What influences how you rate reviews?

For me, it's basically just "Did I come away from this knowing more about the product and if I'd like it than I would have just gotten from looking at the product info?"

Of course, if a review is full of grammar/writing style issues or is super-duper wordy without being interesting, I probably won't make it through.

Pretty much everything that I see as useful. As long as it's a detailed review about the item itself, I love it. Some however I comment to ask me to rate later if it to me seems all personal experience and nothing really about the item itself. I love photos, but I won't downrate if there is none.

I don't want to have to look back at the product page to see what the hell the product is used for. I want all the information right there - in the review.

If the majority of the information that you give is incorrect (Christ on a fucking bike - I swear I saw this the other day) then just forget it. If you've been told that you need help and can't do anything but argue, then keep your bad review and eat it.

I like pictures (good ones - keep the blurry). I like comparisons. I like size information. I want ingredients. I love how ingredients are being researched and explained. For God's sake - use the list on the product, not the product page.

I enjoy humor. Write what you know. If your experience section is nothing but a fail, or a really intimate clusterfuck, write it honestly. Some of my best reviews have been epic fails and such in the experience sections. Don't be afraid to be honest there. Don't be robotic.

Show me that you've taken time to write the review.

Tell me about the product, even if you hate it - I might not, but I'll NEVER know it as long as you slam it the entire time. If you can tell me about the product, and then give me your opinion of it in the section that's appropriate, then you've impressed me.

For me it's how accurate is the info, the amount of detail, the cohesiveness of the review and their grammar. I also like humor, but I've rated reviews very highly that were dry.

Information detail

I rate based on information included in the review. If I'm left without a question in my mind after reading a review, than I would say it's been extremely useful to me.

The only time I consider humor is when someone is reviewing something incredibly difficult to review, because there's not much to say about it. Then humor is just about the only thing that can make it EU. Otherwise, I look for accuracy, detail, and grammar.

-The specs of the product
-Grammar
-Amount of subjectivity (Even though it's an opinion it should be objective and concern the needs of others rather than if it was just they themselves were satisfied)

I like a thorough detailed review (size, shape, color, packaging, measurements, etc), and then an honest follow up of the reviewer's experience.

I also admit that pictures make me more inclined to rate high!

I mostly read reviews of products I'm thinking of buying. I want to know about the writer's personal experience and opinion of the product. I want things which are not to be found in the product info, like pictures of the item in an everyday setting. As said above, I want answers to my questions. A lot of times, really good reviewers answer questions I didn't know I had!

I also like reading of reviews of products I own, especially if I'm considering writing a review of my own. I don't want to simply duplicate what someone else did with their review, even if my opinion is mostly the same. I like a review that says something uniquely useful and that will be my goal as a reviewer going forward.

Finally, the Eden review template is very good. Usually, if a review follows the advanced template pretty faithfully, it earns a EU from me.

My rating is usually based on a combination of how well the review reads, and how detailed it is. I don't think this necessarily means the review has to be a mile long, but if the reviewer has answered a lot of general questions about the product that people might have, I generally rate it pretty high.

I confess I have rated reviews a little lower if I am reading one for male-use toys (cock rings, prostate massagers, and the like) and the product was requested and reviewed by a woman who clearly didn't use it herself, and doesn't really give any of the information I'd want to know about how it feels when a man uses it. I've actually read some good reviews done by women on "mens" toys (when they try them out with a partner), I just don't care for it when they don't offer me the information I am looking for.

I tend to rate reviews highly if they're very detailed, have pictures, and give information that I haven't seen in other reviews (including the reviewer's personal experience of what the toy felt like).

Amount of detail and cohesiveness matter most to me.

Correct grammar

Lots of pictures make me automatically think it's going to be good. Videos wow me, too, but sometimes I don't watch those, so it's moreso a video just being there that helps.

A witty title wins me over.

I like my reviews to be entertaining

I don't like reviews when a woman reviews a men's toy or vis versa. If you review a toy as a couple that is helpful but at least note that in the review.

Grammatical stuff is important to me, as well as the overall flow of the review. If a review is difficult to read because of the way it is worded, that can cause me to vote U instead of EU, mainly because these issues cause me to believe that the person did not take enough time to read and re-read their review.

I tend to vote a U review EU if it includes pictures and/or humor. BUT I have read funny/quirky reviews that I could only vote SU because they focused too much on entertaining. In the end I want a review to be easy to read and informative. If a review turns into a story or monologue and I find myself searching for the information, then it's significantly less useful to me.

The main thing I look for in a review is information. Were all my questions answered? If yes, it gets an EU.

I usually give a higher rating to those who write a lot of details, and definitely those who take the time to upload pictures and such.

My biggest thing, though, is almost how human sounding in tone, or "down-to-earth" the review is. You can write about all the product specs you want and have a wordy and lengthy review, but if I can't find out a simple "Did you generally even like this?" until the last sentence, the review isn't very helpful. I can read about the safety of silicone and how to clean it or whatever on the product page, and I can read the number ratings on the reviews and *kind of* take a guess as to how good a product is, but the product page can't tell me "how many people liked this and why".

Personal experience and comparative pictures are probably the most helpful to me.

I look for information that can't be gotten from the product page, but I love to see measurements taken by individual reviewers as well, for comparison with the official stats--even though those posted by reviewers are sometimes inaccurate. For a toy, I want to know what the surface texture feels like, how hard/firm/flexible/squ ishy it feels, how heavy or light, and at least whether the product page measurements are correct. For lingerie, I LOVE to see the reviewer's measurements posted, along with what size was purchased and what the garment's measurements were (or at least how well it fit). I don't need a wordy, overly-detailed description of the article's appearance, unless it's different from what's shown in the official photos. Details on construction are great, though.

I also want to see some objectivity in rating the item. When someone requests, and receives, an item for review that isn't something they would typically enjoy, and then they give the item a low rating because, for example, the dildo is too small for them, or the small AAA-battery vibe isn't as powerful as they like, I get very annoyed. The same goes for someone who orders lingerie in their "regular size" (as if there is such a thing), without looking at the size chart, and then rates the piece poorly because it's too big or too small for them, when they simply ordered the wrong size.

I don't like to see typos, misspelled words - I vote lower for that and I'd really like to vote on their editor but that's not always an option for some reason.

What I expect in a review varies on what the product being reviewed is, but I want to know the facts first and foremost and the opinion secondarily. For example, if it is a glass dildo I don't need to be told that it has no smell (because it's glass, the only reason it would smell like anything is if it hasn't been cleaned). I also see a lot of dildos somehow having vrooms and bees - because I guess they don't know that's only for vibrators. I think vibrators are probably the most difficult to review because what feels like a lot to me may not feel like much at all to someone else, so when I'm looking at vibrators I read through several reviews to familiarize myself.

Once in a while I see a review that must have been written in 3 minutes and they must have been really struggling to barely squeeze in their minimum character limit.

On the opposite spectrum I've also seen reviews that feel like they take an hour to read and I've become bored of them unfortunately.

I really like to see pictures of items, with measurements. Yes I know there is the "view as scale" option on the stock photo but that's one view. For vibes and dildos I like to know the girth in circumference, and the length. When I'm looking at lingerie I really like to see it being worn, with the measurements of the wearer.