I think amazon does this because they want to commoditize sellers and make them barely noticeable on their page. A bunch of reviews about one bad seller that they remove will reduce sales for an otherwise ok product. Maybe make 'seller' reviews upfront? Hard to say.
Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
291–300 of 499 posts
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#292> For example I feel quite helped when a review for chocolate mentions that the chocolate arrived melted -- this is not a review about the product intrinsically, but is still very helpful for deciding whether or not to buy the item
So this could go either way. First there are often multiple sellers for one item on Amazon, to have reviews reflect the shipment or seller experience would kind of invalidate the feedback about the item. To ask Amazon to revamp their entire feedback system is quite an ask and clearly not what first comes to mind from reading the title of this post.
Secondly if some users are being encouraged to leave a positive review for money that's a morally offensive act by them as well, which no one here seems to be pointing out so far. It's not too dissimilar to lying about something and then asserting that someone pays others when they lie and it's really their fault. Lying is bad in itself.
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#293This happens all the time with Amazon products from smaller brands/sellers. Amazon has also blocked reviews pointing out when a product is counterfeit, which I have experienced firsthand. I'm helping a friend try to return fake Bose headphones purchased on Amazon now.
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#294I'm seeing similar things everywhere. I stood in line for a food truck a couple years ago that offered a promotion "$2 off your order if you show us your 5-star review of our truck on [site]." Obviously, you have to do this before you even order your food so I was intensely put-off by this. I gave them a 5-star review with no comment, received my discount, then after I tried the food I edited the review to 1-star wit…
While I think you mostly played this right I also greatly dislike people leaving totally binary reviews. 1 star because they had sleazy review tactics? This is part of the problem. We need unbiased reviews now more than ever. So many people aren't going to share your principles so trying for force the issue by giving a misleading rating is not a good approach. I think it would have been much better to just review it…
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Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consumer Reports is notorious for just bad reviews - checking the wrong things, etc. They’re big on standardizing the test but not great on testing useful aspects. https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/consumer-repo... is an example. You used to be able to find forums and similar for almost anything; now you’re left with Reddit threads and half-remembered comments. Anything under $50 is just a crapshoot.
> You used to be able to find forums and similar for almost anything; When google removed the option to search discussion boards I knew the internet was changing and the changes were going to be bad. Google discussion search was the most powerful tool to find real world information. You could put in the model number of some product you knew nothing about (e.g. a camera or boat motor) and discussion search results wou…
I have a very few left (like the one linked above) that I consider very precious to me. The biggest loss has been car forums for me - they still exist but the posting volume is way down
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#296I'm seeing similar things everywhere. I stood in line for a food truck a couple years ago that offered a promotion "$2 off your order if you show us your 5-star review of our truck on [site]." Obviously, you have to do this before you even order your food so I was intensely put-off by this. I gave them a 5-star review with no comment, received my discount, then after I tried the food I edited the review to 1-star wit…
It didn't occur to you that someone might review the food truck and return to it a second time, aka "recurring customers"?
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#297I'm seeing similar things everywhere. I stood in line for a food truck a couple years ago that offered a promotion "$2 off your order if you show us your 5-star review of our truck on [site]." Obviously, you have to do this before you even order your food so I was intensely put-off by this. I gave them a 5-star review with no comment, received my discount, then after I tried the food I edited the review to 1-star wit…
While I think you mostly played this right I also greatly dislike people leaving totally binary reviews. 1 star because they had sleazy review tactics? This is part of the problem. We need unbiased reviews now more than ever. So many people aren't going to share your principles so trying for force the issue by giving a misleading rating is not a good approach. I think it would have been much better to just review it…
I usually only ever read the 3 out of 5 stars reviews. Unless there is a ton of it, 1 star reviews are often outliers having had a bad experience, people who clearly haven’t read the product description or having some gripe otherwise. The 5 stars often have the feel (fake or not) that they would give that rating no matter the quality of the product. Whereas 3 star reviews often point out shortcomings of the product that might or might not affect me, so it is the most useful.
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite is seeing 5 star reviews that are hijacking the top to complain. I've also seen 1 star reviews that are exalting reviews. But my all time ongoing pet peeve is how recommendation engines especially on video streaming and video game series use numbers and star systems that are not based on any other human's input. Not a critic, not a user score, just an algorithm's confidence score on similarities.
Luckily we have rotten tomatoes as a decent indicator of actual critic reviews. Until they start gaming the reviews to boost movies they (subsidiary of Comcast) want to promote.
You think they aren’t already?
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favorite is seeing 5 star reviews that are hijacking the top to complain. I've also seen 1 star reviews that are exalting reviews. But my all time ongoing pet peeve is how recommendation engines especially on video streaming and video game series use numbers and star systems that are not based on any other human's input. Not a critic, not a user score, just an algorithm's confidence score on similarities.
The 1 star review that loves the product but hated the way it was shipped. Someone needs to write a textbook on the pathology of those people.
The customer paid not only for the product but also for the service of having that product delivered to them. Asking them to restrict their review to only one aspect of what they paid for does not seem reasonable.
Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of a game isn't to win, its to have fun. A certain character may disrupt the mechanics of the game that are the most fun to a subgroup of players. To take it to an extreme, let's say a character is introduced to a fighting game and this character will win as soon as the "A" button is pressed. Now whatever fun people were doing to win in the game before is gone. In order to win, you just have to pick this su…
Well, with game you have to be careful to distinguish between behavior unintended by developers and intentional design. The Street Fighter series has had any number of opportunities to "fix" behavior that some players consider "cheap" or an exploit. Developers have kept them in. If using those moves deprives another player of fun, that doesn't mean it shod be removed. There is always a winner and a loser, and someone…
I think you are taking an overly rigid view of what a game can be. Games exist in an environment and social context. Competitively playing street fighter online is one context, and the way you are suggesting play should happen is probably correct given the established norms of that community. Playing Smash Bros with my kids though? A complaint that I'm simply "winning too much" is absolutely valid. If my kids never beat me, they won't want to play anymore. They can go ahead and change rules to make it easier to win.
What's more, changing a rule can make a game fundamentally different experience that appeals to a new audience. Simple rules (no sniper in counter strike for example) lead to a different game that a subset of the addressable audience finds more enjoyable.
I'll finish with taking a quibble with the statement that "winning is not meant to be equally divided among players." That is true to a degree, but it also should not be overly concentrated among just a few. It is not fun to be consistently dominated and a game where a feeling of success or enjoyment is only accessible to a select few is unlikely to attract much of an audience.