Reviews are a tricky thing. You are evaluating the merits of something, usually with a reference to things being better or worse than something else. But the key part in that sentence is “you.” Reviews are ultimately simply one person’s opinion. I once had a knife manufacturer unhappy with a review score ask me: “What makes you an expert?” My answer then and now is the same—“nothing.” My hope is, instead of genuflecting simply because I said something, you evaluate my opinion and see if you agree. The key is that by writing clearly (with a few typos) and making my preferences obvious I can help you figure out if you will like a give product. We may have diametrically different tastes, but if I am clear enough about my tastes and my take on a product you can use the review to make up your mind, even if that means “If Tony hates it I will like it.”

This calls to the forefront two crucial ideas—opinions and preferences. There is a lot written about opinions and people have strongly held beliefs, especially now, that are opinions. Behind these two ideas is a third—facts. I am going to lay out how I define these concepts for purposes of reviews so that you can be better informed what I mean. I am not going to get down to the level of Vienna Circle definitions, other than a simple reference, because that is a rabbit hole I want to avoid, but I do want to be explicit and precise about these terms.

Facts

I like the Vienna Circle’s definition of facts: statements that are either independently verifiable or logically true. You can, as some find fruitful these days, dispute facts, but really there is not much point. To be clear: simply because some other source says it doesn’t make it a fact. Sources can be wrong. The key to a fact is not that it is verified but that it is VERIFIABLE. If I want to know the weight of a knife, I can put it on a scale. If I want to know the blade length, I can measure it. Some statements of fact are wrong, but we know they are wrong because of this verifiability trait. As used here, fact statements can be contradicted by reality. This means a source can state a false fact, but once verified correctly, the fact is true. Think of it like this—suppose you are the copy editor for a knife website and you mistakenly list the Dragonfly’s weight as 2.1 ounces when, in fact, your scale read 1.2 ounces. You have asserted an incorrect fact. Once verified, the incorrectness becomes clear.

Example: The ZDP-189 Dragonfly has a weight of 1.2 ounces.

Opinions

Opinions are not verifiable. You can’t go out and measure an opinion. But some opinions are better than others. And while it is true that opinions are like assholes, the opinion of an asshole is usually either wrong or poorly formed.

Experts tend to have better opinions than non-experts. For example, when I asked Michael Walker about good steels, I tend to trust that assessment more than I would some nameless faceless person on the internet. When Larrin Thomas talks about good steels, I feel the same way. They are both experts, coming at the same subject from different perspectives, but both are experts nonetheless.

Clearly stated and logically related opinions are more meritorious than others. Years ago, a poster on Blade Forums RAVED about his new Medford. He clearly loved the knife and was happy about his purchase, which is so great and why we all like this hobby. He extolled all of the hard use virtues of the knife, which were easy to see, but then he took a detour and started praising the merits of the knife as an EDC and a kitchen knife replacement. He showed pictures of the items he had prepared with the knife and they were a mess. The tomato “slices” were more akin to puree than pieces of vegetable. From these photos and his lengthy write up he declared the Medford (this was not the modern Medford we know that has reasonable sized folders) was a great EDC and a good slicer. This as a poor opinion. He did not back up his belief with facts or logic. In fact, facts and logic actually undercut is belief.

So while people love to retort “That’s just your opinion” they miss the point. It is not about authorship, but merit. Some opinions are more meritorious than others, depending on the opinion’s source and evidence.

Example: The ZDP-189 Dragonfly is an excellent EDC folder.

Preferences

While facts can be verified and opinions can be well-informed, preferences are simple a statement of taste. A claim of preference is a personal thing and can be neither wrong nor right. Figuring out if a preference is right or wrong is like asking what a color sounds like—it doesn’t map. The classic example of a preference is this: “What’s your favorite color?” You can have reasons for liking one color over another, but the reality is, those reasons are just the narrative you tell yourself about why you like something. Now, of course, you can have GOOD reasons for your preference, even GOOD facts, to use the vocabulary above, but preferences are still personal and incapable of meaningful judgment. For example, if you are lactose intolerant, you may prefer pie over ice cream. Being lactose intolerant is a fact and that fact leads to a preference, but it does not convert the preference into a fact or opinion. Being lactose intolerant may eliminate ice cream as a treat but it does not explain why you like pie over, say, a Milky Way bar.

Example: The British Race Green handle scales are ugly.

So with the words clarified (hopefully), the question is this—Who cares?

Well, if you read this website, you should. My hope is that my reviews have a lot of facts (price, B:H ratio, steel type, etc.) that lead to meritorious opinions (like this knife being a good value or earning a 19/20 score), and that my preferences are clear. Each of these things is useful. First, the facts help you know what it is that I am writing about. The opinions inform you of reasonable conclusions about the product. Then preferences help you map my conclusions to your decision to buy something.

Breaking this information down also helps clarify something else—bad reviews. These occur mainly when someone is being a shill or when someone confuses these three things. “I’d never carry a folder, its pre-broken.” That’s a fact, of course, but does it matter? Does that fact support a reasonable or meritorious opinion? If that is a way of justifying carrying a Cold Steel Natchez Bowie in Manhattan as your EDC, then clearly it did not.

Here is the other thing, which is more broadly applicable—you can and should evaluate people’s opinions. Their preferences, those are things beyond assessment, but opinions, well, they can be subject to scrutiny. Figuring out just how much of their opinion is based on facts is valuable. Even in today’s fraught political landscape, it is helpful to figure out what people assume to be fact and what their sources are. Its also helpful to evaluate whether they correctly use and link facts together to generate an opinion. In my experience, people have poorly sourced facts, often confuse opinions for facts, and confuse preferences as both fact and opinion. While it is true that everyone has opinions about things, some opinions are better than others.