Member reviews not displaying

[Granddaddy]

Recently I noticed that I can view only 3 member reviews for each movie I look at in detail.

 

I know I used to be able to click a link that followed the last review on a page and see additional member reviews. I called a friend who uses Netflix. That friend saw many more than 3 member reviews for the same movie I was viewing. He also had a link at the bottom of the member reviews taking him to still more reviews. We were both using Internet Explorer 8 yet we had radically different information on the Netflix movie page.

 

I then downloaded and installed Firefox thinking it might be an Internet Explorer issue and that my friend and I were using slightly different updates of IE 8. But Firefox also displays only 3 member reviews for me.

 

I just called Netflix customer service. The very nice person in Oregon told me that the Netflix website is adaptive. He looked at the display from my account and confirmed that Netflix now allows me to see only three member reivews. He emphasized that everyone will see a different view of the Netflix website. The website reconfigures the web pages in a manner customized for you based on your past use and your profile. Thus, every user will see Netflix differently.

 

He suggested I just wait for a time and see if the website returns to a state where it will show me more than three reviews. There is no setting available to change this display.

 

I asked him to pass on to the programmers that this is a terrible implementation of customization. Blocking members from viewing vital information like member reviews seems like a really bad programmer's choice.

[Robert]

I have this problem.

I have the problem on my laptop. I also checked my wife's desktop and it has exactly the same problem.

I am only able to see the part of the first review (if I'm lucky). It appears that the box that it puts around the member reviews is too small and cuts off the rest of them. I tried shrinking the font scaling (via control minus (ctl -)) but it didn't help.

Both my wife and I use Firefox on Ubuntu linux.

I did notice that I had to change my ad blocker to allow nflxext.com and some new nflximg.com stuff, too, a couple of days ago. So, they definitely changed the way their website is rendered.

(Unfortunately, I don't have any other browsers to try.)

If I do "select all" of the web page and paste the text, I can at least read the review contents. This is cumbersome, to say the least.

I am reluctant to call Netflix about this issue since it's so difficult to describe on the phone. Sending screenshot snap shots would make the process easier.

[Robert]

Weirdly, I saw member reviews today.  Somehow, the Netflix browser redirect added "?fcld=true" to my URL and, with that, I can see reviews.

 

Well, at least I have a workaround!

[anon]

The problem seems to be StumbleUpon 3.8 and it disappeared when I installed an older version.

I think 3.62 works, and probably some others.

[LMNOP]

Yep. Disable StumbleUpon and the Netflix member reviews re-appear. Weird.

[anon]

BTW, turn off automatic updates for the FF add-ons.

[sp442842]

Netflix was wonderful when I first subscribed 6 years ago. But in the last couple of years N/F has doubled the price and taken away all the great features that made the company one I used to rave about. First, they started disappearing the access to "friends" feature, then N/F took away the whole community feature, including access to favorite reviewers, where I used to search for ALL the films I rented or streamed. They removed professional reviews from the site and took away the "% like you" feature, so I couldn't judge the reviewers. I wrote a lot of reviews and am currently in the low #60s ranking reviewer. I used to have about 200 fans. No more. And now they've taken reviewers' name and avitar, rendering ALL the reviews useless. Now, they're no longer even posting the 1* to 5* ratings by these anonymous reviewers, including me. They're dismantling the members reviewers feature, brick by brick. Well, I am so totally steamed. It's like bait and switch. I'm paying more and more for less and less and less. Didn't CEO Reid Hastings learn anything when he pulled that caper a year ago, announcing the separation of dvd and streaming? N/F stock dropped 300 points like a rock, and they lost several hundred thousand subscribers!! I stuck it out then, but if they continue to dismantle member reveiws, it's bye-bye N/F for me. I now think of Netflix as a bunch of cynical cheats, greedy, dishonest pigs.

[eviltimes]

We have been here since Feb of 2008, we've heard it all before.  We said it first, in fact.  Here's my standard answer to you folks:

If you want to complain to Netflix, call the nice people at 1-866-579-7115. They probably cannot really help you, unless it's a billing problem of course, they don't work for Netflix either - they just pass along messages and give you pre written answers they read on their computer screens. But you never know, you might just get lucky.

[sp442842]

When I called "the nice people in Portland", the so-called customer service folks, to report that the 1* to 5* ratings by reviewers had disappeared, the nice person asked me what browser I was using. I told her Internet Explorer 8. She said well, that might be the problem. Try another browser. We've been having technical problems with how Internet Explorer displays the site. I went to the trouble of trying Firefox - had to install it - and, nope. No stars ratings. So a few days later, I called again to report that things were still off. I didn't tell her about the first nice person's cure. This time, another nice person told me that it was something to do with my not having the correct updates to Java. Perhaps they were not installed automatically. I should visit the Java updates - they're free, she said, helpfully - and that might address the problem. As always, I hit 3 for "satisfied" after the call was concluded, because these people are always so "nice". Now I read all this stuff here...what do these "nice people in Portland" do? Do they just wing it, make it up, try to hit the ball back into your "it's your fault, the problem is on your end" court? There is nothing helpful about making paying customers do futile and unpleasant, time-wasting bizzy-work that has no effect whatsoever on a real problem one's experiencing. How infuriating! I am madder than a wet hen. Have you ever seen a wet hen? Well, step back. When wet hens get mad, it's absolutely Biblical.

[The Professor]

I wonder if a wet hen would cancel?

See, here's the thing: most folks that come here to complain are so angry because in spite of their frustrations, they have no intention of canceling — because Netflix is still a great deal. 

My advice is don't call those folks in Portland, just cancel. It's really liberating. 

Besides, I still see the stuff you claim to be missing on your page. The problem probably is likely on your end. Heaven knows how messed up your PC is. The Netflix CS people are there for issues with the service: missing discs, billing and acct. issues, etc. they aren't there for computer / internet tech support.

[sp442842]

This wet hen would cancel in a NYC nano-second if there were anywhere to rent dvds within 40 miles of the tiny, ag-country village I live in, in upper NYS. My PC is in super-duper excellent shape. Absolutely spotless and up to date. The problem is not, repeat NOT to do with the condition of my PC or software. The problem is not, repeat NOT on my end. I don't need computer or internet tech support. I need someone from N/F to tell the truth about what the management and CEO of N/F are doing to members' reviews and why the selection of films available on dvd or streaming has become so third rate, like the back stalls of the local store that used to be (somewhat) near me before it went out of business. maybe thanks to N/F. And now, NO SONY flicks? Terrific. But I digress. I am watching the same destruction of the members' reviews that I experienced, bit by tiny, painful bit, of the erasure of the "friends" or "community" features I joined Netflix and paid for to participate in. These were features that were removed by Netflix. Are you some kind of p.r. shill for Reid Hastings? Good luck with that. BTW, the reason I rely so exclusively on members' reviews is that N/F shovels inane, irrelevant "recommendations" that in no way reflect my taste, which shouldn't be hard to accommodate, since I have rated thousands of films.

[sp442842]

After roaming around in here I now understand why, for the past couple months or so, my many new reviews, which reviews used to attract a lot of "helpful" hits from appreciative readers, have received almost no hits. IT IS BECAUSE A BUNCH OF PEOPLE (who knows how many?) SIMPLY DO NOT SEE THEM. Why bother to write them? The only thing I enjoy about Netflix is watching their business go down the tubes. Hope they go bankrupt with their foul business practices. May they lose all their subscribers and go down in a hail of do-do. Netflix is peopled with bottom-feeding scum-suckers. Is that 18 characters? Yes? Well, that there's my review of the company and its nasty, subscriber-hostile business practices. And may their stock fall right into the toilet and stay there.