Magazines / Periodicals

Hiya - Just a question about reviewing magazines/ periodicals.

I rated a review "useful" because it failed to mention how often it was issued (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly etc), how much it cost, if you could buy it in a shop or you had to subscribe to it. Every other member who rated the review, rated it as "very useful" .

The review was a really detailed and well written but how can you make a buying decision about a peridoical if you have no idea whether it comes out twice a year or twelve times a year, whether it costs £1 per issue or £5 per issue?

Just wanted to know your thoughts? Was I being to harsh in marking it down for no mentioning these things?

For me I probably would rate down. As you say the price and how often it is released is important. Of course this might not be important to everybody...

I would be far more interested in the content and quality of the articles contained within than any of the piddly bits like how much it cost. It wouldn't affect my rating. Factual details I can obtain anywhere. A decent critique of a magazine I can't. I might not nominate/E it. Might not. Might though.

But I'm not you, am I? If it matters to you, then it matters to you. Rating isn't objective, or we might as well get one staffer (or a robot) to do it after ticking X number of boxes.

Jill Murphy wrote:

...piddly bits like how much it cost. .... Rating isn't objective, or we might as well get one staffer (or a robot) to do it after ticking X number of boxes.

I'm not sure if your response was meant to come across so forthright, but i took it that way.

Of course ratings are supposed to be subjective but my initial question was only following on from a thread that was discussed at length last week about what reviewers think is and isn't important in a DVD review. As this is a forum for discussing reviews, i thought my question was valid.

Jill Murphy wrote:

the piddly bits like how much it cost.

That would, actually, be very important to some people who are on a tight budget. Some magazines are ridiculously expensive, especially those for children and once you get sucked into the 'buy each issue' and it's several pounds a week it can add up.

I'd also want to know where and how easily a magazine can be bought, whether it has to be sent for, subscribed to online and so on, because we've often been trying to find a particular one only to discover that none of our local newsagents stock it!

It was just my immediate response. I didn't consider whether I was being forthright or not, sorry. I don't bother looking in the mirror much either! I don't look at the prices of magazine I buy. I don't buy many, but I buy them on content, not price. That's the point. It's not important to me. It is important to you. So the question's irrelevant - there's no proper rating. There's peer review. Everyone's equal. Rate on your needs. I can't be considering whether other people are on a budget or not when I rate, because I'm not on a budget. I'm a peer. You're all peers. You're not me. I'm not you. Otherwise, as I say, why not just get a bot to do the rating?

Jill Murphy wrote:

It was just my immediate response. I didn't consider whether I was being forthright or not, sorry. I don't bother looking in the mirror much either! I don't look at the prices of magazine I buy. I don't buy many, but I buy them on content, not price. That's the point. It's not important to me. It is important to you. So the question's irrelevant - there's no proper rating. There's peer review. Everyone's equal. Rate on your needs. I can't be considering whether other people are on a budget or not when I rate, because I'm not on a budget. I'm a peer. You're all peers. You're not me. I'm not you. Otherwise, as I say, why not just get a bot to do the rating?

Can I just point out that Jill rocks? It's nothing to do with the debate, really. It just needed saying.

I think that if its important to you to know how often the magazine comes out, and incidentally I would want to know that too, as long as your rating is backed up with a comment that allows the user to edit to include the missing information, then your rating is valid and you have qualified it by saying that it is important to YOU as a rater.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

I think that if its important to you to know how often the magazine comes out, and incidentally I would want to know that too, as long as your rating is backed up with a comment that allows the user to edit to include the missing information, then your rating is valid and you have qualified it by saying that it is important to YOU as a rater.

I wouldn't ask the user to edit to include the 'missing' information - I suspect if the writer edited every time someone said "but what about the length", the review would be bloated with ultimately trivial information.

It's not always (and I stress the 'always') the best thing to harp on about what could be changed/added/included. As has been pointed out, what is important to one is trivial to another.

I for one hate book reviews that include the ISBN number and all the plot details (and that includes children's books). Others feel differently. So I might rate an infant's book review (that is a book for infants - not a review written by an infant!) that included details about what happens on every page (and I've read such rreviews) U or even SU - but you might rate it VU. Horses for courses.

Not sure I see the rellevance really, of any of those points but then I am not really interested in magazines.

What I do have respect for is you rating it as you see fit, that to me is the only issue to be dealt with.

I want different things from a review than you do and I do not give a hoot if everyone has rated H and I give VH or vice-versa.

If I was you, I would be proud that I have stuck to my principles and rated it as you saw fit.

each people ahve different opinions on what makes a good review and some are mor lenient-my opinion