Reform needed.

I love dooyoo, but I feel that it has some serious flaws thatspoil the experience as a whole. These I will outline.

1) I feel that the payment of dooyoo is too polarised. Quality does not matter a great deal on the site, with a plethora of useless and superflous information which has a nagative effect on the information presented, and this has a negative effect upon the people who matter most. The consumers. You know, the faceless people who actually rely upon what he write?

This is the added negative effect of meaning that regardless if you write an eloquent and witty resume of societys problems, or a genral gripe about your day at work, you are rewarded. Where is the fairness in that?

2) For a site that prides itself on being community-based, it is incredibly elitist, and cloistered. Sure, it is natural for people to feel drawn towards people whose interests they share or have some common affinity with, but what happens is that the reviews and reads are sucked in towards more established members. A more fair disribution is needed.

3) The site as a whole should decide what it wants to be. Sadly, at present it lurches aimlessly between a democracy and a a bastardized form of feudalism. As to the site being democratic UI quote Euripides:

"I cannot trust a system of government that grants as much power to the village idiots opinion as Aristotles."

I quote this in support of point no.1.

However, too much power is held by too few.

"A mutlitude of rules is not a good thing, let ther be one law, and one king."

What this means is that crowns are time and time again held by the same people, with the whole site turned into a popularity contest rather than a fair and equal forum. In relation to my analogy of feudalism, we have the superiors, that is the guides, or those who are major players of the site. Then there is theire vassals or fans. These vassals/fans read the same material from the same authro time and time again. Everyone denies it, but we are all equally guilty of it.

I don't mean to criticise the people who put bread on my table, and those who lsiten to my rants. At the same time, I would like to see dooyoo grow up and shape up.

I propose a Wiseman Committee, a coalition of Dooyoo users who actually take the site seriously. I also think that the reward scheem should be reconsidered, users should be ranked, and a appropiate payment made on the basis of rank. This may sound unfair, but it proivdes an incentive to the lower members to improve their work, and provides the higher and respected members more appropiate reward for their efforts.

First of all nice to see a serious contributor on the forum and all opinions are welcome here.

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This is the added negative effect of meaning that regardless if you write an eloquent and witty resume of societys problems, or a genral gripe about your day at work, you are rewarded. Where is the fairness in that?

We have all griped about this from time to time, but what would you rather have, a system that pays people equally, or a system where people use their ratings as abuse as happens on ciao ? As Dididave said, unhelpful reviews are actually removed, and from reading a review today, I was unaware that some writers are asked to re-submit their work in a better way in order to be suited to the site. Now that's a really good thing and I applaud dooyoo for doing that. A far better option than censorship.

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For a site that prides itself on being community-based, it is incredibly elitist, and cloistered. Sure, it is natural for people to feel drawn towards people whose interests they share or have some common affinity with, but what happens is that the reviews and reads are sucked in towards more established members. A more fair disribution is needed

I am not sure about this. I always used to find the site elitist, but lately, I find that by reading anyone at all, and not just those that read me, it widens my readership as well as showing me the direction in which the site is going. I suppose I am a semi established member, and I tend to use the site much differently than I use ciao for example, and have very few alerts, and tend to read a variety and very randomly, trying to be fair with my ratings, and always commenting upon my lower ratings in an attempt to assist those that need a bit of help. Some see this as ramming stuff down people's throats. I see it as polite, but unless we do tell people what we find wrong, how will they learn.

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However, too much power is held by too few

In what way are any members more powerful than other members ?

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What this means is that crowns are time and time again held by the same people, with the whole site turned into a popularity contest rather than a fair and equal forum. In relation to my analogy of feudalism, we have the superiors, that is the guides, or those who are major players of the site. Then there is theire vassals or fans. These vassals/fans read the same material from the same authro time and time again. Everyone denies it, but we are all equally guilty of it.

Not sure about this one from my point of view, and cannot say how others read on dooyoo or how they nominate. I think that many of the regular crown people are people that write consistently good reviews.

I am not sure you actually know what you are saying here. No one has any power on Dooyoo other than Dooyoo themselves. The reason why people are paid for a review rather than quality is to stop it being elitist rather than to make it so. Elitist (in my opinion) means that there are people who have different advantages to others whereas on Dooyoo you can start from scartch and within a month become an respected member with a lot of reads.

I have been on Dooyoo over 5 years so I would expect to have more reads than someone who has been on 1 year but that is not always true, the amount of read you get relates to the amount of work you do on site rating and commenting on others as well as the quality of their work.

Crowns are awarded on the ability of the review and not for any other reason. If you don't get many crowns it is because your work is not deemed good enough by Dooyoo, not the guides nor the members.

If you want to change Dooyoo then get involved more and change it.

Sonny, I have just been on the site because I wondered where your queries were coming from and I can now see. I used to post on dooyoo, and then disappear onto ciao and wonder why the heck people bothered with dooyoo and found it cold and not worth my bother. I was wrong. What happens when you get involved is that you begin to reap the benefits. Rating others comes into it a great deal, and rating at least equal to those that have rated you matters. It's not essential to being a dooyoo member. It's not even obligatory and doesn't stop you getting crowns, but what it does do is get you read. It isn't until you get involved on an equal basis that you reap the rewards and that's not because of elitism, it's because you are not participating as much as others. As soon as my read quota was equal, my reads were as good as anyone elses. It's really a question of participation. Why would you want to read reviews ? Why would they interest you ? Okay, in my case, it's a study of how people write, how a product is presented and I suppose to some degree learning at the same time as being a member. I got better, I tried harder and the site opened up to me. There are members that are new that get crowns. Why ? Because they took a look around the site and learned fast, grew confidence, and didn't put their own reviews first, giving as much as they give. We have a member here that actually joined this site before writing their first review on dooyoo, read like mad in an effort to understand what sites like dooyoo are about, and every review they wrote was crowned. Why ? Because they were darned good, and they participated. No one is levelling criticism at you personally, but trying to explain how it works.

I didnt mean to cause offence nor did I mean to complain about the site as a whole. I am not really that bothered about getting a crown or not. Seriously! And I most definatly do not feel hard done by. My intention was simply to provide an objective view as to the merits and flaws of the site.

I am not meaning to lead a coup or anything, nor do I wish to assume the dubious legacy left by others. To clarify, if i have caused any offence, i apologise.

EDITED, NO NAMING.

The whole point of the forum is discussion. Discuss away, but leave members names out of it !! You are indeed welcome on the site, and nice to see people expressing their views. Those who replied did so in an effort to help you get the most out of your dooyoo experience.

PS This was a somewhat clumsy attempt at trying to get more involved, as I would love to really get into the inner-workings of the site (not that there is much wrong with it!) So if there is a better and more constructive way of doing so, please tell me.

Read more, rate more, learn more, improve your presentation - none of them obligatory but you asked.

The way I see it - Dooyoo (like ciao and ever other review website) really is what you make of it. Be laid back and don't take it too seriously - don't worry about the cliques or elites or whatever... the only reason these exist is because the popular writers are usually the most prolific/rate the most.
By the way, nice to meet you, Boothegoose!

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don't worry about the cliques or elites

which cliques and elites ?

nice to meet you to Sam_Garland

Nice to meet you too boo. Why not pop along and say hi to the members in the all site information area.

Sorry Thingywhatsit - didn't explain myself very well there. Boothegoose expressed a concern about members of a certain popularity -

Boothegoose wrote:

What this means is that crowns are time and time again held by the same people, with the whole site turned into a popularity contest rather than a fair and equal forum. In relation to my analogy of feudalism, we have the superiors, that is the guides, or those who are major players of the site. Then there is theire vassals or fans. These vassals/fans read the same material from the same author time and time again. Everyone denies it, but we are all equally guilty of it.

which I (rather foolishly, I'm now thinking!) summed up as the 'elite' of Dooyoo. Anyway, what I meant was - this sort of thing shouldn't concern users. I find that if you write a review worth reading, the number of rates will be as high as that of the more experienced/popular members

I really don't think there is a popularity contest on dooyoo at all. I think that participation reaps rewards, good reviews, good participation, and just getting involved, rather than posting and disappearing.

absolutly. Thanks everyone for showing me the error of my ways!

Are you for real?

I believe he's the figment of your imagination.

What the hell is this?

Ah, Boo - this is the way all threads go eventually... they slip into the off-topic dementia of the RWF. I call it... thread senility.

Is this the place to get my trousers pressed?

Need I say more...?

You could say more, but then you'd have to be sued.

As far as reformations go, however, I'd like to quote Scotty: "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."

Boothegoose wrote:

What the hell is this?

don't worry Angus and Jani (berlioz)always manage to do this to a thread when I'm not around to keep them on topic.

banana hammock...

..hmmm.....