With Liberty... (dooyoo - Members' Opinions On How to Rate And Comment)

Member Name: SlyClone2k

Product:	dooyoo - Members' Opinions On How to Rate And Comment
Date:	24/07/03 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: To rating properly, read the op?, You don't want to? Okay, it actually IS big and clever

Disadvantages: Getting it wrong is practically a cardinal offence

...and Justice for all.


It would be madness to produce two ops of a factual nature in one week, absolute madness. The fact that I’d already actually produced such masterpieces but have had their posting hampered by lack of category (and I can wait for quite awhile) sees me at something of a quandary. After all it takes considerable effort to write a fully conceived op, and apparently now I have to take into consideration the ever shortening attention spans of the reading public, perhaps watching TV ads would be a better source of information?

The question is this, do I write an opinion on my Fantasy Music Festival (which would surely be a fitting posting given the season), or do I write my opinion on how rating should be carried out on this site? God knows as a guide I’ve tried to impart my wisdom to others, in some instances I’ve succeeded, in others not only have I failed but I’ve actually been told my method isn’t the best. But that’s okay, life is a lesson that we are all (or at least should be) still learning.

But today I’m feeling more opinionated than fanciful and while it’s quite rare for me to cover anything political, and on the whole it seems like a fitting time to add my slant on to, this most contentious of issues, rating other peoples opinions. Perhaps it would help reiterate the sites policy on rating;

Rating reviews helps to ensure that the best can be found quickly by other users: the most popular reviews appear at the top of the list. The level of 'usefulness' should reflect your view of a review's ability to inform the next user about the product or service. If the review is not on a product or service, please rate according to how well argued and presented the case is. Once you have logged in and are looking at a review, you'll find the rating links at the bottom of the page. Our rating system should reflect the following criteria:
̶
6; Very useful: covers every aspect of the subject in considerable depth, and makes both the positive and negative aspects perfectly clear. You would make a purchasing decision based on this review.
• Useful: a good review which states the case clearly but perhaps focuses too much on a single aspect of the topic. You might make a purchasing decision based on this review, but you'd look for more information first.
• Somewhat useful: an review that would have been better with more depth or a more balanced coverage.
• Not useful: the review is very one-sided and lacks sufficient depth to really do justice to the topic.
This seems clear enough perhaps, but seems to cause considerable confusion as new members come along and believe they should rate an opinion based on their own set of rules and guidelines. For me the explanation above means this.

Essentially I usually attempted to rate an opinion based on its worth to an external consumer, in my assessment this means trying to achieve some form of detachment from my own set of feelings toward a person, or the subject and attempting to decide, from a neutral point of view whether I would have all I needed to purchase the item I’ve read about. Moreover I’d like to think that a VU op is an op where I don’t need to read another thing to help me decide if my purchasing decision is good. But then that is what it says in the rating guideline!

Whilst I can agree that length doesn’t always imply that an opinion is very useful, experience generally dictates that it will be. Let me use an example from the paper based opinion community world, Which magazine; a recent guide on buying laptops stretched to an extensive 6 pages, covering aspects such as mouse and keyboard usage, ease of use, software compatibility, testing and best buys.

Such a lengthy opinion doesn’t have to bare the consideration that it might be found “boring̶
1;, because people are reading it to find out about the product they are going to obtain. Some people may think that a short opinion covers all the information necessary. But really, does it? This argument works for those groups that over rate and under rate equally.

On the other hand if an opinion takes it upon itself to elaborate off the target product then one should take that into consideration, and I think it would be more than prudent to outline the areas you found were unnecessary in the comments.

Whilst I have already mentioned that I endeavour to detach myself from the writer of an opinion it is worth bearing in mind that the “circle of friends (CoF)” exists as a tool for reminding you of those whose opinions you trust. Certain people are better at writing clear articles than others, many people new, old and myself included are still improving.

Dooyoo also mentions several do’s and don’t regarding rating, “Don't be afraid to rate reviews 'Not useful’ and use ‘Very Useful’ sparingly”; lets expand on that; this doesn’t imply that you should only give out so many VU’s. You could read nothing but perfect (by the standards above described) all day. It means that you shouldn’t be afraid to downgrade an established member or one of your “CoF’s” but if you choose to rate against the general consensus it might be shrewd to leave a message of explanation. You may well see people asking for an explanation if you don’t.

Which brings me on to.. Why might people get angry if I rate differently to everyone else? Well Dooyoo kindly aids in the explanation of that too;

“Reviews with the best ratings from other dooyoo members have priority. Every member can keep the quality of the reviews high by rating reviews written by the other members. The reviews rated as 'Very Useful' and 'Useful' will be at the
top of the list. The reviews rated as 'Not Useful' will be at the bottom of the list and will be deleted after a period of time.”

As a new user you may not have noticed that your opinion can nestle with tens of others within a category, if yours is the best i.e. highest rated, it will sit at the top of the best 7. The first page anyone is likely to come to. Placed above the others it is likely to receive more reads and generate greater income for the author, if a rating goes toward reducing the standing an opinion has and the reasons why are unfounded then it is likely to become a source of conflict.

Without leaving a message some may think your rating is designed to draw attention to yourself, or perhaps that you have revenge rated. Both of which are viewed unfavourably by Dooyoo and the opinionators within!

This ties in nicely with the earlier paragraph on commenting because obviously people are going to want to know how they can improve their work. Of course it isn’t necessary to always leave a message, but expect that others may track you down and leave a request from a comment.

Personally I’ve found the best thing to do is obtain a guestbook from TooYoo, for those that are new this is a free service provided outside of Dooyoo that allows you to leave messages or comments in an extremely friendly forum, and it means that hastily conceived comments don’t result in heated exchanges in the comments section of yours or other peoples opinions. Go to http://www.hotshotsdesigns.co.uk/tooyoo/

In my experience this has helped provide an education to new members, and has aided them in entering into the community in an easier way, it is far easier to aggrieve differences of opinion there.

Well, I’ve either had enough of a rant, or I’ve said all I wanted to say on the matter. Either way I now have a reference to which I’ll be pointing people when they ask what my meth
ods for rating are.

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