Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Are Amazon Vine Reviews of Technical Books a Joke?

Posted by timothy on from the you-should-try-the-craiglist-personals dept.

First time accepted submitter jasax writes "As an Amazon frequent buyer, I rely quite a lot on reviews of the books I want. However, some caution is in order: the (bad) quality of Amazon's reviews and reviewers under the Amazon Vine program has already been news in Slashdot. Today I was shocked by a practical result of that program. This second edition (published in 2012) of a very specialized system identification book has 12 reviews: the oldest (dated 2007) certainly targets the first edition. The remaining 11 reviews are all from 'Vine Reviewers' (VRs). All seem to be ignorant of what 'System Identification in the Frequency Domain' really is. None of the reviews is tagged with a 'Verified Amazon Purchase'; most (if not all) are 'small talk reviews' peppered with technical phrases cloning the publisher's book description, and some of the reviews are ridiculous, to say the least. If this sample of reviewing by VRs really is the norm, then the bottom line is that the Vine program is totally irrelevant and unreliable — at least for technical books."

13 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. They're just useless by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Funny

    how the heck are you going to fit a review of a technical manual in a 6 second video? That's ridiculous.

    Oh, _Amazon_ Vine.... Well, carry on then...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:They're just useless by red+crab · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd say ditto for food reviews, movie reviews etc generally published on magazines and newspapers. They are written by youngsters with just a good command over language who don't actually understand the subject. Or worse the reviewers get sometimes paid to write favorable reviews. In Amazon Vine's case, reviews are sponsored by the seller of the product, you can hardly expect them to be honest in any way.

  2. Binding, hardcover, etc. by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I guess it is indeed a warning sign when a reviewer spends more time talking about the physical attributes of a book than the contents of the book itself.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Binding, hardcover, etc. by MatheoDJ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Perhaps there are Vine reviewers farming out their writing and receiving free products in exchange. I've been experimenting with Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and a fair number of the assignments seem to be fake reviews of some sort, with improved SEO as the endgame. I've been offered HIT's (Amazon's shorthand for the small tasks often worth as little as $0.01) that require a person to write small articles or reviews, 150-500 words, using incredibly specific technical jargon or product lingo. Sometimes it's Ph.D. level stuff. I can't imagine anyone having the technical prowess and educational background necessary to write intelligently about such subjects being interested in making $0.75 to do so, but maybe that's enough money to inspire someone in Bangladesh to write meaningless positive reviews peppered with jargon, and small enough change to inspire someone in America to outsource a large number of reviews in order to increase their Vine ratings.

    2. Re:Binding, hardcover, etc. by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Funny

      I liked how your post was concisely packed into a single sentence. It took up just the right amount of room on my screen, and I could scroll it up or down using my mouse wheel.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    3. Re:Binding, hardcover, etc. by chipschap · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have been a Vine reviewer for several years, and I take great care with my reviews. I do sometimes review a technical book, but I make sure it is in an area in which I have sufficient expertise. While I'll review a book about audio engineering, I won't review one about, for instance, organic chemistry.

      My reviews are not fake. I make every effort to give a fair evaluation. I write positive reviews and negative reviews (even though it's well known that a reviewer's ranking on Amazon goes down with negative reviews, as they are generally not well received by readers).

      I don't know if I'm typical of Vine reviewers; the ones I've interacted with on the Vine forums seem about the same as me. Of course, there are bound to be bad apples in the group. In addition, Amazon has been making review requirements for Vine members ever more strict, and this undoubtedly has lead to decreased quality. But I do sincerely hope things are not quite as bad as portrayed here, or the program should indeed be discontinued.

  3. The bigger issue, reviews of niche products... by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the bigger issue here is the usefulness of niche products, no matter if they are Amazon Vine or whatever. The size of target audience for this book is MAYBE in the 10s of thousands, and there are probably what, only 1 or 2 other books that would really even be considered "competitors" to this book. With those parameters, are any Amazon reviews going to be all that useful?
    You are almost certain to get a review from someone not in the target audience or who got over-ambitious and ended up not understanding the source material, a review from the author's brother in law just so it looks like people are buying etc. Any sort of useful review is going to probably come in the form of a long blog post/magazine article, and thus isn't likely to be present on Amazon....So what you are left with is someone commenting on how flexible the book's spine is.

    --
    Monstar L
  4. Amazon needs their head read. by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Their books reviews on Amazon proper could be a great resource for anyone deciding whether to get a book, but they're full of crap reviews like "FAST SHIPPING! RECOMMEND THIS SELLER! A+++++" or "COVER DAMAGED AND ARRIVE 2 LATE 4 CLASSES. ME MAD!" They have a system where you can vote down these reviews, but why not just tell lamers "This isn't eBay" Problems been pointed out to them by many but they have twiddled their thumbs while their database has filled up with crap.

    So they should fix what they already have before launching new programs like Vine. Giving favored reviewers free crap is hardly going to inspire independent reviews anyway.

    1. Re:Amazon needs their head read. by GryMor · · Score: 5, Informative

      If I'm looking at a book, the reviews had better be about the book rather than one of the 100+ sellers of the book. If you want to review that particular seller, there is a separate spot for that, and low enough service ratings will tank their visibility across all of their products. "Cover damaged, terrible service" on a review of Excession is useless spam. The same review on the seller itself is helpful.

      --
      Realities just a bunch of bits.
  5. Read the "bad" reviews by oldhack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Read the three- and two-star reviews. They give you both good and bad. Large part of five- and one-star reviews are crap.

    --
    Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
  6. A++ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Excellent article. Would read again.

  7. Vine rules require reviewing all products by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As I had no idea what the "vine reviewers" was about, I read the amazon definition. And it says that: "Once they are invited into the program, to maintain their status as a Vine Voice, they must review *all* of the selected products within 30 days of receipt...".

    So once in the program you get a nice flow of interesting free books related to your topics of interest. But apparently you *must* enter a review for each book that Amazon sends you, or the flow of books stops. The outcome is obvious - particularly for technical books that not every reader will understand. But even for normal books, people can sometimes just be busy - resulting in rushed/content-free reviews.

    So not the reviewers' fault really, just stupid rules from Amazon. Requiring reviewers to review *half* of the books sent would probably produce a better outcome..

  8. Guilty as charged by wezelboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've totally written crappy vine reviews. Quite a few in fact. I'm sorry.

    The bottom line is when I get my Vine newsletter, most of the time all of the stuff that I might consider buying/reading is already gone. I don't know if Vine has 'favorites' program where certain people get access to items before others, but most of the time Vine is a bust for me. I'm left with the items/books that are leftover- which often means technical books. I'll get these things if I have an interest in the topic, but I just don't have the time to delve into the finer points of signal processing. It will sit on my shelf and gather dust until I find something I want on Vine that is actually available, then I have to write a review to be able to get that thing.

    I've pretty much given up on Vine. It's a waste of time, and not worth the guilt of writing a crappy review. Even if you write a heartfelt review, people will mark it as unhelpful anyway. Call me jaded.