An essay on the occasion of my 3-year anniversary at Epinions
Mar 24 '03
The Bottom Line My time spent at Epinions.com has been generally enjoyable. I intend to continue.
(Delayed until I could write a macro to find the extra space which caused the !@##$% HTML error.)
I've been an Epinions member for a little over three years (if you count my actual sign-up date) or a week short of three years (if you count the time I posted my first review). I'll leave it to you to decide if I've learning anything over that time, but I thought I post some observations. I've said some of this before here and here, but I see no reason not to include new features. On to the comments:
Content
It should be noted that Epinions spell checker is much improved, although the words Epinions and Advisor are not in the dictionary. Only "quotes" are now automatically flagged as spelling errors. Contractions aren't so flagged.
The "dirty words filter", although unhelpful, can be overridden by the techniques described in mobiprof's review here.
Epinions allows use of bold and italics text in reviews, and now hyperlinks to pages at Epinions. (See mobiprof's review here for information on how to bypass the restrictions.) It should also be pointed out that if you don't get the links exactly right, Epinions says you have HTML errors, but won't tell you where they are.
Information on questionable characters can be found at my review here (how to avoid) or at mobiprof's review here (how to generate).
Abusers
I actually haven't seen as many abusers recently as there used to be. There are still a few Filler and Off Topic reviews, but the latter has been greatly reduced by the Writers Corner.
Specific examples of what I call abuse:
Filler reviews
This includes the a a a a a reviews, the asdfghijkl; reviews (may be faster to type) and reviews using the technique of i n s e r t i n g spaces in words to reach 100. Starting around November 2000, Epinions no longer removes these reviews, so they can only be blocked by member action. (See filtering, below.)
Off-topic reviews
I've changed my view on this over the months. By off-topic, I mean a review which, due to lack of relevant content, is Not Helpful to someone browsing the topic. I no longer consider it off-topic if someone looking for the actual topic of the review would select that topic. I won't name names, but people posting Vietnam war stories outside the Travel/Vietnam topics would qualify, no matter how well-written. At least one well-rated automotive reviewer is in this category. With the addition of the Writer's Corner, I've also been rating clearly fictional pieces in non-fiction categories as Off Topic
Offensive reviews
I agree with Epinions that they shouldn't remove such reviews unless they rise (fall?) to the level of obscenity. I, however, would rather not see them.
Multiple reviews
I've noticed less of this than in the past (possibly because I'm rarely reading the overall Recent Content lists), but I could still name 5 instances in Personal Finance this year. The most common offense is to post the same review of a hated bank under the Bank, Mortgage, and each Credit Card that they offer. This is now a violation of the ToS, but doesn't seem to be being enforced by Epinions.
Copyright violation and plagiarism
I think Epinions is doing a better job of policing this than they have in the past, especially since it's the only abuse they actually track. However, there is still considerable confusion, apparently even among the Epinions employees, as to the difference between plagiarism and copyright violation. The official wording is now "Violating the intellectual property rights of a third party", which is not exactly either copyright violation or plagiarism.
Multiple accounts
I think only Epinions can track multiple accounts, and I still don't think they are. Users (members or not) cannot really be sure.
Member harassment and perceived harassment
Many good writers have left the site because of perceived (and, in some cases, real) harassment. Many others have taken to harassing those perceived to be harassing others. I hate it when that happens. It's just a web site, people. If you didn't want your words criticized, you shouldn't post on a web site where that's possible.
Tickets
Epinions needs to do a better job of explaining to people why they ARE ticketed, as well as handling abuse complaints. Some members have created duplicate accounts to explain to their regular readers that they have been ticketed, and their reviews are no longer visible. These accounts and reviews are, of course, promptly deleted by Epinions staff.
A suggestion to Epinions staff. Instead of the generic Bad URL or no such page message, add more specific messages, such as Account deleted, Account blocked by ticket, or Review blocked by ticket. See also mobiprof's methods of bypassing these blockages here.
Topics
The Category Leads (at least, the ones I've asked), are getting good at adding new products, and reasonably good at adding new essay topics. This is a significant improvement over the situation a year ago.
Reviewer Recognition
First, we had Experts, chosen by the Epinions category managers. Then we had Advisors, chosen by computer. Then we had Top Reviewers and Editors, chosen (as I understand it) primarily by computer. Now we have Top Reviewers and Advisors, chosen by the Category Leads (who themselves are chosen by Epinions management), with Epinions management having a veto.
According to the FAQ, Top Reviewers are selected by the quality and quantity (and frequency) of reviews, number of "First reviews" written, and quality of the Web of Trust. Editors are selected on quality and quantity (and frequency) of ratings and comments, and the quality of the Web of Trust. I would rather have made the choice myself, by deciding separately of which reviewers that I want to see their reviews, or I want to see reviews prevented according to their ratings, or I want to see reviews presented according to their trusting or blocking the reviewer. There is still an Expert/Advisor/Top Reviewer whose ratings I do NOT TRUST, and there's a Category Lead who's clearly an abusive reviewer. Still, it's better than having a single category of Expert.
Payment
I can't say I like the decrease in payment from 3 cents a hit (when I joined) to 1 cent, and now to nothing, but I understand it. Now, reviews (in topics under the 24(?) main headings, not including the Writer's Corner and advice about Epinions) are paid Income Share according to some formula related to the number of non-member hits and the income earned by that topic or sub-category. I think Epinions's decision not to release more information about the Income Share formula is unwise, but I can understand it if it is possible to "game" the system to increase earnings without increasing Epinons's earnings.
Advisors and Category Leads earn additional income, probably relating to the quality of the work they do, and the total earnings Epinions derives from those categories.
In addition, there are some (well, at least one) writers who have been paid a separate one-time fee to write an overview of a topic, such as digital cameras.
I think that the decision (about 2 years ago) to pay foreign writers is a good one. The exact mechanism isn't great, but not having studied the various tax treaties, I suspect that Epinions still has a lot of paperwork to file, even after all the member files all the appropriate forms with the IRS.
Filtering
I have all the filters turned off, so I can see comments, even by people I've blocked. I think a visible flag on reviews in review list stating author blocked or author blocked by community would be more appropriate. If not, separating blocking of reviews, comments, and/or ratings by user would be appropriate.
Allowing users to filter reviews by rating seems a good idea; if I primarily looking for information, I might turn that on.
It should also be pointed out that, if the Big Names (Most Trusted, Editor, etc.) filter out low-rated reviews, then they may not block the author, so the author of multiple inappropriate reviews may not be blocked by the community. I don't have a suggestion for this.
Sorting and Searching
You can search by topic keyword, but (no longer, in Epinions 2.0 since January), by title keyword. This, IMHO, is a mistake.
Similarly, you can search by member name (full member name, or first or last name), but not by partial name. I understand that you (Epinions management) don't want people to be able to print out the full member list by searching for "a", "b", etc., but there should be a "happy medium" of allowing a search for all member names containing "john", for example.
You can sort a member's reviews by date, title, product/topic, product rating, or review rating, but not by category. You can also filter on whether the reviews are on products or not.
You can sort the reviews in a topic, by review rating (default); and, in product categories, by product rating. The sorting by date seems to be missing.
Miscellaneous comments
Advice from Epinions on whether it is proper, and if so, how to do the following would be appreciated:
Put Trust Me or Notify (user) of my new Epinions links in the About Me section of the user profile. (I know they're on the left panel.)
Link to a list of (say) all my Finance reviews, other than placing the list on a separate web site or my profile page.
(Proper only) Link to Epinion-like sites.
Allow the list of users I've blocked to be read.
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Epinions.com ID:
Arthur.Rubin
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 in Personal Finance |
 in Personal Finance |
 - Top 500 |
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Member: Arthur Rubin
Location: Brea, CA, USA
Reviews written: 97
Trusted by: 109 members
About Me:
Expert in mathematics, computers, income tax, with a wide variety of interests.
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