When I was in elementary school (in Korea and here in America), basically, I was graded based on objective means of achieving the grade. Meaning, if you get everything right, you got a 100 out of 100. And if everyone in the class also did well, they got the same score. That means everyone could conceivably 100 and everyone would get an A.
Starting in high school, there were some classes where "curve" for grading the class was introduced. During college days and beyond, getting graded based on a "curve" was the norm. What being on the "curve" meant is the teacher or professor decided that top 10% would get the top grade, vast middle would get average, and then bottom 20-30% may fail. Each test would result in some folks necessarily getting A and some folks necessarily getting C, D, or F. Needless to say, students hated it. I would still hate it if I were a student right now. If everyone did equally well, why punish some and not give credit to everyone? What is wrong with giving 100 out of 100 (based on objective means) if that's what a person did?
Well, apparently in life, we MUST decide that only few things are great and rest much not be. This WSJ article discusses how consumer reviews are too positive. So, now there's a movement to try to find reviewers who will give negative reviews or count only negative reviews for determining ranking for businesses. In general, my observation is that people tend to give positive reviews when they are impressed and talk about them with their friends. People will also give strong negative opinions when something really bother them. But if things were ok? Most people probably wouldn't remember and not take any action. So then it's not really a surprise that online consumer reviews tend to be positive... because folks who were really impressed probably went online to review. Why bother reviewing if things were so-so?
So if business impressed some folks so much that those people took the initiative to give positive reviews, should some business still be penalized? Isn't it great that a business does something that impresses some folks enough to take the initiative to give positive reviews? And what is wrong if surviving business got great reviews? Isn't it possible that businesses that do not generate positive feedback are out of business anyway? Basically, the article is pointing out that we as a society must grade all business on a "curve" and that's how our life should be. Which is really too bad... because I really miss the simplicity of going for 100 out of 100 and encouraging everyone else to do the same so we can all be great. But hey, that's just me.
By the way, in making the above observation, I am assuming that negative feedbacks are not deleted by anyone monitoring the review sites. Obviously, any business generating such negative reaction that people take the initiative should get negative review. If negative reviews are being deleted, shame on those deleting them. What happened to free speech, what our founding fathers fought for?
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