Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might drown them out

Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by casion on Friday February 14, 2020 @09:29AM (#22326809)

I'm not sure I agree with this. I always look for and at the 1 start reviews, and I find that to be more useful than reviews I find anywhere else.

4/5 star reviews are useless, but 2/1 star reviews reveal a great deal of useful information about a product.

A bunch of 1 star reviews of "UPS damaged my product" indicates a product that's as advertised and isn't astroturfed (much?).

No 1 star reviews, or 1 star reviews indicating misleading advertising tend to indicate astroturing.

1 star reviews indicating product failures, support failures, DOA etc... indicate to not purchase the product at all.

It's not a pure indicator, but I've found it to be more reliable than other review systems.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by 0xffff2 on Friday February 14, 2020 @10:00AM (#22327085)

Am I crazy, or does the entirety of your comment except for the first sentence agree with the person you replied to?

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by casion on Friday February 14, 2020 @04:38PM (#22330661)

The second and third paragraph were cut off when I replied on mobile. This was clearly my mistake.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by stronglikedan on Friday February 14, 2020 @04:14PM (#22330453)

Yes, and yes.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by tobtoh on Friday February 14, 2020 @10:04AM (#22327118)

I think we are in agreement - I didn't word my comment well.

When I was referring to the star rating, I meant the overall average rating of the product (ie what Amazon is trying to promote now over star rating plus written reviews).

When I mentioned the negative reviews, I was referring to the 1 and 2-star written reviews. I use the negative written reviews exactly how you described - and it's what I find valuable.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by casion on Friday February 14, 2020 @04:40PM (#22330672)

I mistakenly did not see the whole OP comment when I replied. This was my fault as I'm unused to using HN on mobile and did not do my due diligence to see the full comment.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by obelos on Friday February 14, 2020 @10:00AM (#22327077)

A useful heuristic that I also use, but it's good to be aware that fake reviews go in the other direction, too, of sabotaging competitors' product reviews.

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Re:Amazon can’t end fake reviews, but its new system might d... by Shivetya on Friday February 14, 2020 @09:44AM (#22326942)

plus with some of the low star reviews you can compare what they stated was wrong with your own expectations of what could go wrong with the product.

the only two considerations for me are the number of reviews and the quality of the low star reviews for the same. the dates of reviews is very useful as well, if a product doesn't have many recent good reviews it can offset the number of reviews in my view

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