Hi, it’s me, Tyler D. How’s it going? So I’ve been doing some thinking… and I think this hiatus has gone on for long enough now.
I’ve made a few changes around here recently. If you read through the hiatus update, you may recall that the key thing I wanted to work on was consistency, and I believe I’ve made good progress on that frontier. I won’t bore you with all the details, but if you’re curious, I’ve included a changelog at the end.
The other big thing I wanted to fix, which I didn’t mention before, was my rating system. It was bad… just real bad. That’s why I took some time to create a better, more coherent system, customized to match my style. Now I have this system:
When a work’s strengths outshine its flaws, it gets a Rank IV. Of my past reviews, this applies to Minecraft, The Secret World of Arrietty, Puzzler World, and There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension.
In the middle ground is Rank III, where the strengths and flaws balance each other out. This’ll likely be the most common rank, including the likes of Taz: Wanted, Wandering Witch Elaina, The Grinch (2018), Shepherd’s Crossing 2, and Wario World.
Rank II is assigned when a work has redeeming strengths, but its flaws stop me from truly enjoying it. Do keep in mind, this is not a failing grade; though I put them as Rank II, I don’t outright hate Snowpiercer (2020) or The Adventures of Milo and Otis.
A Rank I work is so flawed that it’s better off scrapped. This’ll likely be the rarest rank I give out, because I won’t often want to cover irredeemably bad works. Currently, this only applies to the dumpster fire that is Incoming.
So yeah, that’s my new rating system. I’ll probably end up changing the visual design at some point (please forgive my mediocre pixel art skills), but for the time being, this version should serve its intended purpose well enough.
Now then, regarding my vision for this site… I’m still trying to work that out. There are, however, a few things I do know.
I know that my schedule wasn’t working as intended, so I’m scrapping it, at least for now. I know that The Minds Behind no longer aligns with what I want to do, so consider that series retired, effective immediately. My Five Picks, the Reviews, Analyses (which will henceforth be titled as “Regarding […]”), and Impressions will all continue with a few formatting changes.
One conundrum remains, however: what do I do about the Poetry Compilations? On the one hand, they tend to be the best performers stat-wise (accounting for 4 of my top 10 liked posts). On the other hand… as my only creative writing series, they’re an obvious outlier, now that I’ve had a proper chance to think about it. I also fear that the poems within won’t get as much attention as they otherwise could’ve, had I posted them individually.
I know I can’t just keep sticking my poems together with Roman numerals forever. That’s why I’m contemplating the idea of a sister site, for creative works like poetry. However, I’ll need some more time to consider what exactly that should look like, or if I should do it at all. I’d also want to end things on a special number, so with 3 more Poetry Compilations planned, entry XX (20) might be the finale.
On that note, I think I’ve gone through everything I wanted to address, so I’m gonna wrap up here. Thank you for your patience! I appreciate you taking the time to read my works, and I hope to live up to your future expectations.
My next post will be the return of the Impressions series, this time focused on the Edmonton Heritage Festival. After that will be a review of a certain zany sports movie featuring Michael Jordan, followed by Poetry Compilation XVIII, which will center on the theme of rebuilding. Now then, here’s that thing I promised you earlier:
Changelog
- General
- Shifted all single images to right side of screen, adjusted sizes
- Improved formatting consistency across all post types
- Fixed sorting by category
- Standardized links
- Effectively retired The Minds Behind, no longer fits with this site’s vision
- Reviews
- Created a standard rating system
- New ranks retroactively applied to all previous works reviewed
- Cleaned up some awkward wording in earlier posts
- Created a standard rating system
- Analyses
- All analytical content will now have titles starting with Regarding (…)
- Retroactively applied to 12 Rules for Life book analysis
- All analytical content will now have titles starting with Regarding (…)
- Poetry Compilations
- Updated previous compilations to match the most recent format
- Exception: Poetry Complation 3‘s formatting is bad by design
- Updated previous compilations to match the most recent format
- Impressions
- Fixed broken images
- Cleaned up some awkward wording in earlier posts
- My Five Picks
- Revised layout of Honorable Mentions section
- Retroactively added to Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 anime seasons
- Revised layout of Honorable Mentions section
Tyler DeWriter 