Critiquing the New Epinions -- Do Your Homework, Please! Feb 27 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: A Literature Unit From $8 Olivier Dunrea - Ollie From $7 The Bottom Line A lot of the concerns about changes in Epinions could have been eased by reading the Chat transcripts -- they really aren't just doing this to upset us, folks! After using Epinions for quite a while for shopping advice, I joined at exactly the time the new site went live. I've followed the debate, read the Chat transcripts, read a lot of reviews, written a few reviews, run into my own frustrations, and found my level of participation. I've also found a few responses to others' experience congealing in my mind. Here's my big peeve: The comments which complain about changes and say, in essence, "Why did you have to mess with a good thing? We liked it just the way it was!" Both Chats have made it perfectly clear that Epinions wasn't working the way it was. It could be called a victim of its own success. Without a radical rebuild it was going to fall over and smash into little pieces. This is MORE WORK THAN YOU WOULD EVER BELIEVE POSSIBLE. I say that as one who has just learned something about what lies behind all those graphics and links and so on that we use so blithely. Our little home business just spent the better part of a year getting a really really simple web store up and running. In fact, the graphics and links are the easy part; the really hard work goes into the concepts and organization of a very complicated, interconnected (by definition) system. Change IS hard, especially when there has been a sense of community and comfort that has been interrupted, diminished, maybe even destroyed. But I have gotten awfully tired of those who use the public forum of Epinions to express their understandable dismay without first doing their homework and learning whatever they could about the rationale behind the changes, the schedule for restoration of services, and so on. That said, I will add my whining to everyone else's about the proliferation of totally stupid topics. I have complained to The Management about this before whining in public. I also question the placement of some products under topics, e.g. Bag Balm. I don't think The Management has thought this through adequately. Finally, Three Cheers for the return of the media categories! Can't wait to get my hands on those books!

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