Help & Feedback Discussion Board

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

vivasuzi — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:18:10 GMT

I agree with Alex, I usually do the pros/cons AFTER writing the review. Funny thing is that before writing I feel like I'll never come up with good pros/cons. But once I write it, the pros and cons come easily. Still, sometimes it's hard to get them short enough for the limit.

I also agree with rudi about the I Am tags taking less thought then pros/cons. I tend to use the same I Am tags a lot, trying to use the same ones at least, so that reviews on my page can be filtered properly. A lot of time I do go to my profile in another browser to copy some I Am Tags that aren't showing on the "most used" list. Like today I went to find the Johnny Depp one to make sure I phrased it exactly the same. But otherwise i don't spend too much time with that part.

I often leave Cons blank on products I love. A lot of times I might find a small flaw, but nothing that would have changed my mind about the purchase. If the flaw affected my rating or I thought others would be affected by it, then I would list it. If I would still purchase the product again even with the flaw, then I might not list it. Either way I would mention the flaw in the actual review, it is just that I might not list it in the Cons. I'm tempted to list "none" but I decided to leave the field blank instead of listing none. As for pros, I never have a blank spot there since I tend to always find at least 1 good thing about every product.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

PattyTherre — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:19:04 GMT

Pros and cons come pretty easily to me since I already have a strong impression of the product or service except when I write the dreaded 3 star review. The one thing I rarely do is to leave one area blank. I have rarely used a product that had NO cons or NO pros. I think I may have said "none" in the cons area once or twice about something that blew me away but I like to find at least one thing that may possibly be a con (if I am doing a 5 star review) or a pro (if I am doing a 1 star one). I really don't like extremes and find that I trust a review a bit less when a person only talks about how great or how awful a product is without a little bit of balance.

I do think about the pros and cons because I consider them to be a label for the review but don't spend a lot of time doing so. I spend less time on I AM tags.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

Fardreamer — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:57:49 GMT

I spend about a minute on the pros and cons after having written the review proper. I don't dawdle too much when writing them, but I do give them more than a cursory afterthought.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

RudiXeno — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:45:19 GMT

I tend to give more thought to pros and cons than the "I am" tags.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

Jo — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:35:28 GMT

I put some time into thinking of pros and cons. I want them to mean something. Sometimes I just end up with "expensive" as a con but I try to get the gist of the product with the pros and cons - at least I try I think! Jo

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

bkovacs — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:18:15 GMT

I mostly rush through the "I am" and pros/cons, just to get to the actual review. However, if I'm the first to review the product and someone reviews it after me, I notice that they often re-use at least a couple of my pros/cons. Sometimes, they re-use all of them.

--Bob

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

ChrisJarmick — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:47:29 GMT

I do put some thought into the pros and cons thinking some people look at those before they read the article/essay. I've experimented with using them a bit like a tease in order to intrique, entice, interest people to read more.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

njchicaa — Mon, 26 May 2008 01:23:04 GMT

I think I put more time into my "I am" tags than the pros and cons.

Pros/Cons, Thumbs up/Thumbs down

vivasuzi — Sun, 25 May 2008 06:24:10 GMT

I was just thinking of how much the summary page for a product can help you! Everytime I'm researching something quickly, I love that I can see thumbs up/thumbs down percents, as well as percent of different star ratings, as well as a quick list of pros and cons. I love that the pros/cons shows how many people gave it that pro or con. And I love that you can filter by pros/cons!

Sometimes I'll see one "pro" that stands out, and I love that I can filter to see who said that pro and then read their reviews.

So on this subject, do you write your pros and cons wisely? Do you think about the person coming to the page and seeing your pro? When I wrote on other sites, I used to be generic with pros/cons b/c I felt like no one ever read that part. But on Viewpoints, I am very conscious of my pros and cons and put a lot of thought into it. I try to include all of the top points for liking or disliking the product. Sometimes I feel like I can't come up with short enough pros/cons, but the character limit just challenges me to phrase my pro/con differently!

What about you? How important or how much time do you spend doing pros and cons for your reviews?