Become an Amazon.co.uk top 50 reviewer – just rate everything 5 stars

Is it a good idea to allow users to share their opinions and comments about products they’ve recently bought on online retail giant Amazon.co.uk? Oh, you’d better believe it.

Is it a good idea to allow other users to rate these reviews based on how helpful they were in assisting them to choose whether or not to buy a product? Absolutely not.

The problem with such a system is that fan-boys and girls strip the system of any integrity it might have had by casting “unhelpful” votes to anything that says a bad word about their current favourite band/film/whatever.

That’s why when you look at the reviews for Panic! at the Disco’s (shit) debut album, “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” the reviews that state things like “1/5 if you want to find out what proper *mo is, go and listen to something like Rites of Spring, Elliott, Sunny Day Real Estate etc.” get only 4 helpful votes out of 26.

Meanwhile, “5/5 i heard there released songs and really liked them so bought there album” gets 7 out of 7 for helpfulness. It’s amazing how helpful hearing somebody describe what they did after school is. Yet hearing some recommendations for other bands that might appeal to somebody based on their attraction to watered-down versions of original ideas is completely unhelpful because it insinuates that the pretty boys play dire music.

The main people looking at the item are existing fans. The main people casting votes on reviews are existing fans. The ratings system is a testament to bias. Check out the number 1 reviewer in Amazon’s top reviewers list. He’s written well over 2000 reviews, and skimming through his listings, practically everything is rated 5 stars. I know for a fact there aren’t that many creative masterpieces floating around. Especially not from fucking Tom Jones.