Review Ratings Getting Skewed

[xChris]

I noticed in this review, Honeybee Spa shavings Soaps (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?p=58891#post58891), that a couple of non-review posts resulted in the actual user rated average dropping dramatically.

Can a Moderator move the errant posts to the associated discussion thread? Is there a Mod assigned to the Review section of B&B to take of things like this?

[With The Grain]

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[moses]

Well, in addition to deleting posts there, it seems people often post their comments there, without filling out the review checkboxes. Which results in the scores defaulting to the lowest.

[letterk]

We know the ratings need some work. It's on the list of things to do.

[Howard]

This seems to be an ongoing problem.

I've seen some review threads here where people continue to post comments even after being asked not to.

The reviews section is one of the most attractive parts of this whole site for me, yet the quality of the scoring is degraded by this practice of posting in the threads without reviewing.

My suggestion: A moderator should go through the reviews and delete the text of every non-review comment post, replacing it with this text.

"Reviews threads are for posting of numerical scores. If you are not filling out the numerical scores do not post in the Reviews section. If you have a comment but are not going to fill out a review, either because you haven't used the product, you have already filled out scores, or for whatever reason, then post in the associated discussion thread. If there is no discussion thread then start one in the appropriate forum and post your comment there. Thank you. - Moderators"

This may not fix the reviews that have already been trashed, but if people's posts start dissappearing the practice will stop. I get the feeling that most of the people posting without reviewing do not understand that they are screwing up the ratings.

[joel]

This seems to be an ongoing problem.

I've seen some review threads here where people continue to post comments even after being asked not to.

The reviews section is one of the most attractive parts of this whole site for me, yet the quality of the scoring is degraded by this practice of posting in the threads without reviewing.

My suggestion: A moderator should go through the reviews and delete the text of every non-review comment post, replacing it with this text.

"Reviews threads are for posting of numerical scores. If you are not filling out the numerical scores do not post in the Reviews section. If you have a comment but are not going to fill out a review, either because you haven't used the product, you have already filled out scores, or for whatever reason, then post in the associated discussion thread. If there is no discussion thread then start one in the appropriate forum and post your comment there. Thank you. - Moderators"

This may not fix the reviews that have already been trashed, but if people's posts start dissappearing the practice will stop. I get the feeling that most of the people posting without reviewing do not understand that they are screwing up the ratings.

I agree with you in that it is a PITA - personally I just ignore the "overall" review score, and look at each individuals review, coupled with their description. Personally I like to weight the importance/significance of each review based on the reviewer - IE if they are a long time member, who I know well, and who is well versed on similar products and has similar tastes/preferences to mine - I will weight that individuals opinion much greater than that of a half dozen individuals who have differing preferences, experience, etc.

Are the comment posts annoying? Oh yeah! Does it ruin the effectiveness of the review section? No, not for me at least.

Apparently there is a new version of the software that will be released soon (who knows when) that will fix all of these problems - but until then..... :c3:

[Howard]

I agree with you in that it is a PITA - personally I just ignore the "overall" review score, and look at each individuals review, coupled with their description. Personally I like to weight the importance/significance of each review based on the reviewer - IE if they are a long time member, who I know well, and who is well versed on similar products and has similar tastes/preferences to mine - I will weight that individuals opinion much greater than that of a half dozen individuals who have differing preferences, experience, etc.

Are the comment posts annoying? Oh yeah! Does it ruin the effectiveness of the review section? No, not for me at least.

Apparently there is a new version of the software that will be released soon (who knows when) that will fix all of these problems - but until then..... :c3:

Joel,

I agree. That's mostly what I do also, since many of the cumulative scores are trashed. The reviews are still valuable, just not as valuable as they could be.

I doubt if there will be an effective software fix, as this is a human problem. The comenters actually are putting in numerical scores. They're just putting in the default score of 0. Maybe a software designer could force manual filling in each of each score and get rid of the defaults. But who knows how long that will take? Until then, it's not difficult to address the issue with the current software still in place.

[With The Grain]

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