A long, long time ago, I used to participate in another music website called VGMix, which was run by virt/Jake Kaufman.

The site had a comment section for each entry like we do here. And it also had a review section for each, in which people could write long, insightful reviews for them.

These reviews could be rated by registered users. A message, displayed at the bottom right corner of the review, would say "this review was rated as useful by 100% of the users" or "by 75% of the users", etc.

The most well rated reviews for an entry would be displayed at the top of its section, while the least well rated reviews would be displayed at the bottom.

I think if such a feature were to be implemented here, people could receive an amount of criticist points based on how well their reviews were rated.

Not sure if it would be in the spirit of Battle of the Bits to aim for a review culture or if we're meant to keep being mostly positive in what we say to everyone's works. However, every once in a while I hear someone say they wish constructive criticism was offered to their entries.

Devil's advocate: people can do this already by just writing a long comment. Put "constructive criticism welcome!" in the entry description and, bada bing bada boom.

True, but it never hurts to think of extra ways to encourage that to happen.

cld use the currently available features, if we start giving +1 playa point for lieks again and -1 for haits lol
and ofcourse, "sort by most liekd comment by default" feature because that's what we love on social media *-*

i feel this would work best as an opt-in feature, and it could just as easily be opted into by putting "feedback welcome" in the entry description for majors, rather than having a dedicated zone for it

even if ppl keep their criticism firmly in constructive territory, it has some potential to cause upset or bad feelings, and might not be what they wanna hear

i'm not saying that we should be a "kindergarten" either (as kleeder put it), but a) insecurity is a common feature among artists especially in shared artists' spaces, and b) there's already so much thoughtless, dismissive negativity directed towards peoples' art all over the internet, i wouldn't want to leave the door more open to that vibe. i would much rather be speaking to the things i think an entry is doing right, or where it shines, than picking at whatever i perceive as its flaws.

that said, i do pay attention when people say "feedback welcome" or similar and try to give more thoughts there, and sometimes i do leave more thoughts unsolicited if i feel there's a good point to be made, or that the person can handle it. that's subjective but i try to stay on the right side of my own personal line in the sand

this is my philosophy. i do understand and respect that criticism can help you grow and improve, and provide impetus to do so. for some people, and in some situations, that really works (again as kleeder said, it worked for her, which is a great example!). for others it has the potential to get in the way of their art instead; and moreover i think ppl are basically always practicing when they make more art, whether or not they choose to specifically focus on growth (which many do regardless). too much criticism breeds a toxic space though imo.

it should ABSOLUTELY be opt-in, my 2c:

* people making art in the first place is already a huge W, no matter what quality it takes on after its completion. maybe someone's piece that seems like it sucks took them an entire week working on it to finish.

* (unsolicited) criticism is sort of the norm in professional work - people are paying you to create media for them, they should have a say. even then, it's exhausting to turn in a complex piece and for them to find 40 things wrong so you need to go back to fix it all and its just hhhhhhh

* botb is a free platform where people create on their own terms. if they explicitly want criticism, great, go offer some in a constructive manner! if not, then it would just discourage them and make them go elsewhere.

* i am a bit biased, as i have had my fair share of unsolicited and non-constructive criticism a couple of years ago in many spaces. i then perpetuated this exact behaviour onto others and i really regret it when i see old stuff of mine pop up.

the "opt-in" can just be a comment on the entry by the OP going "hey lemme know what you thought! i'm trying to get better :3" or in the description in a similar vein, i don't think it needs to be a feature that gives you points cause ultimately i personally don't care about the points anymore, it's just basically a time lock mechanic for new users to not shit the site up as soon as they make an account

i think to justify the time and effort that would go into building something like this there would have to be something going wrong with the current system, like people receiving harsh unsolicited criticism all the time and getting upset - but i literally never see this.*

a comments section is general-purpose. you don't need a specialised feature for everything.

*ok, once - and it happened to me. but it was from someone who literally had "i am 13" on their profile, so it didn't exactly ruin my week.

iirc VGMix required you to write 10 bits of constructive feedback per vgm remix you uploaded

if we were stacking reviews in order of people's approval (a review process for reviews) it would need to be separate from the comment section since conversation within comments needs to retain linearity to be understood

10+ years ago it was much more common for a few people to give thoughtful feedback on the majority of a battle's entries

if we want the community to be more active with constructive criticism then there could definitely be ways to encourage this -- but i do have limited time to implement features

it's still on my todo list to add an optional comment box in the XHB voting form

the question is: do you really want some lowly playa telling you how to track? be honest

i remember cm.o having a 'cc welcome' tick box available whenever you uploaded a track there. It seemed to work well for the purpose.