So new members can only post 5 reviews a day then...

I take it we all saw the announcement today...

Is this a good idea to reduce the churn?

Or could it be the start of a general belt-tightening exercise on dooyoo's part that will eventually see a cut in rewards for everyone?

Or is it really being done to help new members 'settle in'? (I never take anything at face value on principle, but this seems just a wee bit unlikely).

I welcome this, but I'd go further - no new member would be able to post until they'd read a certain number of reviews (10, say). And the five-a-day would apply to everyone on the site regardless of length of membership (insert Sid James-related emoticon here).

I think it's a good idea. Hopefully in the first 30 days of membership, they can pick up some good habits and take those on into "proper" membership.

Something lots of us have spoken about. I see it as a good thing but like hoggy doubt Dooyoo have the same reasoning as us. It might improve standards and should certainly ease off abuse levels.

I would apply across the board too

I thought it was very carefully worded, I don't think the idea is really to let new members settle in. I expect it is to reduce workload for dooyoo, currently they have to sift through large volumes of substandard reviews.

I think for quality control purposes it should be applied across the board, although there can't be that many established members who post more than five a day?

I'm torn on this issue. I think it's good to reduce the number of reviews that new members write because generally new members are more likely to write reviews that aren't up to the standards of dooyoo. I'm not so sure if it would be a good idea to extend that to all members. Dooyoo obviously need a lot of reviews, if they didn't then they wouldn't encourage churning as much as they do and I think the issue is people churning out poor quality reviews rather than just churning in general. If someone can write over five reviews every day that meet dooyoo's standards then I don't see any reason why they shouldn't.

I still think 5 a day is too many. I think I'd have capped it at 2, possibly 3. There was one instance today (or possibly yesterday) when one new member had posted 3 new "reviews" in the space of 3 minutes. Needless to say I didn't bother reading any of them.

Allowing new users to post 5 reviews a day will still clog the system up, mostly with things of minimal value, and like Hogsflesh, I'm naturally suspicious when changes are introduced suddenly and wonder if they are just the tip of the iceberg.

a positive change I feel. THere are 365 days in a year after all. That is a heck of a lot of reviews.

I am not naturally suspicious, but I do feel the point Sonia makes is valid, perhaps it ought to be extended to all members. Most naturally wean off at that point, but the people that are truly milking the dooyoo system through churning of either substandard reviews or reviews with little commercial value are not members of under 30 days, necessarily.

Seems a bit harsh to single out new members when there are established members who are pretty bad too.

A limit of five new product suggestions per week might also help.

What about adapting the system then? You get a limit of 5 per day and if you don't use them, then it carries over to the next day, to a maximum of, say, fifteen.

I know few people are going to write fifteen decent reviews in one day, but I kinda like the flexibility of it compared to the hard limits of other systems.

Cat19 wrote:

I think for quality control purposes it should be applied across the board, although there can't be that many established members who post more than five a day?

One established member posted 60 reviews in one day very recently!

But I think on the whole there aren't that many who post more than 5 a day.

I haven't read the announcement yet....

I worry though that it might make new members think that they're supposed to write 5 a day?

5 a day is far too many for anyone, I think 3 should be the limit for any member old or new.

It's well worded though and does explain the reasoning behind the new rule. I think it would be difficult to mis-interpret it, TBH (unless, of course, you don't speak English; who knows how it might translate through Babelfish into Indonesian!)

I think it's simply more than posting limits though. Restricting how many some can post might actually mean all these new members that we've seen over the past 18 months from sites such as MSE might actually start reading around the site, giving everyone more reads. Looking at how much the membership has swollen and then looking at my own read rates and they've not gone up very much (if at all) during this time.

Camp Freddy wrote:

I think it's simply more than posting limits though. Restricting how many some can post might actually mean all these new members that we've seen over the past 18 months from sites such as MSE might actually start reading around the site, giving everyone more reads. Looking at how much the membership has swollen and then looking at my own read rates and they've not gone up very much (if at all) during this time.

You must not be speed rating enough!

Cat19 wrote:

I thought it was very carefully worded, I don't think the idea is really to let new members settle in. I expect it is to reduce workload for dooyoo, currently they have to sift through large volumes of substandard reviews.

I think for quality control purposes it should be applied across the board, although there can't be that many established members who post more than five a day?

I can think of one offhand who posts up to 20 a day, usually on low value food items. And they've been an active member since late last year.

I can think of a few established members who post that many. I think there are even guides who post that many reviews.

Ha! Not me - I've only posted 106 reviews ever on dooyoo!

Nor me - 48 so far and it's taken me nearly a year!

This isn't a personal attack on you or anything but who would you say makes a more valuable contribution to dooyoo. the people who rarely post reviews or those who post up to 20 a day?

I would imagine that 20 reviews every day that are of an okay quality would be better for dooyoo than one review a month that is crown worthy.

Sonia wrote:

I can think of a few established members who post that many. I think there are even guides who post that many reviews.

Yes, you are absolutely right. Whilst I don't think (the unpaid) guides should have to adhere to different rules than anyone else, I have been personally dismayed to find that one or two guides churn out A LOT of reviews. I prefer the guides that spend more time reading than writing to be honest, it shows to me they care about the site.

I think it would depend on what the reviews are actually on as well.....the 134th review on a Mars Bar or Greggs the baker or Tesco Clubcard is not as valuable as the FIRST review on a laptop/camera/hotel for example. Expanding the product list is more valuable in my opinion.

Except for yogurt reviews......

Some people can write very rarely and make a very valuable contribution in identifying plagiarists and other abuse also.

Sonia wrote:

I would imagine that 20 reviews every day that are of an okay quality would be better for dooyoo than one review a month that is crown worthy.

I am happy to be proved wrong, but I have yet to see anyone produce 20 reviews in a day of okay quality.

Sonia wrote:

This isn't a personal attack on you or anything but who would you say makes a more valuable contribution to dooyoo. the people who rarely post reviews or those who post up to 20 a day?

I would imagine that 20 reviews every day that are of an okay quality would be better for dooyoo than one review a month that is crown worthy.

I think it depends on what is being reviewed. I believe strongly that dooyoo do not benefit from reviews of low value food items. People just don't comparison shop for a 10p tin of tomatoes or an 80p loaf of bread and so forth - people review those because they are easy to review, and offer a quick buck (or, to be fair, quick recognition - after all, they are reviews, and some folk may have them on alerts, and they do show up in the new reviews section) and are easily available. I understand the argument that those reviews may get a dooyoo member to try a product he or she hadn't tried before, but the point of the site is for comparison shopping, and is for the non-member. Dooyoo have already posted what the popular categories are, and a food review is unlikely to be crown of the day in any great hurry. There is a reason for this.

I too have written the odd food review (some odder than others), but to write almost exclusively such reviews is gaming the system.

I don't have an issue with churning, I have an issue with poor quality reviews. Unfortunately the two do seem to go hand in hand often. I also don't think that guides should follow different rules and if they can write that many reviews that are mostly VU and they still have time to guide their category then I have nothing to complain about.

I actually think that dooyoo try to encourage churn, I think they've noticed that there's a link between churn and poor quality reviews and they're trying to strike a balance but they still want people to write as many reviews as they can.

Quote :

Yes, you are absolutely right. Whilst I don't think (the unpaid) guides should have to adhere to different rules than anyone else, I have been personally dismayed to find that one or two guides churn out A LOT of reviews. I prefer the guides that spend more time reading than writing to be honest, it shows to me they care about the site.

Quote :

Some people can write very rarely and make a very valuable contribution in identifying plagiarists and other abuse also.

Of course, you're completely right, I didn't think of that. And dooyoo do need people to read reviews I assume (otherwise why would they pay for reads?)

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I am happy to be proved wrong, but I have yet to see anyone produce 20 reviews in a day of okay quality.

That sounds like a challenge!

Mattygroves- I agree with your point. I don't think anyone really researches food products unless it's something like diet food. However, I think that dooyoo's main objective is to get people to visit the website and if a food review brings in visitors (I don't know if they do, I haven't ever written one) then that is good for dooyoo.
If someone is on the site searching for reviews of a certain product the fact that someone has written a review on every tesco value item that is available will have no impact on them. Theyprobably won't even see those reviews because they'll either go directly to the review they wanted through google or they'll use the dooyoo search. Having food items on dooyoo is not going to impact on dooyoo's reputation imo.
But if someone searches for a mars bar and google show dooyoo reviews they might click on those and that I assume gets dooyoo money somehow. It's probably not the information that they wanted but why would dooyoo care? They still earn from it.