Tool Review Author Reviews

[LCHIEN]

On the tool reviews, there's a section for responding/replying part of which is a poll which is a review, categories like documentation, Quality, value, overall impression.

It does say author review, so one half of my brain says this is a review of how useful the review is.
Now from the categories they sound more like your review or impression of the tool, especially the part about documentation kind of throws me.

So Am I supposed to review the tool or the author's review...

There's been a couple of reviews lately about HF tools (like disk/belt sander and jointer) which were right on - the tool was rated really lousy but the review probably good because they addressed the issues head on.

So should my overall impression be a 1 or 5???
and by the way, is 1 good and 5 bad or vice versa?
I'll guess 5 is better but I've seen some ratings that go the other way.
And, it defaults to 1 so of you don't change it that's what the tool or reviewer gets (again, is 1 bad or good?).

Is everybody on the same page? Or is it just me that's befuddled?

[LarryG]

Never really thought about it, but now that I do, it strikes me as odd that people posting comments to a review should have the ability to add any ratings, whether of the tool or the review, at all. Shouldn't their written comments say all that needs to be said?

In some respects, I question whether the ability to tag Comments onto tool reviews is in itself a good idea. A few of the tool reviews have basically turned into conventional threads. That's good when the purpose is to correct errors or draw out additional info from the reviewer, but not so good when it drifts into subjects like pricing, or whether the Lowe's at such-and-such location has any left, etc.