La Maniatica says:Then I looked at the book's two-star-reviews' page, and what do you know, indeed Deborah MacGillivray posted two negative reviews for this book. What's that about? Negative shilling ? Why keep several reviews of the same item to begin with, regardless of the rating?
Ok, I appreciate the review. What I dont understand is that when you give bad reviews, why do you always have to review it twice to give it extra bad ratings then what is should get. Giving the book 2 2star ratings is not helping this review. I have noticed you doing this on quite a lot of books. I am going to buy this book despite your reviews. Just leave it at one review.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Now that's weird: double negatives?
I was perusing some reviews there and encountered this comment under one of them:
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7 comments:
There's actually an easy explanation for this one. Looks like she reviewed the hardcover and the paperback editions when they weren't linked. Now they are, so we've got two negative reviews showing up pretty close to each other.
I have a few duplicates from my early days on the site as well. I just ignor it these days and hope the topics eventually merge. That way, if they do, I don't look like an idiot cheating the system.
What I don't get is why she wrote two different reviews. They're only a few weeks apart, so it's not like she could have forgotten what she had reviewed. Heck, if I were doing that, I would have just copied and posted the exact same thing on both editions.
Yes, I've noticed that too... also, in the past, you could end up with a duplicate if you clicked an extra time during the submission. But this isn't strictly speaking a duplicate. Anyway, why not delete the second review ?
Yes, I had to weed through and delete tons of duplicates caused by Amazon's software glitches.
Why not delete the second?
Laziness.
Didn't know the two had merged.
Figured no one would notice.
Granted, they aren't good excuses.
I think Mark is right, I've come across duplicate reviews by this one, and others. They review the hardback, then the paperback and maybe years later Amazon finally gets a clue and merges the two. I've posted reviews on different issues on the same book and I'd never know if they finally figured it out unless I was constantly looking at the book info page, instead of going over my reviews.
I will add, though, that if you report it to Amazon with the book page and pointing out there's two reviews they will remove one. I've done so, especially when the two duplicate/similar reviews are taking up two Spotlights.
I have to say that seeing authors reviewing books in the same genre that they write in leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it's like slamming your direct competition as it were. I have no objection to author's reviewing other books, their input can be quite insightful at times, but I'd rather they reviewed books that are in the same genre. It's just too easy for any constructive critism to be misinterpreted as petty jealousy or an attack on a competitor's work.
This is broken down even easier by saying this is a re-release of a very old book. It was safe for this reviewer to give an honest review.
She has many author friends & they each give glowing reviews to each other. You will notice all her 5 stars.
This is a very good observation, scotdog. W.Boudville, too, does this -- probably as a means to look less incredible with his otherwise all-positive record. He sometimes picks some real old or odd-ball, abandoned product and gives it, oh god, three stars. Once he reviewed a manual for a thirteen-year-old piece of software, smashing it -- for what? -- for being obsolete!
That must be a widely used trick among our friends Top Reviewers when they want to soften their solid-bs record with some semblance of realism.
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