Review System is now live!!!

Hi all,

The long awaited review system is finally here!  We spent a lot of time designing it from the ground up as well as making it easy to use and very appealing to the eye.  We believe this will be one of the best review systems in use today!

Review system URL: https://damnfineshave.com/reviews

Now, for the fun stuff.  I'll briefly explain its features and how to use them...

The overall layout of the review system was themed to match the layout of the forum:



Adding a new review is easy to do:



on the forum index in the sidebar there is a review widget that'll display the last few reviews via a slideshow:



When building the system, we knew that the likelihood of someone wanting to review the same product was high so we included the ability to add your review to an existing review within the system.  With that in mind, you'll write your review as if it was brand new using the 'add review' button inside an existing review - you can add your own product URL, pricing, tag a merchant as well as adding your own photos, etc..  Once more than one review is added, it'll average the overall ratings out (top right of the review); individual ratings will stay the same.



Whenever you add a review, it'll automatically add the review to your profile in a new tab that's labeled 'Reviews':



Also included in the review system is the ability for a reviewer to tag a merchant in their review.  The tagging of a merchant is restricted to only being able to tag people within the merchant's user group.  When creating a new review, type in the first few letters of a merchant's username and some suggestions will pop up, like so:



If a merchant is tagged in a review, it'll automatically add the review to their profile in the same tab mentioned previously:



There's two ways to add a comment to a review.  You can click 'add comment' at the bottom of a review or click on the reply button in the top right corner of a review.  The reply button will link your comment to a review, much like quoting a user in the forum does:





The review system also has the following features which probably don't need screenshots:
- search system that only searches through the reviews
- category highlighting so you can visually see which category you're in
- statistics to show how many reviews, comments and views the review system has

user permissions:
- report reviews & comments
- edit your own reviews & comments
- delete your own reviews & comments
- mods & admins have all of those permissions plus the ability to merge reviews if needed.

review permissions can be seen/used by clicking on the gear icon next to the reply button:


comment permissions are in the top right corner of the comments:


The review system is tightly integrated with some existing forum features.  One of those features is the alert system.  You can receive alerts when you're tagged in a review (only really useful for merchants) and when someone adds a review or comment in a review you're involved in.  



You can adjust all of these settings by clicking on your username in the top right> user settings> alerts > alert settings and adjusting the following alert settings:



That should be all for now. If you have any issues using the system, please let us know!

Enjoy it!!!!

Great work andrewjs18 & leefish! I look forward toslending some time with it when I can.

awesome, thanks very much for your efforts to make this forum even better!

This is very cool! Thanks for all the time and effort you and the team put into this feature.
Marko

Very cool. Added my first mini review.

Cool!

Thanks for this.

It looks great andrewjs18 and leefish. I know you put a lot of work into this and the finished product is amazing.

Great work andrewjs18 & leefish! I look forward toslending some time with it when I can.

thanks. we spent a ton of time getting it right.

awesome, thanks very much for your efforts to make this forum even better!

no problem!

This is very cool!  Thanks for all the time and effort you and the team put into this feature.  
Marko

no problem. now we're waiting for your first review!

Very cool. Added my first mini review.

great! how was the process for you?

Cool!

Thanks for this.

will we see bakerbarber reviews in the future?

It looks great andrewjs18 and leefish.  I know you put a lot of work into this and the finished product is amazing.

thanks, Freddy! I'm looking forward to your first review.

Wow! This is so cool Andrew!

I am so pleased that this system is getting some love. Right now, there are not a lot of reviews, and the real best bit isnt even showing yet. That, to my mind, is how the reviews consolidate. If two or more people review a product then the total product "stars" updates and it is easy to see what aspects the reviewers agreed on (or disagreed on).

I think that this is one of the best systems out there, and the more it gets used, the better it will get.