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Filter reviews
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raelinOct 21, 2021
I would love to be able to filter user reviews by star rating, key word, etc.
When I finish a book I love to read contrasting reviews and then reviews who are on par with my star rating, but it can be hard to find these just by scrolling the reviews especially when there are thousands for a book and I am only seeing the ones that happen to come first with no way to sort them.
Comments
I posted a similar idea before I found this post…Mods, hopefully you’ll merge it here.
In short, I want to be able to filter reviews (and the average star rating) by users whose reading tastes are similar to mine.
msbarnesela I'll keep it separate as the current plan for filtering reviews does not include a similar users filter!
By the way, do you use the "similar users" toggle on the Community Feed as a book discovery tool? (Not the same thing at all, just curious!)
Nadia I do sometimes! It’s helpful when I’m looking for a recommendation. The feature I proposed would be helpful when I want to vet a recommendation from another source or check a random book that catches my eye in the store. I do like the beta feature for a personalized synopsis, but it’s still a little buggy.
I see this is in progress, just wanted to highlight another use case. It would be great if I could filter reviews by translation. A book might have multiple translations over the years and I’d want to be able to compare reviews to see if one translator did a better job or if a specific version was particularly disliked.
mrlmnop We'll have separate language/translation updates! Oh, but we will have the ability to filter by current edition, so you can go to the edition you want and see the reviews for that!
It would be great if one of the filters was “only reviews for this edition” as well. Primarily thinking this would be helpful if trying to find thoughts on narration for audiobooks.
audralee Ooh, good shout. I'm actually going to be doing this feature soon so I'll add that!
THIS! In what I'm sure is nothing but a bizarre coincidence, "I received an advance copy of this book from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review" turns up freakishly often at the bottom of 5.0 ratings. Being able to sort reviews by ratings would be a big help to getting past the "this book is awesome cos it was FREE" reviews. Ratings in the mid-range with written reviews tend to be much more thoughtfully written and inclusive of both good points and weak points.
robinwalter As one for whom about 2/3 the books I read are advance review copies (ARC), I take slight offense that I would rate a book highly because it was free - and I suspect (without proof) that most of us who read ARCs feel the same. I hold my review integrity high; I give out 5 star reviews sparingly. I have well been known to send back to publishers 2 or 3 star reviews on ARCs, and still publish the review here.
Plus, “free” doesn’t really amount to much value in the era when Amazon Prime (or whatever the Kindle version is) makes reading a massive swath of books effectively free, as well. So should there be a way to filter out the 5-star reviews of those “free” books?
I stand for the position that any perceived correlation between 5-star reviews and ARC disclosures is one of those “correlation does not equal causation” moments, and no “ARC” filter should exist (because it would filter out all the people like me who have integrity in our reviews).
jaybatson You replied to my comment, but had you taken the time to actually READ my comment, you would have noted that it did NOT ask for an ARC filter, or indeed ANY filter. I asked for the ability to SORT reviews by rating, not filter reviews out.
robinwalter You are correct. My apologies. I (think I) realized that at the time of writing, but was commenting against it in the case that such a filter was considered unilaterally by Nadia.
Hopefully no offense taken. Thanks for your polite reply.
We'll definitely be adding in some form of filter and sort options to the review pages! :-D
Agree, raelin! Just about to post this myself :) I think filter option based on language the review was written or broad rating (positive, critical, or negative) can be quite helpful too.