Product Reviews- Welcome?

[MPWR]

I was wondering what the general consensus here is about posting product reviews of non-kit items. People occasionally post reviews of kits in the kit review thread, but reviews are almost never seen for detail sets, decals, tools, etc. Obviously, adverising on the board ist verboten- but would reviews welcome?

Moderators?

[alakai]

Originally Posted by MPWR

I was wondering what the general consensus here is about posting product reviews of non-kit items. People occasionally post reviews of kits in the kit review thread, but reviews are almost never seen for detail sets, decals, tools, etc. Obviously, adverising on the board ist verboten- but would reviews welcome?

Moderators?

I personally think you're onto something here. The kit review thread is nice, but difficult to reply to if you have any additional information to offer to an already reviewed kit. Would a kit/model accessory sub-forum be more useful than the single thread. That way, you could cover more than kits and other members could chime in with their opinions on a particular subject? It might also eliminate many questions regarding the quality of airbrushes, paints, detail kits, etc. Just a thought.

[Vric]

Well you can always use the ScaleWiki Review Section.

I was talking with Jay about changing the Review thread by a Wiki long time ago. It was the main idea of ScaleWiki and he was quite happy with the idea, but the collaboration never gone further (some PM problem and time by Jay or something, I don't know)

We all agree the Review Thread is badly organised and hard to navigate. (there was a thread this spring about that, and this is what gives the idea of a separate place for that) Also, I don't think many people is looking at them because it just take so much time to find what you are looking for (have to browse the 4 pages (it could be worst) to see if the kit you are looking for is there. In other hand, a new forum only for that wouldn't a great idea. I don't think there is enough interest to give life to a new section. (there is only 7 review in the last year in this thread)

Anyway, the more information we have, the better this place is. If you want to post review of new tools, detail set or what ever related to modeling, then I don't see why it would be bad.

[RallyRaider]

Yes! Go for it! Maybe we could have another sticky thread indexing all the reviews? But then we have enough stickies already. Something like Vric's Scale Wiki is probably a more logical way to organise them.

[klutz_100]

The idea is great but Vric is right, at the end of the day, if the information base isn't well structured and organised for an easy and logical search, then it isn't going to be worth a lot or very useful

My 2cents

[MPWR]

Yeah, my thoughts were pretty similar. It would be cool to have reviews of stuff here, but it would be best to have it organized/accessable. ScaleWiki would be an option, but my impression is that it ends to be more referential than discussionary. I like the idea of having threads be live- so people can ask questions or add impressions after the original post. A sticky organized like the How-To directory is my favorite option. This wouldn't necissarily require a new sticky- the kit review sticky could be turned into one. Instead of it all being one thread like it is now, each kit review cold be made into an individual thread, and additional non-kit reviews could also be added as individual threads. This would give good organization and accessability, with no additional sticky. There's no reason not to cross post on ScaleWiki, too, but it would be good be able to keep the threads live here for discussion.

Meanwhile, I guess reviews could be posted here anyways, in hopes that a means of organizing them could later be decided on....

[klutz_100]

Weeeelll, there is modelling forum out there on the www that has it's review section pretty well organised IMHO. My only problem is that it contains mostly reviews of US cars.

Main directory by model, maker etc. First reviewer makes the original post for a given kit and then under that subsequent reveiews can be added. Each reviewer rates the kit on several factors e.g. accuracy, fit etc. and all these individual ratings are averaged (I think) out to give overall score for the kit.

The structure is, I think, very good. I just don't have any idea if it would be do-able here. MAybe that would be an almighty dbase construction job or smthg?? I know JS about computers

[RallyRaider]

Well we could set up another forum for just reviews if the demand is great enough. And we can get in touch with the administrators to create it for us.

In the interim the How-To sticky could be changed to include reviews as well. Just go ahead and start review threads and we mods will begin indexing them. If it starts getting bigger than Ben Hur then we can look at other options. I guess Vric can then archive them to his ScaleWiki if he wishes.