Ratings & Reviews now live for the Buddy Store

[raphus]

[SIZE=+1]News[/SIZE]

The Buddy Store now permits product owners to Rate and Review products!

We hope this new feature allows Community members to make more informed decisions to determine a product's suitability for their needs.​

[SIZE=+1]FAQs[/SIZE]

Must I own the product to review it?

Yes. We feel that only owners of the product have spent enough time with it to leave meaningful feedback.​

I "trialed" the product. Can I leave a review for it?

No. Although a product trial allows one to determine whether or not the product is right for immediate needs, most trial periods are not long enough to allow a user to form a comprehensive opinion suitable for reviewing a product.​

The product was 'gifted' to me. Can I leave a review for it?

No. We do not allow product owners with 'gifted' keys to review the product. This is to prevent abuse by developers. In addition to 'migration' gift keys, each product has a 50 gift key quota for friends and family which might be used to abuse the review system.

We understand that this decision has the unfortunate consequence of disallowing legitmate reviews from 'migrated' customers. But, without a way to distinguish between the two usages of 'gift' keys, we err on the side of astroturf prevention.​

I "refunded" a product. Can I leave a review for it?

Yes. You committed to buying the product with the intent of using it to its fullest capabilities. There is a significant penalty for those that refund products—they will never be able to re-purchased the product again. Due to this penalty, we feel those requesting a refund might have meaningful feedback for their fellow Community members.

Reviews by people that refunded a product will be tagged with a "Product Refunded" moniker.​

Must I provide a product Review with my Rating? I don't like to type.

No. The Store allows you to provide a Rating only. However, we strongly encourage you to write a couple of meaningful sentences to help your fellow Community members decide if the product might serve their needs, also.

The Buddy Store also allows you to submit a Review without a Rating.​

I messed up my review (or have changed my mind). Can I edit my Rating and Review?

Yes. You may submit a new review, and it will replace your existing review. The new review will also be logged against the current version of the product.​

How is a product's Rating calculated?

We will not discuss the details of the algorithm. But, we offer these insights:

• When a Rating is created, it is logged against the current version of the product.
• Ratings for newer versions of the product will contribute more heavily to the product's score than ratings against older versions of the product.
• A product's rating is not calculated immediately with each new review, but updated in the background several times a day.

We feel this encourages developers to keep their products up-to-date.​

The product updated, and is now totally messed up! Can I leave another Rating and Review for the new version?

Yes. You may submit a new review, and it will replace your existing review. The new review will also be logged against the current version of the product.​

Are you doing anything to prevent astroturfing?

The Buddy Store does not allow authors to submit reviews for their own products.

Other than this simple precaution, there is no known Rating system that can prevent astroturfing. When reading reviews, you must always keep in mind that some (or all) of the reviews may be astroturfed. The quality of the Review comments may help you make this determination. Ratings without Reviews to back them up should also be suspect.​

I made a negative review on the Store, and my comment now says ** Comment waiting for approval ** !

Your comment will be marked as waiting for approval when it is reported as Spam by another user. The comment then goes into a queue to be reviewed. If the comment is found to be not-Spam, it will be restored.

Negative reviews tend to get 'reported' frequently. However, the Buddy Store welcomes negative reviews that are honest feedback. Your review will return shortly, once it has been determined that no mis-representations exist with it.

Once a review has been cleared as not-Spam, the "Report as Spam" button will be removed from the review. The same review cannot be reported again as Spam, unless the review is updated.​

I want to report a comment as Spam, but there is no "Report as Spam" button for it.

The comment in question was previously reported as Spam, was reviewed by the Staff and determined to be not-Spam. The comment will only be eligible to be reported as Spam again if the review is ever updated.​

I have bought a product, but am unable to submit a review for it!

Reviewers who have established themselves as trolls, users of vulgar language, and so forth will have their reviewing privileges revoked. Established patterns of this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

Writing a negative review WILL NOT cause your review privileges to be revoked. Quite the contrary, negative reviews serve a vital purpose to encourage the developer to repair fundamental problems.

However, trolling WILL get your review privileges revoked. Examples of trolling include, but are not limited to:

• Intentional mis-representation of a product or its stated feature set.
• Making patently false statements about a product.
• Complaints about the product's price.
  If the product is not a good value proposition for you, then don't buy it. That is not a defect of the product.
• Attempts to 'game' the review system, including astroturfing.
• Personal attacks on the developer, associates, or others.

If your review privileges have been revoked, the "Write a Review" button will be missing on products you have purchased.​

Why are the names associated with the Rating & Review obscured?

This is done for security reasons.

The Buddy Store user account is completely decoupled from the forum account. Security-aware users will make certain that their is no correlation between their forum account name and their Buddy Store account name. We mask the Buddy Store account names to maintain the integrity of the user's Buddy Store login credentials.​

 

[MrLamp]

Is there a reason we can't rate & review gifted products? Since they are usually purchased too, but before the Buddy Store existed.

 

[raphus]

Is there a reason we can't rate & review gifted products? Since they are usually purchased too, but before the Buddy Store existed.

That is not allowed to avoid abuse by developers. Other then migration gift keys, each product have a 50 gift key quota for friends and family which might be used to abuse the review system.