Today we brought back the Review Quality voting feature. You may now vote on which reviews are/are not quality reviews.

I’m glad this feature is back! But it looks as if you can vote only 0 or 100. Isn’t that a bit black and white. Or have I done something wrong? It seems to me that this feature would be more effective and valid if one could rate the review’s quality more precisely.

Hm. I read about a user blocking feature. Will this ‘feature’ be blocking the people who can ‘rate’ reviewers? I still sense too many users on this website use these features for the WRONG reasons.

Heather, bouncing by
wordwan

A valid point ,Heather.
Enough said, I guess. This might turn out to be a ‘hot potatoe.’

“I’m glad this feature is back! But it looks as if you can vote only 0 or 100. Isn’t that a bit black and white. Or have I done something wrong? It seems to me that this feature would be more effective and valid if one could rate the review’s quality more precisely.”

It is black and white (yes or no) although the averages end up between 0 and 100. Eventually this will work more like a rating.

Is there a way to see who didn’t like your review? I would like to go back and see who gave me zeros, and what the review was about. I have the sneaking suspicion that they were not favorable to the writer, and they rated me poorly because I was not so kind to their work. Know what I mean?

I’m actually glad to see this come back. It use to be that nobody bothered using it unless the review was exceptionally good or exceptionally offensive (to the writer). But we’ll see how it goes. It was nice to look at the rating before opening a review, as it gave a good indication of what to expect.

I do agree. We should keep the ratings blind for the same reasons the queue is blind. Biases already run rampant in this world, the last place we need them is here.

I don’t know what is the issue here. You can see if someone gives you a negative quality vote… just comment on the reviews after they are opened then go back to the items… the vote will show. Or set up another account and just look for your reviews. Or just wait until another person votes on your review (hardly happens but still) and it shows.

No but what Weaver is saying is that if comeone doesnt like another, they could easily hunt hunt down that person and click “mo” on all their quality reviews. I understand that they can do this NOW but if its anonymous at least there will be no backlash. The last thing we need is forums full of arguments and poems of how much so-and-so hates so-and-so. LOL too complicated. Its a writing website.

And I had that done to about 4 of my quality votes, the ratings and quality votings should only be rated by the author, if you look at my older reviews from before they stopped the helpful vote, you will see that they went to 50%, suggesting someone had it in for me, so to speak. I think only the author should vote the quality rating after all it is they who is recieving your review.

or we should have two counters. On for the author only, the other for others.

What if reviews were always anonymous?

Perhaps this is a naive suggestion?

“No but what Weaver is saying is that if comeone doesnt like another, they could easily hunt hunt down that person and click “mo” on all their quality reviews”

For reasons expressed, we make that very difficult. You can only vote on reviews if:
1. You have reviewed the same item.
2. You are not friends with the reviewer.
3. You are not friends with the writer.

Therefore, you cannot find all the reviews of someone you do/don’t like, and vote on all their reviews. Unless you find all the same items and the blind queue and review them.

Of course only the author should rate the review. I definitely comment on a review that I think is wrong, but I would never rate the review. That’s up to the author.

Actually, I’ve never asked this question. Is it bad etiquette to comment on someone else’s review?

“Of course only the author should rate the review. I definitely comment on a review that I think is wrong, but I would never rate the review. That’s up to the author.”

Then reviewers would pander to the author. The Review Quality number tells us “is this a quality review according to those who are not biased and have read the item that was reviewed.”

“Actually, I’ve never asked this question. Is it bad etiquette to comment on someone else’s review?”

Definitely. It’s encouraged.

Steve means Definitely NOT.

No I don’t. We encourage discussions.

Steve is saying we should comment on other peoples discussions, because that way writers get to discuss each others writing, and if a reviewer is not very skilled,they may learn how to improve their reviewing techniques, thus making the site more useful both as a review receiving/giving and writing tool.

But I have noticed this means blocked users can add comments below the persons who has blocked them.
I have to say though, the blocked person was not being offensive.

My quality rating just dropped 6 percentage points because of one or maybe two negative ratings. I asked one of the users, and she immediately answered that she hadn’t yet rated my review; so this must have been one reviewer. How can my quality rating go from 94.1% to 93.5% just like that?

Another issue: When I see that someone has opened my review, I check to see if they’ve rated me (I know, I need to get a life). Often I see nothing: no 100%, no 0%. What does this mean? Does the user’s rating show up if he has rated me 0% helpful?

Yet another issue: When a third party rates me, I would like to know who it is. This would cut down on revenge ratings. I try to be nice, but often, I need to give a rather negative review when IMO the text is crap. I do try to muster all the sensitivity I can. What to do when there are 18-year-olds out there who give you a 0% for telling them the truth?

Join the choir DC… join the choir…

We are singing for a deaf audience.

Well, if we’re tone dear, no one will know, right?

Hey, choir! I just thought of a good feature. Let us know when someone rates us. Put it at the top and let us see it. Someone just rated me negatively and I can’t figure out who it was. The two writers who just received rather “honest” reviews from me both wrote to me thanking me for my review. Who the hell just voted me unhelpful? The nerve.