free4now
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2005
- Messages
- 1,228
I've noticed what I think is a strange phenomenom: Negative reviews on amazon almost always have a low number of people who say they find them useful. Personally, the whole reason I look at review sites is to find out what the potential problems are before I buy, so I find negative reviews much more useful than positive reviews, and rate them so.
Some of the most useful reviews to me are when it simply says "Support couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work". For some reason people seem to hate these reviews... they almost always get zero recommends.
So I seem to be in the minority. I'm wondering if most people really don't like negative reviews, or if this is a sign of someone gaming the system.
My conspiracy theory is that the product makers are having their minstrels rate any negative reviews down so they will appear further down the list.
My non-conspiracy theory is that the people who vote on amazon reviews are people who did lots of research on their purchases and they are looking for validation that they made the right choice. When someone posts a negative review they feel insecure and vote it down so they don't have to face the possibility that the product isn't perfect.
My other pet peeve is that people seem to think any product that works correctly deserves 5 stars. In my perfect universe, the average product would get three stars out of five. Better products more, worse products less. But there seems to be a tradition that rating anything lower than 5 stars requires a serious justification for why the product is so flawed. Argh.
Some of the most useful reviews to me are when it simply says "Support couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work". For some reason people seem to hate these reviews... they almost always get zero recommends.
So I seem to be in the minority. I'm wondering if most people really don't like negative reviews, or if this is a sign of someone gaming the system.
My conspiracy theory is that the product makers are having their minstrels rate any negative reviews down so they will appear further down the list.
My non-conspiracy theory is that the people who vote on amazon reviews are people who did lots of research on their purchases and they are looking for validation that they made the right choice. When someone posts a negative review they feel insecure and vote it down so they don't have to face the possibility that the product isn't perfect.
My other pet peeve is that people seem to think any product that works correctly deserves 5 stars. In my perfect universe, the average product would get three stars out of five. Better products more, worse products less. But there seems to be a tradition that rating anything lower than 5 stars requires a serious justification for why the product is so flawed. Argh.