When I go onto the other forums I am a member of and I read reviews, there is often an "issue" with these reviews that causes some potential bias and inaccuracy of the product being reviewed. I am new here and to the e-cig phenomenon as a whole, so I have not thoroughly gone through this entire forum for reviews, but on other forums I see bias in product reviews regularly.
What I'm talking about is when a certain reviewer becomes popular enough that manufacturers start sending them their products for review, for free, and they often get to keep the product later on. So what ends up happening is that the reviewers become leery of "offending" the manufacturers by giving their products negative reviews, which would cut off their free supply of products, so they start giving biased reviews, and they often refuse to point out negative aspects of lower quality products, and they sugar coat everything, which defeats the whole purpose of the review in the first place.
Well, here the reviews are all about flavor mostly, and flavor is much more subjective that deciding whether an LED flashlight is a good product or not. So these e-liquid reviews can be more difficult, because what one person may love, another may hate.
So in this type of situation, its best to get multiple reviews from unbiased reviewers who have no horse in the race, or no reason to sugar coat the reviews. But the only real 100% way to prevent bias, is for the reviewers to NOT have samples repeatedly donated to them by different e-liquid makers.
So why dont we figure out a way that we can get several different trusted members to volunteer to do reviews occasionally, which shouldnt be a problem for anyone here as they would probably jump at the opportunity! That and new reviewers can volunteer, so that we have a mixed group of reviewers, and often we'd have a revolving circle of different reviewers who will be reviewing different products. So each e-liquid flavor would be reviewed by a few members in the same time period to get different opinions on that flavor.
But here's the only reliable method of preventing bias...... We'd have to each donate an insignificant amount of money to pay for sample packs of e-liquids for each review, or members could donate samples of e-liquid that they either dont want, or just donate 3ml out of a larger bottle just to "help the cause". If money is donated to make sample purchases, we'd have to send it to a long time members paypal account, or to an administrator who would do the ordering once everyone decides upon which flavors to review. It wouldnt be expensive to do this, especially if some of the e-liquid is donated by members, but even donating money for reviews would probably only amount to a dollar or 2 here and there from each member who takes part in it.
Doing this would save everyone money in the log run, because you wouldnt have to waste money on lousy e-liquid flavors, because we'd have people reviewing it beforehand....
This is just an idea I came up with to try and find a way to increase reviews and reduce potential bias. Is it too much trouble, unnecessary, or a good idea?
What I'm talking about is when a certain reviewer becomes popular enough that manufacturers start sending them their products for review, for free, and they often get to keep the product later on. So what ends up happening is that the reviewers become leery of "offending" the manufacturers by giving their products negative reviews, which would cut off their free supply of products, so they start giving biased reviews, and they often refuse to point out negative aspects of lower quality products, and they sugar coat everything, which defeats the whole purpose of the review in the first place.
Well, here the reviews are all about flavor mostly, and flavor is much more subjective that deciding whether an LED flashlight is a good product or not. So these e-liquid reviews can be more difficult, because what one person may love, another may hate.
So in this type of situation, its best to get multiple reviews from unbiased reviewers who have no horse in the race, or no reason to sugar coat the reviews. But the only real 100% way to prevent bias, is for the reviewers to NOT have samples repeatedly donated to them by different e-liquid makers.
So why dont we figure out a way that we can get several different trusted members to volunteer to do reviews occasionally, which shouldnt be a problem for anyone here as they would probably jump at the opportunity! That and new reviewers can volunteer, so that we have a mixed group of reviewers, and often we'd have a revolving circle of different reviewers who will be reviewing different products. So each e-liquid flavor would be reviewed by a few members in the same time period to get different opinions on that flavor.
But here's the only reliable method of preventing bias...... We'd have to each donate an insignificant amount of money to pay for sample packs of e-liquids for each review, or members could donate samples of e-liquid that they either dont want, or just donate 3ml out of a larger bottle just to "help the cause". If money is donated to make sample purchases, we'd have to send it to a long time members paypal account, or to an administrator who would do the ordering once everyone decides upon which flavors to review. It wouldnt be expensive to do this, especially if some of the e-liquid is donated by members, but even donating money for reviews would probably only amount to a dollar or 2 here and there from each member who takes part in it.
Doing this would save everyone money in the log run, because you wouldnt have to waste money on lousy e-liquid flavors, because we'd have people reviewing it beforehand....
This is just an idea I came up with to try and find a way to increase reviews and reduce potential bias. Is it too much trouble, unnecessary, or a good idea?
Last edited:
