Should The Nature Of How Crowns Are Picked Be Altered (dooyoo Crowns)

Member Name: Robin_Hod12

Product:	dooyoo Crowns
Date:	18/02/09 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Crowns Offer The Better Review Some Incentive

Disadvantages: The Balance And A Defined Set Of Rules Should Be Established

I have been on this site for near enough a month now, and I can say that I am already addicted, but one of my main gripes is the crown system. It is not a huge one, as I have recently gained my first, and as such I am ecstatic at seeing that extra £1.50 in my account, but as with many of the other reviews beforehand, I often wonder why I gained a crown only for this review, when other s have been nominated and are perhaps as good as or better than that which was crowned. For instance, I wrote a review on Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced and gained a crown for my efforts, but I felt that my review of his third album, Electric Ladyland was perhaps even better than that, and despite people saying that they had nominated in and being written about a day beforehand, I am yet to gain one for this. This may sound big headed, but I am not trying to come across as that, but I do often feel that some reviews I see that have been given crowns are often just as good as or worse than some other reviews that I have seen that haven't been given crowns. I am not trying to take away from the achievement of those that have gained them, but it is something to think about, as are the Dooyoo team really looking at every review equally.

Then I see another issue, I often feel that even though you would assume that all categories are equal, some seem to be more equal than others, taking on more than fair share of crowns. For instance, I often see crowns for electronics and health and beauty categories, but my main category, music, hardly ever seems to be given any crowns, this may be simply because less people write for that category, but I am still not convinced. You could argue that as some of the products are of greater interest for the site's financial well being, and so they are more likely to get reviews as they want them to be more of a focus on the site, but still equality should be a key factor. Other sites seem to do things on this bases, giving more preference to certain products for financial gain, but I have always preferred Dooyoo to other sites as it has more of a fair community atmosphere, with familiar faces popping up to rate my reviews. And as such I would hope that this is not the reason for my assumed weighting in favour of other reviews.

When writing my reviews, I originally started out writing quite short reviews, but this has changed and now most of my reviews, notably those for music albums, are usually in excess of 1500 words, getting right done to the small details of each album. This is not simply to try and gain as many crowns as possible, but I feel is my job as a reviewer to give my full opinion and not scrimp on detail. This should be what makes a review worthy of a crown, really getting into a product and informing anyone that is thinking of purchasing it, exactly what they are getting, although in the case of books and films, you have to hold back in order not to give too much away. I am not saying that I am due more crowns, although this would be nice, but I am saying that a redressing of the balance may be in order, and a better, more refined set of rules for how a crown is decided should be posted by the Dooyoo team.

This is the end of my rant, although I never meant to start out as such. I think that ultimately having crowns and offering cash incentives for writing good reviews is a good idea, but I think that a clear and perhaps fairer method of how crowned reviews are chosen should be established. For me a certain number of ratings and nominations should be reached, as well as perhaps a minimum word limit, as a good review should be expansive, but I will leave it up to the Dooyoo team to decide on the exact nature of this, although I would hope such things are already set out and it is not just done willy-nilly.

Summary: The Idea Of Crowns Is Good And Should Be Kept But A Better System Perhaps Developed