The Death of The Guide System Killed By Peer Review? (Frustration with dooyoo)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Frustration with dooyoo
Date:	31/08/06 (364 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dooyoo is lovely

Disadvantages: Dooyoo can be frustrating

“I love you long time, you just give me 10 dorra” she said as I reached for my wallet. Ooh…erm….no that’s a dream I had last night and nothing at all to do with what I want to talk about. Nope, I want to talk about my Dooyoo frustration. After all, along with cliché like “Yer face will stick like that if the wind changes direction” and “Remember to wear your clean underpants just in case you get run over today”, me mam would be telling me the best way to get rid of frustration is to get it off my chest so here goes….

***Movie Database***

I’ve been a member of Dooyoo for nearly 5 years yadda, yadda and seen many a change. I’ll keep my old miner’s lamp hidden for now rather than bore everyone with all the stuff about how it used to better in the old days making me sound like some old bloke who spends all his time playing dominoes and racing pigeons but concentrate on the bugbears of these ‘ere present times. Numero uno: The movie database. Of course, most folks will have been caught up in the DVD v VHS debacle by now i.e. remembering to review DVD extras if it’s an opinion about the DVD rather than the movie itself. Things seem simpler now that there is only one category, which is DVD. However, now we have a conundrum where if a subsequent visitor to Dooyoo wants to know all about a DVD rather than just the movie then he/she is goany be stuck as all the reviews are lumped together. It’s a curious, technical argument but there will be people that want to buy DVDs and the newspapers carry DVD reviews so there must be a need for ‘em. The ever-adaptable writers of Dooyoo are now inserting “film only review” in the title. This is a reasonable compromise in the meantime but the whole movie database thing is a bit of a dog’s dinner and needs sorting out properly at some time in the near future by the techies at Dooyoo HQ.

***Guides and crowns***

Well, you can’t write an opinion about Dooyoo frustration and not write about the guide system and crowns can ya? In essence, because there is a peer review mechanism on the site i.e. people rate other people’s opinions which should ultimately rank the opinion in order of best to worst when folks are searching the archive then the assumption is that the system will even itself out and the cream will rise to the top and the poo will sink to the bottom. Needless to say, there are lots of assumptions within this such as ratings being applied fairly and consistently and that clicking cartels are weeded out and stopped before this distorts the picture. So if we have everybody rating correctly (given that it’s a personal rating but I’ll talk more about that below) and everything fits nicely where it should do then, ultimately, is there a need for a guide? Now before the guide movement gets its collective elephant gun out and blasts me with it, let me elaborate (please!). Guides are there to recommend opinions for crowns, help writers by giving feedback and report abuse. Of course, most folks will know and like most of the guides and I am no exception especially as I’ve been one several times meself. However, if you think about it, all of those 3 things can be done by peer review. So other writers can nominate for crowns, other writers can give feedback to other writers and other writers can report abuse. So is there really a need for a guide system? Answers on a postcard and I suspect that the answer lies in how sound you really think all the assumptions are above and whether there will ever be a time when everything works like clockwork and peer review is 99% accurate.

Inextricably linked with the guideroonie system is the awarding of crowns. To be honest, I haven’t got any major hang ups about the awarding of crowns in general. It’s not perfect but it seems to be a lot fairer than comparable systems on rival sites like Ciao. The only frustration I have is whether the crowns are awarded based solely on guide recommendations, total numbers of crown nominations or a combination of both. Whichever it is, my fear at times is that Dooyoo HQ don’t necessarily proof read the opinions to be crowned like they used to due to the lack of staff now working on the site. For peer review to work correctly as above then some kind of sanity check would be needed to make a decision on which opinions should be crowned each week but I am often left with the impression that the site goes by a combination of guide recommendation and number of nominations which can be flawed. Of course, perhaps within this is the underlying beauty and raging debate about writing opinions in that it can never be an exact science and has to be more of an art in which case there will always be an element of subjectivity within the rating and crown system.

***Rating***

People have the right to apply a rating according to the general guidelines on the site on their own evaluation of how useful an opinion is to them. Not everyone will rate the same way. Over the years, I’ve given this much thought where I’ve tried leaving comments as to why an opinion doesn’t get a VU, not rating at all because it’s the comments that really matter and now simply rating as to what I think and not commenting at all as to why I’ve rated a certain way. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is to simply run with someone else’s rating and if they feel it’s SU/NU or whatever then that’s fine – it’s the way they feel. I guess you’ll get the odd person who makes a mistake but when I look back on the occasions I’ve challenged folks over the rating they’ve applied to my own work then I do find myself sighing and wishing I hadn’t. At the end of the day, a rating is personal and should be applied as to how that person thinks. I’m still left with the feeling that should the reader apply anything other than the top rating the they are far less likely to be read in return than if they had. This seems unfair but possibly in keeping with some of the psychology of the users mentioned below. Realistically, a few less than top ratings on Dooyoo won’t stop an opinion being crowned if it’s good enough and it will distort the whole peer review theory if everyone simply applies a blanket rating whatever it may be.

***Post and Run and Herding***

Sites like Dooyoo work best when folks read each other’s stuff. If you are writing to gain miles then you will grind to a halt if you are only getting a hand full of reads each time. So the more folks read around, the better it is as other writers get feedback, more miles and a form of community builds up through threads, like it or not. However, this all comes to a shuddering stop if folks simply post and run and don’t bother reading around (with Dooyoo membership comes much responsibilty *said in fake Chinese wiseman accent*). There are plenty of reasons for that and it’s a fact of life but if writers do want to participate and become known then this generally needs to be by reading other people’s stuff. Within this is the rivalry between Ciao and Dooyoo. I’ve no doubt that some of the posting and run candidates and writers that treat Dooyoo as a bonus and simply can’t wait to get back to Ciao Land and their online friends. Another aspect of this is herding. It’s an interesting psychological aspect that as soon as a prominent writer appears from another site, they tend to seek out other people they already know and only read their stuff. This seems a bit of a shame when there are writers who don’t appear on Ciao but are darned good opinionators in their own right. They can be overlooked through this veritable bean feast of herding that sprouts up especially when Ciao is having problems and writers cross on their virtual boats to gain refugee status in Dooyoo Land. Ach, gawan you new people from Ciao, be daring and try some of the dooyoo only people - they don't bite, honest(apart from the ones with sharp teeth who may rip yer head off)!

***Politics/Abuse/Addiction***

Once you’ve been around a while on a site like Dooyoo then it becomes difficult not to get drawn into the politics of the site. Maybe you’ll love the chance to debate the finer points of Dooyoo or perhaps you’ll feel that the main movers and shakers of the political side really haven’t got enough anoraks but, for me, it’s a double-edged sword. I’ve enjoyed influencing the site through direct feedback to Dooyoo and participation as a guide but you do reach the point where you feel that you have got bigger fish to fry. Of course, abuse will always be a feature of sites like Dooyoo. When you have the anonymity of the Internet and a chance to re-invent yourself complete with new username and an online personality that can be anything you want then some folks go mad and lose sight of everyday conventions. Politeness and manners is usually the first to go as people feel that they can say anything they want to you. I’ve never really experienced abuse where someone’s popped up and launched into a swearing tirade for no particular reason but I have had exchanges with some members where I genuinely don't believe that the comments would be repeated in quite the same way in the offline world. That’s just the nature of the Internet and a daily challenge where folks roam around with relative impunity, saying and doing what they want, I suppose. There is a procedure for reporting abuse on Dooyoo although how effective is actually is open to debate at times.

My final frustration is the addictive quality of sites like Dooyoo. I gave up on Ciao well over a year ago now for lots of reasons but a big one was the addictive draw of the site. I didn’t want to spend all of my time online browsing and participating in these sites anymore. I feel the same way about Dooyoo at times although when you do take a break for a while, the feeling is not so strong when you return and it’s only the one site as opposed to several opinion sites. Dooyoo addiction is Heaven and Hell to many, me included.

***Conclusion***

Ho hum, there you have it – my own personal frustrations with Dooyoo. As ever with opinions like this, as it’s about Dooyoo it will probably draw comments from the great and the good. All I can say is that they are simply my own thoughts and if you get a lot of enjoyment from the site then simply continue to enjoy it. As for me, I’ll keep my miner’s lamp in the closet and go back to my dream now....

Thanks for the read.

Summary: Dooyoo Frustration