The same could be said of Rotten Tomatoes and other Hive Minds

by phil on Thursday Mar 12, 2009 11:48 AM
hive mind ism

Saw this quote on iGoogle:

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
- Patrick Young

That pretty much sums up my opinion on Rotten Tomatoes, MetaCritic, Ask.MetaFilter and any other Hive Mind-style systems. Except that I wouldn't consider them troublesome.

Comments

Squidhelmet said on March 13, 2009 12:14 PM:

My theory on hive mind sites has always been that they are only accurate at the polls. If something's really good, or really bad, it shows through, but reviews in the 80s to the 30s are useless as any kind of indicator. The ONLY good thing about this is that it outs the 'hype' movie, where the preview has made it look good, the ad campaign has made you think people are talking about it, or some other doublethink marketing ploy.

As for the weather, bitching about it is so cliche.. The first part of that statement is correct, but for a different reason. You don't notice when the forecast is right, you only notice when it's wrong.

Squidhelmet said on March 13, 2009 12:15 PM:

correction - Polls should be poles.