Random thoughts on Reviews

I tend to use the awards for reviews, and use them generously, because we have some great reviews here.

As far as the F site goes, I have thumbed down reviews before..not often, and not because I share a conflicting view of a fragrance.

Generally the ones that hate a fragrance and talk about the type of person that must like this (in a negative sense). I also hate reviews where someone starts using "text speak" instead of real words. Typos or usage errors do not bother me much; not everyone is an English major. However when the review is two lines and goes something like this:

"RU2 OLD FOR CKIN2U...OMG...my BFF AND GF LUVS THIS THS DZE"

I do thumb it down.

Cincy,

Don't get me wrong, there are legitimate reasons to thumb down a review. But being able to thumb a review out of existence invites abuse and thumbing down for non-legitimate reasons. Not everyone is as level-headed as we are. That's all I'm saying.

HAHA....they can't spell, or express themselves...so how can they write a review? Or, do they really know what they are talking about? I think most of these reviews...or non reviews..are just to fill in time..they aren't reviews at all. They haven't even tried the perfume....

Oops, sorry! This earlier post of mine (below) should've been addressed to Gmmcnair. rather than Cincy, she had merely quoted it. Sorry Cincy!

No problem Dulcemio.

IMHO honesty and clear expression are all that is really required in a review.

Make it sound too hard and people won't contribute. If I had known about all these rules and expectations I would not have written a single thing.

Usually I welcome every review - negative or positive, as long as there is some substance to it. I just can't stand the one (two, three) liners that have nothing to say. "I like it" or "smells good/fantastic" etc. does not make any sense to me unless you can explain why.

Nobody should feel intimidated to write something when they really got something to say.

I'm well aware not everybody finds the right words or will find it easy to write a review (Don't get me wrong, I'm against the long elaborates that tell 10% about the fragrance and 90% about something else as well). You should always write in your own style - short or long - a consens between two is the best way for me and I try to go this way with my texts. But I just think you can always say a little bit more than just "smells nice/cheap" or whatever.

Again the celebrity thing... so many people over at 'F' tend to hate or praise on people they don't even know (and those don't even bother the haters or stans existance at all ), people that in most cases just advertise for a scent and they write non-sense/useless comments about things that haven't got anything to do with the scent itself - that's what I hate (it happens in mainstream and niche as well of course ).

The "popping baloons" thing is ridiculous anyway... yes a nonsense blabber should be erased, but it shouldn't be misused to mob against someone or like with Enchanted Forest even to erase almost everything negative about the scent.

Believe it or not... on the german site in the last 2 weeks a couple of people voted almost all of my reviews down for whatever reasons (no comments, no hints, just almost every celebrity review went from helpful to neutral or even from very helpful to neutral). >- It was a good 50% of my reviews so I don't see this as a simple not liking of my writing. I would understand if somebody doesn't think the same way I do, especially in the beginning of my writing which was different than it is now (as it's probably with anybody), but not when there is no explaining to it and this many reviews (do you get me?).

But as someone told me... "helpful" may fade, awards stay (not that I really care about those in the way that I need them or write to get those, but at least it can't be manipulated in a negative way). I just like it if someone approves something I do for fun and has positive/negative critisism to it.

Franfran, I find your reviews helpful since we like similar scents. But for whatever reason, people have vendettas against certain brands or types...or on the opposite end they are defensive of their fragrance loves. So they vote down no on the "was this review helpful?" question. It's trivial, but those sentiments will not go away unfortunately.

I know, I just wondered about it and asked the admins and they confirmed what I had in mind. I believe it's really against the celeb scents rather than against me (maybe a little against me as well ), but as I noticed this on the celeb scent reviews only and on other reviews that were written for example on Gardenia by Liz Taylor as well, I'm pretty sure this is what it is...

Anyway I can deal with it... in the last 3 days people voted down Madonna's Truth Or Dare Naked in percentage... 4 0% ratings which is ridiculous as well (since there are no votes on longevity, sillage etc.), but like you said Hayven this is something that will never vanish unfortunately.

@Franfan20....this is the very reason I stopped writing reviews of F. It is really so silly, the balloon popping thing, just because someone doesn't like the particular perfume. But, the main reason I stopped, is I just don't have the feeling for writing them, as I do on here. I feel Good, when I do a review on here, and even if it's a bit of a negative slant, I feel quite happy putting it forward.

Of course FF is right about reviews needing to have substance.

So I'll add to my "rules" that reviews should say something about the perfume itself and have a constructive intention in saying it.

Literary quality is of secondary importance, though I totally agree that text-speak is unacceptable.

The balloon popping thing never ceases to amaze me

You don't need to timidly raise your hand! Agree with the life experience in humanity shared. I also think everyone should have no qualms about diving right in and writing furiously! It just makes everything more fun and interesting, and the more diverse the points of view, the more in depth a portrait is painted of any given fragrance. Cheers!

I vote that if someone admits that THEY DIDN'T BOTHER TO SMELL THE PERFUME and then has the audacity to post a review, it ought to be deleted from the site.

I know where there is one Cryptic.

The screen name alone gives you an inkling that nothing good is to come. If we're thinking of the same individual, that is.

You got it Cryptic. I reported each one and reported the review thingy. It is a slap in the face for us in the USA. I did it a week or so ago.

I don't think we can disappear them Fragrantica style but we can vote them "unhelpful," which is a nice, polite way of summing it up.

Well you can only "make them disappear" if you click the report button, but of course they are checked before they are deleted. It is really helpful to get rid of ads and useless comments and is good function and it can't be misused.

Yeah the Osama bin Laden thing left me wondering as well.

Agreed

The other day I read an interview with Francis Kurkdjian and the subject reviews by fume heads such as we are, was touched. As I read it, Mr. Kurkdjian criticises that there is a tendency to
1. glorify the past, i.e. relate to classics only, which results in losing sight of modern creations.
2. be boring due to showing off. "And the reason why they’re so boring is that, to prove their legitimacy, they try to drop ingredient names, chemical names, just to prove to their readers that they have the know-how."
3. "[P]eople are trying to critique perfumes without knowing what it is to critique a perfume. They don’t have the knowledge. People don’t know what it means to compromise if you’re creating something for a brand. (...) So people try to judge the final result at the end, but they don’t even know about the process of creating it. You don’t judge a perfume just on its scent."

That made me ponder. While I don't agree with the first point, even though I happen to love many vintage classics, his questioning pretentiousness and lack of knowledge about constraints is legit. Still, I do judge a perfume based on its scent. Working on a budget surely is a challenging job when trying to compose something beautiful. Yet, isn't it the scent that matters in the end?

What are your thoughts?