Initial reasons for writing reviews, making lists, and generally, using the Friend Feature

I'm quite curious to hear from others what were their initial reasons for writing reviews, making lists, and becoming an active user of the Friend Feature. At what point were you truly hooked into making reviews/ lists, or interacting with NF buddies? Were you simply interested in one feature, and later on, became a more frequent user of the others?

My initial reason for writing reviews was that I was getting too much titles that were turkeys or DOA. Those titles fall under the NF genres of Philippines and Tagalog Language. More often than not, the films had had under 3 reviews. Even if they did have some, I didn't find them that helpful (I appreciate their efforts nonetheless). At one point, I just snapped and did a monologue like Sam Jackson's character on "Snakes On A Plane". That was around early 2008, and 190+ reviews/ 30+ lists later, I'm still writing reviews of films under those genres. I also got hooked early on, and expanded writing reviews into other genres. Having chatty buddies was a plus as well.

Wowwee, I realize that my post might be more appropriate to be posted on the main forums, but I have a hunch that I might get better response here. My apology in advance.

Tags: feature, friend, lists, reviews

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Permalink Reply by wowwee123 on March 22, 2009 at 3:43pm: You ask a very good question, and I this is the best place to ask it. I'll attempt at answering this one.

I first wrote reviews on titles that I liked and felt that I had something to add, after awhile I got turned off by the writing of them as I felt that I could put my time to better use. However, if I have a strong feeling about a title and that I feel must be shared, then I'll decide on a number of factors if I'll write a review or not.

As for lists, many of them were started as a way for me to keep track of titles that I wanted to watch over time, as well as might be helpful for others. Some lists are for a specific purpose and others are just for me.

I've used the friend feature for one purpose - to get better recommendations. I wrote about my experiment here, and am very happy with the results.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jcranma on March 23, 2009 at 5:19pm: Wowwee, thanks for sharing your reasons for using those features. You've certainly put your time to better use by creating and maintaining this group. Without your thread on how to write better reviews to the other discussions you started, I don't think my reviewing activities would have gone by so smoothly. I have no doubt that countless non Community members have benefited from your effort as well.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by RJP on March 25, 2009 at 11:17am: I started writing reviews way back in Jan 2001 - purpose was sort of way to clarify my thoughts about a movie title a day after viewing. I really do enjoy writing reviews - sort of a creative writing outlet. Initially I just posted reviews for movies that Netflix had either no reviews for, or what I considered, inadequate reviews. Now I just write a review on most any movie title I've recently seen.

I initially deliberately avoided the Netflix Community and Friends feature - couldn't see much use for getting involved. All I wanted to do with Netflix was rent DVDs and write reviews. All that Community/Friends stuff looked complicated and time-consuming. You see I'm not real social by nature anyway, one reason why you don't see me posting much in this community.

Then I heard about this Netflix Community about a year ago from something over on Hacking Netflix, a site I'd been following for years. So I joined here at NFC (one of the first members) more for informational purposes than anything else. About then it made sense to also get involved in the Netflix website Community/Friends feature. The two went together in my mind. So I joined, posted my Friends Link in my Netflix profile to see what would happen, and in like 2 weeks had 50 friends. I found using the Notes feature and seeing Friend's queues turned out to be really neat. Great way to get ideas for queue additions and share thoughts. Various other Netflix members wanted to add me as a Netflix Friend. So we made that happen - I ended up dropping and adding about 25 friends. Now I have a great bunch of Netflix Community Friends and really enjoy the experience.

Since I tend to be obsessive/compulsive, to keep things under control, I generally write, on average, only one review a day. Now that I have friends out there I know, I also tend now to write reviews for them rather than just to clarify my thoughts. Last time I looked, I was closing in on around 900 reviews.

I have no interest in compiling Lists. Don't get me wrong - I really appreciate various Friend's lists, it just isn't my bag. I spent one day making up about 20 lists of 10 movies, where I got the titles from my ratings page - never again, it's all tedious unrewarding work to me.

So - that's my story...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jcranma on March 27, 2009 at 5:23pm: Thanks for sharing your story. You must be among the few members that have continued (and is still) to write reviews. Do you recognize other reviewers that are still active writing reviews that were active the first year you started doing so? Did NF allow users to upload their own avatar at the time you started writing reviews?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phatz on March 28, 2009 at 9:24pm: I will get to a more detailed story soon but some is in my blog post. I have OCD and carry notebooks to write down my thoughts on everything. I keep notes on everything you could think of. I also have insomnia and spent most nights in college up studying or out ... not studying ;-). Got married in 1998 and was sooooo boooored when this woman turned off the light for eeeeiiiigggghhhhttttt lllllooooooonnnggggg hours! I had never watch much tv until then. At that point I started watching movies (3 movies a night on average since 1998) of course I kept notes on them I do on EVERYTHING. well cable couldn't give me enough movies so I went to BB (shame I know) every single day. It was 2001 when I ecstatically found Netflix and thrilled at the opportunity I wrote tons of reviews. In that era one hater could maker Not Helpful once every 24 hours. I ended up with -50 on every review. distraught and demoralized I deleted them all and quit Netflix. I could not get enough movies from BlockBuster so I came back but refused to review. After writing over 1000 craft beer reviews and receiving praise for them I came back slowly to Netflix. As the enhanced Friends features went through a lot of changes in 2007 and with the Helpful problem corrected so each person only got one vote I decided write reviews for peers who could give me real feedback on their value. Mostly I got into it for noting with friends privately. I wrote thousands of the mini-reviews back in the earliest versions of those (pre-notebook). But I was still leery of posting reviews publicly. I was mostly in it to meat more people who loved movies as much as I did. As I chatted with more movie fans they encouraged me to put more of them up for the community. I still felt that if they are not helpful to anyone else they might as well stay in my own notebook. It turns out many people I met were intimidated to write reviews and so we worked together to critique reviews looking for elements that make a review specifically useful. things like - a popular acor stands out. a specific type of viewer who will like or dislike a that movie. and the feeling it evokes. seem to be more valuable than regurgating Siskel and Ebert. In anycase I have critiqued everything in my life. I have been "reviewing" (so to speak) since I could write, and when I fell in love with movies (which made married life work =) my favorite pass time became watching movies and reviewing them. I still only post 1/3 of the reviews I right and only convert from short hand note to reviews 1/2 of the movies I watch. It still saddens me to this day the many many reviews I threw away years ago. I have my short notes of course but each review takes me a couple hours to create and those creations are forever lost, victim to the Netflix unfriendlies.

As far as list, the only thing I have more of in my notebooks than reviews is lists. Lists of people with names that sound the same. lists of actors who could replace each other in roles. lists of professors misspeaks. lists of TV commercials that miss the target market. Lists of TV commercials the reach the target market. lists of the price of gas at a each gas station on each given day for the past ... well I'm going to embarrass my self soon. =) Needless to say while avoiding writing reviews that were put to public vote I found making thorough Netflix list completely rewarding, because it scratched the listmaking itch. I could stick with it until i found every title and knew I could make good and useful ones if not some of the best, and most of all NO ONE could mark not Helpful on them. =) alas I LOVE LISTS. If it wasn't for the fact that I am now getting criticized for too many lists (sheesh people) I have many more I could share. I am holding off for Netflix to fix the problems with listing though. I need to be able to delete a list. At the moment once you have too many list you can never remove it. the system times out. so my 2008 archives that I want to move to a different profile are stuck. Still, I am going to start an anime sorting project after I wrap up the sports sorting project because I enjoy it AND because Netflix does not have a good way for Beginner anime fans to know if a title is family friendly teen friendly or adult oriented. I think this along with other specifications will be helpful for people AND I LOVE doing it. =) soo there I got a bit more into my story than I planned. LOL. c'est la vie.
Cheers!
-Matt; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jcranma on April 3, 2009 at 1:41pm: Matt, thanks for sharing your story. I can only hope that those interested in reviewing get to read some of the threads here or the ones buried in the main forums before the negative clicks and general competitiveness of the popular titles get to them.

I wasn't a fan of lists until NF hid the NR page. At times, I found them annoying. Now I can see that lists makers provide options for other members that NF can't provide. In more ways than one, I can some of the personalized lists/ labors of love can lead to customer loyalty.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jrim on April 10, 2009 at 8:11am: Enjoyed your story! It made me chuckle because I have notebooks everywhere! I couldn't survive without my lists and I know I'd never get anything done without them! I have to admit that my everyday lists usually don't include movies, however, but they do include books. I love to read as much as I love to watch movies! :-) My movie lists definitely didn't begin until I joined NF.

Have enjoyed reading some of your reviews. Was terribly surprised at the number of spoilers that appear because the ones I read had very little plot synopsis and definitely couldn't be classified as spoilers! I guess that's the price that comes from being at the top - the green-eyed monster must have struck somebody.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by beeswax on March 26, 2009 at 1:53pm: Insomnia.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phatz on March 28, 2009 at 9:27pm: LOL dito beeswax. =)

for real. Were you serious too?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by beeswax on March 29, 2009 at 3:30am: Were you serious too?

I'm afraid so.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phatz on March 30, 2009 at 8:18am: =); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Pihk on March 30, 2009 at 8:33am: I started writing reviews to get chicks.

A year or so later, it's still strictly about the chicks.; ▶ Reply to This