Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
I do feel that Amazon reviews should only be allowed by people who bought the item in question. Also if it's the case of a book, the review should say what version it is based on what the reviewer bought.
Remember the poor reviews of the Kindle based on nothing more then the way it looked before anyone actually had one? That was a case of abuse of the system for sure.
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There are online stores that only allow ratings/reviews from people who bought *that* product from *that* store; they get a lot less reviews.
If someone bought you a book from Amazon for your birthday, should you be prevented from reviewing it? Should the buyer, who hasn't read it, be expected to forward your review?
It might be nice to have a "what version are you reviewing" checkbox--hardcover, paperback, ebook, 1st edition, 4th revision, whatever. But that's a lot of code to write for something the most people are likely to skip, or just go with whatever's on top.
Amazon has decided that *any* reviews are to be encouraged; they don't try to sort out who has a "right" to review, or what criteria a review needs to be based on. This has let them put together a huge database of ratings & comments; they trust that, on average, they accurate reflect the opinions of the majority.