I wish that you could write extended reviews for all reviews, and yet it is not always an option.

Odd. I tend to skim more when I read reviews in the extended format. They're SO long and usually so much more dry than standard format reviews. My head goes "yada yada, move along, tell me something good."

Add in tags between sections and my eyes literally start to cross and glaze over well before I get to the end of the review.

Sometimes I just skip some of the tags in an Extended Review when writing them, because often they are repeating information. I'm never sure what other people think things like "travel friendly" might be. I don't travel much, nor do a travel well, so if you are someone who packs your entire house for a weekend, everything might be "travel friendly."

I know I'd bring my Wahl and at least one full size vibrator if I were to be gone even overnight, but I don't know if that qualifies as "Travel Friendly."

Can you find the information you want better in standard or extended, I wonder. If standard then I might start writing in that more, since it's free form, but if not I might stick with extended.

I know exactly where to go to find what info I'm looking for in an Extended review. It's my preference.

For me - and this is just for me - when I'm actually interested in a toy I can find the info just fine in the standard because I tend to read the whole thing avidly. If I'm skimming it may be a bit harder but my honest opinion is that only us reviewers really skim most of the time. I think customers tend to read fully.

I also think the extended format is often harder to skim, since it's all broken up with tags and headings and tends to have a lot of repeat info. I think people write too much in the extended, making each section really long just to "bulk it up".

I also don't read reviews to find out material info, size, cleaning specs and whatnot. First of all, I already know most of that and secondly, I check that stuff first on the product page. It's just how I shop. So a shorter (not short, but not overly long) standard format review holds my attention with the details I want to know far better than the choppy format and broken up bits of info that are in the extended. With the extended, I have to skim each section and process what I want, discard the stuff I just don't care about.

At the same time, even standard reviews are getting, in my opinion, out of control with deets. We all put them in because the community expects it, because we get shitty votes if we don't which makes us feel bad about our hard work, but I don't really think a lot of that info truly creates a useful review. We're writing reviews, not product pages.

A lot of folks disagree with me and say they like all that info in one place but they're all reviewers. All the votes come from fellow reviewers. We hardly ever see customers voting anymore or leaving comments.

*shrug*

I dunno. I guess it's personal preference. I definitely get more useful (rather than extremely useful) votes when I use the standard template than when I use the extended. My personal preference is standard unless it's a Descriptive Review or the reviewer is new and needs the prompts. I think extended is a good learning tool but bulky and unappealing to my eyes.

I'm in the minority, though, Scott so you should totally do what feels best to you.

I 100% prefer the Extended forms for the reviews. It helps me organize my thoughts into coherent and defined sections so nobody gets confused. Additionally, I feel like I can actually write more when using the Extended form.

I prefer extended, but extended is not offered on everything I review, so I can do both

I prefer standard. I have tried to use extended a few times, but I find it a lot harder to write my review than I would with standard.

I'm the same. I get bored easily.
And I'm not a fan of the tags under each section. Kinda looks messy.

But everyone has different taste.

I often find people repeat info in the extended version and I have always been worried about doing that myself so I avoid and go with the standard with my own headings.