On Wed, 2 Dec 2015 07:26:02 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 9:09:08 AM UTC-5, Don Y wrote:
On 12/2/2015 6:58 AM, CRNG wrote:
Anybody else here run in to something like this?

I often buy repair related items (tools, etc) from Amazon, and I
consider the reviews an important decision element. While browsing
yesterday, I happen to stumble upon this non-repair related item when
doing a search with the word "emergency" in it

http://www.amazon.com/Writer-Emergen...DateDescending

I was curious so I read about it and noticed that the vast majority of
the 4/5 star reviews were clustered in March and November of 2015 and
that few if any of those reviewers were verified purchasers.

I've written a few hundred reviews for Amazon products so I though
nothing of writing a review questioning the review statistics of this
product. It was very brief simply questioning what had caused that
clustering of 4/5 star reviews around those very few time periods.

I was very surprised to find my review rejected. It was the first
rejection I have ever received for an Amazon review. Apparently
questioning the Amazon review process is a no-no. Amazon wrote

- Your review should focus on specific features of the product and
your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment
experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback.

which sounds reasonable, except that to leave "feedback" you have to
actually buy the product. It also indicates to me that they devote a
lot of effort to identifying reviews that are critical of their
product review process.

Amazon wants to SELL products. They are far less likely to want to
encourage behaviors that work *counter* to that!


Except that they accept many, many negative reviews that clearly
say some of the stuff they sell is crap. The clear issue here is
that what he wrote wasn't a review of the product at all. It was
a review of the reviews, that's why it was rejected because it
doesn't meet their review guidelines.

A new moderated list I belonged to had rules written (I was part of
writing the rules but I don't remember discussing this one.) that
didn't allow discussing the moderation. It was "off-topic".

I eventually quit the list but while I was gone, people rebelled and
forced them to loosen moderation and allow discussion of moderation
rules.

It struck me as a desire to be in charge, like a weak version of "no
one pushes the police around. Talk back to me and I'll mess you up."

There have been articles lately about how many of the negative reviews
are by people who have never used the product. I think it's a way for
some to vent their hostility to the world, something like ombers do
except less extreme. (and that if they couldn't forge reviews like
this, a few would become ombers and kill people) Article said you can
sometimes tell because the complaints are vague, spend time on the
story and not so much on the product.