Bye Bye Campground reviews

I have been a ardent fan of "RV Park Reviews"for over 9 years till this year. The changes have driven me away.
My last 3 posts were never posted as I suspect they (the moderators) thought the posts did not add to the value for the site.
I want to see ALL park reviews when I am looking for a campsite. Good, bad or indifferent.
I want to know if the the last 6 reviews stated everything worked or great for a stopover etc.
Not every review can state something different. Quantity builds quality.
Been fun, but off to other review sites that care.

 

With all due respect, we don't show any review submissions by you since July 2018. I'm sure you believe you have submitted reviews, but, for whatever reason, they aren't in our system.

You can choose to believe this or not, but our system shows all reviews whether posted or not and there are none from you.

As for the concept that your reviews "did not add to the value for the site" I'm not sure how you think revenue on this site is generated. This is an ad-supported site; it doesn't make any more or less money if any specific reviews are posted or not. We have plenty of negative reviews in our database, all you have to do to verify that is to randomly select some and read them!

Joel (AKA docj)

 

If you believe the only way "value" is added to this site is through the revenue of advertisers, then IMHO you have totally lost its original concept. To most of us who use this site, its true "value" comes through viewing the thoughtful reviews posted by users who wish to voluntarily share their camping experiences at various campgrounds with other visitors/members. Unfortunately, for many of us trying to continue to support this site by posting those experiences, what was once a simple process has recently become overly tedious... through no fault of our own.
Rather than arguing with or scolding those of us trying to post reviews as we used to, it would seem that a better solution would be simply to fix the problem. After all, we didn't create the problem, which was apparently caused by a merger with other entities. As I've posted before, I, too, will no longer post reviews on this site until it works as originally designed. In the meantime, perhaps this site can flourish on the "value" you think your advertisers add.

 

As has been stated in previous posts, the merger of several different entities did corrupt cookies on some computers. A remedy for this has been posted. It's not a particularly arduous task to follow the instructions IMO. If you feel this is too much trouble that is your right. but it's my understanding that there's nothing else we can do from our end. The corrupted cookies are on your computer, not our server. If you choose not to delete them, there's nothing we can do to assist you.

 

Thanks for your prompt response and clarification. (If the cookies on my computer for this website are "corrupted", I don't believe it's my fault.) Accordingly, after supporting this site since 2010, unfortunately, I'm done. Perhaps I can post my reviews on a more welcoming site elsewhere.
Thanks for 9 good years.

 

You are correct that the corrupted cookies aren't your fault, but there's no way anyone else can remove them. I'm not sure what more you think we should offer to do for you? Onsite tech support?

 

I'm not expecting you to do anything for ME. Rather, I would expect this website to function as it once did for ALL of us.
As someone who had a 35-year career in the business world, I can speak from firsthand experience that the key to providing excellent customer satisfaction is setting and communicating expectations UPFRONT and delivering on those expectations consistently. Anything short of this will result in unhappy customers. Instead of waiting to hear from frustrated participants who try to post reviews by following the instructions provided on this site (the expectations) and are unable to do so because of the seemingly "secret" corrupted cookie problem (expectations not met), why not communicate that issue as part of the instructions to begin with (instead of making them go to the Forum)? How many other sites do you use where following the site's explicit instructions results in an error? It seems that, given the apparent "unsolvable" cookie problem, this may be the best solution.
However, I would submit that if you want to provide a better customer experience, wringing your hands over this cookie issue is not good enough. There are many sites out there that have somehow managed to work around such issues without it being a matter of "that's the best we can do". In that regard, I'm reminded of a statement my supervisor made while I was working for one of America's premier financial services company about 20 years ago, and we were setting up some of its first online capability for its customers. "We don't want to do something that will make us look stupid to our customers." In other words, "don't set an expectation you can't meet".
As far as Campground Reviews is concerned, none of us who once regularly, and happily, posted reviews here for many years were ever consulted before it decided to be "all things to all people" by associating with other sites. Accordingly, it seems to me that any negative impact is a risk the "owners" took when they made the transition. It's not my place to fix it.
I believe I've beat this horse to death. I've got better things to do with my life, and I'm sure Campground Reviews will survive the loss of this member.

 

This site will never be as it once was - that's outdated. Personally, I wouldn't want to use a site that was stuck in the 1990's as our previous software was. If our site doesn't change & update with the times, we'll be left in the dust. For anyone who's worked with computers as long as I have (think TRS-80), I've learned growing pains are a pain in the.....well, you know what. It often seems like 1 step forward results in 2 steps backward. But, eventually, it gets better.

We'd like our members to hang in there with us as we work through the bugs & slip ups that come with updates, but we know some just don't have the patience. That's OK, their decision.

We try hard to do what's good for the entire site & membership to move it forward so as to stay competitive with other sites out there, but sometimes we fall a bit short & have hurdles to overcome to get to where we need to be. We're not perfect.......we're human. All we can ask for is patience as we try to make Campground Reviews the best site it can be.

Lori-

 

I remember the BIG change a number of years ago. There was a lot of unrest back then too. People do not like change. Everyone likes to stay within their comfort zone. I admit that I wasn't all that comfortable with the "new" RV Park Reviews either but most of us stayed and settled in. Soon it became the norm again.

I think this situation is a little different though. The feel of the site has not changed. It looks normal thus folks expect it to work "normal". I too, have experienced a level of frustration spending time writing a review directly to the site just to have it disappear into cyber space. I am fortunate though. I am retired thus leisure time is not as precious. I can afford to rewrite a post.

Is there a way to have a dialog box appear when a person chooses to post a review. As Phaeton40AH suggested, a simple warning "please do this to help us insure your post won't disappear" might alleviate some of the frustration. As mentioned by a number of users. Not all members participate in the forum so how are they to know of the potential loss?

Just my two cents...……

Darrell

 

Excellent post Darrell. That was more than just a nickel's worth, it was worth at least a buck, possibly even a 5ver.................... Terry

 

Well, this thread has certainly been instructive for me.
To recap, I see one "administrator's" belief is that the ONLY "value" added to this website is through the revenue collected from its advertisers, which I interpret to mean that any park reviews that users have posted in the past (or have been trying to recently) add absolutely NO value to the site... wish I had known this before carefully writing over 125 reviews over the past 9 years!
Yet another "administrator" opines that a perfectly functioning site whose software is "stuck in the 1990s" is completely inferior to current software that, if I read several threads on this Forum correctly, has created errors for its users for many months. Additionally, this "administrator" seems to imply that any frustration by users with this non-functioning site is due to a lack of "patience" on our part and a general resistance to "change". (I wish I could have used that excuse with my professors in the 1960s when writing Fortran programs as assignments while in college and not coming up with the correct result on its due date. "Gee, professor, you need to be more PATIENT with me. I'll eventually get this right!")
Regarding suggestions by site administrators that I am generally reluctant to "change", I must respond to what I perceive to be a simplification of the situation. I always welcome "change", when it can be demonstrated to be for the "better". However, change for change sake, without any concern for its unintended consequences, is simply irresponsible IMHO. That's one reason why when working for my former employer, any website changes we made were thoroughly tested by small groups before rolling them out to all customers. It would appear that this website, either by choice or by ignorance, avoided this crucial step.
Given the attitudes expressed by two site administrators (I have no idea how many there are), I am now even more convinced that this site may have to accept the simple fact that it may have to settle for being "the best site it can be". To that, I would challenge those in charge, "Why not the absolute BEST?"
Thanks again for making it absolutely clear that I should be spending my time elsewhere. As Woody Guthrie once wrote, "So long, it's been good to know ya."

 

With all due respect, you had made a comment that your reviews weren't posted because they didn't "add enough value" to the website. I took your remark about "value" literally and tried to explain how "financial value" of the website is created. It has no direct relationship to the number of reviews that you or anyone else post.

You, however, were thinking of the intrinsic "value" of the website that accrues from the accumulated database of online reviews. I wasn't ignoring that meaning of value; I simply had misinterpreted what you meant.

I think continuation of this thread is pointless and, therefore, I have closed it to further comments.