I will have to admit that as I read through the forum postings that I have not agreed with all opinions. I think that is the great thing about a forum is that you can express your opinion. I have not always agreed with each review either, but again, that is someones opinion. What I do know is that anytime I have had a question about a campground or need some camping advice, the people who are active participants in this forum have always responded quickly with some great information. I do think we should respect each others opinion without making comments about individuals. This forum is a great place for information about a hobby ( in my case ) that we all have a similar interest in.
Webmaster: A thought that might help solve the problem of unfair or malicious reviews. If, in the opinion of the Webmaster, and that person alone, it appeared that a good case had been made, either by an RV Park Review member, or by a campground, that a particular campground has been possibly treated unfairly, as was the case with the KOA in Pueblo, the Webmaster could place a note adjacent to the offending review that said something like "It appears that there is reasonable doubt that this review may be completely accurate, and the reader may wish to give greater weight to other reviews" or, as an alternative, the Webmaster might insert a note in that particular review that invited readers to review the discussion forum, and gave a specific string or address. I think this approach should be used very, very sparingly, and there should be sufficient evidence, in the Webmaster's sole opinion, to warrant such action. I would not imagine seeing such notes more than a few times a year.
So you would like to be able to dispute a review and put up a case for the owners or have them do the same and have the webmaster become the judge and decide if they are telling the truth. I like everyone else have gone and read that review of the park in question. Like it has been stated by others it really was not a terrible review and for the most part everything said was true based on the response of the owner, of course there was an explanition for everything that was complained about. You can read all the other reviews of that park and tell it's probably a very nice place. There is always going to be 2 sides to every story and I believe that the people that use this site are smart enought to figure out sour grapes. I don't think the webmaster has the time to put on a court with all the other duties they have of running a wonderful website. Again, just my opinion
I'm sorry, so we heard both sides. Who makes the judgment call Beastdriver? Just because some one knows and likes a particular own , that park should get special treatment? I certainly hope not. If the review was really terrible remove it. It just wasn't that bad.
Dumbbutt here, At least it gave Cheryl a laugh. As for Cheryl F: How does "a small number of people (who seem to know each other through this site) make a dispropportionate number of postings to this Forum" sound"? A bit wordy? Let's try "small, familiar group that dominates postings". Is there really that big a difference between those what I wrote. Do I need to be overly literal? Secondly, I used the phrase "tick off" because when I disagreed with Beastmaster he got ticked off and when I used "club" and "rules" others got upset. Beastmaster didn't like my opinion and the rest didn't like the words I chose to state a fact. See below. Webmaster: I did not say they "run" the site. Beastmaster: Loved your misleading statistics. Let's look at the big picture. You, the two Cheryls, and Butch (all participants in this string) have about 1200 posts accounting for about 20% of the total postings on this site. Add John Blue and the numbers rise to 1500 and 25% of all postings. I have 40 posts. The only reason my rate is .8 is that I just joined in early January and have been very active poster as a new member. I'm certain that will slow down once the "newness" wears off. 5 memebers (out of thousands) making 25% of the posts is a dominating (ruling) group of posters. To others upset: I did not use the words "clique" or "clannish". "Me thinks thou doth protest too much." I think that is a Shakespeare quote. Feel free to correct me. The usual goal in making posts is to make people think and discuss. I think I've achieved that once again. I've even enjoyed the venom. It has strengthened my beliefs about some people. Thank you to those of you who supported my basic premise that the review should have been allowed to be posted. Jerry S.
Dominate - The word is derived from the Latin dominus, meaning master or lord, as an owner versus his slave. Wikipedia, encyclopedia - look it up. Since anybody can post as often as they wish on this site, I don't see how this applies. If you look at my join date, you will see it has been (2 weeks short of) 3 years. Counting this post, I have 295. Not very many in 3 years. You, however, have 41 in less than 2 months. Logically, you post way more than me. You also seem to go out of your way to "stir things up". Most of us on here try to be helpful to each other not harmful. I usually try to stay out of these kinds of "discussions", but you brought me in by basically calling me a bully.
The real "Bully" on this site (or should I say attempted Bully) is Jerry. He appears to be the sort of guy who takes his last stand in quicksand, and who enjoys taking ridiculous and unsupportive positions simply for the sake of angering people. We have a name for people like that but I think my previous characterization will do nicely. If we simply do not respond to people like Jerry, then we win. If we do, then he wins. It's simple as that. Let him rant and rave, but pay no heed to him.
Jerry has a valid point. Beastdriver was the one that started playing the numbers game. Jerry simple pointed out how he got those numbers. Why is there a problem in that? After all this whole thing started with Beast drive trying to defend some one. Jerry was defending himself.
Beastdriver was simply pointing out facts on who posts and how many. Information readily available to anyone that cares to look at it. Jerry was being a bully. Bully, an individual who tends to torment others, either through verbal harassment, physical assaults, or more subtle methods of coercion. Wikipedia. Jerry is the one who started with the accusations of clubs and domination. You don't defend yourself by bully others. I merely pointed out that I have a smaller percentage of post per day then he does. Hard to dominate with an average of less than one post every 3 days.
QUOTE(rodman @ Mar 1 2007, 04:17 PM) [snapback]6311[/snapback] I'm sorry, what was the original discussion here I don't know, I joind this forum in order to reply to the original topic, and now, I don't remember what that was, or even if my thought was relevant. Is this the "average" friendlieness of threads on this forum?
TinyBluTi: Let me also welcome you to the forum. I assure you that the vast majority of posts on this website are civil, helpful, and useful. Occasionally, there are folks who enjoy stirring things up, but, fortunately, they are few and far in between and, for the most part, are dismissed. Look forward to hearing your thoughts and views in the future.
I sympathize with the original poster but what are you going to do about it ??? You can whine until you are blue in the face but, unfortunately, the anonymity of the review process makes it difficult for us to self-police the abusers. The inherent problem with this website (I would go so far as to say the 'fatal flaw') is that all reviews are 'anonymous'. If we 'knew' who was posting the useless posts (or otherwise trying to sabotage the process) we could easily discount the dubious 'contributions' of these posters. The fatal flaw, here, is that we (generally) can't tell 'which member posted what'. This makes _all_ the posts subject to suspicion -- whether they say nice things or bad things.
I know this has gotten off the original topic, but in a small way it hasn't. Once Beastmaster and I disagreed over our differing understandings of the word malicious, a sort of "semantics" hell broke loose. So many words in our language have multiple meanings, change meaning depending on the context, and are subject to a wide spectrum of interpretation. Once I took exception to the implications of "for naught" and "mental giants" (which Beastmaster admitted were being used maliciously), some people took almost every word I wrote negatively. My comment about " tick off..club..rules..site" was evidently a poor choice of words that allowed some people to assume the comment was offensive. I have already tried to clarify that comment once. That attempt at clarification lead to more "semantics" hell. The word "dominate" is in our modern usage is not automatically negative as has been implied: Michael Jordan and the Bulls dominated the NBA in the'90's. The saguaro cactus is the dominate plant of southern Arizona. Democrats dominate Chicago. Mormons dominate Utah. Lions are the dominate predator of the Khalahari. The moon dominates the night-time sky. McMansions dominate the home building boom. Evergreens dominate the forrests of Washington state. While some will not find any of these statements inherently negative or positive, others will assign positive or negative feeling to some of them. Next, my comment about "think and discuss" is interpreted to mean I want to cause dissension and trouble. I started the "Light My Fire " string which got people thinking about the consequences of fires and led to some interesting discussions. I also believe my postings in the "Review Comments" string added some good points. Those two strings contain more than half (21) my postings prior to the start of this string. Most of my other postings have been rather inert chat, simple questions, and hopefully positve advice (Big Bend and Campground Map strings). The only comments I regret are in the "Thugs" string. Once Cheryl F. explained the situation, I apologized immediately. In closing, I'll just close. Jerry S.
If you are going to police the bad reviews are you also going to police the good reviews that are far too glowing? What's to keep someone who is a buddy with a campground owner from writing an over the top positive review even tho the campground is a dump and the management are duds?
It may not be perfect but it has help a lot of folks enjoy there RVs. It would be a shame to start tampering with it now. The decisions should lay in the hands of the Webmaster and he alone.
Beastdriver, I think you did the right thing with bringing this information to our attention. Not too long ago, I saw what was a horrible review about a campground and I contacted the owners about the review and they sent me an e-mail about it not being true, that this person was disgruntled and very hard to please...I posted that information in the forum here. I think that's the best we as members of this forum can do when we see such things occurring...submit a rebuttal here and attach any and all information that the owners of the campground have to say about such. It would be nice to have such rebuttals "attached" to said reviews, so when one looks at the review they can also see the rebuttals, if any...but that's just an idea and perhaps something the Webmaster can take into consideration.
QUOTE It would be nice to have such rebuttals "attached" to said reviews, so when one looks at the review they can also see the rebuttals, if any...but that's just an idea and perhaps something the Webmaster can take into consideration. That's a good idea. Wonder if it is possible without giving the webmaster a lot of extra work to do? Of course to be fair, the original reviewer should be able to rebut the rebuttal.
