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I think honest reviews are important. To give an example of another niche community I belong to, a lot of regulars at my exercise video board find over time that someone appears who has exactly the same taste as they do. So if I read a review by a certain person, and she hates the dvd, I can be pretty sure I won't like it either. And if she loves it, it goes on my 'check it out' list. People need objective information so they can make informed decisions. Smashwords is not going to ever hit critical mass among the casual readers (as opposed to the hard-core people like us) unless some sort of crowd-sourcing kicks in to get the good stuff to the top. And that will hurt ALL authors, not just the ones with the shill reviews.
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