Just don't be wrong!
Mar 14 '00
There are many good opinions on what not to do and I won't restate the obvious ones for the Nth time. What I will state here is the things I will rate poorly on, or even distrust someone because of.
The first thing is accuracy. Do not state facts that are not true. I will give inaccurate reviews a poor rating every time as they are misleading. Let Microsoft and Netscape lie about their browsers - we are supposed to be the impartial end-users.
Some of the biggest inaccuracies I have seen so far are over those two browsers by the way. I have seen virtual wars of reviews fought over whether MS or AOL (owners of Netscape) deserve our sympathy. The fact is its irrelevant. The reader deserves your honesty and accuracy and that's all that counts.
Of course, the writers often do not realise that they are wrong. Many of them heard the fact or thought they heard a fact from someone they trust and so... uh oh. Just because you know someone doesn't make them infallible or right. I remember some of the things my parents told me ... :-)
The second thing to avoid is haste. Don't rush it. I sometimes spend a day or two mulling an idea over before I actually write it down. I have carefully not written a lot more opinions than I have written.
Related to rushing are those who write a review without reading any of them. Its rude, and pointless. More than once I have added a new product and therefore written the only review of it at the time. Later I find five more reviews and not one of them rated my opinion. For one of them it was the only review there, and for the next it was just one of two. Reading and rating reviews is part of how epinions.com works. Its part of the service that is paying you to write. Respect it for best results.
Of course not all of those are about haste. I have had more than my share of copy-cats too. Why I ever mentioned that lego bricks hurt your feet in what was the only review of the bargain bucket set at the time I don't know, but the same line appears in most other reviews now. I wouldn't mind the copying if they had at least rated my own review before copying it. Oh well that's what the web of distrust is for.
Finally, don't wander off the subject. If I read a review of a product it is to get a better understanding of that product as experienced by a real, impartial user. I don't want to hear about how you hate Bill Gates in a review of Internet Explorer unless you are telling me that he personally installed it for you wrongly.
Epinions is about giving good, accurate, relevant advice to people just like ourselves. Its not a 'revenge forum', a sales convention for affiliate links or a podium for speeches on hidden agendas. That said I'd better step off the soap-box and get back to some work.
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Epinions.com ID:
the.knight
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Member: Black Knight
Location: London, England
Reviews written: 41
Trusted by: 49 members
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