"Was This Review Helpful?" An Amazon Rant

I don't profess to be the world's greatest reviewer. I do it because I love to read and I love to have a dialogue about books. Ask anyone what makes a good review and you'll get answers that span the spectrum of possibilities. Some people want you to write reviews that are spoiler-free, so they can decide whether to buy a book they haven't read yet. Others read reviews after they're finished with a book. They want you to talk about the plot; they want to compare their reading experience to yours. Some people want to know about the writing style, the grammar, or the story structure; while others want to know about the emotion the story sparked in you. I understand that you can't please everyone with every review and in the end, you have to talk about what speaks to you.

But that doesn't make me feel any better about a stupid little feature at Amazon.com. Below every review, it asks, "Was this review helpful to you?" I know I shouldn't care. Hell, I stopped caring what people thought about me somewhere around the third grade. But for some reason, this irritating question sticks in my craw all the same.

I understand the principle of the thing. I've read reviews on Amazon that gave a book a poor rating because it took too long to ship. Others complained that it was too expensive and they refused to buy it, then went on to give the book one star based on the price. Those aren't reviews and shouldn't be counted as such. A book's rating shouldn't be dragged down based on things like that. And there should be a way to flag things like that. But if you've ever spent any amount of time and effort putting reviews on Amazon, you'll find out quickly that people abuse the feature.

What could anyone possibly get out of that? you might ask. Hmpf. Every book or product on Amazon has three featured reviews. They are the ones people have found most helpful. Theoretically, those would be the most worthwhile to casual web-surfers who just want the flavor of the book. But this doesn't mean that the person with the highest votes is featured first. Oh no, you're penalized for each unhelpful vote. Which means if someone wants their review featured, the quickest way to do it is find the other reviews unhelpful.

In moments of reflection and introspection, I've asked myself, "Jen, are you sure you're not being paranoid? Maybe 14% of the people who have read your reviews really didn't find them helpful." But then I think about the release days on any highly anticipated book... how if I go to Amazon, I'll see "0 of 3 people find this review helpful" on all 5 or 6 reviews already posted. And we're talking perfectly good reviews. And it pisses me off. For the most part, these are fellow booklovers like me, who are excited to share their thoughts on the book they've just finished reading. But they're getting voted down so others can make sure their review will be placed higher when it's published. I end up asking myself, "Is it too early to post? Will the trolls be done yet?" Then I shake myself and just post the damn thing, because for crying out loud, it's a book review not international politics.

So what does it all really mean in the end? Not a whole lot. It just bugs me. Those of us who write reviews do it to share them with others. I get to do that on my blog and on Goodreads, without the drama. I think Amazon's important too, though, because many casual readers never make it to the bloggosphere or even Goodreads. **sigh** I feel like a tool for letting it bother me. But I might as well own it.