Rating by DoubleCoog
Feb 27 '00
There are many aspects of a review that help me to determine a proper rating in my eyes. In rating I have two main steps, determining the usefulness of the review (epinions old rating scale, retired a couple months ago) and whether I personally can recommend the review.
Step 1 - Usefulness
Step one is the more complicated of the two steps. Is the epinions useful. Things that help determine usefulness:
1. Information presented. Is the product or subject addressed fully? Are good points & bad points addressed? Is the information presented correct? Is the epinion on-topic. or at least very closely related?
2. Is it presented in a good format? Yes, this includes using the built in spell checker, using paragraphs to make the epinion readable, using conversational if not semi-proper grammar. Showing some pride in the presentation. Does the piece seem to be written just to generate hits with no regards to quality?
3. How well written is the piece? Does it convey the personality of the writer? Is it humorous? Does it make you say hmmm? Does it make you want to go and try a product just to see if you agree?
4. Has the writer stayed within bounds of the epinions TOS, including no plagiarism, no inappropriate language, no personal attacks, no referral codes?
The old rating system was Not Useful, Somewhat Useful, Useful, Very Useful. The easiest are automatic very usefuls or Not Useful
Automatic Useful: Do all of the above
Automatic Not Useful: Do not adhere to the TOS (#4) or rate poorly in #1,#2, and #3 above.
Everything else falls into place in-between.
If any of the top three criteria are lacking, I would tend to rate the epinion as Useful, instead of very useful.
If any are severely lacking, or if more than one of the three criteria is lacking, but the epinoon still has merit, I probably feel it is somewhat useful.
Step 2. Personal Recommendation
OK, but how does this get translated to "VR”, “R", "S”, and "NR"?
Let me start by saying in my opinion, whether I agree or not does influence my rating...Otherwise what is the point of switching from a usefulness to a recommended basis. If you read a book on investing and you completely disagree with it, would you recommend it? I wouldn't -- at least not without warnings disclaimers.
That said can a review I don't agree with be Highly Recommended? Yes.
As long as I think their is validity to your point of view, it is based on facts, and does not deceive the reader, if you write a very useful review, I will highly recommend it.
If I do not find your point of view valid, it may knock a very useful review down to a recommended.
Generally speaking, my completely disagreeing with your review may decrease the rating one level; if I find your review intentionally misleading or relying on false facts, it would have lost points in the initial usefulness rating, and possibly again when it comes to my personal recommendation.
To summarize:
HR: Informative, well presented, well written, within the TOS, point of view is valid in my epinion, does not mislead the reader. I would be proud to have written this myself.
R: Has defects in one or two of the first three areas, -OR- I strongly disagree with the validity of your epinion. The epinion is written within the TOS. I would edit this before I submitted it, but it does the job.
SR: Has major defects, but still communicates some valid point of view that would be useful to the reader, -OR- is well written, but severely misleading in some aspect of the review, while being valuable in others. I would throw this out and start over, or at least complete the task that was started.
NR: Has defects in all areas, and has no useful information -OR- violates the terms of service, or intentionally presents false or misleading information. I would hang my head in shame and/or commit hari kari before I would submit this
Rating epinions is a complicated and personal task. However my ratings are not addressed personally at the author; repeat, they are NEVER intended as personal attacks. I try to rate everyone equitably-- the only exception, my mom's recipes. Sorry, but I want to continue to be asked to come to dinner (Just kidding mom ;o) )
I try to leave comments if time permits, and have responded to every epinionator that has had a question about one of my ratings via e-mail (I can't promise I will see your counter-comment).
Just like the new bonus system, my ratings are a complex algorithm.......
Hopefully I have shed some light into them here.
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Epinions.com ID:
DoubleCoog
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: South Padre Island,TX
Reviews written: 123
Trusted by: 217 members
About Me:
This old bio will someday be updated....
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