As of this weekend, we added the number of hits per review. This only counts the number of hits for the profile starting from this date and not past hits. Thus, you will see that the numbers of hits for the reviews for the past few profiles are higher than the ones from months ago. I am sorry but we were unable to get the number of hits from past months added to this. However, this will work going forward from today.

We have also added a new area at the bottom of each review for viewers to tell us if that review was helpful or not. Currently, it allows all visitors to the site to count in the tally. I hope these new additions are useful to you.

Thanks!

Oz

"We have also added a new area at the bottom of each review for viewers to tell us if that review was helpful or not. Currently, it allows all visitors to the site to count in the tally. I hope these new additions are useful to you."

At first I liked the "Was this review helpful to you?" option. I've changed my mind. I didn't make an actual count, but if seems that generally, only about two-thirds of the viewers find a specific review to be helpful. What about the other third? Why is the review of no help to them? They're able to give a mini-review of a review with what is essentially negative (but not constructive) feedback.

Does this cause potential review writers to think "why bother"? (At my school, 67% was a failing grade). Would it make any sense to expand the "was it helpful" question to include 'why' or 'why not'?

For me, in its current form, the feature is not useful. Mildly interesting, maybe, but not useful.

I agree that there are several problems to it. We were thinking of only allowing registered users who are logged in to vote. Perhaps, this will help a bit more.

Or, are you suggesting a more detailed approach?

Requiring voters to log in (and limiting them to one vote) would certainly add credibility to the results.

But it still wouldn't help the writer understand what was or was not helpful in the review. Maybe a brief, multiple choice sort of response would work. Whatever method, you don't want it to seem like writing a review of a review. Ultimately, those sorts of discussions should be relegated to the forums.