Changes To Review Submittals

QUOTE(Cheryl @ Aug 21 2006, 10:05 AM) [snapback]4901[/snapback]

QUOTE
Thanks for your reply, PM? I did e-mail them asking that very question in case I did do something wrong so it wouldn't happen again and also have not received a reply. I'll have to just continue reading other peoples reviews. Like I posted we do travel a bit.

PM stands for personal message - same as an email only it goes through this site instead of having to use an email address. The recipient will receive notification when they log on here. Less chance of having your message blocked by email filters.
Also, I noticed there are a lot of new reviews posted today. Maybe yours is included.

Thank you for addressing my post's. I believe the people who maitain this site as well as the people who seem to help the newbie's, such as yourself will make RV'ing a whole lot nicer for everyone. Just goes to show you, RV people are the best.

 

You're welcome. We were all "newbies" at one time. If you stick around this site, you will find a lot of very friendly helpful people.

QUOTE
Just goes to show you, RV people are the best.

Absolutely!

 

So what is the deal? I have entered my five reviews; Texas state parks in Smithville and Kerrville (that's two), Roam and Roost in Crossville, TN, (that's three), Sudemeir's in St. Charles, Mo. (that's four) and one outside of Hattiesburg, MS. (that's five) and yet, my reviews are not appearing. So if there is a waiting period after someone enters the reviews the site manager needs to let us know.
Giving five reviews that are current can be a bit difficult if you have a RV park that you are preferencial toward and stay there a lot.
So now what?

 

Donner, as the reviews are manually entered by the administrator, it may just be taking a little time. How long has it been since you entered them? He may be away or loaded down with work, so as long as they met the guidelines, I am sure they will appear as soon as he can get to them. In the meantime, keep posting and reviewing....

 

I have post 2 reviews in a row and both were excepted. As far as some one not believing the reviews, I guess thats your choice. They are posted here in good faith, for the most part.
Sure there is a different in how people review. We look for different things and rate them accordingly. You job is to sort through them and try to find what you are looking for. This site has help a lot of people, me for one.
I suppose next you would want a notarized statement.

 

I just registered and and I can see where the webmaster is coming from. Unfortunately no matter what method that you can come up with to try and weed out the dishonest someone will find a way around it. As a temporary solution 3 reviews is not all that bad. I have already submitted 2, 1 from a trip in August and 1 from a trip back in 2004. I will have my third review after a trip next week. I guess we will just have to work with it now until something better comes around.

As for trusting the reviews you really have to look at them as a whole. When a campsite has one or two reviews, good or bad, you have to take it with a grain of salt and still probably could give the campsite a chance. When a campsite has several reviews then you will be able to see an overall picture of what the site is like and be able to make a more informed decision leaving less to chance.

 

After an 8 week trip, I am in the process of submittng reviews of the parks were visited. But a problem has arisen. Two park reviews were rejected ". . . 90 day wait. . ." I have not reviewed these parks. Why is my review rejected?

 

I think the 90 day wait is if you want to submit another review for a park you have already submitted one for. In other words, you can only submit one review for "Joe's Campground, Anytown, USA" every 90 days.

 

I'm sorry that I didn't make myself plain. I tried to review a park in Kelso, WA. It came back that I had reviewed this park, but I haven't. Strange, isn't it?

 

Did you accidently double click the submit button? That could have caused the message you got.
Other than that, I guess you'll have to wait until you meet the 3 minimum reviews and then see if you review on the Kelso, WA park posts. If it doesn't, wait 90 days and resubmit. This website is great, but remember, nothing is perfect, you'll get the occasional glitch.

 

When I first heard about this website I was enthused and hopefull. I read the reviews of the campgrounds I planned to use and submitted 3 or 4 reviews this summer. I wondered why I didn't see any of my reviews until I saw the new policy on a hold on reviews until five are submitted. The reason doesn't make sense. If a particular campground employee wants to submit favorable reviews, he can just submit five or more for other campgrounds. You don't need to penalize everyone for not submitting five. There are quite a few people who only want to submit 2 or 3 reviews during a year and we will never see them. Now I know why I often don't see reviews on campgrounds or don't see very many on particular parks. I don't know about others, but I think I am smart enough to figure out if they are legitimate reviews. I think as long as you have this policy there won't be many reviews, and I for one won't be using the site.

Bob

 

They reconsidered and made it only 3 reviews not 5. And yes, an employee or owner could submit 3 false reviews, but they would have to take the time to look up all the information, such as prices, locations, exact name, how many sites available, etc... It would be easier for them to just make changes to their own campground to get legitimate good reviews.
Also, it doesn't matter if it takes you a year (or longer) to get your 3 reviews in, they will get posted. If you have met the 3 quota and still don't see your reviews, then you should contact the webmaster in a private email asking what went wrong. They won't post any reviews with missing or wrong information. They have other guidelines also, but only the webmaster can tell you which ones you didn't meet.

 

During the years 2002, 03 and 04 I submitted approximately seven park reviews to this site, which were accepted. During 2005 and 2006 I was staying at parks for the most part in the capacity of park host, and did not add any further reviews. I recently stayed at some parks as a non-employee, and when I attempted to log in yesterday, using my original screen name and password, I was not able to do so for some reason. So I re-registered with a new screen name and password, wrote and submitted a review, and learned about the new restrictions. When possible I will try to review the two other parks I recently stayed at and see if the three reviews will be accepted. This site has been very helpful to me in my travels and I want continue to contribute to it.

 

QUOTE(Cheryl @ Aug 9 2006, 06:24 PM) [snapback]4755[/snapback]

[*]You must enter the exact state and city that the campground is in or the review will not be posted.
[*]Do not add extra "notes" with the city such as "near Chicago" as this just has to be removed. Enter just the city where the campground is actually located--nothing more!



How many campgrounds are actually IN THE CITY and how many campgrounds are NEAR the city?

 

I just copied and pasted the website's guidelines. The webmaster will have to clarify that for you.

 

QUOTE
If campground owners really want to be dishonest and post a review for their own campground, they will find a way to do it regardless of the restrictions that are placed on this site to try to keep them from doing just that. So then it is really the honest reviewers who are being hurt by the restrictions, not the campground owners. You have indicated that you have ways of determining if the review is from a campground owner, but I would bet that for every way you have, a dishonest person can figure out many ways around it. The only thing that keeps anyone (RVer or owner) from writing a dishonest review is his/her own honesty and integrity.


I have to agree -- [ Let's see, I'll post a glowing report for _my_ campground and 'nail' two of my closest competitors. ]

I don't have a better idea to deal with this problem. I also don't doubt that it _is_ a problem since I have noticed reviews here that read like 'advertising copy'.

From my point of view, I take advantage of these reviews so I would like to 'give back' but so far I've gotten around to putting in one review. The lack of seeing any progress from my own efforts is, unfortunately, discouraging me from putting in the time.

On the RV.net, we have the problem of manufacturers occassionally enlisting shills to post glowing reports about their campers. Because it is a forum environment, we tend to quickly discover the pattern and expose the posters for who they are (and what they are trying to do). One thing that I can't help but notice here is that the reviews are listed anonymously. It seems to me that posting the user name of the reviewer with the review would be a whole lot more effective in revealing bogus reviews than the current system is. I mean, someone with a financial interest is going to be a whole lot more patient than I am with the current system. And besides, for them it is going to be no effort to compose a rosy review of their own site and, in about two minutes more, post nasty stuff about their competitors. Additionally, a ranking system for the reviewers or listing the number of reviews the reviewer has submitted would go a long way toward establishing who the reliable reviewers are and who the one-shot wonders are. A ranking system might even spur people on to compete to submit more reviews (then all we have to worry about is the legitimate reviewers making up reviews to improve their ranking [grin!]).

 

...Since I'm on a beef-roll: I don't recall ever seeing suggestions for arriving at an overall rating for a reviewed campground. I'll bet most reviews are ones and twos; nines and tens; and fives. For a star system with no guidelines, I think a five star system (or even three) would be more realistic than _ten_. Better yet, how about coming up with a guideline as to what the stars are supposed to mean so that (maybe) everybody will be on the 'same page'. Too many reviews focus on minor insults and gripes and not any sort of objective review of the services the campground seceded in providing. To make matters worse, I can't even PM the reviewer to make querys about all the information they left out [shrug].

 

QUOTE(kw5kw @ Dec 13 2006, 01:11 PM) [snapback]5575[/snapback]

QUOTE(Cheryl @ Aug 9 2006, 06:24 PM) [snapback]4755[/snapback]

[*]You must enter the exact state and city that the campground is in or the review will not be posted.
[*]Do not add extra "notes" with the city such as "near Chicago" as this just has to be removed. Enter just the city where the campground is actually located--nothing more!



How many campgrounds are actually IN THE CITY and how many campgrounds are NEAR the city?



QUOTE(Cheryl @ Dec 13 2006, 04:57 PM) [snapback]5576[/snapback]

I just copied and pasted the website's guidelines. The webmaster will have to clarify that for you.


Sorry, Cheryl, I thought you were an administrator.

Still, the rules about 5 or 4 or 3 are asinine.

If I was a campground owner, I'd just give me a good review and the neighbors bad reviews and vioila I've hit my 3 or 4 or 5 or 15 or ...

These rules only hurt a person like me. I've given one review to the one campground that the wife and I go to.

It's the only campground that we've been to since 1998 when we visited a different state park that was about 50 miles distant.

That was the only other campground that we've been to since 1987 when we vistited a different state park that was 50 miles the other direction.

That was the only site that we'd been to since 1985 when we actually pulled to Colorado :Shock:

Before that in 1979 we pulled to a campground in northern New Mexico.

We don't go far, we just like to get away from the house for a weekend.

That's what we do.

We don't spend much on fuel that way.

So, these rules would have allowed me to make reviews in 1979, 85, 87, 98 before they would have been seen in 2006 (with the 5 campground rule in effect).... yep, that info would have been up to date.

You, see, I look at this site dream. I purchaed a campground directory fully knowing that I'm not going to go to any of them, but I can dream while I'm camped a full 15 minutes away from the house in a full service campground.

 

QUOTE
Sorry, Cheryl, I thought you were an administrator.

Nope, just a regular camper trying to help out. I wouldn't have the time or patience to maintain a website. We should all think about how much time and work goes into this site and remember that the webmaster does this free of charge and thank him/her (sorry not sure which) every once in awhile.

 

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.