@Steve Brown – this I agree with, which is partially why I never even care about a rubric being present or not. I may have been critical of this particular rubric, but what wasn’t apparent is that I’m fine with just the reviewer stating his or her opinion without a scale of ratings even being present.
If you’re going to use one, though, an understanding of the values sure is helpful; glad to hear you’re working on one.
@beezy – definitely agree that as a single reviewer develops a history of reviews, the rubric will explain itself. However, the reader may not be aware of that history (if they’ve just Googled for “One Drop Chik Review”). Moreover, a site will gradually grow a stable of reviewers, and if they don’t grade based on the same rubric (ie. not just the same scale, but the same explanation of values and baseline example yoyos) then it’s still just arbitrary evaluation masked with a thin veneer of objective measurement.
Honestly, the bigger issue is the general homogenization of metal yoyos. The play differences between plastic yoyos are considerable…there are fewer of them, and a lot more thought and effort goes in to each due to the huge increase in start-up cost to get one made. People don’t make a plastic yoyo on a whim…once you make a tool, you’re making that yoyo for a while. Metal yoyos come and go fast.
I hadn’t thought of that aspect of plastic yoyos. Of course there’s the machined delrins and such, but we’re talking injection molded, right?
I do love a good plastic, and the shapes are so important to those. (As an aside, I picked up my Northstar after not touching it for months and I forgot how killer it was!) I guess the time spent tweaking the design really shows in the final product as compared to how quickly a new metal can be brought to market.
I suppose the upside of a glut of yoyo choices from so many makers is some cool plastics coming out too.
Making metal yoyos is a great way to do cheap R&D and test ideas and designs while raising money for molds.
Unfortunately, most boutique metal yoyo companies aren’t doing that, they’re just making metal yoyos. Which is fine and all, but it doesn’t force them to refine their designs.
I’m pretty sure that’s not true. There are tons of yoyos with similar weights/masses, but different shapes, that have very different speeds to them. If a yoyo has a lot of rim weight, yes, it will have more spin time, but it will also be harder to push around, and therefore be slower.
Large-diameter yoyos of 68g do tend to play lighter than they are, while small-diameter yoyos of 66g+ are more likely to be “ker-thunky” (like the Supra or Token). But no, you cannot tell for sure how a yoyo will feel until you play it.
The only issue I have with the revised definition would be that larger yoyos have a higher tendency to be “Floaty” due to the design. By building a large diameter yoyo, you are already allowing more weight in the center which in turn shortens the amount of weight available for the rims. This also would explain why it is astonishing to some that larger diameter 68g+ yoyos are typically floaty. The extra weight at the rims is placed there for stability due to the large amount of material already being placed on the inside.
The rubric on YYN may be helpful, but personally I’d throw “Heft” and “Float” out the window for the term “Feel.” You could then base it as Light, Heavy, Half/Half. That’d be my take on it anyway.
This. I can’t really trust most site reviews because they’re so gushingly positive all the time. When they have a negative thing to say, it’s minimized and covered in disclaimers. I feel like they’re trying not to hurt the manufacturer’s feelings. Every yoyo is either the best ever, or very very good but not their favorite.
There’s been times where I’ve owned a yoyo theyre reviewing, and it’s like they’re living on a different planet. Where I see tons of faults, they see perfection.
But again, remember a couple of things…most reviewers ask for manufacturers to send them yoyos to review for free. That’s a gravy train they don’t want to mess up. General human nature says that if you ask someone for a favor, you’re going to be hesitant to repay that favor by throwing them under a bus.
Also, as previously discussed, consider the homogenization of metal yoyos. When everything plays more or less fine and the differences are mostly just packaging, finish, and branding…when it comes down to “Which of these twenty-seven 66gm yoyos do I feel like spending $100 on today?” it’s pretty hard to say much other than “Well, I kind of prefer this one to that one, and like this other one just slightly more than that, I think, ask again next week.”
I’m hoping we can make our reviews at least a bit more useful with a fuller explanation of our rubric, but there will NEVER be a substitute for playing with a yoyo. Best you can do is read a bunch of reviews and narrow down what you want to try.
I do my best to be objective in my reviews but at the end of the day every review boils down to being just one player’s opinion. I write my reviews from a stand point of “this is what I thought was cool, this is what wasn’t so hot”. That is why I don’t use a rubric, it feels silly putting a score on my own personal opinion.
So are you saying yoyoers are writing reviews for their own publicity or for the yoyo company’s publicity. I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say.
I’m not saying the occasional oddball doesn’t pop up because that was the first non-positive yoyo review I’ve read. Now, that is one review of what, thousands? For the most part, reviews are kind of pointless, and the only real way to tell which one you want is to play them.
What I’m saying is that companies send throws out to reviewers so that the reviewer will say good things about the yoyo. They know this is extremely likely, as I have only seen 1 (Thanks saintrobyn!) negative review in 2 years of yoyoing. They know that if they negatively review more things, their review site is going to go down the drain.
