Are Amazon Vine Reviews of Technical Books a Joke? 126
First time accepted submitter jasax writes "As an Amazon frequent buyer, I rely quite a lot on reviews of the books I want. However, some caution is in order: the (bad) quality of Amazon's reviews and reviewers under the Amazon Vine program has already
been news in Slashdot. Today I was shocked by a practical result of that program. This second edition (published in 2012) of a very specialized system identification book has 12 reviews: the oldest (dated 2007) certainly targets the first edition. The remaining 11 reviews are all from 'Vine Reviewers' (VRs). All seem to be ignorant of what 'System Identification in the Frequency Domain' really is. None of the reviews is tagged with a 'Verified Amazon Purchase'; most (if not all) are 'small talk reviews' peppered with technical phrases cloning the publisher's book description, and some of the reviews are ridiculous, to say the least. If this sample of reviewing by VRs really is the norm, then the bottom line is that the Vine program is totally irrelevant and unreliable — at least for technical books."
They're just useless (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, _Amazon_ Vine.... Well, carry on then...
A++ (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent article. Would read again.
Re:Binding, hardcover, etc. (Score:5, Funny)
I liked how your post was concisely packed into a single sentence. It took up just the right amount of room on my screen, and I could scroll it up or down using my mouse wheel.
Re:They're just useless (Score:4, Funny)
how the heck are you going to fit a review of a technical manual in a 6 second video?
You either put on an extremely happy face and oink with delight, or you put on a really scared face and squeal in horror. The viewers will sort it out.