dinosaur toys. The age and historical importance of it is though.       

Really interesting thoughts. I sat and tried to remember seeing JP for the first time. I know that I saw it in theaters the year it came out, since I was already a prehistory-obsessed kid. But I don't remember anything about the circumstances, not even which theater we went to--and there were only two to choose from! I think it must have been me, my brother, and my mom, because my sister would have been a bit young for it. But I don't remember that, I'm just reasoning that it must have been so. I DO remember getting the first book as a present from my older brother when I was 10 or 11, and how tattered and dog-eared it got. I guess people remember different things. I have a great memory for names, like I'll learn a new class of students within two weeks, but unless I've seen a movie three or more times I wouldn't be able to give you a plot synopsis.

Nostalgia can be nice and wonderful, as well as dangerous and mean, because it is all based on feelings and experiences.  If someone treats a toy, story, music, etc. that I have connection to in a positive way, it can make me happy.  Of course, it can be true the other way as well.  Each person is allowed their opinion.  I grew up watching movies from 30's on up.  Black and white shows in my house was as popular as color shows.  Music was the same way.  To my mind as a child, Beethoven was just as relevant as Madonna, or Glen Miller compared to U2.  When I talk to my students, most of them have little knowledge beyond what is current.   They know the latest Rod Wave song but have no idea who the Beatles were.  Everybody has a reason to why they like or dislike something.  I enjoy exposing people to ideas or things that they haven't heard or seen.  In the end it is their choice what they want to do with it. 

Here's my long-winded point is.  The rankings are nice, and I enjoy putting my opinion in.  If the score is different from what I expect, I don't care.  Maybe I am the only person who likes that toy, or the opposite, I am the only one who dislikes it.  It has no further effect on me.  I am a firm believer in looking into the facts, and not stopping at whatever a ranking tells me. 

Interesting you mention the Beatles. I know that they're important, and on an intellectual level I recognize their talent and their enormous contribution to 20th century music. I like them fine and I'm content enough if I'm at somebody's house and they put on a Beatles record. But if I'm choosing music to listen to myself, it would never occur to me to play one of their records, because I have no connection to them. In that way, for me, they are to music what Marx is to toys: interesting, important, sure, but not what I seek out.

Yes, but you can say that you have listened to their music.  You have a frame of reference.  Doesn't mean it has to speak to you, or that you will have a connection, but it does mean your horizon was widened. I don't collect the Marx toys either. If I didn't play with some of them as a kid, I would have little connection to them, but that knowledge does help me to understand how others may feel about them. You also never know when it will possibly have more meaning.  Example:
The Beatles song, black bird is not a song that I ever cared about.  My daughter learned that song and I used to practice with her for her concert.  Now we sing the song together.  You never know when that knowledge will be useful or your appreciation of it will change. 

[Gwangi]

@DinoToyForum, is someone spamming the votes on the blog again? I'm finding it hard to believe that 6 people consider the Haolonggood Kosmoceratops to be a one-star figure. Or that 8 people regard the PNSO Megalosaurus as a one-star figure, even without the lips! Every single figure reviewed by anyone, regardless of quality, gets at least 1 one-star vote. And yeah, people like different things for different reasons but this seems suspicious.

[DinoToyForum]

@DinoToyForum, is someone spamming the votes on the blog again? I'm finding it hard to believe that 6 people consider the Haolonggood Kosmoceratops to be a one-star figure. Or that 8 people regard the PNSO Megalosaurus as a one-star figure, even without the lips! Every single figure reviewed by anyone, regardless of quality, gets at least 1 one-star vote. And yeah, people like different things for different reasons but this seems suspicious.

I haven't checked in a while, let me take a look.

Edit. I just had a glance. It certainly seem like some people (bots?) are going through and rating 1 for everything. There isn't any thought going into it because there's only a single second between each vote cast, so it is definitely spam, they must be going through the archives and clicking 1 star for every review. I wonder if there's anything I can do. 

...I could set it so that only logged in users can vote, but unlike on the forum, that would mean only the reviewers could vote, not visitors.   

...There's also an 'our score' option, which would allow the reviewer to post a separate star rating in addition to (or instead of) the visitor rating.

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

I wonder if it would be possible to make it so that a vote has to go alongside a comment, that may make it easier to single out which are fake if the phrase commented seems somewhat suspicious.

[SidB]

I too wish that some concrete action could be taken to roll back these spammers' votes and prevent them in the future. This interference is quickly degrading the integrity and value of the voting process. Maybe better to erase the voting records and process completely, rather than countenance this vandalism. I hate to see the tail wag the dog, though.

[suspsy]

Maybe it is time to do away with the star ratings. Other toy review websites like Ben's World of Transformers and Brickset don't use them. It would be sad, but it would nip this issue in the bud completely. And people could still leave comments.

Perhaps the reviewers could leave star ratings in the headers and leave it at that? It would take a lot of work, especially for those like me who are past the 250 mark. And then there's the reviewers who are no longer around. I don't know.

[DinoToyForum]

I wonder if it would be possible to make it so that a vote has to go alongside a comment, that may make it easier to single out which are fake if the phrase commented seems somewhat suspicious.

That would be a brilliant solution but a bit too difficult to implement. I'm just using an off the shelf plugin: https://yetanotherstarsrating.com I'm using the standard free version, the paid version may have more security features.

Let me temporarily change the settings to only allow logged-in users to vote. I think that means only logged-in reviewers, but maybe visitors can also 'log in', a bit like posting a comment.

[DinoToyForum]

I wonder if it would be possible to make it so that a vote has to go alongside a comment, that may make it easier to single out which are fake if the phrase commented seems somewhat suspicious.

That would be a brilliant solution but a bit too difficult to implement. I'm just using an off the shelf plugin: https://yetanotherstarsrating.com I'm using the standard free version, the paid version may have more security features.

Let me temporarily change the settings to only allow logged-in users to vote. I think that means only logged-in reviewers, but maybe visitors can also 'log in', a bit like posting a comment.

Na, as I thought, only reviewers can vote that way. An added note "You must be logged in to vote" now appears below the rating for  non-reviewers. I'll leave it like this for a while while we are exploring options.

I'd rather this option than lose the star rating completely. I think this would also be better than having a single rating selected by author, its more democratic ("as voted by the DinoToyBlog team") and would take the pressure off individual reviewers.

Or, I could open the blog to 'Subscribers', so visitors can register an account and log in to vote that way.  https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/roles-and-capabilities/ I'm not sure how I'd feel about that though. In an ideal world the forum and blog would run on the same software, so they could vote with their forum account, but it doesn't work that way!

One other workaround could be to set up polls here on the forum to generate a democratic average rating that we can trust. Then after a set time the review author could allocate that rating to the review article. But that's a convoluted solution that would mean a poll for every single figure ever reviewed. Not practical.

(Edit - topics split/merged for ease of reference)

[Halichoeres]

How much is it actually affecting the averages?

Maybe it is time to do away with the star ratings. Other toy review websites like Ben's World of Transformers and Brickset don't use them. It would be sad, but it would nip this issue in the bud completely. And people could still leave comments.

Brickset does have them, but you have to mark the set as 'owned' to leave a rating. Although that does mean it would be more cumbersome to spam ratings.

[DinoToyForum]

How much is it actually affecting the averages?

It's tricky to work this out because without manually looking for unusual patterns of behaviour, I can't easily tell which votes are normal votes casting an authentic opinion, and which votes are disingenuous. All the votes get recorded in a big list so I can filter/order by review, IP, whatever. But it's a manual process, and a bit of a can of worms.

For example, Here are the current votes for the recent PNSO Megalosaurus. The columns, in order, show User ID (0=visitor, other number = logged in reviewer), rating, time, and IP (To maintain anonymity I have replaced the IPs with "Unique IP" for IPs that appear to be unique, and "Duplicate IP 1", etc, for IPs that have voted multiple times). I'm sure the two reviewers who voted in this list won't mind being named:


0   5   28/01/2024 00:24   Unique IP
0   5   11/02/2024 15:21   Unique IP (matches a forum member)
0   5   27/01/2024 12:01   Unique IP
0   5   04/02/2024 10:04   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 15:59   Unique IP
0   4   16/02/2024 20:17   Unique IP
0   5   01/02/2024 11:58   Duplicate IP 1
0   5   29/01/2024 05:18   Duplicate IP 1
0   5   29/01/2024 10:27   Duplicate IP 1
0   5   13/02/2024 12:14   Duplicate IP 1
0   5   15/02/2024 09:06   Duplicate IP 1
0   5   12/02/2024 22:11   Unique IP
0   5   15/02/2024 09:18   Duplicate IP 2
0   5   01/02/2024 08:38   Duplicate IP 2
0   5   31/01/2024 03:11   Duplicate IP 2
0   5   27/01/2024 21:12   Unique IP
0   5   28/01/2024 03:12   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 12:22   Unique IP
0   4   27/01/2024 16:54   Unique IP
24   5   27/01/2024 06:27   Fembrogon
0   5   27/01/2024 12:07   Unique IP
0   4   30/01/2024 18:56   Duplicate IP 3
0   4   31/01/2024 22:53   Duplicate IP 3
0   1   27/01/2024 18:37   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 07:32   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 15:23   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 21:20   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 05:42   Unique IP
0   5   05/02/2024 11:24   Unique IP
0   5   28/01/2024 02:33   Unique IP
0   5   29/01/2024 07:08   Unique IP
0   5   18/02/2024 23:31   Unique IP (matches a forum member)
0   1   22/02/2024 00:26   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 14:51   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 10:47   Unique IP
17   5   22/02/2024 21:29   Suspsy
0   1   16/02/2024 21:27   Unique IP (matches a forum member)
0   5   27/01/2024 19:10   Unique IP
0   1   14/02/2024 19:06   Unique IP
0   1   07/02/2024 15:23   Duplicate IP 4
0   1   22/02/2024 13:22   Duplicate IP 4
0   1   30/01/2024 13:26   Suspsy? Not logged in
0   1   08/02/2024 13:29   Unique IP
0   5   27/01/2024 05:35   Unique IP
0   5   28/01/2024 15:51   Unique IP
0   5   17/02/2024 22:38   Unique IP
0   5   30/01/2024 19:48   Unique IP
0   5   28/01/2024 22:05   Unique IP

So, in this case, 34/48 votes appear to be genuine in the sense that they only voted once, although apart from the two logged in reviewers and the three visitor IPs which match forum members, who's to say which are really 'genuine'? The rest of the votes are certainly dodgy, in that 4 IPs have voted at least twice: two voted 5 stars multiple times, one voted 1 star multiple times, and one voted 4 stars multiple times. And none of this takes into account the possibility of visitors masking or changing their IP.

Oddly, one of the visitor vote IPs is a match for Suspsy. So I have to ask Suspsy, did you accidentally vote twice, once logged in and once as a visitor? If so, did you mean to vote 5 one time and 1 the other!?

Anyway, the end result is that the final rating is proabably more or less what it would be without all the dodgy duplicates anyway!

[suspsy]

Huh. That duplicate rating has to have been an accident. I must have been scrolling through the page on either my iPhone or my laptop that day and hit the star without intending to. Sorry about that!

[DinoToyForum]

Huh. That duplicate rating has to have been an accident. I must have been scrolling through the page on either my iPhone or my laptop that day and hit the star without intending to. Sorry about that!

It's okay, these things happen, I'm sure I've done it on occasion. It's why it's so difficult to know for sure what are genuine votes or not.