Reviews reporting

[Morrus]

This thread is related to the post in today's news:

The number of sites writing reviews is getting (in my opinion at least) larger and larger, with new sites springing up all the time. I'd like your opinion on how much effort I should devote to reporting on these reviews - do you read them all? Just a couple? Is this 'reviews' section of the news useful, or is it just filling up space? I have created a thread on my messageboards about the subject - please let me know what you think.

I'll expand a little on this here - it seems like more and more of my time is being spent posting long lists of reviews on the news page. I know I don't read many of them, and the list of sites posting the things is just getting longer and longer...

I don't mind doing it if you all actually find this useful. So I'd like to get your opinion - should I continue posting all the reviews I'm aware of, should I limit it to a couple of major sites, should I stop doing it altogether?

 

[Claude Raines]

While in general I think it's useful to put up links to all the sites with reviews, I definitely don't visit all of them. Basically there are just a few sites where I go for my reviews simply because I don't have time to read all the reviews. However, if the review is for something I'm interested in possibly buying and it is reviewed on a site I don't normally visit for reviews, I will go to the new place just to see how it got rated.

Sorry this isn't quite a clear cut answer, but I guess I will visit most english sites that have reviews of products I'm interested in, but only for a few sites (like EN World) might I check out reviews for products that I'm not directly thinking about buying in the next month.

 

[EricNoah]

I personally think it's very important. It helps keep your site connected to the rest of the community.

What would be even better is if the 'new and improved' review system for D20 Reviews could include not only reader reviews but also links to external reviews. Not that those would be weighted or ranked like the reader reviews, but it would still be useful to pull up Green Ronin's entry and see a list of links to external reviews as well as the d20reviews.com user rating and user reviews.

 

[Ashy]

I agree with Eric 100% and would love to see the 'external reviews' option he mentioned. Not only does it keep the site connected to D20 at large, it also presents a very strong feel of "open mindedness" that many other sites that feature reviews lack. It is like you are saying - "hey, if you don't like our reviews -try these!"

IMHO, KEEP EM!

 

[johnnype]

I'm with Eric on this one

I have to agree with Eric. Although I don't read all the reviews by any stretch, I have stumbled across some great sites because of your links.

On the other hand it's become a little anoying to have 10 different sites to visit to get reviews on different products. It seems like you're between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Hideously Deformed]

Reviews

The entire reason why I *GO* to EN-World is for the d20reviews.

I base my product purchases (usually) on the rating of the review.

I also enjoy comparing my thoughts on a product with the reviewer's thoughts--sometimes pros/cons about a product that I never thought of is brought out in a review.

Please, the more reviews the better!

 

[Galfridus]

I don't follow many of the review links, but if there's a product I'm interested in I'll follow all of the links I see for it.

Maybe you could partially automate the process of submitting a review, so it's easier for you to piece them all together?

 

[houlette]

I don't read all the reviews, either, but I definitely read the ones for products I'm interested in, and they strongly influence what I buy. It's one of the big draws of this site for me.

I like Eric's suggestion of integrating the external reviews into EN World reviews page, too.

 

[kingpaul]

reviews

I'll chime in here as well. I also don't read all of the reviews...either here or the links posted. BUT, if there's a product that I'm interested in or already own, I'll go to every review of said product to see what others have thought. With that in mind, I don't think having the announcements on the main page are important, but would be interested in seeing something along the lines of what Eric mentioned...outside links with the product mentioned.

 

[sppeterson]

Agree with Eric

I don't read all the reviews either but I'll click on a fair number of them and it's pretty nice knowing that I just need to look at the news section here to get most of the information I want.

If it's getting to be a bear to update all the time could you require that the review sites send you their updates in some format that's easy to just cut and paste (complete with hyperlinks filled in)?