6 ms·

It's difficult for books where there's a strong culture of lending, both directly to individuals and from public libraries.

solardev 3y ago
This won't stop people from lending things. It just means borrowers can't leave reviews. I'd rather have a much smaller set of verified reviews than a bunch of fake ones. Decreasing the quantity in this case often means improving the quality and signal to noise ratio.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  In this case, someone who borrowed the book is more likely to be trustworthy (IMO) than someone who verifiably purchased it from the site hosting the reviews (particularly if reviews were limited to the latter). It would be thought of as an advertising expense to buy books from the platform in order to qualify to write some of the first reviews.
  - solardev 3y ago
    As a hypothetical, sure, I can see how that makes sense. However, verified purchaser reviews have been a helpful reality for the better part of a decade or so, across different media and vendors: games, physical goods, Amazon books, electronics, etc. Even though it's an imperfect barrier to review quality, at least it is a barrier versus none, and time and time again retailers who've experimented with it have found it a useful signal. Yes, you'll lose out on the borrowers who fell in love with a title, but they can always spend the $20 to buy that book to review it if they really want to (I've done that for things I loved, just to leave a review). But even if they don't, it's still usually a net win: you lose not just the honest reviewers but the 100x spam that outnumber them. When shopping for low-cost products these days, it's not the individual review that matters anymore, just the aggregate ratings. So it doesn't really matter if a few borrowers don't get to leave their rating, it's still more useful for buyers to cut out the spam. ---------- Maybe a simple compromise is to just allow filtering (and adjust the rating) by "verified purchasers only", so you can see both the unfiltered and filtered scores. I'd just leave out the unverified ones altogether, myself, but others could see the raw scores and reviews if they wanted to.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  There are lots of people who will be receiving books on Christmas. With your scheme, they won’t be able to review them. Or people who buy from other bookstores. Or other countries. There is a difference between reviews on Amazon, where limiting to purchaser makes sense, and Goodreads that is open to everyone.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Yes, this will absolutely decrease the number of eligible reviewers. That's a given. But the argument is that it would also help combat spam and fake reviews, so while the number of reviews goes down, the signal to noise ratio goes up. People who read the book without buying it wouldn't be able to review it, yes, and that is an unfortunate side effect. However, it still leads to more useful reviews than if those borrowers are also lumped together with spammers and bots, which make the reviews useless for everyone. It's not a perfect solution, just an improvement over the existing mess (on Amazon). And yes, agreed that Goodreads needs a different system. I was responding to a post about Amazon, and even there mentioned that goodreads would need something different, maybe reputation based or whatever.
    - sacado2 3y ago
      If you do that, malicious writers will have bots buy their books, get the precious "verified review" badge (and bumping the book's ranking at the same time), and give the book raving reviews. At that point, it just becomes an expense, probably more efficient than buying an ad. In the meantime, legitimate readers whos didn't buy the book by themselves won't be able to comment on it. Not sure it would really improve the signal to noise ratio.
- sacado2 3y ago
  But then that means goodreads wouldn't be a platform for readers anymore. It would be a platform for Amazon customers only. We already have amazon.com for that. What would be goodread's added value?

solardev 3y ago

This won't stop people from lending things. It just means borrowers can't leave reviews. I'd rather have a much smaller set of verified reviews than a bunch of fake ones. Decreasing the quantity in this case often means improving the quality and signal to noise ratio.

sokoloff 3y ago
In this case, someone who borrowed the book is more likely to be trustworthy (IMO) than someone who verifiably purchased it from the site hosting the reviews (particularly if reviews were limited to the latter). It would be thought of as an advertising expense to buy books from the platform in order to qualify to write some of the first reviews.
- solardev 3y ago
  As a hypothetical, sure, I can see how that makes sense. However, verified purchaser reviews have been a helpful reality for the better part of a decade or so, across different media and vendors: games, physical goods, Amazon books, electronics, etc. Even though it's an imperfect barrier to review quality, at least it is a barrier versus none, and time and time again retailers who've experimented with it have found it a useful signal. Yes, you'll lose out on the borrowers who fell in love with a title, but they can always spend the $20 to buy that book to review it if they really want to (I've done that for things I loved, just to leave a review). But even if they don't, it's still usually a net win: you lose not just the honest reviewers but the 100x spam that outnumber them. When shopping for low-cost products these days, it's not the individual review that matters anymore, just the aggregate ratings. So it doesn't really matter if a few borrowers don't get to leave their rating, it's still more useful for buyers to cut out the spam. ---------- Maybe a simple compromise is to just allow filtering (and adjust the rating) by "verified purchasers only", so you can see both the unfiltered and filtered scores. I'd just leave out the unverified ones altogether, myself, but others could see the raw scores and reviews if they wanted to.
ianburrell 3y ago
There are lots of people who will be receiving books on Christmas. With your scheme, they won’t be able to review them. Or people who buy from other bookstores. Or other countries. There is a difference between reviews on Amazon, where limiting to purchaser makes sense, and Goodreads that is open to everyone.
- solardev 3y ago
  Yes, this will absolutely decrease the number of eligible reviewers. That's a given. But the argument is that it would also help combat spam and fake reviews, so while the number of reviews goes down, the signal to noise ratio goes up. People who read the book without buying it wouldn't be able to review it, yes, and that is an unfortunate side effect. However, it still leads to more useful reviews than if those borrowers are also lumped together with spammers and bots, which make the reviews useless for everyone. It's not a perfect solution, just an improvement over the existing mess (on Amazon). And yes, agreed that Goodreads needs a different system. I was responding to a post about Amazon, and even there mentioned that goodreads would need something different, maybe reputation based or whatever.
  - sacado2 3y ago
    If you do that, malicious writers will have bots buy their books, get the precious "verified review" badge (and bumping the book's ranking at the same time), and give the book raving reviews. At that point, it just becomes an expense, probably more efficient than buying an ad. In the meantime, legitimate readers whos didn't buy the book by themselves won't be able to comment on it. Not sure it would really improve the signal to noise ratio.
sacado2 3y ago
But then that means goodreads wouldn't be a platform for readers anymore. It would be a platform for Amazon customers only. We already have amazon.com for that. What would be goodread's added value?