3 ms·

nowadays, the sweet spot of maximum information density seems to be the two-star reviews. They are written by genuinely concerned, but not furious, people abou

nowadays, the sweet spot of maximum information density seems to be the two-star reviews. They are written by genuinely concerned, but not furious, people about the legitimate shortcomings of the product. If a product has mostly five-star reviews, and the two-star reviews describe a reasonable tradeoff, then it is probably a good product.

cs702 7y ago
...at least until review factories start producing two-star reviews describing tradeoffs that would seem reasonable to most people.
- jperras 7y ago
  Considering that most ranking algorithms don't a priori give more weight to lower ratings, this is probably fine.
- CamelCaseName 7y ago
  When it comes to online marketplaces, this is an often repeated idea, but absolutely nonsensical for two reasons: 1. The number of people who read reviews are a small, small, fraction of total buyers. Most people look at review count and the star rating (not the number, the image). But more importantly, 2. Ranking in search results is the #1 factor in driving sales. Everything else is a distant #3. Search engines will reduce rankings of products with negative reviews. (This my anecdotal experience after 2+ years of being an Amazon 3P seller)
  - cs702 7y ago
    It's not so simple, because the machines that rank products and serve search results are evaluating the reviews too. As those machines look for signals of "authenticity," review factories learn to manufacture reviews that fake those signals. If adding a small mix of two-star reviews helps with search rankings, the review factories will start doing it in a heartbeat.
- thebigshane 7y ago
  describing tradeoffs that would seem reasonable to most people Sounds like "Mission Accomplished" to me! https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ (Transcript...) Cueball: Spammers are breaking traditional Captchas with AI, so I've built a new system. It asks users to rate a slate of comments as "Constructive" or "Not constructive." Cueball: Then it has them reply with comments of their own, which are later rated by other users. Megan: But what will you do when spammers train their bots to make automated constructive and helpful comments? Cueball: Mission. Fucking. Accomplished. (from https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/810:_Constructive https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/810:_Constructive)
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I increasingly see that as one of the most misguided xkcd strips ever. Unfortunately, the endgame for bot spam indistinguishable from humans isn't some benign silicon intelligence, but an epistemic war for attention, spending, manipulation, and/or fraud, benefitting deep pockets and highly motivated parties. It ends poorly.
aj7 7y ago
I think you are right.
ineedasername 7y ago
Yes! Similarly, I find 4-star positive reviews to be much better quality that 5 stars.
wwweston 7y ago
Didn't Netflix and a few others famously decide that star ratings + user reviews were strictly inferior to a thumbs-up/down system?
- enriquto 7y ago
  they are certainly inferior from the point of view of Netflix and the few others, because they are not obviously fakeable like the thumbs counts. For users, it is probably the opposite.
  - animal531 7y ago
    Definitely. Go look at new music video releases on youtube, so many of them are buying views to boost their numbers. The real trick there is to see how many up/downvotes there are in relation to the views, which seem to be the only way these days to gauge their true success from a consumer point of view.

cs702 7y ago

...at least until review factories start producing two-star reviews describing tradeoffs that would seem reasonable to most people.

jperras 7y ago
Considering that most ranking algorithms don't a priori give more weight to lower ratings, this is probably fine.
CamelCaseName 7y ago
When it comes to online marketplaces, this is an often repeated idea, but absolutely nonsensical for two reasons: 1. The number of people who read reviews are a small, small, fraction of total buyers. Most people look at review count and the star rating (not the number, the image). But more importantly, 2. Ranking in search results is the #1 factor in driving sales. Everything else is a distant #3. Search engines will reduce rankings of products with negative reviews. (This my anecdotal experience after 2+ years of being an Amazon 3P seller)
- cs702 7y ago
  It's not so simple, because the machines that rank products and serve search results are evaluating the reviews too. As those machines look for signals of "authenticity," review factories learn to manufacture reviews that fake those signals. If adding a small mix of two-star reviews helps with search rankings, the review factories will start doing it in a heartbeat.
thebigshane 7y ago
describing tradeoffs that would seem reasonable to most people Sounds like "Mission Accomplished" to me! https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/ (Transcript...) Cueball: Spammers are breaking traditional Captchas with AI, so I've built a new system. It asks users to rate a slate of comments as "Constructive" or "Not constructive." Cueball: Then it has them reply with comments of their own, which are later rated by other users. Megan: But what will you do when spammers train their bots to make automated constructive and helpful comments? Cueball: Mission. Fucking. Accomplished. (from https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/810:_Constructive https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/810:_Constructive)
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  I increasingly see that as one of the most misguided xkcd strips ever. Unfortunately, the endgame for bot spam indistinguishable from humans isn't some benign silicon intelligence, but an epistemic war for attention, spending, manipulation, and/or fraud, benefitting deep pockets and highly motivated parties. It ends poorly.

aj7 7y ago

I think you are right.

ineedasername 7y ago

Yes! Similarly, I find 4-star positive reviews to be much better quality that 5 stars.

wwweston 7y ago

Didn't Netflix and a few others famously decide that star ratings + user reviews were strictly inferior to a thumbs-up/down system?

enriquto 7y ago
they are certainly inferior from the point of view of Netflix and the few others, because they are not obviously fakeable like the thumbs counts. For users, it is probably the opposite.
- animal531 7y ago
  Definitely. Go look at new music video releases on youtube, so many of them are buying views to boost their numbers. The real trick there is to see how many up/downvotes there are in relation to the views, which seem to be the only way these days to gauge their true success from a consumer point of view.