3 ms·

It almost makes you wonder if we should have a review system that doesn't include stars at all.

fmajid 5y ago
It doesn't matter, any crowdsourced review system can and will be gamed, just as any communications service can and will be spammed. What is unsaid is that it's not just unscrupulous companies (including Amazon) that are involved. There are also ordinary consumers who deliberately post the fake 5-star reviews in exchange for compensation. I've seen people make excuses for them, but I can't see how any of them can be under the impression they are not doing wrong. Now if Amazon were forced to disclose statistics about return rates or complaints on products, that would in fact be valuable information. It could still be gamed due to other shoddy Amazon practices like allowing a merchant to start a listing for a cheap but genuinely good product, collect good reviews, then switch the product description to something completely unrelated.
- totalZero 5y ago
  The gaming will be different though. It's easy to adulterate a numerical average of a low-effort star rating, and harder to fake a review written in English with pictures and details.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > harder to fake a review written in English with pictures and details. It's also a lot harder to get a legitimate review like that. Instead of 100 reviews where 80 were fake, there will be 3 reviews where 2 are fake and the other was disputed by the seller (or paid off by the seller) and deleted.
    - totalZero 5y ago
      Amazon is under no obligation to delete negative reviews that are "disputed," and I for one have written reviews of horrible products that I would never change nor delete, even for money. There is a weird defeatist mentality in this thread of "why try anything because sellers are just going to game it," but that's the wrong way to think when you're designing a human system. It's like writing a Constitution, insofar as you have to predict and hedge against the gamesmanship beforehand. If the review mills are in China or other non-Anglophone places, then removing stars and forcing them to be substantive makes it much harder because they would literally have to actually review the product. A reader can't differentiate between five fake stars and five real stars, but would probably be able to differentiate between an empty positive review and a well-presented negative review.
- ukoki 5y ago
  I guess they'll never go for this but they could do something like select 1% of buyers at random and pay them (or refund product cost) to write a meaningful review with pictures with updates at fixed intervals so the product is evaluated throughout its intended lifespan. Perhaps with some pre-filtering to improve the likelihood that reviews will be useful and accurate (eg "spent more than $10k on amazon", "billing address is shipping address", "previous reviews were voted as useful" etc)
  - alok-g 5y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help
collaborative 5y ago
At least for app reviews; the rating should only be (opt-in) metrics with avg session time, crash %, etc. Fake reviews are beyond repair at this point
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
It almost makes you wonder if we shouldn't just go back to brick-and-mortar stores, where the "rating system" is implied by the "curation" of the store itself. Physical shelf space being limited, they're only going to carry the stuff that sells well (on the longer timeline of word-of-mouth through actual conversations), and that doesn't get returned very often.
- totalZero 5y ago
  That is not unique to brick and mortar. Amazon could stop commingling its inventory with third part inventory, and Amazon has the ability to curate the products it sells. But Amazon chooses not to do that. Similarly, when I buy a product from Walmart for delivery to my house, it's curated despite brick and mortar being zero percent of the equation.
  - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
    You say it's not unique, but this is exactly what used to make Amazon great, and they stopped. They couldn't help themselves from carrying everything under the sun from anyone willing to give them a couple of bucks, and they will never go back. Even NewEgg, which has traditionally been the counterpoint to Amazon, is now doing much the same thing. So, to be pedantic, it IS unique to brick and mortar, at this point. That's the point.

It doesn't matter, any crowdsourced review system can and will be gamed, just as any communications service can and will be spammed. What is unsaid is that it's not just unscrupulous companies (including Amazon) that are involved. There are also ordinary consumers who deliberately post the fake 5-star reviews in exchange for compensation. I've seen people make excuses for them, but I can't see how any of them can be under the impression they are not doing wrong. Now if Amazon were forced to disclose statistics about return rates or complaints on products, that would in fact be valuable information. It could still be gamed due to other shoddy Amazon practices like allowing a merchant to start a listing for a cheap but genuinely good product, collect good reviews, then switch the product description to something completely unrelated.

totalZero 5y ago
The gaming will be different though. It's easy to adulterate a numerical average of a low-effort star rating, and harder to fake a review written in English with pictures and details.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > harder to fake a review written in English with pictures and details. It's also a lot harder to get a legitimate review like that. Instead of 100 reviews where 80 were fake, there will be 3 reviews where 2 are fake and the other was disputed by the seller (or paid off by the seller) and deleted.
  - totalZero 5y ago
    Amazon is under no obligation to delete negative reviews that are "disputed," and I for one have written reviews of horrible products that I would never change nor delete, even for money. There is a weird defeatist mentality in this thread of "why try anything because sellers are just going to game it," but that's the wrong way to think when you're designing a human system. It's like writing a Constitution, insofar as you have to predict and hedge against the gamesmanship beforehand. If the review mills are in China or other non-Anglophone places, then removing stars and forcing them to be substantive makes it much harder because they would literally have to actually review the product. A reader can't differentiate between five fake stars and five real stars, but would probably be able to differentiate between an empty positive review and a well-presented negative review.
ukoki 5y ago
I guess they'll never go for this but they could do something like select 1% of buyers at random and pay them (or refund product cost) to write a meaningful review with pictures with updates at fixed intervals so the product is evaluated throughout its intended lifespan. Perhaps with some pre-filtering to improve the likelihood that reviews will be useful and accurate (eg "spent more than $10k on amazon", "billing address is shipping address", "previous reviews were voted as useful" etc)
- alok-g 5y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help

collaborative 5y ago

At least for app reviews; the rating should only be (opt-in) metrics with avg session time, crash %, etc. Fake reviews are beyond repair at this point

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago

It almost makes you wonder if we shouldn't just go back to brick-and-mortar stores, where the "rating system" is implied by the "curation" of the store itself. Physical shelf space being limited, they're only going to carry the stuff that sells well (on the longer timeline of word-of-mouth through actual conversations), and that doesn't get returned very often.

totalZero 5y ago
That is not unique to brick and mortar. Amazon could stop commingling its inventory with third part inventory, and Amazon has the ability to curate the products it sells. But Amazon chooses not to do that. Similarly, when I buy a product from Walmart for delivery to my house, it's curated despite brick and mortar being zero percent of the equation.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  You say it's not unique, but this is exactly what used to make Amazon great, and they stopped. They couldn't help themselves from carrying everything under the sun from anyone willing to give them a couple of bucks, and they will never go back. Even NewEgg, which has traditionally been the counterpoint to Amazon, is now doing much the same thing. So, to be pedantic, it IS unique to brick and mortar, at this point. That's the point.