GOLDEN MOMENTS. (dooyoo Crowns)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	dooyoo Crowns
Date:	02/12/06 (369 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Writing crownworthy reviews makes the site better and earns you more.

Disadvantages: Not enough effort from many writers.

Since writing on Dooyoo, my attitude towards Crowns has changed. I, like many before me, had the impression that if you are not one of the elite, then you didn't get awarded them. Whilst I may not concede to being wrong in this instance, because at the time my views were negative towards the crowning of reviews, I believed them to be accurate, little by little my faith in the Guide system, and in the Dooyoo awarding of Crowns has been restored.

What are crowns all about ?

A crown is simply an award of excellence. What it means is that Dooyoo consider your review to be amongst the best of the crop for that particular week. Yes, occasionally older reviews do get crowns though this is rare, and what that little shiny yellow thing means is that you are given extra miles, and thus extra earnings and the amount paid per crown these days is 1500 Dooyoo miles, or One Pound Fifty. Doesn't sound a lot does it ? It actually soon builds up, although to me, crowns are not about payment. To me, they are a sign that you tried your best, and someone recognised this and awarded you a shiny crown. The fact that you put effort into a review, and indeed produced a crownworthy one is well worth the effort. Not everyone that puts in effort achieves them, although sometimes effort is put into the wrong aspects of review writing, and it takes a while to understand what makes a review crownworthy and why people bother to try and achieve them.

So why is one review crownworthy over another ?

Long doesn't mean accurate or even helpful. Upon glancing through the ratings on the site, I am a little disappointed to find that people rate as VH automatically on long reviews. I read one a couple of weeks ago which was filled with detail about a product, but that had absolutely no personal experience of using that product, and for me, at best this is somewhat helpful. The reason for saying this is that a consumer would have to look elsewhere for information. The crux of writing a good crownworthy review is balance. Yes, the product details are important, but what is more important is that you explain your findings upon using that particular product. It's what we are here for and once that idea is grasped, writers find that they get good results from the rating system. Many reviews are marked Helpful. Here although they give a little bit of information, there is not enough detail to make that review stand out on its' own as a guide to a potential purchaser.

Who nominates for Crowns ?

Anyone can nominate for crowns. There are guides on the site that pick out the best ones, and draw them to the attention of Dooyoo. Whilst some go on personal preference, I believe that the way to go is to draw attention to all VH reviews, and let Dooyoo make the choice. The reason that I say this is that I believe that reading a review as a guide, and reading it as a member are two different things. Reading it as a member, what you are marking is whether that review was personally helpful to you as a member of the public. Reading as a Guide is different, in that it is a way of working with the Dooyoo staff to find the best reviews. Anyone can nominate for a crown, although here, the button has been misused in the past with people throwing nominations out as if there is no tomorrow, and what that did was create a dilemma for dooyoo as a site, because the percentages were not right. I read somewhere that Dooyoo actually had to set the number of members nominations different from that of the guides, because people abused it. That's a great shame, and what I would advise members to do is to take the whole business seriously, and ONLY nominate those reviews that you truly believe fit the criteria to win a crown.

The importance of Crowns.

How important are crowns ? I believe they are a benchmark of achievement, and that every writer is entitled to receive crowns, and can. I remember my first one and being very excited about it. It felt good, and it really wasn't the money part of it that was so satisfying. It was the fact that the work was recognised as being good enough. I have seen new members that are astoundingly accurate with reviews that win them from day one, and although this is a rarity, it really is great to see the crowns distrubuted amongst the best reviews on the site, and not be based on personality.

Crowns and Speakers Corner.

For me, Speakers Corner is a place to go to write reviews that are useful to the public, and here, crowns do not pay. They are simply a way of showing the public which reviews were thought best in that category. I don't actually mind this, since the reviews I have written in this area are not really for money, more for sharing information.

So how do I get one ?

Many people over the last couple of years have asked the question about how they achieve a crown and many have ignored the question and assumed that they won't get one, continued to write mediocre reviews and been satisfied with the pennies that each read gives them. Personally, I never understand why people don't try their best at something, and if you are one of those members that never gets them, how about thinking in these terms ?

1.Dooyoo is our site, as members. If we want to make the place helpful to the public, then the better the reviews are, and the more accurate, the more the site gains a reputation of reliability and what that means is that the site gains hits, and earns money. It's kind of a pride thing. Full participation on a site like Dooyoo is trying your best, and perhaps you can take a look around, and try and work out what it is that stops you from gaining crowns. Sometimes, it's something easy to work out. For example, I can't write food reviews to save my life. I am hopeless, and they will not be crowned. Writing in areas where you lack the ability to write good reviews is wasted time really, where you could concentrate on the areas in which you as a writer excel, and get the recognition you deserve by taking a pride in your work, and helping the site to produce the best reviews it can for the public.

2.Have you ever written a review that you felt deserved a crown and didn't get one ? Sometimes you have to step back, take a look at the review and try and work out why. Of course, it is not the B all and end all of writing reviews, but how could you have tackled it differently ? I have done this on several reviews, and learned that things that I did not think were important actually were needed to make the review a crownworthy one. What helps here is to write a review, and then read it, but instead of just reading it from your point of view, to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone searching information on a product and ask yourself whether you answered all the questions that they might ask before making a purchasing decision.

3.Negative versus positive. After talking to some members about crowns, some of the newer members to review writing sites seemed to be under the impression that only positive reviews about a product get crowns. They were wrong. If you have had a bad experience of a product, provided that you present your review in a full and reasonable way, giving detailed information about your experience, then it is every bit as crownworthy as a positive one.

4.Layout and spelling. Here, there are many members that fail to do a spellcheck, or that use shortform text abreviations, and these really do not work in a review. Paragraphs that are all jammed together are awful to read, and it's a great shame to find a crownworthy review from the point of view of content, only to find that the layout was all wrong, and that in fact the consumer has to strain their eyes to read it, and the layout is the only thing that fails the review from winning an award which would have been given in the event that the review was laid out correctly.

5.Improving reviews. Many members including me post reviews over from other sites. Here, you have such an opportunity, although this seems to be neglected by many members. Many of my older reviews on other sites are outdated, and when I move them here, it gives me a chance to read through, to update information that is not current, and to make sure that on the day of posting, the review is as accurate as it can be, with the updated information. Why do I bother doing this ? Well, I believe that dooyoo recognise good reviews more than other sites do. I think that they merit the effort and pay well for it and reviews which were not recognised as being of much credible value on other sites have been awarded here, because I took the time to do just that, i.e. Go through each review, update it, make it better. It works and is well worthy of the effort.

Do crowns really matter and how does it affect our earnings ?

Here, since taking dooyoo seriously as a review site, and only submitting the best of what I am able to achieve, I have found that my earnings are astounding compared with similar sites.Crowns are not a status symbol, though they act as a pretty good benchmark. The new guides seem fair and reasonable, and most read all reviews in their categories and take a pride in developing their section of the site. I have seen the reviewers that don't bother, you know, the minimum word merchants that want just a constant turnover of money from reads, and are not that bothered about whether they win crowns or not. If I could pursuade one of them to take that little bit more time with ONE review, and see the difference in earnings, and the recompense that members get for good writing, as opposed to mediocre, I am sure that not only would they find my observations accurate, but they would actually start to get the best out of what is potentially a very enjoyable site. How much enjoyment can you get from submitting substandard reviews and collecting pennies ? Weigh this against the possibility of higher earnings for better reviews, and eventually you get to a stage where you take a pride in what you do, earn more, achieve more, and see Dooyoo at its best.

My earnings only increased with increased effort, and the kind of earnings I get are available to everyone who puts in that little bit more and tries to produce accurate, informative reviews on their personal findings on products.

Go for it !

Summary: Doing your best and being paid for it is well worth it.