Amazon Overhauling Customer Reviews

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon says it's making some big changes to its product review system, one of the most heavily used on the internet and a vital part of Amazon's business. A machine-learning platform will endeavor to select helpful reviews with an emphasis on more recent ones. The average score will change as well: new reviews will be weighted higher than old reviews. Reviews from verified purchasers will have more influence as well, and also reviews voted up by other customers. "For example, sometimes a company will make small tweaks to a product or address some customer complaints, though this product isn't officially updated or renamed. With the new system, [Amazon] said, these small modifications should become more noticeable when shoppers are buying products." Because the review system is so important to customers, Amazon will be rolling out changes slowly, and watching for anything that breaks or gets skewed in unexpected ways.

Comments

Re:Sounds like reasonable changes to me

[dgatwood]

Someone who actually is known to have purchased the item, yea, their review should be worth more than random Internet person #4827341

Not really. A review by someone who chose a different product is likely to be more valuable in choosing a product, assuming that person can articulate why he/she chose the other product, because that means the person knows not only this product, but also other products on the market. By contrast, someone who chose the product he/she is reviewing has a very high probability of being familiar with only that product and not any others on the market. Given a choice, I'd take reviews from non-owners over reviews by owners any day.

Also, if the product sucks, assuming the product isn't so bad that folks return it, people who own the product are more likely to feel the need to give it better reviews to justify the money they spent. And because they're less likely to know other products on the market than someone who chose s different product, they're also less likely to recognize the products' flaws. Between those two factors, owners of the product are more likely to give bad products higher ratings than they deserve.

A review from last month is probably worth more than one from two years ago. The product may have changed.

If the product has changed in a meaningful way (other than possibly fixing manufacturing defects), it should have a different ISBN/UPS and model number. The alternative causes serious customer confusion and can lead to legal problems all around. And in cases where there is a manufacturing flaw, Amazon lets companies make an official response to reviews. The manufacturers can use that mechanism to note that the flaw was fixed in all products made after [insert date here] if they choose to do so. If they don't, it's nobody's fault but their own.

Re:Sounds like reasonable changes to me

[Dutch Gun]

At the risk of being a bit off-topic...

Shame on all mods who downmodded dgatwood's post redundant or overrated (his post currently stands at 0 Redundant). I disagreed completely with his conclusions, but he presented them clearly, politely, and intelligently. Moderation is not supposed to be a "I disagree with your opinion, and therefore I'm going to silence you" button. You continue to do that, and you'll simply be turning /. into an echo-chamber (well, more than it already is) where no one dares disagree on any substantial issue.