Reviews Policy

RasPi.TV blog currently gets >150,000 page views per month. In the last month we’ve also had 275,000 minutes watched on the YouTube channel. Since we’re now reaching a lot of people, I’ve decided that it’s time to form and publish a reviews policy, so that everyone knows where they stand.

Readers

In order to maintain a high standard of journalistic integrity and credibility among the readership, I have a few rules that I plan to stick to…

• I won’t endorse or recommend any product that I have not tested
• I won’t recommend anything unless I really like it and think it’s good
• I try not to publish reviews too frequently, as it is not the main focus of this site

Vendors

If you want me to review your product(s) I’m happy to consider doing so, subject to the following…

• It must be relevant to the Raspberry Pi, Electronics, Computers, Programming or related areas (i.e. something the readers/viewers will be interested in).
• I’m not going to pay, or incur any expenses, to review your product. Reviewing a product takes a minimum of 2 hours and a maximum of several days. (My time is valuable, but good reviews cannot be bought). If I love a product I might buy and review it because I want to, but then you won’t hear about it until afterwards.
• I don’t beg for products – I have a big enough review pile that I don’t need to. (Plus it’s undignified.)
• Giving me a free product doesn’t buy you a good review. It gets you a fair review. If I think your product sucks, I will tell you before I tell the world. You’ll get a chance to have your say, and even possibly improve the product before I publish. I challenge you to find a really unkind or biased review on this site. You won’t. There isn’t one. But if your product is crap, don’t expect a good review.
• There is no guarantee when or even whether your product will be reviewed. I have a review pile. The cooler, newer, better, more valuable it is, the more likely it will get dealt with quickly. If it’s a pre-launch or really newsworthy, I have been known to drop what I’m doing right now and get the video camera out.

Competitions & Prizes

I am happy to accept offers of products to give out as prizes for competitions and prize draws. But I would need a review sample first to ensure it’s something I wish to be associated with.

26 November 2014