Reviews - Update when problems become evident?

[tedkay]

Hi

I wonder whether you would consider adding a feature to your review system whereby if a significant number of problems are posted (no doubt you could decide what constitutes a significant number) you tack this onto the review. You could go further and - in fairness to companies who care enough to deal with faults properly, and to expose those who don't - report their response. This would certainly help us the consumers because it would greatly enhance the reviews. It would also encourage the maunfacturers to respond properly.

I realise it could put you in a bit of an invidious position with the manufacturer, but as stands your reviews can be devalued when one reads a glowing report and then finds widespread complaints about the item in the forums.

To many of us the manufacturers' response to a problem is all-important. If a manufacturer can be seen to be honest and concerned and be doing its' best to resolve an issue then they deserve to have this made known in your reviews. If they don't then they deserve to be downrated accordingly.

Regards
Ted Kay

[Dave]

It's a good idea Ted and we'll add it to the list. One reason why we create a forum thread for each review is to try and get people reading the reviews to click on the comments and to find out what questions have been asked and problems have been seen, so if people keep most of their questions/problems tied to the original thread, these should get read anyway, but pulling some of these comments into an updated review might work, but how long do you wait ? 1 week, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks ?

The main reason why we haven't attempted this so far is that people may think we'll pick the best responses and add them into the reviews rather than the worst ones. I doubt that would be the case, but you'll always get someone complain if for some reason we don't pick their problem/comment but 10 others.

We are overlooking our whole rating system and this might be something we can include into this.

[tedkay]

Hi Dave

Yes - I see your problem. Perhaps simply links to a 'report any problems with this device and responses from the manufacturer' thread at the end of the review would do the trick. That might help to focus reports to one thread instead of them being all over the place. But I accept it is tricky, and the last thing I want to do is appear to be teaching you how to suck eggs - as you know I think yours is an A1 site.

Regards
Ted

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