Scrap the 'how helpful' ratings and just have one 'this was helpful' button.

The New Intimacy

Scrap the 'how helpful' ratings and just have one 'this was helpful' button.

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Contributor: Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme) Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)
I've got a solution to this whole 'public voting' crisis! Scrap the whole 'voting' process altogether. Instead of having a rating system from 'not helpful at all' to 'extremely helpful' why don't we just have a SINGLE button which says 'this review was helpful.'

If you liked the review, click it. If you didn't, don't.

I find the problem with most online communities, especially with the added impetuous of anonymity, is that if you give people the ability to criticize others, they'll take it. We're meant to be a 'positive' community, but we have a built-in system to tear down other people's contributions.

I understand that reviews can be of differing quality - somebody here linked to a truly BAD one yesterday - but as far as shoppers on Eden Fantasies are concerned, even the badly written ones STILL HAVE VALUE.

They're people's honest opinions on products - and there are far too many products on here for a clique of reviewers to snobbishly pare out all those that 'don't make the grade' as far as they're concerned.

As an online shopper, I'd rather read a badly written review of a product than no review at all - so as far as I'm concerned even the poorly rated reviews on EF do have some intrinsic value and ARE helpful in some way.
08/06/2009
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Contributor: spicywife spicywife
Quote:
Originally posted by Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)
I've got a solution to this whole 'public voting' crisis! Scrap the whole 'voting' process altogether. Instead of having a rating system from 'not helpful at all' to 'extremely helpful' why don't we just have a ... more
On other online stores, I have seen a simple "this review helped me" or "this review didn't help me." Though, that may still give fuel for argument.

I have thought, in the past, that there are too many options with too much leeway for people.

- Extremely useful
- Useful
- Somewhat useful
- Worth reading, but not useful
- Not useful at all

The main issue is that people are abusing the rating system, and so I'm assuming that EF is trying to counteract that by implementing the public voting.

I don't feel that I am capable of stating how to best counteract this problem, but I'll be happy to try whatever EF implements (whether it's the public voting or something else).

I'm not sure if there will be a true fix. I can't remember who said this - it was on the other thread - but someone said that the problem is that the rating system gives people a chance to criticize others. And some people are more than happy to do that, even if it's in inappropriate way.
08/06/2009
Contributor: Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme) Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)
I can see the thought-process behind Victoria's suggestion to make voting public, even though I disagree with it. The anonymity and the opportunity to criticize people unfairly just proves what some call the 'John Gabriel's Great Internet Fuckwad Theory.'

link
08/06/2009
Contributor: Alan & Michele Alan & Michele
Quote:
Originally posted by Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)
I can see the thought-process behind Victoria's suggestion to make voting public, even though I disagree with it. The anonymity and the opportunity to criticize people unfairly just proves what some call the 'John Gabriel's Great Internet ... more
Well and I can't help but think that while the new system may make honest fellow reviewers accountable for their votes, it's not going to do anything to stop the non-member viewers who are popping in to vote down ones just to mess with people, or to stop members who vote while not signed in.
08/06/2009
Contributor: Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme) Champagne and Benzedrine (Roland Hulme)
Quote:
Originally posted by Alan & Michele
Well and I can't help but think that while the new system may make honest fellow reviewers accountable for their votes, it's not going to do anything to stop the non-member viewers who are popping in to vote down ones just to mess with ... more
Agreed - I suspect that one of the 'vote-downers' are actually members here and might try to manipulate the system with sock-puppet accounts etc.
08/06/2009
Contributor: Darling Dove Darling Dove
I think this is a pretty bad idea. I only vote down reviews that I feel are poorly written or when the review itself turns me off (ex, some people give way more details about their personal life than they should, I want to hear about the toy, not you fending off your mom/curious two year olds/whatever else). I think that having everything I vote down public would just make me stop voting and stop encouraging friends to read reviews here. Some reviews are just really really bad- but if the person is very immature (as one would get the impression, from some reviews) then its likely it would create a situation of harassment.

On the other hand, i think that people who want to vote things down should be required to offer a "what could this reviewer have done better" or "what made you not like this review" snippet so that way the person doing the review knows WHAT they are doing wrong. I mean really I have seen some reviews that don't even mention the toy beyond "It came in a pretty box and it has some attachments" and then the person goes off about what they did with it. Thats what the experience section is for, and erotica != review, for me.

I get people voting me down all the time and I have no idea what I am actually doing wrong. But, it just made me look at top rated reviewers and try to see what exactly people find useful so I could incorporate it. It drives me to improve. At the same time knowing why they were voting me down would be useful, and downvotes with no reason would be made invalid. d
08/08/2009
Contributor: Snappy Snappy
It would be helpful if people who voted below helpful would have to explain the nature of their dissatisfaction with the review.
11/01/2009
Contributor: Juliettia Juliettia
Quote:
Originally posted by Snappy
It would be helpful if people who voted below helpful would have to explain the nature of their dissatisfaction with the review.
From my understanding of the new public voting system they now have to enter a reason or comment with their votes that are below useful.
11/01/2009
Contributor: Bill Ditchburn Bill Ditchburn
(Leatherbeaten)
I think voting on someone else's review should carry some responsibility, so you should have to be signed in and visible, plus you should have to offer some justification for your rating.

I've never found the categories used here terribly meaningful, eg I've never been able to figure out what "somewhat helpful" means. In practice, it seems to mean "not very helpful" but in principle, it sounds like it should mean "quite helpful".

I think a simple one to five numerical usefulness scale might work, but from the point of view of users reading the reviews and trying to draw practical conclusions from the ratings, explanatory comments are essential.
11/02/2009
Contributor: Sir Sir
Quote:
Originally posted by Bill Ditchburn
I think voting on someone else's review should carry some responsibility, so you should have to be signed in and visible, plus you should have to offer some justification for your rating.

I've never found the categories used here ... more
That's actually exactly what I think. One to five would be better, or a scale of poor to excellent. I agree that the wording of the choices makes no sense - worth reading, but not useful? Why would I want to read something that isn't useful? Makes no sense to me. And quite honestly, even with the public voting, people are still rating oddly on people's reviews without giving any advice for improvement or reason whatsoever.
11/02/2009
Contributor: Gary Gary
Hello Everyone! It seems as though there are varying degrees of mild confusion here so hopefully I can help to clear some of this up

First of all, this initial thread was posted over 2 months ago, and public voting went live last week. So please keep that in mind as you read through the whole thread.

Absolutely nothing has changed in the way that voting & commenting works! What has changed is that now instead of the voting being anonymous, you can see who voted. That's it.

It is not mandatory to comment, or to explain why you voted a certain way, however… by taking the time to explain why you voted a certain way, and offer helpful feedback to the reviewers whom you have commented on, it gives them something to think about and may help them to improve their reviewing abilities.

And as for the scale of voting options… it is basically the same as voting 1-5, but instead of using numbers there are varying degrees of how useful you found this particular review to be.
11/02/2009