Changes To Review Submittals, Everybody please read Options

[kw5kw]

I never meant any disrespect to the site purveyor but the ability to post a small number of reviews has no correlation with the fairness, sincerity, and honesty of those reviews. I would like to see the cumbersome vetting process go away and then see the reviewer's user name along with the number of reviews they've submitted, on each review. It would look something like this...

DREARY GULCH RV PARK AND BONE YARD, Dreary Gulch, State of Denial

* * * * * * * * kw5kw ( 1) This is the only campground I ever go to. Blah, blah, blah...
April 2006
$10


* * ________ Cheryl (134) Managed not to drown in showers. Blah, blah, blah...
June 2006
$22


Sorry to pick on you guys as examples but... 'kw5kw's report looks quite good but a number of glaring points are going to jump out at any reader. 'kw5kw' may be fair, sincere, and honest but he either doesn't have much experience with campgrounds or maybe he is getting a kickback from the owner (note what he paid). It wouldn't matter if there were ten one-shot wonder posts all similar to the first one and with ten different user names, I would naturally tend to discount them in favor of 'Cheryl's post because she has obviously 'been around' --having reviewed 134 campgrounds. Without those safeguards, both reviews are just anonymous opinions. With the current system in place, I have no idea that 'kw5kw' has even submitted a report (regardless of whether he was fair, honest, and sincere) because of the peculiarity of his camping habits. Still, he might be the only source of information for that campground because nobody else ever goes there.

And with the current system (where the reviews are anonymous), let's say the campground is remote and I need to know that a certain condition of the campground is up to my expectation. I can't see from any other source if those conditions exist (or if they _still_ exist). 'kw5kw' didn't mention anything about it in his review but, if I can see that he is the reviewer, I could PM him to ask if he knows anything more that could help me.

And... It could mean that I (KW5KW) just found this site and Cheryl had found it years earlier.

I do a forum at www.ChristianForums.com and I have over 1423 posts with a reputation of 33654. There are many other posters who have >10,000 posts and they have reps of <1000. Who's more trustworthy, more posts or higher rep?

I do a forum at http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_Forum/index.php , I joined there June 1, 2006 and have 489 posts--- but I just found that site that day after having my CHL for >5 years before that. Who's more trustworthy, a guy who just joined or me or the person who registered when the forum was first created? I don't know! It's my guess that it's the guy who started the forum since he fights in the legislature for our rights.

I just joned http://www.graceforums.com/ because it was created because of ill will at another forum... so I guess we're all just about equal there.

Thing is just because you have 1 post or 10,000 posts does not disqualify anyone.

Thing is if a person shows extreme prejustice towards one view or another that could disqualify that person but you never know with only one post, it takes several.

Now, if that person posts only 4 or 5 times and praises one but trashes 4 that are nearby, then I perceive a problem and in that case (If I was the moderator/owner) I'd delete all posts by that individual.

Just my $0.02.

Thanks for the vent
Russ

[ferretman1]

[font=Arial][size=7]

Hello all:

My wife and I are new to "full time" rv-ing. Yes we lived in an RV for 9 years in Oklahoma
at one site, which was a regular trailer park, that had an RV section. We did this because I
am on disability and it was the cheapest way to live ($10.00 a day, electric, cable TV, water
sewage, etc included) on my limited income. In fact our old 35 foot fifth wheel is still there
as a glorified storage building, while we live in our newer one here in Colorado. We came
here for health reasons (allergies, heat, better doctors, etc.)

This is our first KOA experience ever. We have been here for a little over 8 months. We do
not plan to move around alot to other camp grounds at this time. We may stay here a year
or so and then move on, if finances permit this. We wanted to post a review about this
KOA. I just registered today, and in reading the information here I have to submit three
reviews from three diffierent campgrounds to get them posted???? So it will take us three
years minimum ( in our situation) to get our reviews posted?? How does this policy help
others who rely on this site for the neccessary information on campground recomendations?

You know you can try to legislate morality and honesty till the cows come home, but in most
cases, you just end up shooting yourselves in the foot, and restricting those who are honest
and would like to post a review, otherwise unless you vacation a lot and stay at various
camp grounds consistently and with regularity, submitting a review is apparently an effort
in futility!

[Jerry S.]

Hi Ferretman1,

When I first read your post, my first thought was that you don't quite understand the concept of the park reviews on this site. With only one exception (see "RV Park Changes" string from 2/21/07 by Paisley), the vast majority of users and contributors to this site are campers who are either vacationers/weekenders (maybe a handful of parks in a year) or travelling RVers (dozens of parks every year). Their reviews give the reader what their experience was what and thus, what the reader might expect if they go to that park. I was unsure of how helpful a "resident's" experience would be to the majority of use who usually temorary guests of the park.

Since reading this post, I see that you have added another under the "Review Comments" string. I hope writing that post has eased your disappointment with the "rules" of this site.

Good luck with your situation.

Jerry S.

[Lindsay Richards]

My wife and I owed a B&B for 10 years and experienced a huge number of false positive and false negative reviews on a huge site called Trip Advisor. I estimated that in our town about 50 % of the reviews were bogus. Other owners even bragged about doing it to me. This was a different situation in that the site had millions of visitors per week and made big bucks on their ads and such. They did nothing to police them and were just going for volume of reviews and click thrus for the revenue. I hate to see campground owners also doing this as it ruins it for all of us. I just reviewed 2 campgrounds this week from our recent trip. One was average and one was excellent. I might add that the average one was $70 and the excellent one was $23. The excellent one is a city park (Jacksonville, FL) and doesn’t have a good website. We had some friends tell us about it and I was hoping to spread the word with my review. I now need one more to get published. I don’t blame the moderator, but the unethical people trying to cheat. Money forces people to do bad things sometimes.

[NikkiMac]

I think we should be able to rate the reviewers. "Was this rating Helpfully?" I have seen this on other opinion sights. If it is just one or two reviews that are out of line, people will know to disregard those as somebody with a ax to grind, or somebody affiliated with the campground.
I am not going to fill out 5 reviews, due to the fact that we don't go to that many in one year. We do stay at one park for a week at a time, but, just do not go to that many campgrounds. This is a bad policy.

I think that would be an excellent feature.. I've seen some reviews go from a 3 to a 10, and it just seams fishy to me, instead of writting another full review if we are able to agree with another person that would be helpful to..

is there a place in here to see all your reviews that you have done.. I been to a lot of campgrounds and don't want to submit a review to a campground that I've already done.

[RLM]

I have a position on this issue, but that is not the purpose of this reply. Neither is it to diminish any complaints made about the new rule or lessen the validity of negative comments.

Perhaps one of the reasons we like this site is because it is basically ‘commercial’ free. No pop-ups, banners, ads, or other annoyances. Your participation in it is not leading to a cultivation of information with which to send you junk email. Secondly, the participants on the website are fortunate that the administrator also publicly participates. That is rare.

There are some excellent suggestions in this thread about improving the security of the posts vs. a 3-post rule. Considering the controversy, I am sure the administrator is looking at many of them as methods to improve the legitimacy of the reviews. Be that as it may, I respectfully suggest that we don’t own, manage, or spend the inordinate time it takes to be the Webmaster. And since it is not a commercial site, he’s definitely not getting hordes of revenue to compensate for the time spent managing it.

I am an unpaid administrator for two smaller websites. From that experience, I can assure you of a few things:

1- I will never be able to please everyone all the time.
2- There are more ‘ah-craps’ passed to me than ‘atta boys.’
3- I take serious suggestions seriously, but I make the final decisions.
4- ”Why am I volunteering to doing this?” is a question I ask myself repeatedly.

Personally, with whatever inaccuracies or false reviews it may have, I put the information gathered here far above the traditional commercial campground directories.

And for the administrator, thanks for your time....atta-boy.

Rick

[Lindsay Richards]

My wife and I are in a 3 month camping trip probably up the east coast and hopefully up to PEI. I have sent in many reviews that have not been posted and frankly probably won't bother sending in anymore. We just spent 2 great days a a small campground in western NC. Too bad not to be able to report it. We are in New Bern, NC waiting for the storm to abate so we can get on the outer banks.

[hdnelson]

Funny. I submitted my first review here last night, and saw it up this evening.

I'm sure I'll be back.

[Dave-and-Ellen]

Funny. I submitted my first review here last night, and saw it up this evening.

I'm sure I'll be back.

I hope I have the same luck. I posted my first review a few minutes ago, but it will take a while before I come up with some more!

[Dina]

I found this site yesterday, and thought I would share our perceptions of the parks we have been to.
I signed up and submitted 2 reviews, and noticed I needed three. No problem-we have been to about 80 parks over the last four or five years, so I reviewed a third and forth. (I must admit I started with my favourites-and I don't remember how much we paid for them!) Unfortunately when I hit enter after the forth review, the message offered to take my third review! So I re-did one and it took it. Then I did a couple more.
Today when I signed in to check which ones had been accepted and which still needed to be done, none are there.

Did I do something wrong? Do I have to start all over again?

[Cheryl]

Not necessarily, sometimes it takes a few days or so to see them posted.

[Dave-and-Ellen]

Not necessarily, sometimes it takes a few days or so to see them posted.

Well, It has been a while, and since I only did one review, I guess it will never be posted.

[Cheryl]

Yours will be posted once you submit 2 more. There is a 3 review requirement to try to keep it honest.

[Dave-and-Ellen]

Yours will be posted once you submit 2 more. There is a 3 review requirement to try to keep it honest.

OK, but it may take a bit to do the other two. I am still trying to realize the fact that with our "B" you can not just get up and go, as we had imagined!

[Meanderman]

I'm kinda surprised that this subject is still going on, but since it is, feel the need to comment.
- First, this site provides a service unlike any other. The most accurate and current reviews of campgrounds available. It makes the Trailer Life Directory and Woodall's rating systems obsolete instead of just inaccurate. Thanks to all of those who works hard to make this site what it is.
- Regarding criteria to review, I'll probably alienate some when I say this: If you only dined out once or twice a year I wouldn't trust your restaurant review, or if you only rode in one or two cars a year I wouldn't trust your car reviews.....so why should you expect to have campground review credibility if you visit them so rarely? Yes, I'm biased, but in the last year and a half as full timers we've stayed in 61 different parks and some of the reviews on this site have not always been accurate, although once again, it's the best source available. I'm not accusing anyone of not trying to describe their experience as best as possilble, but unless you spend a significant amount of time at campgrounds it is difficult to be consisitent when describing rates, facilities, and services.
- Once again, I don't mean to sound elitist, but while opinions are free, there should be some experience in whatever that opinion is for it to be credible.