All of this suggests that there is in fact a subtle relationship between two different meanings of “helpfulness”:
helpfulness in the narrow sense — does this review help you in making a purchase
decision? — and
helpfulness “in the wild,” as defined by the way
in which Amazon users evaluate each others’ reviews in practice.
It is a kind of dichotomy familiar from the design of participatory
Web sites, in which a presumed design goal — that of highlighting
reviews that are helpful in the purchase process — becomes intertwined with complex social feedback mechanisms. If we want to
understand how these definitions interact with each other, so as to
assist users in interpreting helpfulness evaluations, we need to elucidate what these feedback mechanisms are and how they affect the
observed outcomes.