Churn Baby Churn! (Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo)

Member Name: Claire_DC

Product:	Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo
Date:	06/11/08 (261 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Makes Site Busier

Disadvantages: Rubbish Reviews, Selfish, Takes Attention Off The Good Reviews

As a member of this site who has only been here a relatively short amount of time, I have noticed a lot of debate about the people who come on here and 'churn' out reviews that have little, or no information of use purely to make the immediate 50p per review, and what can be done to stop them.

Some people think that getting rid of the 50p incentive would deter these people signing up purely for the quick money and not putting anything into the community by reading and rating other peoples reviews but I'm not so sure this would be a solution to the problem.

Whilst I do think it would put a number of people off writing reviews purely for money, I also think it would put off some genuine people who put up good reviews and who do read/rate other peoples reviews and I'm not sure anybody would want that to happen; and why should it be taken away just because some people abuse the system?!

Maybe the solution here lies in not actually giving these people who give nothing to the site or community the money they think they have earned by churning out these 'reviews' and also implementing a few procedures that could help members identify these people, and report them. I shall talk about a few of my ideas that could be used together to help alleviate what seems to be a big pet hate of people on here.

The first thing I am talking about is dooyoo not paying these members when they come to request their payments if their reviews are not up to scratch. This could be based on (but not limited to):

* If that person is writing lots of minimum word reviews
* People who aren't actually giving any information that is of use
* Lots of not useful/somewhat useful ratings
* If their reviews haven't been read by somebody who can verify they're worth paying for


If somebody is churning like this purely to get the immediate money, then denying them it may actually make them have a think about why they have been denied it; and whilst it probably doesn't take a huge amount of their effort to churn out their minimum word reviews, it will have been *some* effort so if they get no cheque at the end of it, it would surely make them think twice about doing that.

This could in turn make them start doing good reviews and being more proactive in reading/rating others; it may also make them stop reviewing altogether which although may seem harsh, would solve the problem as I'm sure we're better off without those members on the site anyway?

Some people think that implementing a maximum review amount per day would be a good solution, and it possibly could help by slowing down the amount of reviews per day from these people and thus not having as much flooding on the newest reviews page as a result, but then it wouldn't solve the problem completely. Also, there are the days that you do feel really inspired to write more reviews then you may do normally and if there's some limit imposed then this could also have a negative impact on the genuine members all because some people take advantage; I don't feel this is very fair on those people for that reason.

Maybe instead of limiting the amount of reviews that can be posted per day, dooyoo could limit the amount of new reviews that show on the newest reviews page, so that no matter how many reviews somebody does, only the 3-4 newest reviews actually show on that page. To be honest when I see reviews on that page, I tend to read the first review and then go onto that persons profile anyway so to me it wouldn't matter if they had 2 or 20 showing on the new reviews page; of course I am only basing this on how I use dooyoo but I'm sure it wouldn't be a negative thing for most users as once you get reading/rating others they would do the same back for you, which makes the new reviews page less important (in my opinion anyway).

Increasing the minimum word amount, whilst possibly controversial would help too I feel as although I do agree that a review can still be helpful without being thousands of words long, I also feel that 150 words isn't really enough for anybody to elaborate in any depth about something. I'm not saying to increase it greatly, but if somebody had to write 200-300 words to get to the minimum amount for the 50p instead of 150, it would at least make them put a bit more effort in, and in turn could produce slightly better reviews. I personally don't think it takes much work to write 300 words about something, but then I do appreciate my reviews do tend to end up on the longer side as I get carried away.

My final idea (for now) would be to have a report link/button on reviews, the same as there is link/button to nominate for a crown. This would enable members to alert guides or the people at dooyoo HQ to people who are potentially abusing the system. I know a lot of my ideas would take a bit of extra work, but I don't think they'd need a massive amount of working to implement or keep running.

At the end of the day, I don't think anybody has a problem with people who are here to make money rather than just for the love of writing, as of course the money is a massive reason for us all to be here; otherwise we'd all be posting on sites that don't pay. I don't even think people would mind somebody writing 10 good quality reviews per day, especially if they were also contributing to the community side of things. There just needs to be a balance/some give and take between wanting to make money, and contributing to the website with good reviews and to the other members by reading their work also.

Summary: You shouldn't expect something for nothing (or not much)!