Consider this: say you were buying a product, you vote with your cash. If you like it, you buy it, you dont like it, you dont buy. No sales is the most telling form of negative voting. Do you write to the manufacturers of all brands of soap you dont buy, telling them what is wrong with them? Nah-ah. Same thing with rating reviews.

Stick with me here one more minute, I’m getting to the point. Consider what would happen if there were no Not Useful and Somewhat Useful ratings. Say you read a review trashing a product. You would now have two choices - if you agree, you can give it a good, great, or Five Gold Stars. Or if you didnt like it, you can write another review, with YOUR views. No need to go bashing the first reviewer, and starting a chain of vendettas, witchhunts and family massacres. Obviously, some readers are not fairminded raters, and some reviewers are oversensitive.

I read some of the angry ones in this topic (you know who you are) and some of the stuff was a revelation to me. Is this a problem with the rating system? The MS rating system could have been positively skewed, by having only positive endorsements of reviews-good, great, out of this world. I know, I know, then rating wouldn’t have the excitement of a bloodsport for some :-)
I wondered when I first got here, why we need to have a SU and NU rating at all. I never use them, and never will. I rate only that I really like - Very Usefuls. That’s my tipping point, for reaching for the mouse to rate.

You have noticed that MS choices for rating reviews focuses on the product, not the reviewer - Useful, Somewhat Useful, etc not I Could Kiss You Right Now or You Are A Retard. You are reviewing a review, but the focus should still be on the product.

By turning reviewing into a popularity contest, what with Review of the Day, and Star Writer, MS hopes to encourage people to write more and write well. But don’t take those Not Usefuls as a reflection on you, personally. Agatha Christie will always sell more books than literary masterpieces. Doesn’t mean she’s better than them- it means that while everyone can read detective stories, not everyone can digest Shakespeare.

Which brings me to the interesting teaser ...why do so many people come read, then not rate your review, and not leave any comments? Some of my reasons...

a) its not something I’m really interested in. Not everyone watches Hollywood movies. Not everyone reads books. Not everyone wants motorcycle performance comparisons. Why read it then? Because it was review of the day, or star writer, or the title caught my eye, or I couldnt guess what it was about.

b) the review doesn’t bite: either I disagree with your recommendation, or your point of view, or find no useful information, or dont like your writing style (or perhaps your mugshot). Or perhaps someone (er..dont look at me) thinks he could have written a better review than you. (Save your breath, it IS possible).

c) No comments because : 1. I have no opinions on this 2. Someone else already made the same comment 3. I didnt like what I read enough to respond 4. Your opinion is so far off from mine, I see no point in starting a comment chain that will never converge to agreement 5. You covered every point so thoroughly in the review that it left no room for anyone else to say anything else

That last reason brings me back to another thought - if you dont ask questions of readers, dont leave something open, provide a new angle, provoke thought, share personal experience that encourages the reader to do the same, or state obviously controversial views, you may not get many comments. Which, depending on the tone and abuse-level of the comments, may or may not be a bad thing.

So, what do you think ? Should MS change its rating system? Or should they Leave It Alone?