Monday, May 14, 2007

Another funny thing about Grady Harp's reviews

That Grady's reviews tend immediately to accumulate a mind-boggling number of 'helpful' votes is one thing. But have you noticed that after this initial buildup, the vote count tends to stay static? That is the voting rate on his reviews has two patterns: intial two-three days, when it's huge; and the later one, when it pretty much dwindles to nothing.

It seems that the items Grady reviews are somehow more (much, much more) visited by potential buyers/review-voters in the first two-three days after the posting of a Grady review than at any time afterwards. How could we explain such an uneven interest from the consumer society?

3 comments:

Stephanie said...

Ummm, cheating?

Some of these reviewers and their MO are so obvious. I find it amazing that someone would write a review and then spend so much time logging in under all of these made-up accounts and giving their own reviews helpful votes. Yet, that is what they are doing.

I haven't checked out Grady Harp's reviews yet, but have read everyone's comments about him and Bouldville (?). I am going to take a look.

Malleus said...

Oh, no, cheating! no, that can't be.

I mean it's so transparent: his friends and family vote right after he posts a review, and then, as you would expect, no one ever checks out this item for months and years, just like it is with any other regular item.

They appear to have an about fifty-account voting power and they are stupid enough to exhaust all their votes within a day or two. Then the item becomes abandoned.

It just seems funny how crudely these guys act: do they really think no one will ever notice, and if someone does, he won't say anything? Amazing.

Barbara Delaney said...

I think it's important to note that someone who went by the name "Office Lover" tried for more than a year to bring attention to the voting practices of Grady Harp and his friends. He was alone and took a lot of abuse from Mr. Harp's friends, some of it was the ugliest I'd ever seen on Amazon. I reported it as abusive more times than I can remember and asked others to do so as well.


As to the brazeness of their voting, well I would say it shows their confidence that Amazon will not do anything about it. I wish I had a nickel for every time someone has told me to save my breath because Amazon could stop the reviewing scams in a heartbeat but they don't therefore I should shut up about it.