Dooyoo Membership and Ethos

Dooyoo is a revolutionary concept and a uniquely valuable resource for people wishing to make better decisions in life. The medium of the web has allowed us to communicate on a scale never before seen. It is for this reason that the dooyoo community relies upon its members to be honest, decent and democratic. By working together we will all truly benefit from the content within this site. Please read our guidelines and understand that dooyoo will serve you for as long as you serve dooyoo.

General

• You must register with dooyoo to make the most of all our functions.
• Let others know about who you are by personalising your user profile.
• Get to know other dooyoo members, friendship and trust are important tools for you to measure what you read objectively.

Writing

Our mantra is QUALITY. Help others make better decisions by sharing your experiences of products and services. Having registered, log in and browse the categories, or search for an item you'd like to review. Click on 'write your opinion' on the left. Writing opinions earns you dooyoo miles. Remember that all opinions submitted to dooyoo are read by our expert community managers to assure quality.

Do

• Ensure that your opinions are useful to the dooyoo community. Bear in mind that the better your opinion, the more often it will be read, and the more dooyoo miles you'll earn. If your opinion is of an exceptional quality it will be awarded a crown. Regard writing a good opinion as a good investment: there is no limit to how much you can earn on a opinion.
• Think about what you can tell someone that they can't find out from manufacturers or advertisers.
• Back up your point of view. Present a balanced argument by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of a product or service.
• Fill in all of the questions where applicable; please share as much information as possible.
• Ensure that your opinion contains at least 75 words of your own opinion. Opinions of 150 words or less are closely scrutinised and stand a good chance of being rejected unless excellent. If you quote, please state the source - quoted material does not count towards the minimum word count.
• Make sure that your spelling and grammar are good. If you're worried about the standard of your writing, why not write reviews in Word first then cut and paste? If you find writing opinions difficult at first, don’t worry because our community managers are very willing to help you.

Don't

• Leave comments on other people's opinions as an opinion. You can leave them in the comments box (see below).
• Advertise anything on dooyoo. Links for referral schemes will be deleted. dooyoo is an independent forum for information exchange - it is not a resource for self-promotion.
• Plagiarise or copy. Your opinion must be your own.
• Swear or make abusive comments on dooyoo. Obscenities, racist or sexist comments will not be tolerated on the site.

Reading

To find the item you're interested in, either browse the categories or use the search function. If you've enjoyed an opinion written by a dooyoo user, you can click on their name to read all of their opinions.

Please remember to rate opinions after reading them (see below). You can customise your dooyoo to:

• inform you each time one of your favourite writers leaves an opinion. Log on, find a trusted user's opinion and click on 'Inform me of new opinions by (username)' on the left.
• inform you each time a new opinion is written on a topic of interest to you. Log on, find an item of interest and click on 'Inform me of new opinions about (item)' on the left.
• add a trusted user to your circle of friends. This means that you can save links to your favourite writers, as well as give their opinions priority (see below).

organise opinions on an item according to your personal preferences. The default ranking is calculated according to the rating given by other users, but you can rank opinions by circle of friends (your trusted users' opinions will appear first), date and product rating as well as seeing unrated opinions first.

Rating

Only registered members of the dooyoo community can rate. Rating opinions helps to ensure that the best opinions can be found quickly by other users: the most popular opinions appear at the top of the list. The level of ‘usefulness’ should reflect your view of an opinion’s ability to inform the next user about the product or service. Once you have logged on and are looking at an opinion, you'll find the rating links at the bottom of the page. Our rating system should reflect the following criteria:

• Very useful  covers every aspect of the subject in considerable depth, and makes both the positive and negative aspects perfectly clear. You would make a purchasing decision based on this opinion.
  
  
• Useful  a good opinion which states the case clearly but perhaps focuses too much on a single aspect of the topic. You might make a purchasing decision based on this opinion, but you'd look for more information first.
  
  
• Somewhat Useful  an opinion that would have been better with more depth or a more balanced coverage.
  
  
• Not useful   the opinion is very one-sided and lacks sufficient depth to really do justice to the topic.

  Do

• Rate honestly. Don't be afraid to rate opinions 'Not useful' and be sparing in your use of 'Very useful'.
  
• Remember always to rate opinions. Rating is crucial to the effectiveness of dooyoo.

Don't

• Indulge in reciprocal rating tactics. Abuse of the rating system will result in disciplinary action from dooyoo.
• Revenge rate. Don't rate a user's opinion 'Not useful' simply because they have done this to you. If you feel you have been rated unfairly please contact police@dooyoo.co.uk
• Create alternate dooyoo identities to read and rate your own opinions. We will find out; you will be deleted and forfeit all your miles.

Comments

After reading an opinion you can read and write comments on it. Simply scroll to the bottom of the opinion and click on 'write or read comments on this opinion'.

Please make sure that your comments are relevant. Abusive comments will lead to users being deleted from dooyoo.