The Review I Submitted Was Changed Without My Permission

QUOTE(JCZ @ May 10 2013, 10:43 AM) [snapback]33363[/snapback]

I just submitted a review for an RV Park in Sacramento, Ca. (Mark J RV Park). As I was going down through the check boxes I noticed that it changed to Cal Expo RV Park. I manually changed it back to Mark J and again went through all the check boxes and posted my text. Then, after I clicked "next" a window opened that said "Thank you for your review of Cal Expo RV Park". Not the park I was reviewing.

So I wonder if this is happening to others and that may be why their review isn't showing up where it should be?

JC



I have never heard of anything like that happening before--but hey, there's always a first. I cannot explain why that happened, but I checked, and your review that is in the queue definitely says it is for Mark J RV Park. It should be checked in a day or so. Thanks for reporting this.

 

RLM,

While I appreciate the effort you went through to write a reasonable explanation of what may have happened to my review, I still have issues with those explanations.

1. I certainly did not "break" any of the written "rules" for submitting a review.

2. As for the "other rules" (mentioning names or other campgrounds) which you say are based on common sense, I don't understand how they are based on common sense. They may be based on potential legal issues, but common sense?

3. I do understand not putting useless information in the review and I do not believe I did that. Some of the information I included, which the Admin eliminated, may not have seemed important to him/her, but I think it was usefull information for the many members of this site who have stayed at this park previously. The Admin did not have adequate knowledge of the situation to make the decision to eliminate my comments.

4. Just because somebody has travelled a lot by RV does not automatically mean they are qualified to be Admins - even with some sort of training. Many experienced RVers actually have very limited experience with diffferent types of parks and campgrounds. There was one instance a few years ago when somebody in that position actually used it to screw with other members. Although I was not one of them, many folks here probably thought highly of this guy until his fall from grace. I am not saying the Admin I am disageeing with is a bad guy, but I do believe his judgement concerning this particular review was way out of line.

 

Jerry> Avoiding potential legal issues could be considered common sense.

Please know that I did not intend to imply that you broke any rules or that the information in a review is assessed based on what was important to the Administrator. Your legitimate concern about the change to your review gave me the opportunity to let others know some of the logic behind what we do and why decisions are made. It was to let them know that we apply the same guidelines and standards whether a reviewer is submitting their first couple of reviews or the individual has submitted several hundred. Aside from the change issue, we certainly would prefer to approve a review instead of sending it back. If for no other reason than someone has to work it all over again when it is resubmitted with the requested changes. More importantly, we would like to approve a review because we simply know that someone took the time to do it for the benefit of others who might be looking to use that particular campground.

Your observation is true that a lot of travel in an RV may not give one the experience to be in customer service for this website. Please know that the current Administrator staff are both experienced RVers and experienced with their job. And, as with any organization, there are rules for them to follow and adhere to. As a group, they have been to many, many of the Mexico, Canada, and the US campgrounds being reviewed. Having done so, one may totally disagree with the submitted campground review, but that is never a factor in approving the review.

It is impossible for any Admins, or for that matter anyone in customer service, to achieve a perfect record of pleasing everyone all of the time. That is because his/her occasional judgment call may have to be used to determine if an uncertain or unclear review is within the guidelines for the site. I would ask that you have patience and understanding for that fact.

My Dad worked for and loved the railroad all of his life. One of the things I remember him saying is “I ride up front but I don't get to steer the locomotive. I don't get to choose the route, instead I have to go where the tracks take me. I have to blow the whistle to keep people out of the train's path, but they only complain about the noise. Basically, I have little control over the train, but if the darn think jumps the track see who gets the blame.”

Again, the change to your review could have been way out of line and it could be one where our train jumped the track. Be that as it may, the issue is a good reason for us to re-think “useful” information. As I said in the last post, we are always open to anything that helps us do better a better job of customer service.

 

RLM,

I really don't want to get into a discussion of the semantics of the meaning of "common sense" but I don't necessarily agree that knowing the intricacies of our legal system (pertaining to libel, for example) comes under the heading of "common sense". We are, afterall, on a site that considers being in a house on wheels with heat, A/C, TV, beds, kitchen, bath, etc. to be "camping".

While I understand and appreciate your explanation of how difficult the job of Admin is, I do not believe "having done a lot of RVing" to be the most important qualification for the job. In one of the last reviews I did on my recent 5 week trip, I used the word "site(s)" maybe half a dozen times in the review refering to the RV sites in the park. Somehow, the first time the word came up in the reviews, it was spelled "sight(s)". All the other "site(s)" remained the same. It is posible that my aging brain was malfunctioning for a moment and I improperly wrote "sight(s)", but I am guessing an Admin may have changed it from "site" to "sight". If that is the case, that Admin is not qualified to do this job. From now on, whenever I see some common words (site/sight, too/to/two, then/than, their/there, etc.) being misused in a review, I will wonder whether it was the reviewer or the Admin who is making the mistake.

I've made plenty of writing errors in my reviews and posts over the years, so I do understand that none of us is perfect. Still, let's not contribute to the "dumbing down of America" by ignoring poor written English. As I told somebody on this site a few years ago, if I was checking reviews submitted here, I'd probably send most of them back once I saw that more than (not then) one correction of improper word usage was needed.

End of rant.

Jerry S.

 

As one of the Admins on this website I constantly bemoan the state of language usage in the reviews which we process. I doubt even half of the reviews submitted accurately distinguish between "sites" at an RV park and "sights" to see in the vicinity of the park. I dare not even think about the percentage that understand the difference between "its" and "it's". Spelling mistakes are an entire other rant.

I do my best to correct those mistakes I notice but I don't swear I will have caught all the errors in any particular review. I do try not to introduce any new ones on my own. I know that my feelings are shared by my colleagues.

Even if a single instance of the word "sites" was incorrectly changed to "sights" in one of your reviews by an Admin, I disagree that this one mistake makes that person unqualified to do the job. Mistakes happen and everyone makes them.

If you would identify which of your reviews this pertains to I am quite willing to correct the error you noted so that no one will think your language usage is that poor.

 

Aw, c'mon Jerry. Lighten up. You should see the messes we sometimes get. (I have even posted some examples back in post #22.) If we try to rewrite them enough so that they make some sort of sense, we get slammed for changing the review. If we post them like they are, we get slammed for posting something that has a mistake. Yes, we miss some things. Yes, some reviews are put on line that maybe shouldn't be. And yes, we get complaints for trying to make the posted reviews adhere to guidelines that make them readable and helpful to other RVers. It doesn't seem to matter what we do; we can't win, but we keep trying.

 

I for one thank DocJ, Tex, and the rest of the volunteer editors for the hard work they do to keep this site both current and as accurate as possible. As a professional tech writer, my works were reviewed and revised by multiple well paid proof readers and editors, yet "misteaks" in spelling and grammar still made it to the printers on occasion. I know it's an often thankless job that you do, but please know that it is appreciated!

 

I agree with Jerry S. All reviews and posts with any misspellings, punctuation errors or other grammatical errors should immediately be discarded. We can start with his comments, since he misspelled "possible". If we eliminate all of that grammatical clutter, this will be a very clean website. I seriously doubt more than one or two reviews a week would make it past the gatekeeper. It sure would be nice to be able to visit a review site and not have to sift through a whole bunch of reviews. In that wonderful alternative universe, you would probably only find one review, properly written, for each park. Since the author used perfect grammar and punctuation, we all would know everything they had written must have been the gospel truth.

 

QUOTE(kcmoedoe @ Jun 14 2013, 07:19 AM) [snapback]33777[/snapback]

"...we all would know everything they had written must have been the gospel truth."


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

I thought I'd better post this now before we hit the road for the rest of the summer. I knew I'd catch some flak for my previous post (6/11/13) but was disappointed that some of my statements were taken out of context and/or misunderstood.

I have previously stated that I understand how difficult the job of being an Admin is and did not feel it was necessary to make the statement again. I am also well aware of how bad some of the submitted reviews are when they are initially submitted.

The point I was trying to make in the second paragraph of my 6/11 post when I mentioned the sites/sights issue was that "lots of RVing experience" was not the most important factor in being a good Admin. A basic knowledge of the basics of written English is much more important. The sites vs. sights was an example. It was not the point of contention. As for my review where the word "sites" was seemingly changed to "sights", I went back and looked at the review(s) in question. The word had been corrected to "sites". So, as I also said in the second paragraph, my aging brain may be playing tricks with me. At any rate, the review (now) shows the correct word.

In the third paragraph I admitted to making my share of mistakes. I do plead not guilty of spelling "possible" incorrectly. That was a simple typographical error. Additionally, the last sentence of that paragraph says if I were reviewing the incoming reviews, I would send them back if I found more than one improper word usage. Even my overbearing style would allow for a few misspellings and/or typographical errors that could be easily corrected.

It is almost ironic that a site that is based on gathering critiques of something (RV parks), is afraid to criticize the site's contributors. Are we afraid of hurting their feelings or damaging their fragile self esteem? Is "self esteem" one word, two words, or should it be hyphenated? My very old dictionary shows it as one word but the spell checker won't accept it as one word.

Back on the road in less than 40 hours. I've got a couple folks on here who are creeping up on my review total.

 

Thanks, Admin Peeps. After reading how much effort goes into making sure our reviews actually make sense I give you two thumbs up!!

Personally, I use Campground Review before making a decision on a park and am most grateful that people actually take the time to write a review.

Keep up the good work, everyone!!

 

QUOTE(mauigirl @ Jul 22 2013, 12:16 PM) [snapback]34215[/snapback]

Thanks, Admin Peeps.


Thank you. And welcome to the forum.

 

I'm a professional writer. I get paid (knock wood!) to write. The truth is that everyone can benefit from editing and typos happen to the best of us.

I appreciate the reviews here - and the people behind the scenes who bring them to life - and light. Thank you!

Now if we could just talk about adding photos ...

 

Hi Jerry,

Please get over this and go rv'ing. Everyone has bent over backwards to be nice to you. You are the one with the fragile self esteem.

QUOTE(Jerry S. @ Jul 5 2013, 08:27 PM) [snapback]34031[/snapback]

I thought I'd better post this now before we hit the road for the rest of the summer. I knew I'd catch some flak for my previous post (6/11/13) but was disappointed that some of my statements were taken out of context and/or misunderstood.

I have previously stated that I understand how difficult the job of being an Admin is and did not feel it was necessary to make the statement again. I am also well aware of how bad some of the submitted reviews are when they are initially submitted.

The point I was trying to make in the second paragraph of my 6/11 post when I mentioned the sites/sights issue was that "lots of RVing experience" was not the most important factor in being a good Admin. A basic knowledge of the basics of written English is much more important. The sites vs. sights was an example. It was not the point of contention. As for my review where the word "sites" was seemingly changed to "sights", I went back and looked at the review(s) in question. The word had been corrected to "sites". So, as I also said in the second paragraph, my aging brain may be playing tricks with me. At any rate, the review (now) shows the correct word.

In the third paragraph I admitted to making my share of mistakes. I do plead not guilty of spelling "possible" incorrectly. That was a simple typographical error. Additionally, the last sentence of that paragraph says if I were reviewing the incoming reviews, I would send them back if I found more than one improper word usage. Even my overbearing style would allow for a few misspellings and/or typographical errors that could be easily corrected.

It is almost ironic that a site that is based on gathering critiques of something (RV parks), is afraid to criticize the site's contributors. Are we afraid of hurting their feelings or damaging their fragile self esteem? Is "self esteem" one word, two words, or should it be hyphenated? My very old dictionary shows it as one word but the spell checker won't accept it as one word.

Back on the road in less than 40 hours. I've got a couple folks on here who are creeping up on my review total.

 

QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Oct 29 2012, 09:14 PM) [snapback]31727[/snapback]

I cannot find a review submitted under your username. Is it possible you used a different name? Do you remember getting a "Thank You" screen when you completed your review. If not, then your review was not submitted successfully.



It's funny, I've submitted several in the last year with no problem. I just submitted 3 and only 2 posted. I received a confirmation for all 3. The one that didn't was at the same campground as before, Carpinteria State Beach, CA. I posted a review for the same campground in the past, but it was in 2008.

 

QUOTE(tsparky @ Sep 8 2013, 10:39 PM) [snapback]34738[/snapback]

It's funny, I've submitted several in the last year with no problem. I just submitted 3 and only 2 posted. I received a confirmation for all 3. The one that didn't was at the same campground as before, Carpinteria State Beach, CA. I posted a review for the same campground in the past, but it was in 2008.



I located your two most recent reviews for Carpineria State Beach from August 2013 and October 2012. Neither was approved for posting, and the “confirmation” you received was to inform you that they had been deferred and the reason why. In both cases the review lacked information about the campground, and you were asked to add information and resubmit your review. It is too late to resubmit the review from 2012, but if you still have the most recent email you received for the 2013 review, you are still welcome to make the necessary changes and resubmit it.

 

QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Sep 8 2013, 11:01 PM) [snapback]34739[/snapback]

I located your two most recent reviews for Carpineria State Beach from August 2013 and October 2012. Neither was approved for posting, and the “confirmation” you received was to inform you that they had been deferred and the reason why. In both cases the review lacked information about the campground, and you were asked to add information and resubmit your review. It is too late to resubmit the review from 2012, but if you still have the most recent email you received for the 2013 review, you are still welcome to make the necessary changes and resubmit it.



Ah, I understand. I need to change my email but I can not find out how. Can you give me instructions?

Thanks,
Sparky

 

Click on the "Contact Us" button at the botton of eash page, and explain what you need to do.