A Fool's Guide to Winning Crowns? (dooyoo Crowns)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	dooyoo Crowns
Date:	25/06/02 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See op

Disadvantages: See op

Here's an opinion I never thought I'd write but this subject seems central to the ethos of Dooyoo, somehow - Crowns. If you are new to the site or haven't really got involved with crowns just yet then let me explain what they are. For those more experienced then feel free to skip this bit:

---What crowns are and how they come about---
Crowns are awarded for opinions considered to be of the highest quality. They are classed as premium opinions that would be particularly helpful in helping a consumer make a decision. Each award takes the form of 1500 Dooyoo miles (i.e. £1.50) and a crown gif placed alongside the title of the opinion in question.

A recent change in policy means that certain categories will not be given crowns i.e. Speakers' Corner or those opinions that state one person's viewpoint and don't necessarily recommend a product. The change in policy underpins Dooyoo's desire to be a sales driven company although there is still a feeling that some of the work in these categories deserves some sort of recognition.

Crowns are gained in one of 2 ways. You can be nominated via peer review i.e. one of the folks that read your work may use the nominate for a crown button at the bottom of the screen or you may be put forward by the *Community Guide for that category who may simply nominate your work in the same way or make the same nomination by e-mail.

Dooyoo staff award the crowns so there is no guarantee that a nomination will result in a crown although you can rest assured that there has been an objective review of your work by an independent source that will make a decision based on your writing and not on you as a person. You'll find many writers that have been nominated but haven't been given an award. This will be for different reasons: (a) the person at Dooyoo making the decision may not have felt that it was good enough (b) there may have been a lot of nominations in that category
and as a finite number of crowns will be awarded it's conceivable that one opinion may have lost out to another (c) the content may have been worthy but the grammar may have let the piece down e.g. spelling mistakes etc.

It is possible to query opinions that you feel warrant a crown. The best thing to do is e-mail the guide concerned and ask politely for feedback about your piece. Generally, the guides are very helpful, friendly and only too willing to help. They'll tell you whether they agree along with giving you a few pointers for the future. I have done this myself from time to time although I always feel guilty about doing it. The thing is, I suppose, that the feedback is more valuable than the potential crown status and I've personally learned a lot from the hints and tips given to me by various guides. So, don't be afraid to e-mail 'em and you may even have the added bonus of a lovely, lively exchange depending on which guide you choose!

How to get crowns? This is the $64 million question and basically, there isn't a straight answer. If you check in the various categories you'll invariably find an opinion entitled "How to write a good..." and it will go on to say, for example, movie review. These are usually extremely well written and you'll be able to tell the good ones because...they'll be crowned. It's hard to define what the ingredients are for a crown worthy piece but some pointers might include:

 A reasonable length, say 1500 words although it's not possible to put an exact number on it.

 It may well include useful background e.g. an opinion about a Bank's services might benefit from a paragraph about the bank's history.

 Grammatically correct e.g. no spelling mistakes.

 It would usually flow and be easy to read so don't be afraid to personalise.

 It's essential to give your own vie
w and a verdict on how you feel about a product i.e. it's not much use giving a whole account of a film and then not saying whether you liked it or not!

 It will have a basic structure i.e. beginning, middle and end.

As I say, it's impossible to gauge exactly what's needed but hopefully this will give you a few pointers and feel free to look around the generic reviews mentioned above. I've read some of them and they're great!

---Good Points---
 Crowns encourage better quality writing. It seems obvious that some people will put that bit extra in hoping to gain a crown. This overlaps with the rating system as the ability to gain a "very useful" rating also means that higher quality writing is encouraged.

 A track record of crowns may help a writer to choose whom to put into their **circle of friends in the quest for reliable sources of opinion. After all, if you genuinely want guidance about a certain product then a crowned opinion should offer more than an uncrowned opinion and, likewise, with writers – those with a track record of crowns should, in theory, be more accurate than those without.

 Crowns provide an extra financial incentive over and above the present 3p a read situation i.e. an additional £1.50 equating to 50 reads. This means that even those writers who generally attract a low number of reads are in with a chance of being recognised and gaining a financial incentive for writing quality reviews.

---Not so good points---
 Crowns breed a certain element of jealousy and resentment. When readers and other writers encounter a profile full to brimming of crown gifs it stirs different emotions in different people. Some will be full of admiration whereas others will feel jealous of that writer's success.

 Being nominated can be a hit or miss affair. It only takes one nomination for Dooyoo to read the pi
ece and make a decision but the standards folks apply as to whether to nominate or not vary greatly. Some people may only nominate one or two opinions a week whereas others will nominate freely to try and put as many opinions in front of Dooyoo HQ as possible. It's down to individuals but this does seem contentious and there may even be cases where writers take the view that a successful writer has had enough success for now and simply won't nominate on that basis. Others may not nominate at all and simply treat everyone the same. The drawback here is that they would need to decide just how fair that approach was when they themselves were awarded a crown as a result of someone else's nomination.

 Disclosure of nominations seems to be another awkward area. Some folks declare openly when they nominate. Some use a kind of code and may use expressions like "superb opinion" or "super stuff". Others may not even make a comment but still nominate or not as the case may be. There is even a feeling that some people will declare nominations but not actually hit the nominate button. Only they would know their reasons for doing this but we may be back to envy or even plain mischief.

 It does represent a certain amount of pressure for writers knowing that each opinion becomes a consideration for a crown. Some people won't necessarily like this pressure although there are categories that exist where folks can write about things like their most embarrassing experiences knowing that their goal is merely to add to the sense of community spirit on site without the pressure of knowing a crown may be at stake (not all categories are crownable, remember)

---The future?---
As far as I know, crowns are here to stay. Love 'em or loath 'em they will be a fact of life for a while yet. The company clearly feels that the presence of crowns will ensure a certain quorum of quality writers generating high-c
lass opinions for members of the public to read. Obviously, this would then engender buyer behaviour to use the various online affiliations resulting in income for Dooyoo.

No system is perfect but there is always the chance to improve things. Personally, I would like to see the following:

 Some recognition given for those folks that take the time to nominate. Dooyoo makes it plain a writer's ratings record by clearly showing it on a profile. I would like to see a figure shown alongside these figures either indicating a number for nominations made or even a ratio. An example might be, say, "nominations made 100" or "nomination ration 0.5" i.e. 1 in 2 opinions nominated (for simplicity before I get lynched for suggesting such a high number of nominations!) This still wouldn't disclose which opinions were nominated but, to my mind, would give that person some credit for putting the effort into nominating. I can't help feeling that different people give and take to different degrees and it would be nice to make this a little more transparent than it is at the moment without actually injecting an element of reciprocal nominating on the back of folks knowing who's nominated what.

 If you are a writer that feels the crown system should be scrapped then please consider the impact of getting a crown yourself. Undoubtedly, someone must have nominated you so consider the ethics of boycotting a system that you are already part of whether intentionally passive or not.

 There have been various suggestions like changing the amount awarded and even a tier of varying degrees of crown e.g. gold, silver and bronze. I honestly can't see how this would change any of the issues involved so, in a sense, this is something I wouldn't like to see changed if you see what I mean?

 Those categories where crowns aren't awarded then maybe a different kind of recognition cou
ld be considered. Maybe entry into a one-off award monthly or some sort of competition? There are some superb pieces of writing that appear in Speaker's Corner on all manner of subjects such as "child smacking" or "whether to adopt the Euro or not?" Often, these are well researched inviting lively debate. Notwithstanding though, the site is primarily a business and these views do not necessarily add value to the bottom line. It's a harsh world out there dominated by profit and loss so please don't be naïve enough to think that there is an unlimited supply of financial recognition just for participating in the current social debate of the day. After all, where else can you get 3p a read for writing about the most embarrassing things to happen to you from?

I suppose it wouldn't be right to finish writing an opinion about crowns without saying how I feel about them. Well, I have mixed feelings. When I'm reading opinions I kinda wish there wasn't the pressure of having to think about whether to nominate or not. I mean, it would be nice for everyone to get crowns and you just know that some opinions that deserve an award won't get it for various reasons. The good news is that it is still possible for an old opinion to be crowned retrospectively although I don't notice this happening all that often. Also, the issue of crowns seems to overshadow other very nice aspects of the site e.g. community spirit, opinions written with a sense of humour etc.

I do struggle with whether to disclose a nomination or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, sometimes I allude to the fact. None of this will help somebody that’s unsure but there is no right or wrong answer on this one. All I know is that if it looks good enough I’ll nominate and as a result I tend to nominate seemingly more than most. At the end of the day it’s not as though it’s me that’s awarding the crown, after all.
That’s up to the lovely person at Dooyoo!

On the positive side, I must admit that getting an e-mail saying, "Hi, I'm just writing to let you know that your opinion has been awarded with a crown. Keep them coming." is a lovely feeling and it's great to get the recognition both from the site and your fellow writers. Those writers with a lot of crowns will feel inspired to get even more but those that rarely get them can get disenchanted. It's a hard one to call but I suppose if you know in your heart of hearts that you've written the very best opinion that you can then, in many ways, maybe that should be good enough.

Well, there you have it. The opinion I never thought I'd write. I've broken most of my own rules already at 2100+ words although you'll have to be the judge of whether you feel that it's any good or not. My last word on the subject is to consider why you write at all. Everyone will have his or her own motives but maybe, just maybe, it's huge recognition indeed for just one person to take the time to read something you've written?


Thanks for reading and enjoy the site.

Marandina


*Community Guides are the friendly faces that appear on the right-hand side of the screen when you are posting. There should be an e-mail link too for queries.

**Further info on Circle of Friends is available in the new members section which includes some comprehensive introductory pieces about the site including the above.

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