I agree with NT. I'm basically happy here ~ most days, I'm getting between 50 - 100 hits (and that's only with 86 reviews to my credit). So, people ARE reading my reviews. Maybe not ALL of them, but I feel like my writing is making a difference somehow.

I'm also getting a decent check each month, which is greatly appreciated. I like the community, too. And, I don't feel like Epinions is circling the drain. I have voiced certain concerns about "bugs" via email and gotten responses from several employees. I do feel they care.

Any company who has recently lost staff members is probably feeling a crunch. But, a month has not gone by without Eps fulfilling their monetary obligations to their members and keeping their promises (10-4-10, IS, advisor payments, etc.)

So, eat, drink and be merry ~ and critique the experience when you're done!

No sky falling here :)

Jennifer

I would say my hits are down at least 50% due to this error. I think the problem is twofold - I think the reviews are nearly impossible to find and then when people are finding them, the hits aren't getting recorded. So people are viewing the reviews (and possibly making purchase decisions) and we aren't getting credit for it.

That sucks, but I know there's nothing I can do. With the economy the way it is, I try to look on the bright side about it. I am making pretty good money every month off of the reviews that are earning IS and the promotional money is good too.

I do get discouraged from time to time. It bugged me when the month IS was wrong they rolled it back, and there was a statement made to the effect that some people were getting more and it was coming out of the pockets of others. It feels like that's sort of what might be happening with this, but all categories are not equal.

I checked on all my May postings and two of them have the dreaded /review/ in them.

Have I missed the thread where there is an explanation WHY these reviews don't get an income share?

Susan

Not exactly sure since I only pop in on the message boards every once in a while, but I think I remember reading something about two different servers and that only some of the migrated content is searchable and getting hits. Don't quote me since it's probably just me paraphrasing somebody's hypothesis.

But to address the original post, I don't think Epinions is going away. It's a site that survived some rocky Internet times and is still very viable and productive. To me, it's the best all-around review site out there, even if I do have to use Google to search through the Epi database, at least for the time being. Computer glitches happen and they're only really fixable during downtimes. So, I say, let's bear with the software folks a while longer, who I'm sure are trying their best to keep downtimes to a minimum, while they explore the many issues. They're probably all related and fairly easy to fix once the actual bad coding is found.

I'm not here for the money, although that is a nice perk and I am trying to take advantage of the 10 for 10 as much as time allows, but I do consider myself a writer and I do like sharing my opinions. Seeing my hits stay level or only creep up on things I'd normally see tons of movement on makes me feel like nobody's reading my work and nobody cares what I think and my reviews are meaningless. That is what worries me, and probably a lot of people, the most about the Epinions database problems. Many folks have left and I doubt it was just about the money, since IS is often counted in pennies.

Jeanne

At this point many of us understand there has been a drop off in some categories and the reviews with the extended /review/ URLs get a big 0. We can compare numbers on and on at this point. I know I added to that a couple-a-few times over the past few months. I believe we have established fact.

The reasonable question still remain as was asked earier by Jeff, So are all those reviews basically dead now?

and my questions...

...Why do some posted reviews have them, other reviews not? Why in some categories and not in others? Is there hope that these reviews will someday show movement? If so, would they show past views? Is there hope they will one day give us IS? Are these reviews that will only give us "upfront money" while the promotion goes on and NEVER pay IS?

Again, I agree with NT who started the thread. I have faith that Epinions.com will continue as a consumer information site, it is doing well for me and there is no reason to "freak out" but, certain questions still need to be answered to help us better understand what's happening in reference to these particular reviews.

I also understand the frustration of those who write mostly in categories that are affected.

pops

Those are my questions, too. We've had some official word on this issue, but no one has ever answered those particular questions. I get the feeling no one knows the answers.

On the original question, I'm not freaking out about it, but the current state of things here is vexing, to say the least.

Here is some /review data I've come up with looking at my own reviews.

I have 55 reviews with /review in the URL (47 food&drink, 2 pesonal care, 5 pets, and 1 movie).

Of those 55 reviews, 31 have 0 or 1 outside hit (I count 1 the same as 0 since not convinced that a 1 in that column reflects a "real" hit). The others have outside hits (an average of 11 hits each). So to say that all /review URLs get NO outside hits is not correct. Some DO get hits.

Of those 55 reviews, 30 have $0 in IS. The others have some IS (an average of .23 each). So, to say that all /review URLs get NO IS is also not correct. Some DO get IS.

It's perplexing, isn't it?

Mona
StillNotFreakingOut