Thread: Where is the Reviews Section?

I just wanted to say that I do think a review section of some sorts is quite a valuable part of this type of forum, and it would be great if at some point some sort of review section returned.

For me, the previous review section (much like the classifieds section) was a bit over-engineered and felt sort of sterile to use and view.. perhaps others felt the same and that's why there was a lack of contributions to it? I think something far more casual and user friendly (like as easy as starting a thread on a topic) would be a greater success than a dedicated hard-coded 'REVIEWS' section.. A sub forum where guys can quickly post a little review on new gear they got etc. (with replies/comments disabled) would see a lot more active participation I think.

You won't have star ratings etc. sure, but it would most certainly add to the overall conversation on the forum, in my opinion.

Hey just my thoughts..
- Mike

The old reviews section was as easy as starting a thread, because that was exactly what it was - forum threads. The only over-engineered bit in addition to starting a thread was picking star ratings for 4-5 descriptors.

The classifieds section is much more complicated than that and there is no lack of listings there. If people are willing to go through the trouble of creating a classifieds ad only to save 5%-10% in ebay fees which amounts to few dollars, I expect that they would be willing to put a little bit less amount of work to create a review say once or twice a year. The fact that they didn't shows me exactly how much is the true value they put on the reviews section.

I haven't noticed a ton of reviews in the form of forum threads either. I doubt that the lack of section called Reviews is preventing it from happening, because I move threads placed in the wrong section all the time.

So, as far as I can tell nothing has changed since my last posting and while many people 'like' the idea of having a reviews section, there is nobody who is willing to put any work into writing those reviews. And so that's why it's not a particular priority.

If anybody wants to change it, then they better be willing to commit to writing a review say once or twice a year. If 50 people are willing to do that then we can have 1-2 reviews per week and I would be more interested in putting the work to set up the infrastructure. But, as I've said before, I am not going to be wasting my time on things that the forum members don't care about. Words are cheap, so I like to measure things by something more tangible, especially when it has a fairly significant cost to me.

Fine, noted. Everyone isn't a unix/linux systems administrator able to do the tangible contributions you're talking about.

Put the old review archive back up with or without the star rating stuff that Robin added. We'll see how popular or unpopular it is.

When I was new to traditional wetshaving it was nice to see what experienced people thought about various products.

Now, with nearly three years experience, I have have less need for this.

I have been a moderator and know what a daunting task it can be, so I don't want to say we have to have a reviews section.

Maybe if there is a demand for advice, a thread asking for opinions can be linked to Wiki items like "Pinaud Clubman aftershave" or "Boker King Cutter razor." I don't see the need for a rating scale on various criteria. Having to rank the quality, price, ease of honing, burning sensation, etc., probably discouraged people from providing reviews.