Word about the contest appears to have gotten out to the (strike)"SAHMs"(/strike) interwebs: I see a few new members churning out very bad short regular reviews this afternoon.

With "SH" being acceptable, it appears that the goal is quantity, even if it junks up this high-quality site.

I would say once again I don't see how properly rated SH reviews "junk up" the site since they are near the bottom of the pile. But with the change coming to order stuff by date, maybe I'm wrong on this one.

Still, considering every other review site lives on what we consider SH, it's not the complete end of the universe. (End of the world I might conceed, but universe no way.)

Mark

I'm sure there was good stuff on Essortment and Ehow.com but when Google kept sending me to garbage, I stopped following links to those sites.

Perhaps the problem is that many of the SHs should be rated NH. There seems to be a wide range of opinion on what is meant by "overwhelmed" in "Overwhelmed by writing errors, inaccuracies or bad presentation."

Not often but I have seen SH reviews link to Google.

If something of less quality gets attention, others looking in quickly will NOT be particularly impressed that EPINIONS is not any different from other sites.

An opportunity to gain a new regular reader and possible member is then lost.

Of course if it is the lesser quality stuff that is driving some traffic here, which increases number and possible value of site---
then the quality issue and retaining of readers and members is the 2nd or 3rd top thing to develop and consider and not the top priority.

And that's just the way it is...we will just have to accept this sad,sad reality.

I certainly continue to believe that rewarding SH reviews is NOT good for the site or morale or older members in the long run. Quality does matter and the eroding of it dissuades and demoralizes sooner or later.

SO.....

I... Mr. Smarty Pants aka.. ideas? I gotta million of 'em... suggest..

Come up with a NEW MEMBER contest drawing.

New Members joining our site between January and April 15th (TAX DAY) who write and register at least 11 Helpful rated reviews will be entered into a drawing for valuable cash and prize.

win 250 dollar.... or 100 dollars, or $25 dollars or a new camera, Kindle, make-up collection, Godiva chocolates....

Folks trying to game the system won't be any more annoying and disrupting as they are now... and if I'm wrong and they are a bit more disrupting.. the extra attention might just boost Google ratings for the site and everyone else too.


Consider dumping SH and NH altogether... MH, VH, H and SH are almost the same at this point.. so create a Less then Helpful rating. Most Helpful, Very Helpful, Helpful... Less than Helpful...and leave the degrees less than Helpful to the comment section. Some Sh's will become Helpful of course... but many will be less than helpful and not count for contests..



Carry on...

One idea is to add a "This review is written in Orcish" check-box or make ratings two-dimensional. It won't happen, but it'll get rid of the problem, which is a tendency for "reviews" overwhelmed by poor writing to receive SH ratings if those with the patience to read them--a much more difficult task than reading a review written so that its author wouldn't be ashamed to see it printed in the hometown newspaper--find them to have any useful content.

It's possible that I could get tarred and feathered for my suggestion, but I'm trying to think from the perspective of a newbie who wants to write well but never really learned. He may be too proud to admit that his writing is convoluted because he doesn't know his grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Now for the pitch:

Suppose staff (or Advisors) could create a series of self-help modules and insert links to them on the "Welcome to Epinions" e-mail everyone gets when they join. The main goal would be to offer help before a lot of tripe is posted. The secondary goal would be to make the offer painless because everyone receives it.