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All humbug aside, when looking at your edits I noticed that the descriptions you're using are very basic and focus more on the less professional wording of "Tomatometer" that the website uses. We try not to use that term here. Instead, we discuss it from a more neutral viewpoint of "approval ratings". For examples of how it is used see Friday the 13th (2009 film)#Critical reception or The Dark Knight (film)#Reception as some immediate examples that come to mind. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 05:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- OK, I understand. "Approval rating"; that is helpful. Thank you very much. RottenPotato (talk) 05:31, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Hello, you may be interested in reading WP:RTMC as well, particularly its limitations. I think that the wording in that essay is closer to accurately conveying an explanation of the score, since it's not immediately apparent what even "approval rating" means. I'd like to suggest two things, though... don't proliferate just Rotten Tomatoes. It's suspect to spread one website on multiple film articles. A well-rounded film article editor will contribute in different ways than just making sure that Rotten Tomatoes is referenced. (For example, if a film is small enough to only get ten reviews, then the Rotten Tomatoes score is not statistically helpful.) Also, I would recommend changing your user name to be unrelated to Rotten Tomatoes, since that would be a perceived conflict of interest. WikiProject Films endorses using Rotten Tomatoes, but growth of usage should be natural. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you Erik! Thats an interesting essay. I respect your thoughts, but I disagree with the idea that RT scores are not statistically accurate if there are only ten reviews. If a film has gotten 200 reviews, of course, then the RT rating will be an accurate representation of how many critics liked it versus how many didn't. However, the same is true if the film only got reviewed by ten reviewers. For exmaple, if five liked it, and five didn't, then the RT score will be 50%. That is a statistically accurate barometer of the critical response. It might not be a statistically accurate barometer of what other critics would have thought of that film if they'd reviewed it, but it's not supposed to be. No matter how many (or few) critics review a film, by definition the TomatoMeter rating is a statistically accurate representation of the existing critical response. No more, no less. Since RT has their own system for determining when a film has enough reviews to get a TomatoMeter rating, and since Wikipedia is a repository of external knowledge only and doesn't allow original research, I don't think we're allowed to decide that some RT scores are valid and some aren't.
Right now my goal is to work my way through and add RT reviews to articles where they're missing. After that I'll tackle something else. BTW I have nothing to do with RT other than being a film fan who is very grateful for the existence of RT. There's no conflict of interest. And since I'm only adding hard data from an accredited source (and not editing the RT article on Wikipedia), even if I did work for RT, I do not think that would be a conflict of interest. However, if you think it's a problem, I'll consider changing my username. How does one do that? RottenPotato (talk) 08:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I disagree with the idea that RT scores are not statistically accurate if there are only ten reviews. It's math. Are you disagreeing with math? :) Think about a blockbuster film that just came out. When there are ten reviews, half positive and half negative, then just adding one review affects the score in a major way. Compare that to when a blockbuster film has garnered 100 reviews, with 50 positive and 50 negative. The addition of one review will not change the score much at all. So ten reviews of a film on the website is ill-representative in its incompleteness. Erik (talk | contribs) 11:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Not disagreeing with math. :) But I understand why you would say that because the math in this case is not intuitive. When it comes to statistics, you have to be careful when you talk about what the statistics reflect, or it can seem that the math is strange. In this case you and I seem to be talking about two different things. Your point is that RT scores for films that aren't widely reviewed may not be an accurate reflection of the films' quality. That's true. But the scores aren't supposed to be a reflection of a film's quality. That's subjective. The RT scores are a statistically accurate percentage of how many critics who reviewed the film liked the film. So in your example, let's say a film got five good reviews, and five bad. Its RT score is 50%. Now it gets another bad. The RT score is now 45%. That is a completely accurate number. 45% of certified professional critics who reviewed the film, liked the film. So the stat is accurate.
So I understand your point, but all I'm saying is that we need to keep in mind what the scores are intended to represent. And they do that accurately, even if a given movie has only been reviewed ten times. Like I said, Wikipedia isn't a place for original research so it isn't up to us to decide that certain RT scores should be included and certain ones shouldn't. As long as everyone understands what the scores represent statistically. RottenPotato (talk) 21:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- What is Rotten Tomatoes being used for if not to reflect some idea of the critics' consensus over a given film? When you say that 50% of 10 critics liked a film, the implication is that it was divided. News reports reference Rotten Tomatoes and say based on the score that critics liked the film. Rotten Tomatoes is perceived as a gauge of critics' consensus. If there are only ten reviews gathered for a film, it's inaccurate to treat them as making up the consensus. I understand now that you don't mean to indicate the consensus, but that's the perception and the reason for general usage of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic as well. We're not reporting the score for the sake of reporting it. We're reporting it as an indicator of the big picture, the overall critical reception. Do you think that's original research? It's rare to summarize outright that a film is one of the greatest or one of the worst; such summaries must be backed by scores, polls, and retrospective coverage. Rotten Tomatoes is one of these gauges. Erik (talk | contribs) 22:51, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- But RT does accurately represent critical consensus. Remember, "consensus" means "the average opinion among those who have an opinion." Consensus can be calculated with a very small group, or a very large group, as long as the group consists of all those who have an opinion on the matter. You seem to be defining "consensus" as "the average opinion among those who have an opinion and those who haven't seen the film but hypothetically would have an opinion if they had." I'm sorry, but that's not what "critical consensus" means.
RT is a mathematically accurate indicator of how many critics liked the film of those who reviewed it. Now I do agree with your point that many older films are misrepresented because their reviews have been accidentally omitted due to there not being critic certification back then. So yes, for pre-Internet films, RT may not always be accurate. But for any film since the late 90s, it is accurate, regardless of the number of reviewers who reviewed it. RottenPotato (talk) 00:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Hey I'm gonna close this for now because I'd like to get additional opinions on the WikiProject Films board. RottenPotato (talk) 01:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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