Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Nothing makes me come out of my reviewing-books-I've-actually-read-procrastination-pit quicker than when I see a pattern like this one:
Between May 3 2003 and May 13 2003 this book receives 10 of its 13 reviews, all of which are five stars...hmm...
This really sucks. I try not to write negative reviews like this but I just can't stand the thought of all us innocent ("...") people out there using the review system to help us make decisions when the system is, in cases like this one, blatantly and disrespectfully abused for shameless self-gain.
Boo-hiss, you're rubbish!
Tips for spotting potentially fake-reviews:
- Tight date-clusters (someone sits at home and knocks off a set of reviews, perhaps for a couple of weeks after book release/the idea first comes)
- A whole bunch of short reviews, often lacking in range or style-variation (all 5-star, naturally) with no bias or 'downsides' to the book (the fake reviewer wants you to buy the book: reviews are all written by one person- often incapable of writing in different reviewer-styles, short because they can't be bothered going to great imaginative lengths (they primarily want to improve the average star-rating; the prime decision factor for joe-buyer))
- a stack of reviewers who have only ever reviewed THIS book (i.e. names 'reviers' give in Amazon are purely for the purpose of writing this single review: sure some probably only DO review one book or forget their old reviewer name or whatever, but not 20 out of the 22 reviewers, surely? One book was 5-star reviewed by 20 people in a space of a month, most of them with "real name" signatures - which is time consuming because you have to verify your name with a credit card- but none of them, despite having gone through the process of name verification bothered to review any other items despite two years passing since their first book review...odd methinks.)
Of course there was one book which had only received 4-star ratings (less-suspicious), but it met all the criteria: large number of short, unimaginative reviews, with flaky-names, all in a one-month date cluster, all by reviewers who never reviewed any other book... hmm...
As before - I'm giving a three star-rating so I myself don't adversely affect the rating of what may well be a good book.
OK, so clearly I need to get out more, but was it helpful that I pointed this out to you?
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Say It Right the First Time
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