# Reviews Update 2



## Michael Morris (Feb 12, 2005)

We are now at beta 0.2

This session I added comment and review posting. This needs to be watched closely to make sure the database doesn't corrupt - though I have no reason that this will be a problem.  The deletion features have me a little more worried, though they were tested thoroughly.  I don't expect a problem, but I am prepared nonetheless.

Next stage will be the integrating the ability add products and product lines and the ability of publishers to manage these features.

Also, sometime tonight, the newspage will be getting a new feature


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## Crothian (Feb 12, 2005)

Problem:

Invalid Product specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster

I'm trying to post a review for FFG's Grimm.  I goto the Grimm information, use the Post Review icon and enter in the inforamtion.  There is a place for review title, but no where on that page do I see what the name of the book I am reviewing is.  Does that make sense?


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## Jdvn1 (Feb 12, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Also, sometime tonight, the newspage will be getting a new feature



It's cool!  I like it!

Could you have the little box that lets me minimize it, though?


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## Michael Morris (Feb 12, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> Problem:
> 
> Invalid Product specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the webmaster
> 
> I'm trying to post a review for FFG's Grimm.  I goto the Grimm information, use the Post Review icon and enter in the inforamtion.  There is a place for review title, but no where on that page do I see what the name of the book I am reviewing is.  Does that make sense?




Ok, Hmm...  Just a second.

EDIT: Try again.


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## Crothian (Feb 12, 2005)

sorry for the delay, I went to sleep.

Now when I hit the New Review button it takes me back to the first page of the reviews.


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## TheAuldGrump (Feb 12, 2005)

Hmmm, I'm not seeing the Add Review button at all.

I seem to have a knack for picking exactly the wrong time to post a review...

The Auld Grump


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## Michael Morris (Feb 12, 2005)

No worries - I went to sleep to.  No one's posted, yet I posted a review then deleted it last night.  Let me investigate this - there's a cause


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## Crothian (Feb 13, 2005)

I was just able to post my review of Grimm!!!


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## Michael Morris (Feb 13, 2005)

And I posted a comment to it.  We're in business


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## Crothian (Feb 13, 2005)

being able to add products and companies next?


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## Crothian (Feb 13, 2005)

when I posted my review it subscribed it as a thread, except it linked to the main page of the reviews and listed Joe Kusner as the starter of the thread and 4 replies to it (which I guess to be the other three reviews and the single comment)


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## Michael Morris (Feb 13, 2005)

That's next weekend's product.  Here's a full list of things to do / fix.


Fix the navbar breadcrumbs so that they can be used to navigate back up the line.
Open product, productline, and publisher posting as well as the associated editting features
Set the 500 min word lock on reviews.
Paginate large publisher entries
Paginate large product line entries
Automate notices of reviews postings in main news body (though that goes hand in hand with a revision of the news pages)
Alter user profiles to list recent and all reviews of a poster - not just the staff posters.
Display user review counts in addition to post counts.
Write an admin tool to associate old reviews with a new account.
Write an admin tool to recalculate all review scores (actually, I have one - but it needs to be more fully integrated).
Write an admin tool to locate and delete orphan posts in the reviews system - mostly comments without reviews, reviews without products (unlikely since products are threads and vbulletin will prevent that problem on its own), products without publishers and productlines without publishers.
Allow publisher access to their interface panels.
Integrate product links with the links system so that links associated with products are displayed under both setups.
Allow publishers to upload company logos, product logos, product line logos, and up to 10 product images.
Configure reviews system to display product images within the body of any review to break up the large blocks of text.
Display ENnies award medals beside their winners within the product postbit as appropriate.

Longer term plans. (Subject to change)


Custom Ad System
Publishers would access their ads from the same interface used for their reviews profile.
Publishers would purchase ad exposures from the same interface and could assign those exposures to specific products or reassign them.
Publishers would be able to set limits to how often an ad is exposed to a user overall, or per session.  Such limits wouldn't apply to staff, but exposures to ENWorld staff would not be counted towards the purchased exposures.
Community supporters would be able to weight the ads they see towards their interests. This wouldn't stop them from seeing ads irrelevant to their interests, but it would help it along.

Reviews would link over to preview downloads available in the upload section.
Publishers would be able to upload preview items and, if desired, limit them to community supporters.
The noticing of new reviews would be automated on the news page.
I want (don't know if Russ will let me) make some significant changes to the news page to make it more fluid and centralized.

Oh, and Gamers seeking Gamers will get a major upgrade.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 13, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> when I posted my review it subscribed it as a thread, except it linked to the main page of the reviews and listed Joe Kusner as the starter of the thread and 4 replies to it (which I guess to be the other three reviews and the single comment)




Yes, that's normal.  The subscription system *sees* the product as a thread, and the reviews and comments are all replies to the product which starts the post.  I may streamline it out later.  As it stands though, you can subscribe to products and get updates whenever they are reviewed or commented to, but you can't subscribe to just one review.

Better than what we had though (no subscription system at all)


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## Mark (Feb 13, 2005)

Not sure if this has been addressed but it appears that products that haven't been reviewed are treated as having no stars and thus bring down the rating of a publisher.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 13, 2005)

Rats..  Hmm..  Well... I uh..  As soon as I figure out a correction to the query I'll recalculate it.


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## Crothian (Feb 13, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Yes, that's normal.  The subscription system *sees* the product as a thread, and the reviews and comments are all replies to the product which starts the post.  I may streamline it out later.  As it stands though, you can subscribe to products and get updates whenever they are reviewed or commented to, but you can't subscribe to just one review.
> 
> Better than what we had though (no subscription system at all)




Gotcha, I'm getting used to the review site so these features obviously new to me and I'm not sure what to expect from that all.  Thanks.


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## jmucchiello (Feb 14, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> Rats..  Hmm..  Well... I uh..  As soon as I figure out a correction to the query I'll recalculate it.



Shouldn't you just average the existing reviews without regard for how many products there are?

Select Sum(stars) as total_starts, Count(*) as total_reviews, publisher_id from reviews; (or join the reviews and pubs table if the pub_id is not available on the review table)

if (count > 0) stars = total_stars/total_reviews else stars = 0;

The number of products shouldn't enter into it.


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## Michael Morris (Feb 14, 2005)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> Shouldn't you just average the existing reviews without regard for how many products there are?
> 
> Select Sum(stars) as total_starts, Count(*) as total_reviews, publisher_id from reviews; (or join the reviews and pubs table if the pub_id is not available on the review table)
> 
> ...




The correct query, I believe, will be

SELECT AVG(score) AS score FROM product WHERE publisherid = $publisherid AND score > 0

Haven't had time to test it yet - been taking a break.


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## jmucchiello (Feb 15, 2005)

Michael Morris said:
			
		

> The correct query, I believe, will be
> 
> SELECT AVG(score) AS score FROM product WHERE publisherid = $publisherid AND score > 0
> 
> Haven't had time to test it yet - been taking a break.



But that averages the product scores which are already an average. So if a publisher have two products: one with 100 reviews and an average of 3 and one with 1 review of 5, the publisher will have a score of 4 by that querry. That's why my querry was off of the (assumed) review table instead of the product table.


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## MonsterMash (Feb 16, 2005)

Are we able to edit our existing reviews as I couldn't find a link to do it.


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## Arnwyn (Feb 16, 2005)

Good stuff so far!

In the future, will we be able to see the "Most Recent Reviews" split between print and pdf? That would be appreciated. (And I ask since I didn't understand much of the 'to do' list...  )


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## Michael Morris (Feb 16, 2005)

MonsterMash said:
			
		

> Are we able to edit our existing reviews as I couldn't find a link to do it.




Yes and no.  Yes you can, no - not if the review is 30 days old or older


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## JoeGKushner (Feb 17, 2005)

Can we add new products to the database? I may have missed an announcement.


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## Crothian (Feb 17, 2005)

not yet joe


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## Michael Morris (Feb 20, 2005)

You should be able to now Joe.  You, Psion, Crothian and Teflon Billy are the moderators of the reviews area now and the 4 of you are the only ones (at present) who can add publishers or products.


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## Sketchpad (Feb 20, 2005)

Any idea when the rest of us will be able to add a product for review?


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## Michael Morris (Feb 20, 2005)

Give me a couple of weeks, but for now pester Crothian to add it for you


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