Listal points for reviews

I've noticed that 50 of the mysterious listal points are awarded for each review a member writes. This is presumably because you see reviews adding value to the site. However the same 50 points are given regardless of the length of the review. I tend to write fairly lengthy, and I would hope helpful reviews, which should be doing my bit to 'add value'. Yet a number of other reviews I've seen have been of the "This is a great book, you should read it 10/10" kind. I suspect the sole reason they have been written is to quickly gain some listal points. Exactly how that improves the site is beyond me.

Could not the listal points be awarded for reviews in a way that would encourage people to increase their length, and hopefully the quality. Say, a point per word, or 10 points for every 100 words?

K-S

I like this idea of a word/point ratio. I don't think comments or short reviews are a bad thing, per se, but they probably don't deserve as many points as some of the 1000+ word reviews I've seen.

I seem to recall there was also talk of implementing a thumbs up / thumbs down system so that other users could rate user reviews. If that ever happens, perhaps a thumbs up threshold of 1 or 2 before receiving points for a review would also be useful to discourage point whoring.

Or, better yet, make all comments / reviews worth only 10 points by default and then add another 50 points for every thumbs up it receives.

Then again, the Listal community (just over 2,000 members, and who knows how many are actually still active) might not be big enough yet to make this system work.

I'd agree that short comments or reviews are not totally without merit. My point was that someone could just Cut'n'Paste the same generic phrase "This is a good read, I recommend it", then add a score, for every book they have. That will quickly make the review aspect of the site a joke.

The idea of allowing the members of the site to judge the merit/helpfulness of reviews, and effect the listal point value of it, is a good one

I agree and the system will most likely be altered to give points to positive votes like the amazon 'Was this review helpful to you?'

Like the idea of letting the members rate reviews helpful/not helpful and adding extra points to the helpful ones.

Length shouldn't be a determinant as sometimes short and to the point can be much more helpful than a long, plodding, pointless review but I do agree that some merit should be giving to the effort applied.

Kenny writes really well thought out reviews and so he would deserve more points than someone that added a quick "it's good 10/10".

I completely agree with chuckmuck on this one. You need both kinds of reviews and neither short or long is "better" than the other. Who remembers filling essays up with blather because you were REQUIRED to have 10 pages when you could say what you needed in 7?