Hello,

You may have seen the "TS Resource Reviews" page listed under the Resources menu. I am working on getting a review system together so we can rate books, and videos about TS.

While this system is still being tested and is not ready, I would like to be prepared for when it is complete. We are looking for volunteers who have - or can get - TS resources and who are willing to spend time going over them for the purpose of writing a review. You would have to get basic information, classify, give a very brief synopsis and assign a rating to the resources you choose to review.

The details are still being worked out - but if you think you would like to volunteer then please contact me. You can use the Contact Us page from the top menu to send me an email, you can send me a personal message on this site, or even just respond to this post. The more planning we do ahead of time the faster we can get this off the ground.

We need volunteers to write reviews. Is anyone interested?

For book and video views maybe the fields could be something like:

Did you like the reading
Did you find it informative
Would you recommend it on to someone else to read
Would you buy the reading
Over all satisfaction with the reading

Review Comments
Reader Comments

But for doctors and medication you would need a lengthier set of questions, for doctors, the name and area/state they are in, what they specialise in exaclty (just TS, or ADD, ADHD, OCD as well etc), how long the reviwer has been seeing them etc
Medication could include length of time on them, mg taken, side effects

I think we should do one thing at a time - with doctors and medications last. This is because there are other issues involved with them, some legal. For now lets focus of books video literature etc.

What I had in mind in regard to books would be something like this:

Title: This is a made up book about TS
Author: Someone Totally Real
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Average User Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Copyright: 2002

Subject: Living with TS from a child point of view.
Demographic: Best read by parents.
Recommended Age Range: 18+

Short Summary: The author, a teenager, writes about childhood experiences. The struggles and turmoil of dealing with school, children, and parents are addressed in detail. The book gives perspective but not solutions. A good read if you are trying to understand how a child feels.

Readability: Easy to read - story form

Informative / Contains Facts: No
Contains Insight / Perspective: Yes
Is It Unique: Similar to most other TS books.

Topic Quality: High
Literary Quality: High

Long Summary: (Insert a full proper review here)

User Comments Below
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that is very thorough and well thought out, well done! when are you looking at this type of thing starting?

Please see below an example I did based on the DVD I was talking about in another discussion

Title: What is...Tourette Syndrome?
Author: Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia Inc
Rating: 3.5 stars
Category: DVD – approx 20 minutes long
Copyright: 2003
Fact or Fiction: Fact

Subject: Documentary
Demographic: People looking for basic educational information
Review: To begin with this DVD provides narrative facts of what Tourette Syndrome is and who discovered it. It then moves on to interviews with people who have TS, the various symptoms and control methods and provides information on the diagnosis of TS and comparisons with other tic spectrum disorders. This DVD also discusses co morbid conditions associated with TS and provides scientific information on what causes it and possible medications. It is easy to understand and follow by every day people. This is a good educational DVD for those wanting to gain an initial and thorough understanding of Tourette Syndrome.
User Comments:

We cannot start it until it is decided what topics / questions there will be which is what I am trying to get worked out now. Also, there are still some changes going on with the review system software and that is also causing some delay (for now).

Mainly though, I want to get the questions worked out. I am not sure what the point of your second post above was. Are you proposing that your list is a better list for reviews of movies? If so, I do not agree, although I do like that you had a fact / fiction line.... maybe we could change it to Fiction or Non-Fiction. I suppose there may be some good books or movies out there that could get you into the mind of someone with TS without being fact based or a documentary. Have you seen the movie matchstick men with Nicholas Cage?

Currently, the review software cannot be used from the front end of the website (this part... the part you see) it can only be done by me as the administrator. Which means for now, I will have to add the reviews manually and then change the name to say who the real author was. In a month or so there is supposed to be an update that will allow more flexibility for non admins but for now I think this is fine. I would like the opportunity to provide feedback and make sure reviews are worded well and do not seem biased. So what do you think of:

Title:
Author:
Rating:
Average User Rating:

Copyright:

Subject:
Demographic:
Recommended Age Range:

Short Summary:

Readability:

Fiction or Non-Fiction:
Informative / Contains Facts:
Contains Insight / Perspective:
Is It Unique:

Topic Quality:
Literary Quality:

Long Summary:

User Comments Below


This would be for books. Movies would be similar but would probably also have running time.

the point of my above post, so we are all clear, was merely to show my interest and throw something out there. but to be perfectly honest my interest is once again declining, i say this with the utmost respect for this site and what you are doing, because it is a great idea, but you ask for peoples opinions but then you either get defensive about them or you don't take them into consideration at all, you have already made your mind up on what you want and it doesn't seem to matter what other people think so why do you both asking at all. your review theory repeats itself, demographic and recommended age group is exactly the same thing just said in two different ways, a lot of people (and i by no means include myself in this) do not enjoy or find reading hard, thus why i think you need to simplify and shorten them if you want people to actually read them and take them into consideration. the topic quality, if it is unique and all of the others i deleted in my example review seems completely irrelevant and having all these different topics will just make peoples heads swim and they will either only skim over it, or turn away completely because it's too long and exhausting to read. it's a review, not an in depth psychological evaluation. what is the point of having a short review and a long review, only one review is needed. people don't want to read the same shit twice. have you ever considered the reason why this site lacks in member activity is due to that fact that 99% of your responses are 5 zillion paragraphs long and the way you write things makes it sounds like you are either having a go at someone for them expressing their opinion when you asked for it to begin with or you just sound like a big know it all, or someone who thinks he is, i should clarify. i am not trying to be horrible and it's up to you if you take that as constructive criticism or a testosterone filled ego blow and get defensive once again, though the later won't surprise me at all and if i get kicked from this site for saying so, so be it, it was good to speak to everybody and you can add me on facebook if you want my name is Jamie Rose Brown and i will be the only one who comes up under that name.

To be very honest Jom I felt (and that my opinion) that this post was surprising to read. I feel (and that is my opinion) that you were ok with things and suddenly snapped into hating me. If you have criticisms of me or the site I am open to hearing them.

I would like to address each issue you had just mentioned and yes I will be acting defensive but only because I feel like you just attacked me.

You believe that that I have no interest in hearing other's opinions and that I already have my mind made up and also ignore anyone else. I sincerely hope this is not what people truly feel. I do not have the intention of ignoring anyone and if my mind was made up I would not ask. Lets look at a specific example: the above review template. We talked about this in a Personal Message and after looking at your suggestion I had mentioned adding things like the title and copyright date and you said that was obvious. Yet, you posted here without it. I took your suggestion and wanted to improve it - I posted my "suggested" better version of yours and you said "that is very thorough and well thought out, well done!" and yet posted another version without giving any reason for not using my ideas.

I am not closed to ideas and I am hoping that a ton of people would all tweak the final version until after a while we all agreed. But, if you want to add or remove something I would like to ask people to say why you remove something rather than ignore the previous suggestion. In fact, in my second draft I took an idea from something you had said - but as-I-said earlier I did not know if you truely meant that to be a replacement or were trying to volunteer a specific review. I was only trying to ask for clarification and I feel like you perhaps took that personally.

As for the specific changed mentioned in the above post (#249) most of these are great. You are right that Demografic and recommended age range are very similar and I had not thought that all the way through - I hope you do not hold my brain lapses against me. Probably both are not needed but please allow me to explain why I put both and then you and other can help decide which one to keep and which to get rid of. To me, recommended age range would be the age of the reader based upon hardness of reading and comprehension and languages used etc. Whereas the demographic I was trying to mean which type of person is affected by TS - for example I was thinking Person with TS, friend of someone with TS, specifically Parents of kids with TS. Again, I see now how they can be very similar and that had not occurred to me.

In general, I wanted to add as much as possible to reviews because I am not thinking like a person who wants to read a review for one specific book. I am trying to think like a person faced with thousands of books but can only afford one. Once we have many reviews, you will be able to search for, lets say, only books aimed at parents. Then you can pick the one with the highest review and read about it. The fewer the "questions" the fewer ways there will be to sort and search for appropriate materials. I think this will have to be weighed against making reviews too long.

As for the short and long reviews, the point of this is EXACTLY to address the issue that some people may not want to read an entire review. The 'long' review should be a full review like you would find in a newspaper or any other place that should go into detail for those that want to read about. The short review is meant to be a 3 sentence summary of the long review so that people are able to quickly read about the book. I feel (and again that is only my opinion) that if we have just a short or just a long review there will be some people who are missing what they want or will get overwhelmed. By having both (which isn't an un common thing to have) it allows both to be satisfied.

As far as everything being too long or too wordy - well as far as this post goes its quite long. All I can say is i'm sory I am not sure how to respond to your concerns without writing a lot here. As for the rest of the site, the homepage length has already been brought up and I am willing to discuss replacements / ideas for it. Other pages can be changed too - but I cannot certainly force everyone else to only write a small amount. I do not want to make posts like twitter with small word count limits.

As for the last few lines of your post I do not feel like I have been trying to fight with anyone here (I believe that is what 'having a go' means yes?). If others feel that I am fighting with them I apologize and ask for help spotting my mistakes. I want to create and promote an open forum for discussion where people can share their opinions including those that differ from mine.

May I ask that you re read what you wrote. I feel that you have insulted me personally for seemingly no good reason. We disagree and there is nothing wrong with that but not everything you said was constructive criticism. That all being said, I want you and everyone else on here to know that I am not going to ban anyone from the site/forum for disagreeing with me or light fighting. Pretty much, if there is a problem - for example someone complains that they do not feel safe or comfortable - then I will let you (or that person) know that they should stop and then if it continued I might take action but in general I do not want to, or plan to ban anyone (short of spamming robots) from using this site.

I am not sure why you would have gotten that vibe that I would ban you but trust me you are fine. And, if you do have some criticism or suggestions please make sure you include reasoning so I can consider it.

Also, this thread is supposed to be about suggestions for reviews. I would be happy to read and respond to any concerns you have about me personally but I ask you to consider either starting a new thread or sending me an email or personal message for private/personal matters. I do not mind keeping it public if you wish - I want everyone to know that I do care about them and their opinions and experience on the site. I do, however, feel that some of the above post could have been dealt with better.

Again, sorry about the length I don't know how to fix that... Its my own personal character flaw all I can do is ask you to try to accept that I can be wordy as we both should be accepting other's flaws as well.

Not exactly breaking news, but the review software now does work from the front end - meaning it can be setup so that registered members (or a select few) can create reviews. But again before anything like that is setup we have to lay the basics of the frame work.

Basically, I was thinking that we could have a select few members, who are open and fair when judging, to review a book or movie in the same way that a magazine would have a staff member create a review - and then under the reviews we could allow the general "public" to add their input via a rating and comment. The alternative to doing it this way is that reviews would otherwise be first come first serve and let anyone create the first or master review and then everyone after would then only be adding comments and ratings.

I can see benefits to both. I am worried that the general person might write a poor master review - but also concerned that no single person will be reading all that many books to review. Which do you think is best?

Issue 2 is still which questions or topics should we make mandatory in the review? I still think my previous suggestion is quite good so please give it a read and tell me which items should be changed, added, removed and why.

Also, please do not post your suggestion if you are just going to be upset if you do not get your way. This is a community site, a community project and the end result should be a group collaboration. No single person will get their way. I have posted a couple of my suggestions which I am open to changing for the better. So again please do not add yours unless you are equally interested in making it "better" and not "my way or the highway" Thanks!

Revised again - what do you think?

Title:
Author:
Copyright:

Rating:
Average User Rating: (Auto Generated)

Subject: (such as how to deal with schools, children, parents, or how to manage tics etc)
Recommended For: (who should read this book? Is it for a specific age, just for parents?)

Short Summary: (For those that only want the quick scoop)

Long Summary: (For those that want to read all the details)

User Comments Below (automatic)

I tried to make it more simplified. I also decided to take out fact or fiction because I don't want to list every non fiction work as "fact" when it could be based upon opinion and might be misleading. For example a new "breakthrough" treatment that may not be based upon the best scientific evidence. It seems to me that there is a big grey area and I would rather let each user make up their own mind.

I am also torn on whether we need a "recommended age range" or if we also need to designate "type".... where "type" might be graphic novel, documentary, perspective novel, thriller, action movie, etc etc.

Thoughts?

I think it might be best to just make an initial listing for each book with basic information such as number of pages, language, and ISBN # incase anyone wants to buy the book. Could even provide links to amazon or something.

Then, let everyone leave their own rating of the book and comments about it. Would that be better do you think? That way each book is not rated by only one person but an average of user ratings.

I think that the initial review criteria work just fine. I don't know if it should be necessary for someone to write a long review of a book because they might not be able to or want to do so. A short review should be enough so that an interested person can look further into it on their own. Here's my review:

Title: Nix Your Tics: Eliminate Unwanted Tic Symptoms: A How-to Guide for Young People
Author: Duncan McKinlay, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Rating: 8/10 (I haven't finished the book yet)
Copyright: 2008
ISBN #: 978-0-9810648-0-4
Demographic: Young People
Recommended Age Range: 14-25

Short Summary: Provides answers about TS for teens and young adults that doctors can't provide. It also talks about tic substitution and ways to set goals to make this happen.

Readability: very easy to read.

Fiction or Non-Fiction: Non Fiction
Is It Unique: It's written by a doctor that has TS

User Comments Below

I find that this book helps young people to understand better what their going through and explains in lament terms what their experiencing and where it comes from. McKinlay uses very simple terms that are easy to identify with and follow.

Hello Cass,

At the last minute I have decided it would be in the best interests of everyone if I created a master page for each book that just had a picture of the book, information such as title, author, copyright, ISBN, and a description based upon the back cover, or from the publisher.

Below that information will be an area where you can leave your own rating and your own comments about that specific books. All of the people who leave ratings will have those ratings averaged and that average will be the books "user rating".

At a later time in the future we can go back and have a more proper "editors review" once the site becomes more popular and we can find the right people. For no though, I think this will benefit everyone the most.

I will use the information above to enter this book in the list (right now I have only added about 13.. it takes longer than you might think to enter a book). If you want to write a better description, or include a recommended age range that will be your choice to leave in your rating of the book. I just feel it would be best for now to make the main part just facts only.

I am very excited about this and I hope everyone can help spread the word about this feature. I will try to add a few new books every couple of days untill we have them all !

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I have created a new thread in the general forum for people to make requests for specific books to be added. Unfortunately this thread is too cluttered with no longer accurate information. I may create a new thread and close this one in a few days for use to talk about bugs that ned to be fixed and any improvements that can be made.

I am hoping to make the book reviews "live" in a couple of days. I just need to make sure that it is working well enough before I do and make sure I have at least a few books added haha.