Taking place right now (July 27 12:36 pm PDT): check it out. It just went from 19 to 21 in a matter of seconds (in sync by the same amount for the last three reviews). Amazing. Completely in sync: one, two, three; one, two, three.
Zodiac (Widescreen Edition), posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 21 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 24 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 25 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 26 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 28 votes
06:06 pm PDT: 29 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 31 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 57 votes
Origin: A Novel, posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 21 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 24 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 25 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 26 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 28 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 29 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 54 votes
Talking to the Moon, posted on July 26, 2007:
12:36 pm PDT: 20 votes.
12:41 pm PDT: 21 votes
12:43 pm PDT: 22 votes
12:46 pm PDT: 23 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 24 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 25 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 27 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 28 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 52 votes
'The voters' went for two previous reviews now:
Factory Girl (Unrated) (was 37 for a day or so; posted on July 19, 2007):
12:46 pm PDT: 38 votes
12:51 pm PDT: 39 votes
12:53 pm PDT: 40 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 41 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 42 votes
03:56 pm PDT: 43 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 44 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 54 votes
Picture Windows (was 41 for a day or so; posted on July 18, 2007):
12:46 pm PDT: 42 votes
12:51 pm PDT: 43 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 44 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 46 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 47 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 57 votes
'The voters' went for another previous review now:
Britten: Serenade/Les Illuminations/Nocturne (was 40 for a day or so; posted on July 18, 2007):
12:53 pm PDT: 41 votes
02:44 pm PDT: 42 votes
03:54 pm PDT: 43 votes
03:56 pm PDT: 44 votes
08:40 pm PDT: 45 votes
07/29/07 10:42 am PDT: 60 votes
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21 comments:
Malleus:
This might just be wishful thinking on my part, but we may be starting to see the species of hubris that could well lead to Harp's undoing. If negative votes detract from positive ones in Amazon's assessments, it's folly for Harp ever to risk being a late reviewer of a relatively popular item. In his decision to review "Zodiac," he seems to have made this very blunder. While Amazon is clearly willing to ignore the Master's absurd, almost instant bloated vote totals, an increasing number of readers may ultimately prove not so "charitable." The negative votes for his review of "Zodiac" seem unusually high for a Harp entry. Perhaps some of the 75 other reviewers of the DVD share some of the outrage of the 4th commentator (a newbie?) at the bottom of Harp's review and are beginning to make their discontent at yet another undistinguished but overpraised review known. Hope springs eternal.
Stanley, I'm quite certain that negatives don't matter. Logically, the only thing that matters is the size of the output; the quantity of reviews a reviewer produces.
If visitors start negging Harp, well, this is like the negging of Klausner that goes on for a while: it shows something (not quite clear what exactly, since voting can be political both ways); if people and/or other reviewers express their protest this way, this is good in general (meaning people notice GH's voting strangeness now), but I doubt it is effective in stopping it. Well, we'll see... it seems that TNGHVM does constantly react to the comments: right now, for example, they seem to be stretching the usual 80-90 votes over a longer period. So we'll see...
Malleus:
A cursory glance at the top ten reviewers would seem to bear out your contention that the number of reviews written is all that matters. A longer look, though, reveals this apparent anomaly. Reviewer # 3 (Mitchell) has to his credit only 3148 reviews, a fewer number than Reviewers 4(4142),5 (4020),6 (3734),or 7(Harp,3405). Doesn't this suggest that votes may have some role in Amazon's assessments?
Addendum:
I don't know how to edit my comments here, so I'll have to add another posting. Looking at the helpful vote totals for reviewer # 3 (56,366) and for Harp, reviewer # 7,(a whopping 69,500), it looks as if repetitive votes may actually be disqualified in Amazon's ranking assessments, or that negative votes do count for something after all.
1. Positive votes apparently do matter.
2. Comments cannot be edited here, unfortunately.
3. I hope you're right about excess votes being disqualified! :-)
It appears that Gregory Callahan (I think that's his name) has either 1) deleted all of his own comments or 2) is the victim of another of those unknown mass comment deletions. Hmmm.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/ref=cm_rdp_st_rd/102-4421097-9253744?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00005JPR9&store=yourstore&cdThread=Tx21789LTKP17HX&reviewID=R2ZZ0GEV8GW48S&displayType=ReviewDetail
Cathy:
I suspect Gregory Callahan probably removed his own comments. Though an intelligent man, he is at the same time the sad prince of argumentative insipidity; consequently, nothing he utters, even with the worst will in the world, could ever be misconstrued as "offensive." Trying to please all sides, he refuses to pass judgments, especially when appropriate conclusions are pretty obvious. What he prefers is to squeeze into a non-existent middle ground, which not surprisingly punishes with failure, since it leaves him once again merely demonstrating his own fondness for moral equivalence while pleasing nobody -or just about nobody. His comments, for instance, following Harp's "Paris, je t'aime" review drew an inordinate number of negative votes, and he was mirthlessly touchy over this development, despite his habitual pooh-poohing of the importance of votes. In fact, the lunatic MM (Marie) emerged as his only identifiable supporter. Such a fate would be enough surely to encourage any sane commentator, rather than Amazon, to delete his own postings.
While checking the most recent comments on Grady Harp's reviews I came upon a comment made just two days ago on an older review. GH reviewed "South of Main Street" on December 17 2005. At that time it received twelve of sixteen helpful votes. But C.MCCALLISTER has just commented on this review. Do you suppose this will be enough to rally the rest of GH's troops to vote this review up into the seventy or eighty vote category most of GH's reviews are currently in?
Stanley, good points. BTW, I keep forgetting to ask, do you speak as eloquently as you write?
Barbara, interesting C McAllister has now forayed into GH territory. He has to stir the pot somewhere and must be bored at the HK review comments. It's much too civil there these days.
Well Stanley, you stirred up a hornet yesterday, from MM:
"Stanley,
I hope you have back-up and proof claiming I am unstable (Lunatic).. My name should never come up on HKAS for any reason. Only if you all wish to be mean and cruel...
An individual educated with a pedigree background never
resort to name calling in public only in private setting. This is call class when someone has pride and cardinalate in oneself... This behavior is gear into our daily life and spillover to other area. (respect) They go hand and hand.
I didn't surface to become anyone supporter.
Your fact-finding is dead in the water.. Like calling me a Lunatic...
You all need a private DB for your convenience so you can vent your frustration."
Re MM's rant on "lunacy"
Q.E.D.
GH should just start his own homepage and put all the reviews he wants.
Between him and HK They need to go on a boat somewhere with no internet.
And I like Zodiac also! :0
Cathy,
Actually C.MCCALLISTER came from Grady's site to Harriet's to join in the fun. He has been a Grady booster from way back. He and Mike Leonard were some of Grady's most vocal defenders. Their specialty was ganging up on Office Lover. C.MCCALLISTER only enters the fray when the numbers are clearly on his side.
Barbara, I remember C McCallister and that camel nonsense. Who is this Gregory Callahan?
Mr. Callahan first appeared on Grady Harp's reviews a couple of months ago. He bent over backwards so far to be fair to GH that a loud cracking sound was heard. No matter how many people explained the suspiciously high number of votes in a suspiciously short period of time Mr. Callahan simply could not find any real cause for doubt...although he wasn't entirely sure that there couldn't be just a scintilla of uncertainty. I think it was Dolores that said he was just too innocent. And so we left Mr. Callahan with his slight trace of uncertainty.
Then just recently he came back to another of Grady Harp's reviews with the same type of comments, agonizing over whether in fact there could be some slight irregularity in the voting patterns on Grady Harp's reviews. I think it was Hartz who finally said to Mr. Callahan that it wasn't stem cell research under discussion, that as ethical dilemmas go this one was fairly simple: that you are either for Grady or against him.
Another favorite technique of Mr. Callahan's was the "in comparison" argument that people frequently resorted to on Harriet's reviews. You know, the old "with war and child abuse and hang nails how can you waste time talking about bogus book reviews?"
Harp Slowdown:(8-3-07)
Harp's two most recent reviews show once again that odd increase in negative votes and marked slowdown in positive ones. Could this be some sort of tactical delay? If it's true that repetitive positive votes don't count in the race to the top, wouldn't it be in Harp's interest to spend his time first increasing his number of "Amazon friends" during such occasional slowdowns, and then have their votes count as new voices when whatever signal he uses is sent to the bloc? This could be what is happening. His "friends," whom he probably "invites" himself, have grown from a little over 100 to 117 in a very short period of time. I suspect he realizes, as Lincoln did with slavery, that what cannot grow must die.
Yeah, I've noticed that too. Voting less intensive than previously... Tactical manoeuvreing?
Len Fleisig, friend of -mirabile dictu - MM (Marie), though himself a bright, if unfortunately sophistical, reasoner in the bend over backwards school of Gregory Callahan, has an interesting post in the comments section at the foot of Harp's tactical blunder, the ill-considered, late review of the fairly popular "Zodiac." Fleisig appears all upset over the new format of review pages and comments sections since such might make it much easier just to vote for specific reviewers. The "loyalty voter," he frets, might now be able to vote without exposure to any other reviews or full product knowledge! Notice the naive or cynical belief that bloc voters have any product interest to begin with, and more importantly, the failure to excoriate, as sub-adult, the very existence of "loyalty voters," or to recommend as an earlier commentator just above him did that any reviewer of basic integrity request his sisters, cousins, and aunts (along with Amazon friends)to stop the disingenuous bloc voting altogether.
Fleisig is a troll all right -- I remember him from one of my first forays into this Amz 'discussion board'. Quality Comments (TM) all the way, though sometimes he takes on this decorous, fuddy-duddy sort of persona.
It certainly pays off to have a reliable bunch of "loyalty voters". The review that Grady Harp wrote of "South of Main Street" on December 17 2005 only received 12 out of 16 helpful votes. Now for a lot of reveiwers that would be a hefty amount of positive votes but for Grady it was an insult.
But never fear, loyalty voter C.MCCALLISTER valiantly rescued this review from obscurity by placing an incredibly incisive comment on said review on July 28 2007. His comment, in its entirety, was "Very well-put." You can see why it was necessary to put such a cogent thought as that on a review that was over a year and a half old. But it did bear fruit. That review is now the proud bearer of 21 0f 25 helpful votes. So thanks to the cooperation of loyalty voter C.MCCALLISTER Grady's old review has picked up an additional nine votes. And, after all, what are friends for?
Grady Harp posted a review today of a four year old movie named "All the Real Girls". He posted the review nine hours ago and it already has eleven helpful votes.
Yet "mirasreviews" wrote a review of this same movie on August 31 2003 that is spotlighted but it only has eight helpful votes. Grady receives eleven votes in nine hours and mirasreviews gets eight votes in four years. And her review is better written. Seems fair, doesn't it?
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