I really like the change of Most Helpfuls to Advisors/Top Reviewers/Leads. When Most Help was first introduced, I felt extremely overwhelmed, and at the same time cheated by 'rating rings'. So I think this is a great compromise.

In the Auto category, though, I find myself in a small dilemma. I really enjoy going back to older models that have a small number of reviews, and reading them all and deciding which is most Helpful. However, with newer vehicles (2001/2002) I'm a bit more hesitant. I don't know if a model with 6 reviews is going to get many more, since it's still new. I have a hard time keeping up with things like this, and would hate to give one review a MH and then have another review come out that better deserves it.

Right now I'm just not giving out the MH to new models. Has anyone else really thought about this? Perhaps a sitewide feature that alerts you when you have already given a review MH in a category would be helpful? For example, if I have already rated a rewview of a specific model as MH, and I read a new review of that model, something will notify me that I rated xyz review MH.

I dunno, what do you think?

-- Bennett Campbell (apparatus@juno.com), May 14, 2002

Answers

I've given exactly one MH in my "career," and it wasn't in A & M (it was in travel, FWIW).

Bennett, you've got the right idea: doing what I call a "vertical read"; reading and rating every existing review of a subject, is in reality the only true way to give a realistic MH rating.

As to your question about "notification," I doubt it. I'll ask on the CL board and see if anyone knows...

-- Rex Knepp (scmrak@hotmail.com), May 15, 2002.

I don't have a problem giving 'most helpfuls'. Epinions.com gives us that feature to use, why not use it when necessary? It also lets the writer know that they have done a superior job over the rest of the very helpfuls and other reviews. I do not give 'most helpfuls' often, but If I read a review that deserves this rating then so be it.

Liz :)

-- Liz Marsh (ShopLmart@aol.com), June 07, 2002.