Crappy responses to reviews

[A.Mutt]

Here's my take on reviews/thumbies (copied from another thread):

Do you guys really look at the rating number and include that in your thumbies?

If so, I must be doing something wrong. My understanding is that the thumbies are for "Helpful" and "Not Helpful", not "I agree/disagree with your rating". If the review tells me what I want to know about the course, park, amenities, and/or conditions, then I rate that a "Helpful". If the review doesn't give me information that helps me decide whether the drive to play a course is worth it, then I rate that "Not Helpful". I don't even look at the ratings.

Am I missing something?

exactly. Its not supposed to be a contest to see who's opinion is more valid, but if what the person wrote is helpful to you making the decision to play there or not.

 

[ERicJ]

I'll bet that 90% of the trusted reviewers clicks on 5 star courses are unhelpful. I also think these unhelpful clicks are generated more by the rating, than the review.

I vote on the review content. I try not to consider the rating when voting helpful/not helpful. I've cast hundreds of votes and can think of only once or twice when the rating value may have factored into my decision.

 

[solomon.trenton]

exactly. Its not supposed to be a contest to see who's opinion is more valid, but if what the person wrote is helpful to you making the decision to play there or not.

very true.

I vote on the review content. I try not to consider the rating when voting helpful/not helpful. I've cast hundreds of votes and can think of only once or twice when the rating value may have factored into my decision.

i havent cast that many votes but if someone has a few sentences and just says this is awesome and i love the course its pretty obvious what the helpful or not vote will be.

 

[Olorin]

A few thoughts -

I'll vote a review not helpful if it's really short and doesn't add anything beyond the "this course is awesome" or "this course stinks" sentiment. The less reviews like this the rest of us have to wade through the better. I've also voted not helpful on just a couple reviews of courses I know well that I think are way off base. And not that the ratings were too low, but rather too high. I'll just not vote if the review is anything more than short and pointless (in my view), and I'm quick to vote helpful if I think the review is good, whether it's a course I've played, or a course I'm hoping to play. I don't generally vote at all on the rare occassion I read a review that doesn't fall into one of these two categories.

While I personally am a fan of longer reviews, I try to keep mine from being too long simply because I want more people to read them. I fear that the longer the review the less people are going to work through the whole thing. Being succinct is a real skill in writing, though, and reviews that are both short and helpful are out there, but rare, IMHO. The balance of thorough, adding some information of value that isn't already out there, and still being succinct, that's a tough thing to achieve.

I'm alway a bit surprised and amused by how seriously some people take the thumbs down. This is all subjective and all opinion - even the best reviews are going to provoke disagreement from somewhere. Thumbs down are unavoidable and hey, at least people are reading.

People are quick to attribute thumbs down to "haters" or HBB, but hey, some reviews aren't so good too.

Dude,

You are truly a kindred spirit! I could've written every single word. My approach is EXACTLY the same, word for word. Same on thumbers too.

BTW, I appreciate your unique style of short Pros and cons with long "Other thoughts".

 

[billnchristy]

I can see my last review of Oregon Park being crapped on already. People that play at a course every week simply do not remember how difficult it is for newcomers to find their tees. We were at that course for 2hrs and it is supposed to be a short course. Having markers sunk into the ground is not the best way to do it...even 2' of 4x4 post will be visable from a distance.

It is really hard to enjoy a place when you are frustrated by 1) the tees being hard to find 2) the tee color not following any logic.