Feels like something of a lottery (dooyoo Crowns)

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	dooyoo Crowns
Date:	01/08/09 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice to have some recognition for your work

Disadvantages: Inconsistency of system is very frustrating

The crown system is a great idea, but in my opinion its one that seems pretty badly executed. Having discussed it with a number of friends who all use the site, we agreed that the awarding of crowns seems to be largely random, rather than based on nominations, creative ability or depth of review- it seems as if anything of a reasonable word length that looks reasonably accurate and well written will be considered, with awards appearing to be chosen largely at random.

Granted, I am far from one of the best reviewers on this site, and there are plenty who are far more deserving of crowns than me, but whilst a couple of my reviews have been crowned these are undisputably of the same quality in terms of creativity, readability and detail as dozens and dozens of other uncrowned reviews I have written, highlighting the systems inconsistency. Either none of my reviews are crown-worthy, or dozens of them are, make your mind up dooyoo!

I hope this doesnt come across as just sour grapes. The idea of a system based on merit where only the best reviews are crowned (depending not merely on word length and amount of information given but on overall quality as both a descriptive and informative product analysis and a creative piece of writing) is a fantastic one, what annoys me is the apparent randomness with which they are bestowed.

Were crowns handed out consistently there would be a real incentive to write in-depth, detailed and entertaining reviews each time, but instead the reviews system seems to reward mediocrity, with it being far more rewarding financally speaking to sit down and knock out ten mediocre 250 word reviews than it is to spend a few hours writing a couple of really good ones that may or may not qualify for a crown. Of course writing in-depth reviews is rewarding in and of itself, but to recieve a crown for one review and then spend weeks writing dozens of reviews which by all reasonable accounts equal and frequently surpass the crowned one in terms of quality yet remain consistently unrecognised is both confusing and frustrating.

Also, its annoying that some guides appear to recieve a crown for each and every review they write, when their reviews, whilst good, are frequently bland and formulaic.

Again, whilst not wanting to spit out my dummy or anything, and acknowledging that my own reviews are far from the best around, both myself and several of my friends who use the site agree that the way the current crowning system operates is inconsistent and frustrating, essentially encouraging churning from the site's members and thus lowering the quality of the site as a whole. A good idea then, but one that needs a considerable amount of tweaking.

Summary: A well-intentioned but flawed system