 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Don't use review aggregators. If you must, put them last, and minimally. |
In progress
Review aggregators should not be used in film, television, or literature articles. If they are used, they should not be promoted, or verbosely described. The aggregate review score should go last in any reception section.
- Reliability:
- Aggregators are derivative sources, based on "secondary" independent RS (reviewers), writing about the primary topic, the (say) film. Aggregators should be treated like all tertiary sources: ignored, per WP:V and WP:RS.
- They aren't considered reliable by other reliable sources, since they are never quoted or cited elsewhere. They are rarely quoted even by film advertisements or blurbs.
- Their aggregation algorithms are unverifiable, subjective, and inconsistent:
- The Rotten Tomatoes evaluation of "fresh" or "rotten" based on prose reviews which lack scores, or strongly expressed opinion, is inconsistent.
- Metacritic subjectively extracts numeric scores from prose reviews lacking scores or strong opinions.
- They aren't reviewers, so they have no place at the beginning of reception sections
- Inclusion of "top" reviewers is inconsistent, leading to variable biases
- The websites are heavy with ad spam, so being listed on Wikipedia is just more promo for them.
- Conflict of interest: Rotten Tomatoes is owned by Flixster, a Warner Bros. company since May 2011.[1]
- There are several POV editors who keep pushing RT to the beginning of ==Reception== sections.
Minimal use
editThe (rare) inclusion of aggregators should be minimal in every way, at the end of a reception section, or at the end of the article.
- Bad use: Noted review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film a "fresh" score of 70, based on 13 reviewers, including 3 "top" reviewers.
- Good use: The Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score for the film was 70/100.
Aggregator scores do not belong in reception sections for films which predate the existence of the aggregator, and should never be listed first under any circumstance.
References
editDiscussion of this essay is very welcome in Talk.