Thread: We need more than a review section...

We need a library of reviews organized by yo-yo. Each yo-yo can have an overall review, written by an experienced owner highlighting certain to-be-determined catagories. Afterwards, people can post their own individual reviews for that yo-yo if they have something to add or disagree. I think people tend to skip over reading the reviews section, because for a section that's supposed to succinctly evaluate yo-yos it's only organized at people's posting leisure. I just don't think the same format we use on the rest of the board areas is suited for this job. I would be happy to orgainze such a thing with the help of some advanced reviewers, should everyone be willing to cooperate.

Yeah great idea kinda like yomania but without all the crappy 5year old reviews saying the radier is the best yo there is and stuff.

Precisely.

How about a webpage of all that stuff?
I mean we have so many members here, operating a webpage won't be so hard.

We could use theyo.com change the layout or add a review section on there. And when ever ppl ask for a review jsut tell them to go to that location?

Plus you could add updates of compeition, videos, pictures and etc. Kinda like a central station for the yoyo'ing community.

dan

Lets do it! I would be willing to review all my yos

I have talked with a couple of people about this in the past. But I don't think anyone has gotten around to doing it. One of the biggest problems is that there are too many crappy review writers on the yoyo forums. This type of thing is not a good review:

"This yoyo is real gr8. I made it to sleep for too minutes. That is better than my friends FH2. I think this yo is beter than a Hitman even though I don't hav a hitman (plz don be mad jonny! lol lol) So um ya....buy this yoyo B/C it rocks!"

Someone would have to play editor and only post up useful reviews. If other people wanted to put their opinions in, there should be a "comments" section like at the bottom of the Amazon.com product pages.

Yeah photogeek, I know what you mean. That's why I say we have experieced owners/players write the overall review. Then that "comments" section as you called it would be used for others' opinions. We would definately have to have some rules too. Namely, spell checking and coherant sentence assembly skills.

this is a wonderful idea

Alright, I've considered it now and decided that around the end of the semester (one or two weeks from now) I'll begin a site dedicated to quality, objective yo-yo reviews by experienced players. Assuming YoMike gives me blessing, I'd like to essentially give it to TheYo and TheYoStore to aid the community here and hopefully tame some most of the novices. YoMike, feel free to e-mail me or post with a decision, and I'd be more than happy to accept any restrictions, suggestions, or things pertaining to acceptable representation of all things Yo. Of course, to make the site work I'll need to take advantage of the veteran expertise in the community here. At some point, I after consulting other members and establishing sufficient criteria for a thorough review I'd like to start collecting a small volunteer review staff. I'm sure we have some people here who would be more than happy to help though. I'll continue to update this thread with information while I solidify my plans.

If you are able to pull that together, you can harvest some decent reviews from the existing review section. They're not all crappy.

One complaint I have with the existing section is that people don't use the name of the yoyo in the title often enough, even for some of the good reviews. A lot of them are just like "Hey, great yoyo here" for a title.

I vote you get the artist formerly known as rapberry jelly on your revieing staff.

I wish you the best of luck. I can personally tell you that it is alot of work, and not many care, all they can ask is "Why don't you have this yoyo on the site ?". Spinningtoys was (and I know my opinion is biased) One of the better review sites that was on the net, alas no more.

Personall y I wish you the best, if you can get it up and running and keep it going you have succeeded.

Let me add a bit about this. There are some logistics to doing this, first your or someone that you know has to purcahse the yoyo, doing a review on a yoyo is useless if you don't own it. In the last 7 years I have recieved a total of 3 free yoyo's, the rest of the yoyo's that I did reviews on and were on my site I purchased at full retail, heck the stores or the factories wouldn't even sell them to me a cost. That can get very expensive. In the last 7 years I have spent thousands of dollars on yoyo's (Have you purchased your Good and Evil Yet ? ), not to mention the money to keep the site up and running, I'm not just talking about paying the ISP, but rather about my time and what that has cost. If I do consulting work I get 90 to 135 an hour, I have spent thousands of hours on reviews and maintaining sites, all for free and all for the online community to use.

Now in defence of yomania, yomania first came into existence in 1997 so for 7 years it's been out there and around, the problem is that if you do a review on the Hitman this year, next year when YYJ releases it new yoyo are you going to rewrite the review of the hitman to compare it to the current flavor of the month ? That will double your work. the reviews on yomania are still relevant, just because the yoyo isn't current technology or the current flavor of the month doesn't mean that it isn't of value. That is also something else to think about as you design and write these reviews.

Just some other things to think about as you put together your site.

I agree that it's going to take a lot of work to make a quality yo-yo review site. Without careful attention, it can end up getting out of hand. Look at Yomania, for example, which actually has two completely different review sections. Utterly buffling:

http://yoyoreviews.yomania.com/cat.phtml?catId=8

http://www.yomania.com/reviews.htm

The community needs something better. I'm coming back into yo-ing after a 4 year break, and it took me a long time to search all the sites and forums to find decent reviews on the newest stuff.

The problem, as far as I can see it, becomes one of quality. Finding decent writers who can write intelligent reviews is critical. Also, it's nice to find people who are able to write from a few different perspectives. Not everyone is a super yo-er, and it needs to be pointed out in reviews if a yo-yo is not for an advanced player. I'm amazed how many times I see people recommend a Lyn Fury for a beginner, which I take serious issues with. It's preposterous to recommend a $15 yo that has difficulty returning to the hand to a novice.

Also note that a yo-yo does not suck if it doesn't do something as well as another yo. Just because it's responsive, for example, doesn't mean it's terrible. Some of us players LIKE a yo-yo that's more responsive because it suits our style and the tricks we like to do!

I'm honestly of the opinion these days that ALL yos released by the major companies are excellent. It depends on a player's needs and style as to which one is "right" at any given time. To that end, I think it's critical to point out what kinds of tricks a particular yo-yo is suited for.

-HM

I think that one of the plusses of having multiple reviewers is that many yoyo's can be reviewed. We dont need a good and evil review, but if someone has one, thats fine and dandy.

I just think it's interesting that we have all the people in here reviewing the idea for others to review.

(Brings up the question in my mind, who's going to review the reviewers who review the reviewed reviews?)

Rasbery jelly! We can all submit reviews to his site.

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

I agree that it's going to take a lot of work to make a quality yo-yo review site. Without careful attention, it can end up getting out of hand. Look at Yomania, for example, which actually has two completely different review sections. Utterly buffling:

http://yoyoreviews.yomania.com/cat.phtml?catId=8

http://www.yomania.com/reviews.htm

The community needs something better. I'm coming back into yo-ing after a 4 year break, and it took me a long time to search all the sites and forums to find decent reviews on the newest stuff.

A couple of things about this, since I was involved in the transition of the site.

http://www.yomania.com/reviews.htm are all the old reviews, all still valid, all still great information. When the site changed to the new method should they have all just been dumped ? The work involved into getting them into the new format would have cost alot of money and time, so we thought it best to have the old reviews available as well as the new reviews.

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

Also note that a yo-yo does not suck if it doesn't do something as well as another yo. Just because it's responsive, for example, doesn't mean it's terrible. Some of us players LIKE a yo-yo that's more responsive because it suits our style and the tricks we like to do!

I'm honestly of the opinion these days that ALL yos released by the major companies are excellent. It depends on a player's needs and style as to which one is "right" at any given time. To that end, I think it's critical to point out what kinds of tricks a particular yo-yo is suited for.

-HM

You bring up an interesting point here, one that most of the others in this thread have overlooked. All of the yoyo's today can do 99.9 % of the tricks, if this is true why is a detailed review needed ? What you really need is something that describes the features and fuctions of the yoyo (IE Adjustable Gap, Type of response system, type of weight, how much the yoyo weighs) and not how the yoyo performs. yoyo reviews are not objective they are subjective, a yoyo that you find really good and that you really like I may purchase on your recomendation and find that I really hate it. If you want the yoyo review to be objective then all you can do is describe the features that the yoyo has, you can't describe the performance, performace differs from player to player.

The problem with reviews is this, if you review a yoyo and claim that you can do the latest and greatest tricks on that yoyo, a novice or beginner figures that if I spend the money and purchase that yoyo I can do those tricks, problem is that when they get the yoyo they can't do the tricks or get the performace that you get. Simply because they haven't practiced and haven't got the moves and transitions down, so now they feel that they have been misled and that the review was wrong, believe me on this, I have mailbox full of this type of stuff and complaints over the last 5 years, that was why I finally went to the format that I did with the yoyo musem/buyers guide. More of a description of the yoyo and what features it had, than what I thought the yoyo could do. As soon as you state your opinion then it becomes subjective and not objective anymore.

Another way to look at it is this, I can take a TK NoJive in the Butterfly configuration and do Cold fusion and for me it is a great and fun yoyo. This is a yoyo that is currently available on the market and still a valid yoyo to do a review on. If I write a glowing review on that yoyo and about how smooth and functional it is and all the tricks that I can do, a beginner is going to purchase that yoyo, and spend 12 to 20 (depending on the style and type) and not be able to do any of the stuff that I can, he/she will hate the yoyo. Is that review helpful to the novice/beginner ? I'm not saying that a site like this doesn't need to be done, it would be a great replacement for the Buyers Guide/Museum but maintaining that information on over 900 to 1000 yoyo's becomes cumbersome and time consuming.

Also if you don't review every new yoyo that comes out, or you can't get a review of say "The Good and Evil", then you still haven't accomplished the goal you set out to acheive. Now if you are simply out to review the current Flavor of the Month yoyo then it's not as difficlut.

I'd be willing to help however I can.
I've definately advanced a lot since my last reviews.
One person I'd like to nominate for reviewing is brighto.
(the man's got review skillz)
But otherwise...
I seriously think that something like a poll should be created, w/ different "heats" so to speak, of people who have access to lotsa yo-yos, and each person does a review, and then the community can "anonymously" vote on the better reviewer.
It may create a little chaos, but I don't think it'd be anything to last at all.

I'll further clarify once I get back from college today.

Lates.

Utah dude,

Thanks for all the insight. Yomania did come in handy for me catching up on yos that came out the last few years. But it took me a while to figure out that reviews were on two separate pages. In fact, I couldn't find out a way to get to the older reviews, except when it happened to pop up via a Google search. Can you get to the old reviews directly from the new ones?

The only other thing I have to add is that yo-ing really has changed in the last few years, and it's pretty evident in the types of products that are available today. Most people seem to want very unresposive yos (well, the hardcore players), and now they can get them. In a variety of models and from a variety of vendors. So as someone who's come back to this from a period in time where that WASN'T the big thing, I was shocked when I bought a Lyn Fury, which everyone said was so awesome, and I could barely get the thing to return. I had to learn a whole new style (i.e. binds) to actually enjoy it. Otherwise I would've thrown in in the garbage and proclaimed it a piece of junk.

So I agree that the whole thing should be done with more of an eye on features rather than subjective opinions. The variety of products out there and what they're designed to do varies so much from the early days, when the only yos you could get were responsive ones, with wood or metal axles, that slept for an average of 10-15 seconds (for a regular player). Back then, yos that didn't return to the hand were considered bad. Now they're revered!

So we have to remember that reviews should be written for everyone, not just the hardcore. Those people make up a very tiny segment of the yo-ing population.

-HM