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It's A Tough Job!Feb 28 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Be fair to others by rating their review as honestly as possible.
Rating reviews can be very difficult, and the more I read the more I run into that problem. I have recently started to really spend a lot of time at Epinions although I have been a member for over a year now, and I have been doing a lot of reading and rating of others reviews. I really want to be as fair as possible when it comes to other's hard work. Therefore,I have decided that in order to help clear up some of the "gray areas" I tumble upon while rating, I would set up a good outline to follow. Not Helpful I rarely give these out. One of the reasons for that is because you can generally tell upon reading the title and the first line that is shown under "Latest Reviews" whether or not this review is "real" or if it is just a joker. I don't bother clicking on those because I refuse to even give that person a penny for obviously abusing the system. Anyway, some are unavoidable and if I find an epinion that is full of repeat letters or vulgar language and was written to just get a "rise" out of people than I automatically "NH". Somewhat Helpful I have been handing these out more frequently than I would like to, but I don't feel I have much choice. If a review is written and really only gives the information "I like it" or "I don't like it", then I hit "somewhat helpful". It is, after all, only somewhat helpful as far as making a consumer decision because it isn't really telling me anything about the product. I need to know more than just personal experience, because everyone's is different. If you didn't like the product, that's fine....but you can still offer information as to what the product had to offer. Helpful This is for the epinions that are written fairly but either have quite a few grammatical and spelling errors or have left some information out that I would have really liked to know. Most of the time "helpful" could become "very helpful" if people took the time to expand on their epinion. For example: I can't count the number of times people have said that they liked this product more or less than their last one they owned.....yet they don't go on to explain WHY. Also, I see a lot of people writing that the product has great features but they stop there instead of writing what those great features are. Very Helpful These are the epinions that have it all and more. They are (for the most part) error free, very detailed, and offers even more information than I would've even thought to ask about. They offer everything you need to know when you consider buying this product, plus personal information to back up their experience with the product. Gray Areas Ah, you have to love these. :) These are the epinions that are in between "Very Helpful" and "Helpful" or in between "Helpful" and "Somewhat Helpful". They generally tend to happen in a category that I am not very knowledgeable about, such as computers or electronics. This is when I re-read the entire review and ask myself exactly how many questions did the review answer for me and how many did it leave out? Usually I find my answer by doing this, but if I still have trouble then I go read some other reviews written on the same product (I told you I really try to be fair!). Once I find other epinions to compare it to, I often find the answer of what rating to give. In the End I wish people would only write about things they were truly knowledgeable about. I feel this would solve a lot of the "somewhat helpfuls" out there. I know that I wrote a few epinions when I first started that didn't receive high ratings because they weren't what I really knew, so I couldn't offer much information about them. I have since stopped writing about those products and mainly write in the Kids & Family Section because that's what I know best. I also wish more beginners would take the time to read other reviews to find out what is expected of them. I did this after my first few reviews and the more I read, the better I became. My final wish: Expect More From Yourself I don't want to write reviews that are only "somewhat helpful", or even just "helpful". I want to write reviews that receive the highest ratings, therefore I do a lot of research, spend more time reading than writing, and write the highest quality reviews I can. If we all took these measures, the "not helpful" and the "somewhat helpful" simply wouldn't be necessary. Thank you for reading, and happy writing! :)  |
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