A Few Frustrations (Frustration with dooyoo)

Member Name: Brooke3

Product:	Frustration with dooyoo
Date:	03/08/09 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dooyoo do a great job most of the time

Disadvantages: 150 word limit, not sticking to rules

I joined dooyoo in October 2008 purely as a way to make money. I had no intention of becoming involved in any community, I didn't care about the standard of my writing and I certainly didn't care about dooyoo. Fortunately, or unfortunately (I'm not sure which) that all changed and I actually began to care about dooyoo. I LIKE this website, I like reading good reviews, I enjoy writing reviews and I enjoy chatting with members of dooyoo through PM or on a forum that I'm a member of. The problem is when you start caring about something you get frustrated when you feel that things aren't being done right or that improvements can be made. I'm not writing this review because I like to complain (although I do like a good moan sometimes) but because I genuinely believe that dooyoo should be improving on some things.

I'm going to be focusing on things that dooyoo can change. I do get annoyed with speed raters, people who churn rubbish, plagiarisers, and people who over rate but for the most part I believe that dooyoo deal with these people and no amount of complaining in these kinds of reviews is actually going to change the behaviour of some members. Anyway, on to my frustrations.

-WORD LIMIT-
I do not believe that for most products 150 words is enough. There are a few exceptions of course but then I wonder if it's worth dooyoo paying for those reviews. I don't think that long reviews are necessarily very useful, I don't believe that every short review is necessarily not useful but I do believe that there is only so much you can say in 150 words and that if you are going to write a review with a bit of personality, all of the relevant information and most importantly plenty of opinion you can't do it in so few words.
Many established members get frustrated with members who only write 150 word reviews but if dooyoo set the word limit so low what do we expect? If you're in it for the money (and many people are) and you can get paid the same for writing 150 words or 1000 words you're going to go for the 150 words, aren't you?
I think that the word limit should be raised to at least 300 words, and if you find that you have to pad out the review in order to reach the word limit then maybe you should find something that you have more opinion on to write about.

-STICKING TO THE RULES-
I get frustrated when people don't follow dooyoo's rules, there aren't many of them, there's no excuse to break them but I get even more frustrated when dooyoo break their own rules.

Example 1: The rules state that a review must "contain personal consumer opinion of a product that you yourself own or have had considerable experience with (taking a Porsche for one test drive does not qualify you to review it on dooyoo)"
That rules seems fair enough, I wouldn't expect to review a book that I've never read (or only read the back of), I wouldn't review a film based on a trailer and I wouldn't review a website that I've never visited but apparently it's okay to review a game that you've never played.
I'm sure some people will remember that before the Sims 3 was released people were writing reviews based on things they had read, demo's of the game and experience with the Sims 2. I reported this to dooyoo because it's clearly against their rules. If you can't review a car after a test drive you can't review a game without playing it. I was surprised to get this response:

"With regard to pre-order games, it is a little tricky as there are definitely
consumers out there trying to find out more about these products prior to
their release. So pre-order reviews may be of use to these people. We
encourage writers to then go back and update their review once the games has
been released in its full version. In the meantime, as always, you are free to
rate the reviews as you see fit based on how useful they are to you."

I would interpret that as, the rules can be broken if it will bring more people to the website. I do see their point, they need people to visit the website and the sims 3 would have probably attracted a lot of people but is there any point in having rules if the people who make those rules only enforce them when they want to?

Example 2: Reviews should be 150 words of opinion, this can't include lists etc. Yet a review was locked recently that was just over 150 words and that I really don't think broke any rules. As I've said, I don't think 150 words is enough for a review but if dooyoo are going to set the limit at 150 they really shouldn't go around locking reviews unless the review contains lists and repetitions.

-PMs-
I like that there's a messaging service on dooyoo. I've really enjoyed talking to members of dooyoo and wouldn't want it to be taken away. The problem I have is that you can basically get away with saying whatever you want over PM without dooyoo taking any action. I've had people message me with insults and trying to intimidate me into changing rates, at one point I would report them to dooyoo but after numerous messages saying that they can't do anything about things said over PM and advising me to block the member I gave up.
The point here isn't just about it being unpleasant for me, as dooyoo said I can just block people but if these people are messaging me trying to make me rate their somewhat useful (in my opinion) reviews as very useful they're probably doing the same to other people. Over rating is a problem on dooyoo and people trying to intimidate those who do rate honestly is another problem that dooyoo are refusing to address. I will not change my ratings, but how many other members have after receiving a similar message? How many new members leave the site because they're sent rude and abusive PMs? If dooyoo are going to provide a messaging service then they need to take some responsibility for these things.

Summary: My Frustrations