Not really related, but is anyone else really bugged by the new review rating system on the Zon? You know how it used to have [helpful/not helpful] under each review; Well, to me the “not helpful” count was great to determine when a comment was way off despite sounding correct, or if everyone caught on that it’s an employee posting, etc.
So, they get rid of the “not helpful”, fine. But then, but then… now they make it so if you click on “helpful” as in: “hmmm, this review is no good, he’s talking about the slow shipping not the product… I wonder if when I click on this “helpful” button it will then ask me [Yes/No] …” Nope. Hahaaa! You just marked it as helpful doofus! And there’s no backsies!!!
I’ve been seeing a ton of terrible reviews with a gazillion helpful votes! I’m talking about winners like: 5 star ratings on a product with “I don’t have this yet but my birthday’s coming up and I really hope I get it!” Or a 1-star because the “12 oz Sports Mug” didn’t hold as much water as you thought. This just has to be folks clicking on the button hoping to downvote it!
Ok, rant over. Maybe it bothers me more than it should.
@jester747 been that way for a while. Because reviews could be manipulated by down voting them. I can’t even begin to imagine how a button labeled “helpful” could be confusing. It’s literally what it says.
I sincerely hope it’s more people mocking their review than not able to read a button but I’ve never seen comments like that rated helpful.
I don’t need someone to tell me an idiot who doesn’t know how product reviews work or rates one of the 15 sellers instead of the product isn’t helpful.
…and it had been NOT that way for many multiples of whiles longer. Didn’t seem to stunt their growth either.
Your imagining abilities seem a bit restricted… allow me to assist. So, how could anyone see the word “helpful” and possibly be dumb enough to think anything other than casting a non-reversible helpful vote would result? Well, maybe they’re one of the millions of Slickdeals users where that"s exactly how it works. Click “helpful”, popup asks “yes or no”. Total tally is shown. Also, how about people used to decades of there being a yea/nay component to the review clicking on the only seemingly-related button to find the place to opine that it’s not. “This is sooo wrong! Must downvote! Lemme look in heeere… Oh, nope, this only marks it as helpful. Let me take that off.” Sorry Dave, I can’t do that.
As I hinted at, I can maybe understand removing the negative component (oh, and pffft to that helping with manipulation of reviews, they’re far less scrutable now) but why not make it a toggle? Perhaps for the same reason they don’t allow boolean searches… we must first be guided to know/buy what they want us to.
I gave those obviously extreme silly examples as indicators that something is amiss with the current system, not as the focus of my complaint. What I really miss is that simple ability to notice those situations where the review seems solid (good or bad) but (unbeknownst to me) contains wrong information. For pricier purchases an unusually high number of downvotes might lead me to dig deeper about reported issues (maybe a firmware update fixed the reviewer’s gripe). Sure people could share info in a comment, but they rarely do. They vote up/down and move on, leaving us (well, me, not you, cause you don’t need any of this) to inquire “why the downvotes?” (Lookin at you Reddit) Except now there are only happy votes to rEmOvE eVeRy PosSiBILiTy oF MaNIPuLaTiOn.
@jester747@unksol Maybe marketing people are more poorly trained these days? I was part of a focus group the other day. They showed us a logo where all of our choices were shades of positive. Clearly they were married to that logo and didn’t really want to know if we disliked it. I had nothing to click that showed I though it was really dumb. So I chose not to answer. Not even asked why I didn’t answer.
Not allowing participants in a focus group the option of a negative opinions would really seem to indicate that the organizers of the group “don’t want to know”.
For amazon to eliminate downvotes re reviews is, unfortunately, another matter.
I kinda wish amazon still allowed them.
Or at least offered would-be reviewers options to click upfront before writing the review that they are complaining about shipping, or about something else, that is extraneous to the quality of the product itself.
Unfortunately, in open popular forums, esp where monetary gains or political capital gains or some other “game theory advantages” in some form are possible, manipulation can go nuts.
The Amazon review options qualify for all of these possible gains.
And orchestrated downvotes are one of the easiest ways to achieve this manipulation.
Upvotes can also be gamed; but these don’t seem to go quite as far toward (or as easily toward) pure awfulness.
Anyone who witnessed the “ downvote abuse” at deals.woot by anon hucksters promoting shady products will know what I mean.
I don’t know why amazon made the change; it may have been just an attempt to create a “shinier, happier, site image” and not to control any sort of manipulative abuse.
But I understand - and regret the necessity for - why many open popular sites don’t allow downvotes.
Still feel it’s a bit lazy of them (at best, manipulative at worst) to not allow the toggle back.
I’ve also seen other vendors use creative ways to work with review manipulation (I’m no expert, just observing as a peon) that are interesting. Such as only allowing downvotes from verified purchasers. Or, where an upvote is a single click, but downvote requires an X-character-long typed reason. Or an idea of my own, how about limiting the number of upvotes you can give to only a couple reviews per product? There just have to be smart ways around the problem, but the interest just isn’t there because I really don’t think it would lead to more profit.
In the end, I think the sad truth is that a higher-quality checked-and-balanced review system (which they should be capable of) would lead to less sales in total of many not-the-very-best products. Hence, there is little motivation for them to go that route, and are now actually leaning in the opposite direction.
Yeah Amazon is kind of subject to mixed motives on this I’m guessing
If their reviews get too bad a reputation for being manipulated. that pisses off their best and most affluent and reliable customers so they have to protect the review system to some degree
if they protect the review system too stringently then maybe they don’t get the plethora of bad and shoddy products launching themselves and throwing in a few manipulated reviews to get going or to try to swap the search system
I guess Amazon wants to keep all those shady retailers coming back to sell more since also since all that generate profits for Amazon whether or not the customers happy
Amazon is known to manipulate the Amazon‘s choice thing
Amaxon is known to manipulate search results especially if you choose alternate sorts
My guess is that Amazon has collected and studied all these metrics to an unbelievable degree
And my guess is that when it comes to reviews and product listings and accurate information, Amazon has figured out some sweet spot that generates maximum return on investment and some estimation of maximum future return on investment and future growth
And accuracy and fairness and all that are way down the list
And accuracy and fairness and all that are way down the list
@capguncowboy@paullaf
Huh. There are two ratings, 64% of which give it 5/5 and 36% of which give it 1/5. Amazon math is weird.
No text on the 5/5 rating; 1/5 rating had a failure. Not enough feedback to form a real opinion here.
Google return for “Wicked Audio Outcry Rechargeable Extreme Bluetooth Enhanced Double 45mm Speaker review” shows an Amazon link with a 1-star average, 1 review. Visiting the link gives the above.
Android Guys reviewed the thing at retail price $54.99, giving median positive review (high volume/bass tends to distort, otherwise good). Getting it under 1/3 the original price might be worth it for a small external.
Not really related, but is anyone else really bugged by the new review rating system on the Zon? You know how it used to have [helpful/not helpful] under each review; Well, to me the “not helpful” count was great to determine when a comment was way off despite sounding correct, or if everyone caught on that it’s an employee posting, etc.
So, they get rid of the “not helpful”, fine. But then, but then… now they make it so if you click on “helpful” as in: “hmmm, this review is no good, he’s talking about the slow shipping not the product… I wonder if when I click on this “helpful” button it will then ask me [Yes/No] …” Nope. Hahaaa! You just marked it as helpful doofus! And there’s no backsies!!!
I’ve been seeing a ton of terrible reviews with a gazillion helpful votes! I’m talking about winners like: 5 star ratings on a product with “I don’t have this yet but my birthday’s coming up and I really hope I get it!” Or a 1-star because the “12 oz Sports Mug” didn’t hold as much water as you thought. This just has to be folks clicking on the button hoping to downvote it!
Ok, rant over. Maybe it bothers me more than it should.
@jester747 been that way for a while. Because reviews could be manipulated by down voting them. I can’t even begin to imagine how a button labeled “helpful” could be confusing. It’s literally what it says.
I sincerely hope it’s more people mocking their review than not able to read a button but I’ve never seen comments like that rated helpful.
I don’t need someone to tell me an idiot who doesn’t know how product reviews work or rates one of the 15 sellers instead of the product isn’t helpful.
@unksol. Found Mr. Bezos!
…and it had been NOT that way for many multiples of whiles longer. Didn’t seem to stunt their growth either.
Your imagining abilities seem a bit restricted… allow me to assist. So, how could anyone see the word “helpful” and possibly be dumb enough to think anything other than casting a non-reversible helpful vote would result? Well, maybe they’re one of the millions of Slickdeals users where that"s exactly how it works. Click “helpful”, popup asks “yes or no”. Total tally is shown. Also, how about people used to decades of there being a yea/nay component to the review clicking on the only seemingly-related button to find the place to opine that it’s not. “This is sooo wrong! Must downvote! Lemme look in heeere… Oh, nope, this only marks it as helpful. Let me take that off.” Sorry Dave, I can’t do that.
As I hinted at, I can maybe understand removing the negative component (oh, and pffft to that helping with manipulation of reviews, they’re far less scrutable now) but why not make it a toggle? Perhaps for the same reason they don’t allow boolean searches… we must first be guided to know/buy what they want us to.
I gave those obviously extreme silly examples as indicators that something is amiss with the current system, not as the focus of my complaint. What I really miss is that simple ability to notice those situations where the review seems solid (good or bad) but (unbeknownst to me) contains wrong information. For pricier purchases an unusually high number of downvotes might lead me to dig deeper about reported issues (maybe a firmware update fixed the reviewer’s gripe). Sure people could share info in a comment, but they rarely do. They vote up/down and move on, leaving us (well, me, not you, cause you don’t need any of this) to inquire “why the downvotes?” (Lookin at you Reddit) Except now there are only happy votes to rEmOvE eVeRy PosSiBILiTy oF MaNIPuLaTiOn.
@jester747 @unksol Maybe marketing people are more poorly trained these days? I was part of a focus group the other day. They showed us a logo where all of our choices were shades of positive. Clearly they were married to that logo and didn’t really want to know if we disliked it. I had nothing to click that showed I though it was really dumb. So I chose not to answer. Not even asked why I didn’t answer.
@jester747 @Kidsandliz @unksol
Not allowing participants in a focus group the option of a negative opinions would really seem to indicate that the organizers of the group “don’t want to know”.
For amazon to eliminate downvotes re reviews is, unfortunately, another matter.
I kinda wish amazon still allowed them.
Or at least offered would-be reviewers options to click upfront before writing the review that they are complaining about shipping, or about something else, that is extraneous to the quality of the product itself.
Unfortunately, in open popular forums, esp where monetary gains or political capital gains or some other “game theory advantages” in some form are possible, manipulation can go nuts.
The Amazon review options qualify for all of these possible gains.
And orchestrated downvotes are one of the easiest ways to achieve this manipulation.
Upvotes can also be gamed; but these don’t seem to go quite as far toward (or as easily toward) pure awfulness.
Anyone who witnessed the “ downvote abuse” at deals.woot by anon hucksters promoting shady products will know what I mean.
I don’t know why amazon made the change; it may have been just an attempt to create a “shinier, happier, site image” and not to control any sort of manipulative abuse.
But I understand - and regret the necessity for - why many open popular sites don’t allow downvotes.
@f00l @Kidsandliz @unksol I’m with ya, all good and fair points.
Still feel it’s a bit lazy of them (at best, manipulative at worst) to not allow the toggle back.
I’ve also seen other vendors use creative ways to work with review manipulation (I’m no expert, just observing as a peon) that are interesting. Such as only allowing downvotes from verified purchasers. Or, where an upvote is a single click, but downvote requires an X-character-long typed reason. Or an idea of my own, how about limiting the number of upvotes you can give to only a couple reviews per product? There just have to be smart ways around the problem, but the interest just isn’t there because I really don’t think it would lead to more profit.
In the end, I think the sad truth is that a higher-quality checked-and-balanced review system (which they should be capable of) would lead to less sales in total of many not-the-very-best products. Hence, there is little motivation for them to go that route, and are now actually leaning in the opposite direction.
@jester747 @Kidsandliz @unksol
Yeah Amazon is kind of subject to mixed motives on this I’m guessing
If their reviews get too bad a reputation for being manipulated. that pisses off their best and most affluent and reliable customers so they have to protect the review system to some degree
if they protect the review system too stringently then maybe they don’t get the plethora of bad and shoddy products launching themselves and throwing in a few manipulated reviews to get going or to try to swap the search system
I guess Amazon wants to keep all those shady retailers coming back to sell more since also since all that generate profits for Amazon whether or not the customers happy
Amazon is known to manipulate the Amazon‘s choice thing
Amaxon is known to manipulate search results especially if you choose alternate sorts
My guess is that Amazon has collected and studied all these metrics to an unbelievable degree
And my guess is that when it comes to reviews and product listings and accurate information, Amazon has figured out some sweet spot that generates maximum return on investment and some estimation of maximum future return on investment and future growth
And accuracy and fairness and all that are way down the list
And accuracy and fairness and all that are way down the list
But that’s just a wild guess.
@f00l @Kidsandliz @unksol Totally agree!
@capguncowboy @paullaf
Huh. There are two ratings, 64% of which give it 5/5 and 36% of which give it 1/5. Amazon math is weird.
No text on the 5/5 rating; 1/5 rating had a failure. Not enough feedback to form a real opinion here.
Google return for “Wicked Audio Outcry Rechargeable Extreme Bluetooth Enhanced Double 45mm Speaker review” shows an Amazon link with a 1-star average, 1 review. Visiting the link gives the above.
Android Guys reviewed the thing at retail price $54.99, giving median positive review (high volume/bass tends to distort, otherwise good). Getting it under 1/3 the original price might be worth it for a small external.
For the wicked outcry speaker my bad lol
I see 3.5
https://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Audio-Rechargeable-Bluetooth-Enhanced/dp/B01CGSI6W2/?tag=meh0ec-20
Yeah turd, it’s 3.5
[Slight edit by Ignorant.]
@paullaf