measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reviewing \"Reviewed\" Well, since everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon lately, let me add my two cents into the Reviewed.d-x debate.... I agree with hoolie to the extent that if someone's asked for the reviews from this site, they have what's coming to them. HOWEVER, I do think that Reviewed.d-x also has to change a bit, because there's some severe questions with how they're running that thing:
2) I also want to see names of people, their backgrounds, and why they're qualified to critique. Are these teenagers going out for a cheap thrill at pot-shots on people, or are these actually people who have degrees in multimedia design who could actually help folks. See point #5 for a bit more extrapolation on this... 3) If they're claiming to be unbiased, they need to be unbiased. They're not. A review is *never* unbiased-- it is an opinion of the quality of something. So Reviewed needs to change their wording there. It's impossible to give an unbiased review. Sorry folks, but you're talking about whether you like a design or not, whether you like the tone of writing or not. The entire thing is subjective, which means it's formed on opinion-- a.k.a. bias. 4) If they're going to cut down, make real suggestions, honest suggestions, of things to improve. I have not seen this on the sites that they've cut down. One suggestion I might make is that if a site requests to be reviewed, have a questionaire so that the site to be reviewed can tell how confident they feel in their HTML skills. Maybe some background for perspective would be much more helpful in reviewing-- the reviewer can understand where a person's coming from, rather than assuming that we're all HTML experts. 5) And dammit, these reviewers need to sign their name, a monkier, anything, WITH an email address, so that the reviewed journalist can ask further questions to clarify the opinions so they can improve. What good is a review without someone taking credit for it? Because here's the thing-- if it's an unsigned review, the reviewer is completely safe behind anonymity on the web. They can say anything, and then just run away. There's a name for this in Internent-land. It's called trolling for flamebait. ALL reviews worth any credibility are signed. Until they choose to do so, Reviewed is, in my opinion, a site by bored teenagers who just want to cut others down other than those in their clique. I see no credibility in a review site that hides the names of their reviewers. I just see chickens hiding behind a computer screen with way too much time on their hands. And no, I haven't agreed with many of their reviews so far. And I do consider myself having some credibility in review work. I have done reviews professionally and had them published. I received my bachelors in print journalism from Boston University, and I currently work in the design department of one of the major textbook publishing firms here in the U.S. How about you guys over at Reviewed? And on that note, I will *not* be choosing to be reviewed by them. Instead, I'd suggest 15 minutes of positive fame with the suggestion that Charlene is suggesting in her November 30th entry. Let's face it-- as much as these are our personal journals, there's nothing better than to receive an email from someone who connects with us on some level through our writing. Some people write the journal for themselves, some write for others. But ultimately, having an online journal that's accessible on the internet assists us in feeling that we're not alone out there. If we're going to be having a bit of fun for hits and such, let's do it in a positive way. There's enough negativity out there in Internet land already. --Mel. (getting off her soapbox and going back to work) 12:08 p.m. - 30 November 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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