Caconti's Guide to Rating...
Mar 02 '00
I wasn't sure how to tackle this issue, so I want to post my stable criteria for rating reviews, then amend it with some extraneous factors that have become more important to me as I have developed as an Epinionator:
HR-In order for me to Highly Recommend an opinion, I must feel that a great amount of time and thought was put into a review. I'm looking for details, humor and original thought. The more the review makes me feel like you know the product and are passionate about it, the more I will be drawn into your writing. Teach me something I didn't know or make me laugh and I'll HR you every time!
R-I will Recommend a review if I believe that an author put effort into their review but it could still be developed one step further. These are reviews that helped me become a more informed consumer, but not as informed as I'd like to be. It may also include informative but extremely dry reviews. Also, very good reviews with glaring errors will be demoted to an R rating, especially for glaring spelling errors.
SR-I SR a review that I think has a good idea that is developed only to the bare minimum. This includes one paragraph reviews that make provocative but unsupported statements as well as longer reviews with few details and many errors. These are reviews with the potential to be useful that just need to be re-tooled. Lately this has become my most common rating as the "quick and dirty" review has grown exponentially more popular...
NR-I use this rating more than I would like to, but only for one reason. I NR a review only when I believe that the author put no effort into it, if the review is obviously a scam of some sort, or if it is posted in an off-topic area. This level review will ALWAYS be justified with a comment explaining my reasoning.
Anonymous Rating
I feel the need to make a brief statement about the ever-increasing popularity of anonymous rating. The purpose of rating is to share honest criticism and to develop a sense of community on Epinions. When you refuse to let the reviewer know who you are, you are eliminating the ability for him to read a few of your reviews or to ask you for more feedback if you rated the review unfavorably. I understand that some people feel it necessary to NR anonymously to avoid revenge ratings from the more immature members of our community, but how do you justify hiding when the rating is R or HR? This happens all the time, and it defies logic. If you HR my review you are paying me a great compliment, there is no need to hide or be shy, I promise....
Spelling
My feelings on spelling can be explained very briefly. Epinions has been kind enough to provide an automatic spell-check prior to submitting a review...use this resource! I have little sympathy for people who refuse to correct basic mistakes that are pointed out to them, sorry.
Offensive Humor
Some members of Epinions, such as JamaalJ, feel that this community is the perfect forum for them to behave like small children and make derogatory remarks simply for shock value. They see the site as a big joke and a great place to draw attention to their ignorant and offensive ravings. In doing so, they compromise the integrity of Epinions of each reviewer. For this reason I encourage Epinionators to aggressively NR and distrust these individuals with no respect for our community, as in the end they're hurting each and every one of us...
While my purpose in writing this was to give you a detailed view into my rating criteria, in the end rating Epinions is a complicated and subjective process that lies within the interests and experiences of the individual...sometimes fluctuating simply based on what kind of day I've been having. In the end I think that you can't go wrong with rating honestly from your gut. Trust your intuition...it's almost always right!
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Epinions.com ID:
caconti
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Christian Conti
Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 636
Trusted by: 481 members
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