get paid £1.40 for every 150 word review you write! Amazing new site

sarahs999

mattygroves wrote: »

Sarah, which site are you talking about - comparedby.us or epinions/ciao/dooyoo? What sort of products are you reviewing?

I've only ever used comparedby.us. I'm writing about books and films mostly, occasionally music, and some children's toys/books. Stuff I know about and really like or dislike. I tend to think of a book I've really enjoyed, look it up, and have found that most of my choices have not yet been reviewed on the site. So mostly I was getting paid the rate for a first extended review, which, as we know, was madly generous.

Camp_Freddy

sarahs999 wrote: »

Why shouldn't people be doing this for money? The opportunity is there, and money is offered as an incentive.

No-one's ever said that we should submit our work for free. If you're that way inclined, go off and submit work for Wikipedia. There's a difference, though, in being rewarded for your hobby and looking at sites like Dooyoo as a way out because you're thousands of pounds in debt and "selling" Dooyoo as a method of earning a second income. It's not. People have tried over the years and no-one's done it. There's more to sites like Dooyoo than simply posting a review... lots more. Those who write for money tend not to give back to these sites which once again brings us back to the original point... leeching from the sites.

If you enjoy sites such as Dooyoo and want to put your earning towards a debt, then fine. All this targetting limits by MSE members... 150 words, three reviews per day, £100 per month etc. as can be seen by the hundreds of posts on this site makes people look desperate and unsurprisingly, they're viewed with suspicion.

brooke3

Camp Freddy- I disagree with your point that people who are in it for the money ted not to give back to sites.
I am an active member on dooyoo. I write a couple of reviews each week and rate every single person who rates mine plus more. I get annoyed when people write reviews that are barely 150 words and when people don't bother reading rating other peoples.
But I'm in it for the money.
I could be reviewing on any website but I chose to review on dooyoo because it meant getting paid to do something that I used to do on amazon for free. I never would have joined dooyoo if it hadn't been for the money and if they stopped paying there's a good chance that I would leave because I can't justify spending so much of my time on something that doesn't pay me. I don't earn much. I've earnt £50 in two months which is hardly anything but for me every little does help.
So I don't think that those who write for money tend not to give back to sites like dooyoo. I think a minority of the people who are in it for the money don't tend to give back.

However, I do think that people should give back to these websites. I was an admin on a paid t post website that in the end went under because it could no longer afford to pay anyone. We had to be very strict with the guidelines but even then people didn't give back to teh site or support it.

I would say though that if you offer a financial incentive then you have to expect to attract people who just want to make money.

mattygroves_3

Camp_Freddy wrote: »

Those who write for money tend not to give back to these sites which once again brings us back to the original point... leeching from the sites.

brook wrote:

Camp Freddy- I disagree with your point that people who are in it for the money ted not to give back to sites.

To be fair, I think I might have reworded that to read "Those who write SOLELY for the money tend not to give back..."

Again, for me, what it comes down to is getting paid for a hobby I enjoy anyway. Of course I welcome the money, and, like you, I probably wouldn't be so keen without it (I rarely visit Epinions any more for that very reason). But I don't treat it like a second income, and I don't expect to make a living out of it. As I've pointed out before, (as have other people), you'll make far more getting a 'real' part time job.

I am sure there are loads of folk on here who post decent reviews at a reasonable rate of products they actually own or are familiar with. However, it is an uncomfortable and unfortunate truth that there are people from here (and, of course, from elsewhere as well) who are writing dross 10 or 20 times a day with five or six minutes between reviews simply to fleece Dooyoo or comparedby.us for as much as they can before they get noticed.

Those are the people who could conceivably ruin it for the rest of us - the people who could force dooyoo to either abandon its payment structure (as Epinions more or less has) or scale it back drastically (as Ciao has). Even worse, those sorts of people could force sites like dooyoo and comparedby.us to fold all together.

Camp_Freddy

brooke3 wrote: »

Camp Freddy- I disagree with your point that people who are in it for the money ted not to give back to sites.

brooke3 wrote: »

I am an active member on dooyoo. I write a couple of reviews each week and rate every single person who rates mine plus more. I get annoyed when people write reviews that are barely 150 words and when people don't bother reading rating other peoples.
But I'm in it for the money.
I could be reviewing on any website but I chose to review on dooyoo because it meant getting paid to do something that I used to do on amazon for free. I never would have joined dooyoo if it hadn't been for the money and if they stopped paying there's a good chance that I would leave because I can't justify spending so much of my time on something that doesn't pay me. I don't earn much. I've earnt £50 in two months which is hardly anything but for me every little does help.
So I don't think that those who write for money tend not to give back to sites like dooyoo. I think a minority of the people who are in it for the money don't tend to give back.

However, I do think that people should give back to these websites. I was an admin on a paid t post website that in the end went under because it could no longer afford to pay anyone. We had to be very strict with the guidelines but even then people didn't give back to teh site or support it.

I would say though that if you offer a financial incentive then you have to expect to attract people who just want to make money.

That's fair enough, Brooke. Unfortunately, your disagreement seems to stem from the fact you don't consider yourself to be one of these "money grabbers" and nothing more. From my experience, for every person that's in it purely for the money and who gives back to the site(s) of their choice, there's at least one member that's leeching from the site or, even worse, going out of their way to cheat it. We've already seen one big example on this thread alone! I know the guides, as a group, are sick of dealing in the negative side of the site – churning, plagiarised reviews etc. I wonder what it's like on a site where there is no group in comparison to the guides? Even then, people who claim to be giving back to the site, aren't! I saw one such member a few days ago (an MSE member) who was/is 1500 rates "in debt", but still claims they give back rates to those that rate them.

So, like it or not, I tend to view those that talk about their daily/monthly site targets (generally reviews posted or money earned) with an element of suspicion and, if I'm being brutally honest, few people here on MSE are doing anything to dispell this "second income" myth.

brooke3

I see your point camp freddy. I wonder if these people who churn out reviews are actually dedicated enough to the site to get to the point where they get a payout.
I wonder if perhaps any hostility (I'm not aiming this particularly at Camp Freddy but in general) is misplaced by aiming it at the people who take advantage of what is being offered by dooyoo. If you say that you will pay people to write 150 words then there will always be people who churn out as many reviews as possible purely for the money. I would say that it's up to dooyoo to come up with a solution and that if people have problems with the way that dooyoo is then those complaints should be taken up with those who run dooyoo.

Camp_Freddy

If it were just a matter of members posting and Dooyoo and no other interaction, then I'd agree wholeheartedly. But it's not... there's a whole community of members on Dooyoo who are impacted by this negative behaviour which is why people like matty and myself end up posting here, and posting in the style we do.

In an ideal world, people would make an effort with their reviews, that the payment would be a nice bonus, not something to actually aim for or count on, that people would read around the site without feeling that it was a chore and the entire community, not just a small sub-set, would be pro-active in making Dooyoo a site that can be enjoyed by all. By that, I mean honest rating, ensuring suggestions are correctly added (everyone can make mistakes), reporting abuse to Dooyo staff etc.

Relying on Dooyoo is a cop out, sorry.

MSE members can help by stopping this myth that there's a second income out there. By encouraging others to think more about the overall experience rather than the pennies, no matter what thread, then sites such as Dooyoo become better for everyone.

The example in this thread where one person made a large contribution to spoiling it for everyone is extreme, yes, but it does show that it's possible. If it's possible on that scale, then chances are it's happening on a smaller scale already on the various paid review sites, and believe me, it is.

brooke3

I really do see your point Camp Freddy and I'm not saying that it's not an issue because I really think it is. I get so frustrated with people who have really bad reviews and so many of them, especially when they're not rating anyone elses. As I've said I know first hand how much people like that can impact on a site (the site that i was an admin on had to close down) but there will always be irresponsible people. People on here don't necessarily care about dooyoo or the community (for the record I do) and there's not really any reason why they should, anymore than dooyoo members should respect that the point of MSE is to make money and save money. If pepole discuss dooyoo on this website it is likely to be in the context of making money.
Dooyoo make it so easy for people to take advantage. I mean, 150 words? That's nothing. It takes two minutes to write 150 words. If you're willing to pay people just for churning out reviews then you can't complain when you attract people who will do just that.

idlesaver

Just wondering is this "Dooyoo thread".......?????????? OR "CBU Thread"....?????

Camp_Freddy

brooke3 wrote: »

I really do see your point Camp Freddy and I'm not saying that it's not an issue because I really think it is. I get so frustrated with people who have really bad reviews and so many of them, especially when they're not rating anyone elses. As I've said I know first hand how much people like that can impact on a site (the site that i was an admin on had to close down) but there will always be irresponsible people. People on here don't necessarily care about dooyoo or the community (for the record I do) and there's not really any reason why they should, anymore than dooyoo members should respect that the point of MSE is to make money and save money. If pepole discuss dooyoo on this website it is likely to be in the context of making money.
Dooyoo make it so easy for people to take advantage. I mean, 150 words? That's nothing. It takes two minutes to write 150 words. If you're willing to pay people just for churning out reviews then you can't complain when you attract people who will do just that.

Which is why I suggested that MSE members that want to get involved in Dooyoo (or any other reviewing site) speak up when they see people with unrealistic notions about how much money can be earned on the site.

For the record, I believe the entire aim of the site and forum is to SAVE money and get good financial/consumer advice. The only issues I have with the forum are in DFW, MFW and Up Your Income sub-forums. That's where the problems arise because it's these forums that are about MAKING money, not saving it.

With regards to the 150 words thing... Dooyoo have to compromise between a limit to put off timewasters and something that will not put off those that haven't considered writing reviews. We all know a decent review of most things is the higher side of 400 - 500 words, but Dooyoo will never implement that as a hard limit as it puts off newbies. I think this focussing on "well, dooyoo pay 50p for 150 words" side of the debate is a bit of a red herring, to be honest.