WPR Sites: An Introduction
If you're familiar with WPR sites, you might want to skip this part. Don't worry if you feel compelled to read it, even though you know these facts: I am aware that my writing style is addictive.
Definition of Terms
For those of you unfamiliar with the various abbreviations of the 'net community, more precisely the narcissistic part of it, you might be wondering what I'm talking about. WPR is a more comfortable way of spelling Web Page Review: it's much shorter and has the added bonus of generating less spelling mistakes.
Review, n - an essay or article that gives a critical evaluation (as of a book or play) [syn: critique, critical review, review article.
Therefore, if we narrow it down to web pages, it basically means that someone issues an opinion about your web site, possibly pointing out some mistakes/errors that he/she might have encountered while surfing it.
Purpose
Some of you might question these sites' purpose at this point, seeing that tagboards and guestbooks serve a similar purpose. This is where you're wrong. Visitors who leave those lovely messages on the tagboard/guestbook are not necessarily telling you their opinion. They want to please you in hopes that you will visit their site and leave an equally nice message on their tagboard/guestbook. I call this "pleasantry exchange". Don't get me wrong, I don't antagonize this behavior, heck I did and still do it. But be truthful, aside from the odd rude message, do they tell you anything else than "cute/nice/pretty/lovely/etc. site"?
If the answer is a negative one, then I'd suggest you give WPRs a thought. No matter how good you are, there's always something you can improve on; you're not perfect (nobody is, for that matter). So, if you have a website and want an honest 1 opinion on it, WPRs may just be the solution.
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1 This is, of course, debatable; but most of the time you're bound to get an honest opinion.
Why Should WPR Sites Be Better?
I can't, of course, guarantee you that these reviews will be better than your visitors' opinions. I've met my fair share of crappy reviewers; but they are generally more organized and comment on more aspects of your site.
You'll be able to find proof in the "Score" section of these types of sites. There, you're presented with a grading template that generally includes all aspects2 deemed worthy of being reviewed in a site. It's true that they might not really exploit them to their full potential, but at least they'll issue an opinion on more aspects of your site. In any case they SHOULD, seeing that they DID state they would do so.
The "problem" with average internet surfers is their rather small attention span (myself included, when not reviewing said site). Hardly any visitor will care to see if your site is interesting, especially if they're turned away from the start. Reviewers will at least look through your whole site and give you suggestions on how to improve.
Generators of Internet Drama
While they DO have advantages over visitors' opinions, WPR sites are often the cause of unnecessary internet drama, which may sometimes lead to closure of sites. In light of these, the purpose of this section (Tips and Trick with WPRs) is to prevent such events.
- Reviewers don't speak from anyone else's point of view. No matter how objective they are, personal preferences are bound to have an influence over the review.
- A reviewer's opinion is not law. It is impossible to create a site that everyone will like. On the other hand, if 4-5 reviews criticize the same aspect, DO take them into consideration; they might be on to something.
- Always be polite and curteous. No one forced you to submit for a review. Besides, you can always achieve more by speaking (writing) in a civilized manner.
At some point, I disregarded all the above and some reviewers still manage to annoy me even now. Unfortunately this still doesn't change the fact that you willingly submitted your site. Therefore, complaining about a negative opinion is rather childish.