The possibility is being discussed of a “User Reviews” forum, here at simFlight, allowing you the opportunity to post your thoughts and comments on FS products. Do you think this would be valuable? Would you use it? What do you think?
Click on “read full story”, below, for additional information.
Following the temporary withdrawal of the reviews functionality from the simMarket pages, a proposal has been put forward that simFlight provide a forum where users can post their own reviews of FS products and add-ons, helping their fellow simmers make more informed decisions about what products to get or otherwise.
The original discussion thread can be found on the Emma Field Flying Club forum here, and the simFlight team would appreciate your comments and thoughts, either as comments on this news article, or feel free to add your thoughts to the original thread.
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0 Responses
Generally speaking, user reviews are, at first glance, a brilliant idea. It IS a two-edged sword however.
Dedicated websites such as this and the “other” big website have in the past had a number of staff reviewers that “worked” for free on reviews of products.
As this is a very time consuming exercise (I know what I am writing about as I have done this myself) over time writing reviews or finding writers has become such a chore that it fell through on some sites. Unbiased and in opinionated subjective reviews are a great tool however to the readers of these sites in the decision making process concerning the possible purchase of an add-on product.
Those reviews followed more or less strict editorial guide-lines, which made each review a little less biased by the author’s personality than reviews posted in various forms for example.
A totally open policy to review submission opens the door to abuse. A few opinions that come to mind are the following:
* Product author “sponsored” reviews.
* “Hate” reviews (product bashing for the heck of it)
* Reviews by authors with not enough technical knowledge or experience.
Personally, I think a user review possibility would be great provided there are some minimum standards set, the reviews themselves are reviewed critically (if nothing less to protect the website from legal charges for “slander”) and the site editors must have the choice to refuse publication of any review.
My 2 Cents
Happy flying
Ralph Hummel
I for one would be happy both to see such a forum brought into being, and for it to be moderated by Ian (if he is willing to do so). There’s sometimes a fine line between deleting ‘rants’ and excessive censorship of criticism, however from my experience of Ian’s work on the forums to date, I consider this to be a fine line he is more than capable of treading!
I’ll be honest guys, this news article has been up a week, the number of comments received has been five, total. Four of them have been positive and only one negative, but it looks like this one’s not going to see the light of day. A lot more interest than that is going to be needed to make it a viable source of information.
The simMarket team are working on site updates. I can’t promise anything or give details, because I’m not part of that team(*), but I believe they are hoping to revamp the comments/reviews system over there as part of it. That’s significantly more appropriate for people seeking information on a product than having it on an entirely different site, here, so I don’t think this idea is going to happen.
(* – Talk about a kid in a sweetshop… It would never be safe to let me have any rights anywhere like that! ;))