All That You Can't Leave Behind
by CurtisEdmonds on Oct. 30, 2001

The Bottom Line: Who says Epinions doesn't have a sense of humor?

Now that we can, I am in the process of deleting all my reviews off of the Epinions.com website. (Movie reviews can still be found at www.txreviews.com though, and I will be upgrading that site in the next few days.)

Most of what I wrote when I wrote here were movie, book, and travel reviews; I have archived most of them and am proud of my body of work here -- although, I am not proud enough to keep them on a site that clearly doesn't want them or value them or want to pay me for them.

I have also written a number of comic pieces spoofing Epinions and all its works that may be of interest to site members. Although I don't see a great deal of point in keeping those pieces in individual reviews, I thought that a compilation of these pieces might be of continuing interest to anyone who wants to stick around, or to anyone who wants to remember when Epinions meant something.



The Curmudgeon's Guide to the Income Share Program
Posted: April 2000

Background: This was posted right after the IS program was announced and is still as good an explanation as any.

In the last week, I have received several e-mails from people wanting to know more about the Epinions Income Share Program. Here are some examples:

Dear Mr. Curmudgeon: Please explain the Epinions Income Share Program.
-- Y.S., New York NY
Dear Mr. Curmudgeon: Please, please, please explain the Epinions Income Share Program.
-- F.P., Boston MA
Dear Mr. Curmudgeon: If you could, please explain the Epinions Income Share Program, and explain how I can profit from it. Money is a little tight right now, and I could use the extra income.
-- B.G., Redmond WA
Dear Mr. Curmudgeon: I have planted a bomb on this bus that will explode if the bus goes under 50 miles per hour. I will defuse this bomb only if you explain the Epinions Income Share Program. Please do so... whoa! Wait! This isn't my stop! Don't slow down, dear God, don't.... BOOM!!! ACK!!!!
-- K.R., Hollywood CA
Given the outpouring of interest on this issue, the floor is open for questions.

How does the IS Program work?

It is actually known as the Income Snitch program. You get a cash payment for every Epinions miscreant you turn in for abusing the program. It's like Crimestoppers without the TV ads.

No, the Income Share Program.

Oh, that. It's a secret.

But how does it work?

Nobody knows. The money just appears in your account automatically without you having to do anything. It's like being in "The Skulls", except you don't have to get branded, which hurts like hell.

Is there some kind of secret formula that explains how much money you get or something?

Yes, there is. Here is the secret formula:
1 cup water
1 teaspoon kola nut extract
1 minim vanilla extract
1 scruple cloves
1/4 kilogram pasteurized unprocessed corn syrup
1 microgram sassafrass
1/32nd handful of ginger
A sprinkle of partially benzoated hydrosulfate preservative
Mix, add carbon dioxide, serve chilled.
That's the secret formula for Dr Pepper.

Oh, so it is. Sorry, my filing system is all messed up. Here's the real Epinions Income Share Secret Formula:

Take the amount of hits on your epinion by members.
Subtract the number of NR ratings by expert members.
Multiply by the number of non-members reading your review.
Divide by the number of times that Epinions staffers have experienced true love, collectively.
Divide again by the number of self-serving postings with the link to your epinion that you've made on message boards.
If today is a Friday, multiply by 3.1416. Otherwise, multiply by the number of Twinkie crumbs in Harry Knowles' beard.
Divide by the number of games that the Red Sox trail the Yankees in the AL East standings.
Add today's expected high temperature in Mountain View, California, unless it is expected to be a record low.
Divide by nine.
The answer is the amount of Income Share Royalties that you will receive.

You cannot be serious.

How nice of you to notice.

Anyway, seriously, since we don't know the secrets of the secret formula, the only way we can figure out how much any given epinion is actually worth on the IS formula is by hypothetical example:

* Reviewer A writes a review of Notting Hill. Reader A logs off her computer and immediately goes to rent Notting Hill at Blockbuster. Reviewer A gets 47 cents as his income share.

* Reviewer B writes a review of Notting Hill. Reader B logs off her computer and, finding that all copies of Notting Hill have been rented, rents Runaway Bride for the eighteenth time, and also gets a bag of microwave popcorn and a box of Sno-Caps. Reviewer B gets $1.18.

* Reviewer C writes a review of a Maytag refrigerator. Reader C logs off her computer and buys a Maytag refrigerator. Reviewer C gets $2.89 and an autographed picture of the Maytag Repairman.

* Reviewer D writes a Somewhat Recommended hundred-word review of the Sega Dreamcast, using the words "rulez" seventeen times. Reader D buys a Sony Playstation instead. Reviewer D gets 18 cents.

* Reviewer E writes a review of a pizza place in Mountain View, California that. Reader E reads the review and decides to help Epinions get an Initial Public Offering, and Epinions stock goes up 600% the first day. Reviewer E gets $2.15 in Income Share Royalties and $17.5 million in stock options.

Isn't that simple?

My head hurts.

I know. Have some aspirin.

Well, Mr. Curmudgeon, then how do I make money using the Income Share Program?

Oh, that's easy. Change your username to "Oprah". Then write a lot of reviews about Toni Morrison and Terry McMillan novels. Then put a picture of Oprah on your website, legally change your name to Oprah, get an e-mail address like oprahwinfrey@thisisreallyoprah.com. Then rate everyone's reviews and write them encouraging notes, especially if they look like they need to lose some weight. You'll make loads of Income Share Royalties.

Someone's already taken the name "Oprah".

Oh. Try "Rosie O'Donnell".

Don't you think it is ironic that you'll be getting Income Share Royalties for a column that basically trashes the entire concept?

That depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. Also the words "basically" and "concept".

Isn't this just a lame ripoff of all those Dave Barry columns where he answers these questions that are supposedly from real people that he, in fact, made up himself?

Well, it's been a blast answering your questions about the Income Share Program. Keep those questions coming to curmudgeon@thisis reallyoprah.com, and enjoy those royalties!



A Parable
Posted: March 2001

Background: This was posted right after the Epinions 2.0 fiasco.

Once upon a time, there was a cornfield.

It was a cornfield like any other, and the hot summer sun rose and set on it, and corn was planted and grown and harvested. And even though there was hail and flooding and tornadoes and the occasional genetically-altered food scare, nothing much happened at the cornfield. It remained what it always had been, and nobody could ever remember when it was anything else.

And then some people from the city came to the cornfield. They were young and smart -- Ivy League smart, the kind of smart you can only get through four years of pretending that you have peanut butter in your mouth all the time. And they had fancy laptop computers and had rented bright shiny turbocharged John Deere tractors. And they saw the field with different eyes. "We will buy this cornfield", they said, "and we will plow under the corn and build a baseball diamond. And people will come to the field and while they are there, they'll make buying decisions. And everyone will be happy, as though they were in a dream. And so we will call it the Field of Dreams."

And then, at that moment, a vast legion of Universal Pictures intellectual property lawyers appeared and darkened the skies with their arrows. And the talented Ivy Leaguers put their giant brains together and said, "We'll call it something else."

And they did as they had promised. The corn was swiftly plowed under. Grandstands were constructed. Foul poles and light standards began to grow out of the sea of corn. Foul lines were drawn, and a pitcher's mound was built. And the field was ringed with long banners, advertising all sorts of products and services. The field was complete, and it was beautiful, and it was empty.

And then (once it was apparent to all that the ghosts of players past would not materialize from the remaining cornfield) the word went out far and wide; the field is open! Come and play! And players from all over the country came to the field. And they were happy to be there, happy to have a place to play, and they played on into the night. And a group of local Tycoons came and watched the players, and saw that the field was in good shape, and they provided the Ivy Leaguers with the venture capital they needed. Soon, the players were getting paid to play, more than some of them had ever seen, and they were happy. They were playing their little hearts out. And the Ivy Leaguers were happy, too, happy that their vision was coming true. And they called themselves the Managers, and would walk around the field, sometimes playing catch with the Players, but mostly happy just to smell the grass and eat a hot dog and enjoy the game. And because there was so much work to be done, the Managers hired some Groundskeepers, who were there to maintain the field and work with the Players to make the field better.

And people came, just as everyone had always thought they would, and they saw the Players play, and enjoyed themselves, and some of them came back and got onto the field and became Players themselves. And they watched the games, and looked at the advertising banners floating in the wind, and everyone was happy for awhile. There was even enough money to build a giant luxury box for the Tycoons, although they never watched any of the games. (Some people said that the Tycoons couldn't even see the players.) And there was even enough to buy uniforms for the Players -- well T-shirts, anyway, but with their names on the back. And the best of the Players were given special hats, to mark them as good Players. (This made some of the other Players terribly, terribly jealous, of course, but most people thought it was a good idea and wanted a hat for themselves.)

And it didn't last, of course, it never does. After a while, the Players were unhappy. Too many of the fans were slipping onto the field and calling people names and giving Players the old hotfoot and playing pepper and generally acting obnoxious and rude, and the Managers weren't stopping them -- in fact, they were paying the fans as much as the Players were getting. And the Tycoons saw this, and were unhappy, and told the Managers to stop giving the Players so much money. And the Managers cut the money that was going to the Players, but would occasionally give the Players surprise bonuses anyway for having a good game, for making the fans happy. And although some of the Players were unhappy, they learned to accept the new system, in part because the Managers said that the bonuses were a form of profit-sharing.

And then things started getting screwy. Some of the top Players went to the clubhouse one day and found out that their special hats had been stolen, and nobody could say where they were. The Managers said they didn't steal the hats, but some were found in their offices; they claimed that a new computer system had taken them. Some of the Players were so mad about this that they left the field forever.

And then the Managers announced that the field had gotten very old and creaky, and needed to be repaired. They shut down the field for weeks, and nobody could play. The Players were skeptical, but hoped that the repairs might make the field better. There might be sunflower-seed dispensers in the dugouts, or a swimming pool out beyond center field, or even one of those snazzy manual scoreboards, like at Fenway.

And when the field was finally opened up, it was only open half the time; it would close down at weird hours. And all the uniforms were different; and the Players's names weren't on the backs anymore. And the field looked different. Left field was all torn up, right field was roped off with big warning signs. There was a big hole behind home plate where the catcher would normally be. And the diamond looked... different, mostly because it wasn't a diamond but a hexagon; the Managers had added a fourth base and a fifth base.

And the Players saw the new field, and they laughed and laughed and laughed. And they called to the Groundskeepers and asked them to fix the field back to the way it was before, but all the Groundskeepers had been fired. And then they asked the Managers to fix the field, to remove the extra bases, to repair the areas of the field that weren't right, but the Managers said that it couldn't be done for another month, and then another, and then stopped talking to the Players altogether. And the bonuses got smaller and smaller, and the time between when they were awarded got longer and longer. And even though the hole behind the plate was filled in, and the field was open more and more often, the Players still couldn't believe all the changes.

And the Players sat around and talked about the situation among themselves, and came to the conclusion that the Managers were a bunch of idiots. "Oh, sure," they said, "the Managers have all their Ivy League smarts, and maybe we just went to Big XII schools and spent all our time watching high-quality college football and basketball. But we're the ones who play the game, not them."

And they laughed at the Managers, and played little jokes on them, and jumped up and down on fifth base like madmen. Couldn't they see how stupid the field looked? they thought. And some of them wrote angry letters to the Managers, and the Managers didn't respond. And the Managers would meet with the Players, but didn't listen to half the questions the Players had and didn't answer the other half. And some more of the Players left.

And the Managers watched what was going on, and they were stunned. Stunned! Here they had built this field, invited the Players, paid them well when no one else would, and all of a sudden, for no good reason at all, the Players were mad at them! Calling them names! And after all the hard work they had done in rebuilding the field and redesigning the uniforms, after they had reopened it when it wasn't quite ready, just so the Players had someplace to play... after all that, the Players still weren't happy? How could that happen?

And the Players went to the Managers and said, "Look. You don't understand how it is. We used to think of this field as our home, but now we're not so sure. We don't feel welcomed, we don't feel honored, we don't feel respected. We feel as though every business decision you've made lately has been targeted at us, and we don't appreciate it. All we want to do is play, and you're making it harder and harder to do that, and it's frustrating. We know you had to fix the field, but we don't feel as though we're a part of that process, that our priorities are not being taken into account. And it makes us sad, because we love the field, too, and we don't want to see it disappear."

And the Managers went to the Players and said, "Look. You don't understand how it is. The Tycoons are breathing down our neck here. They've closed down the pet store and the toy store in town already, and we might be next. We have to do what's good for the field. And we're sorry if your feelings are hurt, but we're working as hard as we can to make the field as good as we can so we can make some money. And if that means that your bonuses are later and smaller, if that means that we can't promote the players or the game, if that means that we can't spare any time to resolve your concerns, so be it. We're trying to survive, and you're just not our top priority right now."

And the Players said, "All we want is to know you care about us and value our contribution, and that you act on that principle."

And the Managers said, "All we're asking is that you be patient and make some more sacrifices, and lay off the criticism."

And some of the Players heard this and left. They knew the economic picture, and how the field was in danger, but there was something more important. They were convinced that they didn't matter anymore, convinced that the field would never be put right with the current Managers. And some of the Players stayed around, but they weren't playing as much or as well as they did before. And some of those who stayed only stayed around long enough for things to get worse, and then they left too.

And the Managers said, "Well, let 'em go. Who needs 'em? They were more trouble than they were worth, anyway. All we have to do is get some new Players." And some of the new Players were good, but few of them were as good as the old Players. Most of them could barely play. And the Fans noticed that all the good Players had left, and they stopped coming to games. And even though the Tycoons couldn't see the Players, they could see the empty seats, they could see the bottom line.

And then one day the field was gone, and the grass was plowed under, and corn was planted. Before too long, the field was a cornfield again, and nobody could remember when it had been anything else.



This Is Only A Test
Posted: July 2001

Background: This was posted right after frustration with Epinions customer service had come to a head; it was inspired by a piece written by Sloucho who imagined Nirav strapped to a "GroinPuncher" which punched him in the groin every time the Epinions staff sent out a stupid e-mail.

Welcome to Epinions.com! :)

If this is your first visit to Epinions.com, the world's #1 resource for badly misspelled 100-word reviews of Britney Spears albums, welcome! We're glad that you took the time to visit our site, and hope that you will make many many buying decisions! :)

Many people who visit our site for the first time wonder if they, too, can write for Epinions.com! The answer is YES! Epinions.com, your best source of information about such timely topics as "How to buy socks" and "How to choose cereal", welcomes product reviews, parenting advice, and angry, drunken rants from all its visitors! We hope you, too, will contribute to the Epinions.com family and become ensnared in our patented Web of Trust! :)

Although we want everyone to feel happy and confident about writing for Epinions.com, where our motto is, "If it isn't in the books database, tough", we recognize that not everybody might feel comfortable about writing for us. Therefore, we have developed the following test to determine whether your personality (or complete lack thereof) would be compatible with the personality of the most successful writers at Epinions.com! :)

1. Epinions.com is happy happy happy to receive e-mail from its users! Epinions.com members can send messages about errors in posting hits, report technical problems about the site, and provide comments about the overall usability and design of Epinions.com! Would you like your e-mail read by:
A. A human being
B. That kid robot from the A.I. movie
C. Not read at all, but printed, thrown away, and sold to poor African countries for toilet paper

2. Epinions.com loves responding to user e-mail! Would you like your e-mail responses to be issued by:
A. A human being
B. A machine designed to simulate typical human responses, such as "Go away" and "Get lost, you loser"
C. Knife-throwing chimpanzees who are hopped up on acid

3. Epinions.com is always looking for great movie reviews! Would you be interested in writing:
A. Thoughtful, informed reviews of movies that are actually in theaters right now
B. Short, chirpy reviews of videos starring Barney the purple dinosaur
C. Reviews of porno movies

4. Epinions.com pays its reviewers Eroyalties! Writer receive $1.00 when their reviews are visited by 100 registered Epinions.com members! Eroyalties are credited to your account on a regular basis! Would you rather have your account credited:
A. On a daily basis, if real-time credits aren't available
B. Once or twice a week
C. I would prefer that all my Eroyalties be directed to the Nirav Tolia Foundation for the Preservation of Emoticons and the Purchase of Vodka

5. Epinions.com pays its best writers Income Share royalties! Income Share is distributed every month! Would you rather have you Income Share paid to you:
A. In the first week of the month
B. In the second or third week of the month
C. A week and a half after Epinions.com tells us that IS will be distributed "soon"

6. Epinions.com pays IS royalties based on a top-secret formula stolen from Russian spies and kept in a mayonnaise jar under Funk & Wagnall's back porch! Do you want to know how IS royalties are calculated?
A. Yes, so that I can help Epinions.com reach the most readers possible with the best information.
B. No, I prefer living my life as an uninformed peon.
C. All Epinions.com does is take the number of non-member hits and divide by Jose Lima's ERA, everyone knows that.

7. Your Income Share royalties decreased 40% over the last month! Do you:
A. Start wondering about how hard it would be to publish your stuff elsewhere as a free-lancer.
B. Accept the harsh realities of the dot.com business climate.
C. Cash your IS check at the 7-11 and buy a Slurpee.

8. You have purchased a brand new "Groinpuncher", and would like to write a review, but the product is not in the database! Do you:
A. Ask Epinions.com to add the product to the database.
B. Don't bother to ask, because it won't be added until sometime after the devil takes figure-skating lessons.
C. Write a review under "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" with an explanatory note that the Epinions.com database is still wonky.

9. You have just been hired as the director of marketing and public relations for Epinions.com! Do you:
A. Try and get the technical problems with the site fixed so as to spread better word-of-mouth, improve customer service, and restore trust among the community of writers.
B. Admit that you don’t know what the heck you're doing and ask for help.
C. Challenge the technical support staff to a round of Quake, even though it might crash the servers occasionally.

10. You read a sarcastic review by a disgruntled writer at Epinions.com who is basically complaining and griping and offering no substantial suggestions for changes! Do you:
A. Rate the review Very Helpful, and then read the last five or six of the author's movie reviews
B. Rate the review Very Helpful, and then try to write something even funnier
C. Rate the review Very Helpful, with the realization it doesn't matter because Epinions.com doesn't read this stuff anyway and could care less if they did

If you answered "A" to four or more questions, you are a hopeless optimist who has no place in this workaday world.

If you answered "B" to four or more questions, you are a thoroughgoing cynic with a warped and twisted mind.

If you answered "C" to four or more questions, you obviously have a serious personality disorder of some kind.

If you answered "C" to nine or more questions, and you have over $1 million dollars in available venture capital, please contact Nirav Tolia immediately.

Thank you for taking this test! Enjoy writing for Epinions.com! :)



Job Interview
Posted: September 10, 2001 (and boy, does THAT seem like a long time ago)

Background: I just thought it was funny. Updated a little to reflect current reality.

"Hi. Welcome to Brisbane. My name is Mr. Tolia, and I'll be handling the interview."
"Hi. Thanks for having me here today. I understand you are looking for writers."
"Yes, that's correct. We're always looking for good writing talent."
"Well, that's great. If you don't have my resume handy, I brought an extra copy for you."
"I don't need to see your resume."
"Oh. OK. That's fine, resumes are kind of overrated anyway."
"I suppose."
"Well, then, I brought some examples of things I have written, things I'm working on. This is a movie review..."
"I don't need to see that either. We're not interested in the qualifications of any of our writers. We don't feel you have to be qualifed in any way to write for us."
"Um. OK. So if you're not looking for qualifications, I guess you're relying on writing experience. At my college paper..."
"We don't require any experience, either. In fact, many of our writers are first-time writers."
"Well, then, OK. Maybe I read the job posting wrong. What exactly do I need to have or do to be qualified for this job?"
"You are qualified. In fact, you're hired. When can you start?"
"Oh, wow. Like, I can start right away..."
"Good."
"Right away, that is, once I get some information about the benefits package."
"The what?"
"You know, the benefits package. Health insurance..."
"We don't offer health insurance, or dental, or disability, or any other coverage."
"401(k)? Stock options?"
"No. Nothing like that for writers."
"Well, then the salary must be very competitive."
"We don't pay any salary. Not even minimum wage. You're not guaranteed any money working here."
"I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. Are you saying I won't get paid to work here?"
"Oh, no. All the writers get paid here through a bonus every month based on the amount of people who aren't writers that read your review."
"About how much can I expect to make in a month on the average review?"
"Oh, anywhere from twenty dollars a month on down."
"On down to what?"
"Well, nothing."
"OK. So how does the bonus structure work? How can I maximize my income per review."
"I can't tell you."
"You can't tell me because you don't know what I will be writing about, right?"
"No. I can't tell you because we don't tell anyone how the bonus structure works. You might get ten dollars on one review and ten cents on another review. It is all assigned by this algorithm."
"So, how does the algorithm work?"
"I can't tell you."
"Um. Well. OK. So what you're telling me is that on the first of the month, I will get a bonus for every review that is written, but I won't know ahead of time how much that bonus will be, and you can't tell me any information about how the bonus program works so I can have some idea of what to write about."
"No."
"What do I have wrong?"
"The bonuses aren't paid the first of the month. They're usually paid somewhere between the fifth and the twentieth."
"So I not only don't know how much I will get, but I won't even know when to expect it."
"We apologize for any inconvenience."
"Do you do that a lot?"
"What?"
"Apologize?"
"Yes. We have to apologize a lot. The amount we have to apologize is one of the things we're very sorry about."
"Oh."
"So are you interested in the job, or not?"
"Well, I'd have to insist on some requirements of my own."
"Such as?"
"I want to come into work whenever I want and leave whenever I want."
"That's fine."
"I want to write only about those things I want to write about."
"Again, perfectly OK."
"I would like to come to work naked if I want to."
"That's fine. Since all our work is done over the Internet, you can be naked if you want to be."
"Every once in awhile I want to do a complete non sequitur review that is basically meaningless and still get paid for it."
"Also acceptable."
"You sure?"
"Fine with us."
"So, if I wanted to write a review that basically made fun of your company and you personally, that would be OK."
"Yes. Whatever. We are a platform, not a publisher."
"I could, for example, post the transcript of this interview online and no one would say anything."
"Of course. Very likely, no one in our company would even read it."
"So what would stop me from just turning in a hundred words on anything I wanted to and calling that a review? I could just say 'a a a a a' a hundred times and you'd accept it."
"That's right. But you couldn't use curse words. I mean, unless you really wanted to."
"I could turn in something with a hundred misspelled words and that would be OK."
"That's right."
"I don't think I understand this place at all."
"Don't worry about it. I think you're going to fit in just fine around here. Welcome aboard!"



Thank you if you have read this far. I appreciate the many friends I have made on this site, and am sorry to have to leave it, but it would be worse if I stayed. I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed writing them. Stay tuned.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________


This review is on http://www.epinions.com at http://www.epinions.com/content_2302845060. Other writing by the author is at http://www.epinions.com/user-curtisedmonds .

CurtisEdmonds' movie reviews are on this site.