MUA Reviews / Recent changes

Slowly I will transfer my reviews from MUA. One or a few at a time. The same will be done with my notepad. It will still be available there but will not be updated. This was my intention from the get go when I decided to start a blog and with the recent changes I guess I'll be doing this sooner rather than later.

As of today, I have 191 reviews listed on MUA. From nail polish to more serious skin care, I've taken the time to write them down in the hopes that they would be helpful to some.

Recently the system was modified to include a % for "helpful votes". At first I was in the high 90's but in about a week this changed to 79% with 107 positive votes out of 136.....Huh???

Unless it includes stupid unrelated comments, advertising or what not, how can a review be voted as "not useful"?





Here is an example:

How is this review not helpful? I'm not bashing the product in any way. NYX does make pretty good eye shadows but these colors didn't work for me. Someone looking for matte shades would consider this helpful in my opinion, steering clear of this trio.

On MUA there are a lot of very knowledgeable members who take their time to write informative reviews. Skin care, makeup, hair products, nail products and more, it's all there. People are not paid to do this, they mainly want to share their experiences and be helpful.

This new system is making a lot of members angry. Many take these negative votes personally and it's a shame.

Where are these negative votes coming from? Here's what I think:

Members who hold a grudge against other members, just being spiteful
Trolls trolling
Companies keeping an eye on reviews about their products, not appreciating negative comments
Company reps like for example, Avon ladies

It's weird that most of the negative votes I received are on Estée Lauder and Avon reviews. It was announced last spring that in order to enter the Chinese market, these companies agreed to animal testing. It's 2012!!! I've worked for both and have used their products for years. This was such a let down that I added a warning in capital letters on the reviews written about their respective products.

Example:

Now, if this product were so good, it would get a higher rating than this:

I haven't changed any of my reviews, I just added the notice. Like here:

I didn't "re do" my review in any way, it's still an outstanding product. I can't go all natural but when possible, I prefer to chose products that don't test. Like kai1 wrote yesterday, "I prefer my items without bunny torture."

For those interested, here is the discussion from yesterday:

There have been several posts about this on Technical Support Board as well. One member today mentioned she had deleted all of her reviews. She didn't say if it was related to this new system but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case. Hopefully MUA will review this new system. They would only have to remove the % on members profile page and everything would get back to normal.