3 Reviews Policy

[monty]

Hi, I see that in order for people to be able to ask for feedback, they have to first post three critiques. Why? If that person is seeking design help, are they really the best people to be giving other people design advice?

I'm an art director and have been designing and building websites since 1994. I don't really need feedback from amateur designers, but, am happy to provide feedback to others. So, my three posts will just go to waste. Can I assign them to someone who truly needs them and just wants to get feedback without having to post three uninformed critiques just to meet the quota?

[Zamiel]

I think the idea is to get different perspectives from different places. If you do not need the input (somehow I think that it is impossible for you to know what each and every unbiased person is always thinking) then you shouldnt worry about the three posts.

I think I would rather have a junior designer have to give input (makes you more aware of what to look for on your own sites if you have to REALLY look at someone elses, anyhow) than to just get reviewed.

And considering that a critique is subjective in nature, it makes it difficult to be "uninformed". Considering 90% of your traffic will be "uninformed" I think it would be somewhat good to hear from them.

Just my $0.2!

[Chuckie]

Why? If that person is seeking design help, are they really the best people to be giving other people design advice?

Why not? just because they need design advice does that mean they don't understand design. People are constantly being bombarded with advertisement which is a form of visual and audio design. Understanding design and creating designs are two different aspects.

I'm an art director and have been designing and building websites since 1994.

Congrats!

I don't really need feedback from amateur designers,

Thats an arrogant statment to make.

So, my three posts will just go to waste.

Are you assuming everyone on this site is an amature and your are the only one who is not?

The whole point of the quota system is to have people comment on others sites. If this was not in place it would be likely that sites would be posted to be reviewed and people would not review them.

If you are not going to post a site to be reviewed whats the point of bringing up the issue of the 3 site post issue?

If you have as much experence as you claim, your advise would be invalueable.


Chuck

[davetufts]

I agree that the 3 post rule brings nothing positive to this forum, but I would take issue with your reasoning.

As others have pointed out - when someone asks for a design critique, it doesn't mean they are a bad or amature designer. I'm sure you had crits in design school...you're not a bad designer, right?

Even if the people critiquing your site are amature/inexperienced designers, their comments are still valuable - I'd argue that they're even more valuable than an experienced web designers' since they more accurately represent real users.

Back to the 3 post rule - I think that it keeps this forums volume way down. Compared to some of the other forumes on this site the "Reviews and Critiques" sub-forums don't have nearlys as much activity. If I have a PHP question, I can start a thread without answering 3 other PHP questions. Why is design any different? Like other forums, the community would police itself.

[aaron.martone]

I'm pro-3 post rule. Without it, people will post wanting a review, and get nothing. They want to GET from the community without having to GIVE to it.

I find that despite your skill level, you don't know everything; you can't get every perspective on a project site (my aaronmartone.com - draft II post here has opened my eyes to MANY different things)

And I would gladly post 3 reviews per review I request to get that kind of feedback. You say you've developed sites since 1994, but you have no www link to provide links to your work. If you're an art director, I'm sure you know that art's beauty is in the eye of the beholder; I'd like to see your work.

[Golgotha]

I'm an art director and have been designing and building websites since 1994. I don't really need feedback from amateur designers...

1. Who are you calling amateur designers

2. It's called a focus group - Even companies like Nike and Chiat Day do focus groups- most companies do.

[Saz]

The whole point of the quota system is to have people comment on others sites. If this was not in place it would be likely that sites would be posted to be reviewed and people would not review them.

And that's the main reason we have this policy. The forums would indeed be filled with requests with no replies if we didn't enforce this ruling.

Also, not only does this policy ensure that members get feedback on their websites, it also ensures that that feedback is of a decent quality as we check a member's reviews before authorising their own request.

I'm sure there are a number of members out there who don't like this policy, but it's impossible to please 100% of the members 100% of the time so we do what we feel is best for the community as a whole.

[SJH]

And just because they're inexperienced/amateur designers it doesn't mean their opinion won't count. In fact before I launch any site I purposefully ask people who I know that know nothing about the internet. Purely because 90% of web users are amateurs and at the end of the day it is going to be these people browsing the site.

And in the past I've had some great feedback from people who had never even attempted website design before.

-Sam

[Ruchir]

i'd say its proper to get a review from people who don't know what went under making the site,.. but like it or dislike it at their first view, and would they like to saty there for a while or want to close it at there first stake !

-ruchir

[Cam]

Just my $0.2!

Have they upped the price? I though it was $0.02

[earther]

A lot can be learned from looking at other sites. In the process you not only help someone, you get a new perspective on the sites you are developing too. So everybody benefits from participating in reviews IMO.

[davetufts]

I'm pro-3 post rule. Without it, people will post wanting a review, and get nothing. They want to GET from the community without having to GIVE to it.

Then why doesn't this logic apply to other forums. If this were true, the community would never ANSWER any PHP, Perl, or HTML questions. There's no 3-post rule in those forums, yet because members of the community want their voices (and opinions) heard, people are more than happy to answer anyone's question.

Also, not only does this policy ensure that members get feedback on their websites, it also ensures that that feedback is of a decent quality as we check a member's reviews before authorising their own request.

I think the opposite is true. Because of this rule, you get a mix of real, thoughtful responses mixed with people responding for the sake of reaching their 3 post min (so they can finally post their own question)

Without a reasonable answer to the following, I just can't find any validity to the 3 post rule:
--> Why is a rule needed to 'ensure feedback' in the design forum, but not in any of the more popular programming forums?

-----------------------------
dave tufts
http://davetufts.com

[platinum]

and there's the word: "popular"

There are zillions of php'ers here who literally fight over answering most questions. But reviewing someones site isn't what most people want to do. So by having them review 3 other sites it creates a nice loop whereby everyone gets plenty of good reviews from different angless. In situation like programming forums, there's usually an answer that works and that's all the thread started cares about.

[davetufts]

and there's the word: "popular"

That's my point - without the 3 post rule, the design forums could easily be just as popular as any other forum.

The problem here is, it's too much of a hassle to post a simple question. There aren't enough new posts (review critiques) for an active board member to comment on, to reach the 3 post limit, to ask a new question...

Today is June 15, yet the top 8 website review threads are weeks old. (May 29, May 28, June 9, May 28, May 12, June 9, May 5, June 4). The only reason for commenting on any of these old, stale threads it for people to reach their 3 post limit. The top tread is over 2 weeks old!!!

I guarentee that if the design board was not moderated and did not have the 3 post rule, the number of threads, posts, and quality of responses would dramatically increase.

[platinum]

Maybe - I would say that if they weren't done this way, we'd end up with 5 zillion people wanting their sites reviewed - and probably no one really interested, or if they do comment it's something like "looks good". It's the only forum that's moderated this way, because of the fact we want to promote people to port well thought out reply's and in depth reviews.

[DaveMaxwell]

I like the three post rule. It requires people to think a bit when reviewing a site. It gets more people involved and gets a lot of ideas out there that may not occur if people just submit their sites for review. It allows people to read other reviews and catch things they may not have thought of before, which makes for better work by others.

If I remember from a while back when I was looking into some site designs, I went through a bunch of reviews and changed a LOT of things I was doing because of comments made by others. It ended up giving my customer a better product because of the comments.

[petertdavis]

Dave hit on a good point there. I think forcing people to do three reviews before they can get themselves a review does as much good to the people being forced to do the reviews as those posting sites to be reviewed. It makes you look at other people's sites from teh other side of the fence. Often, when we're in the development stages, we're so entirely focused on our own site that we can lose perspective. When you're forced to look at someone else's site, that you have no stake in, you can more easily do an objective review and gain from the experience. Thus, you're going to bring back a new perspective to look at your own site. Of course, a lot of people are just posting their site to be reviewed for self-promotion and have no intention whatsoever of following up on the suggestions given by reviewers. And I think that's exactly why the 3 review rule must be kept, the forum would be flooded by spammers if it wasn't there.

[KC]

The best critics are those who have little experience in web development. After all, they are the majority of those internet surfing. Pro 3-Post Review.

[Jeremy W.]

I'm "pro" the rule, but I think the reality is also valid. I would be all for a 2-4 week hiatus from the rule, just to see what happened.

The reason that this forum is different from other forums is that you'd rarely see someone posting in the PHP forum just to get traffic, and then leave. That happens in review forums all the time. In fact, it's one of the things that traffic promoters recommend to those on a shoestring budget: run through forums submitting requests, and then don't return.

Anyways, it might be interesting to see what happened if we removed the moderation requirement. If nobody ever reviewed anyone else, we could put it back.

It may be especially useful if there was text, for this forum, above the new post area which said "by starting a thread asking others for their opinion you are 'taking' from the community. we encourage you to give back by reviewing several other sites while you are here" or something...

J

[S7even]

I posted my site for review a week ago and its not in the forums yet.
For me 3-4 good reviews the same or the next day i posted would be much better than 30 reviews 10 days later, most of them just "agreeing with what the guy above said" so they can get their review number to 3.

[Technosailor]

I guess the question I would pose is....are there any other popular, active forums on the internet that do site reviews successfully without forcing a queue/quota?

If yes, from an objective point of view, how do they prevent the forum from spiraling into what Saz and platinum have outlined as the reason why we do it?

[S7even]

The problem with this system is that the moderators are unable to cope with it.
If all review requests appeared in the forum within 72hours that would be ok. But while some appear the same day that they are posted, some others take 10 days or more.

[platinum]

Just remember we're here on a volunteer basis If people actually took note of the review forum rules then we wouldn't have to contact so many members about their threads not being approved.

[davetufts]

The problem with this system is that the moderators are unable to cope with it.

Even if everything was posted within 3 days - that still isn't very helpful.

Site critiques and user testing aren't very helpful if the developer waits until the site is totally finalized and launched before asking, "How does this look".

Rather, getting user input more often while the site is still in-progress is much more useful. This is impossible if the developer posts a link, waits 3 days for it to appear, then a couple more days to get some valuable feedback.

I'd rather see people posting more links: post, get feedback the same day, make edits, and repost an updated design. Instead, people feel compelled to basically finish their site, THEN as for feedback.

I agree with Jeremy W - at least give it a chance. Although for the forum to really gain a creative momentum it will probably take more than 2-4 weeks.

[davetufts]

Just remember we're here on a volunteer basis If people actually took note of the review forum rules then we wouldn't have to contact so many members about their threads not being approved.

(1) People don't read rules.
(2) Doing away with the moderation rules will lighten your volunteer workload.