This comes from a current thread in interior/exterior modifications regarding some problems encountered with a product and a vendor (which is hopefully being resolved).

minimarks
5th Gear

Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Winston-Salem, NC
Posts: 776
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackie
Since many of the comments here regarded reputation based on various NAM postings, has there ever been any thought to having a vendor "rankings" section on NAM where actual purchasers of products could vote on a 1-5 scale (or 1-10) regarding the three essentials (product quality, product value, and customer service)? Seems like it would be a good idea and would boil down the "he said, she said" to simple numbers that would largely speak for themselves.
I think it would be a very good idea as long as it worked sort of like Tire Rack's rankings that are based on people that HAVE purchased from a certain vendor. Now how NAM would be able to control that might be the rub. If you had vendor rankings based on opinions by people who had heard or been told or read something about a vendor, it would be about as useful as **** on a bull.... PS:In a court of law that is referred to as "hear say".
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Last edited by minimarks : Yesterday at 10:13 PM.

#105
Yesterday, 11:43 PM

blackie
2nd Gear

Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 122
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Quote:
Originally Posted by minimarks
I think it would be a very good idea as long as it worked sort of like Tire Rack's rankings that are based on people that HAVE purchased from a certain vendor. Now how NAM would be able to control that might be the rub. If you had vendor rankings based on opinions by people who had heard or been told or read something about a vendor, it would be about as useful as **** on a bull.... PS:In a court of law that is referred to as "hear say".

I hope you noted in my suggestion post I stated that voting needs to be from actual purchasers and I don't think it would be that hard to monitor. Since the vendors who would really care about this are already advertisers here, you could require that anyone submitting a ranking identify the item(s) and date(s) of purchase and have that information be not just part of the data base summary, but automatically sent to the vendors who advertise too (NAM could also probably charge them more to cover this extra feature). The vendors could verify whether or not a voter did or did not make the purchase that relates to their vote. I think they would want to know what folks are saying about them and would eagerly monitor the voting. A vendor could challenge through NAM any vote they could not match up to their records and NAM could ask the voter to submit proof of the purchase on anything challenged. I think this would sort out pretty quickly and with such a system in place people would not be voting if they hadn't made a purchase. I think this is almost too easy NOT to do and it is sorely needed.

 

See https://www.northamericanmotoring.com/reviews/ This could be a great tool if people used it.

 

gnaster:

I found the reviews area through your link, but I don't know how I would have found it otherwise. Where within the site is this area located and how would you get to it? I tried looking at the forum menu and maybe I just missed it. Also, the discussion thread that the suggestion I made came from was heavily travelled and had plenty of folks in 6th gear, so the lack of this being brought up as a response over there would sort of affirm that many who have been here awhile do not even know this area exists. Apparently, you knew of it, but your comment suggests it is under-utilized. Why do you think that is?

 

BTW, thanks!

 

Look under Main Menu on the left side of the page for all kinds of features most people never use.

Why the lack of use....

Well, frankly most people are just lazy. Witness all the posts asking "What is the best _______?". Those people usually did not even bother with the sites search engine. Why would even look for a Product Review area. This also stems from the wide variety of forums and lack of standardization. It's so easy to costumize and add hacks to forums that no two look he same and people get tired of the learning curve for each one so the focus on the forum aspect and very few of the addons. Having been a forum admin on a different and not related forum, I've found that even when features are prominitly displayed they are under utilitized. This extends into features offered when a member pays for a membership, you would think that special features only open to paid members would be used, I mean these folks pay for the privledge, but no, the same behaviour is shown. In the end we still offered the features and still promote them but don't fret over their lack of use.

 

Actually it just got added there maybe a month ago.

I don't think most people notice it's actually part of the graphical menu at the top of the page under the NAM logo too. I'm not entirely sure but I don't think may people see it there either.

 

The difficult thing is to have valid reviews and weed out those reviews from users that have never purchased or interacted with a vendor. The only way I can think to enforce this is to provide a vendor with the ability to verify the first/last name of the customer providing the review and have them approve it. That said, if its not a good review they won't want to approve it.

Regardless the Reviews link in the graphical header has been there for several years. I added the link in the Main Menu about 1.5 months ago. If people will start linking to reviews and mentioning using the system I think its use will increase. Otherwise I think the only thing to make it more obvious is to put up a message every so often to users (or a PM) that mentions what it is and where it is located.

Mark