@jpjarosz
Some useful suggestions there. Thank you for making them.
A couple of points: very early on in the process of developing this site, we decided not to use a feature matrix in reviews. The reasons are that:
1. They are very easy to compile, for those with no knowledge or experience at all - though it takes time.
2. They never answer the questions that people really want to know, like how good is the app anyway, and exactly why is it better or worse than others.
3. Many other sites do them, as it is so easy.
4. They are one of the things that is basically wrong with other sites, that we always wanted to avoid, and to do better.
Essentially, matrices provide easily-found info (that's there for the taking on the dev's sites) that doesn't answer most of the questions.
It is much harder, and far superior, to have experienced people write comparative reviews. And it's even harder to accumulate a lot of very high-quality reviews, as we have done. We aim to be the best software review site on the Net and I believe we have succeeded.
However, it can always be improved. Nothing is perfect, and like the software, which is always being improved, so the site needs continual work. If you knew what it was like 18 months ago you'd realise just how far we've come - and there is no reason to suppose that in 18 months' time it won't have improved almost as dramatically.
That means changes, and I do admit that in some cases, a feature matrix can clarify some issues. From research I believe that is in less than 5% of cases though. My reasoning for this is that on my own site, I've found that out of 250 pages of server software info, I only needed to include a matrix on about 6 or 7 pages. So it's true that editors should be free to include a matrix if they want to. How to do that is yet another project for the queue
We have between 80 and 100 editors currently, and it's nowhere near enough. Because of the intense workload, all editors are under pressure. To fully develop a good review page probably needs two people so that they could split the workload. We are nowhere near having those resources for our current page content - and we have plans (if there were any way to realise them) for a four-times size increase..... one day.
We are under a lot of pressure and have zero financial resources, it all just runs on goodwill. Gizmo hates any kind of commercial involvement so income will always be minimal, even when the money runs out and we have to get cash in somehow. At present the server is paid for by a reserve fund but that's running out.
Anyway - if improvements can be suggested that would be easy to implement, then we are more than willing to look at them. We need them. The idea for webforms looks a good one. We'll see - somebody has to find the time to work up these kinds of things, and although we have many capable authors on the site, we are short of server tech / coding staff, who are therefore under severe time restrictions. That's just the way it is - this site is a diamond in a world of trash, but part of the reason for that is that it is absolutely, totally, unswervingly 100% amateur. With all the drawbacks that entails.
@wildman
I like conspiracy theories as there is something deeply attractive to them. Unfortunately in this case we're all just doing the best we can and there is no secret agenda or whatever. We give the best advice we can, and if someone thinks they can do better, then by all means weigh in, help out, and change stuff.
But remember we only print provable facts that directly affect the freeware we review. If the developer has personal problems or their site is maybe not in the Mother Theresa class, well, that's life, and if the review editor figures it doesn't affect the software - end of story.
After all you could say the same about Microsoft and Bill G. You might occasionally hear the opinion voiced that they were the biggest software pirates on the planet when they started - that everything they have or own is based on something 'liberated' from others, and therefore their current hard line on software piracy is simply hilarious - that some of their software is abysmally maintained, especially as regards to security - that they have a cynical disregard for their users' best interests - and plenty more. But the fact remains that we use Windows because it's the best option, and will be for a long time to come. So put up and shut up
We do what we can, and it's all for free. No one is paying Gizmo to promote stuff, or ignore stuff - he has absolutely nothing to do with review content any more except for his own pages. If he told me to promote somebody's apps, or ditch some apps, because of some financial reason, I'd leave. I believe you can have an amateur site, or one that is clearly commercial, and people can go to whichever one they choose.
If we ever have any commercial agenda it will be right up front. So please quit with the conspiracy stuff, plots, hidden agendas or whatever and go somewhere else. Either help out and change it, or go away.