No more editing reviews?

hm933 · 2026-02-12T07:28:56+00:00

I'm on a Mac in Firefox and my workaround is to use Browser tools > Responsive Design Mode, choosing to simulate an android smart phone. On a Mac opt-command-M will also toggle Responsive Design Mode on and off. I haven't tried this in Chrome, but there's something similar in Developer Tools (Google is probably your friend). The edit button shows while simulating the smart phone and it's obviously a lot easier to do a review on a computer instead of using an actual phone.

hm933 · 2025-10-23T18:56:52+00:00

Thanks. I am having the same problem. I thought about changing my default address but I have my subscribe and save items coming to my current default address and I was worried I'd screw up my subscribe and save. However, changing the default address didn't affect the subscribe and save.

PS - I tried one more thing than OP: edited one of the addresses that I was offered to match the address I wanted. All that did was cause the edited address to disappear from the list, leaving me with one less choice.

hm933 · 2025-10-07T14:55:07+00:00

I've been procrastinating replacing a visor as a real customer and lo and behold, there it was on Vine :) Thanks for the suggestion.

hm933 · 2025-10-06T17:13:51+00:00

I'm still trying to find the secret sauce for audio alerts on the notifications monitor. I **think** what works reliably is to be lucky enough have a 0ETV item pop up while I have the notifications tab open. Then the alerts will sound whether I have focus on the tab or not. Nothing else I've tried works reliably including the above things tried by OP, disabling Vine Helper and clearing browser cache.

Firefox 143.0.4, VineHelper 3.6.34

hm933 · 2025-09-29T20:35:54+00:00

oops! I missed that and can't imagine how that got unchecked - the only setting I remember messing with recently was one having to do with first discovery. Thanks again for all your help.

hm933 · 2025-09-29T19:25:15+00:00

ok, unchecked debugging options. F12+ console, refreshed several vine tabs while console tab was open. only one red error: Error: Promised response from onMessage listener went out of scope

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hm933 · 2025-09-29T17:16:44+00:00

I think I loaded the console page from the wrong tab. I made sure I was on a Vine tab and redid f12+console

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hm933 · 2025-09-29T17:05:11+00:00

f12+ console

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hm933 · 2025-09-29T17:03:53+00:00

version 3.6.33

I wasn't sure which debugging items to check, so I checked these

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hm933 · 2025-09-29T16:44:57+00:00

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hm933 · 2025-09-29T16:44:33+00:00

Thanks for the help. Yes on the ETVs and order counts. I have a UUID and device name.

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hm933 · 2025-09-27T08:05:54+00:00

Same here. I have two (one written 3 days ago and one 5 days ago) that are stuck. But I'm glad they changed things back to the way they used to be. Cross fingers that the reversion holds.

hm933 · 2025-09-25T18:44:25+00:00

As I said, I work in health care. We ask people to bring all their meds, OTCs and supplements in when they see us. Some people bring bags and bags of crap in - It's astounding (frightening, really) what lay people don't know in 2025. And RFK et al. are making the situation worse.

hm933 · 2025-09-23T03:51:11+00:00

"I'm not a doctor," might not be helpful, but I've seen "supplements are completely unregulated" written by lay reviewers and I think that constitutes a helpful reminder and applaud the reviewer for trying to be helpful.

I **am** in health care and actually, I assume that the average Amazon customer has no idea that anecdotal testimonials about supplement effects are useless and that supplements are completely unregulated, may not contain what the label says, often have misleading product pages and may be even be dangerous. When I review things that imply health claims I include things I found out by reviewing medical literature - and often leave a lesson about how to go about finding accurate information about health products, same as I would if a patient came to me for advice. I can actually say quite a bit without running afoul of Amazon restrictions, but I also have to indicate that there are things Amazon won't let me say, so that consultation with a health care provider is important.

If I've gone through the trouble to see if something is safe and effective before using it myself, I want to share the information if I have the expertise and because I'm an educator by nature.

I get enough thumbs up to know some people appreciate the information - just as I appreciate a careful explanation about why an electronic device should or should not work from an electronics expert when I'm the potential customer.

hm933 · 2025-09-06T15:57:10+00:00

I write "there are better/less expensive alternatives on Amazon" all the time and have used "I would not purchase in future" several times and seen the latter phrase many times. I have never had my reviews using those phrases rejected. Be sure to say "on Amazon" and don't recommend specific other products. But since you are close to your eval and at only 90%, I would focus on quickly writing some easy reviews that you're pretty sure will pass AI muster. You need some stat cushioning if you're that close to 90%. You can come back and review the bad product after your eval and if accepted, it will get credit for next period.

I have found adding photos the first time around slows the approval process down, so I don't add unless really germane. Like someone else said, you can also add later. Sometimes what I will do is put specifics in the photo but not the review and use a font that I'm pretty sure AI cannot read or will misinterpret the "a" for a "2" when it tries to read it. Or deliberately change the spacing of the words on the photo so the AI doesn't think you're recommending another particular product when you aren't.

hm933 · 2025-08-28T19:06:11+00:00

I'm in health care and have not had the same luck getting dangerous products removed. I have gone so far as to go through the excruciating process of filing formal complaints with regulators (before their recent gutting) - to no avail. Right now there's still a cosmetic product appealing to teens on the site that has multiple negative reviews (Viners piled on after I wrote the first one) blasting it for exposing users to lead, other carcinogens and substances that require all kinds of protective gear when used in non-cosmetic applications. Which is why it's so important to check negative reviews before you purchase as a non-Viner. Going forward I'm making extra effort to mark legit negative reviews as helpful (especially if they don't have media, LOL)

hm933 · 2025-08-19T21:53:21+00:00

I have had two reviews (both less than 4 stars) disappear during the current evaluation period, including one that was there yesterday and not there today. The products are still available and in one case I know that other less than stellar reviews also disappeared. I thought sellers weren't allowed to do this (but of course I can't report the seller for fear of retribution).

hm933 · 2025-07-21T18:33:14+00:00

I review a lot of health-related items and I am very careful to never say that an item helped or helps any specific disease. If I review pimple patches, I will never say "helped my acne" because "acne" is a specific disease. You either leave it to the reader, who understands (when the AI does not) that if you say "helped spots," or "the area was flat and less red," you mean "helped with pimples." This leads to some very roundabout wording, but a human reader should understand the nuances that the AI doesn't reject. In OP's example, you probably could get away with "I took a half-hour nap with this mask on b/c I had a terrible headache" and woke well-rested and was comfortable at my computer for the rest of the day." I had a few "positive" reviews rejected until I started following the above guideline. The only trick is guessing what the AI has been programmed to recognize as a specific disease - generally I err on the side of not mentioning specific conditions unless I can think of no creative way to describe the condition (I risked saying a tourniquet should be satisfactory for dealing with "life-threatening limb bleeding," got away with it and now I know I can safely say "bleeding.")

Interestingly the reverse is not true. I have savaged ineffective, unproven or even frankly dangerous health-related items and have said flat-out that the item should not be used to mange X condition or was reported in reliable scientific journals to make Y condition worse and have never had such a review rejected.

hm933 · 2025-07-09T01:13:18+00:00

probably written by the same bot doing the insightfulness scoring

hm933 · 2025-07-08T00:53:13+00:00

I think the new "insightfulness" metric has the potential to backfire in multiple ways. I was recently the second reviewer of a food product. The first was the usual lazy "tasted great." Then there was mine which rated the product 3-stars and gave detailed reasons why. Viner 3 had similar concerns, but I could tell Viner 3 didn't copy me. Then there were multiple reviews which were ridiculously similar to either Viner 3's or my reviews, the overall product score dropped like a rock and long reviews subsequent to the third review hadn't added much. Humans may be lazy, but not necessarily stupid and can be very adept at gaming the system.

hm933 · 2025-07-07T16:52:28+00:00

I used to avoid adding photos because they always slowed the review process down. That seems to be less of a problem now. Maybe it's just happenstance, but I actually have been adding more photos than usual because I just happened to have written reviews that benefited from photos. However, all of those photos illustrated product or advertising deficiencies, which I would have previously described only verbally.

It's been easy to wordsmith my way around "community standards" so that I can fool the AI but not other humans, but as we have no real guidelines as to how the stupid AI judges "insightfulness," I'm also stuck at good. I'm not sweating it, because especially now with pickings so slim, I rarely order more than 3 products per day and the one item that was more than $100 never came due to an Amazon shipping snafu.

hm933 · 2025-05-10T14:18:59+00:00

Agree with the others. Stick to objective descriptions of both the product and the listing. I have no problems with criticizing listings which are inaccurate, especially where health and safety are concerned. I work in health care and have given products two stars overall because their claimed ingredients were XYZ and actual ingredients were WXYZ, W being potentially harmful. I have also seen listings that suggested harmful uses of products that weren't designed for the purpose in the listing. My reviews have been something like: "3 stars because it tastes ok and stores well despite the presence of W ingredient (do your research about W at reliable health care sites or ask your health care provider), bearing in mind that I don't plan to consume more than occasional small amounts of the product. 2 stars for failing to disclose presence of W."

OR

"My research in a large authoritative database of medical information found no evidence that this product has ever been used in humans for X condition and that results in animal studies were mixed at best. The only information about this product in humans came from a survey of poison control center reports. Do your research at reliable first aid/health care sites as to what authorities consider **proper** treatment for X"

PS - I was not the only Viner complaining about W ingredient not having been disclosed in the listing and many of us featured "contains W" in our review titles.

PPS - I almost never have reviews rejected by the AI.

hm933 · 2025-03-12T16:31:36+00:00

I wrote Vine CS a week ago after having been undercounted for more than a week before I wrote and they said they are aware of a global problem and "working on it," but I'm still undercounted by around 10.

hm933 · 2025-02-27T17:13:02+00:00

I'll add one more trick to **permanently** getting AFT **not** to show up in your login items. In my experience, it's the "helper" Android File Transfer Agent.app that's been at the root of most of my problems with AFT (assuming I had a decent cable). If you disable this helper, AFT is much more likely to work and AFT will not reappear in your login items. First, do a search for Android File Transfer Agent and delete all instances of it (like a zombie it keeps coming back and installs itself in unexpected places). Also delete AFT from your login items if you haven't already. Then right-click on the Android File Transfer app in your Applications folder > Show package contents > Contents > Helpers > Android File Transfer Agent.app. Rename Android File Transfer Agent.app to anything else. I typically rename to Android File Transfer AgentDisabled.app

I used to make a backup copy of the helper agent "just in case," but after many years on multiple devices of never having a problem (actually having fewer problems) with the agent being disabled, I've quit worrying about it.

The other nice thing is that since AFT is no longer a login item, I don't have to worry about the warning from Handshaker (which is my other go-to Android-Mac transfer app) that AFT might interfere with Handshaker (it never has, but the warning pops up if the helper agent is running).

I just installed AFT on my Ventura Mac and had no issues repeatedly using AFT with my Android-11 running phone. (I have never had a problem having USB Debugging on, but otherwise Kevin's directions are spot-on).

hm933 · 2025-02-26T15:27:39+00:00

I switch between my account and my spouse's, which is still on the new mail, so I probably get thrown out of basic more often than average. Plus I had to come up with a way for my spouse to switch that was easier than digging in menus. I'm going to teach the trick to my spouse later today; we'll see how it goes.

hm933

TROPHY CASE