10 Rules for Reviewing

I've been wanting to write this article for a while now. It's been like an incessant itch that needs scratching, but is just out of reach - the unswattable fly.

I spend a lot of my money online. I do very little face-to-face shopping anymore, except for clothes, because the last time I bought a pair of size ten DC Shoes online, they arrived in a child's size ten. I should probably have read the description.

When shopping on most web stores, I can't help but have a cursory glance at the reviews. I used to do this to get a valuable insight into the product - I'd read all the five-star reviews, and then all of the one-star reviews, and then work my way into the neutral zone. These days, it's pointless taking this approach. As a society we have become more polarised than ever, with extreme leanings becoming more prevalent, in tangent, no doubt, with the current political climate.

There was a time when those that took the time to review a product, also took pride in providing a clear, concise, in depth, and well reasoned insight into the products, but over the last two or three years, this has become the exception rather than the norm. Take a look at any product now and you'll see the familiar visual of reviews with the largest proportion of reviewers in the top and bottom boxes.

We're faced with two alternate realities, and neither of them gives us any real insight into the product we are researching. It's either a sycophantic reach-around, expounding the miracles of the product in question, whilst dribbling on the keyboard, eyes popping out of our heads with indecent enthusiasm, or a damning avalanche of psychosis, pinning third world famine, civil war and the extinction of dinosaurs on the very existence of the product in question.

It's infuriating. And pointless. And, sadly, typical. Take any innocuous, relatively common product - a cricket bat for example, and this is what you'll see:

5 Stars

"I purchased this cricket bat to improve my game, and in its first outing I hit a ball almost to the moon. The very feel of the polished willow in my hands makes me throb. I can hoik this mighty log at hithertoo never-before-seen speeds, as it glides majestically through the air, splitting the very fabric of space time. Thoroughly recommended"

1 Star

"I purchased this cricket bat to improve my game, but it has had the opposite effect. It weighs so much that I'd be better off standing at the crease with a tractor. If He-Man had had one of these instead of a sword to hold aloft, Skeletor would be the Ruler of the Universe. Upon closer inspection, the ugly willow log was fashioned from a tree that had died from bubonic plague in the 16th century. As I approached the crease the opposition were laughing at me. I had assumed that in my haste to test my new acquisition, I had inadvertently failed to cage my python upon exiting the clubhouse toilets, but no. They were laughing at the hideous, railway-siding trailing by my side. Avoid."

Can everyone take a deep breath...

Online shopping is made harder by this trend of extreme reviewing. If we all took a balanced approach we would spend less time returning goods that we were suckered into purchasing, or missing out on items that would genuinely improve our lives, just because Barry from Wigan forgot to take his meds.

My ten take-away points for reviewing anything are as follows:

1. Don't review it until you've actually used it. "It arrived quickly" is not a review
2. Remember you are reviewing the product, not the experience. If the seller has poor customer service, leaving a 1 star review just damages the reputation of the product being resold.
3. Make a list of pros and cons, and try to connect them to see where the compromises might be necessary. For example the cricket bat list might say "powerful" in the pros, and "heavy" in the cons, so it can reasonably be assumed that one is indicative of the other.
4. Write the review to your Mother, rather than one of your mates down the pub. This way you avoid declaring "it felt so good in my hand that I thought I was nursing a semi" or "I felt like a pineapple had been inserted into my rectum, with a catapult".
5. Don't write a review when you're angry. Take a day to calm down so you can be objective. Flying off the handle will lose you all credibility, unless you've actually purchased a handle that was over-polished.
6. Don't exaggerate. Praise or criticise, but keep a level head. If it's the fourth cricket bat you've ever had it's not "the best cricket bat in the history of willow carpentry". It's "the best cricket bat I've had the pleasure of using". Similarly, if its too heavy for you and you end up accidentally hitting yourself in the mouth it doesn't "handle so badly that it ought to be used for extracting teeth". Rather it "was too heavy for me, and so I struggled with controlling it".
7. All products have failure rates. If you get a faulty product, get it replaced and try it before you use it, otherwise your review is disingenuous. Products get damaged in transit all the time - particularly electronics. Couriers aren't exactly famous for being graceful. DPD stands for "Dropped it, Picked it up, Dropped it again".
8. Read it back to yourself and objectively appraise your words as a potential buyer. Mostly remember that what may be a con for you, could be a pro for someone else. If "The wood was so dark I struggled to distinguish it from the ground beneath my feet" to someone else that might be "It's darker than usual, and as a beach cricketer this is a definite advantage".
9. When responding to a review, just remember that someone else's opinion is just that. They have as much right to have their say as you do. Attacking them because you disagree just hurts your credibility.
10. Don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face. Far too often people get really aggressive in reviews, or in responses to reviews. We've all made the mistake of putting on our keyboard warrior costume - emotions boil over and people can say the most awful things. Imagine the person you're responding to is six foot five inches, and currently serving in the SAS, as an instructor in hand to hand combat and lethal techniques. Tell him he's a useless twat and you're likely to find a hand grenade replacing that pineapple from earlier...

In summary...

Write a review the way you would want to read a review. Lay it out concisely and deliberately, as if you are teaching a novice what the product is for. If we all do this the butterfly effect will end third-world famine, starvation, war, poverty, racism, bigotry, elitism and Piers Morgan.