I try to keep my reviews organized and to the point. I hope you find them useful!

On rating reviews

I rate reviews honestly. There are cases when I am the only Helpful among 75 Very Helpfuls. Helpful is still good. It means your review had value and was useful in making a decision or imparting knowledge. Don't obsess over the fact that one person didn't rate you VH. Please don't write me asking why you got H instead of VH (or SH or NH). If you believe your writing stills are great enough to please every person on Epinions then you should, perhaps, write novels or ad copy or something. Even great writers don't please everyone (heck, I think "The Runaway Jury" by John Grisham is an awesome book, his best. Yet some people have the nerve to not recommend it. Does that diminish Grisham or devalue his work?) Does everyone like every meal you cook? Does everyone laugh at every joke you tell?

Content is not the only thing I look at in a rating. Format is a consideration as well. If all the facts are there but I have to wade through interwoven narrative to extract them, then the rating is Helpful to me, but not Very Helpful. If the review is one long paragraph I deduct points as well. Heck, all the words in my reviews are in the dictionary, but it wouldn't be very helpful to anyone if I just posted the dictionary for each review. Give me the facts. Narratives, stories, etc are great - I enjoy them - but I like them apart from the facts.

Remember, the rating is how useful I found the review to me, Paul. Keep in mind that I am not making any sort of judgment on you, your skills, or if your opinion agrees with mine (should I have one on that topic).

Finally, you cannot draw conclusions from a single data point. If you get 82 H and 1 VH, perhaps you should reconsider your style. If you get 82 VH and 1 H, smile and move on.