Thoughts on Extended Template Redesign - Input requested! (long...)

Contributor: Dragon Dragon
I spent some time thinking about this. Any review template should be considered from several points of view and uses.

1. Eden Fantasys - Their primary goal is high quality, informative reviews. These should be effective to customers, help individuals make decisions about the purchase of a product, and may be used for decisions regarding inventory and stock. Having a consistent appearance for all reviews makes the site more user friendly and professional, and technically easy to maintain.

Eden does not actually want reviews "The neighbors heard me scream" which was recently published.

2. Advanced Reviewer - Primary goal is to write high quality reviews that match their individual writing styles and people want to read. In order to do so, they need a template that actually works. (I deliberately excluded a beginning reviewer because they may have all sorts of goals.)

3. Customer - They want the ability to read about a product and find the information that they are interested in. This can vary between a "new" user who may have never heard the concept that silicone lube should not be applied to silicone toys or an "advanced" user who is looking to purchase their 50th vibrator and just wants to make sure that this one is fabulous.

A good review should have the following (and the template should actually encourage that all relevant information is included)

- Basic information about the product including packing, care and cleaning, description, storage information, safety precautions.
- Vibration information as necessary
- Additional information about the unique factors of product. This might include a particular actress, specially designed shape, etc., the fact that it broke in 3 seconds.
- Quality
- Personal experience or comments.
- Additional information - such as comparisons, author information, other reviews, etc.

I know that there are a lot of different templates out there because Eden carries a lot of different types of products. I actually looked at a lot of reviews this morning. Most of them look great, somebody put a lot of work into them. Yet when I was writing a book review I found that were combined in strange ways. I do believe that in some cases some improvement could happen. Some of the template title just need a little more tweaking.

My specific suggestions, and I'd like to get a lot of feedback here.

1. A discussion about if we should move to "all new reviews should be done with the extended template." Between yesterday and today I read both one of the worst and best reviews on the standard template that I think I've ever seen.

2. When voting on review, we should have the ability to vote "This review needs to be rewritten." Anonymously. It should serve as a flag to Eden that reviews which are poor quality and primarily a sexual account or contain unsafe information should be either rewritten or pulled from the site.

3. Either by product line or by category (Sensual game, bdsm, glass, insertion with or without vibration, restraint, cock rings, lingerie, books, media, etc.) the current templates are looked at by someone who does a lot of reviews in that particular area to ensure that the titles actually make sense. A separate thread could then be started to build some consensus on ideas.

For example. I've reviewed lots of books and cock rings, Scott A- butt plugs, Jimbo - mastubators, etc.

4. Have multiple sections in the extended template. For all required sections have a minimum of 100 words. For perhaps one key section in each "Content" in a book for example - have it longer. A separate section on "Vibration and Power" would any toy with power. Having that optional makes it appropriate for those that don't and a great way to say how much better the toy is if you've modified it or used it with something that did vibrate. (Adding a bullet for example.)

5. Some sections could be simple brief and actually cross most product lines. These could include "packaging," "material," "design," "Safety", "Storage and cleaning"
12/07/2009
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Contributor: ArmyWife Kira ArmyWife Kira
Thanks for this post. I know I am new here but I just wanted to say I think it would be a good idea to have newer reviewers use the extended template or to STRONGLY advise that they do. I honestly had no idea what the extended review was until I had written my 1st review and Laurel commented about the extended review. The basic was the first option so it was the one I saw first and picked.

I do feel like, for some products, that the extended review makes it hard. I have trouble discerning what should go where. I sometimes can't write enough in some required categories.

Anyway, the extended template has made things a lot easier for me starting out as well as advice from more experienced reviewers!

Oh, and flagging a review that is so bad that it gives a migraine to whoever reads it is a good idea. I mean, I am not the best writer in the world (i'm learning) but when I read reviews that are almost unreadable I can't help but cringe.
12/07/2009
Contributor: El-Jaro El-Jaro
Quote:
Originally posted by ArmyWife Kira
Thanks for this post. I know I am new here but I just wanted to say I think it would be a good idea to have newer reviewers use the extended template or to STRONGLY advise that they do. I honestly had no idea what the extended review was until I had ... more
Grammar errors and misspellings really take away from the text.

they're,there, and their
its and it's
your and you're

Those are the most common ones I've seen.
12/07/2009
Contributor: Victoria Victoria
Thanks for the new thread with more suggestions - I did notice that a lot of your section suggestions already exist. We have 14 different templates. Each has varying sections. Some sections on one template are optional whereas on another are required. All sections have an explanation and examples from actual reviews.

We do have all Description Reviews done through Extended templates - I think there was a lot of complaint when discussing making the use of the Extended template mandatory. Not everyone likes it. We know that. We do suggest that new reviewers use the Extended template; however, we are not currently forcing them to do so.

As far as voting that a review needs to be re-written... isn't that what 'not useful at all' means? Isn't that what rank illustrates?

Keep in mind, that while we do have editing on the reviews, this is not 24 hours a day - so an unassigned review that gets published instantly may not get edited for "there, their and they're" right away.
12/07/2009
Contributor: Carrie Ann Carrie Ann
A couple of thoughts;

Voting "this review needs to be rewritten" is a very bad idea, in my opinion, especially since not all reviews are verified. Admin can certainly unpublish something that is utter crap but if someone is buying a toy and reviewing it on their own dime and time, do we really have the right to judge that harshly? And since reviewers are voted in by the community, none that are *that* bad should even be getting in.

As for the template...

I'm not seeing, other than perhaps for book reviews, that the suggested things aren't already there. They may be worded differently but there is a place for everything, as well as suggestions and inspirational examples. Vibration and power would be part of performance, for example, in a vibrator. They certainly contain more useful hints and tips, a more useful outline, than the standard template.

All sections already have a minimum word count but we can certainly type more than the minimum and make segments longer as we see fit.

Basically, the templates as they exist are modified for product groups. There are 14 of them. They are an outline but info can be added as we see fit.

Each one already has multiple sections. Each already has a minimum word count.

If I want to put that a dildo doesn't vibrate but CAN be made to vibrate with a bullet, etc, I can easily put that in the performance section or the experience section or the personal opinion/thoughts section.

I'm not really sure what's missing or if it's truly a matter of wording that has people confused. To me, performance seems the pretty obvious place to talk about vibrations and I can certainly make the content part of a book review longer by typing more there and less in the design box.

I'm really confused.

None of these suggestions seem any different than what we already have, other than a word or two.
12/07/2009
Contributor: Sir Sir
I've seen offensive reviews that were "fixed" but remained offensive. Reviews should be able to be flagged, just like posts, and "un-published" if necessary. Edenfantasys cannot allow such discriminatory and offensive remarks to be in reviews. I do not believe that it needs to be anonymous. If they start doing things to agitate the reviewer who flagged them, then their account should be suspended or banned, period.

That's really all that I have to say to this post, as I think that the Extended Template is just fine as it is. I do agree though with working on the sections with reviewers who are well-versed in such things, like you said, though. Does this mean that I would get to do BDSM? (HAHA!)
12/07/2009
Contributor: Victoria Victoria
Quote:
Originally posted by Sir
I've seen offensive reviews that were "fixed" but remained offensive. Reviews should be able to be flagged, just like posts, and "un-published" if necessary. Edenfantasys cannot allow such discriminatory and offensive ... more
I posted elsewhere about this maybe 2 weeks ago - but reviews WILL be able to be flagged via the Report Abuse system soon (within a month).
12/07/2009
Contributor: Sir Sir
Quote:
Originally posted by Victoria
I posted elsewhere about this maybe 2 weeks ago - but reviews WILL be able to be flagged via the Report Abuse system soon (within a month).
Alright, thank you, Victoria! I didn't see the post, so I did not know that.
12/07/2009
Contributor: ArmyWife Kira ArmyWife Kira
Now that you mentioned the "not useful at all" votes i'm thinking a "needs to be rewritten" would be unnecessary. If everyone votes a review as not useful isn't it shown lower on the product page?

I do think there needs to be a flag for abuse option though.
12/07/2009
Contributor: Gary Gary
You guys have made a number of interesting suggestions. Yes it would great if all reviews had better grammar and spelling, no argument there! As for a lot of the other suggestions, here are my some of my thoughts…

I think modifying or updating the templates to be more useful to everyone is a great idea. The templates are designed to help promote good form, but ultimately it is up to the reviewer to write a good review.

The idea of having the basic review template only available for advanced users to be able to incorporate their own personal writing style seems a little off point to me. If we were to take the basic template use away from the newer contributors, we might as well just do away with it altogether.

In the past, with the older templates, many reviewers were resourceful with the optional ‘Experience’ section. Now, in the Extended templates, there are optional ‘Experience’ & ‘Personal Comment’ sections that allow you to add anything you want that is not covered in the template.

I am not trying to say hey, let’s leave well enough alone… but let’s just keep the bigger picture in mind here and look at how any of the suggestions made will effect the entire community & the information we present to consumers.
12/07/2009
Contributor: Gary Gary
Wow, there were a lot of responses posted while I was writing mine!
12/07/2009
Contributor: Dragon Dragon
From some of the random comments that I've seen on many of the forum threads, the prevailing thought is that is is difficult to make ideas flow. I have seen comments that a short standard review was easier to write.

14 votes for people that "prefer" standard template. (Granted some of these comments are old.)

The reasons that were given included.
- "I couldn't get a flow due to having to chop my thoughts up."
- "Some stuff just overlaps in my head, especially Material/Texture with Design/Shape/Size. Use and Performance also seem awfully similar."
- "My issue was with Material and Care."
-"think that certain templates just aren't good for me? So far I've used the template for vibes and it's definitely more work than it's worth for me."
-"I think the hardest thing for us is the order that the template sections are in."
- "The template seems a bit helpful and a bit constricting at the same time. A lot of sections seemed to overlap a lot, and the flow wasn't so great. I do think it'd be easier to use if sections could be merged or could be rearranged."
-" I don't want to cross over too much into the reader's review but I've seen several reviews where the extended template actually helped to make the review bad. I think it only helps you if you already don't suck at writing"


A specific post about the extended template generated a request for suggestions and a comment that some of the segment titles could use some tweaking.

I think that "some" templates may be great while others may need minor improvements. (I'm not even going to try and figure out which ones on my own.) I was trying to find a way to enlist the community and list the needed requirements to actually determine which ones.

I just pulled up the extended template for one of my reviews that I will need to write. 5 Required sections with a minimum word count of 800 words. That ignores the optional, similar products and summary.

If *this* is working for most people, I'm ok with it. But I did want to make suggestions.
12/09/2009
Contributor: Dragon Dragon
Quote:
Originally posted by Victoria
Thanks for the new thread with more suggestions - I did notice that a lot of your section suggestions already exist. We have 14 different templates. Each has varying sections. Some sections on one template are optional whereas on another are ... more
This is the majority of a recent review that I read. Apparently her first review based on rating. Several reviewers left suggestions, rated the review and she commented that she will be rewriting it. "One useful, five somewhat useful, two worth reading, but not useful." Very, very few people will ever vote "not useful at all." There are lots of reasons - personal beliefs, give someone another chance, backstabbing, etc.



"After cleaning it--I placed it in its drawstring bag and took it with me to the nearest restroom. And I must say...

Getting off in my campus' library has never been so hot. In fact--masturbating in general has never been the same since Ella.

Never have I ever been so satisfied with a sex toy. It was better than manual digit labor, better than a little bullet vibrator--the kind of orgasms I experienced were deep, rich, wet, and incredibly fulfilling. The angle of the flared end is perfect for keeping pressure on my g-spot--I couldn't get enough. I've honestly never come that hard before. Ever.

For the past few days, Ella has had me screaming, crying, so loud--it definitely scares my neighbors and earns me some interested looks during class or at dinner with my hall mates and friends. Am I embarrassed? Of course not. Pleasure--good, sexy, dirty, lovely pleasure--is oh so difficult to come by on a college campus. Ella will never give you heartache, and will always be there in your drawer, waiting to please your eager body.

She is a fantastic stress reliever--which has been amazing, especially since it's finals and I've got a bazillion papers to write."
12/09/2009
Contributor: Gary Gary
So, we talked about practical ways to tweak the templates - and it seems like it's not the templates so much as the 'unknown' factor - that people are not sure which they want to use and feel stuck after they choose. What does everyone think of a 'Preview' option for both the 'Standard' and 'Extended' when choosing which one you will use for your review? Let us know if you think the 'Preview' would help out.

We're also going to add a blurb about how we strongly suggest new reviewers use the Extended template and we will remind everyone in that blurb that each section of the Extended templates can be saved individually, so you can do them in any order and come back to them later if writing your review over the course of a few sittings.
12/09/2009
Contributor: Dragon Dragon
Quote:
Originally posted by Gary
So, we talked about practical ways to tweak the templates - and it seems like it's not the templates so much as the 'unknown' factor - that people are not sure which they want to use and feel stuck after they choose. What does everyone ... more
Interesting idea. I usually just click over and see what the sections look like OR look at how many reviews for that product are written with one style of template or another.

However, realizing that some templates have a minimum of 800 words has left me with a stronger understanding of what exactly is in the extended template! I did know that they almost always went into two or more days of work.
12/09/2009
Contributor: Sammi Sammi
Quote:
Originally posted by Dragon
Interesting idea. I usually just click over and see what the sections look like OR look at how many reviews for that product are written with one style of template or another.

However, realizing that some templates have a minimum of 800 words ... more
I don't think it's a minimum of 800 words - I think it's characters. Most of the sections have a 100 minimum or 200 minimum character limit, with the option to have more. Or am I looking at something completely different?
12/09/2009
Contributor: Carrie Ann Carrie Ann
Quote:
Originally posted by Sammi
I don't think it's a minimum of 800 words - I think it's characters. Most of the sections have a 100 minimum or 200 minimum character limit, with the option to have more. Or am I looking at something completely different?
It's characters. I checked. I was freaking out, thinking... 2 days!? It takes me like an hour!
12/09/2009
Contributor: Dragon Dragon
Quote:
Originally posted by Carrie Ann
It's characters. I checked. I was freaking out, thinking... 2 days!? It takes me like an hour!
I NEVER have an hour! That's why I end up on another day.

Characters is good. OK. I apologize - I always overwrite anyway...
12/09/2009
Contributor: Jen&Clint Jen&Clint
On the extended format under each, lets say we are looking at the Materials section, you have a tab below it where you can add your own in and it will be used in place of what is there. This way how ever you have it in your head when you go to type it out it will flow from one section to the next. I don't know just a thought I had.

Garys idea is great, I'm still stuck on this one review and now I just can't finish it because well I really don't know why I am stuck, I just can't think of anything else to say and now wish I didn't even start the review. Can we have a delete button? lol
12/10/2009