I have seen many reviews which have been critical of Mouthshut, and some have raised very valid issues. Let that be, I don’t want to get into that now. But there are many things which are not proper out here and as a member of MS since 2003, I thought it valid to raise the issues. I hope the management takes it in right spirit and doesn’t delete this review. Ok one thing, I don’t have any interest in contests nor am I a frustrated loser. For me MS is just a hobby, where I made some great buddies, and something which is close to me. Mind you this is not life for me.
Ok the issue which I wanted to raise about was the current rating system, which I feel has become something of a joke. Let me give you an example, sometime back, there was a crappy review on Bangalore, which was like a guide as to where you can get call girls, pretty sleazy and disgusting. Now I think that the writer of the review was somewhat popular, because I found a couple of Very Useful ratings for the review, and I think they didn’t even bother to read the review. And when a couple of users slammed the author and rated it as Not Useful, the Very Useful ratings changed to Not Useful. That indicates to what extent the rating game has begun. I would like to know if the number of ratings determines whether a member is a Star Writer or not. If that’s the case, maybe we need to re evaluate the parameters.
Ok here is one suggestion I have, let every member provide a justification for his rating. Currently we have reviews, which have say 20 Very Useful Ratings, but hardly 1-2 comments. On what parameters was the review rated useful, did the reader really find the review useful to him, did he understand what the review was about? I mean if some one is just rating reviews left, right and center, without even understanding it, so that on his/her profile, it shows X number of reviews rated, doesn’t make sense to me. Very Useful for whom? The reader, who might have not even read that review at all, the writer who doesn’t even know on what basis the review has been rated as very useful. I mean this ratings game has just become a very meaningless exercise in my opinion.
What I am suggesting, is if a member rates a review, let him provide justification for it. Currently when you rate a review as Not Useful, you are forced to give your comment for it. Why cant it be same for all ratings? It should not be a major tasks. Yes the review might end up with fewer ratings , but if you ask me, 10 ratings with comments, helps the member much more than 30 ratings with no comments. Even if the member ends up getting 10 Not Useful ratings, he/she would know where it wrong. And having such a system in place, ensures that only genuinely interested readers would be accessing the reviewer. I mean tell me one thing, you are not interested in books, on what basis are you saying the review is Very Useful to you. You are surely not going to buy and read that book, right. At least we wont be getting comments like “I don’t read books, but your review was good”, Eh, when you are not going to make a decision based on my review, or when the review is not really going to influence your thought process, what difference will it make if my review is Useful, Very Useful or Not Useful.
Please keep in mind, I am not pointing fingers at people, but the truth is that the whole rating process has become a meaningless farce, its proving to be of really not any benefit to any one. What I put forward is just a suggestion, if other MSians have better ideas about the review process, they are welcome. I think this is the shortest review I have ever written out here.