Changes To Review Submittals

Sandy V,

Welcome to the site. We look forward to posting your reviews.

 

May I also add a big THANKS for all the hard work you and your editors do for the site!!! I got back into camping in a motorhome after being out of it for about 10 years and was grateful to find a link to this site on the Fleetwood RV Yahoo discussion group.

I searched around for other RV park review sites, but they are very limited, and usually jaded toward some membership club or other organization. Some even expect you to pay or subscribe to be able to view the parks in their database. Very un-inviting.

Thanks for a great site and keep up the work!!

 

My wife and I have been full-timers since the beginning of the year, and I have submitted about 17 or 18 reviews so far. This, however, is the first time I'm contributing to the forum.

I see that the issue of finding a way to insure that park owners do not send in BS reviews continues to be discussed after four years. This is, to me, emblematic of how valuable this site is to those of us who stay at RV Parks. And super kudos to the admin of this site for all the work he does.

I just submitted my first negative review. As I said in the review, I've never given a park less than a "7" before, not because I'm a nice guy, but because I do my research before selecting a park, mostly on this site. And it has never failed me, until the park I reviewed today.

It was clear to me that I was fooled on this one, and it is almost certainly because the owners submitted fake reviews. I noted that there were six prior reviews of this park, with scores of 10, 10, 10, 9, 3, and 2. How could there be such a difference of opinion? Further analysis revealed that the two low scorers had submitted 26 reviews between them, while the four high scorers had THREE other reviews between them! And one of those other reviews PANNED a competitor just up the road!

I don't know the solution to this issue that has been discussed for so long. But I wanted to share this story as a way to warn others what you might see when there are phony reviews, such as widely varying opinions, with the great ones from reviewers with few other submissions, and bad reviews from reviewers with lots of submissions.

Thank you again to the administrator. This site has made a huge difference to us, which is what motivates me to take the time to write careful, honest reviews so others can benefit. Now, I have 3 or 4 more reviews to write about some of the nice parks I learned about right here at RV Reviews!

 

Hi Webmaster,

I have a question for you? I understand that you have a 90 rule on not posting about the same park but I just posted a review that I wrote up after our stay in May & just remembered to post it. When will I be able to write my next one on that same park we just stayed at again. Will it be 90 days from the date we stayed or 90 days from the time I posted? Please let me know as I want to post a new one on this same park just a few months later from our awful stay there! I understand you are busy & appreciate what you do!!! Thanks a bunch!!!

 

QUOTE(Ladymcgyver210 @ Aug 13 2010, 10:33 PM) [snapback]23527[/snapback]

Hi Webmaster,

I have a question for you? I understand that you have a 90 rule on not posting about the same park but I just posted a review that I wrote up after our stay in May & just remembered to post it. When will I be able to write my next one on that same park we just stayed at again. Will it be 90 days from the date we stayed or 90 days from the time I posted? Please let me know as I want to post a new one on this same park just a few months later from our awful stay there! I understand you are busy & appreciate what you do!!! Thanks a bunch!!!




I'm not the webmaster, and I think I know the answer to your question, but I want to double check. I will get back to you.

 

QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Aug 13 2010, 11:06 PM) [snapback]23529[/snapback]

I'm not the webmaster, and I think I know the answer to your question, but I want to double check. I will get back to you.




Great! Thanks so much!

 

Sorry this has taken so long. Everyone who works on the site is very busy this time of year.

The 90 day rule is applied to both the date of stay and to the date the
review is submitted.

In other words you may not submit a second review for the same park for a
stay date within a 90 day period from the first stay date, and you may not submit a second review for the same park until 90 days after the date you submitted the first review
regardless of the date of stay.

This means that since you have just recently submitted a review for a park you need to wait 90 days before you may submit another review for that same park even though the stay date was more than 90 days ago.

I hope this answers your question.

 

We go camping for two-three weeks/year, so I was disappointed to learn that my reviews won't be read for another year or more.

 

When you go on a trip do you stay at only one campground the whole time? If the answer is yes, then it could be a year before your reviews show up. However, there is some good news here. I checked on your reviews and found one in the approval queue. So I have to assume you have submitted the required number or the system has goofed up. Unfortunately I only found the one review, and it is near the bottom of the 500 reviews we currently have waiting to be proof read. This is an extremely busy time of year for us, but we will eventually get to it and the others that you have apparently submitted.

 

I agree with most of you, there must be a better way. Being an RV park owner myself (and traveling with an RV in the off season) it would be nice to see all posts for example of the last two years. I'm pretty sure the worst and the best comments would be levelled out and the average picture would be about accurate. The second last post on my RV park was a pretty bad one and during the past several days I tried to figure out why that person wrote such a comment. I couldn't. Fortunately, the newest post is pretty good again - and honestly, it wasn't me posting it! Therefore, more posts and the picture gets levelled.

 

QUOTE(Andy Zust @ Aug 28 2010, 01:42 PM) [snapback]23806[/snapback]

I agree with most of you, there must be a better way. Being an RV park owner myself (and traveling with an RV in the off season) it would be nice to see all posts for example of the last two years. I'm pretty sure the worst and the best comments would be levelled out and the average picture would be about accurate. The second last post on my RV park was a pretty bad one and during the past several days I tried to figure out why that person wrote such a comment. I couldn't. Fortunately, the newest post is pretty good again - and honestly, it wasn't me posting it! Therefore, more posts and the picture gets levelled.




I'm sorry, but I'm not following you here. What are you referring to when you say there must be a better way? Several items have been brought up recently, and I'm not sure what you are referring to.

Also when you say "it would be nice to see all posts for example of the last two years" it sounds like you think the reviews do not go back that far. Actually they go back much farther than that. I have seen some from 2003. Maybe I misinterpreted your statement, and I apologize if I did. But I wanted to be sure you realize that reviews from two years ago are definitely posted.

 

Andy,

I think you may have missed the note at bottom of the last review you see. Look for (Display Older Reviews {parks name}). Click on this link and it will open up all reviews on the park. We only display around three reviews to save space on page.

 

Thanks for your replies and sorry if I wasn't clear. I agree with all those ones who thought it's not right having to wait until you have 3 posts (or 5 earlier) until your comments get actually posted. There must be a better way to separate those ones posting good comments for themselves. But right now I don't have the answer.
Regarding old postings, I have seen the link at the bottom of each listing but in my case it only brings up one more posting which is already 3 years old. Before the latest 3 posts dated June & August 2010 I believe I have had more older postings, but somehow they don't show anymore. Anyway, I'm not eager to see posts older than 2 years as they might no more be true due to renovations, new buildings, new owners or other circumstances.

 

I too just started camping again and posted my first review. Too bad I have to stay at 4 more campgrounds and post reviews before mine will be read. It also concerns me because campgrounds I may want to stay at may not have upto date reviews due to this rule.

 

It is amazing to me that this misunderstanding continues to come up even after there have been numerous posts stating that you need to submit 3 reviews NOT 5.

 

I think it was mentioned before, but what about an automated poster rating system, e.g.:

>Red flag< "this poster has only posed one review so far"
>Yellow flag< This poster has only posted 3 reviews, and the're all from the same area.
>Green flag< this poster has posted 25 reviews so far.

Others could also exist.

Just a quick suggestions, but I know that nothing would be perfect. I still love the site!!!

 

QUOTE(Fitzjohnfan @ Aug 31 2010, 12:26 AM) [snapback]23850[/snapback]

what about an automated poster rating system




Actually we sort of have this already. If you look at the bottom of any review there will be a message that says,

"The user that posted this review has # other reviews online, click here to see them."

This doesn't include everything you suggested, but it does give others an idea of how many reviews the reviewer has done.

 

I appreciate how much work it is to run the site, and I have relied on it over the years to plan our trips.

However, count me among those who would like to see all reviews appear immediately. A lot of people are simply not going to waste their time submitting reviews if they think they are not going to show up anyway. And I hate the idea that there may be a bunch of reviews for campgrounds that I need to see but can't.

It takes most people awhile to accumulate 3 different reviews.

I like that we can see the other reviews people have written, so we can take what they say with a grain of salt or not. Not only is it for credibility, but as a couple who has a small hybrid trailer with no kids and a bunch of dogs, my needs are different than someone with kids or a full-timer in large motorhome.

With all the online review sites out there now like Yelp, Foursquare, even Facebook, people are used to using judgement in reading reviews now. If there is a mechanism for flagging suspicious reviews, then that should work out.

Times have changed and unfiltered reviews, managing by exception, is really the norm on the Internet, for better or worse. It would be way less work for the admins also. This is my perspective as a small business owner, internet marketing professional, and of course RVer.

 

Lucydog,

Thank you for your input, but I have to disagree with some of your statements.

QUOTE
However, count me among those who would like to see all reviews appear immediately. A lot of people are simply not going to waste their time submitting reviews if they think they are not going to show up anyway. And I hate the idea that there may be a bunch of reviews for campgrounds that I need to see but can't.


Many of our listings have at least 1-2 reviews that are current (within the last 3-4 months), and a great majority of the listings have reviews that are within the last year. While new reviews are welcomed and need to be continually submitted, most RVers can get a pretty good idea of what the campground is like from the reviews that are already in place.

QUOTE
It takes most people awhile to accumulate 3 different reviews.


Actually I think that MOST people do NOT have any difficulty accumulating 3 reviews. It is only a FEW people that do. Most RVers stay at several, if not numerous parks, when they travel. Even if they go on only one trip a year, most (but not all) RVers stay at more than one park on that trip. We regret that some of our members do get caught up in this, and we apologize to them, but we feel the 3 review rule has greatly reduced many of the problems we experienced in the past.

QUOTE
I like that we can see the other reviews people have written, so we can take what they say with a grain of salt or not. Not only is it for credibility, but as a couple who has a small hybrid trailer with no kids and a bunch of dogs, my needs are different than someone with kids or a full-timer in large motorhome.


We agree that this is a good feature of our site.

QUOTE
Times have changed and unfiltered reviews, managing by exception, is really the norm on the Internet, for better or worse.


Unfiltered reviews may be the norm, but I think the one thing that puts this site a step above that type of website is the quality of reviews we maintain. Yes, it would be far less work for the admins to just accept everything as is, but then we would get all the same garbage and crap and flames and unreadable comments that are found on other sites, and I do not think our members want to see that here. Unfortunately the only way to maintain quality is to monitor what is submitted. And if you can measure our success by the hundreds of reviews that are submitted daily, then I think we must be doing something right, even if we do get behind during the summer months.

 

Five reviews before you post them. Well just go ahead and cancel my membership to this site. We are new to rv camping and tend to stay in place for some time. It would take years to make your 5 review rule.

Thought I found a forum that supported the readers and felt it was important to get out info on RV parks. Instead I found a place that just makes it tough for you to contribute.

One star for RV PARK REVIEWS.

CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL........I will not waste your time so please do not waste mine.

Walter Linzmier
San Antonio Texas.