Quote: popsrocks
[quote]I feel for you and others who have most eggs in one basket.[/quote]

I actually don't have a lot of reviews in those categories but I did collect some $. Two of my best Outdoors reviews paid $15.60 in 2007. In 2008 they paid less than $3 then everything ground to a halt.

Quote: jps246
[quote]
the potential IS that was lost will never regained.[/quote]

You must be losing a lot of IS Jeff (compared to previous years). Imagine if your employer stopped paying you due to a computer glitch. I know it's not quite the same thing, but is the site benfitting from the reviews and just not paying us anymore? -Dave

I have had considerable private communication that has made me think that the precipitous drop in outside hits earlier this year did not occur, but that counting hits (and reporting them) was severely compromised by the integration that was billed as substituting the Shopping.oom search engine for the Epinions one.

Adding is what computers are best at and have been at for the longest time, so the surmises I have received suggest that I have overestimated the quality of the analysis, implementation, and testing of software.

In that I write more to be read than for the IC, this makes me feel better (that people from outside are reading some of my reviews, even if their visits are not being reported to me). Given that pretty much everything "reported" from Brisbane (including the constantly improving search engine) is dubious, misleading, or outright false, trusting that the number of hits is reported accurately is a leap of faith that seems foolish to me.

I also learned (credit for this is due to Phil--popsrock) how to get around the "You don't have permission" to remove the link to my epinions "General comments about epinions" I made (in a complicated series of events that I don't want to recount)

I invite anyone who was seriously concerned about my horrifying violation of custom (rather than for those seeking to change the subject from the dubious report of improvement from now former-epinions employees) to delete their discussions in this thread (and paste them into the one specifically about including linking). I have deleted my own responses that seem to have failed to communicate the bizarre circumstances of the strangling of this thread before it was out of the delivery room (and its recessitation after I took what I was writing to the mothership...)

Thanks in advance to anyone who removes their postings about links on message boards. My brief and traumatic visit to the member board is still ending at midnight (PDT), which should make many message board mavens happy as does every successful stomping of a newbie who has violated customs (unwritten laws) by SOME advisors.

I certainly do not expect any admission from Brisbane that huge numbers of hits have not been reported (if the surmises of epinionators less naive than I am are correct).

The ADD kicks in. . . Stephen, you are a brilliant writer. I'm getting a little bogged down (it's VERY late in the school year and I have three brain cells left and I've named them Larry, Moe and Curly)

Can you give it to me in one sentence? It can be a long sentence.

Susan

You did, indeed, get a bad break when you first started here. Yours posts were deleted, locked, re-opened, and you broke a non-written rule that you didn't even know existed. Yup, that's a rough start, indeed.

Had you simply removed the link, you could have avoided what turned into a lot of pages of debate about the issue.

That aside, in the end, I do feel there was meaningful discussion. And, lots of people were helpful, not just the ones you mentioned. I, personally, got involved in your "vertical" thread just before it was about to slip into oblivion on page 2. Eventually, we got some real information about the issue from several people who had experience with the issue. And, eventually we got a REAL answer from Almar.

In other words, the boards worked. You asked a question. It might have taken a little while until some of us understood the question, but eventually, it was made clear, we got information, and an answer.

To my way of thinking you should view all of this as an overall positive experience. Rough start, for sure, but it ended well.

Ditto-ing what Mona says.

Btw, could a mod or someone with access please add Almar's answer to that pinned and locked 'Status of things' thread? Thanks! :o)

Cool! Thanks in advance, Bob. :o)

For easy finding, click here to find Almar's answer.

Cheerio,
Smorg :o)

:) As for an actual reply to the comment.

ACK! Just stopped by to check things and blech! The site is trashed worse than it was when it was trashed last time (ummmmmm... They'd almost fixed it at one point but essentially that was perhaps a day or two so the site has kinda existed in a constant state of mediocrity as far as Movies goes for years). From what I can see it doesn't seem to be recognizing reviews on new stuff (at all?).

Top videos: National Geographic Video - Hunt for the Great White Shark

Ummm... Yeah. That is a best seller. From 1999. What the .... is up with that? No reviews.

Married People, Single Sex: The Return

I could see sex videos possibly being up there but this is from 2002.

Sex and the City - The Complete Series

Could be. Seems doubtful but...

Opposite of Sex

Well, it does include sex in the title. Old movie (1998), not on anybody's need to see list.

Love, Sex And Eating The Bones

Well... I've never heard of it, it is from 2004... Anyone need to see this one?

Planet Earth - The Complete Collection

Well, this one is recent anyhow (2007) but are documentaries that popular? Given that Moore's films are touted as top moneymakers it seems unlikely.

Princess Bride

Love the film. It did have a SE lately but... It is from 1987 I believe. The supposed release date is probably from the SE though because it says 2007.

Deep in the Game

Ummmmmmm... Huh? Never heard of it, it doesn't have sex in the title, no big actors... From 2003.

Last of the Dogmen

*shrug* It is rated reasonably. Haven't seen it. Seems like it might be decent. Again from 1999.

Shakira - Live & Off The Record

From 2004. Is everyone looking for this? No clue. Maybe I'm just out of the loop. *eye roll*

This is the *CRAP* that we were encouraged to look forward to after the search engine had some time to work its magic. Feel free to check back to the initial search engine thread and my objections to it in that thread and ummmmm... Well... I'm not going to say it.

Why the .... does Epinions think that these are top rated? They seem to have an oddball, obscurer-than-the-IS-formula way of determining what the top things are as has often been indicated by the crappy reviews desired posted periodically by the CLs every so often (generally all of those products are obscure).

In "New This Week" they've the usual suspects (The Descent has yet to be taken down) and some oddball new crap. GREAT way to highlight things for the ongoing summer season (last year's?).

"Coming Soon" is just as odd (The Descent is coming soon also).

"Box Office Leaders" might actually have been modified slightly three weeks ago (surprising). But films from the same time last year are still on the list (as well as The Descent. It does have Iron Man released last week or so though (May 16th) and that simply isn't true.

Soooooooo... The winner in the stupidest filing system The Descent.

And to think, I was actually thinking about writing a few reviews. This assinine catalog crap simply hasn't done anything good for the site from my perspective.

Ander