• People who require everyone to follow the User Agreement ONLY when it suits their political needs! I am about as diligent about the User Agreement as anyone on the site. I can see how people might not respect it at all though. But the people who REALLY get my panties in a twist are the ones who harass others for following the user agreement one minute but then act like the defender of the User Agreement the next. I can respect people who are consistent. But the people who swing back and forth like a frickin pendulum on the SAME User Agreement issues really burn me up!
  
  
• Attacks on my ratings! Don't take my ratings personally. I don't rate people. I rate reviews! I'm picky with every review. If you can't stand it, try writing on a bathroom wall where people expect to see things like, "That Rulz!" and where no ratings are required.
  
  
• People who ask for my advice and then throw a hissy fit when I give it! I'm not your momma, and I'm not obligated to pat you on the head and tell you that you've done a good job even when you haven't. There's only one bit of advice that I expect you to take... Don't smack me in face for giving you honesty when you ask for it!
  
  
• People who play trust games: I've unveiled my WOT for now. As a Category Lead, I just think it's the appropriate thing to do. However, when I am no longer a Category Lead, I'll be hiding it again. I am not sneaky, and one of the fastest ways to guarantee that I will never trust you is to try to court favor with people by adding them to your WOT.
  
  
• People who write asking for me to re-read a review without telling me their user name and/or which review! I don't mind explaining my ratings. I don't mind re-rating. If you want me to explain a rating, email me the URL for the review, and I will gladly explain. But I'm not bloody psychic!
  
  
• People who write to me and expect an immediate response! I am not tied to my computer. I have places to go, people to see, things to do. Besides that, I'm raising a 10 year old and trying to keep a my spousal unit happy. It may take some time to get back to you. Don't get your undies in a bunch if it takes me some time to respond!
  
  
• Off-topic reviews! How would you feel if I hid your underwear in the icebox and put your steak in your sock drawer? Believe it or not, it's kind of the same thing!
  
  
• Screwed up homonyms: This in it's self should bee two obvious! Their easy too spot!
  
  
• The comma is your friend, but it's not a friggin' Christmas tree decoration either! Need, I, say, more?
  
  
• Gratuitous use of bolding, italics, and other "decorations": I will not be impressed by how creatively you can use boldface. Funky formatting makes my eyes and ME cross! Wow me with great writing and deep insights instead.
  
  
• Cutesy emoticons and actions like "lol" in reviews: If you have to give me a visual indication that I'm supposed to laugh, you probably aren't as witty as you think you are.
  
  
• Reviews that don't mention the title of the book being reviewed or who wrote it: If the only place that the title and author are referenced is at the top, it is very unlikely that the title of the book is going to stick with me. In many cases, I have to scroll back to the top of the review when I finish reading the review just to remind myself what was being reviewed. Give me a break here! I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, a poor memory, and a bad temper!
  
  
• Don't bother including pricing information unless you are going to update it daily! I can almost guarantee you that I can get better pricing information from the Epinions' shopping data. What's more, including such information might actually be harming Epinions (and other members), as they rely on revenue from traffic directed to these sites to pay the bills here. The exception (dratted exceptions make me grumpy!) is when a special value can be found somewhere. Oh! And could you think of any less compelling way to start a review than "I bought this for $2.98"?
  
  
• Regurgitated information from other sites I don't care if Amazon shoppers who bought ItemA also bought ItemB. I don't want your copy/paste ingredients list either. (Thank God book reviews don't need them!) Make intelligent choices about why you decide to glean from other sites. If you're going to tell the readers this kind of crap, tell them why they should care!
  
  
• People who don't read their own reviews after they post them! When you're done channeling the word gods, check what came out to see if even you understand it! READ it! Pretend for five minutes that you didn't write it! Does it sound right? Does anyone really talk like that? LOOK AT IT! Does it look right? I can't believe the number of times that I have seen reviews that have been posted for hours that have screwed up bold or italics tags or glaring editing (or lack thereof) errors.
  
  
• 200 word reviews with no line breaks: Add a line break between paragraphs. They're free!
  
  
• Plot summaries are not reviews! I want to know how a book made you feel. If you didn't feel anything, go back to sleep and don't waste my time!
  
  
• Book reports posing as book reviews! This is the other end of the spectrum. Lots of people write book reports for school. I guess they figure that a good grade isn't enough, so they post them here as book reviews. However, their meticulous notation of page numbers and use of about 50 million sentence fragments from the book being "reviewed" is boring, boring, boring! The end result is something that helps me so much that I don't have to read the stinking book!
  
  
• Don't tell me where the book was printed! Look, I don't care! Think of the last time something like that affected YOUR purchasing decision. . . . Yeah... That's what I thought! Plonk!
  
  
• Redundant Repetition: This drives me absolutely insane! Thanks, but I can get the general idea on the first try. You don't have to tell me the same thing THREE frickin' times!
  
  
• Who cares if the cover is blue? Publishers change covers all the time! A cover that is blue this year might be pink in the next printing. The only time where this really matters is if the cover is unique or eye-catching.
  
  
• Don't thank me for reading! You are not writing a letter to your mother, and I'm not doing you a favor by reading your review. If your review is really worthwhile, your reader will be the one thanking YOU!

Epinions is a site that invites all members to give their honest opinions on whatever product or service is available for review. No product on the site is exempt from being rated poorly by an Epinions member. Look around, and you will see that even things that are considered revered classics by some are considered trash by others.

It's this diversity that makes Epinions such a wonderful site. There are so many members with so many different tastes that it's always possible to find at least one other member that shares those tastes, no matter how outlandish. As a consumer, I feel this is what makes Epinions valuable. I don't have to find a product that everyone agrees is right for me. I just have to find one that has been right for a person who is similar to me.

Yet, diversity is not considered a good thing in rating of reviews. If one person doesn't appreciate a review that 50 other people just love, then the one person is "wrong". Worse yet, the person is accused of being a Nazi, an "elitist", or worse.

Why?

Why is the writing of any Epinions member so sacrosanct that it should be exempt from honest opinion? If the works of writers like Tolkien, Twain, Bronte, King, and others who have been far more successful in the business of writing than any of us will ever be can be targets of one star ratings, who are we to say that we are above receiving the same?

You may not feel that some comments are fair or objective, and that is your right. But it is also the right of the raters to form their own opinions. What is valid for one person is not necessarily valid for all.

In the end, what do these ratings matter? So a few people don't like your work? So what? It's not going to keep the sun from shining. It's not going to prevent world peace. In the grand scheme of things, it changes nothing.

So if you get a low rating, pretend that you're John Grisham for a second. What would he do if someone panned his latest effort? Would he stop writing? Would he throw a hissy fit and demand that everyone give it positive reviews? Or would he just shrug his shoulders and get to work on his next effort?

"You wouldn't worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did." -- Dr. Phil "Caulfield wants to be the Catcher in the Rye, the rye field with a cliff at the edge, catching children lest they fall, protecting the innocent, doing no harm, but only good. But the field of rye with the cliff at the edge is a phony field with a phony cliff, and the job of catcher there is a phony job. If people really want to do good in this world, they’re not going to achieve that by whining [epinions axed the original word, there] and moaning and expecting to be handed everything they desire." chaospump's review of Catcher in the Rye "I'm not going to lie to these people just to make them feel good because that's patronizing. And it's patronizing to the people watching this show." -- Simon Cowell "If the king is naked, we're all (including the king) better served if someone says so." -- Gordon Weaver