Critics.gr
Encyclopedia
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
market. It is developed by nett O.E. (nett C.O), based in Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, Central Macedonia
Central Macedonia
Central Macedonia is one of the thirteen regions of Greece, consisting of the central part of the region of Macedonia. With a population of over 1.8 million, it is the second most populous in Greece after Attica.- Administration :...
, Greece.
It is the first Greek website that collects Greek and international reviews from a wide variety of media, and present a small summary of each. Non-Greek reviews are translated in Greek language.
Products reviewed in Critics.gr belong to following categories: Movies (Cinema & DVDs), Technology (hardware, cell phones), Games (computer & video games), Music, Publications (books, magazines, blogs), Vehicles.
The staff of Critics.gr don't review these products. Instead, the site works as a "Meta
Meta
Meta- , is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter....
machine" that collects information from a large number of Greek and international sources and mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
. The moderators of Critics.gr commit a daily search in all available sources for new or upcoming products.
Each product page consists of 1) An extensive enumeration of many of the details of the product, such as related videos, links, categorization based by tag
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
s, categories, list of importers, a description or motto and additional information regarding the details of the product, 2) A list of reviews which consist of a (translated if needed) summary, the score (ranking) and metadata for that particular review (if they exist), 3) A list of user comments and votes similar to the reviews. Score ranks are converted to a "0 to 100" scale if a rank exists, or they are assigned a rank based on the assumptions of the staff of Critics.gr that adds the review. The final rank is calculated through a complex weight system which consists of many factors. Those factors are:
1) The weight of each review: Previews generally have a lower weight, so do reviews that don't have an explicit rank).
2) The weight of each reviewer: Well-known and established reviewers have greater weights than new or unknown reviewers.
3) The weight of all reviews versus the weight of user votes and user comments.
Since there's usually quite a large number of collected reviews and ratings for each products (taken from both Greek and international sources), Critics.gr developers claim that their ratings are as objective as possible. Critics.gr motto is "Objectivity through plurality" ("Αντικειμενικότητα μέσα από την Πολυφωνία", Greek), but its developers admit (in their "Faq
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
") that all reviews and ratings are always subjective.
In order to minimize subjectivity, a "coherence-factor" is calculated along with every product's average score. This factor represents the "agreement" or "disagreement" between all different reviewers. A coherence-factor close to 100% means there is a general agreement amongst the reviewers so the average rank can be trusted. Values close to 0% represent a general discordance of opinions between the reviewers, and as such, it's better to find out for yourself whether the rank of the product has any validity.
Critics.gr is different from websites like Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
or Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
in many aspects. One of them is that Critics.gr visitors can add by themselves every published review they find if it isn't listed in Critic's product pages, reducing chances of unfairness. Visitors can also add their own comments and ratings for each product, modifying a products final score.