I'm not even sure I know what Amazon Vine is, let alone why it's so troll-y.
Judging by the name (which seems like it was inspired by the idea of the 'grapevine') I assume this is some sort of service for sharing recommendation of books?
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Originally Posted by anamardoll
Afa, that was wonderful, thank you.  |
You're quite welcome, Ana.
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It's not too hard to get accurate figures on posting. My husband programmed an Amazon Reviewer Analysis Tool (ARAT) for me a year or so ago and it's been disseminated fairly widely on the Amazon boards. And I'm sure that other bedroom programmers can and have done similar programs.
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That's a pretty interesting tool. I don't think I knew that such things existed, though in retrospect it seems obvious (doesn't everything?).
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I know at least one person who is using ARAT to track several of the Top 20 via a nightly batch script and seeing when they delete-and-repost reviews to shake off negs votes.
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Hmmm... now that's just wrong. Shouldn't there be some way of controlling such behaviour? I know these reviews are, perhaps, not an entirely big deal. But they are there for a reason, and so are the votes. The feature is supposed to give you an idea about how well-received a person's critique's are. Such shenanigans essentially render them meaningless.
Perhaps Amazon should just prevent deleting posts.