Do you accept rave tool reviews as gospel?

How do you rate reviews? I don’t, unless the review is comprehensive and fair to potential purchasers.

They are only arranged by the seller to get a rave review. Rave reviews are provided, by the reviewer, to obtain more free goodies.

An unsustainable circle of rave reviews for carp products or a good marketing ploy to make the unwary get drawn in to buying rubbish?

I noted that doubleboost reviewed the banggood face cutter and gave it a good report, even though it sounded really rough while cutting. Several comments remarked that he had not provided any measurements of the tool or that it was no better than a single pont flycutter.

His response has been tp demonstrate the depth of cut was in spec - but he (on purpose?) did not check for tool run out. I am left wondering if this was because the tool run out was rubbish.

Any views on these reviews, or that one in particular?

It's always hard to be certain of reviews.

'Confirmation bias' works to generally produce positive reviews of items the reviewer has spent their money on, and I suspect we're all subject to that.

I think it's also clear that there are trolls (or something like them) on the net who always like to deliver a heavily negative review.

Even a perfectly honest review can be misleading if the reviewer's using the item differently from the way you intend to.

If something has a lot of positive reviews, and enough of them contain detail that convinces you that the reviewer has:

a) used the item,

b) knows what it ought to do and

c) how it compares with competitors

...then it's *probably* worth taking notice.

Probably not otherwise.

Yes, I saw that and thought DB had missed the trick there. The cutter was only cutting on one insert from what I could see but he didn't twig and wasn't really hammering it anyway. If you were to give it some serious gip, you'd likely break that insert or at least wear it out quickly.

As you say, it's important to review the reviewers and form your own view on whether they know what they are looking at. Pierre's Garage and xynudu seem to have a bit of an idea what they are doing. On the other extreme, Build Something Cool made a completely biased arse of himself by acting as a shill for Mercan machine vises - didn't do his reputation a whole lot of good.

Murray

I don't waste my time watching them !

I have seen so many youtube channels ruined by these revues that it isn't funny ! One minute they are making interesting videos that i enjoy watching and the next they have become a sales,person for some brand of machine tool .

Some even state that they are not sponsored by the makers of this product or that then the next thing you know all this crap turns up on their doorstep as a thank you gift for making the video about one of their products ! Bangood are very good at doing this as they have the address already from the original purchase !

Some makers even hunt for this then the next thing you know they are constantly asking you to go to patreon and donate money so they can make more of their wonderful videos that have now become nothing more than an infomercial !

Problem is once a maker works out they can make money from youtube and by advertising someones product they have already started down a long dark path from which their is little chance of return !

It's vicious circle - give a good review - get more free stuff , Give a bad review - get nothing for free ever again ! Which one do you thing they are going to choose ?

Murray,

Xynudu certainly knows he will get more freebies for providing a glowing review. He used to put up some useful tips, but has degenerated to being a paid advertiser, IMO. He gave a glowing report on a ‘flame licker’ engine one week and almost entirely rebuilt the thing properly, the next, because it was clearly carp!

Emma Ritson gave a fair review of a product and has not done any since, basically I think, because the product was reported for what it was - cheap, cheerful and substandard. The angles on the plates were fine but they did not stand up vertically from a flat horizontal surface!

I’m hoping doubleboost doesn’t go the same way as that might affect his credence with the very expensive welding and plasma cutting kit he promotes.

It's vicious circle - give a good review - get more free stuff , Give a bad review - get nothing for free ever again ! Which one do you thing they are going to choose ?

Car magazines and car TV programs have had these problems for decades

The amount of advertising revenue etc that can be lost is significant

In the USA big pharma companies have massive influence because of their advertising budgets

So it's not a new thing, Which? magazine costs a tenner an issue because it has little or no advertising

Most of Pierre's Garage is good stuff but his comparison of cheap vs expensive calipers is seriously flawed : his method can be used to produce whatever result you want. No criticism of Pierre, it's actually very difficult to eliminate bias from any kind of assessment. (Rats in a Maze is a good example.)

I don't take anything for granted. You always have to assess what you're looking at. You always have to watch out for prejudice, and be aware that everyone - including yourself - is more-or-less unreliable. You have to understand that that products aren't always a good match to our particular needs. Evidence, references and logic are far more important than opinion. Figures and measurements are usually safer than qualitative data. It helps to have clear ideas about exactly what you mean by fitness-for-purpose and value for money.

Opinion is untrustworthy for multiple reasons. As soon as greed, politics, racism, history, god, tradition, ignorance, nationalism, wish-fulfillment, optimism, pessimism, taste or stupidity intrude, the moon is made of green cheese, saints become devils and black is white. No-one is going to spoon feed us the truth though some sources are safer than others.

Not all is lost: the law is reasonably effective in preventing gross abuses; reputation is worth something; you can assess the honesty of what you're told; you can put effort into understanding the subject; you can check facts; I'm afraid anything else is just lazy. Don't ask how I know!

Caveat Emptor - the Romans knew all about it...

Dave

What sort of Emperor was Caveat Dave?

IanT

There is absolutely no guarantee that the quality of the tool reviewed will be the same quality that you receive once you part with your hard earned cash. We know from experience the output from China can be of very variable quality, I doubt that the sample for review is representative of the normal production line quality.

At the end of the day You Tubers who chose to partake in this advertising charade are putting their own reputation on the line

+1 - plenty of magazines (Not MEW of course ) where tool reviews are pretty much worthless IMHO.

...and it's also human nature.

None of us likes to admit that we've been "sold a pup" when tempted by an on-line bargain that proves to be too good to be true.

Jon

Yeah, I've heard of this practice, and it isn't limited to metal working unfortunately,

In youtube speak it's called a paid shill, or "pluggin' the merch",(you get the idea). 

Rolingmetal is another one who gets freebees from banggood,(1.4k subscribers I think) although he is upfront about it and has given them bad reviews before.

Don't mean to disrespect him or anything (i'm subbed as well), he isn't even one of the really well known youtubers like myfordboy and clearly banggood aren't too fussy about how popular they are. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 16/04/2018 19:54:41

I think he was the very careful one, Ian
DaveD

We don't accept payment for reviews, although the reviewer often (but not always) gets to keep the kit.

Our policy is that if the kit isn't up to an acceptable standard we don't run the review - no point in featuring substandard kit. If it has less serious problems/issues we mention this in the review. We give feedback to the suppliers.

The things featured as 'Trade News' may or may not have been seen first hand by us, and generally haven't had a full test unless we say so. These aren't paid 'advertorial', though.

I haven't ever reviewed anything I don't still use; one or two things I have found niggling issues with over time, most actually go up in my estimation as I get used to them.

For example the die-chasers using coventry die head inserts I tried do exactly what they are supposed to do, but I must confess I have found them rather fiddly to use. On the other hand an entry level airbrush/compressor combo has proven really good to use with more practice and I've surprised myself with the results I can get. The same goes for carbide insert parting tools - the more I use them the 'better' they (or I) get.

Sometimes early reviews are early road-tests of kit and show up issues - sometimes we get asked to test kit but not review it but just provide feedback to the seller. I've had an example of this on test for a year or so and gradually my most of my initial reservations have disappeared.

If we find an issue we do give the supplier a chance to put it right; our current Super 7 DRO review (continued in the next issue) highlighted some minor issues which have been addressed by the supplier.

Jason and I have been upfront that the kit we are using for the two beginners series has been supplied by Arc Euro, but we aren't 'reviewing' it as such. This is an exceptional sponsorship arrangement (each part is clearly flagged as 'sponsored by Arc' that took a good while to set up and very much aimed at generating some very specific content. That said I have genuinely high opinion of the SC4-510 lathe, the only issues with it are trivial cosmetic issues (paint flaking in a couple of spots and a not-very-sticky-sticker).

Neil

I don't accept the reviews as anything as I don't watch them. There are some professional machinists that are worth watching, Abom79 springs to mind, but otherwise no. If I'm using a new technique I might scan a few videos to get some hints, but many of the videos are not worth watching all the way through.

In some cases (and this seems a particular problem with US posters) the presenter suffers from verbal diarrhoea for what seems like an age before we even see a tool or machine.

Andrew

Out of curiosity has anybody here posted a negative review of an item they have received on Banggoods site. I have and they don't show up!

I have had some great stuff off them that I have given good reviews (which do appear) but this does make me very wary.

Regards.

David.

Sounds a bit like how a seller on ebay can write over negative feedback so you can't read the negative feedback , usually with some dodgy excuse and how the buyer never gave them a chance to fix the problem .

As soon as i see stuff like this I look elsewhere !

I would be equally wary of a product that has no negative or neutral reviews especially for place like banggood or alibaba .

Remember that bangood is just a marketplace, not a supplier, like ebay or amazon.

Neil

Mate, I don't even take the Gospel as gospel, let alone some video on social media.

I wrote a short review on my new West German milling machine comparing it to a faithful Emco FB2 which it replaced and submitted it to MEW. 5 years on I still haven't changed my opinion.

It wasn't really complimentary to the new machine, which had been bought unseen but based on advertising and supposed West German super quality engineering.

Needless to say the article/letter was rejected and I thought at the time that it was a case of biting the hand that fed the dog, as the supplier was still an advertiser in MEW.

Dave
The Emerald Isle