Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Grady Harp reviews on other Amazon Sites, but where's the voting machine?

You can read Grady's reviews on Amazon Canada here, and Amazon UK here, and I even found his reviews on Amazon.de. Soooo, what's so different between the reviews on those sites and his reviews on Amazon US? Yes there are fewer reviews, but where is the TNGHVM? If, as the most prevelant theory is that GH has multiple Amazon accounts and uses those to vote himself silly, wouldn't he be doing it on those sites as well? He'd be #1 in a heartbeat without Harriet to contend with. If he's vote mad as we all believe he is, why aren't the votes there as well?

I suspect that it's not multiple accounts, but that GH has found some software and/or is able to manipulate the Amazon votes and that's where the massive votes come from, and if he could do so on the other sites he would as well. Besides, try getting an extra Amazon account and give yourself a vote or two. You have to log in, find the item post the vote, log out, log in again on new identity, vote again, etc. Even with the fastest connection and fingers of fire no one could do that in the time frames we've seen those votes come in.

6 comments:

Barbara Delaney said...

I do wonder about that. For instance, at Powell's books his reviews usually receive no votes or occasionally a couple of negative votes. The same thing happens at the IMDb independent movie site. His movie reviews are decidely unpopular at that site.

Stanley H Nemeth said...

Question for the Day:
If Grady has found some software which allows him to manipulate votes, did he find that device for sale at Amazon? After all, the company is selling just about everything these days, and it doesn't seem to have much interest in overseeing the behavior of its own spoiled children. Just a thought.

Malleus said...

It seems that one's reviews get transferred to these other sites automatically. I don't think Harp bothers to vote for himself there: after all, it's a lot of work, and perhaps not worth his while (of course, not knowing what he and his likes get out of their 'reviewing', I can't really be sure of anything). Also, other sites tend to be a bit behind the US one and perhaps voting was unavailable there untill recently (some may still not offer it, I don't know).

Stanley H Nemeth said...

Ghost:
What you say appears to fit the Amazon outlets in foreign countries, but not, I think, IMDB (even though it's a local, Amazon owned company) nor the independent Powell's. Apparently, Grady would have to take time to freshly submit his reviews to each of these last two sites, yet his voting machine doesn't accompany him to IMDB, nor support him, once he's arrived at either destination. How is this lapse in self-promotion to be explained? Why would an Amazon high-roller take time to resubmit a review, yet have no interest in inflated vote totals in the new location? (See, for example, a typical pattern in his recent review of the Italian film "Light of My Eyes" at IMDB, where it has yet to garner a single helpful vote though it already hovers around the 100 mark at Amazon.) Who can explain this, besides the reticent Grady Harp, of course?

Malleus said...

I'm not that familiar with IDMB, but perhaps they don't use specious marks of distinction like "Top Reviewer"? Meaning that extra votes don't buy you a promotion, as it were (assuming, of course, that votes do play some role in Amazon topreviewer-rank assignation -- which may or may not be the case: their influence, if any, is not apparent on Amazon: Bernabaux has more helpful votes than Klausner, yet he's lower in the hierarchy, even though his reviews are ways better (still an understatement) than HK's).

Cathy said...

Malleus, as far as other sites picking up reviews posted on Amazon and putting on other sites, I agree. I post on Amazon UK and CA as well as US and I've never found a duplicate review, so that is not the answer to this puzzle.

Besides, if that was the case, HK's reviews would still be showing up on Amazon CA and UK and they're not. Both stopped several years ago. I thought I heard she'd been banned from posting there, but that was just a rumor.