Ever since I joined Mouthshut over a year ago, I, at first wrote rvu’s. But frankly speaking I didn’t comment or rate other’s rvu’s for a few months. After my first rvu was rated by other MSians and I started to hover around MS to read other’s rvu’s then the rating thing happened to me. And since I have been around here for quite sum time now I guess I can write my thoughts on Rating a Rvu
So why do I rate a rvu?
Well people purchase products and have experiences (good/bad) with them. Whether that experience is good or bad consumers (us) need a platform to express their feelings for it. The platform is Mouthshut. An MSian takes pains and even though he/she is time-bound takes care to write his/her experience in words. That makes a rvu. Now Rating a rvu can be thought of as an appreciation for the effort the writer has put it. In order to make the writer feel that his/her effort has not gone waste a rvu should be rated.
Mere reading is not enough?
No. Its not. Most of the users here have email alerts for knowing the hits the rvu has got. i.e. who has read the rvu. Also on the rvu page it is clearly denoted how many times the rvu has been read and who all have rated it. If u r reading a rvu and not rating it the writer feels that even though I try to give the best people only read my rvu’s and not rate it. So the proportion of reading and rating should be maintained to a respectable ratio.
Rate it as soon as u read it
I have had that habit before of reading a rvu and then coming back later to rate it. But this proved to be difficult in remembering what all rvu’s I have read becoz 100’s of rvu’s are being written everyday at MS and if u r reading a rvu today and thinking of coming back 2morrow to rate then it would be a tough ask to find that rvu and rate. So in my opinion rate as soon as u read it.
Reverse Rating or Trust based Rating?
This has been talked about be4. Reverse Rating as I say it is the jealousy thing. O.K he/she rated my rvu low so I should also rate his good rvu low. Usually this should be avoided becoz every person has a criteria to rate a rvu and rates it accordingly. So if u feel the reverse rating thing MS has given a bright option of M2M. Ask that person what he/she found low in the rvu and if he/she is justified in the rating then u should appreciate it.
MS has the trust/distrust list which I still wonder what that means? He/she is in my trust-list so I should rate every rvu as VU. This should be avoided. Rate according to the content and not by the list thing.
MS format for Rating a Review:
MS has the option of rating a rvu Very Useful (VU), Useful (U), Somewhat Useful (SU), Not Useful (NU). In my opinion these can be defined as:
Very Useful: Content is complete. All information is given in the rvu complete starting from positives, negatives, opinions etc. The information may be short and but still some writers have a flair of giving complete information in small rvu’s. And most of all the rvu is not plagiarized.
Useful: Information is nearly complete although some aspects which MSians may consider important may be missing. The rvu may be as long as 7000 characters but still gets a U becoz MSians feel the information is not complete and the writer has been stretching a topic too far trying to give all info.
Somewhat Useful: A scaled down version of Useful rating. Mostly given to rvu’s when they are completed in one or two paragraphs. No technical information, no proper sharing of information or opinions, written just for the sake of writing.
Not Useful: The rating that I generally avoid giving to a rvu. The rating should be given to rvu’s which are plagiarized from other sources or from other member rvu’s and writing a rvu in one paragraph and copying it again and again to complete the minimum requirement of writing a rvu at MS. A rvu in the wrong category by a newbie is generally rated NU. But in my opinion that shouldn’t be rated and a comment should be left to alert the user to ask MS to move the rvu the correct category.
I guess I have given my thoughts on rating a rvu. Do RRC my rvu becoz most of rvu’s go unnoticed..