GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post

jayeff · 07-13-2006, 02:34 AM

I went to a couple of review sites today - TBP and Adult Reviews - to catch up on what they currently considered the best sites. Maybe I didn't look at them closely enough in the past, but I used to believe they were objective. Not any more: I realize that we will not all agree on which sites are best, but it's stretching credibility too far placing the same sponsors' sites at the top of niche after niche when few if any of them belong there.

Which baffles me up to a point, because you can get the edge with the search engines regardless of which sites you rank at the top and if you can dig out the few gems, you might not be promoting exactly the same sites as everyone else. Above all, shouldn't review sites more than any other type be trying to build surfer confidence? Apparently not. Short-term profits rule again...

But that said, for several years I wrote car tests and reports and also restaurant reviews and from that perspective I'm going to disagree with a lot of what Steve Lightspeed has written.

Putting aside the "personality" reviewers who build their readership by being outrageously critical, most good reviewers writing for broad audiences will try to find balance. They won't do that by ignoring the bad and playing up the good, but by trying to steer different groups of their readers towards or away from the subject of their review. Sometimes you can be broadly enthusiastic and occasionally you feel you have to be entirely negative, but usually you find a middle path because that best serves more of your readers.

I have been flown around the world to drive new cars and loaned cars for a week at a time to test them, without any pressure to write anything except an honest opinion. So I certainly wouldn't consider temporary access to a member area as reason to only write positive things. Comparison is inevitable and even necessary: there isn't a whole lot of value for readers you point away from something, if you don't suggest an alternative.

Quoting prices is also important because without putting your comments and overall assessment into the context of price the review would be largely meaningless. And since you are reviewing for buyers, not representing the sellers, everything must be seen from their point of view. If you believe that a site justifies a higher price because of the type of content it has, the frequency of its updates or whatever, you can say so. But to be credible, you also have to say if you believe it is too expensive.

Certainly reviews are subjective: that's the whole point. No-one cares more than peripherally that a movie is so many minutes long and cost so many million dollars to make. People read movie reviews partly for entertainment and partly to help them decide which movie to go watch.

In the long run, certainly for operators of better sites, it is to their advantage for reviewers to be credible: which unfortunately means having to live with bad reviews sometimes. It also means not tinkering with the review sites via special prices, favorable listings, etc. That is such a self-destructive path to take, I couldn't believe how obviously it is being done.

07-13-2006, 02:34 AM
jayeff Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 2,944	I went to a couple of review sites today - TBP and Adult Reviews - to catch up on what they currently considered the best sites. Maybe I didn't look at them closely enough in the past, but I used to believe they were objective. Not any more: I realize that we will not all agree on which sites are best, but it's stretching credibility too far placing the same sponsors' sites at the top of niche after niche when few if any of them belong there. Which baffles me up to a point, because you can get the edge with the search engines regardless of which sites you rank at the top and if you can dig out the few gems, you might not be promoting exactly the same sites as everyone else. Above all, shouldn't review sites more than any other type be trying to build surfer confidence? Apparently not. Short-term profits rule again... But that said, for several years I wrote car tests and reports and also restaurant reviews and from that perspective I'm going to disagree with a lot of what Steve Lightspeed has written. Putting aside the "personality" reviewers who build their readership by being outrageously critical, most good reviewers writing for broad audiences will try to find balance. They won't do that by ignoring the bad and playing up the good, but by trying to steer different groups of their readers towards or away from the subject of their review. Sometimes you can be broadly enthusiastic and occasionally you feel you have to be entirely negative, but usually you find a middle path because that best serves more of your readers. I have been flown around the world to drive new cars and loaned cars for a week at a time to test them, without any pressure to write anything except an honest opinion. So I certainly wouldn't consider temporary access to a member area as reason to only write positive things. Comparison is inevitable and even necessary: there isn't a whole lot of value for readers you point away from something, if you don't suggest an alternative. Quoting prices is also important because without putting your comments and overall assessment into the context of price the review would be largely meaningless. And since you are reviewing for buyers, not representing the sellers, everything must be seen from their point of view. If you believe that a site justifies a higher price because of the type of content it has, the frequency of its updates or whatever, you can say so. But to be credible, you also have to say if you believe it is too expensive. Certainly reviews are subjective: that's the whole point. No-one cares more than peripherally that a movie is so many minutes long and cost so many million dollars to make. People read movie reviews partly for entertainment and partly to help them decide which movie to go watch. In the long run, certainly for operators of better sites, it is to their advantage for reviewers to be credible: which unfortunately means having to live with bad reviews sometimes. It also means not tinkering with the review sites via special prices, favorable listings, etc. That is such a self-destructive path to take, I couldn't believe how obviously it is being done.