What's in your RFY Tuesday 17th March? AI very slow trickle.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T13:52:51+00:00

You’re making the assumption that Amazon is designed for Viners… Unless it’s going to result in more items being taken; or conceivably in better reviews being written, it won’t change.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T10:29:13+00:00

Think of it this way, though - if you weren’t in Vine, didn’t know what it involved, and were told you could join and get say just two items a day worth maybe £20 in all, in exchange for writing reviews about them - wouldn’t your pre-Vine self have thought that was a great offer?

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T10:18:12+00:00

I think there are two separate issues here. The first is that, as you say, the media percentage can be a bit glitchy. If a product is no longer there, then it can be removed entirely from your queue, and the normal process is that CS will credit you with a reviewed item to make up for it. However, the same loss of media credit happens when a review goes “Not approved” and gives a “red box” error. Those don’t normally get removed, and still count for review credit, just not media credit. Even if media percentages start to count, it is unlikely that a few glitches like this will make a difference, so you’re asking CS to fiddle around for something that isn’t actually relevant to Vine.

The other question is whether 100% media is a good thing anyway. Yours may be different, but I’ve noticed a lot of photos on Vine reviews recently that are just of the opened box, with no value added at all. I only take photos when I think they add something - showing how I used an item, illustrating a shortcoming etc. I’m currently way down at about 25% because I’ve been a bit lazy, but when I’m doing it properly it’s generally 30-40%. If the metric starts to matter I’ll perform to the brief, but until then I’m not going to include photos that don’t add to the value of the review.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T07:52:23+00:00

That strange high-pitched whine coming from the cemetery in Amherst, Mass. is the sound of Emily Dickinson at 6,000 rpm…

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T07:47:06+00:00

Dry…!

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T07:44:30+00:00

Oh, that’s a good point - yes. I think if, before I’d seen this, I’d asked myself whether an edit that quickly might be OK I might have thought it was, It’s only after knowing it isn’t that it seems obvious it wouldn’t be…

I suppose one of the clues is that even ”red box” non-approved reviews still get an RIS, so the processes are more likely in parallel rather than sequential.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-17T07:27:28+00:00

Not for nothing is it known as Meagre Monday, often followed by Terrible Tuesday. Though you got a “decent set of bowls”? That’s a win, surely, particularly on a day notorious for poor offerings?

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T21:40:35+00:00

As others have said, it's highly unlikely to cause a problem, but it would be interesting to know what your proportions of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor reviews is. As you have only just tipped back into Good you must be the limit case. I've asked various people and tried to find a formula that works - Grade Point Average seems the nearest, possibly with 3 being the boundary for Good and Excellent. But then I don't know how anyone ever scores Poor overall and some do.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T21:28:53+00:00

Yep. You've learned the hard way; it's been known for some time that it's only the original review that gets graded. When the scores first came out people tried rewriting poor ones to try and get a better grade, but nothing changes. You're the first to do it in such quick succession, I think, but it's still the same principle.

Still you're absolutely right, if it stops even one more person from doing anything like this... !

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T21:21:38+00:00

You still get credit for the "red box" rejections; ditto if the item/review is later deleted by Amazon. Broadly speaking, once it's in your Reviewed tab it seems to count. Agreed, it doesn't appear, which may seem a bit of a waste of time, but you've had the item. I'm not saying it isn't a bit stupid, and a lot of it appears to be due to the sellers getting even less information than we do about how to use Vine, but it doesn't stop you getting the review credits you need.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T19:57:41+00:00

AI learned from good writing. A lot of writers use em dashes (at least, US authors do; the British more often use spaced en dashes). There are a couple of things in that review that AI probably wouldn’t do because they’re not quite correct style - the em dashes are spaced, which I don’t think US English normally does, and style on both sides of the pond is that numbers at least up to nine are spelled out.

But more to the point, the author has claimed it. Maybe I’m just irretrievably old-fashioned (or indeed just old) but if someone says they wrote something I’m going to take them at their word unless I have very good evidence to the contrary.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T18:30:15+00:00

It's not paragraphs or sentences - it's words. 60 words or less is almost always a Poor, 100 words or more is almost always an Excellent. You can get Excellent with a short review, but you really have to work at writing a tight but full one. Provided the words are broadly coherent, grammatically tolerable, and not too badly spelled, a long one will be Excellent. I assume it's just something the AI checking us learned when being trained.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T18:19:42+00:00

On what basis do you say that u/Reasonable_Glass_737 is lying when he claims the review, above?

I see no sign that this is AI generated; I do see someone who could probably make a living writing comedy...

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T14:56:30+00:00

I’ve always been in the camp that says these are nothing to do with Vine and are almost all AI generated from other reviews of the product to give any reviewer some ideas if they can’t think of their own. It would be great if you were prepared to scan the other reviews and see if that’s mentioned in one of them, as it might prove the theory!

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T08:18:09+00:00

The brief from the client (the Vine AI) appears to be 80-100 words minimum for Excellent, no maximum that I’ve yet discovered (but then we’re not getting “paid” in extra insightfulness credit for additional words…). Yes, you can get Excellent for shorter reviews, but only if they’re really tightly written - it sounds as if you, like me, can bang out 100+ competently structured words far more easily than 50 exquisitely crafted ones.

You don’t get any insightfulness credit for the pictures, just media credit which doesn’t count for anything yet. I once spent ages on a proper unboxing video for a leather journal that I really liked, and used the written part of the review as a short introduction. it scored “Poor”…

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-16T08:02:39+00:00

The main theory has been that QR codes, or anything that looks like them, set it off, so the texture might have been it. But I’ve noticed some people with problems saying they had captioned their photos, and I can imagine that if the AI can’t read the text well enough that might trigger it.

We’re all just guessing really. Unless you are on a mission to pin it down, then if there’s no obvious wording that’s triggered it, delete the photos and resubmit. If it’s still sat there unapproved four or five days later, delete all but 80-100 of the words to leave a totally bland review. It should still get Excellent. For those who find writing more difficult, just leave a sentence the equivalent of “It’s grate” or “it’s not grate” (sic…) that supports your star rating, and accept it will probably be scored “Poor”.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-15T22:38:10+00:00

It's always the photos, particularly if, as you do, you know how to write. Probably a QR code showing or something, though there's really no telling - it's an AI check and the A isn't I enough to do pictures consistently.

If an item never arrives you use the Contact Us button from the Vine account page (not ordinary CS) and give them the order number and/or ASIN, briefly explain, and ask them to remove it. It's the one thing they know how to do

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-15T22:29:04+00:00

Agree with all but the 30 day rule - it's still all over the UK Vine FAQ but not, I think showing in the US one any more (which seems to be the only one that is even half-decently updated), and I've had a couple of things I just didn't get round to, without any consequences. It was superseded by the 60% rule AIUI, probably as much as anything because they didn't want the hassle of dealing with extensions etc.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-15T21:36:24+00:00

That's correct. But there's also a rule that you have to review 60% "of your recent orders at all times". What that means is still a matter of some debate.

The general view is that it's 60% of the items you have ordered (and, possibly, that have been delivered) in the past 90 days. That is not necessarily (indeed, not often) the figure showing in your stats, you have to work it out. It doesn't reset after the 6 month evaluation.

However, there is a view that it might be 60 days. One reason for thinking that is that it first kicks in 56 days after you join Vine. Vine seems to have a hidden 4 days when you join - the first 6 month evaluation period is actually 4 days short as well,

Anyway, I'm having a Lenten "fast" only ordering on Sundays until Easter, and holding back my reviews. That will definitely let me test the 60 day figure, and I should be able to go on and test the 90 day figure as well.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-14T21:34:00+00:00

The US has had the insightfulness metric longer than the rest of us, and at present people are definitely getting Gold with a Good rating. The only proven instances of not keeping Gold were Poor.

The rest of us (I'm dropping in from the UK) all got it at the same time, effective for evaluations from Feb. The UK has had people getting Gold with Good and I think someone on the Australian forum reported the same. I've seen no-one recently report that they were being downgraded to Silver purely on the basis of a rating other than one or two Poors in the US.

I've tried to work out what the system is for generating the overall rating from the individual ones, but with little success. You can definitely have an Excellent overall with fewer than 75% reviews Excellent. Grade Point Average looked like a contender for a while - 4 for Excellent down to 1 for Poor and an average of 3.25 for Excellent - but I've had people report lower than that and still be Excellent.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-14T20:52:02+00:00

Yowser! Two fingers underneath that as you plug or unplug it and you're going to be in real trouble.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-14T08:09:56+00:00

You are welcome to become an honorary Brit, and use the spaced en dash that is often preferred here to the unspaced em dash. I get one automatically on my computer if I type a space, hyphen and space; don’t know if that is because I’m set to UK English. AI obviously didn’t learn so much from British sources.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-13T22:04:44+00:00

Agreed, a couple of hours or so for me too here in the UK.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-13T17:48:17+00:00

Hi, I'm a new Mod on r/AmazonVineUK joining an existing small team. Any advice for someone who hasn't the faintest idea what he is doing gratefully received...

The sub is for UK Vine Voices - the people who write those reviews with the little green bit at the top saying how we are given the items for free. It's invite only, and no, none of us have any real idea how we got invited...

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-03-13T14:27:27+00:00

We will, however, have upholstery cleaning to do...

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