N/A Air gun reviews, the good, the bad and the ugly

[JimD]

I have a little different perspective. I do no airgun reviews (but I do share comments and thoughts here and on GTA) but I am in Home Depot Seeds program. I get a few emails a month offering me "free stuff" if I will write a review of it. I've gotten some nice things but the program has gone downhill from my point of view. I get 20 days from the time the product ships to complete my review. Doesn't matter if it takes a week or two to get to me. The time is not rigidly enforced, they just bug me, but my point is they want a review very quickly. No real time to get to know the item. So all I can do is basically give first impressions. My reviews are normally positive but if I don't like something I say it. There have been no issues when I make an occasional negative comment.

I suspect airgun reviewers have some of the same time pressures. Many seem to get a "loan" of a gun to review. I don't think that would motivate me to be real positive but perhaps keeping the stream of guns to review going is a motivator to be positive. I definitely agree with the comments about who does the better reviews (although I like Andy, he is overly positive but he will include mild critical comments and he sometimes reviews less expensive guns). But I think all of us look at reviews on a large variety of items (look out for those "Seeds" reviews). We need to read-between-the-lines to get usable input. It would be nice if it wasn't this way but it is.

 

[Spinach]

Reading between the lines or the ability to do so should never come into a review.

Or is this what people expect nowadays?

 

[Ezana4CE]

I have a little different perspective. I do no airgun reviews (but I do share comments and thoughts here and on GTA) but I am in Home Depot Seeds program. I get a few emails a month offering me "free stuff" if I will write a review of it. I've gotten some nice things but the program has gone downhill from my point of view. I get 20 days from the time the product ships to complete my review. Doesn't matter if it takes a week or two to get to me. The time is not rigidly enforced, they just bug me, but my point is they want a review very quickly. No real time to get to know the item. So all I can do is basically give first impressions. My reviews are normally positive but if I don't like something I say it. There have been no issues when I make an occasional negative comment.

I suspect airgun reviewers have some of the same time pressures. Many seem to get a "loan" of a gun to review. I don't think that would motivate me to be real positive but perhaps keeping the stream of guns to review going is a motivator to be positive. I definitely agree with the comments about who does the better reviews (although I like Andy, he is overly positive but he will include mild critical comments and he sometimes reviews less expensive guns). But I think all of us look at reviews on a large variety of items (look out for those "Seeds" reviews). We need to read-between-the-lines to get usable input. It would be nice if it wasn't this way but it is.

@JimD A hobby reviewer recently shared that vendors or manufacturers press him for reviews to be put together within a certain timeframe. This is sort of strange to me because it seems to defeat the purpose of someone demonstrating the longterm quality of a product or their competency of getting the most out of a product.