Suggestions

Right now, there are only two options for categorizing profanity (borderline and non-borderline). This means that even books with just a few instances of profanity end up in the same category as those that use it heavily. It would make more sense to use a simple frequency scale such as “Under 3 times,” “3–10 times,” and “Over 10 times.” This would give readers a better idea of what to expect while still keeping the two main categories we already have.

Over the years, there have been several changes to the guidelines in writing reviews. Some editors are still marking reviews according to guidelines that are no longer listed. For example, some editors are still marking reviewers as violating the guideline for not putting the book title in italics. This often creates incorrect scorecards and discrepancies between editors. I suggest that in the guidelines section of the scorecard, a brief sentence representing each guideline be listed with a tick box beside it. The editor can mark it if the reviewer followed the guideline or leave it blank if the reviewer violated the guideline. Then the score can be automatically generated. This way, an editor cannot mark down a reviewer for violating a guideline that is no longer required. It is also time-saving as it reduces the admin recheck requests.

When an author enters a dispute, these should show up at top of the history page. I found a dispute that was almost 2 weeks old that I was unaware of, from a book that had already received a score and was published.

Change the way the errors and guideline violations appear when marking a review as plagiarized. Currently, the instructions to the editors say to leave those sections blank if the reviewer is being accused of plagiarism. When the reviewer sees the scorecard, the system shows four errors (with no descriptions of the errors) and yes to the guideline violations (with no comments). I suggest changing the system to show N/A for those categories (errors and guideline violations) when the review has been marked as plagiarized. This would eliminate the reviewer accusing the editor of not providing the required information.

Currently, once a Facebook account has been linked to the OBC account, it cannot be changed. I suggest adding the option to change it in case the reviewer has legitimate reasons for it.

I suggest that a feature be added to the site where a reviewer can appeal a moderator's rejection of their Amazon review, just as is done for Purchase verifications.

In some cases, it can take long for a bulk review package to be completed, and the author might get impatient and unhappy. For these special situations, we could have a small group of trusted reviewers who read the book and deliver the review relatively fast. To address a review assignment to the members of this group, the average turnaround times would have to be already exceeded. To become a member of this reviewer group, the reviewers should be level 5 or 6 and commit to completing these special review assignments within 2 weeks' time.

Editors are to score 3 reviews per day. However, we all have situations in life when a break would be necessary. I suggest that we allow editors a certain amount of days per year (for example, 21 days) when they can report themselves temporarily absent. During the absence, they would not need to score the required 3 reviews per day. A button to do this could be added to editor page.

Currently, clients are unable to view the number of gift codes generated, the amount redeemed, or the date they were generated. I believe a record for this should be provided to the client, as it will reduce the number of times the question gets asked.

Currently, we have been instructed to avoid asking a paying client for screenshots or videos. However, in cases where they report an alleged bug, it becomes difficult to provide a video showing the issue. I suggest staff members be allowed to request a video in cases where they themselves are unable to prove an alleged bug by doing what the client wanted to do.