The Way Round Wrong (Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo)

Member Name: I Like Blue

Product:	Feedback and General Suggestions for dooyoo
Date:	15/06/04 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Community , It's the Home of Opinions for me!, Friendly people/members

Disadvantages: Aurora (Navigation & Search), Seemingly lack of direction, Refusing help from well-meaning members

Dear dooyoo,

It is with some despair and frustration that I am writing this review to give you my feedback about the site and offer some suggestions as to how I feel you could improve dooyoo.

I am a bit of a creature of habit and being that way, sticking to what I know, makes me feel safe. This is why, apart from a rather very short stint on Ciao, I have always stuck with dooyoo.

I have often been tempted to write in this category but never really had the words to do it justice and I felt that I would just be writing a review for the sake of it. Now though, I feel, especially the way dooyoo is at the moment, that this is probably the best time to share some of my feelings about dooyoo and what I would like for the future of this site.

In the beginning, back in May/June 2000, when dooyoo first started, you offered some great incentives that tempted many ordinary people to sign-up. The dooyoo miles rate for reviews read/rated was a lot higher than it is now and you could even earn dooyoo miles for writing and submitting reviews.

The effect was instant and before long there were hoards of internet users joining, mainly because of the generous rewards on offer and partly because you provided a platform for 'normal' everyday consumers, like me, to share their opinions on any manner of product/service/topic (well almost).

The dooyoo membership became quite large and it wasn?t long before a ?community? began to form. In those early formative times, while there seemed to be so many members, there never seemed to be enough categories to submit reviews/opinions in. However, as you had plenty of staff then, requests for topics/subjects to be included by dooyoo members were seemingly added very quickly. In fact, the communication/feedback between you and us members was very good.

So, remember this point
, there used to be a lot of members but not too many categories/subjects to submit opinions/reviews. Now though there seems to be an infinite amount of things to write about but the membership is a fraction of what it used to be and all these new categories/subjects are lying empty and not likely to have any opinions/reviews in them any time soon and are more likely to stay empty.

It?s the wrong way round.

Further, to make things worse, you now have hardly any staff and if my understanding is correct from reading messages from various message boards you also have no ?tech? team to speak of. You blew your budget on the lemon that is ?Aurora? and because of the spiralling costs of that debacle you had to trim your staff considerably to survive and only time will tell if that is the case. It?s been over 2 years since ?Aurora? and you still don?t seem to have recovered from that very big misadventure.

I?m not ?techie? minded, so while I feel Aurora should be ditched, I am assuming that it is so far embedded into the dooyoo framework it is probably impossible to do and if you could there is no telling what the outcome will be to the site.

You know, there are still plenty of ?old hand? dooyoo members who have left, exasperated at dooyoo for many reasons, who would still like to write here regularly, as they did before, but each time they come back to give it another try they end up not hanging round as the same old problems still exist and their frustration continues (as does mine) at the lack of problem solving/fixing and the continued nightmare of trying to navigate and search on dooyoo.

However, despite all that I still like dooyoo as my preferred (and only) opinion site but even I am starting to lose patience and getting more and more disenchanted with it.

I?ve stuck with dooyoo and have learned how to get round most of the problems especially wi
th navigation and search as have a number of other ?established? members. For newer members though I imagine it is completely confusing, frustrating and not really worth the effort and who can blame them?

The problem as I see it is that while many of us might enjoy writing and sharing our experiences and opinions the added attraction is being paid to do so, isn?t it? But now, with such a small membership, it seems like it will take forever to reach 22500 miles for an e-voucher (unless of course you want to donate everything to charity every 5000 miles), and it now seemingly requires a Herculean effort to reach the ?cash-in? point of 55000 miles (and remember miles earned that aren?t collected within a year of earning them are lost!)

I?m sure many members are put off by this, especially new members.

I feel you should go back to basics. Remember what first made dooyoo great and the great appeal it once had.

There is so much more to say but I think I?ve ranted on enough and I think you get the general idea of what I?m saying.

Now to the suggestions bit and apart from the obvious feeling I have about Aurora here are a few of the things I?d like to see changed on dooyoo.

Newest Reviews - This, to be honest, is one of my dooyoo pet hates as I feel it encourages a kind of laziness amongst members. The current newest review list includes the latest 1000 reviews submitted (blocks of 250 per page) which, in theory is great as now there isn?t really a need to go page clicking to find a review you might want to read/rate.

However, since its inclusion the number of reviews read/rated from the list has got smaller and smaller and now it seems just the very latest 10 or so reviews are being read/rated to the seemingly exclusion of everything else on dooyoo.

If a review isn?t in that top category then it?
s unlikely to gain many more reads/rates and if it does it?s usually just a few at slower than ?drip-feed? pace over days and weeks, and usually only if the author of that review is actively reading/rating.

Although the navigation round dooyoo can be frustrating, with a little perseverance though it is workable so I?d like to see the newest review list changed (explained below in Profile Pages) or a return to dooyoo when there was no such list and members were encouraged (had to really) to visit categories/subjects to find latest reviews.

That method, I feel, was much better at nigh on ensuring that the reader would actually be reading/rating something they were interested in and not just reading/rating for the sake of it. I think that method worked so well though because of the use of the CoF (Circle of Friends) and the e-mail alert system (explained more below in Alert System).

Profile Pages - Can we please go back to having 10 reviews on our profile pages rather than the current amount of 3? I mean, why only 3? Where did that number come from?

Further, and in conjunction with the newest reviews list, to get members to visit other members? profile pages instead of showing ?member name - review title - subject/category? on the newest reviews list (where most members seem to just click on the ?review title?) couldn?t the list just show the member?s name (which is the link to that person?s profile page) and the subject/category that person has submitted a new review in?

Then, you see, once the member?s name is clicked on and taken to the profile page the reader/rater has a chance to read the profile page if he/she wishes and (especially if you revert to the 10 reviews on the profile page) a wider selection of other reviews to choose from. This would be particularly handy when reviews are updated as these only appear as the ?latest? rev
iew on individual profile pages and nowhere else.

I have also noticed that where members just click on the review title from the newest reviews list, and without checking the profile page, often that review is by a new member and may be their first review, and as is customary on dooyoo it?s nice to welcome that new member into the ?community? with a friendly and/or helpful comment.

Alert System - No not security warnings! Remember when we used to receive e-mail alerts (usually daily) whenever our reviews had been read/rated, telling us who had read/rated it/them, whenever members in our CoF had submitted a new review and if we had been included on anybody else?s CoF?

Why did that stop? Admittedly I have still been getting some but usually only once in a blue moon.

Hall of Fame - Why has that stopped? It?s been absolutely ages since we had someone in the Hall of Fame. If it?s not being used anymore then why are you keeping it on display and accessible?

Housekeeping - Isn?t it about time somebody at dooyoo did some cleaning up? There are countless empty and unused member accounts on dooyoo. There are those accounts that were opened eons ago but the member has never submitted a review or there are those accounts where the member hasn?t been active for some considerable time.

Surely these accounts can be deleted? Especially the empty accounts where there has been no activity whatsoever and with the other accounts then perhaps an e-mail to that member asking them for a response. If there isn?t a response after say 3 e-mails at weekly or fortnightly intervals then can?t the account be deleted? Or, like on some sites, why not have a re-registration policy where say after 12 months every member must re-register then those memberships that aren?t renewed/re-registered can be safely deleted.

Then
there is the problem with some of the subjects/categories. For instance I have noticed that in some cases there are a number of subjects/categories for the same product. Now I don?t mean like in console games or the like, no, what I have noticed is in the electronics category and it goes something like this:

Brand Name X, Product A, Model No. 123

On its own great but in some areas I?ve noticed something like this:

Brand Name X, Product A, Model No. 123, Colour Black

Brand Name X, Product A, Model No. 123, Colour Silver

Brand Name X, Product A, Model No. 123, Colour Gold

Get the idea? Essentially you, dooyoo, are creating confusion as you are inviting exactly the same reviews for exactly the same products but for one difference - the colour! Could the choice of colours not be included in the ?short description? of the subject/category?

Movies - Can we have some official clarification in this category please? At the moment there is pretty much a common understanding amongst members that ?Movies>VHS? invites reviews/opinions about a film and only about the film in question and that ?Movies>DVD? invites reviews/opinions that include a brief synopsis of a film but mainly about the DVD which includes a substantial review/opinion of the DVD extra features and the like. However there is still some confusion as what to include in each category, so some sort of clarification really would help, otherwise, as in the example I gave above it just serves to have duplicated reviews.

Also, why have you decided (to shoot yourself in the foot) to discontinue the inclusion of reviews/opinions for newly released films on at the cinema? I really hope you
reverse that decision as I know there is going to be some mightily pissed off film reviewers on dooyoo if you don?t.

Newest Products - Now I know dooyoo have taken up this thing where whole chunks of product database are bought and added to dooyoo?s thus saving time in including individual or small groups of products but can we please have some sort of compromise?

I know I?d rather see an opinion site where reviews/opinions are submitted by members who want something to write about rather than submitting something they feel they have to. The situation is becoming in danger where members will just leave if their suggestions about what they?d like to write about aren?t added or they have to wait for an absolute age before it is added, and dooyoo will be an even emptier place and what use is that? At least you?ll have your thousands and thousands of subjects/categories it?s just a shame that most of them will be empty and nobody left on dooyoo to fill them.

One More Thing - Lastly (I have to stop somewhere even though there is more that I could add), and has been asked so many times before, can we please have our capital letters back?

If dooyoo.de can have them why can?t we? Now I know at least one dooyoo member who is ?techie? minded has offered to sort the problem out for you but as yet you?ve not accepted that offer; please do! You don?t know how much that would make your members happy to have the capital letters back again!

To finish with I?d like to say this; Whilst I can see the sense of importing large chunks of product database I am wondering is this dooyoo?s attempt to look forward and plan for the future or is it a desperate measure to attract new members and new reviews to fill those subjects/categories? If it is a plan for the future then you need to do a bit more than just add these product databases.


As I see it there are probably less than 100 active members on dooyoo and I don?t see, from a business sense at least, how you can continue to sustain a site with so few members which sort of brings me back to the point of going back to basics and working on attracting members and providing a better functioning site.

I fear though that dooyoo has got itself caught in a Catch 22 situation and there really is no telling what the outcome will be. I hope everything works out but unless you, dooyoo, make some quite brave decisions, soon, then I fear the worst.

You have all the essential elements to work with; a solid platform for ordinary people to share their views, opinions and experiences, a good membership base (especially if some of the long-standing members return) and there is still a great desire amongst dooyoo members to submit reviews. All you have to do is put those elements together correctly and fit it to a much better functioning and user-friendly site and you?re there. You?ve done it before and you can do it again.

All you have to do is get it the right way round.

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