I am glad to announce after extensive study of the MS community’s ways of reading(do they?), rating(oh, yeah) and commenting(umm..maybe), I have been able to arrive at certain rules that may be used to evaluate a review and rate it. If you follow this advice, you will certainly become an authority at rating reviews. The following are the rules to be followed while rating:
1) Thou shalt rate the writer
Whenever you see a review, always make it a point to check if the writer is a star writer. You can click on the community center link and look up the star writer link to confirm if the writer is a star writer. If he/she is one, then click on the HR button, obviously the people who run MS wouldn’t make them star writers if they weren’t good. What makes you think that you can judge what they write? Give the HR to the star writers. If they aren’t star writers then you are ready to follow the second rule.
2) Thou shalt measure..and measure again..and again
Whenever u see a review thats not written by a star-writer, you shall use your measuring scale to see how long the review is, the longer the better(because that means some effort went towards writing it, moron). If a review is long enough for you to need two presses of the ’Pg-Dn’ key, then the review obviously should be HRed..you didn’t know that? well, now you do :) If the review needs only one press of the earlier-mentioned key, then you can still give it a HR, you are a kind human, aren’t you(pat yourself in the back)? If it doesnt satisfy the ’Pg-Dn’ criteria and you dont want to NR it..yet, then follow the third rule
3) Thou shalt confirm with trust list
Now that we have a review that is not written by a star writer and also isn’t long enough, we need to check if the author in question is in our trust list. First check if the author is in your trust list i.e do you trust him/her. If you do, then give that person a HR..c’mon don’t u have to justify your trust. If you don’t trust them, then check if they trust you. If they do, you need to give them a HR .. c’mon dont you have to repay their trust. Oh, they aren’t in your trust list :( hmm...well, are they in the trust list of someone you trust or in the trust list of someone who trusts you. If they are then it is your duty to give them the benefit of trust and HR the review. Whats the world without some trust! But maybe you feel you want to know more before rating..so next rule...
4) Thou shalt check if hunk or chick
Oh well, they weren’t in your trust list and you weren’t in theirs either? Now you have to make a decision, dont you? Okay click on the writer’s name and check out the pic on their profile page. If they are good looking, then you have to HR them..why? well would you rather see the pic of a skeleton with a scythe trying to rip your neck off..or even worse, look at an image which resembles victims of Nana Patekar in VADH with a X mark slashed across the face(that was a good description of the default MS pic provided by Neo). Atleast if they are good looking, you have the pleasure of seeing a pretty face while you read the review. Does this sound very preposterous? At any given time things like this are always being played out on MS, think about it. If this doesnt seem a right way to rate, then follow rule 5.
5) Thou shalt go with the flow or swim against the tide
Now you are at your wits end. You have read the review, and the unwritten law says you have to rate, so you look if anyone else has rated the review. If they have check who they are, follow all rules mentioned before, if they satisfy any of the earlier mentioned rules give the rating they have given.If you are in a courageous mood(it happens sometimes to everyone), you go against their ratings(why not, dont u have a mind of ur own?) and give a different rating. But what if no one else has rated it before, then you don’t rate it at all...yes, am not kidding. You just wait till someone rates it and then you can try the rules I mentioned earlier.
I have now shown you the path to a perfect rating and now leave it to the discretion of the reader to decide which of the above should be used for rating(I can’t make all your decisions, can I?). Of course you could follow a different path and choose to rate a review on merit without any bias and not follow any of these rules. One of the two paths leads to HELL, which one is anybody’s guess :)