Accurate vs Exceptionally accurate--My View
Sep 05 '00 (Updated Oct 11 '00)
I’ve recently noticed that I’m receiving quite a few “Why did you rate my opinion this way?” emails. Since my answers have started getting repetitive, I figured it was time for a “How to Rate Opinions” opinion. This is not to say that I don’t want to get emails. I like helping people improve their reviews and I like getting email…I just don’t like being repetitive.
The real problem with rating opinions usually comes down to: “What is the meaning of accurate and well presented vs exceptionally accurate and well presented?” This is the central question of deciding whether the opinion gets the HR, or just the dreaded R. I will try to give you an idea as to how I draw this fine line and what I think people should be thinking about when they write an opinion.
HR opinions tend to break down like this:
Complete Opinions: These are opinions in which there just isn’t much left to say once you’ve read the review. After reading one, I don’t feel that I could write an opinion on this topic with out becoming highly repetitious. These opinions tend to fully explain all the features and give pros and cons for each feature. Mobiprof has a few good examples of what I would call “complete” opinions.
Classic Opinions: These are opinions to which I would refer another reader in my own opinion on the topic. They may not be complete, but they often fully explain a particular feature or idea in such depth and with such knowledge, that I need to refer to it for completeness. There are three opinions under “Choosing Computer Speakers” that meet this criteria; each effectively explains a portion of how to evaluate computer speakers. Apart they are helpful, together they cover everything. After reading the three of them, my opinion would have been “see these three”…well short of 100 words. These types of opinions may also detail a specific flaw or dangers in the product without describing the other features (who cares how easy it is to use if it punches holes in your chest).
Fact Opinions: These are a very small subset of opinions that actually provide no opinion at all. These opinions either provide facts that are difficult to come by alone or contrast the features of various similar devices. In order for a pure fact opinion to be HR, it needs to provide something that I can’t really get else where. One of the few opinions I’ve seen that fit this form is from mkaresh, detailing the year of each major revision in a car’s model line. This is a special case, since the opinion in question is a synthesis from various sources and is very helpful when trying to evaluate the merits of the same vehicle from different years.
These are clear cut case of being highly accurate. So…
Everything else: The above three are easy to give HR for accuracy, so how do I evaluate the rest that don’t quite fit in the above categories? I start by asking myself, “What do I want to know?” If an opinion answers all my important questions, it gets an HR. I know, that sounds pretty subjective, but it makes a lot of sense when you put it into practice. I usually want to know the same things about most products.
Common Questions:
-Important features
-How does it look/sound/feel/work (both factually and opinion wise)?
-What makes the special thing-a-ma-jiger(s) special?
-What did you especially like and WHY?
-MOST IMPORTANTLY—What DIDN’T you like?
Opinions that answer these questions typically get an HR from me. Also realize that specific items have more questions: In a car review, not talking about rate of repair, road feel, power, etc would leave it lacking. In a video game, how does the combat system work? What about graphics? Story line? Completeness is key. If I’m not versed on the subject and the review includes slang and buzz words which are specific to the product culture, I’m probably going to give the opinion an R…it isn’t going to be helpful to the consumer.
The why, is very important. Telling me that you like the CD is fine, but if I don’t like the same music, then your review is useless to me. What makes the product good? I have long body. Telling me you like the added ceiling height in your car, helps me. The why not only helps me evaluate the opinion, but it helps me evaluate whether it applies to me. I realize there are plenty of subjectives that can’t be explained (clear picture tubes, etc), but an opinion that tries to explain the reasoning behind the opinion is more accurate and more helpful.
The “what you didn’t like” is the single most important part of any review. I can walk into any showroom or view any manufacturer’s web site and see the pros of a product. They love to tell you that stuff. What I can’t find out about are the cons. A person’s extensive use of that product is what can tell me about the cons. Is it uncomfortable? Do the menus make sense? Do the buttons fall off? These are non-technical details that I am looking for. These are non-technical details that the average consumer can provide. Most of the time, the cons of a product are what I am really looking for when I am considering buying a product (I’ve usually already researched the pros). A review that states no cons is immediately suspect.
The ultimate goal of a review is to give a consumer an idea of the pros and cons of any product. An opinion should give them something they can only find out through personal experience. The personal experience, detailing what the user liked/didn’t like is the heart of any opinion. It is also what often separates HR from R.
Style
“Well presented” means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some don’t think grammar is such a big deal, while others are grammar hounds. Here is my take: A well presented opinion is one in which the presentation style enhances its ability to be read.
“What does that mean?” you ask. Well, for 99% of opinions, it means written in English (sorry foreigners), with reasonably good grammar and spelling, nice paragraphs, and it follows some organized fashion. Most opinions do pretty well based on that criteria. A few flub ups here and there don’t really matter. Style starts to matter when it detracts from an opinion. Everything has to serve its purpose. I like Hemmingway, but I wouldn’t buy his dictionary (if he wrote one). His style just doesn’t lend itself to defining words. For examples of “good” style, see virtually all of the above-mentioned opinions.
This brings up another subset of opinions.
Quotable Opinions: These are opinions that make me want to email all my friends and say “read this!” They are usually funny or clever and often are just a joy to read. At the say time, they offer good coverage of the product. I am a big fan of quotable opinions. They break up the monotony of reading reviews and they are a lot of fun. They also tend to break style rules. Poems, raps, or “funny” reviews may deliberately look bad on face: bad grammar, bad spelling, incomplete sentences, etc. These lead back to the original questions: “Does the style enhance the readability?”
A review, which is deliberately “poorly” written, but is more fun to read, has a successful style. Recently, (depending on when you read this) we have seen good and bad examples of this “deliberately bad” style (now I’m really going to make friends). The “illiterate write off” shows a good and a bad example of this style. One review I read was written in such a way, that even though it was, “bad,” stylistically, it was more fun to read. I enjoyed it and saw the obvious humor. On the other hand, a second review (the more controversial one) was “badly” written in such away as to detract from the overall readability. It was hammered for style and probably deserved it. There is no formula. If asked, I would say to make sure if you break rules, make sure it is for a purpose and that it adds something. As a reviewer, I give extra scrutiny to opinions that break rules, but I also reward those that do it well.
Style alone does not make a good opinion. Opinion does. Having a well-written opinion without meat, will not get you an HR.
R opinions
I’m not going to go into as much depth when it comes to R opinions…I think I already explained what I’m looking for. Opinions become R when they don’t have as much depth to them as I would want. Often, an R opinion leaves a major question or two unanswered. I realize that this is more subjective on my part, but I am looking for the same general things in every opinion. Of course, the more I know about a product or type of product, the more questions I’m going to have. It isn’t fair, but it does help separate the good opinions from the great opinions.
Accuracy isn’t what I’m looking for most of the time, I am looking for someone’s opinion. If I give an article an R, often it was lacking the “what you thought” part. For example, a movie review that is a fabulous summary followed by an “I liked it” gets an R. I want to know why the reviewer thought that. I can read the summary in the daily paper…it isn’t news.
With the possible exception of quotable opinions, style does not separate an R from an HR opinion.
SR
This means the opinion missed the mark somewhere. Either what was said was wrong, factually, or the style was sloppy enough to detract from what was written. I also give out SR opinions to articles that leave me with a lot of questions and that don’t give very much opinion. Remember, opinion is more than, “I liked it,” I want to know why.
These opinions are not lost. They can be rewritten. I’m more than happy to re-rate…everyone should be.
NR
These are opinions that cannot be saved. They need to be scrapped and restarted. They may be full of factual errors, or they may be so badly written as to violate the TOS. I will give and NR to a truly horrible opinion that does not violate the TOS…it is rare however.
En fin
I hope this gives a window into what my mind is doing when I rate an opinion. The key to a really good opinion, is to explain, in depth, what aspects of the product are great and which ones aren't. Any opinion which includes a heavy dose of the author's opinion will probably answer most of my questions. It may seem burdensome at first, but in the end i think it makes sense.
When I rate an opinion, I'm trying to help flush out the great opinions from the good. This helps consumers and it helps Epinions. The easier it is for non-members to find good, high quality opinions, the more likely they are to come back. That benefits us all by keeping Epinions in business and by giving us higher Income Share. My methods may seem a little bit harsh…I’m going to give out a few more R’s that HR’s, but I think the community is up to the challenge. I heard it said best a few years ago when I was in college, “I’ve upped my standards, so up y...” We should all up our standards and demand higher quality from all epinionators.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
bdolcourt
|
|
Member: Bram Dolcourt
Location: Valhalla, NY
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 35 members
About Me:
After graduating in Chemistry from Brandeis and a short EMS career, I'm a Medical Student.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.