The review system is broken

[Simeon Velichkov]

I have an extension that have to work on page load, but back in 2016 long before Chrome had that UI built into the extension settings,  I disabled it on all sites by default and instead I built a UI so that the user can enable it only on certain sites. 

On top of that you need to enable the extension for local files if you want, I still can't figure out why some people don't have that enabled on install.

So anyway all of my 1 star reviews on that extension are by people that simply can't figure out how to enable it despite the lengthy description, documentation on my GitHub page and a screencast in the extension's listing.

All of my 1 star reviews just say: 'It doesn't work', where it obviously works for 100k+ other people. But my point is that for whatever reason these people don't want to invest a few minutes to look around or probably they had a bad day or whatever that is, they rate the quality of a product without even using it.

I really don't think that's fair because that 1 star review is forever and it's not even about the product itself. Those type of reviews really dent the performance of an extension, because as we all know not that many people leave reviews anyway.

One possible solution to this is to simply not allow people to rate an extension without using it. Then for legitimate users to leave a review enable the rating on the extension listing page after a day. And to make things even better, and potentially push more people to leave a review rather than decreasing that number - how about showing a small popup under the unified extension button in chrome, only once, to ask people to leave a review for their newly installed extensions after a day.

[Rajan Verma]

How about making 3-sec info on how to use it right after installation.  If you are so sure about the problem then address it in the extension itself. The same is the case with mine. Everybody has a different inclination to things.. not everyone looking for the same solution that you are offering. Some are just trying different extensions to totally different problems. Try investing in media to tell people that they need to enable it. 

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Regards,

Rajan Verma

+91 9779471801

[Simeon Velichkov]

Thanks for the feedback, Raja.

As already mentioned in my initial post, I have a screencast, concise summary and lengthy documentation with links and additional screenshots. I have invested into that.

I can't make a 3 sec info on how to use right after installation because the extension does not have any access on install - that's the point.

Besides, that doesn't change that fact that people are rating things they don't even use. That's why I am proposing a cool down period - to filter out people that are not interested or willing to invest in your work.

People that are genuinely interested in your project will stick around for long enough to leave constructive feedback, or be it just the 'It doesn't work' one.