Reviews?!! Are they?!!

[ariston]

Good suggestion (about having a min number of posts). What DOES work is that pseudo-reviews get removed pretty quickly if they're reported to the mods.

I especially love bug reports that get posted as reviews, usually accompanied by a burst of barely coherent, angry and self-righteous babble, and the assertion that the reviewer would like to give -10 if that were possible.

[EnGee]

6 or 7 means average.

In what distribution? I think you're skewed as much as +2.

I don't know! I thought it is like my Uni grades!

Under 5 is weak or fail and 5 and above pass! I understood it like this. Tell me please if I misunderstood the rating.

[BertKoor]

KVR has reviews??

A rating scale of 0-10 is too broad indeed. I'd rather see a scale from 0-5 (with maybe half points for nuance) but it's too late for that now I guess.

Some members come here for the plugin database only and don't spoil their time with posting on the forum. Long-time lurkers.. So a min. number of forum posts imho is not required.

[ariston]

KVR has reviews??

A rating scale of 0-10 is too broad indeed. I'd rather see a scale from 0-5 (with maybe half points for nuance) but it's too late for that now I guess.

How would a 5-point scale with half-points be any different from a 10-point scale?

Shouldn't we rather make a scale that goes to 11, for those times when you need that extra bit of unbridled enthusiasm?

[EnGee]

KVR has reviews??

A rating scale of 0-10 is too broad indeed. I'd rather see a scale from 0-5 (with maybe half points for nuance) but it's too late for that now I guess.

How would a 5-point scale with half-points be any different from a 10-point scale?

Shouldn't we rather make a scale that goes to 11, for those times when you need that extra bit of unbridled enthusiasm?

Why not taking off all the rating?! I don't think this would happen, but it is another good option in my opinion.

Sound on Sound don't have a rating system, just reviews with pros and cons. I like their reviews more than other magazines and I don't care for the rating. I can conclude from the review if the product is worth considering or not.

[ariston]

Why not taking off all the rating?! I don't think this would happen, but it is another good option in my opinion.

Sound on Sound don't have a rating system, just reviews with pros and cons. I like their reviews more than other magazines and I don't care for the rating. I can conclude from the review if the product is worth considering or not.

I completely agree. But that would mean that people would actually have to READ! Who's got time for that nowadays?

Regarding ratings: a lot of people intuitively assume that the mere presence of a scale is meaningful. Ratings, to them, constitute a ratio scale, whereas it's kind of obvious that they're barely even ordinal. Or, to put it another way: numbers ain't shit.

[BertKoor]

How would a 5-point scale with half-points be any different from a 10-point scale?

Seriously, the difference is where the neutral middle is.
On a scale of 1-10, people tend to set "good enough" on 6, not on 5. The bottom half of that scale doesn't get used.
But with star ratings it's obvious that an average score is 2 or 3. Subtle psychological difference, which is very realistic.

[Sampleconstruct]

The review section has always been hilarious, it just reflects the anything-goes-mentality on the Internet where almost everybody believes that she or he is an expert with something valuable to say.

[chk071]

Hm, the rating system was the one good thing about the reviews... why not extend it, and make it possible to rate in the usual categories, Sound, GUI, Stability and these. And a minimum of 50 forum posts would be nice, to prevent abuse by spambots.

[EnGee]

Maybe doing both is the solution. Just give everyone what he/she wants.

Separate the Rating from Review. The Rating section has a 5 or 10 star rating with a small field (like in this Quick Reply's field) with max (let's say 150 words) to say something like in Google's Play Store :"This is great, trust me it is that good, buy it!"

The Review section is with or without rating, It is not a problem, but with a deep look and analysis. It might contains opinions and errors, but it gives insight to what this product is. It can be measured with additional sections of GUI/Sound/Stability/Value ...etc but the important thing is to give us some unbiased detailed info.

[sjm]

Quick bump/necro because this is getting worse not better.

In an attempt to be constructive, I would advise reviewers to consider the following:
A useful review provides more insight into the product than the product description page. Tell us about what you've used it for, and illustrate what it did well and what it didn't do so well in that context. By providing context, you allow others to evaluate the extent to which your experience is relevant to them. It's fair enough for a beginner to complain that a synth is too complex - provided that this context is given. A pro complaining that a synth isn't complex is also fair enough - but once again, make it clear what your expectation/needs/requirements are. A review that slams a plugin for being too simple/complex is a useful review, even if I disagree with it, because it informs me about the product. A beginner shouldn't be put off a plugin because it's "too simple" - to them that's a boon even if it's a disadvantage to the reviewer.

A one-liner "I liked this plugin, very cool" is completely useless. It would be nice if KVR had a way for people to rate a plugin without submitting a review - this might cut down on all the "reviews" that aren't actually reviews, while those actually willing to put time and effort into a proper review can still do so.

So provide context and information that will allow people reading the review to make an informed decision as to whether the product you're reviewing might be interesting to them. Remember, you're writing these reviews for other people, not for yourself!

[Robmobius]

I'd rather a good snappy capsule review then a long bloated one.

Or else do what everyone does and just read the conclusion (of a few reviews), then check the specs on the website.

But I'd agree about reviews that have one line - Utterly pointless.

I really like the idea of rating a product, but I think it would always come down to a popularity contest. However, it still would be a valuable reference for someone, who then can do more research on a particular piece of gear, etc.

[aciddose]

I'd replace the 1-10 scale with some descriptive phrases:

1. Worst plugin possible, wouldn't even consider touching with a ten foot pole
2. Had significant trouble (bugs/crashes/aliasing/...), plugin has potential but is currently unusable for more serious use in a project
3. Many issues to complain about, barely usable
4. Has some issues, but works reasonably well
5. Average, works well with no major complaints
6. Great, has some features that are above average
7. Excellent, many features are above average and includes additional features not often found in plugins
8. Brilliant, far above average, absolutely stable, not a single complaint
9. Near perfect, top of its class, hard pressed to think of anything that could be improved
10. Perfect, so amazing it leaves the user at a loss for words, it would be impossible to improve upon this epic masterpiece.

Keep in mind that 10 should never be used, it is the same as a zero score which would be "not even a plugin, attempted to load mscomctl.dll as a VST plugin and was grossly disappointed."

So, equivalent strengths:
1 = 9
2 = 8
3 = 7
4 = 6
5

[EnGee]

I'd replace the 1-10 scale with some descriptive phrases:

1. Worst plugin possible, wouldn't even consider touching with a ten foot pole
2. Had significant trouble (bugs/crashes/aliasing/...), plugin has potential but is currently unusable for more serious use in a project
3. Many issues to complain about, barely usable
4. Has some issues, but works reasonably well
5. Average, works well with no major complaints
6. Great, has some features that are above average
7. Excellent, many features are above average and includes additional features not often found in plugins
8. Brilliant, far above average, absolutely stable, not a single complaint
9. Near perfect, top of its class, hard pressed to think of anything that could be improved
10. Perfect, so amazing it leaves the user at a loss for words, it would be impossible to improve upon this epic masterpiece.

Keep in mind that 10 should never be used, it is the same as a zero score which would be "not even a plugin, attempted to load mscomctl.dll as a VST plugin and was grossly disappointed."

So, equivalent strengths:
1 = 9
2 = 8
3 = 7
4 = 6
5

This is really nice. I absolutely agree This maybe would be the final choice (I imagine it like a list with one choice only).

For the first parts of the review, I suggest to be, for simplicity, like some popular website's review (CNET ..etc). There is a field for every aspect, like Sound, Stability, Features ..etc. So, it would be like a form people can fill it with not less than one sentence in the field (Of course it can be a detailed review as well with many paragraphs per the field). Also, It might be there slightly different forms depending on the kind of the product (Soft Synth, Host, Hardware ....etc).

[aciddose]

The idea to categorically rate plugins makes a bit of sense, but it might be difficult to come up with categories which apply to every possible type of plugin.

For example it would be difficult to rate the subjective audio quality of a plugin oscilloscope.

If such a feature were to be desired it would make most sense for each category to be optional.

Once this consideration is taken into account it is more difficult to argue that we should need such a system as opposed to simply allowing good detailed reviews to be written by hand (with bbcode perhaps?) by the reviewers.