Besides, reviews are extremely subjective….some love books for the prose and the literary style, others hate first person, others want PC all the way, some want a good story and will excuse everything else if that’s solid.

In the end, it’s good to know Amazon is at least trying to make things more fair. For me, the best reviews are still those that I get from like minded friends and readers. One woman’s trash is often another’s treasure.

The big question is – will she continue? This may depend on whether publishers continue feeding her with books. Only time will tell. I guess that reviews will continue to appear for a while because of already agreed commitments, so it may be a while before we know the answer.

1) Voting circles. I know that somebody (not me) sent Amazon evidence (earlier this year) that one reviewer was circulating e-mails telling people about his reviews, asking for votes and offering votes in return. Given that it takes a few months for a change of this nature to be designed, coded, tested and installed, I think that evidence may have been the trigger for these changes, although the “Dear Author” thread debating possible changes to Amazon’s software may also have played some part, along with any number of other complaints received from elsewhere. The new system makes it hard for voting circles to be effective, insofar as they have any effect at all.

2) Quantity for the sake of it. HK was the obvious example, but Amazon must have realized that quantity for its own sake wasn’t good for business. Hopefully, the new system does more to encourage quality rather than quantity. That said, prolific reviewers appear to still be rewarded to some extent even in the new system.

3) Inactive reviewers. The old system accumulated ranking points in perpetuity, something I’ve complained about for years. This means that people who quit or die at a high rank will retain a high rank for years afterwards, dropping only slowly down the rankings. This issue could have been addressed by tweaking the old algorithm to ignore very old votes, but that wouldn’t have solved the other two problems.

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In creating their new system, Amazon have taken steps to make it difficult for statisticians to work out how the new system works. You used to be able to click on your ranking (or anybody else’s) and see that part of the ranking table. Statisticians used the bottom end of the table to work out the old system with a fair degree of accuracy. In the new system, only the top 10,000 ranks are clickable. It will therefore be difficult to reverse-engineer the new system, but maybe not impossible. We’ll see.

It is worth noting that, for now, the old and new ranking systems co-exist. I think that, apart from anything else, it’s a recipe for confusion. I expect that Amazon will eventually drop the old system but they haven’t said they’ll do that.

As for myself, I’ve gone up a little under the new system, but when it gets rolled out to Amazon’s other websites, I expect to be hit hard. In my own country, I expect (based on the general pattern of what’s happened in America) to drop out of the top 100. Even if I don’t go that low, it’s a foregone conclusion that my ranking will drop. I don’t mind because I always thought the old system was garbage.

On the positive reviews, I understand not finishing books you don’t like, but how come all the books she does review get either 5 or 4 stars, no matter how wildly different the writing and execution? It would seem, then, that she either loves or loathes what she reads–and that is useless to other readers in and of itself.

Plus her reviews contain no substance. Most often it’s the regrgitated blurb plus spoilers plus “and it’s great” (or variation thereof)

Aside from people like DAM (DAM went from about 25,000 positive votes to 12,000 on her 1354 reviews- she lost less than a thousand negative votes) who ran their own group of repeat voters, there are supposedly groups one could join, post a link to your reviews and everyone would go vote for the review. One high flier lost over 100,000 positive reviews.

Oh, and HK will continue to keep her #1 badge by her name– Amazon’s term for the little icons– unless she drops in the “classic” ratings– but if a user clicks on the “top reviewers” link the new ranking will show.

I’m not a fan of her reviews for any number of reasons, especially the spoilers, but isn’t an effort to bring her reviewer status down to be held in as much contempt as what DAM does?

How is that helpful to anyone?

It isn’t.

a) her reviews are full of inaccuracies

b) often contain spoilers.

It’s really irritating to glance at a one paragraph review and see a “by the way, here is how the book ends!”

My theory on Harriet K. is that she *is* a real person, but she reads only the back flap and first chapter of a book, and possibly skims the rest. Also, she gets a lot of ARCs and thus is able to get her reviews in *early* (which, if anyone really cares about Amazon reviewer rankings, is *key* if you want to get the coveted “Spotlight Review” location–if it is still called that–particularly on a popular book. Otherwise your review is likely to get lost in the sauce, no matter how eloquent and insightful it may be.)

I don’t know and don’t care if she’s a person or a board… all I know is that I’m tired of writing a review of one of my favorite books, getting plenty of “This is helpful” reviews… and then her review (which doesn’t even reflect the book) gets top billing by Amazon, even though it has fewer votes, and even though Amazon CLAIMS that the review with the most votes get top billing!

Not that I really care if I’m top…. but to be topped by an unhelpful one that doesn’t reflect the book? THAT’S what ticked me off.

But wow! This made me check mine. My ranking improved by 300%! (Of course, going from 30,000 to 12,000 isn’t saying much. LOL!