An open letter to the Community Manager - reviews

Posted on 12/08/2019 19:01 by Pliers

Same with Tripadviser, Oneputt, and they email when your review has been published. Not sure if it's then open for replies or not.

Posted on 12/08/2019 19:05 by

I have done a few on there and mine have not been altered.

Posted on 12/08/2019 18:08 by

I agree with your first para but not the second or third.

If I review a provider I comment on all aspects that are out of the expected norm, staff attitude (good or bad) included.  If any comment regarding poor service or attitude is to be banned then, for balance, any comment praising such service should also be banned, otherwise the results are skewed.

Yes, complaints should be taken up with CC Ltd but also including the problem in a review ensures other members get to know what is happening. Under normal circumstances I would expect complaints to be properly investigated but in my limited experience with CC Ltd this is not the case.  

I have asked before and I ask again.  Does CC Ltd have a formal written complaint procedure including an stated escalation route?  I think not.

Posted on 12/08/2019 18:02 by Tinwheeler

Hi, Rowena.

Thank you for your response and for re-opening the thread.

I understand completely what is allowed in reviews as it’s made quite clear in the Guidelines, although what is evident is that many reviewers don’t seem to have read those Guidelines.

Comments, which is the topic which prompted my OP, are altogether different as you acknowledge and this is where confusion occurs. You say that ideally comments should be from someone with experience of the site but sometimes it’s not a site specific issue that gives rise to a comment. I see nothing wrong, for instance, with a member pointing a reviewer towards the Club's rules or information leaflets or advising how to make a complaint when that member obviously has more experience of the club than the reviewer. Surely that is aiding the reviewer? I’ve been astounded when helpful replies along those lines have been deleted.

We have had a spate of 'unfortunate' reviews over the weekend and I’m sure I’m not the only person to have recognised them as being in breach of the Guidelines and to have reported them. You see, we do self moderate to a certain extent here!

I think from your post at the foot of page 1 you mean that club staff should be able to deal with constructive comments made on reviews while the volunteer moderators clean up the streets, so to speak (no offence!). That makes sense but I think an element of common sense needs to apply both on the part of posters and that of staff/moderators. For instance, I saw some really inappropriate comments made by members earlier today but, equally, I’ve witnessed the deletion of factual and helpful information by moderators.

Things aren’t always black and white so can we say, at least for now, that comments in an ideal world would be from someone who knows the site but that there are a lot of cases where restricting comments in this way would be counterproductive? I think that will allow sensible comments on the review to stand if you and the moderators accept that helpful and informative comments are not the sole preserve of those who have stayed on a particular site.

Thanks again for your input.

 

Posted on 12/08/2019 22:05 by DavidKlyne

TW

I think a better course of action if you feel a review goes against the Guidelines/T&C's would be to link the review here without comment (by all means also report) and that would allow the mods here to hide the review until it can be dealt with by Rowena and her team. It is often the action of making the initial comment that kicks off a discussion which Rowena has clearly indicated she does not want to happen. I think you are laying too much store by thinking you are being helpful to the reviewer by pointing out the guidelines as I suspect, in truth, they don't much care what you, or anyone else, thinks and are only interested in their own point of view. That also assumes, of course, that they ever come back to read the comments which in most cases I doubt they do?

 

Posted on 12/08/2019 22:15 by Tinwheeler

As I’ve stated before, David, reviewers often do come back to their reviews and, as I have also said previously, I have been thanked by them for pointing them in the right direction. 

Let’s let Rowena decide how things should proceed shall we?