Rotten Tomatoes has decided to remove the option for fans to comment and “rate” films via the site’s “want to see” feature before their release in an effort to stop users trashing films they haven’t seen yet.
The change is part of a site overhaul that’s intended to “more accurately and authentically represent the voice of fans, while protecting
data and public forums from bad actors,” explained a recent blog update. The update reads: “As of February 25, we will no longer show the ‘Want to See’ percentage score for a movie during its pre-release period. Why you might ask? We’ve found that the ‘Want to See’ percentage score is often times confused with the ‘Audience Score’ percentage number.” The blog notes that the “Audience Score” percentage is the percentage of all users who have rated the movie show positively with a rating of 3.5 stars higher and is only shown once the film or TV show is released.
Source: IGN.com Rotten Tomatoes Bans Pre-Release User Input