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Confused? This Should Clear Things Up.Jan 07 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Confusion due to ratings?
First and foremost; I do not rate based on whether I agree with you or not. I rate based on the quality of your review. I do not rate based on length; if you can tell me everything I want to know about the subject in 200 words, I will rate highly. It’s just that many people cannot write thorough short reviews. It does depend on the product that is being reviewed. I have seen excellent reviews of products such as hairspray that were rated low just because they were short, and I have seen short, uninformative book reviews rated highly. If I cannot decide what rating to give (e.g. I am stuck between “helpful” and “Very Helpful”), 95% of the time I will give the higher rating, unless my gut tells me otherwise. I tend to go a bit easier on people who are new and obviously trying. If it looks like they gave it a good effort, even if it isn’t a very thorough review, I will often rate higher than I would otherwise. I don’t rate unfairly high, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. I also expect a bit more from reviewers who have been here a long time, since they should know what is expected of them. So I rated one of your reviews and you’re not sure why I rated the way I did? Hopefully this should help: An outline of how I rate: Most Helpful - Very rarely used. I have read several of the other most highly rated reviews, and this one is the best. It doesn’t mean I have read all of the reviews on a topic, because I am quite certain that a “Helpful” or “Somewhat Helpful” review is not likely to get a “Most Helpful” from me. Even if I have read all of the reviews on a product, I may decide not to use this rating. A review needs to earn a “Most Helpful”!!!! Very Helpful - I love giving reviews this rating, and I wish I could give all reviews a “Very Helpful”. Unfortunately, not all of them are deserving of this. I consider your review to be VH if you give all of the important details. In other words, if I cannot think of any other important details that could be added to your review, it gets a VH from me. Helpful - I give this rating to reviews that are good, but are missing something. If one important fact is left out, or if I think more should be said on a certain topic, it gets a “Helpful” rating. Somewhat Helpful - A review gets a “Somewhat Helpful” rating from me if it gives a bit of information about the product, but certainly isn’t very helpful. This is mostly given to reviews that are very short and don’t say much, but they say something. For example, if someone writes about an online store, and they say that their order was late, or they had problems with customer service, but they don’t say what the store is, or anything about the web site. Not Helpful - Practically no information is presented. If a review just tells how much a person liked or disliked a product without giving any other information, it gets “Not Helpful”. This also applies to reviews where the reviewer had too little to say and they use filler (e.g. they repeat the same paragraph twice or just ramble on “I need to write more words? La da da de da…”). If you can’t even write 100 words, then you don’t even deserve a “Somewhat Helpful”. I also give NH to reviews that are off topic (wrong product is reviewed), though I am more lenient in the member advice sections). My rating also depends on your personal experience with the product. You don’t have to own the product, but just have a lot of experience with it. I am not going to penalize you for writing a review on a video game that you have been playing at your friend’s house for months; you obviously know what you’re talking about. But I tend to give low ratings to reviews that just contain information that you could have gotten anywhere. If you write a car review, don’t just tell me the features, give personal experiences too; is it easy to drive? Is it comfortable?, etc. If spelling and grammar are really bad, I will give the review a rating one less than I feel it deserves otherwise (e.g. a “Very Helpful” review will get a “Helpful” rating). This is not because I feel the need for everyone to write perfect English - I understand the occasional spelling mistake, I make them too! What I mean is reviews that are so poorly written that it is hard to read. I feel that if it is hard to read, it is not as helpful as a review that is easily read. If there are a lot of spelling mistakes, it shows that you don’t care enough about your review to take a look at the spell check page and edit any mistakes. I’m not talking about using “you’re” instead of “your” because that is a common mistake, and one that wouldn’t show up on the spell checker. Personally, I don’t feel it is necessary for me to hide behind my ratings. I have my personal settings set so that even if I rate “Not Helpful” it shows my name. Some people aren’t comfortable with this, and I understand that. I feel that there are benefits to always showing your name with your ratings. It shows you are not a revenge rater (or at least people will know who you are if you do!). It also shows that you stand behind your ratings, even if there is a risk of being revenge-rated. I figure it is worth my integrity to risk being the brunt of a revenge rater. If you write a good review, it will show in all the good ratings it gets, and won’t be affected by that one “Not Helpful”. If you think I have rated a review of yours unfairly, by all means, let me know! Email me a link to your review, with an explanation of why you think I rated it unfairly, and I will check it out. I will either re-rate or send you an explanation of why I rated the way I did.  |
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