Jacked Up Egos

As I make my rounds through the normal barrage of review sites on my daily list, I become increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of content I come across. There seems to be a problem with the state of this industry and this doesn’t imply lack of content. I’m referring to the “jacked up egos” of reviewers and the general lack of respect for one another that review sites exhibit.

I understand that reviewers are doing the general consumer a great service by providing their opinions and observations, but let’s not forget about other peoples opinions as well. I have found in my travels through the forums of various sites that these “jacked up egos” are killing most of the positive aspects of the review industry.

I am a reviewer, plain and simple. I’m not going to hide behind an “anonymous” tag or lie and say I’m something that I’m not. It kills me that many reviewers can’t take other reviewer’s opinions. I have always felt that the purpose of a link in a review to a forum topic was for people to discuss not only the product but the review as well. Am I wrong?

Let me give you an example. I run across a TON of reviews that I deem interesting enough to read, and some of the products being reviewed are ones that I or some of my staff have reviewed already. I understand that everyone isn’t as cynical as myself or my staff and that’s a good thing, but when I comment about results that I have found, or things I felt were neglected in a review; IM NOT BASHING THE SITE. What I am doing is simply giving my opinion and findings to another site that might not look at things the same way as I do. I consider this to be a great benefit to everyone. I have been kicked off forums for this, or even banned from sites because of people’s precious egos.

If we get back to the basics we can realize that we are providing a service to consumers and even other review sites. These egos are killing us. They are starting wars between sites and nothing good comes of it.

We all, including myself, must learn to take critique better. It’s part of the process. Do you remember the first review you read? Mine was at Hard|OCP and I thought to myself, “Wow, I’m glad he told us that.” What I’m referring to is his comments in his Asus A7V133 vs. Soyo K7VTA Pro KT133A article: “I would suggest reading a few other reviews of the board with comparative benchmarks before YOU rule it out.” During the time period of reading that review, I ran across other review sites that reviewed the same product, so of course I’m going to read their reviews to see how their opinions differed. If they had something different from the last review I read or missed something, I posted about it in their forums in question form. This worked before I put a link to my site in my signature. Now I get banned for it, and that’s where my problems lie.

You may call this a rant, or a ploy for a revolution, and you are right. It is a ploy for a change. I think we are all doing each other a great disservice by ripping each other apart for commenting on reviews. What we need to do is to start thinking more about what people are saying than getting angry about the fact that someone said you missed this, we got different results, or “I disagree”. Granted, the methods some of us use to make our statements are far from conventional and can easily be misconstrued, but if you take the time to analyze the comments then you might come to a different conclusion.

When I think about all the wars between review sites I can’t help but think to myself that these guys are a bunch of whining egomaniacs. I agree that some sites are biased and it is evident in their reviews; this is in no way shape or form aimed at “bought” reviews. This is aimed at the review sites that work to give all valid information. For those, it is absurd to disregard, flame, or ban another for their opinion on what they thought, felt, or found outside of your sites inner circle.

In short…

GET OVER IT!!