Vendor Ratings Forum

[sharuq1]

Sorry for the "novel".

I'm talking about people in general. I have spoken with people on and off the board that do not feel they would vote if they had a negative review, they don't want the hassle and don't want to get chased down by vendors. Why can't you just accept that someone wasn't happy?
______________

Everyone is showing valid points but I just had to comment on this particular one. While I do agree on the accountability issues on both sides of the argument I have to pointedly agree with this. This is not because I am afraid to tell people my opinion. On the contrary--I pretty much tell anyone I talk to what vendors in the universe I think are fantastic and what vendors I think are terrible and why. Don't worry canreef sponsors, the following paragraph is not about any of you, just a personal experience I had with a business to show a reason besides being "cowardly" that someone might choose not to post a negative when they felt one should be posted.

Unfortunately, not all vendors in the world are of the same mind that they need to act like mature and responsible businessmen (or women) who's main job is to satisfy their customers (thus perpetuating more business). I had a very bad experience with a particular business. I tell every single person I meet that I think they are terrible, why, and recommend no one shop there. And yet, I think were this business in a rating forum such as this one, where that vendor could access my vote-- I might just be afraid to post something negative about them for my own personal safety and the safety of my family. That bad you ask? Yes, not kidding, not everyone is upstanding or honest and when you live in a smaller area and everyone knows you and where you live that can be pretty scary.

Now that is just a case in the extreme, and I highly doubt that something such as that would be a worry from anyone from a canreef sponsor. It is just to show that there can be other reasons why a person would choose not to have a negative vote posted. From my personal standpoint, the anonymous voting should remain anonymous for reasons like the above. From a business standpoint, yes that could of course be bad for all the reasons other people have stated previously.

I hate to say it, but useful as this is for canreef members I just don't see us being able to find a way to keep our sponsors happy the way it is currently set up.

Now I'm just going to throw out some ideas here for discussion purposes (not "let's bash" purposes ). Some have already been done many times, not original, already there are inherent problems, yada, yada, yada. (But hey that is what brainstorming is for.) Somewhere there has got to be a happy medium.

Here's my meager contribution. I have taken the liberty of throwing in some ideas that people posted in this thread because they were really good ideas and deserve an 'I second that'. I am already aware of positives and negatives to the ideas (that are actually mine) posted as well as the fact some don't work, aren't mine, or have been done. The point is that maybe eventually someone will post an idea that would work. Maybe it will end up as a collaboration of several ideas by several people.

--Steal the Ebay way. Customer posts comment and rating. Vendor has chance to respond. Only so many responses from each allowed so it doesn't degenerate.

--Polls optional for vendors.

--We post everyone BUT our sponsors for the polls and leave everything else the way it is

--We go back to the way it was prior to the polls and so be it. Mods do everything they can to make sure it stays fair (one vote per ip, etc.)

--We leave it as is and so be it. Site was fine to begin with.

--We make it so members themselves can choose whether or not their vote is anonymous for the vendor rating poll.

--We leave the polls as they are, take the sponsors only off the polls, and have a "less negative looking" star system and all you see is rated 4 stars out of five or somesuch above sponsor names. This way one bad "vote" has relatively no effect on the star rating, but several unsatisfied votes would. Star votes would be monitored by the mods to ensure that people aren't using the same IP address to cheat, using it from a business, etc. etc.
-Could be anonymous
-Could be reset every so often.
-Could be accessible ONLY by canreef members and/or with so many posts to ensure "Joe Roe" from Fiddletown is a real person with a real opinion and not a made-up person by a friend of 'Mr Ron's Ocean of Hullaballoo' who hates 'Coral Freaks R Us' because the guy running it dated his little sister in high school and stole her pet monkey. (On a side note making up fake names to coral stores for this post is amusing me. )

--Our sponsors could have their own rating system that can only be accessed by customers through a link and not bother with our poll at all.

--For sponsors only (everyone else leave in the polls, sponsors taken out of polls)--because let's face it they are the ones we need to worry about, continue with the "what do you think of so and so threads: reply via pm?", but have these threads in a section only for those threads so at least they are easy to find by anyone wanting to know the information--> The person wanting to know about said store can just re-post "they want to hear too-please pm" (thus keeping sponsors names from appearing in the bad in public format and keeping opinions from pm'rs new and fresh). There could be a sticky for each name, and whoever wanted to hear about 'Mr. Ron's Ocean of Hullaballoo' could bump it up. It would show up when you click "view new posts", and if you had an opinion on Mr. Ron and his Hullaballoo you could pm said recent person who wants to know.

--Those of us having a negative experience could create an "ugh" thread in a general type section and leave out the stores' name and just tell people to pm them if they want to hear about it. (this has been done ++ before)

There have got to be more suggestions from other people, so let's continue to post them. Vendors, surely you have some ideas too.

[midgetwaiter]

I think everybody needs to really consider what they are asking the canreef staff to do when they want more features added to this. They not only have to set all this up they have to keep on top of it and make sure things stay civil. They're going to be put in the middle of stupid conflicts all the time that can't be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. It's a big job and a crappy one.

[EmilyB]

I might just be afraid to post something negative about them for my own personal safety and the safety of my family

[EmilyB]

LOL, just read your sticky Christy and didn't understand a word...

[superduperwesman]

Reefcentral's review system seems pretty good

[niloc16]

good god i'm glad i'm not a mod

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by niloc16

good god i'm glad i'm not a mod

Believe me, some days its tempting to just go back to being a regular Joe. I think about it all the time

[wickedfrags]

Agreed. Open discussion of an issue for 2 weeks then it is removed. Both members and vendors are free to discuss the issue. Exceptions include leaving the thread online longer than 2 weeks due to issues associated with suspected fraud or other suspicious activity.

Originally Posted by superduperwesman

Reefcentral's review system seems pretty good

[superduperwesman]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about... but the review goes back to March 07 so you must be talking about something else wicked? But I'd be curious to see what you're talking about too?

http://www.reefcentral.com/modules.p...content&id=160

[Canadian]

Originally Posted by wickedfrags.com

Agreed. Open discussion of an issue for 2 weeks then it is removed. Both members and vendors are free to discuss the issue. Exceptions include leaving the thread online longer than 2 weeks due to issues associated with suspected fraud or other suspicious activity.

Why would removing the thread after 2 weeks be at all beneficial to potential customers? Sure, it seems like a great way for vendors to sweep bad feedback under the rug, but as a consumer that's exactly the type of history I want to see in order to help me make my decisions. I could see something akin to eBay where the "issue" is left open for discussion between the vendor and the customer for let's say a couple weeks, but it should certainly be left online for significantly longer than 2 weeks so other customers can utilize the dialogue as Canreef intended - to enable customers to determine if a certain vendor's business practices and quality of products fall in line with what they are seeking.