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A Request of the Reviewer Corps


SkyKing

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Would the members of the Reviewer Corps kindly put the SCALE of the kit/aftermarket part/decal in the review title? It is somewhat aggravating to click on a review of something that sounds interesting and then start to read it only to find that the item is not applicable to my preferred scale. This does not sound like too much to ask.

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That is actually on me as an editorial / web developer decision.

I'd like to keep the title simple - if we add the scale, an argument could be made that we add the manufacturer. But if the review is a detail set for a kit, do we then also add the information for the base kit?

So the title for this review would go from:

  • P-51B/C/D Mustang Propeller w/Tool

to

  • P-51B/C/D Mustang Propeller w/Tool in 1/48 by Quickboost for Tamiya

The second issue is that the reviews web team enters the data into a form (see screenshot) which goes into the database that runs the Reviews web site. The title, company, scale, base kit are all separate fields containing the data. It is considered to be bad form (in the world of databases) to enter the same information twice because it is easier for mistakes to occur. Thus it would be better to construct the title from the various individual fields automatically rather than rely on the web team to always 1) get it right and 2) be consistent. [Note: the reviews web team does a great job, but it's not possible to be perfect.]

But the automatic title example above does not read well. You would prefer something like -

  • P-51B/C/D Mustang Propeller w/Tool in 1/48th scale by Quickboost for the Tamiya kit.

Now would the scale go in its field as 1/48 or 1/48th then append scale? Is the base kit field Tamiya or the Tamiya kit? How much is automated and how much is the responsibility of the reviews web team?

I don't know what the optimal choice is... I always try to have as much relevant info per review on the home page - if its a detail set or decals, the base kit is listed; if its a book, scale is omitted and author is included, etc.

 

Eric

 

Screen Shot 2016-12-22 at 12.48.18 AM.png

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So we're slaves to an automated database? Ridiculous.

 

How hard would it be to put the scale field first? And why is it necessary to include "kit" when all aftermarket parts such as Quickboost, Pavla, Aries, etc., are for a KIT!

 

So then the title would be, to use your examples:

 

1/48 P-51B/C/D Mustang Propeller w/Tool by Quickboost for Tamiya

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Not slaves. We made a decision and in 8000 plus posted reviews and 12 years of posting, you are the first one to even bring this up.

 

Doesn't mean we can't look at it again but even if we change now, that will not change the previous 8000

 

Dave

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Actually, I have looked into doing something like this and because its just a programmatic change to the theme's template(s), it would work on the old reviews. There are a few things I would test, like making sure that the link to the review would not change and a couple other details, but it should work.

 

Doing this might also depends on updating the code used to build the Reviews site to the latest version - this is something I'm slowly working into. The first steps have been moving non-review content to members.ipmsusa3.org and such. Not done there yet.

 

E

 

 

Not slaves. We made a decision and in 8000 plus posted reviews and 12 years of posting, you are the first one to even bring this up.

 

Doesn't mean we can't look at it again but even if we change now, that will not change the previous 8000

 

Dave

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Michael, I send out a lot of notices to the vendors who supply the items for review. Expanding the titles like you suggest would make some of the messages kind of sloppy. Also, how hard is it to click your mouse two times? ;-) The scale is always at the top of each review. One click, note the scale, second click, return to the list.

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HI,

 

We are not held hostage but it, but when constructing these types of systems, design choices must be made. Sometimes they are obvious choices, sometimes not.

 

Ok, scale could be first, but there are details (and decals) for

Here are racing harnesses for autos >> http://web.ipmsusa3.org/content/sparco-blue-racing-harness with no specific kit. Here are rivets for multiple scales >> http://web.ipmsusa3.org/content/05mm-rivets

 

So it is no so simple.

 

And no matter what choices are made, not everyone will be happy. I've had hours long discussions with university official on whether to use 'prospective student' or 'new student'; "Commonwealth' or 'State' of Pennsylvania..., shades of blue, etc.

 

So.....

 

 

So we're slaves to an automated database? Ridiculous.

 

How hard would it be to put the scale field first? And why is it necessary to include "kit" when all aftermarket parts such as Quickboost, Pavla, Aries, etc., are for a KIT!

 

So then the title would be, to use your examples:

 

1/48 P-51B/C/D Mustang Propeller w/Tool by Quickboost for Tamiya

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I will simply point out that the old, now archived, review system showed manufacturer, scale, and product name in the title, in that order.

No effort was made to include what kit(s) any aftermarket was for in the title unless that was part of the product name, just in the fuller description in the review.

(Publications were usually shown as publisher, title with some effort to include the series where applicable.)

 

IMO, those 3 items are the most important discriminator when scanning the kit lists, and they are good enough to give an indication for aftermarket that it might be worth a further look.

 

Most modelers KNOW what the items are already, from many other sources, and are there to find an IPMS build review of it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I completely agree that not only should the scale be mentioned, but mentioned first. When you hear modelers talking, they'll say something like, "What did you think about the 1/48 Tamiya P-51?" Never "What did you think about the P-51 by Tamiya in 1/48 scale?"

 

We don't talk like Yoda, and likely don't want to read like Yoda.

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The problem, clearly, is that just like the leadership of IPMS, we are not paying the Reviewer Corps and Eric enough money. Hence, the lousy service. Oh! That's right! These folks are all volunteers. The time the spend providing these services is time they cannot spend building models! My bad!

 

The service this organization!s leadership provides, all generously donated is, of course, outstanding.

 

These same critics would read a text message with no vowels, no capitalization, and no punctuation and never give it a thought!

 

Nick Filippone. IPMS #969

 

 

P.S. What is wrong with the way Yoda talks? Have you also got some beef about Star Wars?

Edited by Nick Filippone
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As the person who started this thread, I feel obligated to respond to Nick's comment. My original suggestion was in no way meant to demean the contributions of the volunteer members of the Reviewer Corps or Eric's work as web developer, and I resent your attempting to change the subject of this discussion so as to imply that I or anyone else was accusing them of "lousy service."

 

As to your comment that "the time they spend providing these services is time they cannot spend building models," I would point out that we ALL have limits on our time, and including the scale (something the reviewer must do anyway) in the review title would save time for readers of the reviews, whether we build in that scale or not. And as Eric has pointed out, that change can be easily made.

 

P.S. Talk just fine does Yoda. Perfectly understandable he is. Beef have I not, but Star Trek I prefer.

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The change to the template is easy, but going through the database to clean up the data entered in the scale field (changing ':'s to '/'s), I see this

 

Deep Dark Dive into the Database

 

I obviously can fix the current ones, but then what?

 

Originally I had the scale field to be a number only, but we do have oddities like the Egg Planes and an entire genre, Figures, that has a different system. There are also products that can have multiple scales - "1/12, 1/20, 1/24" for race car decals as an example, so only allowing a number was not an option. Thus the scale is a text field...

 

E

 

 

 

As the person who started this thread, I feel obligated to respond to Nick's comment. My original suggestion was in no way meant to demean the contributions of the volunteer members of the Reviewer Corps or Eric's work as web developer, and I resent your attempting to change the subject of this discussion so as to imply that I or anyone else was accusing them of "lousy service."

 

As to your comment that "the time they spend providing these services is time they cannot spend building models," I would point out that we ALL have limits on our time, and including the scale (something the reviewer must do anyway) in the review title would save time for readers of the reviews, whether we build in that scale or not. And as Eric has pointed out, that change can be easily made.

 

P.S. Talk just fine does Yoda. Perfectly understandable he is. Beef have I not, but Star Trek I prefer.

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Any book, tool, supply, paint (ie, not kit, decal, detail) is a blank..

 

Then for any kit, decal, detail 1/N or Nmm is considered valid, use it. Whether you parse off the occasional 'th' is up to you, probably doesn't matter..

 

Everything else can be either a blank or n/a or unk. Decals are sometimes an issue if you get multi-scale on one sheet -- in the old system we listed as 1/32-48-72 but we were doing it by hand.

 

The egg plane "scale" is cute, but ....

 

You do not need 100%, make it easy on yourself -- or ask the Reviewer Corps to go back and clean things up if really needed.

 

FWIW.

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