Spukhafte Fernwirkungen

It depends on who you ask and what their tastes are. I think if you ask that question here, almost everyone would say to watch this drama, of course. Give the first few episodes of both a go and see if either of them appeal to you.

Thanks for the explanation. It's interesting (and, admittedly, kind of puzzling to me) that all of that leads to such aggressive fan behavior on both sides.

Lu Si and Esther, from what I've seen in the comments. I mainly watch Korean dramas, so I have no idea who Esther is, even though I've heard of Lu Si. But, yeah, this whole page is a mess.

My thoughts on what happened here:

The haters/antis initially came in and gave the drama a rating of 1 as soon as it started airing, in addition to saying bad things about the drama and actors in the comment section, all of which is horrible behavior. Some fans of the actors understandably didn't react well to this and started trying to counteract the actions of the antis by giving the drama a 10 and going after the antis in the comments. The antagonism of the antis sparked an overzealous defensiveness in a handful of fans, who then started labeling anyone who had anything critical to say about the drama as an anti and attacked them in the comments, which is also horrible behavior. This is where I think a second blow was dealt to the rating - comments are factored into the drama rating, and if the comment section appears like a hostile environment to people who aren't saying only glowing things about the drama, it will lead to less people commenting. This hostile environment might also cause some legitimate users to rate the drama lower than they normally would (I know that's what happened with me - my initial rating when I dropped the drama was one star lower than it is now simply because I was so put off by the attitude I was given in this comment section). Unlike almost every other comment section I've been active in on this site, this comment section has done its best to stifle any critical discussion of the drama and create a sterile environment where only praise of the drama is welcome, which doesn't really help the drama do well on this site in the long run. And, creating an environment like that can also give a false impression of how the majority of people on this site feel about the drama because a small vocal minority who only have good things to say are about the only ones being represented in the comments.

So, I think a few things went into the rating being a little lower than it probably should be: antis purposely rating the drama low, overzealous fans creating a hostile environment and lowering comment count, and legitimate users who didn't enjoy the drama enough to give it a 9 or 10 and also didn't comment because they didn't feel the need to or felt they would be attacked if they did.

A final comment: Not counting what the antis bring with purposely inflammatory trolling, critical discussion of a drama by legitimate viewers is good for everyone - it raises the rating through comment count; it can create thoughtful debate about complex issues relating to the drama; and, it can also make potential viewers curious about the drama itself when they see things in the drama being discussed among viewers instead of more abstract things like how well the drama is doing on other sites or an occasional favorite line being quoted, which won't mean much to people who haven't seen the drama yet. I'm not saying people shouldn't mention how well the drama is doing on other sites or shouldn't quote lines they like, but when criticism of a drama gets shut down in the comment section, it usually leads to less discussion about the actual story, and what's happened here is a pretty good example of that. There are some fans who may not want to see other people criticizing a drama they love, and I understand that, but when that criticism is earnest, it's an important part of what happens in these comment sections.

For what it's worth, no ratings are "real" because they're all based on subjective input. On top of that, haters will blindly give a drama a rating of 1, while cheerleaders will blindly give a drama a 10, and both are acting with an agenda, so that doesn't really help potential viewers much. I think the best indicator for potential viewers as to whether a drama might be worth their time would likely be number of viewers the drama has and, as you mentioned, whether the viewership increased steadily as the drama went on. (Actually, the best indicator would be to just start watching and see if they liked the first few episodes...)

Seeing as how you've been trying to get people to do things to increase the rating here, you might want to try to get all the people who have left 10/10 reviews to mark the drama as completed in their watchlists - looking through the reviews, I've noticed a lot of earlier 10/10 reviews have things like "9 out of 34 seen" and such for episodes watched. I honestly don't know if that affects the rating or not, but it definitely adds a lot more legitimacy to the review if it looks like the reviewer finished the drama and didn't just write up a 10/10 review a third of the way into the run to try to counteract the haters.

No, I didn't. It really wasn't for me. I'm glad the people who enjoyed the drama had such a good viewing experience, however.

Not that I'm aware of.

From the site's FAQ:

"Our Dramas and Movies are ranked using a complex algorithm that takes into account several factors including how many people added the drama to their list, the ratings given by users, the number of comments and recommendations, and reviews from viewers."

So, there are a lot of things that get factored in. It will likely go up a little more within the next couple of days with the reviews that have been recently added.

Ah, yet another person who thinks their love of the drama gives them free license to be insulting. Sure, let's go.

I don't care whether anyone likes or dislikes the drama - that's none of my business and never was my issue here. My issue was that one user was bullying another user (and baselessly accusing them of having a fake account in order to discredit their opinion) simply because they didn't like what was said about the drama. This is a public forum and people should be free to give their opinions about the drama without fear of being bullied for giving that opinion. If you misunderstood my point, I suggest you go back and reread what I've written in this thread.

Seeing as how you being speechless is the desired outcome unless you can start treating people with more respect in this comment section, I'm fine with whatever you want to think. But you guys might need to apologize to dooh for a case of mistaken identity if they're offended by it. I do see your more recent comments to other people are far more civil. Keep that up and we won't need to go through this again.

I've got some time and don't tire easily, so let's look at your comment point by point.

1. I fully admit I've had numerous exchanges with other users who were trying to bully me or someone else in this comment section. I have no problem confronting that type of behavior when I see it, and there's been quite a lot of it in the comments here. I don't like seeing bullies think they can get away with anything just because no one will stand up to them.

2. I'm sure there have been fake accounts trying to lower the rating or put down the drama, but not every account is fake. From what I've seen, pretty much everyone who posts anything critical about the drama in this section gets jumped on by a few of you and dismissed as being a fake account, whether it is or not, simply because they criticized a drama you like. This dismissal is usually accompanied by some form of harassment or attempt to discredit their opinion and silence them. This is exactly what you did with the comment I initially replied to.

3. First of all, the word you're looking for is libel, not slander - libel is for written statements, and slander is for spoken statements. And it isn't libel unless the statements being made are false. Were you trying to silence the opinion of the person you were replying to through insulting language (otherwise known as bullying)? Yes. Were you implying their account was fake without a single bit of proof to back that up? Yes. In no way did I libel you. What I did was call out your bad behavior and challenge you to provide proof for the idea that gladydramalover's account was fake, which you still haven't done. And, for the record, making a claim about an account being fake when you have no proof, especially when done with the intent of discrediting someone, actually does fall within the definition of libel because you have no way of knowing if your claim is true.

I was completely ready to let dooh play referee for us and bring this entire thing to a close, but it looks like you're still trying to find a way of defending treating others poorly. I can stick around and debate this whole thing with you for as long as you like - I'd rather have you going up against someone like me who has no problem calling you out than have you go and harass other people.

Ah, and I see you're once again trying to direct things back to me. I'm fine, since you seem so curious. I think it would be better to ask that question of yourself given the way you've been treating other people in this comment section.

I don't feel called out at all. But I think you should. Your behavior is out of line, and I think you know that because you keep trying to redirect the topic back to me when the topic is actually all about you and you bullying and insulting other people.

I think you misread - I wasn't defending myself at all in that comment. What I was doing was blatantly calling you out for behaving in a truly horrible manner toward other people in this comment section by bullying and insulting them.

Why do you guys (you and a few others) always assume everybody else who uses this site is caught up in some silly little fanwar? I'm sorry, but although it may be the biggest thing in your lives, not many people here care at all about whatever it is you're being so embarrassingly defensive (and offensive) about. Not everyone is going to like this drama just because you do. You say gladydramalover only came here to put down the drama as part of some fan feud, but you don't know that for a fact. You imply they only set up their account to hate on Smile Code, but if that was the case, don't you think they would have been more active about putting down the drama in the comment section on a regular basis than just making one comment about what they didn't like? Scroll through these comments and find me another comment where gladydramalover is putting down the drama to provide even a shred of evidence to justify your accusation - I dare you. Just because you guys have all bought into some stupid fanwar or whatever doesn't mean that everyone who comes here to make a comment is part of your little game or even knows what you're going on about. Criticism of a drama is part of why comment sections exist on this site, and everyone should be free to criticize a drama if they don't like it without fear of immediately being bullied and insulted, like you and a few others have been doing.

For what it's worth, the way you're behaving is likely doing more harm to the image of the drama than anything else anyone here might be saying. Tell me this - if you were curious about a drama and went to the comment section to see what people were saying, and then saw that the people who supposedly love the drama the most were immediately jumping all over anyone who had even the slightest negative thing to say about the drama (and also immediately thought any negative comments were all part of some big fanwar conspiracy), what would you think?

Edit: And before you can ask me why I'm back here if I'm not watching the drama anymore and am so offended by your behavior, it's because I wanted to see if MDL had taken any action against some of the comments you guys have made that I reported for violating the site's Terms of Use in regard to harassment.

'Branding in Seongsu' dealt with adult-themed shop topic really well, too.

Agreed, I would have been far more satisfied if they had just ended before the 4 year time jump. With what we got out of it, it was completely unnecessary and just felt distracting.

Yeah, I felt like that 4 year time skip at the end raised many, many more questions for me than it answered.

And right away you prove just how unfriendly you guys have made this comment section for anyone who dares to think differently than you. Seriously, what is wrong with you people? I get you like the drama. That's fine - you are totally allowed to like it. I have no say in that whatsoever. But calling me and other people narcissists simply because we think differently than you? You are totally out of line.

And for what it's worth, please try to understand this beyond the exceedingly narrow view of things you've imposed upon yourself - I don't dislike the drama or the actress or the actor at all. I do, however, think Gu Yi is a toxic character, and that was enough to turn me off from watching. Please, do your best to get over yourself and the horrible habit of insulting other people simply because they have a different opinion than yours. More people will listen to what you have to say about things if you do. And it will also make this comment section a more pleasant place for everyone.

I think it's simply because not everyone on MDL likes it as much as the comments here may try to make people believe. Right now, the drama has 751 ratings, but there's only a fraction of that number commenting on it. Most of the people commenting here seem to like the drama (or, in some cases, obsessively love it), but this comment section has proven itself to be highly unfriendly to anyone who says anything critical about the drama, so the rating probably reflects viewers who don't like the drama that much and either don't feel the need to comment on it or are afraid they'll get jumped on by crazed fans if they do make a comment about it.