Customised Reviews???

[anjan_oleti]

Just wanted to share a thought... 

It is an accepted fact that (in most cases) there can't be a SINGLE recommendation of "THE" software, for everyone, in a particular category (unless there is an exceptionally well-built application, far ahead of competition)

Reason: Varied preferences in respect of features or uses

So, would it be a good idea to provide users with a (more) INTERACTIVE and CUSTOMISED REVIEW?

for e.g.
1) A user is provided with a list of features relevant to a category
2) User assigns weightage to each of those features (say bet. -10 and +10)
3) Based on the weightage, a calculation is made and a CUSTOMISED COUNTDOWN of the applications is provided

He hee... What do you say? 

[mouser]

This is one of the kinds of things being considered for the big review system we are considering implementing.

[anjan_oleti]

Oh! coool!  "BIG review system" ...and this is one of the things ...WOW! am getting interested 

any more info on that... any discussion/links???

[superboyac]

This is such a hard thing to accomplish.  I still think that instead of saying this is the best or this is the worst, you should just focus on what features the program has and comment on whether those features are implemented well or not.  Let the reader decide on what is important to him, and choose based on that.

I think Zaine Ridling's Great Software List is one of the most reliable and best resources for software "reviews".  I love the way he has presented the information.

[mouser]

I still think that instead of saying this is the best or this is the worst, you should just focus on what features the program has and comment on whether those features are implemented well or not.  Let the reader decide on what is important to him, and choose based on that.

This is much of the motivation to moving to a new kind of review system.

It's a bit ironic since when i started DC and started doing reviews, one of my motivations for the reviews was to be more decisive in recommending the best programs, since i found that too many reviews left me with a feeling like "how do i choose between programs?", and i wanted to help save people some time by saying "ok we've tried *everything* and here is what we recommend."

but looking at the reviews it's clear that often there is no way to recommend a single "best" program -- you may be able to identify the top 5 but after that it's really hard, and as these programs improve the ability to distinguish the rank of the top 5 or so becomes even more perlious.

so this dilemna is part of what has motivated the thoughts about writing a new review system.  i'm not quite ready to get into detailed discussion about features, but rest assured that when we begin serious planning, everyone on the dc forum will be asked to help us figure out the best design choices to make.

[Jammo the OrganizedFellow]

As long as you skip the ajaxy goodness of 5-Star mouse hovers, it would be superb 

[zridling]

Thanks superboyac, but earlier in 2008 I revised the 'list' to mere one-line descriptions. With other and new duties, I couldn't keep up with it.