Mmmm.. I don't like changes! (dooyoo.co.uk in general)

Member Name: machar

Product:	dooyoo.co.uk in general
Date:	26/10/01 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: people might read more (prob. not though)

Disadvantages: less money obviously, harder for new members

Let me get it off my chest - I'm not happy with the new system of payment that Dooyoo has suddenly introduced with no warning. I, like many others, am convinced that it is due to the news that Ciao is struggling and so Dooyoo can justify lowering its payments.

Dooyoo states that it still pays more than any other opinion site on the net and I cannot dispute this, its just that I don't think the new payment method is fair. The idea is that you no longer get paid simply for writing opinions - you only get paid when people read them. One good point of this is that it should dissuade "churners" who simply wrote lots of very short, sometimes badly written ops, just to get a bit of quick easy cash.

However, I can see lots more bad points looming on the horizon. The people I feel most sorry for are new members who will now take a good while to accumulate a reasonable amount of miles. When you first start people don't know who you are and you are not a member of anyones circle of chums (as I call it). This means that you either have to rely on people looking at the new members page or liking the title of your op.

I, for one, struggle to think of witty imaginative titles for my ops and I refuse to make sexual references in them just for the sake of it (this seems to have been a bit of a trend recently!). Just because the title of the op may not be the most amazing thing in the world, does not mean that the op is not of good quality. Yet this is what seems to attract people to read the op in the list of "25 most recent ops" etc. Therefore no amazing title - less reads.

Another problem that has been round for a while is the "disappearing op". This is when your op disappears from view not long after it has been posted. In the past if this happened at least you could console yourself with the fact that your effort had been rewarded with miles for actually writing it. In the old days I had op
s that disappeared very quickly before anyone could read them but at least I still got something for them! This problem has been partly fixed by the most recent lists but it can still happen at peak times.

Coming back to the circle of friends thing. The new rewards system will probably make no difference at all to the well-established writers who consistently turn out excellent ops nearly every day. People know their names and read the ops because they trust and respect the writer. However the vast majority of us will notice the difference. Dooyoo claim that the new points system will reward better writing as more people will read your op. How? When the latest 25 ops etc are listed it just gives a list of titles, products and user names. There is no indication of the quality of the op therefore you have to read it to find out - it doesn't matter if the op is good or bad, people will still have to read it before they find out the quality. This means that bad low quality ops will still be read! Let's face it, most reads are done as soon as the op is put in these lists so good and bad writing will still be rewarded.

The only obvious solution I can to see to this problem is to put the rating for the op alongside it in the lists. This way bad ops can be avoided and read less but good ops and ones that have not yet been rated, can be properly read, rated and rewarded.

I think that's my rant over with now and I do feel a lot better! Please leave comments to say what you think of the listing ideas.

Thanks!

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