Get Rid of Old Park Ratings

I think the Park Ratings would be more meaningful if Older Ratings were deleted (after 5 years). A lot can happen at a RV Park over the course of 5 years. Amenities may change, new ownership, change in policies, change in workers, changes in facilities. I think that getting rid of Old Park Ratings would keep the Overall Rating more current.
Happy Camping!

 

This has been discussed but, unfortunately, there are some parks where the only reviews are that old. What would you do then? Are no reviews at all better than some old ones?

We've also talked about "discounting" older reviews so they don't factor in the overall score as heavily, but the issue with parks that have only a few older reviews remains.

 

Although I am aware of the problems related to removing old reviews that docj mentioned, I have leaned toward the concept that it is better to have nothing rather than old, incorrect information. But I would absolutely be in favor of keeping all the park listings including the overview, hook-up, facilities, and recreation lists. We have always asked our members to submit a review every time they stay at a park, but we are aware that many do not do this if, according the them, there is nothing new to add. Maybe if a park's old reviews are removed, it will encourage members to review their most recent stay which they might not have done otherwise.

 

I wonder if it would help to remove those reviews from view and not count them towards the ratings, but make them accessible from a link that's annotated as referencing reviews more than 'n' years old?

 

I don't know why you assume that an old review has to be an incorrect one. That's a conclusion for which there is no basis. It's possible that old reviews have been overtaken by events, but it's also possible for parks to be essentially unchanged. Personally, I'd rather have an old review to read than none at all.

 

There are probably many good reasons to remove old reviews some we see every day.
"Former KOA's" : there are so many that they practically form their own category of RV Park.
What kind of KOA they were doesn't seem relevant now. Also privately owned parks that will also never be the same after having been absorbed by a large corporate entity. How these parks used to be just doesn't figure in the decision to stop.
The one type of review that I think would be very helpful to remove (because it bugs me) are the tit-for-tat reviews that often appear at the beginning of a parks business "life". "Texasrvers" has noted that moderators are much more vigilant for 'spite' reviews now, but they often got through in the early days. It would be good to winnow the old reviews as many of these reviews-with-an-agenda would be removed.
If you like sleuthing here is one for you:
Go to: Indian Brave Campground, Harmony, PA
As you can see all the scores are consistently low except for (1) Excellent
The Rating words are clickable so a click on Excellent shows it was written in June 2011,
It also shows that the reviewer has visited one state and written (2) reviews.
Click on the Reviewer to get their Profile and you'll find that the other review was written
in May of 2011 for Bear Run Campground, Portersville, PA.
This campground was given a Terrible rating.
The two campgrounds are 10 miles apart!
Reading them side by side, as you can in the profile, is really funny. They are practically mirror images of one another. "Workers were very nice and helpful" vs "Staff wasn't very friendly" and on and on.

Unfortunately it won't get rid of the glowing reviews from management that inevitably follow the scathing review of a camper.
I've reached a point where I discount any reviewer with 2-reviews and 1-State visited.

 

I'd rather have No Review rather than an old one. If information is not available or very few reviews, I will search Trailer Life or Woodalls. If the park is well visited it may be found on You Tube.

 

Several years ago, my wife and I went on a two week trip through eastern Oregon and stayed in several campgrounds and a couple RV parks. This area is very sparely populated. Many of the places we stayed had few - if any - total reviews, let alone recent reviews.

One RV Park was even listed as "closed"! It wasn't, and I made sure to review it. The owners of this park were quite elderly back then, and for all I know this park may be closed again.
Recently I have reviewed a couple campgrounds that had never been reviewed on RVPR. One was a nearly new state park but the other was a COE park that must be thirty years old (and is very popular).

Also, Jack B wrote that he discounts any reviewer with a low number of reviews and only one state visited. I think I only have written about 20 reviews and only in one state. However, we have camped in several states and provinces and stayed at many more campgrounds than I've reviewed. My wife & I have been camping all of our lives and I've only been a part of RVPR for about 6 years.

Last weekend we stayed at a county park that has been around for at least twenty years, has well over 100 campsites, is packed all summer and has received TWO total reviews.

Please don't get rid of old reviews!
RickB

 

If the parks are that popular, you should be able to find updated information using other resources besides RVPR.

 

I don't see the problem. All the reviews are dated. Those who wish to discount older reviews are free to do so; others can give them whatever weight they deem appropriate.

For parks that have a lot of reviews, I doubt many go back years and years reading every review, unless they have some special interest. If a park has only a review or two a year, you might want to go back a while, and decide whether there's anything different between older & newer that matters. More information is always better than less.

 

And, furthermore, the reviews are presented in chronological order with the newest displayed first. I can't imagine it's a hardship to simply not read reviews older than whatever date you feel is relevant.

IMO what would be more helpful than removing old reviews entirely would be to have the summary table of scores (Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor) only represent the last ~5 years. I personally use those summaries as my first screening tool when considering an RV park (or even a purchase on Amazon). If the data in the summary table shows too much spread; that is, if there are too many low scores, then I will find another park or item to consider buying. To say it a bit differently, if a significant number of people report bad experiences then I tend to believe that those experiences were real. But what's important in making that decision is that the data all be fairly contemporaneous. Otherwise one might be unknowingly compiling outdated bad (or good) reports with new ones that are quite different.

This might actually be a compromise position that would (somewhat) satisfy both groups. Leave the all the reviews in place but have the summary table only display data for the past 5 years. Thoughts?

 

You got my vote on that Joel................... Terry

 

Same here, seems like a good solution to me.

 

Good points and it's true that they are dated so we can choose to read them or not. For me I just don't see the point of having a review for a park from over 6 years ago when looking for a place to stay. I won't consider it because it makes me think not many people have stayed and therefore reviewed them. As long as there are some current reviews, say within the last four years then I'm interested. Two reviews from ten years ago that were excellent mean nothing to me. I really depend on and use these reviews so current reviews are important. Not a big deal but just wanted to explain my two cents.

 

Quite honestly, the absence of reviews doesn't in any way reflect on whether lots of people have stayed at a particular park. I'm sure you realize that our reviews represent only a small percentage of all RVers who stay at parks each year. You may not wish to stay at a park for which there aren't current reviews but I hope you don't take the absence of reviews to mean that people don't like the park.

 

I did not mean to suggest that all old reviews were always incorrect. They may certainly still be accurate. The problem is you just don't know if they are or not. If I see a review from 2016, I can assume with some amount of certainty that it is reporting conditions that still exist. But a review from 6 years ago allows plenty of time for things to have changed quite a bit, and I would not assume that it is still accurate. I would want newer information before making a decision about staying there.

I absolutely agree that readers can and should look at the date the review is from and make their own decision whether or not the conditions might still be accurate.

I like this suggestion.

And I have another one. What if we could "button up" all reviews that are older than 5 years (or those not in the summary table) with a button to expand the list if someone wants to read the older reviews. I think this would help unclutter the park's listing and hide the more irrelevant information (if there are a lot of reviews that go back 5-10 years, that is a pretty long list) and yet this would still make all the information available to readers if they want to look at it.

 

I really like the "Button Up" suggestion!

Great feature I currently enjoy on a Weather App.
(Forecast for next couple days...or (hit the button) forecast for 10 days out.)